News

An interactive installation designed by a Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researcher will be on display at a major Chinese art-science exhibition symposium in November.

The collaboratively designed Finitude (V3) is a major new media/sculptural art-science work that will be exhibited at the Third Art & Science International Exhibition and Symposium in Beijing.

Participants lie within the installation and can interact with a semi-transparent Perspex screen display projecting 3D imagery above them. The participant can see through its animated surface to a series of physical mobiles suspended above, lit by LED spotlighting.

The Finitude installation, designed by QUT's Dr Keith Armstrong, touches on the symposium's themes of information, ecology and wisdom.

"These mobiles consist of a slowly rotating series of physical models allowing the real time composition of holographic-style 'landscapes' that visually combine both these 'real' and 'virtual' media forms," Dr Armstrong said.

"Through subtle touch-sensitive interactivity the participant then has influence over both the 3D graphic imagery, the physical movements of the diorama and the four-channel immersive soundscape, creating a seamless blend of physical and virtual media."

Finitude was created in collaboration with ecological scientists from Australia's Mallee outback country during residencies with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy - a rare mammal conservation/science based organisation. The work speaks about 'time left' for both ours and many other species and considers how we might now choose to give to, or take time away from, the future (from an ecological perspective).

Dr Armstrong worked with Professor Roger Dean (UWS), Stuart Lawson and Darren Pack to create Finitude. Griffith Design Futures Professor Tony Fry and Dr Liz Baker provided sustainability advice.

The Art and Science International Exhibition and Symposium was last held in 2001 and 2006. It was founded by Nobel Prize winner physicist Professor Tsung Dao Lee and master of painting, Professor Wu Guanzhong.

The Chinese event assembles the latest cutting-edge research results in the field of art and science. According to event organisers, the symposium will integrate diversified ideas and art forms, examine the "ultimate ideal and spirit of human being", and attempt to explore and create the future through new thoughts and methods.

"It adopts the perspectives of information science, life science and ecological science and making art aesthetics, biological information technology and ecological wisdom as the carrier," Beijing organisers state.

The international symposium will be presented in parallel by the Zhuangshi academic Journal with the target to establish a platform for long term communication and interdisciplinary practice among the scientists, designers and artists, and to strengthen the understanding of the exhibition's themes.

Finitude is supported by QUT Creative Industries, QUT Interactive and Visual Design, The Australia Council For the Arts, Art & Science Research Centre, Tsinghua University, The Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China, The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the China Association for Science and Technology.

Organisation

QUT Creative Industries

Info

Keith Armstrong

Email

k.armstrong@qut.edu.au

URL

QUT Creative Industries