claudiahart-mixedreality

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Paradox: The Body in the Age of AI 

Miller Institute for Contemporary Art at Carnegie Mellon University

October 5, 2018 - February 3, 2019

Curated by Elizabeth Chodos

Artists: Zach Blas, Brian Bress, Nick Cave, Kate Cooper, Stephanie Dinkins, Jes Fan, Claudia Hart, Eunsu Kang, Jillian Mayer, Sarah Oppenheimer, Siebren Versteeg

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The Flower Matrix

Lawrence Art Center, Lawrence KS, curated by Ben Ahlvers, 9/17-10/27, 2018. 

4′ x 50′ Installation

Fifty 9″x9″ paper-porcelain plates (hand-thrown by Kimi Kim) with photo glaze, mounted on Moving-Image textured, fiber wallpaper.

All patterns programmed to trigger The Looking Glass, a custom, discrete augmented-reality application for smart device.

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Proposition for a Flower Matrix Pod, using mixed realities: augmented-reality fabrics, wallpapers and ceramics, to create decor for an immersive environment as sculpture for the Flower Matrix VR Oculus-Touch world.

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Claudia Hart

THE FLOWER MATRIX

Presented by TRANSFER GALLERY at Wallplay’s VR Speakeasy

Inside Gallery 151’s basement, November 30 – January 28th  2017

With The Flower Matrix, Claudia Hart proposes a new kind of liminal space – a seductive environment for viewing her immersive world.  Mixed-reality architecture becomes fantastical, embellished by decorative elements embracing an aesthetic of the fake in which technology has replaced nature, sugary sweet and chemically toxic in equal measures.

The Flower Matrix mixed reality chamber from Claudia Hart is presented at Wallplay’s VR “speakeasy” in the basement of Gallery 151 as part of the TRANSFER VR Commission, a platform for supporting artists who are expanding the potentials for embodiment through considered physical encounters.

3D visualizations: Claudia Hart / Photography: Walter Woldarczyk

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Lost in the Flower Matrix

1 minute-20 second excerpt of 15-minute, 3-channel installation using Flower Matrix VR environment. By Claudia Hart, with music composed by Edmund Campion and cello, Danielle DeGruttola, with vocals by Claudia Hart and Mikey McParlane. Special thanks to Jennifer Muraoka.

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Inside the Flower Matrix

Immersive augmented wallpaper install, House 17, New YorkElectronic Art Festival, Governor’s Island, New York, curated by Carol Parkinson and produced by Harvestworks, with audio installation by Edmund Campion and support from Jeff Lubow, The Center for New Music And Audio Technology, U.C. California Berkeley. May 26-July.  Photo in the real, and gifs show what you see through your smart phone camera when looking through the Looking Glass custom augmented-reality app.

Photo by Kellyrae Aldrich

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Inside the Flower Matrix

Immersive augmented-reality wallpaper installation at the Harvestworks media festival, May 26 through Labor Day, summer 2017, Governor’s Island, NY

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Flower Matrix Augmented- Reality Wallpaper and Ceramics Installation

Transfer Gallery at the Moving Image Art Fair, February 27 - March 2, 2017

The Flower Matrix is a liminal space, a metaphor for the Interweb.  Imagine it as an “Alice in Wonderland” world of inversion where the rational order of reason and technology turns in on itself. The Flower Matrix exists as a virtual reality environment for Oculus Rift and Vive platforms, but it also pushes into the real world as hand-thrown ceramics and wallpaper.  All of it is real decor for the imaginary Flower Matrix.

These decorative patterns  are in fact also computer codes – augmented-reality “tags” functioning like QR – that permit users, via Claudia Hart's custom-designed augmented reality app, to see her fantastical embedded animations. Using their smart devices, viewers can look through her Looking Glass app to glimpse a world of pulsing invisible flowers harvested from the Flower Matrix, covered with animated graphics culled from Internet signage, computer code, and emoji graphics. Programmed by the artist, Hart's multimedia craft objects are metaphors that unfold, using computer vision to reveal the intoxicating layers of new information - the symbols for power, money and addiction found free-floating on the Internet.

The artist's wallpapers, carpets, and ceramic tiles were specifically created as décor for a new kind of virtual-reality lounge, a seductive environment made for viewing her Flower Matrix VR world. In this lounge, mixed reality fantastical architecture is embellished by decorative elements that use an aesthetic of fake-ness where technology has replaced nature. It is both sugary sweet and chemically toxic in equal measures.

Ceramics hand-thrown by Kimi Kim, 3D visualizations by Claudia Hart, ceramics photography by Cassandra Davis

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Alice Unchained

Act III of The Alices

An Opera by Claudia Hart

In collaboration with composer Edmund Campion

Danced by Kristina Isabelle

And Choreographed by Claudia Hart and Kristina Isabelle

Technical Producer, Stephane Dalbera; Costumes by Marco Magnus

Claudia Hart’s Alice world reinterprets the Lewis Carroll paradigm as a labyrinth, here envisioned as the an Interweb papered with flashing emoji icons for power, money, addiction and control.  The Internet as commercial highway, here the virtual world, exists paradoxically, also as a metaphor for a model of the mind and a site of transformation. 

In this, the third and final act of Hart’s Alice trilogy, we witness Alice personifying an allegory that is both political and psychological: the transformation of base drives through the process of sublimation into a more humane, insightful cultural consciousness. The dramaturgy of the performance moves from violence and brutality towards Alice’s ‘unchaining’ -  her liberation and enlightenment.

Alice is danced and co-choreographed by Kristina Isabelle in a set consisting of projections extracted from the Flower Matrix, a fantastical mixed-reality Alice-in-Wonderland world created as an interactive environment for both Oculus Rift and Vive platforms. Projections of the Flower Matrix are mapped onto a special costume designed by Marco Magnus as well as onto the walls of the Alice Unchained set. Choreography for Alice Unchained was first created for a digital avatar based on the body of Kristina Isabelle created by Isiah Den Beste.

The unique choreography for Alice Unchained mixes together two motion-captured performances. The first is a language based on the stylized movements used by professional wrestlers, here captured at Atopos, Paris, France, from a live performance by the actor, stuntman and professional wrestler Vincent. The second capture took place at the Game On studios in Montreal, Quebec, from an original dance choreographed and performed by Kristina Isabelle.   

The Flower Matrix itself is conceived after the ancient Roman mythological labyrinth of the Minotaur, an endless maze from which there is no escape. Hart’s game world is then covered with pulsing graphical patterns made from emoji, symbolic computer language and public signage icons, conjoined in animated patterns that throb and pulse hypnotically. Also inside the Flower Matrix are five original species of fantastical flowers designed by Hart and covered with the same pulsing patterns, randomly growing and decaying. This environment portrays an  esthetic of fakeness where technology has replaced nature, that is both sugary sweet and chemically toxic in equal measures.

The audio track is by Edmund Campion, composer and director of CNMAT, the Center for New Music And Audio Technology at University of California, Berkeley. Creative Unity programming is by Yan Zhou. The audio track remixes an original composition created by Edmund Campion for The Alices Walking, 2014, an opera/fashion show created during Hart’s honorary fellowship in 2014 at  the Eyebeam Center for Art + Technology in its original Chelsea quarters.  

The audio for Alice Unchained  includes vocals by Claudia Hart and Mikey McParlane created for The Alices, another performance by Claudia Hart, that premiered at The Arts Club of Chicago in 2013, with music by Edmund Campion and a libretto that evolved from Lewis Carroll's original Alice in Wonderland by using the Spinabook software designed by Alon Zouartez. 

Alice Unchained was inspired by the professional wrestler Isaias Velazquez, who trained Claudia Hart from 2015 to 2016. He developed a unique routine, March 2017, captured at Game On, and used as the basis of this work.

Dedicated to a beloved mother, Shirley Hart 1926-2016.

Motion Capture Studio : Game On, Montreal

Motion Capture Studio : Atopos, Paris

Post processing : Hetic Paris and Compiègne University of Technology

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Inside The Flower Matrix

Claudia Hart

The Flower Matrix, 2016

Augmented porcelain ceramics thrown by Kimi Kim,

Jacquard Loom woven fabrics, custom AR app,

Mixed Reality world for HTC Vive Platform

The Flower Matrix is a hybrid environment, using a custom augmented-reality application made for a physical installation in the real world.  This real-world environment is meant to be a viewing lounge for a virtual-reality, software world created on both the HTC Vive and Samsung Gear platforms.

The Flower Matrix uses Hart’s custom Looking Glass augmented-reality application that she built for smartphone and tablet.  It was created to view her patterned wallpapers, porcelain tiles and Jacquard carpets, and allows viewers to see animated flowers harvested from The Flower Matrix embedded in them. Hart’s decorative patterns are in fact also computer codes - augmented “tags” functioning like QR – that permit users to see fantastical animations embedded in them through their hand-held devices.

Hart’s Looking Glass augmented app makes visible a world of pulsing invisible flowers covered with animated graphics culled from Internet signage as well as  from computer code and emoji graphics. Programmed by the artist, her multimedia craft objects are metaphors that unfold, using computer-vision to reveal “magical” layers of new information.

Hart’s wallpapers, carpets and ceramic tiles were specifically created as décor for a new kind of  “virtual-reality” lounge, a seductive environment made for viewing her Flower Matrix VR world.  Hart’s intention is to build a liminal space in the real world where one might don VR goggles and view her parallel VR one:  The Flower Matrix mixed reality environment, a fantastical architecture that randomly grows and decays using an esthetic of fakeness where technology has replaced nature, both sugary sweet and chemically toxic in equal measures.

The audio track is by Edmund Campion, composer and director of CNMAT, the Center for New Music And Audio Technology at University of California, Berkeley. Creative programming by Yan Zhou, Chicago, IL. The Wrestler was performed inside the Flower Matrix by professional wrestler Isaias Valesquez at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts & Design, Ohio State University.  The Ballerina  was choreographed and performed by Kristina Isabelle, at Game On, Montreal, Quebec.

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The Flower Matrix Papers, 2016

Wallpaper for the custom Flower Matrix augmented-reality app

Installation on the Windows of The Current Museum, NY, in the exhibition Test Patterns, curated by Kelly Rae Aldrich, November 4 - December 15, 2016.

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The Flower Matrix Papers, 2016

Wallpaper for the custom Flower Matrix augmented-reality app

Installation at NEW REALITIES presented by Moving Image Immersive Media, hosted by the Moving Image Art Fair, September, 2016, Alt Art Space, Istanbul, Turkey

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Animation seen through The Flower Matrix custom augmented-reality application when viewing Flower Matrix wallpaper, textiles, and porcelain ceramic tiles (hand thrown by Kimi Kim)

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Claudia Hart The Flower Matrix, 2016

“QR Swirl” paper-porcelain plate, hand thrown by Kimi Kim, along with the animation embedded in it, as seen through The Looking Glass custom augmented-reality app. The Flower Matrix also exists as Jacquard tapestries and a virtual-reality world sitting on the HTC Vive platform.

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Claudia Hart The Flower Matrix, 2016

“Random Glitch” paper-porcelain plate, hand thrown by Kimi Kim, along with the animation embedded in it, as seen through The Looking Glass custom augmented-reality app. The Flower Matrix also exists as Jacquard tapestries and a virtual-reality world sitting on the HTC Vive platform.

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Claudia Hart The Flower Matrix, 2016

“Emoji Tartan” paper-porcelain plate, hand thrown by Kimi Kim, along with the animation embedded in it, as seen through The Looking Glass custom augmented-reality app. The Flower Matrix also exists as Jacquard tapestries and a virtual-reality world sitting on the HTC Vive platform.