2009-11-10 05:14:45 - Four of the world’s most wildly creative tech-art-nature experts will descend on Langham Place hotel this November. With them they will bring their new media art experimentations transforming the hotel’s lobby into a Project Room for international new media art.

The exhibition is part of the 2009 Microwave International New Media Arts Festival and will operate in conjunction with the hotel’s Artists in Residence exhibition series. While a large part of the festival will take place at the Hong Kong City Hall, the most experimental component of the festival will be reserved for Langham Place’s lobby.

Themed Nature Transformer, the exhibition

looks at nature and how humans have transformed it – humans love their habitat but as they transform it, they must know that each may eventually destroy the other.

The Artists in Residence Project Room exhibition will allow guests and the public to interact with different art pieces and understand the creative process. One of the feature art pieces is a commissioned artwork titled Chirps (2009) by renowned Portuguese-Hong Kong artist Joao Vasco Paiva. The art piece consists of 120 mechanical birds which will reside in the hotel. The installation interacts with people’s motions via tracking cameras; motion sensors make the birds react (sing) via a sound generating computer programme.

OTHER ART PIECES IN THE PROJECT ROOM AT LANGHAM PLACE
FRESH 3.0 (2009)
Created by US artist Tiffany Holmes, FRESH 3.0 shows generative animation looping on a large plasma screen. The images look like nature scenes, however they are all created from the thousands of corporate logos, barcodes and images from water bottle labels. The composition was generated by custom animation software written by the artist. Tiffany wants to raise awareness about the high cost of bottled water on the environment - in cities where citizens have access to good quality tap water.

GOOGLE PORTRAIT (2009)
German artist Aram Bartholl looks at the transformation of human identity with technology. Today most people from industralised countries can be found on google. By googling someone or egogoogling (googling your own name) you can often get a very good overview on someone – whether they are popular, their level of education, their career path, their private interests and so forth. This online identity creates a new type of portrait. Using recently developed online software, Aram has taken the information available about himself online to develop a unique series of self portraits - presenting the idea of the future portrait for all human beings.

KULT ARTCADE (2009)
Instead of playing arcade classics, this vintage-styled machine displays a Flash based 3-D magazine developed by Singaporean creative agency Kult. Using a trackball, users can visualise art, illustration, photography and personal vignettes from Asian and international artists. The aim is to blur boundaries and encourage the viewer to participate in a visual dialogue with the works – waste free.

Artists in Residence Project Room at Langham Place hotel will run from 14 November – 11 December 2009. The exhibition is open to the public from 6.00am – 12.00am and is free to attend.

For further information visit www.microwavefest.net/festival2009/
For further information on Langham Place visit hongkong.langhamplacehotels.com

Images of the exhibition will be available following the launch on 14 November 2009.