[Reader-list] Glow Positioning System

[kalakamra at vsnl.net]

Glow Positioning System, 
GPO/KabutarKhana CST, Mumbai. 

is up for one more day, Monday 17th January, 2005. 
6:30- 10:30 pm

Its truly worth the experience. Pl do come if you can take a train to CST. 

shaina anand


GLOW POSITIONING SYSTEM

by Ashok Sukumaran.

At the G.P.O. / Kabutarkhana chowk , near CST, Fort, Mumbai.

January 15th and 16th, 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Turn a crank. Light up your city. Participate in your own environment, in a
surprising and poetic way.

GPS at the GPO is a 1000-foot-long interactive light installation, which
will transform an entire city chowk into a visual instrument. Lights can be
"played" across the architecture, on the trees and across the roads, by
literally anyone on the street by just turning a hand-crank. A giant
panorama is unfolded-- by you. The individual enters into a simple yet
powerful interaction with their city. This is a visual relationship, but
also a relationship about power, and touch, and play.

Art, architecture and even urban design are increasingly about
relationships- not forms. Technology is enabling these relationships,
through mobility, speed and wirelessness. But there is also the feeling of a
sensory void, of running too fast. This work explores an entirely different
technological possibility- by asking us to slow down, and enjoy the view.

This work draws on the tradition of the urban panorama in painting and
photography, a trajectory that extends into contemporary video games and
"virtual reality". Also popular in the 19th century were moving panoramas,
where crank-driven paintings or images provided the audience with a
"travelling" experience. The hand crank, of course, also has a lengthy
history in cinema. It was present in both early film cameras and projectors.
As such, it provided the force mechanism behind the early "motion pictures".

Global Positioning Systems tell us where we are at all times, implying that
we will travel, globally. In our GPS, "tourism" is a kind of virtual
experience, relying on the fading of the actual landscape with nightfall.
The experience does not depend on the observer being physically displaced.
Yet there is a clear sense of kinesthesia, and the promise of a haptic
journey.

This kind of electronic, interactive public art is a developing field
worldwide. GPS will be a never-before experience, special for the joy and
accessibility it provides, for all ages.

See http://users.dma.ucla.edu/~suku/ringoflights.html for an animation.

About the Artist:

Ashok Sukumaran is a media artist and architect. He holds a B.Arch from the
School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, and an M.F.A. in media art
from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ashok's work explores the physical space of computer-based sensing and
actuation, and the implications of interactivity on human perception and
public spaces. In adopting the view that many "new media" technologies are
not fundamentally new, his projects imagine a "what could have been" between
the disciplines of interactive art, cinema, and architecture.

His work has received numerous honors internationally, including a First
prize in the 2003 David Bermant Foundation: Color, Light, Motion Award, and
a Grand prize in the Samsung Art and Design Institute's competition for
2002. Most recently, he was project director for NANO, a year-long
exhibition at LACMA, Los Angeles, exploring the intersection of
computational art and nanoscale science. Also in 2004, he also had
one-person shows of his work in Mumbai and New York.

Ashok has recently moved to Mumbai, where he is one half of ChitraKarkhana
with  Shaina Anand.