"The Ease of Oak"

October 17 - 18, 1240 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago

Around The Coyote's Fall Festival Media Arts by LiveBox. A multimedia exhibition of artists working with algorithmic karaoke, video, living matter, digital prototyping/casting, symbolic battle translation, latch hooked rugs, box fans, custom software and three-dimensional modeling. Participating artists work across boundaries and each piece tweaks perception in a unique way. The exhibition was curated by Patrick Cunningham and made possible by support from Catherine Forster.

"Dynamic Ascension", Aaron David Ross

Saturday night performance: Dynamic Ascension Live! (this is guided meditation, algorithmic, generative karaoke)
List of Artists:Mark Beasley, Alan Hatcher, Cassandra Jackson, Mik Kastner, Liliya Lifanova, Luis Palacios, Aaron David Ross, Alan Strathmann, Katie Waugh, Syniva Whitney

Mark Beasley
"Kernel Tunnel"
media: Windows, Python, 2009

"Kernel Tunnel" is a display exploit using the Windows API to constantly burrow deeper into the Windows kernel by spawning and expanding default windows programmatically until they compose a larger and deeper void that collapses the functionality of the operating system and creates an elegant dissection of the aesthetics of the Windows operating system.

Alan Hatcher
"Box Fans"
media: box fans, weights, 2009

Box Fans is a series of installations in which I alter box fans to make them interact with their environment and each other in an interesting way.

Cassandra Jackson
"none-state interrupt"
media: video, 2009

Ten minutes of constant light feeding back into itself, creating rhythmic and recursive fractal structures. The subtle irregularities in both frame playback and camera perspectives jolt the viewer out of their transfixed state, but only for short moments. As time progresses, the visual patterns and movements become more complex in form, as does the audio tones.

Mik Kastner (with Patrick Cunningham)
"All Bets Are Off"
media: bamboo, plexiglass, agar growth medium, bacteria, custom electronics
2009

"All Bets Are Off" is a sculpture that pits bacteria from the mouth and bacteria from the foot in a competition to the death. Two circular shaped plates of nutrient rich medium are combined to form one unit. These plates are exposed to a swab sample taken from a mouth and a swab sample taken from a foot. The plates are placed in an incubator for three days to encourage bacterial growth. During the course of the show the bacteria will continue to grow. As they grow, they will consume the limited amount of resources that are available in their sparse environment. The winner will be the bacteria that consumes the most material. However, over consumption and over breeding will lead to the eventual death of both sides.

Liliya Lifanova
"Garry Kasparov(w) vs. Anatoli Karpov(b), Moscow, 1985. Classic Russian Attack"
50 x 37 1/2 inches
media: Acrylic, pencil, and ink on paper, 2009

This record of a match between two legendary chess masters of the former U.S.S.R. was selected as a possible performance script to be carried out by 32 participants embodying various chess pieces. An organizational tool for the artist and a visual representation of the match, this drawing illustrates, simultaneously, all decisions made by the two players throughout the game, depicting each piece's past, present and future positions on the grid. As an attempt to chart the imaginary realm or the "fourth dimension" that chess masters are said to access during play, Lifanova's drawing winds up illustrating motion as a static entity in order to better understand causality and implication of relational movement.

Luis Palacios
"Fuzzball"
Media: Tree, acrylic, wood, 2009

This piece in an inquiry on the relationship between the natural world
and culture. It raises questions about the compromise that exists
between man-made structures and natural processes while opening the eye
to strange faux landscapes.

Aaron David Ross
"Dynamic Ascension"
media: custom software, microphone, TV, 2009

"Dynamic Ascension" is a kareoke interface developed for algorithmically generated guided meditations. Text from existing guided meditations is parsed into text categories and reassembled by simple algorithms into new, arbitrary formations, while attempting to retain the quality and function of the original texts. The piece addresses the nature of karaoke, as a symbolic evacuation of the original meanings of our cultural experiences, and draws parallels between this process and the nature of new age mysticism, which carries a similar negation of meaning as 'transcendent' experiences are appropriated by the western world through consumerism, ''self-help' culture and the illusion of engaging with one's own spirituality. By allowing the computer to assemble these texts, their non-linear and discretionary properties are amplified, and the nature of our metaphysical experiences comes into question."

Alan Strathmann
"Tuple"
media: plastic , 2009

"Tuple" is a object-set derived from a digital prototype and cast repeatedly from a single mold. the work is a personal exploration of object realization and one of cultural and material processes that manifests contradictions as to sense and object association.

Katie Waugh
"Failure to Communicate Effectively"
media: video, 2009

Addressing the materiality of cheap-and-easy video, this piece redefines the stuttering, mutated, visually brilliant language of streaming web video as it attempts to convey the scripted language of political discourse. By focusing on those moments when this medium reaches its own breaking point, I remove the video’s intended content, replacing it with a spectacular alternative.

Syniva Whitney
"Play"
"Test Pattern"
"White Noise"
media: latch hook rugs on stretched canvas designed and produced by hand using commercial yarns, 2009

The interface, static, test patterns, display screens: The slow and tactile method of rug making is used to see what happens when a fleeting image made of light is translated into something still and tactile. What is the relationship between technology and the human body? I am currently interested in visualizing and manipulating the architectural and binary nature of photography, rug making, weaving and web design.