[-empyre-] Introducing the installation artists of lab3d

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>]

Lab3d brings the often virtual platform of multi-user 3D Game environments
and the social spaces of 3D worlds into the Gallery. As these works can be
simultaneously accessed on line, it  brings a local and global audience into
real-time dialogue.The artists joining us here will discuss the aesthetic
conceptual and technical issues concerning their works:

Squidsoup's Anthony Rowe (UK) whose Altzero5, with sound by Icaras (UK), is
an online software tool commissioned by Cornerhouse. It allows users to
freely download 3D navigable sonic environments using their own sounds, and
as composer, the user creates an unique interactive sound and visual space.

Tamiko Thiel (with Zara Houshmand) produced  Beyond Manzanar which uses the
spacial characteristics of navigable 3D virtual reality environments.
Archival photographs of the Manzanar Internment Camp alternate with paradise
gardens constructed from ancient Japanese scrolls and Persian miniature
paintings; images of the immigrant American Dream alternate with media
images of betrayal and hatred.

John Klima's Earth is a geo-spatial visualisation system which culls
real-time data from the internet and accurately positions it onto a
three-dimensional model of the earth. Recently shown at the Whitney Biennial
(2002) it offers a physical representation of Earth's weather status.

Melinda Rackham's multiuser electronic VRML scape Empyrean repositions the
user as softly embodied organic gestural avatar, negotiating the often
invisible in-tensions and strange attractions in an otherworldly, yet oddly
familiar domain of horizonless virtual space.

In Transit by Michael Pinsky is an animated 3D map developed in
collaboration with V2 Institute for Unstable Media in Rotterdam. It compares
travel nodes and mode of transport so that the viewer simultaneously
experiences the mapped view and the filmed documentation of a journey.
________________

-->> John Klima:
Earth http://www.cityarts.com/earth/
Brooklyn-based artist John Klima (b. 1965) attempted to code a 3D maze on a
TRS-80 with 4k RAM and failed miserably, but has been obsessed with 3D
graphics ever since. His work has been included in VIPER, EMAF and
SIGGRAPH; and  shown at the ICC in Tokyo, and the 2002 Whitney Biennial. In
2002, he received a grant from the Langlois Foundation for his project
Terrain Machine. Klima's work consistantly connects the virtual to the real,
addressing issues of remote responsibility, and bluring the distinctions
between the simulated and the concrete.

-->> Michael Pinsky:
In Transit http://www.michaelpinsky.com
Michael Pinsky graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1995. His work
explores relationships between architectural spaces and perceptions of time.
Pinsky is artist in residence at the V2 Lab for Unstable Media in Rotterdam
developing In Transit, which has been shown at the ICA, London, the
Economist, London, the Armory Center of the Arts, Los Angeles and is touring
to the Cornerhouse, Manchester and the Rotterdam Architectural Biennial. He
has recently received an Art for Architecture award from the Royal Society
of Architecture.

-->> Melinda Rackham:
Empyrean http://www.subtle.net/empyrean
Melinda Rackham is a net.artist and writer based in Australia, who has been
working online since the mid 1990's constructing sensual hypertextual
narratives and multi-user 3d immersive environments, and is currently
completing a Phd in Virtual Media. Her web works have been included in Art
Entertainment Network, Beyond Interface, EMAF, Cybercultures, The Montreal
and Buenos Aries Biennales, Transmediale, and ISEA. She received the
Electronic Literature Prize at the Adelaide Festival, and the SoundSpace
Award for Virtual Worlds at Stuttgart Filmwinter.

-->> Anthony Rowe:
altzero5 :: http://www.altzero.com
squidsoup is a loose federation of artists, musicians and interactive
designers based in London.Their browser games, abstract virtual spaces,
interactive music and installations have been shown at dozens of
international galleries, festivals and events including ISEA (Nagoya 2002),
SONAR (Barcelona, 2001), SIGGRAPH (LA 2001) and the ICA (London 2001,2002).
Recognition includes an  EMMA (Best On-line Art 2000) and a BAFTA nomination
(Interactive Art 2002).altzero5 ::  commissioned by Cornerhouse with funding
fromarts council england.  lab3d marks the launch of the work as an
installation and event.

-->> Tamiko Thiel:
Beyond Manzanar http://mission.base.com/manzanar
Tamiko Thiel's first VR work was as creative director and producer of
Starbright World, an award-winning virtual playspace for seriously ill
children commissioned by Starbright Foundation chairman Steven
Spielberg. Her VR piece Beyond Manzanar addresses media
scapegoating of immigrants groups seen as the "face of the enemy" and is
in the permanent collection of the San Jose Museum of Art. In summer
2003 she will be in residency at the Kyoto Art Center on a Japan
Foundation fellowship researching her next piece, The Travels of Mariko
Horo.