‘Fusing Technology’ presents a curated selection of works by our diverse international roster of artists, each of whom focuses their attention on a society in flux, shaped by the impact of fast-paced innovations to produce captivating works that continue to reshape the world we live in and challenge our perceptions.
Working with a broad range of media including 3D visual projection mapping, performative artwork, film and fashion design, the artists share an interest in creating works that use state-of-the-art technology to stretch the boundaries of the possible.
Featured artists include Sila Sveta, which combines innovative technology with creative expression to develop immersive digital art installations and experiences; DRIFT, which creates delicate kinetic sculptures, immersive installations and performance art pieces that explore the fluctuating relationships between nature, technology and man; Italian director Luca Finotti, who combines powerful moving images with trend research to create eminently viral and shareable digital film content; Marco Brambilla, who creates site-specific video installations and commercial projects characterized by the elaborate and kaleidoscopic re-contextualization of popular and archival imagery; and Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen, a pioneer in utilizing 3D printing technology as one of the guiding principles in her sculptural work.
New York and Moscow-based interactive media, production and conceptual design company, Sila Sveta, developed the visual stage design for rapper Drake and hip-hop trio Migos’s 2018 North American concert tour.
Invited to collaborate by American director Willo Perron, who is known for his work with Kanye West, Rihanna, Jay-Z, The Weeknd, and others, Sila Sveta’s design was at once a light box and a gargantuan projector on which images of mermaids circling around Drake like sharks were shown and molten lava morphed into a rippling, sun-dappled pool. Its ever-shifting designs became a visual feast for the duration of the show.
Drake’s Spring 2019 European tour, “Assassination Vacation,” utilized the same stage design.
"Drake’s new tour is worth seeing for the stage alone. It isn’t just a stage, it’s a piece of multimedia art."
Sila Sveta created a visual design for Drake’s tracks using a variety of 3D visuals. The studio worked on the project for three months, creating a huge, stage-sized scorpion, multi-colored palm trees, an iPhone X home screen, the performer’s holographic projection, a basketball court, and photorealistic volumetric lava to share the stage with Drake.
The project attracted top industry professionals, including Jessie Blevins for light design and Tait Towers for stage production, with drones integrated by Verity.
“The show used BlackTrax technology, which allowed real-time tracking of the artist's movement around the stage, and the content responded to his movements. When Drake walked on the ice, it broke underneath him.”
Exploring the relationship between man, nature and technology, ‘Franchise Freedom’ is a performative artwork in which an autonomously flying swarm of hundreds of drones questions the human concept of freedom and social construct.
Amsterdam-based studio DRIFT’s technology is based on ongoing university research on flocking behavior, as the principles of self-organization become more and more relevant in our changing world. Never before has a natural phenomenon of this magnitude been recreated by autonomously flying drones, which invites viewers to see a poetic side of technical innovation and connect back with nature.
Created as a tribute to DRIFT’s fascination with nature’s grandeur and complexity, ‘Franchise Freedom’ invites the observer to view a poetic side of technical innovation and connect back with nature.
In 1969, Apollo 11 launched from Kennedy Space Center with a mission to land on the moon. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of this monumental achievement, DRIFT was invited by the Aldrin Family Foundation to commemorate this historical moment at the Kennedy Space Center’s Rocket Garden with a special performance of ‘Franchise Freedom’ in front of a full moon together with a musical performance by Duran Duran.
“Technology can have a positive effect on humanity. It is our responsibility to use technology to build a sustainable future.”
Italian creative and film director Luca Finotti’s ‘We Believe in the Power of Love’ brings together Riccardo Tisci and Nike’s worlds into a universal story aiming to underline that we are all believers.
Merging animation with live action, the conceptual video celebrates inclusion and love with a wide range of models and aesthetics to show how our differences are something that bind and bring us together, not set us apart.
Finotti’s pop aesthetic is perceived through the 3D footwear and glitch cuts throughout, with a strong reference to online virality and social media as a way to reflect the director’s idea of the internet taking over video.
‘We Believe in the Power of Love’ received more than 25 Film Festival awards and official selections across the globe.
"True love fights for what is right. True loves honors, respects and gives power and glory. True love reflects the light inside of you and all it wants you to do, is be YOU! True love is poetry and is beyond all words."
Apollo XVIII is a multi-channel video installation created by Marco Brambilla Studio that interprets man’s relationship to space exploration and presents an imagined mission to the moon; a mission born in the virtual age. For one month, Times Square was transformed into a virtual launchpad as Apollo XVIII played across dozens of electronic billboards from 11:57pm to midnight.
In collaboration with NASA, footage was filmed at Cape Canaveral, combined with Hubble imagery, rare material from the NASA archives and original computer-generated imagery to fabricate the fictitious mission. Combining iconic moments from past and present with the wholly synthetic, Apollo XVIII presented a new collective viewing experience, calling into question the nature of fact and fiction, reality versus perception and context.
“I'm fascinated by mixing the nostalgia of the analog age with the promises of today's technology. I hope to leave the viewer to decide the value of virtual and physical modes of exploring.”
Hailed as a pioneer in utilizing 3D printing as a garment construction technique, Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen’s ‘Ludi Naturae’ collection examines the natural and manmade landscapes of our world from a bird’s-eye view, tracing the laws of entropy with boundary-pushing construction and innovative material techniques.
Achieving the perfect mix of technology and creativity, van Herpen collaborated with the Delft University of Technology to develop two different laser-cutting techniques: ‘Data Dust,’ in which parametric patterns are computationally distorted, foam-lifted, laser-cut and heat-bonded onto an invisible silk tulle, creating radiant glitches, and ‘Entropy,’ in which nude leather and liquid fabric are bonded to mylar, individually laser-cut into perforated diminishing patterns, and interwoven to form interlocking gradients from leather to drape voluminously.
“I zoomed out to look at the earth’s skin, trying to find the forces behind the forms. Looking from this perspective, I felt inspired by the patterns of chaos and order, nature and civilization blending into infinite hybrids.”
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