Data Tombs

Milo Reinhardt

Prompted by the question “Have you ever wondered what happens to your data when you die?”, viewers are invited to consider a near future preventative solution to losing a lifetime of digital assets. Presented as a digital archival monument consisting of a screen-based interactive gravesite, mobile application, and series of custom funerary hard drive cases, Data Tomb functions as a physical materialization of our digital identities and responds to a cultural shift in grieving as mediated by digital technology.

2016

Digital display, plaster, polarized filter of LCD screen, laser print on acetate, plastic envelope

Dimensions variable

Magdalen Memorial Quilt

Isobel Plowright

In 1993, project developers in Ireland uncovered a mass grave of 133 unnamed women who were buried on the site of a former Magdalen laundry. These religious institutions operated internationally with the purpose of rehabilitating so called “fallen women”. In Ireland, Magdalens often faced repressive conditions, including physical and psychological abuse, as well as unpaid, hard labor in the laundry. Women were sent to these institutions by their families for many reasons, including pregnancies out of wedlock, unruly or naive behavior, rape, incest, or simply being seen as likely to fall. This quilt is dedicated to those women.

2016

Organic unbleached muslin, organic blue muslin, thread

84 x48 in.

Food Play: A Critical Exploration

Angelina Doherty

My intention is to redirect adult behaviour and beliefs towards the food industry and production, by means of seemingly simple visual and tactile experiences. I aim to further expose practices behind food production that are still not sufficiently on the public radar. This is not solely an exposure of ethics, but rather a more mindful approach of consumption. These are meant for adult use, as they make decisions when it comes to the food industry and production. I have chosen to do this through toys because they seem entertaining, but they are also instructive and have the potential for a greater shock value and are therefore subversive. Through research of the effects of sensory responses in all age groups, this project aims to cater to an all-encompassing human need for tactility and mindful eating approaches that will encourage us to contemplate and be more conscious of food systems and networks.

2016

Wood, string, paint, paper, cardboard, plastic, wire, fabric

8 x 10 ft.

Learned Synesthesia: Discovering the Periodic Table via Music

Mandi Morgan

By drawing upon the principles of learned synesthesia, 45 elements from the periodic table will be transcribed into new meaning by binding audible and visual senses together to create an engaging kaleidoscopic animation. The project is meant to propose that traditional forms of learning can also be learned in non-conventional and creative ways – namely through learned synesthesia.

In collaboration with Hexagram

2016

Film

Pájaro/Queer

Armando Lopez-Bircann

Drawing from the artist’s own experience and research, the Pájaro 2000 project questions what is the influence of globalized media on the identities and expression of queer, millennial Dominicans, given their own culture’s rejection. Through the use of original music and visuals, he aims to reframe the word Pájaro, which means bird, but is also used as a derogatory identification for gay men.

2016

Video

Visual Wall

Hanieh Kavehei

How can we produce a healing environment in the psychiatry ward?

Accurate and flexible relationships between many elements such as space, technology, patients, and practices in a hospital can create a healing environment. In the psychiatry ward, occupational therapy is an effective part of generating the healing environment. Occupational therapists encourage psychiatric patients to create art using different tools. Painting is one of the patients’ favorite practices, since it helps to express themselves and reduce their anxiety. “Visual wall” is an innovative method of painting through technology. In this prototype, patients are able to paint on the canvas with their hand motion.

2016

Leap motion, canvas, string, projector

72 x 60 in.

Cuerpos

Agustina Isidori

Cuerpos is a symbolic fusion between nature and women; it proposes a new language to reflect on the naturalized violence against women and the aftereffects of trauma.

The atmosphere is filled with haunting motionlessness, an intangible melancholy adorned by the beauty and painful fragility, yet strength, of the image. The deep sadness and disquieting peace is accompanied by a communal living between beauty and sorrow, quietude and violence, poetry and pain.

Trauma is the cornerstone of this project. What happens on the surface of the earth is closely connected to what happens underground. Trauma is a wound on the body and on memory, a profound rupture in everyday life, which attacks the self from the outside, impacting its surface and tearing the skin. Trauma is an inherited wound. Trauma builds subterranean psychological states; it makes solid footing uncertain and occasionally causes earth above to collapse.

Cuerpos is a call to understand the origin and maintenance of a naturalized scar on women’s bodies. Feminicide is the ultimate link of a long chain of hate, disdain, and violence reinforced by a patriarchal society. Cuerpos explores the body as a tool and battleground to denounce violence.

These are portraits that do not shout out of fear, but out of anger.

2016

HD Double Screen Video Installation