Four Innovative Artworks to be Unveiled AT AT&T Performing Arts Center During PRELUDE: A PREVIEW OF AURORA 2017

The nonprofit AT&T Performing Arts Center, in partnership with the founders of Aurora, today announced four of the ten art installations that will be on display at PRELUDE: A Preview of Aurora 2017 - Powered by Reliant.

Audio-kinetic sculptor Herman Kolgen, hailing from Montreal, will tap into the pulse of the natural environment. Korean artist collectives Ujoo+limheeyoung and teamVOID will each show works that reflect on our technological era. Ujoo+limheeyoung's art practice gives life to fantasy world machines, while teamVOID form moving patterns using kinetic and wave-like optical illusions. Antonin Fourneau's interactive installation invites the audience to draw ephemeral messages with light. PRELUDE will span the AT&T Performing Arts Center campus and Meyerson Symphony Center on October 21 and 22, 2016.

"My goals for my section of PRELUDE are to maintain a global focus, encourage cross-cultural exchange, and focus on themes of technology and society," said DooEun Choi, who has an accomplished history of institutional and public curation of media art across Asia, Europe and North America. "The selected artists come from various cultural backgrounds and generations and will create an open platform for the diverse audiences of Dallas to participate in, provoking new ways of thinking and questioning of the future."

"We are honored be working with DooEun Choi for PRELUDE," said Shane Pennington, one of the founding artists of Aurora. "She brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about the mediation of art and technology to the event. We are excited to experience the four artworks she is bringing to the AT&T Performing Arts Center campus, which are not only visually, but also conceptually and technologically, compelling. These works will expose the Dallas audience to some of the most innovative practices in the world of art & technology today."

In addition to the works curated by Dooeun Choi, six art installations, curated by Justine Ludwig (Dallas) and Nadim Samman (Berlin), will be on display throughout designated areas of the AT&T Performing Arts Center campus and Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.

The full list of PRELUDE artists is: Alicia Eggert & Safwat Saleem (Denton), Antonin Fourneau (Paris), Shilpa Gupta (Mumbai), Herman Kolgen (Montreal), Quayola (London), teamVOID (Seoul), and Tramaine Townsend (Dallas), and u_joo+limheeyoung (Seoul). The curators are DooEun Choi (New York), Justine Ludwig (Dallas) and Nadim Samman (Berlin).

Previously announced were Quayola's projections onto the Meyerson Symphony Center, curated by Nadim Samman; and The Future, which will be featured in the Art Bar, by Denton-based artists Alicia Eggert and Safwat Saleem. More installations will be revealed in the coming weeks.

In the spirit of Aurora and its commitment to creating free and public experiences of innovative contemporary art, PRELUDE will remain free of charge for both nights. In 2011, 2013 and 2015, the Aurora biennial event stretched across the Dallas Arts District. Last year's event attracted a record 50,000 people in a single night.

PRELUDE is being sponsored by the Center's official energy provider, Reliant. PRELUDE's media partner is The Dallas Morning News. To sign up for updates and to RSVP to this free event visit www.attpac.org/prelude.

ABOUT THE ARTWORKS

"Light Wave," a light installation by artist duo teamVOID, uses LED lights and motors to produce optical illusions. The artistic engineering and movement of this installation make it appear wave-like and kinetic. The audience will experience different perceptions of space, transcending the limited experience of an existing display. "Light Wave" is sponsored by Fluor International.

"Temptation of the Dancing Mask - Dark Eating Machine" by u_joo+limheeyoung is made of what the artists describe as darkness-summoning masks. Its numerous teeth move in the dark, emitting powerful light to absorb the energy of the dark. Once enough darkness has been accumulated that no more can be added, a black hole is formed, demonstrating the kinetic power of today's technology, machines, Artificial Intelligence, and their use in the future.

"UnWind" by Herman Kolgen will be suspended above the AT&T Performing Arts Center's reflecting pool. The installation uncharacteristically illustrates harmony and union between pairs of living organisms. A natural object, in the form of a tree, is provided an artificial respiration system that is slowly breathing in conjunction with the outside real-time wind and the audience that surrounds it. A lighting system coordinates with a pulse of the natural surrounding environment and the other living organisms within it to create a whole experience.

Antonin Fourneau's "Waterlight Graffiti," a wall of LEDs that illuminate when touched by water, was created using a new kind of reactive material to draw or write ephemeral messages made of light. This project will invite the audience to create their own "temporary graffiti" on the wall of LEDs with a basic environment-friendly atomizer. "Waterlight Graffiti" is sponsored by Reliant.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS CURATED BY DOOEUN CHOI

Antonin Fourneau received an Art Diploma in 2005 from Aix-en-Provence Art School, followed by a post Diploma in Interactiv Art in the Design School of ENSAD Paris in 2007. Since his graduation, Antonin has been focused on interaction and relation with popular culture. He created a collaborative project about innovation and new form of funfair named Eniarof. Most of his research focuses on the pleasure to interact with large groups of people. In continuation of his research, he was selected for a residency in Japan in 2007 at the Tokyo Wonder Site. Followed in 2008 in a residence at Medialab Prado in Madrid as part of its research for the project Oterp (a geolocalised music game). Over the years, he took part in various exhibitions related to digital arts. He is currently professor of Digital Arts in ENSAD and guest to teach in several schools like CAFA-Beijing.

Herman Kolgen is an acclaimed multidisciplinary artist with more than two decades of experience in media arts, living and working in Montreal. An audiotcinetic sculptor, he draws his raw material from the intimate relationship between sound and image. Kolgen creates pieces that take on the form of installations, video, performances and sound sculptures. Kolgen's works have most notably been presented at the Venice Biennale, Shanghai Etarts, Berlin's Transmediale, Arselectronica, Isea, the Georges Pompidou Centre, Cimatics, Dissonanze, Mutek, Elektra, Sonar, and Tapei Digital Arts. He has also performed with Paris' Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Herman Kolgen has been awarded many prestigious prizes, including Ars Electronica, Qwartz and the New York and Los Angeles Independent Film Festivals' Best Experimental Film. From 1996 to 2008, he devoted much of his creative output to the Skoltz_Kolgen Duo.

teamVOID of Seoul, Korea is an artistic duo run by Junbong Song and Jaehyuck Bae. Both engineers and artists, they develop research between art, robotic programming, custom hardware elements and software. Playful and poetic, their creations share an organic use of technology. They create experimental and unique installations that can be interactive and kinetic.

Ujoo+limheeyoung (Yoo Byoung Joon and Lim Hee Young) of Seoul, Korea seek to communicate about a fantasy kept real. By giving the fantasy world the name "Pinkroad" and creating mechanical devices with unrealistic functions, their goal is to give concrete form to fantasy. Their work possesses a structure in which it moves according to real time; through it, they make the viewer aware of where fantasy and reality can intersect, while meticulously creating un-worldly devices capable of drawing fantasy into reality.

ABOUT THE CURATOR

DooEun Choi (New York) is presently Art Director of Da Vinci Creative 2017 in Seoul. She is also working as adjunct curator for Waterfall Mansion & Gallery in New York and for Art Center Nabi in Seoul. She was former creative director at the Art Center Nabi until 2011, one of the premier media art center in South Korea since its founding in 2000. As a curator, she treats the space as a laboratory for experimenting with the types of experience and aesthetics that can emerge from combining and recombining scientific knowledge, artistic practices, and historical narratives. Her recent projects include "Da Vinci Creative 2015" (Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture in Seoul, Korea) "Mediacity Seoul 2012 Biennale" (Seoul Museum of Art in Seoul, Korea),"ZERO1 Biennial 2012" (Zero1 Garage in Silicon Valley, USA), "Anima" (Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, Turkey) and "Boundless Fantasy: Media Art from East Asia" (Charles Wang Center in New York, USA).

MUSIC

Live music will precede each night of PRELUDE:

Friday, October 21: Brave Combo - 6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. - Strauss Square

Saturday, October 22: Larry g(EE) - 6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. - Strauss Square

Note: Both performances are free to the public.

PRELUDE LIGHTS

This year, the AT&T Performing Arts Center will also be hosting its first major fundraising event, Prelude Lights, on the night before PRELUDE, Thursday, October 20. The ticketed event will take place in the Center's outdoor amphitheater Annette Strauss Square surrounded by the city's skyline. Proceeds from Prelude Lights will support arts education, community programs and future imaginative projects presented by the nonprofit Center.

Prelude Lights is an extraordinary evening of interactive art, culinary delights and a live performance by Denton-based electronic band Neon Indian and a DJ set by Zhora. Guests will also be the first to see and interact with the curated PRELUDE.

More information about Prelude Lights, including tickets and sponsorship opportunities, is available at www.preludelights.com.

 

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