The Musicians, by Julia Burns [with Ardrian Hardjono and Balint Seeber] :: 17 June - 18 August, 2007 :: Beta_space, Cyberworlds Gallery - Ground Floor - Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.

Drawing from the work of David Rokeby, ‘The Musicians’ is an early prototype, interactive artwork that utilizes cinematography and sound to engage audiences via invisible touch pads. Users are encouraged to play notes or compose music by directing the two professional musicians as they jam filmically, the audience members directly impacting the artwork via their movements. The aesthetic aim of The Musicians is to visualize the emotional influence the audience members have over the characters onscreen. Amidst witty commentary and pre-programmed repertoires, the musicians play to draw audience members into the museum space and then attempt to hold their attention by empowering the user with the ability to direct their activities. These ‘behaviours’ suggest a more human exchange is possible in the relationship between viewers and technological art. This is technically accomplished by first filming the actors, then implementing state of the art editing and interface systems to create a smooth junction between the art system and the end user.

Related Events:

July 7 - Demonstration, Artist’s Talk and Live Performance - 11:30am-1:30pm :: Come along to a CCS and PHM event, where Julia Burns will speak on the process of creating interactive art as a practicing artist in Sydney with specific reference to ‘The Musicians’. Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with the work in Beta_space, listen to the artist speak, and enjoy drinks and nibbles afterwards as the characters come to life in a live performance in the PHM Education Rooms.

11:30am-12pm - Demonstration in Beta_space, Ground Floor, Cyberworlds Gallery
12-1pm - Artist’s Talk Level 3, PHM Education Rooms
1-1:30pm - Drinks and nibbles accompanied by a Live Performance by The Musicians

RSVP to Deborah Turnbull: deboraht[at]it.uts.edu.au or 02 9514 2384

About

Julia Burns is an interactive and multimedia artist. She has exhibited in galleries and institutions in Spain, Italy and the United States, including MediaLabMadrid, Gheroarte Milan, ViSLAB at The University of Sydney, and First Draft Gallery, Sydney. Julia’s work features sensorial installations bridging art and technology through the immersion of viewers in tangible hyper-realist environments. Her aim is to challenge the viewer by not only demonstrating a context-driven system that reacts to the viewer’s motions and decisions, but additionally influences those choices made by them.

Ardrian Hardjono is a graduate of Physics and Computer Engineering from UNSW. Working as an Immersive Systems Engineer, he specialises in the design and deployment of cutting edge virtual reality systems. Ardrian works with both hardware infrastructure design as well as low-level software programming in a variety of fields. His experience includes working with interactive art, real time computer graphics, and theatre. Relevant projects include hardware integration of a vision-based system developed by Anuraag Sridhar, and a number of systems co-produced with Julia Burns, where video clips of live actors are played back in a non-linear fashion. These react to audience positioning and interaction sensed via different technologies, namely computer vision to track users’ movements, infra-red beam sensors or floor pads.

Beta_Space: Art – technology - experiment - discovery :: Beta_space is Sydney’s only dedicated venue for interactive art, a unique venue where artists can show the public “first drafts” of interactive artworks. Beta_space is an experimental environment where the public can engage with the latest research in art and new technology A “beta version” is a new piece of software or hardware that needs testing and feedback from its users to help its creators make it better. Beta_space is a public laboratory for beta testing interactive artworks. It is a collaboration between The Powerhouse Museum and Creativity and Cognition Studios (CCS) at the University of Technology, Sydney, a cutting edge research group which is home to many artists creating exciting interactive artwork.