Artists

• Commissions by Michaela Gleave, Jarra Karilinar Steel and Jon McCormack.
• A site-specific adaptation of a previous work by Luke Jaaniste and Megan Janet White (Theatre of Thunder), as well as existing works by Justine Emard, Universal Everything and Georgie Pinn.
• An arts lab including work by Lucija Ivšić, Monika Schwarz, Jon McCormack, Elliot Wilson and Nina Rajcic accompanied the outdoor programme.

Holon (2023) was a field of responsive sonic sculptures exploring emergent collective intelligence, sustainability, and artificial life.

Over one hundred electronic “organisms” created their own habitat, feeding off solar energy during the day to come alive at night, communicating with each other and their environment. Sounds heard by each organism — including those made by people, wildlife and traffic — were captured and transcoded to generate novel voices that acoustically assimilated into the sonic landscape of the neighbourhood.

Holon proposed a new kind of nature-machine symbiosis, where electronic creatures co-exist alongside biological entities.

Concept, programming and development: Jon McCormack
Engineering and design: Elliott Wilson
Produced at SensiLab, Monash University

Of sky and sea (2023) used language to chart the impacts of maritime exploration and trade, examining how these activities operate as sites of colonial expansion that instigate and sustain connection and disconnection in equal measure.

Using the maritime language of Morse code signal lights, Of sky and sea took the form of a large-scale installation floating in the middle of Docklands Harbour. Beaming a list of lost and endangered languages into the night sky, the work was a monumental, ephemeral gesture that highlighted the consequence of imposing colonisation and globalisation on indigenous communities who have otherwise thrived for millennia.

Lead artist: Michaela Gleave
Programmer: Warren Armstrong
Lighting Design: Bosco Shaw
Technical Production: Additive

Berthing Place, Earthing Space (2022-23) was a site-specific installation consisting of illuminated plumes of fog-filled bubbles, a Butoh performance and live ambient music.

The work conjured transitory moments reminiscent of natural phenomena such as spawning coral, snow flakes and volcanic eruptions, as well as birds flocking, insects swarming and seeds dispersing. A shape shifting monument to ecological wonder and a harbinger of environmental precariousness, this performative installation offered a galaxy of emergent inter-connections for audiences to contemplate.

Concept, installation and performance: Luke Jaaniste and Megan Janet White

Soul Shift (2018) is one of a number of artworks created by Emard in collaboration with the renowned scientists Hiroshi Ishiguro and Takashi Ikegami. In this video, audiences witness the meeting and interaction of two generations of the same ’intelligent’ robot design.

As the first robot’s data was used to seed the machine learning capabilities of the second, the artwork interrogates the implications of learnt behaviour.

Contemplating the possibility of consciousness within artificial life, the artist asks if there is memory in code, if there is spirit, and if this intergenerational transfer denotes a form of reincarnation without flesh?

Partners: The robotics research laboratories at Osaka University and Tokyo University

Infinity (2021) is a generative video artwork depicting an endless procession of unique personalities born from code.

These playful beings walk, skip and stumble like a parade of jubilant commuters. Their hair spikes and frizzes. Animated from a large pool of motion-capture data, the figures are composite archetypes.

Echoing early 20th century, Futurist sculptures by Boccioni, which articulated an abstract body in movement, this infinitely varied stream of colourful characters celebrated diversity and invited contemplation about how we are all different yet similar.

Creative Director: Matt Pyke
Unity Developer: Adam Samson
Studio
Technician: Spike Thompson

ECHO/OHCE (2020-23) was a public storytelling installation that elevated the representation of everyday people. By sharing lived experiences of adversity and vulnerability, the work championed empathy and emotional knowledge.

Audiences were invited to participate by morphing pre-recorded video portraits, animation and their own image via a touchscreen and camera interface. The animated content was created from an archive of over 40,000 testimonials collected from people worldwide.

This giant interactive mirror challenged our acceptance of bias within algorithms and machine learning, while drawing attention to how we can become siloed, polarised and manipulated in the digital age.

Sculpture fabrication: Remo Vallance
3D animation: Dorian Dowse
Software co-developer: Simon Burgin

Projected onto the ceiling of an exterior architectural feature, Living Well (2023) animated a sequence of words, symbols and illustrations influenced by the artist’s Boonwurrung heritage and culture. Accompanied by a set of back-lit, window decals that echoed elements of the moving-image composition, the artwork cloaked the building and enveloped audiences to invoke a visceral shift in perspective.

The artist notes:
“This work was inspired by the intergenerational labour and survival of my family and ancestors who came before. Those who passed down their knowledge, strength and being, for us to create, reclaim and a rebuild a better, positive future, a future that was stolen from them, that they couldn’t have dared to dream.”

Animation and SFX: Victoria University Hive Lab
Lead Animator: Pym Srisunakhrua
Production Support: Elijah McDonald and Kati Elizabeth

Active Interfaces was an exhibition and living arts laboratory presenting generative, robotic and Virtual Reality artworks, hosted by the artists, designers and engineers behind them.

In conjunction with the Now or Never Art Trail, members of Monash University’s SensiLab took up residence in the Library at the Dock Gallery – actively making, developing, and refining the artworks on display.

The exhibition illuminated the human labour, material engagements, design and conceptual processes involved in the creation of participatory and autonomous digital works.

Artists: Lucija Ivšić, Monika Schwarz, Jon McCormack, Elliot Wilson and Nina Rajcic

Curated by SensiLab in collaboration with Experimenta