Archive for October 15th, 2007
TRANSITIO_MX02, CENART Opening
Friday October 12th was the big kick off for TRANSITIO_MX02, International Festival of Electronic Arts and Video taking place throughout Mexico City. Comprised of three curatorial projects – Free Synthesis, (dis)COMmunities and IM-POLIS, an open call competition, electronic music concerts, artist workshops and a conference, the festival is taking place at three locations: the National Center for the Arts (CENART), Laboratorio Arte-Alameda and Centro de la Imagen.
The initial opening and concert was at CENART which is housing the exhibition of finalists from the open call for the TRANSITIO prize. Many of the finalists were represented by video documentation such as Usman Haque’s “Open Burble.” There was a beautifully shot three panel video projection by Erik Olofsen titled “Drives”. Below are a few projects installed in the Art Center’s gallery.
My favorite project which is visually striking, conceptually intriguing and offers free packaged Mexican dirt is “Tierra y Libertad” (Earth and Liberty) (2007) by Ivan Puig based in Mexico. Puig has constructed a machine that deposits dirt taken from the base of CENARTS into red plastic cups that are then deposited into plastic bags that are sealed and stamped for the visitors to take.
SARoskop (2007) by Karin Lingnau and Martin Hesselmeier based in Cologne visualizes the electromagnetic waves in the immediate area. If one uses their cell phone near the grid-like installation SARoskop, the objects come alive, moving horizontally on a rail that each component is mounted on and displaying the frequency of the call.
A second physical computing project installed at the exhibition is VEHICLE (2007) by Gerardo GarcÃa de la Garza, a robotic arm that duplicates Joseph Beuys signature triggered by visitors who approach the work. Visitors are free to take a signed sheet.
Separate from the finalists’ exhibition, in its own gallery at CENART is installed Ken Rinaldo’s “Augmented Fish Reality”, a well travelled installation in which Siamese Fighting fish drive the robotic pedestals that the bowls sit on.
TRANSITIO continues through October 20th, over the next week I’ll continue to document other pieces of this giant festival, including the keynote presentation by Gunalan Nadarajan, the curated exhibitions and as many of the panels that I can attend while executing my own commission in the park Alameda Central.