An exploration of technology in relation to the fusion of software, viruses & the human body

  • UKI Enter the BioNet 

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    Collective game set in a science fiction future

    A critical look at data gathering for use by governments and companies

    The interactive installation UKI - Enter the BioNet launches us into the future in a science-fiction scenario in which the Net, the Internet of our time, has collapsed. The Genom Corp has taken human body hostage to initiate BioNet, a network made up of red blood microcomputing cells (erythrocytes) activated to recondition our desires.

    UKI - Enter the BioNet is a collective multi-player game installation. Set inside a BioNet mapped by flowing red blood cells, the players, 2 to 8 players for each play session, are wired with bio-sensors which transmit the players' (e)motional bio-data.

    In the actual economic and political context, bio data from our body and audio/video/text data from our communications are placed under surveillance by the government and used by companies for their own benefit. Genes can be patented and privatized. In the gameplay for UKI Enter the Bionet, the public joins this immersive experience as a performer to sabotage the system. Equipped with a sensor, every participant directly influences the 'BioNet' through their physical input.

    The algorithm of the players' collective data fluctuates the sub-woofer accented soundscape and dictates the scores of the game. Hosted by Baltan Laboratories, artist Shu Lea Cheang is joined by Etienne Landon (sensor design/system programming) and Julien Ottavi (sound design) will present the installatation from December 2 - 4th and conduct a workshop on devising installation/performance collaboration.

    Join to experience the gameplay for yourself! On Friday December 2nd, we will take UKI - Enter the BioNet as a case study to investigate the collaboration among artists, software/hardware designers and sound artists by introducing the project’s sensor design, system patching and soundscape scoring. We open the workshop for case studies on project collaboration and we invite locally based multi-media artists to bring their own projects for discussion and presentation. The artists are open to offer consultation on conceptual/technical issues.

    To discuss your project as case study in the workshop, please write to shulea [AT] earthlink.net (preferably before November 21).

    About the artists
    Shu Lea Cheang is an artist, filmmaker, networker, Cheang constructs networked installation and multi-player performance in participatory impromptu mode. She drafts sci-fi narratives in her film scenario and artwork imagination. She builds social interface with transgressive plots and open network that permits public participation. She is known for BRANDON, the first web art commission and permanent collection at the Guggenheim museum New York. Since her relocation to Eurozone in 2000, Cheang has taken up large scale installation and networked performance while co-founded several collectives to pursue cross-disciplinary projects.

    Etienne Landon loves technique. After an engineer education at the Centrale de Lille school, he worked five years in charge of 3D sound technologies research and development at A-Volute. Through that experience he discovers interaction programming softwares, especially Pure Data. His career has taught that that technique on its own has no meaning. Through amateur practicing of music and photography, he understands that technique is meant to expand potential and to be a vector for emotions, that technique needs to be invisible for magic to appear. Since 2010, Etienne as a digital craftsman has made his skills available for artistic creation. Data processing, electronics, mechanics, high technologies or DIY, he gathers all needed tools to help the artist achieves his project.

    Julien Ottavi is mediactivist, artist-searcher, poet, theorician and arracheur de langue, composer / musician, experimental film director and performer (body & movement) ...etc. Founding member of Apo33 (transdisciplinary artistic, technological and theoretical laboratory in Nantes, France), Ecos (Eco-creation, biotope’s observatory) and activator of the the labels Noise Mutation and Fibrr Records (cd/web production - open recordings). He develops a work of research and creation cross-referencing sound art, sound poetry, new technologies, DIY electronic devices and physical performance. Active in free software movements, he develops the multimedia distribution Gnu/Linux Apodio.

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