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ISEA2013

7-16 June 2013


 Da Contents H2

July 24 2013
Past-present tensions
Keith Gallasch, Naala-Ba (Look Future), Carriageworks and ISEA2013

July 3 2013
Data noise & the limits of dance
Keith Gallasch, Myriam Gourfink & Kaspar Toeplitz, Breathing Monster

June 26 2013
Nailing the virtual
Virginia Baxter, Keith Gallasch, The Portals

Night work
Keith Gallasch, Embodied Media, Night Rage

Palpable virtualities
Keith Gallasch, Paula Dawson, Holoshop: Drawing and Perceiving in Depth

The big connect
Somaya Langley, The Portals

Transformational walking
Anne Phillips, Long Time, No See?

June 18 2013
Musical multiverses
Gail Priest, Polysonics

Rainbow over ISEA
Keith Gallasch, Electric Nights

realtime tv @ ISEA2013: Zydnei, Troy Innocent

June 17 2013
If a system fails in a forest, is anybody listening?
Urszula Dawkins, If a system fails in a forest…, 107 Projects

June 16 2013
In the digital age, love your stationery obsession
Urszula Dawkins, Durational Book

Painting by algorithms
Keith Gallasch, Ernest Edmonds: Light Logic

June 15 2013
Home, sweet home
Urszula Dawkins, disSentience, Sleeth, SelgasCano, Tin Sheds

Pop up pleasure zones
Gail Priest, Electronic Art Pop-Ups, The Rocks

June 14 2013
Aural ecologies, mechanical and musical
Urszula Dawkins, EchoSonics, UTS Gallery

June 14 2013
Heck, baby, I shoulda seen it comin…
Urszula Dawkins, The Very Near Future, Alex Davies

More than meets the eye
Virginia Baxter, Keith Gallasch, Point of View

New tools and old skool grammars
Gail Priest, Macrophonics II

realtime tv @ ISEA2013: The very near future, Alex Davies

Start by leaping off a small stool
Urszula Dawkins, ISEA Closing Keynote Address: Julian Assange

June 13 2013
A curative dose of spontaneity
Lauren Carroll Harris, pvi collective, Deviator

M e d i a a r t t h e n a n d n o w
Darren Tofts, Catching Light, Campbelltown Arts Centre

Olfaction, decay & speculation
Gail Priest, Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris, Ian Haig, Nandita Kumar, Verge Gallery

ART, WELLNESS & DEATH
Riding the theta waves
Urszula Dawkins, Theta Lab, George Poonkhin Khut and James Brown


Run for your lives [2]
Keith Gallasch, Running the City, COFA, UNSW

To re-map and reclaim
Lisa Gye, Mapping Culture [panel]

Turning the media back on itself
Lisa Gye, Mark Hosler, Adventures in Illegal Art

June 12 2013
Outside the labyrinth…looking in at someone waving
Urszula Dawkins, SoundLabyrinth, Mark Pedersen and Roger Alsop

realtime tv @ ISEA2013: semipermeable (+), SymbioticA

Run for your lives [1]
Keith Gallasch, Marnix de Nijs, Run Motherfucker Run

June 12 2013
The uncanny in the gallery
Keith Gallasch, Mari Velonaki, Simon Ingram, Petra Gemeinboeck & Rob Saunders, Artspace

June 11 2013
realtime tv @ ISEA2013: EchoSonics, UTS Gallery

The science and art of tangible things
Urszula Dawkins, Synapse: A Selection, Powerhouse

Touch me there
Gail Priest, ISEA Artist talks: Siu, Baumann, Velonaki

June 10 2013
Being Stelarc
Gail Priest, Stelarc: Meat, Metal, Code: Engineering affect and aliveness

Life and death, and the membranes inbetween
Urszula Dawkins, semipermeable (+), SymbioticA

realtime tv @ ISEA2013: Catching Light, Campbelltown Arts Centre

June 9 2013
'Pure' experience, in the round
Urszula Dawkins, Pure Land, iCinema

Data lives
Gail Priest, Genevieve Bell, Mark Hosler, Paolo Cirio & Alessandro Ludovico

realtime tv @ ISEA2013: Velonaki, Ingram, Gemeinboeck & Saunders, Artspace

June 8 2013
Knowing your place in Cartesian space
Gail Priest, Ryoji Ikeda, datamatics [ver 2.0]

Stars and starlings, pixels and picknickers
Urszula Dawkins, Ryoji Ikeda, datamatics [ver 2.0] & test pattern

 

Marnix de Nijs, Run Motherfucker Run Marnix de Nijs, Run Motherfucker Run
An agoraphobic rendition of a gymnasium treadmill, Run Motherfucker Run, confronts you on arrival at the centrepiece of Running for Sydney at the College of Fine Arts. At least three times as wide as the conventional machine and four times as long (5m x 2m), equipped with sidebars you are forbidden to touch, a low mattress at the rear (in case you’re swept off your feet) and a giant screen (8m x 4m) in front of you displaying urban scenes filmed from moving vehicles, this interactive installation not only offers a sense of virtual exploration but a test of physical capacity and especially balance.

The latter comes into play when you have to choose between two sets of flickering images, right and left, to determine which kind of ‘scape you’d like to enter. To do so you have to step in the direction of choice while the treadmill pulls you back if you drop pace. Once you’ve regained equilibrium (some users don’t) the screen fills with near life-size streets, alleys, docks and a brilliant red running track among other cityscapes.

I walk hesitantly and then jog a little, following tram tracks on a wide neon-lit street. But the treadmill seems to have a hyperactive tendency: my small increase in pace triggers much greater speed, because I’ve moved closer to the screen’s sensor. On instruction from the sidelines I drop back and the machine slows and, giddy, I stagger off and the screen image dims and disappears because I’m no longer powering it. It’s not called Run Motherfucker Run for nothing. The artist, Marnix de Nijs, suggests that the work can evoke a sense of being pursued.

Marnix de Nijs, Run Motherfucker Run Marnix de Nijs, Run Motherfucker Run
A visit to his website reveals that “the distance you run on the conveyor belt is the same as you will cover in the virtual city in front of you. By quickening your pace, the acceleration of the belt, as well as the speed of the image, increases and, depending on your running behaviour and the directional choices you make, the progress of the film is determined” (http://www.marnixdenijs.nl/run-motherfucker-run.htm).

Media artist Keith Armstrong arrives, leaps onto the treadmill and shows us how it’s done with an energetic workout—he’d enjoyed Run Motherfucker Run years ago in Rotterdam and knew how it operated. It can ‘run’ at up to 30km per hour. Next, three ten-year-old boys easily engage with this outsize substitute for the real-street experience. Gymnasium proprietors might well take note but hip-hoppers in search of a bit of Snoop Dogg gangsta angst (the work has the same title as the song) could find it a tad tame, even though the musical score is full of ominous beats and rumbles—just why is not clear. As in some other works in Running the City there’s an element of risk and romance attached to racing through the unoccupied realms of the city at night, as well as a topical fascination with fitness and speed.

If you can’t get to Run Motherfucker Run take a look at an unsteady-cam rendition on YouTube or a clearer account of the installation on Marnix de Nij’s own site.


Marnix de Nijs, Run Motherfucker Run, Running for Sydney, Curator Felicity Fenner, CoFA, UNSW, 7 June-20 July; http://www.isea2013.org/

This article first appeared on RT's ISEA2013-in RealTime blog

© Keith Gallasch; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]

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