Synaesthesia symposium

I learned so much in these past two weeks about Synaesthesia — fascinating and so important for us to think about our senses in this time of technological extension of sound, light, smell and so many other aspects. This was organized in tandem with the International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists and Scientists (IASAS) and the Building bridges Art Exchange at Bergamot Station Art center. The symposium is now online for those who missed it, or like me, would want to go back and revisit. Here is the link to the archive.

 

Octopus BrainStorming @ Speculum Artium

Immediately after 24/7 non-stop time @ Ars Electronica, we packed up and traveled to Trbovlje, Slovenia to set up the latest version of Octopus BrainStorming. Mark flew in from LA for just this event and was there for 3 days only before flying back for another set of deadlines. It was the most advance version to date! Here is a short unedited video — this is real time, color and sound changes activated by non-verbal communication of Aleksa and Mitja who volunteered and performed for over 2 hours!

Fluid Visualization and Sound Matters

Just arrived to Vienna — getting ready for the symposium organized by Ingeborg Reichle. This project has its’ own momentum! I have to start working on the sound issues — visuals are no problem — gorgeous visualization by an amazing process involving biologists and animated by Martina Fröschl who is working on her PhD under the direction of Alfred Vendl.

HOX ZODIAC at the Fowler museum

After 8 years of work on this project — feels like it is finally taking a wonderful form. Siddharth flew in from Seattle and we worked together on the book and the kickstarter — soon to be up and running. The idea was to have the book and kickstarter ready for this event at the Fowler museum but it took all our energies to pull it together as we were really pushing the possibilities — we had 60 amazing people join the dinner. Since it was held at the museum, we were not able to have our participants bring their food offerings and were super lucky to have Hsin Yu’s mother prepare the feast. Being Taiwanese she really understood the complexity and was excited to work with me closely on the menu based on the Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda and Western interpretations of both.

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Siddharth (sheep) overlooking the set-up and placement…

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Aleksa Mara (horse) sharing her experience with horses…

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Marla Berns, director of the Fowler museum speaking about the wonderful exhibition of Cuban printmaker Belkis Ayón.

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Mick Lorusso speaking about

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Lerah and Siddarth (sheeps) sharing their dishes.

HOX ZODIAC WORKSHOP at the Zürich University of the Arts (ZHdK)

I was prepared to do an actual workshop that would last half a day but was told that it would be 90 minutes and no more. This was a challenge so I decided to buy the food and do one round of the audience serving. Amazingly, we had 12 people and 3 were snakes, 3 rabbits and 3 pigs (incuding yours truly:). This was a good test how to do a fast session — it was TASTING not lunch or dinner! People certainly got the idea and many were asking how we may plan the real dinner sometime in the future.

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More photos from the workshop