Bio-encounters

Presented in an exhibition of shortlisted proposals for a new public art work at the Huxley Building, University of Brighton, for Brighton Digital Festival, 14th to 23rd September 2017. This new project proposal for the Huxley Building Public Art Commission is a development on two previous telematic public art installations by Paul Sermon and Charlotte Gould: Screen Machine in 2016 and Peoples Screen from 2015, originally commissioned by Public Art Lab Berlin for the Connecting Cities network of urban screen projects. In this new project entitled ‘Bio-encounters’ Sermon and Gould have considered the technical and conceptual aspects of the former works to develop and propose an original site-specific interactive telematic art installation, linking live audience groups between indoor and outdoor entrance areas at the Huxley building. This new installation pushes the playful, social and public engagement aspects of their work into new arts and science realms in an attempt to address the pharmacy and biomolecular themes of the commission. The proposed project picks up on the need for a shared visual language and experience that allows a diverse public audience to physically engage with the current research and taught subjects in the Huxley Building through improvised performative interaction as their means of visual dialogue. Using a tried and tested telematic concept and technique, the installation takes live oblique camera shots from above the screens of two separate audience groups connected over a networked video link. Both groups are located on retro-reflective green-screen steps, and are then combined via a chroma-key video switcher in a single composited image displayed simultaneously on each screen. As the merged audiences start to explore this collaborative, shared telepresent space they discover the ground beneath them, as it appears on screen as a digital backdrop, locates them in a variety of surprising and intriguing anamorphic biomolecular environments. These backgrounds directly reference their scientific and social settings, containing converged scenes from these communities in a three dimensional ludic landscape

Out of sight, out of mind

This panel will present the outcomes of a two-week residency by a research team from the University of Brighton, School of Art and the University for the Creative Arts in September 2018 on the Mar Menor, a 170 km2 saltwater lagoon on the south east coast of Spain. The team were invited to undertake practice-based research on the changing ecosystem of this unique natural landscape, resulting from dam- ages caused by intensive agriculture, increased tourism and rising sea levels. The project and panel has been developed by a team of three artists, each bringing specific experience and knowledge of 360° video to undertake the research and create a unique understanding and manifestation of the changing ecosystem of the Mar Menor. This includes Paul Sermon who is currently working on collocated telematic experiences in 360° live video environments, Charlotte Gould’s work on developing immersive 360° animated augmented reality and Jeremiah Ambrose who is working on gaze controlled navigation through 360° video narratives. The overarching aim of this project is to create a unique interactive 360° video experience of the Mar Menor that manifests the anthropocene effects on this natural landscape as augmented surreal and metaphysical interpretations of the artist’s experiences during the residency. Through environmental, social, economic and cultural observations and en- counters the team are creating an immersive 360° installation environment that incorporates both video and audio recordings with augmented imaginary and predicted realities transformed from scientific data in obscure and profound guises