TodaysArt Festival 2019
read moreFor over two decades, TodaysArt Festival has been all about visually immersive art that pushes the boundaries of light, space and sound. The result is a stunning archive of audio-visual creations. Many of the AV shows and XR installations are commissions that debuted at the festival and could only be witnessed once. Employing A.I., VR, AR or 360-technologies, they blur the lines between the physical, real, virtual and digital and they've made us experience new levels of immersion. Here is the first installment from our series: “From the Archive”, as we look at the top pieces from 16 years of TodaysArt Festival, that made a lasting impression. (pt.2)
Ryoichi Kurokawa — subassemblies (2019)
Kurokawa’s audio-visual show was part of our 2019 festival. Returning to The Hague for the 2nd time after 2012, this show is based on 3D data and filmed footage of architecture, ruins and nature, which are distorted and reconstructed into different ‘subassemblies’. The contrasts of nature vs. human-made and abstract vs. concrete images float across the screen in multi-layered depth, creating a fascinating visual composition.
Robert Henke — Lumière (2014)
A real throwback in the TodaysArt archive: after his appearances at TodaysArt Festival in 2007 and 2011, Robert Henke returned to The Hague in 2014 for the Dutch premiere of the audiovisual laser performance ‘Lumière’. In it, powerful lasers drew rapid successions of morphing shapes and connected points whilst musical events provided a rhythmical counterpoint. ‘Lumière’ was an immersive multi sensory experience. Massive and overwhelming at times, fragile and delicate at others. The show was not a pre-rendered screening but a highly improvisational performance on the edge of concert and visual arts, driven by a constantly refined piece of software – written by the artist himself specifically for this project.
Nikki Hock and SK U Kno (Suzanne Kraft) — Saevio (2018)
This audio-visual show by Nikki Hock and producer SK U Kno, was performed inside the geodesic fulldome at TodaysArt Festival in 2018. Hock’s generative real-time, abstracted and distorted visuals and SK U Kno’s sound composition submerged the audience into a fully immersive journey, which thematically referenced the chaos, catastrophe and uncanny beauty of natural disasters.
Daito Manabe x Rhizomatiks x Elevenplay — phospehere (2018)
Mirrors, smoke machines, lasers and video projectors were amongst the equipment to create this powerful interdisciplinary dance project from 2018. Reknown interaction designer Daito Manabe collaborated with Japanese dance troupe Elevenplay for this stunning piece. The boundaries between the digital and physical faded as the performers merged with digital graphics and light into an almost surreal environment. The performance was inspired by Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer who deconstructed dance into geometric spaces along with light, color and rhythm. It was groundbreaking in that it involved omnidirectional video projections that interacted with the dancers and motion capture to trace their movements which were instantaneously converted into video.
Refik Anadol — Machine Hallucinations (2019)
Refik Anadol uses A.I. to create powerful artwork. ‘Machine Hallucinations’ was shown at TodaysArt Festival 2019. The installation that explored memories and dreams through the mind of a machine, based on a neural network which was trained on a dataset of 103.727 images of historic architecture across Europe, ranging from architecture epochs such as Renaissance, Medieval and Baroque. The machine ‘dreamed up’ new spaces through mapping each image, making up for a unique aesthetic experience.
fuse — Dökk (2019)
A groundbreaking live-media opera, Dökk was one of the AV performances at TodaysArt Festival 2019 that truly left us in awe: “Everything that surrounds us is nothing but a collection of atoms, particles and electromagnetic fields, vibrating without any apparent meaning. When these impulses are interpreted by our mind, they become colours, tastes, music, memories and emotions: the foundations of what each one of us perceives as reality.” Dökk provided a journey through the subconscious mind, and created an immersive audiovisual universe in front of our eyes.
Photos by Maurice Mikkers, Stephan C. Kaffa, Marc Mikaelian
#fromthearchive #todaysart
TodaysArt Festival 2020: TRUST is set for 17 – 20 September 2020.
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