http://www.pnek.org/archives/2547
ISEA Dubai 2014 – The
20th Symposium on Electronic Art
The
original piece I proposed was going to be a transformative electronic Bedouin
tent located at Al Fahidi Fort in the Al Fahidi historic district of Dubai. But
the project was under constant transformation as to where to locate it and the
possibility of producing it at all.
I participated in ISEA Dubai 2014
with an immersive multiple video projection and sound installation project
entitled Interlacing Worlds. As part of the ISEA participation three
ISEA artists were offered a one month sponsored residency at Abu Dhabi Art Hub who
partnered with ISEA Dubai 2014 and Zayed University who were the hosts of this
years ISEA. The other ISEA residency artists were Simone van Groenestijn (Cym)
from the Netherlands and Yoshiyuke Abe from Japan, both have participated in
ISEA previously. Yoshiyuke Abe was one of the founding members of ISEA, but has
now withdrawn from that position and mainly participates in the symposiums. He
is a pioneer in visual computer media and computer generated graphics,
algorithms and his own hardware and software development dating back to the
1960’s. Cym develops computer games as social interaction and invites kids as
participants through workshops. ISEA Dubai happened from October 30th to
November 8th, while the residency lasted from October 10th to
November 10th. PNEK supported me with a travel grant for the participation.
Measuring the Desert, by Anne Senstad
My initial project proposal was
actually first entitled Interlacing Worlds – UNIVERSALS, referring to my
installation at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, and transforming the ideas
of perception of space to the idea of culturally and philosophically
interlacing east and west. The original piece I proposed was going to be a
transformative electronic Bedouin tent located at Al Fahidi Fort in the Al
Fahidi historic district of Dubai, based on the shape of a sculpture from my UNIVERSALS
series. The semi transparent tent fabric would be projected through so the
structure would appear to be, and be experienced as in continuous transformation;
the perception of the structure would be experienced as a non-static immersive
and sensorial structure. There would be 3-4 projectors placed in the interior
as well as speakers. The two video pieces I brought and prepared for this
specific installation were Colour Synesthesia VI , 2014, and Sonoptic
Parallels, 2014, with sound composed by the legendary electronic sound
composer, mathematician and philosopher C.C. Hennix, so speakers and sound
quality were an important element of the installation. The transformational
Bedouin tent would be experienced from both the exterior and interior through
color, sound and aroma with the added use of traditional local incense. The
interior would also have traditional Bedouin carpets, pillows and seating on
the floor, so participants could engage in the use of the structure over time.
That was the initial proposal. The curatorial team hadn’t gotten permission
from the city nor funding for the installation from their sponsors, so the
project was under constant transformation as to where to locate it and the
possibility of producing it at all.
Liwa Projections, Liwa Art Hub, UAE, by Anne Senstad
In leading up to departure from
New York to Abu Dhabi it became clear that the last of several offered
locations, which was the large Maraya Art Park in Sharjah, was not going to
happen for me. So I refocused the whole concept to be located at the Abu Dhabi
Art Hub as it became obvious that I could not have a tent custom manufactured
and that the residency actually had a traditional tent available I could
borrow. One has to be flexible and work with what is available. This meant that
the whole exterior idea was transformed to purely an interior immersive
installation where I could still stay with my concept with the planned
projection, sound and interior seating arrangement. In preproduction I tried to
secure projectors through the residency, as well as other technical equipment I
needed for the set up. The residency had 1 projector available for me and we
managed to get hold of another one on loan through the Zayed University branch
in Abu Dhabi. This installation was exhibited as part of the Abu Dhabi Art Hub
exhibition for the International Art Month including other artists in residency
who had been selected through their own internal process. These consisted
mainly of painters and sculptors from various countries in Europe. The
International Art Month exhibition opened in conjunction with the opening of
ISEA October 31st. The installation of my piece was moved to the
interior gallery space of the Art Hub building, abandoning the tent and site
specificity altogether, but still recreating the interior experience of the
tent. The focus was to keep with the initial proposal idea, allowing for
projections and sound to be properly represented.
In the first week of the
residency I simultaneously became more engaged in what the residency itself had
to offer outside of being an ISEA participating artist, which turned out to be
quite unique. They had a satellite residency in the Liwa oasis in the desert
locally named The Empty Quarter, 20 km from the border of Saudi Arabia and
bordering Oman. Known to be the largest sand desert in the world and the
harshest to cross. It is also home to the Bedouin and rich in local heritage
and history. I decided I would utilize that opportunity to create new work
informed by the oasis and desert location, as well as bring my projection
installation to experiment with it there and see what could be done. The Liwa
Art Hub residency where I spent all in all two weeks out of the 4 weeks in the
UAE turned out to be the most enriching and interesting emersion, as well as
pleasant since there was not only a swimming pool but excursions out to the
desert for sunrise with breakfast in the dunes and late night music and dinners
in the oasis art hub. The group of artists in residency there were from Kuwait,
Irak, Iran, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Syria and so on and had spent a month
there already. None of who work with electronic art, sound or photography.
Except for a French documentary filmmaker who was working on a film about the
oasis artist residency and the artists.
The Liwa artist group was working
on an exhibition with the impressive title The First International
Historical Memory Art Festival – The Age of Transformation, organized by
Iranian curator Nasser Palangi, focused on the history of the UAE from the
Bedouin culture to the unification of the Trucial states under Sheik Zayed. I
became part of the exhibition without intension and found myself working
intensely on a human scale sized burka sculpture made of date palm material, a
dual camel bone installation in gold and black referring to the history of oil
in the UAE, and I also made a video projection installation for the opening
night of the exhibition in a large transparent empty greenhouse with a sand
floor using one projector, fabric and a smoke machine, where the fog created a
weather condition installation. Sadly the meditative sound composition by C.C.
Hennix for the video piece suffered as the only speakers available were karaoke
speakers. The exhibition is currently travelling and there is a book being produced
from it. There are about 30 artists in total in the show, where the work is
interchanging depending on the exhibition location.
Liwa projection with fog, Liwa Art Hub, by Anne Senstad
Back to ISEA Dubai 2014, the
foundation ISEA itself is focused on electronic art, symposiums and exchange of
information on technology, education, academia and scientific research. According to other participants
and also my own experience, the schedule for the smaller symposiums, workshops,
talks, exhibitions and meetings were problematic. There were last minute
changes, cancellations, didn’t happen, couldn’t be found. There were major
problems with information and the website was very confusing to navigate. A lot
of the registration information was also lost along the way unfortunately due
to technical glitches within the system. The challenge of technical equipment
was also a source of production problems for the artists who were invited as
singular artists not associated with a sponsoring university or foundation.
However most artists I came across I found to be easy going, make the most out
of it and go with the flow. It should be noted that everyone was very helpful,
friendly, generous with their time and energy, as were the local UAE people I
met.
In preparation and pre production
for site specific and international projects, I find that for installation of
any kind of digital and electronic work, being visual or sound, one has to
always have additional back up material, hard copies of digital video and sound
files like DVD’s and CD’s for worst-case scenarios. I ended up using my PAL DVD’s
on basic DVD players. It became clear that digital files are non-compatible
with the local equipment when produced on equipment outside the UAE. I’m not
familiar with the technical reasons for that, but from what I saw of the
various ISEA installations, there were major problems with either the sound or
image from video files due to incompatibility. In addition, all participating
ISEA artists would have to buy tickets for each workshop or talk which I found
strange, rather than be invited as guests in exchange for participating and
having come from abroad. The ISEA talks I did go to were courtesy of Abu Dhabi
Art Hub as a sponsor of ISEA, at least I said I was a sponsor when entering,
coming across as a sponsor and not an artist. Getting between Abu Dhabi and
Dubai turned out to be a challenge as well and I couldn’t manage to get to the
various Universities and exhibitions with the long distances without a car and
enough time. One of the main openings was supposed to happen at Maraya Art Park
in Sharjah, and by convincing a local American friend to drive me to the
exhibition opening at the American University in Sharjah to the Maraya Art
Park, bringing along a lone jetlagged academic from Kansas we found in the
hallways at the American University, it started to rain which never happens in
that region – so all the site specific electronic art around the park had to be
turned off, the opening cancelled and the VIP’s stayed home. This was the main
opening gala evening with ribbon cutting. One can’t predict the weather, but a
plan B is always advisable especially with site specific electricity run
installations.
Liwa Art Hub, photo: Anne Senstad
The third ISEA installation I
produced in the UAE, was a singular projection onto the exterior of the Al
Fahidi Fort building in the historic Al Fahidi district in Dubai. Ironically
this location was my first proposed location, which then had been moved to
quite a few other potential locations in the whole UAE after the initial no-go
for the proposed location. Here fellow Norwegian artist Frank Ekeberg and his
partner Krista Caballero exhibited Birding the Future amongst the
group of international artists. The Al Fahidi historic heritage district is a
touristic neighborhood with labyrinthian quarters, shops, cafes, museums and a
library. The small buildings lent themselves well to installations, creating
small galleries and projection spaces. But due to the historic nature of the
location there was a challenge of electricity, equipment and installation
organization. I had initially been given the exterior of the fort walls for my
installation, but this was changed last minute the day of the opening to a
small side wall within the quarter due to lack of permission. In general the
neighborhood exhibition at this location came across well for the artists and
what we had to work with.
In the end, the hosts are not to
blame for the multiple technical, organizational problems and confusion, but
rather the system of the organization itself could be run better. It was a very
large endeavor to take on for this years hosts having not had any kind of
electronic art happening on this scale before in the region. The ISEA artists I
came across and spoke with out of the over 170 participants and who mostly
seemed to be returning artists, enjoyed the reunion, commeraderie, seeing and
experiencing new parts of the world, exhibitions and exchange of information
and knowledge. Having created a large body of new work during the residency,
experienced the oasis and desert, and gotten to know people from the middle
east and locally in the UAE has been the reward.
Abu Dhabi Art Hub - ISEA 2014, installation of Sonoptic Parallels, by Anne Senstad
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