Author: Erin Gee

esse magazine spring 2018

01.05.2018 , Articles, News

My work Swarming Emotional Pianos is featured in an essay written by Lindsay Leblanc in esse magazine 93 – Printemps / été 2018. The essay also features two media artists that I respect very much, David Rokeby and Jean-Pierre Gauthier.

Following is an abstract:

Sketchy Machines: Propositions Around Three Robotic Artworks

With the increasing presence of machines in public and private life, we continue to find new ways of articulating our relationships with them. In this article, the author uses the sketch as a frame of analysis for machine artworks by Canadian artists David Rokeby, Jean-Pierre Gauthier, and Erin Gee, and argues that the sketch is a fundamentally interdisciplinary and material state that accounts for machines’ complex engagements with human and other-than-human agents. Highlighting the sketch’s unfinished, imperfect, and adaptable qualities, the author attempts to define a “sketchy materiality” as it occurs in robotic art.
Lindsay LeBlanc

To learn more, or to purchase this magazine as a digital PDF  –
https://esse.ca/en/sketch

NRW Forum Dusseldorf

21.03.2018 , Exhibitions, News

My collaborative work with Sofian Audry, of the soone (2018) will be featured in an exciting exhibition at NRW Forum focused on contemporary art and AI, curated by Tina Sauerländer (peer to space).

Artists: Nora Al-Badri & Jan Nikolai Nelles (DE), Jonas Blume (DE) Justine Emard (FR), Carla Gannis (US), Sofian Audrey and Erin Gee (CAN), Liat Grayver (ISR/DE), Faith Holland (US), Tuomas A. Laitinen (FI), and William Latham (UK)

Initiated and hosted by Leoni Spiekermann (ARTGATE Consulting)
Curated by Tina Sauerlaender and Peggy Schoenegge
At NRW Forum Düsseldorf,  Ehrenhof 2, 40479 Düsseldorf, Germany

Preview: May 25 – 27, 2018, during Meta Marathon (Tickets/Apply)
Opening: June 8, 2018, 7pm

Exhibition: June 9 – August 19, 2018

We are particularly excited for this exhibition because we will debut a 3D printed enclosure for the work made especially by Gregory Perrin, who has previously worked with me on the sensor box for Project H.E.A.R.T. (2017) as well as an amazing box for installation of Swarming Emotional Pianos (2015).

NRW Forum website 

peer to space website

Algorithms that Matter @ IEM Graz

02.03.2018 , News, Research

I’ve been selected to be a featured artist in residence at the Institut für Elektronische Musik und Akustik (IEM) in Graz, Austria, participating in the Algorithms that Matter Residency from April-June 2018.

From the ALMAT website:

“Algorithms that Matter is an artistic research project by Hanns Holger Rutz and David Pirrò.  It aims at understanding the increasing influence of algorithms, translating them into aesthetic positions in sound, building a new perspective on algorithm agency by subjecting the realm of algorithms to experimentation.

Almat is grounded in the idea that algorithms are agents that co-determine the boundary between an artistic machine or “apparatus” and the object produced through this machine. The central question is: How do algorithmic processes emerge and structure the praxis of experimental computer music? The hypothesis is that these processes, instead of being separated from the composer—as generators and transformers of infinite shapes—exhibit a specific force that retroacts and changes the very praxis of composition and performance.”

 

I will use this opportunity to extend my reach into exciting new forms of embodied algorithmicity, developing new techniques for combining physiological markers of emotion with algorithmic agencies.

To learn more about the research and proceedings of this residency, check out scans of my sketchbook, and transcriptions of conversations between myself and the other residents/researchers at IEM, click here to access our open exposition on the Research Catalogue online platform.

 

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Digifest Toronto

02.03.2018 , Exhibitions, News

Thu, 04/26/2018 –
Sat, 04/28/2018

CORUS QUAY

25 Dockside Dr
ON M5A 1B6 Toronto


Presented by the Goethe-Institut Toronto
Curated by Tina Sauerländer (Berlin) and Erandy Vergara (Montreal)

Project H.E.A.R.T. by Erin Gee and Alex M. Lee
Enter Me Tonight by Li Alin
 
At the invitation of the Goethe-Institut curators Tina Sauerländer and Erandy Vergara have selected VR works for this year’s Toronto Digifest, including two recent pieces by Berlin-based Canadian artist Li Alin and Montreal-based artist Erin Gee in collaboration with South Korean-born, US-based artist Alex M. Lee. The artists use humor and irony to engage in controversial topics: emotions in first-person shooter video games and war in the case of Gee, and a futuristic exploration on human reproduction in technology-oriented times in the case of Alin.

The audience itself explores Gee’s H.E.A.R.T., a virtual work where you have to control your emotions to control the leading character in a war-related VR game, as well as Alin’s Enter Me Tonight, a VR environment engaged with issues on human reproduction, economy, biology, pornography and technology.

In a contextualizing event, the curators will speak about the history of VR and current trends and critical perspectives on this technology.

Digifest 2018 website

Event information courtesy of Goethe Institute

Mutek_img Montreal

02.03.2018 , Artist Talks, News

MUTEK_IMG

Forum on current practices in digital creation

Automation Rules Everything Around Me
Panel – Friday April 13, 2018 1:30pm

Chatter about AI and machine learning is ubiquitous, but are we mindful of how much automation shapes our experience of the world? Services like Uber offer convenience, but their ‘disruption’ throws labour and legislation paradigms into turmoil. Against this backdrop of techno-solutionism and anxiety, algorithms have become a key subject of artistic investigation — and creators have been exploring automation through robotics for decades. Starting with ‘the artist’s toolkit’ and working outwards to bigger culture machinations, this session will identify both possibilities and peril.

Speakers

Tim Maughan (CA)
Erin Gee (CA)

Date
April 13, 2018 13:30 – 15:00
Venue

Phi Centre – Space A
407 St-Pierre Street
Montréal, Canada

Free / RSVP required

New World Notes

26.02.2018 , Articles, Interviews, News

Project H.E.A.R.T. (2018) was written about by Wagner James Au in his New World Notes blog on virtual worlds. I’m particularly tickled about this because he is the official blogger for the virtual world Second Life, so I’m very honored that he finds the world of Project H.E.A.R.T. interesting!

Wagner James Au, consultant and author of “The Making of Second Life” (HarperCollins) and “Game Design Secrets” (Willey) reports on virtual worlds, VR and related topics — including augmented reality, virtual currency, games and game development, and their appearances in RL popular culture and politics.

Click here to see the article

Rhode Island College

25.02.2018 , Exhibitions, News

“// lonely avatar”, is an exhibition which investigates the use, meaning, and expressive potential of avatars in the contemporary digital landscape. “Lucid Dreaming” ruminates on the emptiness of the virtual avatar whilst “Project H.E.A.R.T.” involves filling that empty avatar with your emotion through a specially designed biosensor. Both projects follow a trajectory of thought in regards to the metaphorical potential of avatars in the virtual space. Curated by Frank Yefeng Wang, this show features works by Alex M Lee commissioned by Trinity Square Video in Toronto, ON and a project made in collaboration with Canadian artist Erin Gee.

Opening reception: 5-8pm
Artist Lecture: 7-7:30pm

The Chazan Family Gallery
Alex & Ani Hall
Rhode Island College
600 Mt. Pleasant Ave
Providence, RI 02908

XX FILES PIRATE RADIO

01.02.2018 , Exhibitions, News
Image: Radio XX hosts Julia Dyck, Belen Arenas et Amanda Harvey.

 

My soft spoken whispering sound art of the soone (2018) made in collaboration with Sofian Audry will be featured as part of the XXFiles Radio Show’s programming for Nuit Blanche 2018, Riding the Wave: a pirate radio festival, broadcasting live from a little studio on Van Horne/Waverly at 104.3FM in Montreal at 6am on March 4th.  Wish I could be there to turn on a real radio to hear it.

Click here for the official website

ABOUT THE XX FILES

The XX Files is the aural-satellite to Montreal-based feminist media arts space Studio XX. This intersectional feminist media collective works to explore all aspects of our techno-world from the perspective of women living it.

The show was started by Deborah VanSlet and Kathy Kennedy in 1996 on CKUT 90.3 FM and continues to features diverse, compelling feminist perspectives about art, technology and society. The XX Files represents a feminist statement about our relationship to the digital world through traditional media as both a feminist public and a social space that allows feminist icons and marginalized narratives to have their voices heard.

The current team is composed of Julia Dyck and Amanda Harvey. The collective continues to host the weekly CKUT show alongside two monthly internet radio shows, one on Montreal’s N10.AS as well as one on France’s CAMP. The collective also presents live audio-visual performances and DJ sets.

In the summer of 2017, The XX Files completed a residency at Studio XX where they produced a triptych of audio documentaries, devised a live A/V performance, and built FM radios. In March of 2018, they are curating and presenting a shortwave pirate radio festival for Nuit Blanche à Montréal.

 LOCATION

March 3 – 4, 7:00pm – 7:00am

Broadcasting live from Earth II, 134 Van Horne, Studio 212

Open to the public until 2AM

 

Live streaming

https://studioxx.org/en/pirate-radio-festival-xxfiles/

Frequency

104.3FM (Van Horne/ Waverley)

BioPUNKS residency @ UMaine

23.01.2018 , News, Research, Teaching

I have been invited as Research Associate to work with the department of chemical and biological engineering at the University of Maine to initiate a new electronics prototyping group as part of a residency within their department from January until April 2018.

BioPUNKS (Prototyping Ur New Knowledge of Sensors) is an extra-curricular electronics workshop that meets once a week, and is open to all chemical and biological students from freshman to senior.

Based on core values of Sharing, Learning, and Curiosity, our goals are to:

  1. Learn from each other
  2. Develop unique student-led projects at the frontier of bioengineering and electronics
  3. Develop open-source tools for the larger DIY community.

For more information, click here to access the BioPUNKS website

Future Perfect @ Hygienic Gallery

17.01.2018 , Exhibitions, News

My work for VR and biosensor controller, Project H.E.A.R.T. (2017) has been selected for an exhibition at Hygienic Gallery, New London, Connecticut.

Exhibition: February 16 – March 3, 2018
Hygienic Art Gallery, 79 Bank Street, New London, Connecticut, www.hygienic.org.
Opening Reception: Friday, Feb. 16, 4:30 – 9 p.m.

Selected works from Intersections: the 16th Biennial Symposium on Arts & Technology

It is increasingly understood that our lives are pushed, pulled and interconnected by a range of intersections among multiple factors of identity and experience including: gender, culture, race, sexuality, and economic and technological contexts, among others.

Future Perfect includes a roster of artists from around the world, whose work explores the complex forces pushing and pulling our technological culture, and our own identities within it. Their work speculates on present and future fusions and intersections between our rich internal worlds, our bodies, our relationships, and the strange inner lives of artificial intelligences, data clouds and social algorithms.

Through works across mediums such as virtual reality video games, social media performance, experimental documentary, interactive sculpture, locally produced audio tours, and more, the artists in the show ask and offer their own answers to questions such as:

  • What if our machines touch and activate us just as much as we them?
  • What if they could read our emotions, respond to our bodies, and perhaps try to change us back? Are they doing it already?
  • What if we downloaded a digital version of all the objects in the world? Where would it be stored? Are we slowly converting our planet into data? At what cost?
  • How will this city look, feel, and sound, in 10, 20, 100 years?
  • What will you do if the world ends tomorrow?

Featured artists

Angela Ferraiolo
Eunsu Kang
Erin Gee and Alex Lee
Luis Mejico
Ricardo Miranda
Veronica Mockler
Shalev Moran, Mushon Zer-Aviv and Milana Gitzin-Adiram
Juan Pablo Pacheco
Mina Rafiee
Joyce Rudinsky
Laura Skocek and Christoph Gruber
Jack Stenner
Jeff Thompson
Jenny Vogel

Credits

Gallery Director, Hygienic Gallery: Sarah McKay
Curator: Nadav Assor
Installation manager: Brian Dimmock

Production support provided by the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, Connecticut College.  Additional support from the College’s Center for the Critical Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Office of Institutional Equity and Inclusion, and the Office of the Dean of the College.