The virtual reality work Aquaphobia by Jakob Kudsk Steensen examines it’s title subject matter – the fear of water. Inspired by psychology studies used to treat aquaphobia, the work employs VR technology to merge imagery of past and future geological landscapes, as well as external ecosystems with internal psychoscapes. Steensen mobilizes the visual exploration of the fear of water to transform viewer’s perceptions on water-related climate change, such as rising water levels. While traveling through mud, water, plants, and subterranean infrastructure, the viewer is guided through the five stages of a break-up narrative by a water microbe. Throughout the journey, an aquatic alien recites a poem about a break-up between the landscape and the viewer. The five parts reference a common five-step treatment that patients with aquaphobia undergo. To create this virtual landscape, the artist used satellite imagery, as well as soil and rock types that Steensen photographed.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen employs a formally rigorous approach to creating multi-layered VR environments that engage with the contemporary issue of extinction. Eschewing the idea that VR offers a potential “solution” to the disappearance of biodiversity, Steensen aims to reflect rather on the deep sense of loss surrounding extinction and the poetics of hybrid relationships between nature and technology. His works often exist as omnibus collaborations drawing on the creative input of musicians, writers, scientists, and developers, and are staged in spaces that combine tactile materials with impeccably rendered virtual worlds.
Study of History IV by Subas Tamang is an etching and aquatint print based on photographs taken by German photographer Volkmar Wentzel in 1949...
Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Protests over Marcos-sponsored play; the Spaniard in Singapore films | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar The Star/Azhar Mahfof September 11, 2019 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...
Coco Fusco "Tomorrow, I will become an Island" KW Institute of Contemporary Art / Berlin | | Flash Art Flash Art uses cookies strictly necessary for the proper functioning of the website, for its legitimate interest to enhance your online experience and to enable or facilitate communication by electronic means...
Weekly Picks: Malaysia (15–21 October 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do October 15, 2018 No Black Tie Ivory Series presents ‘To The Moon’ , at No Black Tie, 15–16 Oct, 8pm Part of No Black Tie’s 20th anniversary celebrations, To The Moon draws inspiration from the likes of Jean-Philippe Rameau, Louis Couperin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Henry Purcell, and Gluck...
SEE WHAT SEE (Mar 2021): GENRE FICTION | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints March 30, 2021 By Joel Tan Welcome back to See What See ! It’s our monthly round-up of interesting stuff by Singapore and regional makers that you can stream right here on the Internet...
The Mohawk, the emblematic Frontier river in the period of American colonisation, is here a cable of data transmission, and the 7 Sultans Casino is a virtual destination, one of the three hundred online casinos hosted by the servers located in Kahnawake, a small native american indian reserve to the south of Montreal...
Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...
As in other Mauss’ works that often look unfinished, the drawings in Untitled seem ever at the phase of the sketch, his segments as if they may uproot and reorient themselves at any moment...
Charco portátil congelado (Frozen Portable Puddle, 1994) is a photographic record of an installation of the same name that Gabriel Orozco made at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam for the group exhibition WATT (1994)...
Caroline Monnet, Mobilize A screening program followed by the artist in with conversation with Adam Piron, Assistant Curator for Film at LACMA Montreal-based artist Caroline Monnet explores Indigenous identity, bicultural living, and complex cultural histories through photography, sculpture, film, video, and installation...
Taiwan WMD (Taiwan and Weapons of Mass Destruction) is part of a long-term research started in early 2010 on the history and aftermath effects of Japanese biological and chemical warfare in China during WWII, as well as the unknown history of Taiwan’s nuclear program...
It rains, Paris, 1st July 2000 , which could be the refrain of a song, is the title of a photograph of a minimal moment, the vision of a Parisian pedestrian, a cut flower lying on the pavement covered in rain drops...
After the Finish Line is a recent film by Adelita Husni-Bey produced for the exhibition Movement Break at Kadist-SF in 2015...
Weekly Picks: Singapore (30 July - 5 August 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Singapore July 30, 2018 How To Be Happy (again) by Ethos Books 5 Aug 2018 As part of Esplanade’s Spoken Word Sunday series, How To Be Happy (again) will start the series off this sunday! It will be an evening of rhyme and rhythm filled with words exploring happiness and the notion of a greater good...
The short film I Can Only Dance to One Song by Arash Fayez features a series of people from the migrant community in Barcelona singing along or dancing to songs of their choosing...