Off The Screen!

Indication

Yuan Goangming

2014 | 6 min loop | 3-channel video

Yuan Goangming’s signature work in still photography digitally extracts the human from spaces that are typically teaming with people. For example, his uncanny City Disqualified—Ximen (2002) shows the busiest street corner in Taipei devoid of passersby; likewise, Landscape of Energy—Stillness (2014) features a beach crowded with parasols, but no people. Indication inverts this structure—filling non-space with a line of people. They emerge from a deep, dark background to address the spectators—themselves bathed in darkness—lifting their arms to point, indicate…what? To the unknown or unnoticed? To the future? Or is the point an accusation? The answer surely depends on the specific time and place—here, now, America in 2017. —Markus Nornes, Professor of Asian Cinema, University of Michigan

Bio: Yuang Goangming is one of the pioneers of video art in Asia. Born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1965, he began working in video in 1984 and graduated with a Masters in Media Design from the Academy of Design Karlsruhe in 1997. He works in a variety of media, including still photography, single-channel video, multi-channel video and installation art. His work has been projected and installed at museums and festivals the world over. Yuan is an Associate Professor of New Media Arts at Taipei National University of Arts.

Moiré Pool

Simon Alexander-Adams and Isaac Levine

2017 | interactive multimedia installation

Moiré Pool is an interactive installation featuring real-time generative sound and visuals that react to the movement of viewers in the space. The focal point of the installation is a circular projection surface, raised a few feet from the floor. The projections consist of iterative patterns that create visual effects similar to moiré patterns—a form of visual interference that often result in mesmerizing visual beat frequencies.

The interaction is akin to waiting for a small pond to clear after one has skipped a stone. If viewers stay still, they will see the settling of the original imagery. If they move about, the visuals will ripple and distort based on their motions. Thus, before one has had a chance to fully observe the pattern, it has been altered. The intention is to create a space that rewards stillness and meditative observation, along with action and play.

Bios: Simon Alexander-Adams is a Detroit based multimedia artist, musician and designer, working within the intersection of art and technology. He has directed multimedia performances that enable connections between sonic, visual and kinetic forms, designed new interfaces for musical expression, and produced interactive installation art. Simon has composed music for a number of short films, animations, theatrical and dance performances, and frequently performs with the glitch-electronic free-jazz punk band Saajtak.

Isaac Levine is a multimedia artist based in Ann Arbor. He likes to explore sound and engagement through interactive installation, sound design, and composition. He has worked on installations for venues such as the Detroit Symphony Hall and the D.I.A. with the Detroit art collective ApeTechnology. Levine has composed music for ensembles such as the Willo Collective and So Percussion. He has recorded/produced music for Joseph Keckler in addition to writing and recording with bands such as The Tusks Band, Dreambag, and The Platonic Boyfriends. He also is involved at WCBN-FM 88.3 and does sound for the Local Music Show.

Wheatfields and the Sea or: How to feel deprived of sensation

Jonathan Rattner and Ayşe Gül Süter

2016 | mixed media installation

“Wheatfields and the Sea or: How to feel deprived of sensation,” is part of a six-month collaborative exchange project between Turkish animator and media artist Ayşe Gül Süter and American film artist Jonathan Rattner.  Created during the spring and summer of 2016, during which there were multiple terrorist bombings in Istanbul and Europe, an attempted coup d’etat in Turkey, and several mass shootings in the United States, this work is a reflection on how to process and interact with these acts of violence in our contemporary landscape. Having a conversation with art from the past, including works by Sophie Calle, Winslow Homer, and Antoni Tàpies, this installation includes two 4-minute looped video projections that are displayed with the same sound design.

The first projection (in the Aquarium Gallery), “Part One: Sea” contains a visual of woman staring at an ocean, overlaid with a close-up image of typewriter text rewriting the words “close your eyes.”

The second projection, “Part Two: Wheatfields,” is a long durational shot of a wheat field that is projected onto a silver painting of a wheat field. The sound design features a layering of audio gathered from both the United States and Turkey and includes samplings of soul music, ocean surf, sounds of someone walking around their home closing and opening windows and doors, street traffic, and an F16 fighter plane.

Bios: Jonathan Rattner is a filmmaker that primarily produces experimental nonfiction films and videos.  He has exhibited work at the Anthology Film Archives, Brooklyn Museum of Art, the University of Iowa Museum of Art, the World Social Forum in Brazil, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the European Media Arts Festival, L’Alternativa Film Festival, as well as at other colleges, festivals, and galleries in the United States, Europe, and Australia. Rattner currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Cinema & Media Arts and Art at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Born in 1982 in İstanbul, Ayşe Gül Süter received her education in animation and digital arts at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Süter’s projects consist of a combination of animation, video and light installations. By Integrating traditional art-making techniques with new media tools, she is searching for the the boundaries between the real and imaginary. Süter has exhibited her work all around the world, including various venues and art fairs in Istanbul, Singapore, Barcelona, Nashville, and New York.