Intertwined Networks

The Waag Society for Old and New Media has in 2004 commissioned Canadian artists Jeff Mann and Michelle Teran to produce and present the second iteration of the LiveForm:Telekinetics Project. LF:TK involves the creation of a series of site-specific installation/performance works connecting hybrid physical/virtual spaces using streaming media and networked kinetic objects. The commission is part of the Connected! project of Waag Society, a two-year programme of performances, lectures, workshops, installations, and emergent events exploring collaborative networked media and live art.

The LiveForm:Telekinetics project is envisioned as a laboratory that examines the intertwining of social networks and social spaces with their technological counterparts. As a work of art, it challenges and expands the notion of performance, the relationship of the artist and audience, production and exhibition, and ideas of locale and presence. The project creates hybrid installation/performative works, augmented with electronic devices and network systems, to create shared spaces and live social situations. Two-way streaming media such as video, sound, and graphics, are used to connect together physical sites via the Internet. Everyday physical objects within the environments become kinetic communications interfaces, animated with embedded sensors and actuators. In LiveForm:Telekinetics, mediating technologies are human-scale, built into architecture, furniture, decorations, utensils, toys, and the bric-a-brac that we surround ourselves with. Read more.