The Gateway Project
London to San Francisco: Phase Two

5 Exhibitions:
RADIANT FIELDS | RADIANT SOUNDS | THE POST-LOGICAL ZOO | FRESH MASAALA | HUMAQUINA

Radiant Fields is an installation by London-based artist Anne Bean composed of three videos projected onto three screen walls. The piece employs high-resolution thermal imaging mixed in with digital video material of the artist and other performers, which were then edited to form a triptych of interlocking and sequential images. It is the complex and textural intertwining of these images, performances, spoken texts, and music that invoke an unseen presence--the hidden phenomena and energy fields of parallel universes. Radiant Fields was filmed in 1997 by William Raban and Begonia Tamarit. The performers include: tabla player Ansuman Biswas: drummers Paul Burwell and Dean Roderix; singer Mary Genis; 8 year old southern Indian dancer Swarup Menon; 6 year old writer Ezra Rubenstein and 5 year old Alethea Raban. The work was produced by on-line editor Alistair Kerr and sound engineer Daniel O'Shea.

The Radiant Fields project originated with an ICA Toshiba New Technology Award in 1997 and was supplemented by an Arts Council of England Combined Arts Award in 1998 and sponsorship from Agema Infrared Systems. The project was realized initially in August 2000 by Matt's Gallery, London.

(click to enlarge)
Anne Bean, Radient Fields, 1999
P erformance work, 3 videos projected onto screen walls.
Thermal imaging & digital video
image from matt's Gallery, London 11-27.08.00
photo: courtesy Matt's Gallery, London

In conjunction with Anne Bean's installation, The LAB presents an evening of live and processed electro-acoustic music with performances by local sound alchemists Chiara Giovando, Recursive Heretics and Pamela Z. Chiara Giovando will present a structured improvisation for five musicians on Casio keyboards utilizing a specially configured set of daisy chained headphones. Recursive Heretics explores the concept of feedback in live performance, at many levels, as Aaron Bennett's solo saxophone sound is transformed by Scott R. Looney's live signal processing electronics within a laptop running MaxMSP. Pamela Z will create layered works combining operatic bel canto and experimental extended vocal techniques with processing in Max MSP (on a G3 PowerBook), found percussion objects, and sampled sounds triggered with a MIDI controller called The BodySynth, which allows her to manipulate sound with physical gestures.

As the techno-fruits of logic surpass rationality, doesn't the logic with which we treat them become our own logic? Will it be the logic of command and control? Predator and prey? Parasite and host? Through performance and interactive installations, artist/physicist Dr. Aaron Wolf Baum and sculptor Michael Christian present unusual metaphors for the growth of human-artifact relations. Dr. Baum's work stimulates symbiotic relationships between humans and digital life forms. Gallery visitors, by performing live genetic engineering on audio and video organisms, insert themselves into a sensual feedback loop, forming a coevolving human-electronic organism capable of creations which neither human nor machine could make alone. Michael Christian's sculptures, drawings, and paintings represent relationships between humans and technology using organic and technological forms. Like all relationships, each piece has an internal logic, expressed in form, motion, and texture. Taken as a whole, they pose a future in which human urges, foibles, and choices have evolved beyond

Fresh Masaala -2000: Take 3 artists, 80 morphed portraits, several dozen pairs of eyes and an intricate sound installation of interwoven voices. Add a pitch of politics and a generous measure of personality, stir gently for six months and bring to boil. Caution: This exhibition will make your eyes water. Fresh Masaala, an installation originally presented at Warwick Arts Centre, England, explores issues around identity and representation, created by the participation of over 150 participants, who chose to call themselves Asian. Representing Moti Roti in San Francisco, Ali Zaidi will be morphing images of gallery visitors of Asian descent in a live process of transformation that will be incorporated into this continuously evolving installation.
Set up in 1991 by Keith Khan and Ali Zaidi, Moti Roti is a London based, artist led organization, celebrating diversity and pushing the boundaries of artistic and cultural discourse. The name Moti Roti, hindi/urdu words meaning 'fat bread', is an ironic titling that has a resonance with those who recognize either the language or the food. Although the artists straddle 3 or more cultures (Trinidad, Pakistan, India), they are not interested in the polarized and mythical "east/west" divide, but more about making work which speaks to many different people about complexities and contradictions of the current times. The company produces a range of innovative and inspiring, yet accessible exhibitions, events and experience-led installations, which is relevant both to specific communities and the wider public. Moti Roti combines visual seduction with a sensitivity to space and an eye for transformation.

Also visit: http://www.motiroti.com/

(click to enlarge)
Ali Zaidi, ©1999 Fresh Masalsa
top left, bottom right 2 faces morphed
bottom left, 7 faces morphed
top right10 faces morphed

Los Cybrids: La Raza Techno-CrÌtica
HUMAQUINA: MANIFEST TECH-DESTINY
Friday, July 20
$5-$10 sliding scale admission

CANCELED DUE TO ILLNESS

The Body: The final frontier. Tech Manifest Destiny aka Posthumanist philosophy promises that through electronic technologies, you will be able to live forever on a digital computer system freed from the burden of "wetware" known as your body. Humaquina futurists offer us new ideologies through robotics, bionics, neural chip implants, and nanotechnology to enhance our humaness through tech-colonization. Los Cybrids stop and shriek: For Whom? Para quien? For what? Porque? What are the efectos sobre tu cuerpo, the environment, los pobres?
Los Cybrids is funded by the generous support of the Creative work fund in
collaboration with Galeria de la Raza. The series of performalogues have
been co-produced with The LAB.

Also visit: http://www.cybrids.com

The Gateway Project is designed to facilitate international dialogue and collaboration between artists, cultural and scientific researchers, and new audiences in view of a rapidly changing global consciousness. The Gateway Project: London to San Francisco is part of a continuing project that facilitates an open-ended and process-based exchange and presentation of collaborative work by artists residing in San Francisco and London and working at the conceptual frontier of the new millennial culture. London and San Francisco are "gateway cities' with an extensive history of cultural interactivity. Both cities are located at crucial crossroads between continents, and as such they share a complex and extraordinarily diverse cultural make-up and artistic heritage. The currently featured artists explore issues pertaining to transformative identity, artificial life, wireless culture, and metaphysics, as well as incorporating concepts and practical research techniques stemming from quantum mechanics, computer technology and cultural anthropology. Addressing matters of universal interest, the artists often utilize new scientific concepts and artistic practices in producing their work, while retaining a method of inquiry that is ultimately organic. It is our hope that The Gateway Project, in its current and future incarnations, will inspire a provocative dialogue about the future of art and global culture.

Laura Brun, Curator

The Gateway Project is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The British Council, and the San Francisco Grants for the Arts Hotel Tax Fund. Additional support for the project has been provided by Lois Keidan, Live Arts Development Agency and Rob LaFrenais, curator, Arts Catalyst (London), Mrs. Ralph I. Dorfman, Alan Millar, Michael Naimark, Steve Sekiguchi, and The Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California.