ARTiculAction Art Review // Special Edition by ARTiculAction Art Review

Anniversary Edition

Special Issue

A work by Hope Hutman

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Liam Herne

Kyriakos Bournas

Annie Briard

Hope Hutman

Achilles Vasileiou

Avis Wu

Australia

Greece

Canada

USA

Greece

Taiwan

iam Herne is Brisbane based artist who predominately works with photographic media and video.

I consider myself, first and foremost, a draughtsman. Drawing is about being presented with questions and coming up with answers ranging from universal truths of the physical world to personal inventions. Everything starts in the abstract realm,physically or mentally. It is the raw material that personality, aesthetics and techniques work with to transform into a coherent image. Artistic creation is itself an experience,both for the artist and the viewer. The artwork created being the common denominator.The process of creation is a highly individualized thing. Techniques and materials are pretty standard for almost every kind of art but on a deeper level their use is influenced on who are you, as a person.

I am interested in the multiplicity of perception paradigms, differing within the fields of psychology, pheno-menology, neuroscience and film theory. My practice challenges our understanding of what we see by comparing phenomenological experience of the physical to that of the simulated.

What we make and what we see, what we like and what we engage with, shapes us and shapes our world. If all the world’s a stage, then why is a play presented in a theater, and why is the story world limited to the ‘real’ world? Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Expressive Computing, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality are making the “virtual” feel more and more like the “natural.” In fact, our actual reality today is both natural and virtual. A challenge for all of us living in this new blended reality is that the virtual worlds are being imagined, designed, and built largely by brands and advertising agencies.

As a person who is living in a generation bombarded by information and new forms of social interaction, my work is about how I feel and how I think in this time period and culture. I am interested in the progress of emotions like stress, anger or happiness etc, and how we act or react to these emotions. How our emotions changes and what motivates that change, and how people deal with the current social environment and what people believe in or do not believe, interests me a great deal. I love to play with colors and space, installation work and clay sculpture are proven mediums supportive of this love.

I am interested in working with a poetic link between visual and psychology, a sensational combination within the internal and external world. I work with my intuition spontaneously with open mediums. In my writing, language is the container for my thoughts. In my drawings and paintings shapes are containers for my color and emotion. The weight of each shape is perceived by the sizes and the subtle tones and colours, they balance each other as tender elements for me to work with to get a harmonious composition. The combination and the distance in between the geometric forms tells relationships and character of work in body, space and time, visual and psychology.

Herne has two strands to his practice: the first sees him combining abstract expressionist experimentation with photographic processes in order to construct images somewhere between photography and painting. The second is his exploration of how we interact and communicate with each other online. He uses satire and humour to explore the human condition. Although these are seemingly disparate themes, the artist tries to interweave them as much as possible.

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By complicating the seen, I work to create viewing experiences that investigate the layers of perception. Results become reflective experimental surfaces to be imbued with the viewer’s own vision, including video, immersive installation, sculpture, photography, and interactivity.

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Nina Schipoff

live and works in Geneve, Switzerland

Annie Briard lives and works in Vancouver, Canada

Avis Wu

lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan

Achilles Vasileiou

lives and works in Greece

Hope Hutman

ives and works in Santa Cruz, California, USA

Kyriakos Bournas Nina Schipoff

Mark Ramos

Jason Shin

Switzerland

USA

Looking closely at the work it invades and absorbs us. As if the artist wanted to confront us with a return to opur roots but in an exotic space. A subtle art substituting other more scientific approaches to indicate us our memories in the evolution of life. There is, behind the diversity of techniques covered by Nina Schipoff a clear continuity as a common thread between the intensity of the present, its evocation of the invisible and its stubborn renewal. The enthusiast is constantly put on notice , to state, to immerse, to disappear and emerge again. As if we were between two waters, the threshold of a cataclysm or a new genesis.

Mark Ramos is a Brooklyn-based new media artist. He works with the mediums of physical computing (using computers to sense and react to the physical world), software programming and digital sculpture to create interactive, installation pieces. His work is often concerned with using digital technology as an intermediary to explore the intangible. Mark chooses to work with technology because of it’s ability to make visible, audible or thinkable that which is normally hidden away. Mark has exhibited his work locally both in New York City and San Francisco, including the inaugural exhibition of Arsenal Gallery in Brooklyn and as part of multiple exhibitions at Artist Television Access.

The word photography comes from Greek roots that mean painting with light, and I see photography as a medium just like painting--ink on paper. I represent the mundane and ordinary with photography. The 'Cube' series began after moving to a new home in Los Angeles. The images in the series are a mix of still life and abstraction. With both direct and indirect light, details of the ordinary become more distinct. These details are what I believe only the camera can capture. Ongoing series, “Drop” is inspired by Jackson Pollack’s Drip painting and is created under the artist’s intention to capture the descending object.

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livesand works in Greece

Jason Shin

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lives and works in Los Angeles, California, USA

Mark Ramos

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lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Liam Herne

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lives and works in Watford, United Kingdom On the cover a work by Hope Hutman

Special thanks to Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar, Joshua White, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Sandra Hunter, MyLoan Dinh, John Moran, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Michael Nelson, Hannah Hiaseen, Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar and Robyn Ellenbogen.

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Dalia Smayze

N ina Schipoff Lives and works in Geneve, Switzerland

o! This is not a simple meditation on water that offers Schipoff Nina , but the balance between water and air, two living areas whose interface is heckled while still restored. A moving boundary between two fluids and fragile empires that remind us of the beauty disorder of intimate heartbreaks whose waves continue to haunt our shores. There are antecedents in her photographic and pictorial work . How not to remember that large photos bird view of Lake St. Croix , What you see is what you see , 2010, of surface bathers on air mattresses or half submerged , breaking the turquoise surface that hides a village engulfed by water. An invisible memory of the ruins of the artificial lake of Serre Ponรงon , just indicated by the little St. Michael's Chapel, imaqa 4, 2014. The same trend can be found in the drills of the series : Wald, 2010- 2011 and : Wald von unten, 2011 so dense, that they hide the inextricable complexity of their dark bellies heading against the sky . But it is the vast rough surfaces of dark polar seas, painted in oil, the imaqa series , 2014, which introduce us very directly to the most sophisticated movies: Saint Cyprien and Sainte Marie, 2014. These furtive exchanges between the sea and the sky, these jagged surfaces , announce the rape of the interfaces that strong winds are spraying as if all the hidden below was resolved by airborne droplets . Coming now to one of her major works : 'Qaleraliq' , 2014. Taken in Greenland, it has not been cut or subjected to major changes in photoshop. Slightly above the water surface, the interface forms like the line of a drawing that would support the broad

view of a large fjord, shut off by a ring of mountains and glacier tongues of the same name. A distant view of course, but closed under the celestial voute full of light. However, the camera plunges, first with hesitation, then, breaking the interface, establishing in the in-between waters, allowing us to follow the regular movements of the waters via unidentified items, maybe fragmented algae. A very clear hazy green light gives the whole movement at the same time a sweet delicacy and the intense feeling of a happy strangeness. No horizon now, no perspective, a short- sighted vision, and the experience that the closed world has disappeared. The shortsightedness creates an effect of endlessness, an intimate longing for the possibles of space. At that point when returning to the first sequences of the loop, the huge early mountain circus seems narrow. Looking closely at the work it invades and absorbs us. As if the artist wanted to confront us with a return to opur roots but in an exotic space. A subtle art substituting other more scientific approaches to indicate us our memories in the evolution of life. There is, behind the diversity of techniques covered by Nina Schipoff a clear continuity as a common thread between the intensity of the present, its evocation of the invisible and its stubborn renewal. The enthusiast is constantly put on notice , to state, to immerse, to disappear and emerge again. As if we were between two waters, the threshold of a cataclysm or a new genesis. Marino Buscaglia , Geneva, January 2015

l'appel, video, 8'02''min, 2017

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Nina Schipoff An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator articulaction@post.com

Highly stimulating in its communicative concreteness, Qaleraliq is a video by GenĂŠve based multidisciplinary artist Nina Schipoff. While walking the viewers through an unconventional exploration of the balance between air and water, she accomplishes the difficult task of triggering the most limbic parameters of the spectatorship. What mostly impressed of Schipoff's approach is the way her investigation about the phenomena of human perception provokes reflection about contemporary age unveiling unsuspected but ubiquitous connections between art producing and the audience. We are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to her multifaceted artistic production. Hello Nina, thanks for joining us and welcome to ARTiculAction: to start this interview, we would like to pose you a question about your background. You have a solid background and after having degreed from the Geneva University of Art and Design with a Federal

diploma in Visual Arts, you nurtured your education with a postgraduate Diploma in Painting, that you received from the School of Stage Set Design, in Geneva: how do these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? In particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

Hello ARTiculACTION team and first of all thank you very much for your invitation to this interview. I entered the Geneva University of Art and Design with the wish to acquire the necessary tools and become a painter. But, after a general introduction into art and the process of art production in my first year, I took the chance to nourish my knowledge in photography in my 2nd, only to plunge into painting in my 3rd and 4th years, enriched by the newly acquired foundations. The postgraduate year in painting at the Geneva School of Stage Set Design raised my awareness of the staging aspects as well as I develop my technical tools in painting.

Nina Schipoff

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Due to these studies I was very lucky to investigate the concepts of space, time and movement. So it's only natural that today my work converged on photography, painting and video making. You are a versatile artist and your approach encapsulates several techniques and media, revealing a stimulating search of an organic symbiosis between a variety of viewpoints. The results convey together a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.ninaschipoff.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have ever happened to realize that such approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s say my personnel circumstances and my education have been fondamental to qualify my approach. As well as it has always been my intention to preserve total freedom in my expression, regardless of the different fashions of the time. For this special issue of ARTiculAction we have selected Qaleraliq, a stimulating video that our readers have already started to

64Â°n, part 2, video, 11'12''min, 2015

get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention of your exploration of the balance between air and water is the way you have removed any historical reference to the scene you captured: when

Nina Schipoff

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walking our readers through the genesis of Qaleraliq, would you shed a light on how you developed the initial idea?

A part of my works I develop on travel, deliberately without any

highly sophisticated equipment. The video Qaleraliq I produced in Greenland, while spending a couple of days in a base camp without electrical and sanitary comfort,

towards the horizon 1, photo print on pvc banner, 2016

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qaleraliq, video, 1'18min, 2014

protecting my batteries and accus in my sleeping bag from the cold. In this sens Qaleraliq is certainly the conjunction between the unpredictable and the foundations of my artistic engagement.

Qaleraliq provides the viewers with an intense, immersive experience: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, how much do you consider the

Nina Schipoff

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the archaic experience of natural phenomenon and to connect him to the evolution of life. In my works I explore the extraordinary complexity of human and nature. The ambience that pervades Qaleraliq invites the viewers to a multilayered experience and the way you explore the ambivalent relation between the intrinsically ephemeral nature of the materic experience of natural elements and the sense of permanence dued to the notion of flow accomplishes the difficult task of constructing a concrete aesthetic from experience, working on both subconscious and conscious level. So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is absolutely indispensable as part of the creative process? Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

immersive nature of the viewing experience and how much importance has improvisation in your process?

Via the artistic form of immersion I wish to confront the spectator with

I do not know about the others artists, but I could not imagine my work being conceived without my personal experience. I repeat that I cannot speak for other artists, but I rather doubt that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience or the memory of experience. Qaleraliq also induce the viewers to abandon themselves to free associations: when artists leaves

qaleraliq, video, 1'18min, 2014

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quand les balaines dorment 1 oil on canvas_100x100cm

their works open to interpretation, it is like giving the viewer permission to see anything in your works without anyone ever being

wrong. Has that ever proven to be a problem?

Giving or not permission is not an issue to me. In showing my work I

Nina Schipoff

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wald von unten, oil tempera on canvas, 100x100cm, 2011

absolutely integrate the personal perceptions and experiences of the spectator. For me art is not really about giving answers but about

opening up new possibilities of experiencing the world.

lake powell, video, 3'57''min, 2014

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wald 7 oil tempera on canvas, 120x100cm, 2011

As the late Franz West did in his installations, Qaleraliq shows unconventional features in the way it deconstructs perceptual images in order to assemble them in a collective imagery, urging the viewers to a process of selfreflection. Artists are always

interested in probing to see what is beneath the surface: maybe one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your view about this?

I do absolutely honor the work of late Franz West, and I am not very

Nina Schipoff

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paysage maritime, oil on canvas, 100x 130cm

comfortable with the idea that my 'disturbing' work could be the result of a mastered logical strategy. The events leading to my video are far more connected to life and intuition, than to managing imagery.

If a logical strategy does exist I don't direct it, but I work on a level going beyond logic and language. That is why I deeply appreciate your interesting judgement about 'revealing unexpected sides of Nature'.

qaleraliq, video, 1, 18min, 2014

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Your approach accomplishes an effective investigation about the process of individuation and the multiplicity of reality. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative and especially the visual unity for your works?

As I said before, many aspects in my work are not pre-mediated, but come naturally. They are a mix of conscious and unconscious elements of my personality. Over these years you works have been exhibited in several occasions and aside to your works as an artist, you have been also a curator at Espace Kugler, in GenĂŠve. One of the hallmarks of your works is the capability to establish direct relation with the audience, deleting any conventional barrier between the idea you explore and who receipt and consequently elaborate them. So before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process in terms of what

type of language for a particular context?

There are two times, one for showing a work to the public and one for research, conception and production in retreat. It is a necessity for me to develop my own creative projects autonomously in the silence of my atelier. Where as in my role as a curator I am always interested in the interaction between the art work and the spectator. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Nina: would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

It might seem very obvious to others, but for me it is a leading hope to permanently deepen my work and, in this sens, I am very exited to participate in the next weeks in an artist residence in Greece.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator articulaction@post.com

Jill Poczkai Ibsen

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water 2in9 the sky

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A nnie Briard Lives and works in Vancouver, Canada

ision and its affect are the driving force behind my work. Using lens-based media and

the moving image as starting points, I explore how visual perception shapes our interpretation of the surrounding world. I am interested in the multiplicity of perception paradigms, differing within the fields of psychology, phenomenology, neuroscience and film theory. There is space for creative experimentation within the gaps and intersections between these models. Our sensorial system – physically fallible and influenced by memory, mood, ideology – mediates what we know of the surrounding world. Sometimes, the limits between our ideal and physical visions become blurred. How, then, does what I see compare to what you see? How does this perception influence our way of being in the world, of encountering wonder, and communing with one another? My practice challenges our understanding of what we see by comparing phenomenological experience of the physical to that of the simulated. By complicating the seen, I work to create viewing experiences that investigate the layers of perception. Results become

reflective experimental surfaces to be imbued with the viewer’s own vision, including video, immersive installation, sculpture, photography, and interactivity.

Annie Briard Annie Briard is Montreal and Vancouver based artist working to deconstruct perception through an interdisciplinary practice encompassing moving image, photography and installation. Her works have been presented in a dozen solo exhibitions across Canada and in numerous group shows, art fairs, screenings, and festivals internationally, including at the Swiss Museum of Architecture (Basel), Matadero Madrid, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (Beijing), the International Environmental Film Festival (Rio de Janeiro), Art Souterrain (Montreal) among others. She holds a BFA from Concordia University and an MAA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Recent projects include a 3D public art billboard for Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver and an artist residency in Spain. Her work is represented by Joyce Yahouda Gallery and Back Gallery Project. www.anniebriard.com

Courtesy of Joyce Yahouda Gallery, Back Gallery Project and the artist

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Annie Briard An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

Artist Annie Briard's practice ranges from moving image and photography to sculpture and installation to deconstruct perception. In Staring at the Sun, that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she inquires into the nature of perceptual process, drawing viewers through an unconventional journey on the limits between the tangible and the imagined. One of the most impressive aspects of Briard's work is her successful attempt to trigger the viewers' most limbic parameters to investigate the act of remembering and its relationship with notion of identity: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Annie and welcome to ARTiculAction: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your rich and multifaceted background. You have a solid training and you hold a BFA from Concordia University and an MAA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design: how do these experiences influence the way you conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

Working in Montreal, I was influenced by

the affective and interactive nature of a lot of the work that was happening around me. It was important for me at that time to create works that would inspire some curiosity from the viewer and some form of physical engagement when possible, and this is something I continue to emphasize in my exhibitions. Later on, during my masters in Vancouver, I was able to crystalize my focus on visual perception and my production moved further away from manifesting images that we are seeing and more towards how we are seeing; the process of vision itself. This evolution was likely influenced by the aura of photoconceptualism in Vancouver. For me, asthetics are a means of interconnecting ideas and approaches, of communicating with one another. My work strives towards this back and forth dialogue to compare our embodied experiences of the world. You are a versatile artist: your practice ranges from video and photography to installation, to accomplish an organic investigation about the interstitial space between such disciplines that challenges the viewers' perceptual parameters. The results convey together a coherent and consistent sense of unity. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.anniebriard.com in order to

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Staring at the Sun, photo by Alana Riley

Annie Briard

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get a synoptic view of your work: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such cross disciplinary investigation is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.

Though at times I have felt the pressure to specialize in one discipline or medium, it has never been desirable for me. I am exploring how we understand the world around us, and since this is done through interplays between so many different means, from the innumerable processes in the body to the theorizing and imagining done by the mind, it seems necessary to let the experience I am exploring dictate the creative approach and delivery I will take. For this reason, I move between video and animation, photography and digital simulation, as well as installation and at times, drawing. This also allows me to constantly be learning new techniques and languages, which I find is so crucial to artmaking. For this special edition of ARTiculAction we have selected Staring at the Sun an extremely interesting work that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your inquiry into the nature of visible spectrum and its relationship with our perceptual categories is your successful attempt to highlight the intricate workings of our senses, including the influence of each perceiver's substratum. Would you walk us through the genesis of Staring at the Sun?

Staring at the Sun explores various phemonenological theories to offer viewers an immersive embodied experience where

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they perceive colors that aren’t actually there. It also draws from imagination and visualization activities that we often begin as children, like staring up at the clouds, or daydreaming while looking out at the horizon, for example. As well, the installation invites a dialectic viewing, in the sense that vision is doubled up or recursed by letting the viewer act as a voyeur of others’ experience. The work was first exhibited in Montreal at Joyce Yahouda Gallery in the spring of 2016. In that space, the viewer could see the installation from the hallway outside the gallery. Faced with a large “sun” or colored circle seemingly floating on a bright white screen, they would also see viewers sitting in reclining patio chairs, engulfed in an otherwise dark space. There was a vibratoraly palpable soundscape which could be described as deep machinic-like pulsations, generally tuned out by the brain after some time and fading into the background. The visuals use the effect of afterimages and chimeric colors to make the viewer see impossible colors; colors that cannot exist in reality. As the colorful suns fade in and out one after another, slowly moving through the visible spectrum, the viewer’s retina becomes hypersaturated with colored light and the brain perceives its opposite. In effect, the viewer is hallucinating colors while engaged in the meditative installation. The accompanying soundtrack is rooted in sound perception theories that claim that the visible field can be triggered and influenced by certain sound frequencies. It’s a piece that must be experienced in order to be affective in its commentary on how we perceive reality, but it

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Staring at the Sun, photo by Alana Riley

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underlines the notion that if we can see things that arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really there, the problematic nature of perception and its oscillation between the physical and the imagined becomes evident. Your organic work to deconstruct perception also accomplishes an effective investigation about the relationship between the phenomenon we perceive from the outside and personal imagination, due to the way we reelaborate our personal substratum and the universal imagery we draw from to create an immediately fruible set of symbols. What is the role of memory in your work? We are particularly interested in how you consider memory and its evocative role in perceptual processes.

Memory is a topic and process I explore in distinct ways through different works, but I would say that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m interested in memory as a process and repository that is both physical and mental. What fascinates me about visual perception is that there is still so much we do not understand, and new theories immerge and are disproven on a constant basis. Some of these theories, like that of persistent vision, make the claim that we perceive movement because we remember; like remembering the previous frame when watching a movie. I like to play with this idea in some of my moving image works. In Landscape Cutout, one still scene shifts almost imperceptibly over time, whereby the light and shadow change and create new perspectival interpretations. Some mountain surfaces become flooded in light whereas others are darkened, and though these areas are determined at random and in many cases wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be physically possible, they are often read as natural.

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Staring at the Sun, photo by Alana Riley

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Staring at the Sun, photo by Alana Riley

Annie Briard

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Only memory reveals the shift in perspective, and two people viewing the work necessarily have distinct interpretations of the scene. Perceiving chimeric color could also be considered as a form of memory, one retained by the body, in the sense that the retina and brain are remembering an oversaturation of light and expressing its opposite in response to that trauma. Memory plays a large role in expectation, and this in turn shapes how we see and interpret visuals. This is part of the viewing process I exploit in a number of my works, be they 3D photographs of constructed vistas or moving images rexontextualizing a known place into one that seems otherworldly, like Horizon Blur, where a setting sun between a foggy sky and ocean surface is stretched into a new dimension. In some of my ongoing projects, I am experimenting with ways to capture memories into single photographs using home movies as a base. The results are evocative abstract scenes. One video project Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m developing uses mutlitudes of short video clips as expressions of memory fragments which are strung together in infinate narratives. Here, the computer image retrieval process acts as a metaphor for how we remember. When inducing the viewers to rethink the multifaceted and sometimes elusive nature of their perceptual categories, Staring at the Sun also inquires into the interstitial space between personal and public spheres, providing the spectatorship with an immersive experience that forces such

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a contamination the inner and the outside: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space?

The act of looking can be both personal, and deeply internal, while at the same time being one that requires a negotiation between inside and outside. In my works, the notion of communication becomes important in order to better understand what we are experiencing, so I try to facilitate some of that dialogue through the ways in which the works function or are installed. With public art, this conversation is perhaps more intrinsic to the viewer’s experience. One is always deeply aware of others watching or witnessing their act of looking. It’s less possible to have a private moment, especially if we consider works that are in large urban centres. In the past, I’ve produced interactive animations (The Woods, 2012) as public artworks that could be engaged through cellphones and movement, turning an ordinarily private conversation, or way of closing oneself off within public space, into one that is extremely public and participatory. More recently, I created a large 3D billboard, Any Day Now, for the Vancouver-based Capture Photography Festival in which the layers of seeing became multiplied. The viewer could passively glance at the billboard from their car, for instance, or could stop and pick up 3D glasses to get a different view from that accessed by the majority of people. The blue and red glasses themselves solicited attention and conversation from others walking by, thus opening up a dialogue about

Staring at the Sun, photo by Alana Riley

vision between strangers on the street. To mention a Piet Mondrian's quote, "the position of the artist is to act essentially as a channel". Your practice is centered on the relationship between

Annie Briard

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visual perception and our interpretation of the surrounding world, and this could be in a certain sense considered as an attempt to unveil a channel of communication between the subconscious sphere and

the conscious one. Do you agree with this interpretation? In particular, how would you define the relationship between these apparently opposite levels of consciousness?

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Staring at the Sun, photo by Alana Riley

The space between images belonging to the conscious and subconscious realms is the main ground I engage in through my practice, and try to open up for my viewer. Though our rationalization of the image has progressed drastically from

early critical discourse about photography through the era of moving images, simulation and more recently, augmented reality, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clear that we have created bridges between images of the imaginary to those of the world

Annie Briard

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optical illusions, be it in art exhibitions or widely seen on internet forums. I think this is because now more than ever, there is the realization that sight is slippery. However, we still exist in a structuralist system of image experience: the actual, versus the possible, and the fictitious, though our guidelines for each are much blurrier now. The phantasmagoric is thrilling in part because it is clearly an illusion. What I am trying to do instead is create spaces where vision becomes at once physical and imagined; where its position on this scale cannot be hierachical and one form cannot exist without the other. Beyond the interest in pushing and pulling embodiment and its mediation of reality, this theme becomes important in a space where despite an ongoing move forward in identity politics there are still some experiences that are held in higher esteem or as the norm comparatively to others. By recognizing that so much of our knowledge of the world is based on faulty senses, mediations and imaginings, perhaps some walls can be broken down.

around us and that these are becoming harder to tell apart. In some cases, the differentiation seems futile and unnecessary. There seems to be a ressurgence of cult interest lately in experiments with lucid dreams and

In your investigation about the layers of perception you draw a lot from phenomenological experience of the physical: your practice could be also considered as a successful attempt to create a bodies of works that, as the interesting looped moving image projection entitled Presence, stands as records of existence and that captures non-sharpness, going beyond the apparent uniqueness of human experience, to explore the elusive relationship between experience and

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identity in our globalized mundanity. Even James Turrell’s obsession with light and color is often associated with his early experiences as a pilot... So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

It’s a complex question because there are as many approaches to art making as there are types of practices. Some are deeply personal, whereas others are more attached to research of a particular era or topic, and others that focus more on formalist rendering. In my case, it became clear early on in my practice that I was making art to get at the crux of questions I had about consciousness and differences between individual human experience. The early videos I made were attempts at recreating my perceptual process, and I think though much more subtle now, my aesthetics and approaches are still rooted in that way. Moving images go in and out of focus for instance, objects are pushed away and change scales or orientations, cuts of empty space are used to build narrative. There are a number of childhood memories about vision that I have, observations on perspective when riding in the back seat of the car and seeing the landscape blur by, or noticing ways of crossing my eyes so that a pattern would jut out in 3D, or phosphenes - light flashes – when I pressed on my eyelids, that sort of thing. This fascination with the experience of vision forms the basis for my installations.

The work Presence is composed of a series of still portrait photographs shot at different depths of field. I remember being very young and realizing how faces changed drastically depending on their proximity to me. The closer they were, the rounder they appeared, and this changed the way I interpreted the person who they belonged to. Years later, I met a vision scientist who discovered, while trying to determine the best lenses for 3D filmmaking, that people reacted in similarly emotionally charged ways to a neutral face depending on the lens it was shot with. In Presence, the static face seems to become alien, breathing and pulsating with life in a way that becomes uncanny and asks us to ponder the ways in which vision affects how we interpret one another. I find it interesting to hear viewers describe their different experiences within my exhibitions. Some perceive things I hadn’t even thought possibile. Each work presents one of my intrigues with vision, and its manifestation and presentation to others allows me to learn more about where our being-inthe-world connects or diverges. So yes, be it existential questions I haven’t yet been able to resolve for myself, or image-based experiences of an imaginary or physical nature, direct experience is important in the creation and viewing of my works. In Landscape Cutout you emphasized the constructedness of reality or the world surrounding us. This project could be considered a visual biography

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Landscape Cutout, 2015, Moving image. Image en mouvement., 1980p x 1080p

of the conflictual symbiosis between perception and imagination. As the late Franz West did in his installations, Landscape Cutout shows

unconventional aesthetics in the way it deconstructs perceptual images in order to assemble them in a collective imagery, urging the viewers to a

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process of self-reflection. Artists are always interested in probing to see what is beneath the surface: maybe one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your view about this?

Landscape Cutout begins with a photograph taken from the top of a famously terrifying mountain hiking trail in Utah to offer a reflection on the search for and construct of the sublime and on shared collective imagery; that of scenic vistas in “nature”. To me, this type of sublime is a distancing, alienation and reconstruction of something that should be familiar to us in such a way that it can become overwhelming and aweinspiring. In Existentialist philosophy, there is the poetic image of looking over the edge of a precipitous cliff – as was the process of photographing the root image of Landscape Cutout – where the emotional reaction is so strong that the watcher is able to turn back and look at themselves in an intense moment of selfreflection. This is a moment I consider frequently in the context of visual perception; a moment where the limits between the categories of the seen, as imaginary or actual, become blurred. An experience of that sort can change one’s reference points and overturn expectations, and this is perhaps where I would say that my work ventures into digging below the surface of perception, what we think we know about perception and the information our eyes provide us with. Over the years your works have been internationally showcased, including

Landscape Cutout, 2015, Moving image. Image en mouvement., 1980p x 1080p

galleries and festivals in New York, Rio, Barcelona, Madrid, Basel, Shanghai and Beijing. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of

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audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

Because such a significant drive behind my work is the comparison of my visual experience to that of others‘, I am particularly sensitive to the reactions of my viewers, and I try to find new ways to

gain their perspectives. I’ll admit I’ve done this at times by hiding inside some of my installation rooms to listen to peoples‘ reactions, but sometimes they are easier to gauge depending on the mechanism of the work, such as the interactive pieces using text messaging, which give me analytics on the response to the work. In an upcoming show I’m currently planning, the exhibition will be set up as

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a kind of experimental lab space with many opportunities for viewers to give their responses and feed them back into the work. Many of my pieces require significant testing, to make sure the experience isn’t just working on myself, but on others as well. To that end I have a lot of people come in and out of the studio to engage with the work before it’s ever presented to the public. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Annie. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

This year I was fortunate enough to receive some funding and undertake art residencies in Spain and in New York, and will be going on a month long hike photographing the Sierra Nevada so the next little while will be spent developing works in the studio for upcoming exhibitions. The projects I’m taking on will explore light through sensory installations and video, but I can’t say much more as they are still at their early stages. I can however say that I will continue to explore visual perception and how it affects our understanding of human experience and realms of reality, and I hope to be fortunate enough to be able to sustain this research and share it with the public. I’m always interested in opportunities to learn more and investigate these themes in new and different ways. Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these with you! An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

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Courtesy of Joyce Yahouda Gallery, Back Gallery Project and the artist

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A vis Wu Lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan

An artist's statement

am interested in working with a poetic link between visual and psychology, a sensational combination within the internal and external world. I work with my intuition spontaneously with open mediums. In my writing, language is the container for my thoughts. In my drawings and paintings shapes are containers for my color and emotion. The weight of each shape is perceived by the sizes and the subtle tones and colours, they balance each other as tender elements for

me to work with to get a harmonious composition. The combination and the distance in between the geometric forms tells relationships and character of work in body, space and time, visual and psychology. I open up a space behind and beyond reality from my investgation and perceptions about life. I also create space for myself and viewers to travel, to evoke the awareness of beauty in life.

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Avis Wu An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

Spontaneous and captivating in its essential and harmonic unity, Avis Wu's work conveys a rigorous analysis on perceptual parameters. Her practice involves both visual arts and poetry and accomplishes the difficult task of walking the viewer through a multilayered journey on the thin lines between our inner world and the outside. One of the most convincing aspect of Wu's practice is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of creating space for viewers to travel, to evoke the awareness of beauty in life: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her multifaceted artistic production. Hello Avis and welcome to ARTiculAction: to start this interview, we would pose you a couple of questions about your background. Are there any experiences that have particularly influenced your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

I was born in Taiwan. I have always liked to draw, for me drawing gives me space to create my own language and characters in my pictures. My experience

in studying Fine Art in London has really expanded and enriched my relationship with my artwork. Postgraduate study was an opportunity for me to open and share that space. My role has changed from a creator of my work to also become a viewer. The experience has expanded and deepened my connection with my artwork. During this time, in this different culture and environment, I could see that many of my works used the letters of the alphabet as geometric forms to make an abstract language, which allowed me to express my feelings and also to communicate with my internal and external world. I am always enthusiastic about art and design, humanity and the creative thought process behind the work. A good piece of art can touch a person's heart. Good product or service design can bring solutions to problems and make changes in our lives. Combining rigorous sense of geometry and freedom of composition, your practice reveals an unconventional still consistent sense of unity. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/sh ow/68744-avis-wu in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever

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happened to realize that a symbiosis between visual art and poetry different techniques is the only way to express and convey the ideas you explore.

I have not thought about this question; thank you for bringing it out. Each of my works were not expected to set a theme or transmit a particular message through them. It is an expression without any limitation of forms and techniques, just different mediums and preferences. I think the symbiotic relationship between my visual art and poetry is a communication and also a link between my internal and external world. It is the rhythm of the work. It is life’s pulsation that is combined into a drawing or writing, which gives each works life. For this special edition of ARTiculAction we have selected Untitled1603, a stimulating work that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at soon caught my eyes of this body of works is the way it accomplishes an effective combination between simplicity and a rigorous formality: do you conceive such compositions on an instinctive way or do you rather structure your process in order to reach the right balance?

Each piece was born from my inspiration rather than a deliberate attempt to create. It may be a complete or incomplete sentence, one expression of a character or an emotion. When I am working on my art it is like I am working on revealing a story. I believe the way to reach harmony and balance in my work is to give time and space to let my work be. I let the energy flow freely in my creating process, because when I feel the flow, at the same time I will be able to know what

I need to put in or take out to make it balance. I think this condition can also be found in life, most imbalance come from trying to control. For me, it is a journey. In my creative process, I share my discovery and feelings from my investgation and perceptions with my humility and respect for life. Your work is pervaded with a subtle but effective narrative, and the insightful combination between images and written words you created for SKY captures non-sharpness with an universal kind of language, capable of bringing to a new level of significance the elusive but ubiquitous relationship between experience and imagination, to create direct relations with the spectatorship: how would you describe this synergy in your work? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve a faithful translation of your previous experiences or if you rather use memory as starting point to create.

I do not deliberately create synergies in my work, it just appears.This work does have a kind of romantic relationship between experience and reality exists in this work, a space for people to indulge their imaginations. In my work “Sky” , writing and image both are an expression for freedom that transcends nationality, time and language. The writing might sound as if it contains the past, present and future. The image gives a timeless imagination; they complement each other. There are relationships subtle but ubiquitous in our lives, Sometimes it holds your attention, sometimes it makes you confused. It appears in a gaze, a fleeting moment, then disappeared. I see my work as a window. Everyone who looks might see perhaps experience that once existed and disappeared from their

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life or their own imagination. My work is not an expression of a presentation of results, but a moment I find in my creative process. It appears in that frozen moment when I look up. Your works conveys a sense of spontaneity, still a crucial aspect of your work is an investigation about a variety of psychological processes behind our perceptual parameters: how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece? In particular, how do you develop a texture? Any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

Let me use music to explain my thoughts for you. Music is built up by the interplay of melody, harmony and rhythm; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a combination of notes played together. Visually each color, tone, size and shape has its own weight and proportion in my psychology. The relationship between the sonic frequency of two notes is like two geometric forms in my work. They interact with each other, harmonious with one another, following my instinct to compose a complementary combination. The choice of color, tones, size and shape...these elements and mediums that I choose in work are similar to the creative process of music, like choosing a suitable instrument for performance. Is it a symphony? or a piano piece? What is the next shape or colour I need? Where shall I put it? Does it look too busy or quiet? Dark or light? That is how I develop texture and character in my work. Sometimes, I feel like I'm making sculptures on paper. Every time, when I work, to increase or decrease the element on paper, that process of making

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it makes me feel like I am making a sculpture, to reveal the inner soul and life that is already in the paper. When inviting the viewers to re-interpret the traditional ideas of beauty, you seem to challenge our perceptual categories: while inviting the viewer to elaborate personal interpretations, you do not reject a gaze on aesthetics. How important is the aesthetic problem for you when you conceive a work?

What I like to express is an emotion or a psychological state. It is not subject to aesthetic constraints, something elusive, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beauty is hidden under the surface significance of life. It goes beyond aesthetic imagination and expectations. For example: Love is beautiful. However, there is no specific form of expression for it. How beautiful is it ? or why is it that beautiful? It has gone beyond the scope of traditional aesthetics. I have no intention to show some form of beauty, or to create a sense of beauty in everyone's expectations in my work. Because aesthetics is a matter of personal preference. What I am interested in conceiving is to share my art through my observation and experience in life. Maybe it is a joy in two friends embracing. A manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happiness while he is waiting for his lover, or simply a good mood. Besides producing stimulating paintings, you are also a prolific poet and we are particularly happy to introduce our readers to your poems. To start off, would you shed light on your process? In particular, do your poems tend now to come out of imagination rather than out of your own life?

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There are many fine feelings that are beyond expression which has been accumulated bit by bit through our life experience. It stays in our subconscious mind. When it reaches a certain quantity

or degree then it gets a chance to be expressed and released, through laughter, tears, or maybe through a creative process in music, writing...Most of my poems come from that place.

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My poems come from my inspiration in life. Because life is full of possibilities, it makes me wonder and imagine. Whether in my writing or painting ...I use my imagination to go further and look a little

deeper, it also takes me to think outside of box, expand and enrich my life experience. To quote your artist's statement, in your writing, language is the container for

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your thoughts: in Listen carefully, you might hear it you have accomplished the difficult task to combine rhyhtm and evokative reminders, and to draw the readers into a multilayered experience. Do you think that the harmonic fusion

between different features could be the poet's goal? Or is the goal to make people look at the sphere of experience in a different way? Is it to touch their soul? Is it for them to feel delight?

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Each individual person reading one poem will have a different interpretation of it. It'll all depend on each individual reader's perception about the writing. Think of it this way: If I make one poem for a beautiful flower that touches me, the poem comes from my feeling for the flower. The interpretation each reader has will probably be similar, but each will be slightly different. If anyone is touched by my poem and feels close to my work, that is because the similar feeling already exists inside of that personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heart, it is woken up by my words. As an artist, my motivation and goal is not just to make my work in order to touch peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s soul or to make them feel delight. For me, it is also a link between my life, poems and readers. I use my poems to record life stories and inspirations that already exist or are waiting to be awakened in our life. You accomplish an insightful inquiry into the liminal area in which the internal and the external world find a point of convergence, unveiling a channel of communication between the unconscious level and the conscious one. So we would take this occasion to

ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process both to create and to snatch the spirit of a piece of art... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

It is possible, especially, if I try to work with my mind rather than my intuition in my creative process. Because the subtle feeling in between the unconscious level and the conscious, and the interactive relationship between internal and external world, is a state not a form. When I find myself start to envisage how my work will be, I also find my intuition disappears. Only my complex calculating thoughts remain. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making

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process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

I am the creator of my work, also a spectator. This relationship gives me space to work follow my intuition, room

for me to have dialogue with my work. I think of my artwork as a channel or a window. I welcome viewers to get involved with my work in their own way. To imagine through it, to make or hear

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the inner dialogue with themselves or my work. I look forward to hearing from them if they are touched or inspired by it, or perhaps something comes out to make them think...

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Avis. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

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Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here. It has been my pleasure to share my artwork and thoughts with ARTiculActionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s readers.

I would like to try drawing and painting on a larger scale, I am curious how my work will respond to me when I work at a larger scale especially in my latest drawings,

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and how the sizes may influence the structure? I will continue to work on drawing, painting, and writing and moreâ&#x20AC;Ś I am open to opportunities, willing to try

different mediums, to explore more possibilities of my work.

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A chilles Vasileiou Lives and works in Greece

An artist's statement

ny form of art can exactly define any style and emotion. For me, sculpture has always been the way of expressing what I have been looking for since I was a teenager. As Picasso once said: “Sculpture is the best comment a painter can make on painting”. Through very hard work I managed to imprint my concerns, impressions and beliefs on pieces of marble, copper and clay. Sculpting has always been my own personal retreat in the difficult times I have faced throughout my life. The perfect sculpture harmonically combines

delicate lines and perfect proportions, without missing its own purpose, which is to convey a deeper message, the momentum of a whole era. For example, my sculptural synthesis of the "Warriors of Salamis” was built to honour those who fell in the battle of Salamis and eternally seal their noble sacrifice. My life long experience as a sculptor has taught me that, this form of art can tell people a story. Through my works of art you can discover mine…

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Achilles Vasileiou An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

How did you come to be a Sculptor?

From my early age, I decided to attend an artistic school about Fine Arts. At first, I wanted to become a painter, because sculpture is very dirty and exhaustive as a profession. However, I realized soon that there is nothing more prestigious than a sculptural artwork, so I made up mind about sculpture quite easily. What kind of Sculptures do you enjoy most?

Well, in terms of me, I think that ancient Hellenic Sculptures are of high artistic value and I really awe them.

Especially Kouros and Kore are representing exactly the term “as simple as possible but not simpler”. Almost all of these sculptures have been destroyed through the centuries but still remain Masterpieces! This is because the sculptors then, used to focus to the essential parts of their statues, nothing more or less. What do you think about contemporary art?

It is surely the new trend and has become very popular even for the people who don’t concern themselves with art. Contemporary art suits perfectly with the modernity of our times and the right modern monument in the right place can be powerful and moving! However, there is a misconception about the term

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Warrios of Salamis

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of â&#x20AC;&#x153;symbolâ&#x20AC;?. Art is anyway symbolic. Someone must be conceited to characterize his artwork only as symbolic. There are other parameters like synthesis, form, perception etc, you need to persuade so as to make a solid work of art. Tell us something about your work. What is your method and your philosophy?

As far as I am concerned, what I am trying to achieve is to conceive the core idea of the work I have to do. To be more specific, I study thoroughly the topic that has been assigned to me and I try to imagine ways in which my art will be the most influential, emotional and representative to my theme. What is the key to your success?

Believing in myself, be honest with him and my life time dedication to my art!

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Which are your most wellknown projects of you and why?

Well, from all the sculptures that I have done, three of them are the most famous. They are placed in public and have been assigned to me after winning national competitions in my country, Greece. It is Pegasus, which is placed in the park of the city center of Corinth. Alexander the Great and Diogenes, which is placed in a seaside square in Corinth again. And the Warriors of Salamis which is placed in Salamis. All these sculptures represent personalities from Hellenic history and mythology, which means that are of the utmost importance for the cultural heritage of my country. They had to be aesthetically appropriate but also of high artistic value. To have undertaken these public projects, is the greatest honor to me and I hope to sculpt more monuments like these in the future.

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Pegasus of Corinth

Alexander the Great and Diogenes

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Pegasus of Corinth

What are your goals right now?

I am seeking for new challenges, experiences and to acquire international reputation

in the field of sculpture. I would also like to thank from the bottom of my heart the ARTiculAction magazine and their team for their kind support and for getting me a

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Hope Hutman Lives and works in

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Hope Hutman An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

Captivating in its effective non linear structure, Twitch Odyssey is a performance by artist Hope Hutman that allows the audience, individually and collectively, to have a hand in creating and shaping the content and direction of the narrative and the storyworld. Hutman's approach draws the viewers into an immersive experience that urges them to rethink ordinary perceptual categories. One of the most convincing aspect of Hutman's practice is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of opening new spaces that invite the audience on an unconventional and multilayered experience: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her multifaceted artistic production.

different points of view. Ideas, storylines, values, that may be different from our own. I make storyworlds that allow the audience, individually and collectively, to shape the meaning and content. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. The results convey together a consistent sense of harmony. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.hopehutman.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such symbiosis between different disciplines is the only way to express and convey the ideas you explore.

Hello Hope and welcome to ARTiculAction: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and you hold a BA of English Literature and an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media, at University of California Santa Cruz, where you are currently a research specialist in Computational Cinema: your approach coherently reveals an incessant search of an organic symbiosis between a variety of viewpoints.

I strive, in my work, not to share my particular point of view, but to create a space or a situation that allows the audience to direct the meaning by sharing or writing the story as they see fit. This hopefully enables an encounter with ideas that can often conflict with our own. The result can be surprising, and it allows us all to see each other and maybe step outside our often self selected, curated, encounters that rarely offer points of view that are different from our own.

This is true. I think as artists we can choose to create a space that is open to

For this special edition of ARTiculAction we have selected Twitch Odyssey, an

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interesting adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention of your inquiry into the creative potential of the interaction between the performer and the audience it's the way it accomplishes the difficult task of unveiling the nature of communication process. When walking our readers through the genesis of Twitch Odyssey we would like to ask you how much important is for you the role of improvisation.

In The Odyssey, Odysseus’s story, his journey, is at once facilitated by the gods and by his own cunning and resolve. The combination of divine intervention and personal agency keeps him alive along the way and eventually gets him home. The storyworld of this journey is framed (shaped and constrained) by the demands and structure of the dactylic hexameter, the meter of the poem. “The Homeric epithets were created to meet the demands of the meter of the Greek heroic poetry, the dactylic hexameter. They offer the improvising bard different ways of fitting the name of his god, hero, or object into whatever section of the line is left after he has, so to speak, filled up the first half (that, too, quite possible with another formulaic phrase).” Homer, Robert Fagles, Bernard Knox, and Homer, The Odyssey, 1996 Print p.15 Because of the complexity of the form, Homer is limited, to a certain extent, in how he constructs the poem. However, within the constraints of the form, he is able to tell a complicated and nuanced tale. My adaptation of The Odyssey addresses these elements, the structure of the storyworld, and the content of the story, separately through the

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appropriation of the Twitch.tv platform. The improvised narrative unfolds based on the content generated within the constraints of the interface and what it allows. The design of the storyworld, adds a layer of agency to the player (audience member, content maker) by allowing her to create bits of content that will be a part of the larger narrative. This allows for an emergent meaning to arise not from the story structure or the storyteller, but from all of it, the story structure, the storyteller and the community of audience/content-makers. I hope that Twitch Odyssey is understood as a comment on who gets to tell the story, and an experiment in how technology and design can enable a new kind of story making experience. Providing the viewers with an immersive experience, Twitch Odyssey establishes direct realtions with the participants and reflects your interest to find new ways to evoke a sense of reality in the performer and ultimately in the audience. How do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience?

What we make and what we see, what we like and what we engage with, shapes us and shapes our world. Twitch.tv is a live streaming platform where most of the streamed content is game related. On Twitch, people watch other people playing video games or commenting on video games (think professional sports commentators, or jokesters on Comedy Central commenting on Youtube Videos). Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more happening on Twitch though; the community can chat with these players and commentators , and, of

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course, chat with each other during the stream . This may not seem like a big deal but this simple combination of live stream and chat has given rise to some very interesting content. On Twitch there is a channel that streams a game called Salty Bet. Salty Bet invites the community to submit their favorite characters from other games, old games they may have played when they were younger, to this new game, Salty Bet. In Salty Bet, the submitted characters fight each other, in a battle managed by the AI. You get to bet on who you think will win, based on what you know about these characters. Who do you think would win a fight between say, Marsha Brady and Danny Partridge? (This is a question for my committee) I ask because - that’s what Salty Bet is - you bet based on what you know about these characters based on getting to know them in another fictional world. I was intrigued by the idea of these characters, our personal favorites, moving from one story to another. I was also drawn to the Salty Bet “channel” which is a boisterous place. There are lots of people chatting, trash talking, commenting during the fight and betting on the outcome of the fight. This made me wonder, is Twitch.tv the Globe Theater of our time? The Globe Theater presented cock fighting and bear baiting on its stage, Shakespeare’s audiences were loud and raucous, at times calling out to the actors on stage during the performance and always talking through a performance. Another broadcast on Twitch.tv that exemplifies the possibilities in the medium is Twitch Plays Pokemon. In this stream, the community came together and wrote a storyline through the game that was not imagined or designed by the maker of

Pokemon. Twitch Plays Pokemon is a Twitch stream that enables the community to play the Pokémon video game by “parsing commands sent by users through the channel's chat room.… The system used by the stream was coded by an anonymous Australian programmer, consisting of an IRC bot written in Python and the Game Boy emulator VisualBoyAdvance. The script captures specific messages (directional commands, "B," "A," "select," and "start") sent into the stream's chat room by users, and sends them to the emulator as button input, thus controlling the game. An additional web app coded using JavaScript is used to display a live tally of moves that are shown within the stream. The broadcaster chose Pokémon Red and Blue for the project, citing nostalgia for the early games.” Nick Statt (February 21, 2014). "'Twitch Plays Pokemon' is now a fight for the soul of the Internet". CNET. CBS Interactive. 2 Retrieved March 25, 2014. http://www.cnet.com/news/twitchplays-pokemon-is-now-a-fight-for-thesoul-of-the-internet/ The “broadcaster” of Twitch Plays Pokemon is a game maker, developer and I’d say, maybe a modern day playwright, because of the possibilities imaged, designed and written into the code that allows for a narrative to be written organically by the community who came to play the game. But while the architecture and the implementation of this live stream is interesting, I don’t really think it is actually intended to be art. I think its intention is to create a new, maybe a little bit different, kind of game play. I think what we can learn from Twitch Plays Pokemon and even Salty Bet is that reality is blended and the audience is ready to engage and participate.

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Your exploration of the intersection of devised theater and collaborative filmmaking acconplishes the difficult task of unveiling the flow of information through an effective non linear narrative: German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative of your works?

My work begins as an exploration of how to give the audience a say in making the performance, how to give the audience that feeling I get when I make something or collaborate and share in something meaningful. For me, the real power of devising is in the making. The way I understand things, the way I process information, is to turn it around in my head, physically work with it, explore different corners of a theme or idea. I learn from the push and pull of hearing other points of view and seeing how other people make what feels meaningful to them. That’s when I get affected, connected and begin to understand what I think and what I want to say. In a sense making Twitch Odyssey helped me understand what Homer’s Odyssey means to me and what I wanted to share in making my adaptation. I’ve been more focused on Homer than on the Odyssey. More focused on the platform and the content making than on the content. In ancient Greece, Homer was the platform (storyteller) and the content maker (story). I think we live in a time where we all should have a hand in making the story. I think Twitch Odyssey was successful because, in the end, there was a meaningful, pretty well made,

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performance that emerged from the process and the community rather than from my personal vision of “let’s tell this story this way”. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, advances in Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality are making the “virtual” feel more and more like the “natural.” The impetuous way modern technology has nowadays came out on the top has dramatically revolutionized the idea of Art itself: in a certain sense, we are forced to rethink about the intimate aspect of constructed realities and especially about the materiality of an artwork itself, since just few years ago it was a tactile materialization of an idea. We are sort of convinced that new media will definitely fill the apparent dichotomy between art and technology and seemingly Art and Technology are going to assimilate one to each other... what's your opinion about this?

We live in a blended reality, a reality that is both physical and virtual. Art is made where we live. I don’t think technology has come out “on top”. Technology expands our reality, for better and for worse. The thing is, in the physical world we understand the speed bumps, you can slow down or drive extra fast and fly over them. In the virtual space the “speed bumps” -if you will, are hidden. Or if not hidden, just hard to read. It's no doubt that interdisciplinary collaborations as the one that you have established for the Contact Project are today ever growing forces in Contemporary Art and that the most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields of practice meet and collaborate on a project... could you tell us something about this effective synergy? By the way, Peter

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Tabor once stated that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of several practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between several artists?

I was a collaborator in Krista DeNio’s piece, the Contact Project. This collaboration had a profound affect on my own work. I use a lot of the devising tools I learned while making the Contact Project in my work today. Over these years you have exhibited in several occasions, including your recent participation at Out Of Frame, curated by Belinda Haikes and Gaby Heit: one of the hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create a deep involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

I don’t consider audience reception because to me that suggests that the work is made to please or gain acceptance from the audience. But it’s true, that in my work, the audience is primary. I’m always considering how the audience will understand the storyworld, how they will be able to write into the story. How to make the participation and collaboration contextually relevant Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Hope. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects?

How do you see your work evolving?

I am continuing to develop Twitch Odyssey. I am also working on a new project “silent movie” (not sure if this will be the title). This project will be shown as

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an installation at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, as part of my work as a researcher in the Visual Narrative Cluster, under the direction of Arnav Jhala. This piece will offer one storyline and will

exam what happens when each of us can decide how to tell that story. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator

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Kyriakos Bournas K yriakos Bournas p

Lives and works in Greece

Lives and works in

My work explores the how and why of functions and forms. An artist's statement

I analyse, deconstruct and re-assemble forms in order hen to reach a years old, I had I was four new and acohesive near death experience while result. having an open heart surgery.

My heart stopped beating, my body temperature went low, a heart-lung machine kept me alive. Coming back from that threshold, I knew that opposites are bound together and that I encompass both. It left me fascinated with edges and yearning for meaning. My works are born from that same simultaneous sense of vertigo and stability.

Kyriakos Bournas

They deal with a dichotomous - the realization that one reality can reflect many and there is no one definition. The truth is endlessly evolving and expanding. I try and reconcile conflicts and contradictions such as beauty that encompasses crudeness, weakness as a source of strength and disillusionment that feeds innocence. The early works (“Red Heart”, 2007-09) are naïve drawings of bodies and situations, subtle yet disturbing. Minimalist figures floating in white space. With time, layers appear

(“Illusions & Reality”, 2010-13). Through intricate drawings and installations I struggle to weave together the past, present and future. Recently I’m fascinated with transformation (“Release”, 2014-15). The Sisyphean process evolved to a new set of rules, which dictates different materials, gestures and speed. The new paintings are large and expressive, made in one continuous session, like an intense ritual. I see my studio as a cross between a womb and a lab. My practice is a tool for understanding myself as well as the world of phenomena around me. My goal is to generate a change that shapes perspectives and actions, thus enabling for something new to occur - symbolically, conceptually and tangibly. I have a distinct feeling that there is something beyond me, a life force, which I can’t put into words but I can channel into art.

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Kyriakos Bournas An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

Athens based visual artist Kyriakos Bournas' work explores the expressive potential of the composition between lines and shapes to draw the viewers into an immersive and multilayered experience. His works are pervaded with a subtle but effective narrative that brings to a new level of significance the notion of representation. What mostly impressed of Bournas' practice is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of establishing direct relations with the viewers, unveiling subtle connections between art producing and audience's reception. We are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to his multifaceted artistic production. Hello Kyriakos and welcome to ARTiculAction: to start this interview, we would like to pose you a question about your background. You have a solid formal training and after graduating from the Ornerakis School of Applied Arts you nurtured your education with a B.F.A. of Fine and Studio Arts, that you received from the University of Western Macedonia: how do these experiences influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your Greek roots inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

Hello and thank you so much for having me here.If I could name one thing I

gained by studying at Ornerakis school of Applied Arts that would be work ethic.The amount of work you need to put unto yourself in order to progress as a creative individual is staggering.Hence the most useful attribute to grind it out is discipline stemming from an inner desire to get things done whether you are motivated this day or not.The following studies at the University of Western Macedonia only reinforced this notion and consolidated it not just as a character trait but a world view. Being a Greek means you are both of Mediterranean and Balkan heritage,not just genetic but cultural too.Growing up in such a crossroad of cultures equipped me with the idea that the sum is greater than itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parts,regardless of their origins. Being a creator as an expression of this idea coupled with insatiable curiosity forces to look in every kind of cultural lineage for parts to expand the whole. You are a versatile artist: ranging from painting to textile and embroidery, your approach reveals a stimulating search of an organic symbiosis between a variety of viewpoints. The results convey together a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://kyrb.artstation.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such approach

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Machine Spirit

is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.

work with to transform into a coherent image.

For this special issue of ARTiculAction we have selected Machine Spirit, a stimulating project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention of these works is the way they create an harmonic mix between a vivid approach to the evocative reminders conveyed by the ideas you combine together: when

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walking our readers through the genesis of these pieces would you shed a light about the role of metaphors in your process?

Metaphors are one of the most efficient tools of storytelling.In imagery it is expressed through the use of symbols,a language so universal it transcends most of the cultural barriers.Being a human and an artist aiming to communicate stories and ideas in a way you need to evoke reactions on a deeper level than just the visual. Your works invite the viewers to a multilayered experience and the way you explore the ambivalent relation between the intrinsically ephemeral and fragile nature of paper and the sense of permanence accomplishes the difficult task of constructing a concrete aesthetic from experience, working on both subconscious and conscious level. So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is absolutely indispensable as part of the creative process? Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Artistic creation is itself an experience,both for the artist and the viewer.The artwork created being the common denominator.The process of creation is a highly individualized thing.Techniques and materials are pretty standard for almost every kind of art but on a deeper level their use is influenced on who are you, as a person.Personal experiences shape us and in turn we shape the abstract into form. Being creative is synonymous to being human and as such denying the input of direct

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experience on our work is pretty much impossible.

comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

The dialogue established by colors and texture is a crucial part of your style: in particular, the effective combination between both delicate and thoughtful nuances of tones sums up the mixture of thoughts and emotions. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develop a painting’s texture? Moreover, any

Light and color are indispensable parts of the physical world and the human experience.Due to the nature of human vision and the psycho visual effect they induce ,distort and alter our perception of what truly is. Choices regarding color and value come from a singular question : “What does this drawing needs of me?”.Even when it comes to personal work and confronting internal turmoil, the

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same question is asked.The answer provided differs ,yet it is grounded both as a tool of my craft and expression of personal aesthetic.

probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative and especially the visual unity for your works?

Your approach condenses both traditional techniques and contemporary sensitiveness and your works are pervaded with an effective narrative, that draws the viewers into an immersive experience. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to

As an artist you are a narrator and a storyteller.A human communing with other humans,the viewers.It is required from us to draw from every source possible in order to effectively do so. Drawing starts with abstract thinking and

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visualization of ideas forming parts of the narration. As the late Franz West did in his installations, your work shows unconventional features in the way it deconstructs perceptual images in order to assemble them in a collective imagery, urging the viewers to a process of self-reflection. Artists are always interested in probing to see what is beneath the surface: maybe one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your view about this?

Paul Klee proposed a view of the physical world that transcended the limits of visual perception.Questioning if there is more beneath the surface expands the limits of your perception and allows you to answer the questions yourself,both as a creator and a viewer. Your practice shows freedom of composition that reveals an insightful attention to contemporary sensitiveness: how would you describe the relationship between Tradition and Contemporariness in your works? Do you think that there's still a dichotomy between such apparently different aspects of art?

Artistic tradition is the foundation in which you build upon,principles and ideas that have survived the tests and challenges of time.Contemporariness is very relative and fleeting yet as a sensibility or even a set of criteria can establish you as a man of your times.The division of those two is quite unnecessary as the one is a result of linear progression of the other.

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One of the hallmarks of your works is the capability to establish direct relation with the audience, deleting any conventional barrier between the idea you explore and who receipt and consequently elaborate them. So before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

In this time and age you can get your work seen by a very large number of people very quickly.Among the general populace exists your audience,you just have to find them in order to establish the connection between you and them.This relationship is highly dynamic,pleasing one kind of viewer will alienate others.By avoiding this dilemma and staying true to your personal visions you achieve two very important things.You can be content in making the art that you desire and knowing there are actual people that care and communicate with that. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Kyriakos: would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

As of July 2016 I have graduated from the School of Fine Arts of University of Western Macedonia.The first order of business is to prepare the second course of my personal creation, Periapsis Project in continuation of the first endeavor to introduce concept art and the process of visual development in the Greek art

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scene.At the same time I will be partaking in a series of exhibitions and hopefully filling up multitude of sketchbooks.Longterm I intend to see my work created into a series of designed items and bridge the gap with the recent advancements of 3D printing.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

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J ason Shin Lives and works in Los Angeles, California, USA

An artist's statement

he word photography comes from Greek

roots that mean painting with light, and I see photography as a medium just like painting-ink on paper. I represent the mundane and ordinary with photography. The 'Cube' series began after moving to a new home in Los Angeles. The images in the series are a mix of still life and abstraction. With both direct and indirect light, details of the ordinary become more distinct. These

details are what I believe only the camera can capture. Ongoing series, “Drop” is inspired by Jackson Pollack’s Drip painting and is created under the artist’s intention to capture the descending object. Without revealing that the descending object, displayed enlarged, is excrement of bird, Shin’s work provokes curiosity. The artist intends to capture abstract images created not from the artificial but from the natural.

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Jason Shin An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

Los Angeles artist and photographer Jason Shin's work accomplishes an insightful exploration of the details of daily experience to challnege the viewers' perceptual parameters, drawing the spectatorship through a multilayered experence. In his recent Drop series that we'll be discussing in the folowing pages, he draws inspiration from Pollock's Drip painting to capture abstract images created not from the artificial but from the natural. One of the most convincing aspect of Shin's practice is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of highlighting an unexpectedly wide variety of details that make up the greater picture to create works marked out with autonomous aesthetics. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his multifaceted artistic production. Hello Jason and welcome to ARTiculAction: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and you hold a BFA with emphasis in Visual Communication and Photography, that you received from

the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. How does this experience influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your Corean roots and your current life in Los Angeles inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

SAIC is very much focused on contemporary fine art. School encouraged me to break the boundary of becoming a photographer. But before making art, I interned at Hasted Kraeutler the experiences helped much clearer insight into the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art-making processes. Los Angeles was the only place that I could start on my Drop series. Car culture is so dominant here. Your photography is marked out with a captivating realism that reveals an unconventional still consistent sense of unity. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.justcontemporary.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: when asking you to tell us something about your usual set up and process,

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we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that a symbiosis between such variety viewpoints is the only way to express and convey the ideas you explore.

Sometimes having variety viewpoints is the only way to show different elements of my ideas in abstractions in Photography. This naturally became my process because of randomized size in "drops" and "lights" (Drop and Cube) in my work. For this special edition of ARTiculAction we have selected Drop, a stimulating series that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention about your successful attempt to capture the descending object is the way you triggers the viewers' perceptual parameter to provoke curiosity and to establish direct relations: when walking our readers through the genesis of Drop, would you shed light on the way your main sources of inspirations?

I was interning at Christie's Education NY, an assignment was to find a specific pollack painting from a black and white photograph. I became extremely frustrated, looking through 100â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s of Pollock, and thought to myself that this is all bird shit. So this project really was birthed from frustration. We definitely love the way Drop invites the viewers to an action of fulfillment to create a compelling non linear narrative that establishes direct relations with the viewers. German multidisciplinary artist

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Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular what is the role of memory when conceving the narrative that pervades your series?

I tried symbolic meanings, but it was unnescessary in my work. As an artist, it is a task know when to stop developing ideas further. My narrative is non linear. I want to explore ideas of abstractions of natural and the everyday or mundane. As you have remarked once, you aim to capture abstract images created not from the artificial but from the natural: we find particularly interesting the way you provide the notion of dirct experience with a new level of signficance, inducing the viewers to extract abstract features from everyday life. So we would take this occasion to ask you what role does personal experience plays in your process: do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

I wanted to highlight the simplicity. With both direct and indirect light, details of the ordinary become more distinct. I think that it is difficult to disconnect process and experience, but because my work isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t about a symbolism based narrative, it becomes more effective when experimenting with how to break rules or boundaries.

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Your Drop series is inspired by Jackson Pollackâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Drip painting: would you elaborate this influence for our readers? In particular, how would you define the boundary between Painting and Photography?

The word photography comes from Greek roots that mean painting with

light, and I see photography as a medium just like painting--ink on paper. I represent the mundane and ordinary with photography. The images in the series are a mix of still life and abstraction. Extreme details are what I believe only the camera can capture.

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Another interesting series from yours that has particularly impacted on us and on which we would like to

spend some words is entitled Cube, that began after moving to a new home in Los Angeles: condensing

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both abstraction and elements from still life, this project is pervaded with an effective narrative, that draws the viewers into an immersive experience. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative and especially the visual unity for your works?

Main focus is light (cubism/abstraction) at the same time natural and a bit of the unnatural as well. As a Photographer it is odd to talk about light but in this case, I have to. As the late Franz West did in his installations, Cube shows unconventional features in the way it deconstructs perceptual images in order to assemble them in a collective imagery, urging the viewers to a process of self-reflection. As you have remarked once, with both direct and indirect light, details of the ordinary become more distinct: artists are always interested in probing to see what is beneath the surface: maybe one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your view about this?

In relation to my artwork, It is about perception and our human inability to observe or appreciate light. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s any symbolic narrative, or deeper meaning that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m intentionally exploring about our inner nature.

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Over these years your works have been showcased in several occasions, including your recent participation to LA Art Show 2016 and at the Centre Culturel Coreen. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to urge viewers to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

I like provoking some curiosity in my work. I also enjoy audience figuring out things for themselves. I like to constantly remind audience that they are looking at "Abstract" Art. I been referancing Jackson Pollock and his technique. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Jason. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I'll continue on my Cube series, separate it into two sections. One closer to still-life, and the other to pure abstraction. I've been shooting macro shot of raw meats. I think I'll explore my interest in random but calculated shape or form. Thanks!

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

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Mark Ramos Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

An artist's statement

ark Ramos is a Brooklynbased new media artist. He works with the mediums of physical computing (using computers to sense and react to the physical world), software programming and digital sculpture to create interactive, installation pieces. His work is often concerned with using digital technology as an intermediary to explore the intangible. Mark chooses to work with technology because of itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to make visible, audible or thinkable that which is normally hidden away.

Mark has exhibited his work locally both in New York City and San Francisco, including the

inaugural exhibition of Arsenal Gallery in Brooklyn and as part of multiple exhibitions at Artist Television Access. He is adjunct faculty at the School of Visual Arts and Hudson College teaching Animation, Video, and Film classes. You can also find him playing drums for various bands in Brooklyn.

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Mark Ramos An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator articulaction@post.com

Highly communicative in its materic concreteness, Last Night I Dreamt of a Hollow Earth is a stimulating work by Brooklyn-based new media artist Mark Ramos. While walking the viewers through an unconventional exploration of the notions of thought and memory, Ramos accomplishes the difficult task of challenging the viewers' perceptual parameters, walking them through the liminal area in which the ambivalence between materialy and the abstract solves it into an unexpected point of convergence. We are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to his multifaceted artistic production. Hello Mark and welcome to ARTiculAction: to start this interview, we would like to pose you a couple of question about your background. Are there any particular experiences that influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? In particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

I was in college and just beginning my â&#x20AC;&#x153;adultâ&#x20AC;? art career when using computers as part of the art making process became widespread. I had of course, familiarity with email and chatrooms and video games, but prior to this, I was taught how to manually cut film on a flatbed editor, use analog techniques to edit video, shoot footage with actual film cameras and handprocess this film in a dark room. Many of these techniques have since been superceded by digital processes.

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I remember Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, and Illustrator significantly changing the way I approached and made art. I think being part of this transitional generation in regards to digital technology significantly affected my relationship with my own work. It was during this time that I began to look for ways that the video and film pieces I was making could occupy different spaces than just on a monitor or screen. I wanted to find ways that these electronic environments could assert themselves into the physical world and was drawn to interactivity and installation work. This practice also led to questions about the role of technology in our lives and our own futures. My work still addresses these issues. You are a versatile artist and your approach to new media reveals a stimulating search of an organic symbiosis between a variety of viewpoints. The results convey together a coherent sense of unity that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.markhramos.org in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express and convey the ideas you explore.

I think when working with interactivity and installation, it becomes necessary to not only approach ideas from a multiplicity of perspectives but to use a multiplicity of

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techniques to come up with solutions and address aesthetic and conceptual issues. One of the reasons I identify with â&#x20AC;&#x153;new mediaâ&#x20AC;? is because it embraces a multidisciplinary practice. I have always incorporated different techniques and the use of different materials in my work. Making my work is often comprised of several stages and steps. For example, I may need to write code in order to program microprocessors for sensors, then work with 3D modeling software to rapid prototype sculptural elements, and then solder circuitry all for the same piece. Perhaps this multidisciplinary approach is also reflective of the hypermodern times in which we live. For this special issue of ARTiculAction we have selected Last Night I Dreamt of a Hollow Earth a stimulating project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that is series of 3d printed sculptures generated from the brainwave patterns of dreams. What has at once caught our attention of this work is the way your inquiry into the perceptual sphere creates an harmonic mix between a vivid, performative approach to the evocative reminders conveyed by the ideas you combine together: when walking our readers through the genesis of these works, would you shed a light about usual process?

This project began as a means to manifest intangible things like dreams, thoughts, and memories as physical objects. I was interested in taking these abstract concepts and crystallizing them into solid form. I was specifically interested in this transition from intangible to tangible, this act of pulling something from an ephemeral space into the physical world. Through a microresidency at

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ThoughtWorks in New York City, I was able to access the technology, and devote the time I needed to realize the piece. I began by experimenting with available BCI (braincomputerinterface) technology. I had to figure out how these devices worked, and then how to get and use the data I needed. I ended up using the Muse, brainsensing headband because it was easy to analyze the brainwave data received and it also would output the EEG data through OSC (open sound control) protocol. Using a library/language called openFrameworks, I wrote a program that 1) listened for the OSC signals coming from the BCI and 2) used this data to plot points in 3D space and create a virtual shape. I was able to export this 3D virtual form as a .ply file to a 3D printer and to make the 3D printed sculptures. I asked participants to talk about a particularly memorable dream while wearing the BCI. These readings were used to create the virtual shapes that were then 3D printed out as digital sculptures. I experimented with different 3D printing materials like resin and nylon before using ABS (polymer plastic) for the sculptures. I would like to further experiment with more expensive 3D print materials like metals and ceramics. As the late Franz West did in his installations, last_night_i_dreamt_of_a_hollow_earth shows unconventional features in the way it deconstructs perceptual images in order to inquiry into the notion of thought and memory, providing these abstract concepts with a tactile feature. How would you define the relationship between memory and experience?

This is an interesting question as it relates to this piece. When I first showed this series, I found that people were very interested in assigning meaning to the physical forms. That is to say, people wanted to interpret the

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forms almost like a graph and find some correlation between the physical shape and the dream or memory being rendered. I was interested in the forms more as artobjects, sculptures and deliberately stayed away from assigning an analytical meaning. I think memory and experience both exist on a very significant level for most people and in a lot of ways transgress both physical and conceptual boundaries. We think of these concepts as being tangible and as much a part of our reality as the walls in a gallery. last_night_i_dreamt_of_a_hollow_earth provides the viewers with an immersive experience: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience and how much importance has improvisation in your process?

For me, as an artist specifically working with interactivity, the participant/viewerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perception is an integral aspect of my work. The viewerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s participation completes my pieces. I am also interested in perhaps creating spaces where individuals can think more critically about technology. I think, as a technological society, we have the tendency to accept the role of technology in our lives as products that are developed by corporations for us to buy and not think about other possibilities. I am always thinking about the experience and perception of the participant when I make my work. However, it is impossible to predict every (inter)action so the unexpected and the improvised contribute to the more compelling results from a piece. In your practice you often use modern technlogy as a Brain Computer Interface

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in last_night_i_dreamt_of_a_hollow_earth: this work also accomplishes an insightful investigation about the interstitial space that highlights the ubiquitous dichotomies between physical and digital existence: in a certain sense, this work urges us to rethink about the notion of materiality itself. Our everchanging society are marked out with an ephemeral feature that is constantly emphasized by the impetuous way modern technology has nowadays came out on the top: this has also dramatically revolutionized the concept of Art, that just few years ago it was a tactile materialization of an idea. We are sort of convinced that new media will definitely fill the apparent dichotomy between art and technology and we will dare to say that Art and Technology are going to assimilate one to each other... what's your point about this?

I hope that art and technology integrate more into one another. I think that as technology becomes more accessible to the public, and to artists, we will see new media develop as a more visible art presence. I think we have a tendency to see art and technology as disparate, but as technology becomes more and more an everyday aspect of our lives, the art we make will reflect this development as a society. As you have remarked once, you use digital technology as an intermediary to explore the intangible: in your exploration you often use reminders to symbols and evocative elements, as you did in Totem: German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative and especially the visual unity for your works?

Since my work focuses on interactivity and passive or active participation, I depend on

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the participant/viewer to fully develop the narrative. As I have said, I like to think about my work as facilitating an encounter with abstract concepts, so the participant’s interaction completes the narrative. Augury invites is an interactive work that invited the viewers to a multilayered experience, constructing a concrete aesthetic from experience, working on both subconscious and conscious level. So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is absolutely indispensable as part of the creative process? Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

I think contemporary art relies on making work somehow personally relevant to the artist and viewer. Postmodern art rejects the idea of an empirical, formal purity and encouraged artists to embrace this idea of the “personal is political.” So, I think the personal experience, especially identity, is difficult if not totally impossible to remove from the artmaking process. Within this idea of contemporary art, I believe the identity of the artist is a significant factor in understanding the work. Over these years you works have been internationally exhibited in several occasions, including your recent participation at filmideo, Newark Museum: one of the hallmarks of your works is the capability to establish direct relations with the audience, deleting any conventional barrier between the idea you explore and who receipt and consequently elaborate them. So before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you

consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

Since the majority of my work is interactive, I always keep the idea of the participant’s experience in mind. However, I recognize that my work comes from a place that is rooted in art and technology. In response, I suppose that I strive to create multilayered pieces that can be understood or approached from a multiplicity of perspectives. That is to say, someone without a background in art and technology should also be able to establish some form of connection with my work. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Mark: would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

You are very welcome. Lately, my practice has been focused on making physical art objects. I think because I work with technology I have been producing a lot of screenbased works and have become more interested in creating objects that can have several existences; a physical presence, a virtual presence, a conceptual presence, etc. I have also begun working more with 3D software and virtual reality now that VR technology is more accessible.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator articulaction@post.com

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Liam Herne r

J Liam Herne

Liam Herne is an artist who predominately works with photographic media video. Lives and works and in Dallas, USA He has shown his work in various locations around the UK and Australia. He currently works in Arts Education and is based in Brisbane, Australia. Herne has two An artist's statement strands to his practice:

The first sees him combining abstract expressionist experimentation with photographic henin I was fourto years old, I had processes order construct a near death experience images somewhere betweenwhile having and an open heart surgery. photography painting.

My heart stopped beating, my body The second hisa exploration of temperature wentislow, heart-lung how we communicate machine keptinteract me alive.and Coming back from thatwith threshold, knew that opposites are each Iother online. He uses bound together that I to encompass satire and and humour explore the both. It left me fascinated with edgesthese and human condition. Although yearning for meaning. My works themes, are born the are seemingly disparate from that same simultaneous sense of as artist tries to interweave them vertigo and stability.

much as possible.

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don’t really know where my love of art comes from but it was clear from an early age that I would do something art based as a career.

Multidisciplinary artist Liam Herne's work explores the notions of identity and perception of the self: his work could be considered as a visual biography that draws the viewers through a multilayered experience. In Selfless he urges us to recontextualize the notion of Self in relation to the technospehere and media drive-sociatey thay marks out our unstable contemporary age. One of the most impressive aspects of Herne's work is his successful attempt to trigger the viewers' most limbic parameters, to challenge their perceptual categories: we are really pleased to introduce our readers to his multifaceted artistic production.

Going to university to study art made a big impact on how I viewed art and opened up my eyes as to the sort of art someone could make. While I was studying I experimented with lots of different media and art genres but since leaving university my art and how I make it has been heavily influenced by my circumstances. When I graduated I didn’t have a studio space or a steady job so I just made videos or did performances as these were cheap to produce. I’m lucky now that I have access to equipment and facilities such as a darkroom and so I have a wider range of tools to help me make my work.

Hello Liam, thanks for joining us and welcome to ARTiculAction: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any experiences that have particularly influenced your evolution as an artist? In particular how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

My approach when making art is to try to make something that can be understood or appreciated by someone who isn’t necessarily interested in art. I find sometimes that art can be quite elitist and so I think its important for it to be relatable while still challenging. I try to work in the space between the two.

I grew up in a town called Watford in south east England. It’s a pretty ordinary town with not much going on in terms of culture but its very close to London. I

Aesthetically I try to keep my work as minimalist as possible. I only like to have things in my work that need to be there. If it doesn’t add to the work then it can be removed or discarded. That’s why I

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work in black and white a lot as I find colour can be distracting.

experimented with helped to enhance the original concept I had imagined.

Your practice is marked out with a multidisciplinary approach and your work involves both photographic media and video, revealing an organic investigation about the expressive potential of image manipulation as well as the theme of human interaction and communication. The results convey together a coherent and consistent sense of unity: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.hernevisualarts.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.

For this special edition of ARTiculAction we have selected Selfless, an animation responding to the selfie that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention of your inquiry into the elusive notion of Identity is the way it triggers the viewers' perceptual parameters to rethink the notion of self: when walking our readers through the genesis of this project, we would like to ask you how did you deelope the initial idea.

No, I think my approach is one of many possible ways to explore these ideas. I think there are multiple ways you can make and present an artwork and its just a case of finding the right media to do the piece justice. When I come up with a concept I try to think what the most effective way to present it would be and how I want the work to be viewed. I regularly combine disciplines when I am creating as I like the playful element this brings to my practice. With photographic work I sometimes struggle with deciding whether I should use digital or analogue, but in these circumstances I try to think about how the media will effect the way the work is read and if that’s something I want to happen. In the case of my most recent series Selfless, the combination of media and the different processes I

The initial idea for Selfless came about from being on facebook and seeing this constant stream of selfies people were posting online. When you see so many of the same things they become quite tired and formulaic- all the people in the pictures seemed to be posed in the same way and all with a select few expressions- happy, seductive or an attempt at looking cool. I wanted to subvert the genre in some way so I just printed out some selfies from the internet and began to draw over them with marker pen. I ended up with some semi-abstract figurative drawings which I liked so then I began to play with them further and tried to use different processes to see where I could push the work. I took the drawings into the darkroom and made photograms, which I then turned back into drawings, which then became digital images until I ended up with an animation. I don’t usually take one idea and stretch it as far as I did with Selfless but I’m really pleased with the results. Instead of a couple of images I’ve managed to create a whole body of work.

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When questioning the notion of Self in our unstable contemporary age, Selfless accomplishes an interesting process of deconstruction that captures nonsharpness, going beyond the elusive relationship between experience and identity in our globalized mundanity. So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Personally for me my own experiences usually always inform my work in some way. Before moving to Australia a lot of my work was autobiographical and was about specific events in my life. Now my work is slightly more detached and more broad in its focus but still contains my perspective. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure if the personal experience is indispensable to creation because I would think there are some artists who make things that are about ideas or events that havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t actually happened to them. In a way it might make an artwork less biased if it had no personal influence over it, but in another way it might be seen as fake or soulless. I think I just work the way I work and its just a natural process. I doubt that I will ever change my methods. Your approach also accomplishes an effective investigation about the relationship between imagination dued to the way the viewers re-elaborate their personal substratums and the universal imagery that you subvert to create a an effective non linear narrative. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic

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strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative for your works?

I think my work contains both symbolic and psychological elements. My series Meme is comprised of one symbol and text which aims to provoke an emotional or psychological response in the viewer. As for narrative, I think in my new work I don’t have much control over how the work is read. For example, in Meme the work contains the text from social media posts and news stories which I didn’t make- I just select which bits to use. This could be construed as me controlling a narrative but each image is part of a series and so I want the work to be seen as one big piece. The work is designed to be read as a whole. I do like the idea that if I curate the memes in a different way each time I exhibit them then the meaning or narrative of the piece will constantly change. Again, with Selfless I’m using other people’s images and if anything I feel I’m taking away the original narrative and leaving it up to the viewer to create their own. However, showing the work in a different setting can really change how its read. I showed Selfless the animation in an exhibition where the work was down an alleyway. It was projected in pitch black on to a garage door and it looked really menacing and moody. I thought it looked great and it added a whole new psychological edge to the work that I hadn’t thought of before.

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Your work is often pervaded with subtle but effective humour, that you effectively use to explore the hman condition: while lots of artists from the contemporary scene, as Ai WeiWei or more recently Jennifer Linton, use to convey open socio-political criticism in their works, you seem more interested to hint the direction, inviting the viewers to a process of self-reflection that may lead to subvert a variety of usual, almost stereotyped cultural categories. Do you consider that your works could be considered political in a certain sense or did you seek to maintain a more neutral approach? And in particular, what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play in the contemporary society?

Your right, my work hints at the political but I don’t want it to stray too far into that area. There are lots of great artists who make powerful work that is clear in its political leanings but I feel sometimes that can just lead to the artist telling the viewer their opinion on an issue. I try to present a neutral view in order to ask the question; “What do you think about this?”. This I hope in turn will get the viewer to question their beliefs or actions. When someone’s work just says this is what I think of this the only real thing that happens is you agree or you don’t.

Selfless

I think an artist can play whatever role they want to in contemporary society, whether it be political or not, but at this point in time, I am more interested in allowing others to relate to my artwork in a way that is meaningful to them.

between physical and digital existence you invite us to rethink the notion of materiality itself. Our everchanging society are marked out with an ephemeral feature that is constantly emphasized by the impetuous way modern technology has nowadays came out on the top: this has also dramatically revolutionized the concept of Art, that just few years ago it was a tactile materialization of an idea. We are sort of convinced that new media will definitely fill the apparent dichotomy between art and technology and we will dare to say that Art and Technology are going to assimilate one to each other... what's your point about this?

Exploring the interstitial space that highlights the ubiquitous dichotomies

I think the gap between art and technology is constantly shrinking,

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I miss you

Driving trucks and Shit

maybe its not even there anymore. There are so many great artists doing incredible things with new digital medias and the invention of new technologies are changing the way art is made. I think the assimilation has already happened and its exciting to think of the all the crazy and interesting ways that art will be viewed in the future.

public sphere and the role of art in public space?

Drawing the spectatorship through an immersive experience, you seem also to address them to explore the relationshio between the inner and the outside: how do you see the relationship between

I believe that if artists are encouraged to create engaging and interactive art experiences in public spaces then this will promote the discussion of ideas and societal issues amongst the public. I think that its definitely a positive thing as long as its done in the right way and the art doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take away from the issues and vice versa. Over these years your works have been internationally exhibited in several

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language is used in a particular context?

I think the great thing about exhibiting work is seeing how it is received by an audience. When I make a new artwork I don’t really know where its going to be displayed so I guess I can only use language or visual language that I understand. Obviously, I hope that it is relatable to others but sometimes if its not in can be quite interesting. I had the Meme series showing in Bali as part of the Micro Galleries project in a market in Denpasar. I knew my audience would speak in Balinese so I translated the text on the Memes accordingly. Apparently a lot of the words didn’t translate very well and so a lot of the text came across as gibberish. I thought this was really funny and its quite fun to think that my work confused a lot of people on their day out shopping. Picasso or not?

locations, both in Australia and in the United Kingdom and you recently participated at Alienation, at the James Oliver Gallery, Philadelphia. One of the hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Liam. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I have a couple of solo shows coming up towards the end of the year so that’s very exciting and also Alienation will continue to tour around the US and Europe. As for my work evolving - I don’t really know. I’ll just go with the flow and see what happens.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator articulaction@post.com

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