Emilio Vavarella and fito_segrera

inArt

Medical Fields
Biomedical Science, Neurosciences

Creative Forms
Mixed media
Performance
Video art

Website / Blog
emiliovavarella.com/transiconm...

Places
New York, USA

TRANSICONMORPHOSIS by Emilio Vavarella and fito_segrera. /// 2013. Installation. Variable dimensions

In TRANSICONMORPHOSIS, a conventional chat service hosted in a computer is interfaced (through a micro-controller) with a series of electrodes connected to the face of the artist; on the other side of the exhibition space another computer allows a member of the audience to chat with the artist. The system focuses on facial expressions, and translates the emoticon received through the chat into electrical impulses that force the artist’s facial features to mimic the expression of each emoticon.

TRANSICONMORPHOSIS is an interactive artwork that proposes an ambiguous and experimental communication system for the near future. As Nobel Prize Winner Elias Canetti wrote in the ’80s: “We know that the influence of a man on another is what determines incessant and fluctuating metamorphosis that occurs in gesture and facial expressions; when these are strictly prohibited, every metamorphosis becomes difficult and, in the end, impossible.” If in the future, the possibility of face-to-face communication becomes less widely used and written communication becomes crystallized in a series of immutable forms, humans will lose the empathic abilities that today are, in part, reproduced by emoji and emoticons. If humanity fails to invent new metamorphoses, and new emoji, devices such as TRANSICONMORPHOSIS will be diffused worldwide.

TRANSICONMORPHOSIS is the result of a theoretical reflection on the development of new forms of technological communication, their effects on human beings as well as their political effects. Modern communication systems could have condemned human beings to a life without fundamental elements such as smiles or kisses, pushing towards a cold and multi-mediated form of communication. Emoticons have a long history: they have introduced fundamental human expressions to new technologically mediated environments. They were adopted so quickly and widely that emoji can be considered one of the most successful social metamorphoses of the last ten years. Emoji maintain creativity and expressiveness in systems ruled by an ideology of efficiency and unambiguousness. Metamorphosis was considered by Canetti to be one of the biggest mysteries. In the notes he wrote before dying, he explained how it was the beginning of existence, what Power is afraid of, what art should always create, and what has been expressed – since the beginning of time – in humans’ dreams and myths. We can understand more about the connection between metamorphosis and emoji through the realization that they both share the elements that distinguish humans from machines: empathy, love, irony and art.

ARTICLE in LEONARDO

Exhibited at:

– (upcoming) ACTING IN TRANSLATION, at SIGGRAPH 2014, curated by Basak Senova, works selected by Barak Senova, (curator, Koç University), Mona Kasra (artist), Amit Zoran (Fluid Interfaces Group, MIT Media Lab), Kate Armstrong (curator), Cezanne Charles (artist), Mushon Zer-Aviv (media activist), Vancouver Convention Center, Canada

– EMOJI, Art & Design Show, (2013), curated by Fred Benenson (Kickstarter), Julia Kaganskiy (Arts & Technology Meetup), Mercedes Kraus (womanzine), Zeshan Malik & Dale Kim (Melee Media), Zoe Salditch (Eyebeam), Jenna Wortham (The New York Times), Will Zweigart (5Loom) and Kelly Reeves, Andrea Rosen & Lindsey Weber (Forced Meme Productions), Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, New York, USA

Emilio Vavarella was born in Monfalcone (Italy) in 1989. His artistic practice focuses on political philosophy and contemporary technological power with a particular emphasis on the aesthetics of error, subjectivity, mediated identity, biopolitics and social control. His work is informed by his studies on the history of conceptual art, digital and network culture, and new media practices. Through the use of new media he highlights the ambiguous spaces of power, such as unexpected errors and unpredictability. He believes that by doing so, the intrinsic logic and hidden structures of power are revealed and an intellectual resistance is formed. As an artist, he has collaborated with engineers to produce new software to take pictures of the shape of information inside his computer, has worked with errors in Google Street View technology, has investigated the possibilities of error in Facebook’s facial recognition technology and has written memories into the ASCII code of vintage family photos, altering the images in a new and unpredictable way. More recently, he has focused on creating multimedia immersive installations with glitched holograms of Italian cities, altered by human memories. In 2013, he completed with honors his M.F.A from Iuav University of Venice with a thesis on Error and Metamorphosis in New Media Art. He has also studied art in Sicily and Barcelona, and completed with honors a B.A. in Art History, Criticism and Methodology at the University of Bologna. This past year, he spent four months in Tel Aviv at Bezalel Academy of Arts’ studio residency program and four months at Bilgi University of Istanbul. Emilio’s work has been shown internationally and he has participated in a number of conferences and festivals and has won several prizes and fellowships. Most notably, he has recently exhibited at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, GLITCH Festival, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Mediterranea16 – Young Artists Biennial, Fondazione Studio Marangoni, Boston Cyberarts Gallery, Jarach Gallery, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina. Images and texts from his work and exhibitions have been published in: ARTFORUM, Flash Art, il Giornale dell’Arte, WIRED, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, The Verge, Furtherfield, The Creators Project, Mashable, DIGICULT, Daily Mail, El Paìs, laRepubblica, MOUSSE, Hyperallergic, ANIMAL, Artribune, and The Collector Tribune, among others. He currently lives and works in New York.

fito_segrera is a New York based contemporary artist whose work focuses on new technologies and digital media. Since his graduation as a Fine Artist and Technologist in audiovisual and Multimedia production at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University of Bogotá, his artistic practice has focused on problematizing around topics such as: the origin of virtual worlds and their effect on the understanding of reality, the avatar as an extension of the human body and how it acts upon the construction of identity, man-machine integration/symbiosis, trans-humanism, wearable technology mediated/mixed reality. Currently an international Fulbright Scholar and a candidate for an MFA in Design and Technology at Parsons, The New School, New York. His main exhibitions are: SIGGRAPH 2014, COLLISION 20 and 21 at Boston's Ciberarts Gallery 2014, Huston International Performance Biennale 2014, SXSW Austin TX 2014, EYEBEAM New York 2013, AGORA COLLECTIVE CENTER Berlin 2013, Dorkbot NYC 2013, Harvestworks New York 2013, La residencia Tunja 2012, Web 2.0 Espacios alternativos 2012, Ripping mix, burn, rip 2010, Bogotá Biennale 2009.