Mari Velonaki
Mari Velonaki, Fish-Bird: Circle C – Movement B (2005) and Circle D: Fragile Balances (2008)
With David Rye, Steve Scheding and Stefan Williams.
Photo: Paul Grosby
‘By intimate use, machines take on a certain personal, I-and-thou quality in relation to their operator.’ ? Lewis Mumford Art and Technics (1952)
Mari Velonaki is one of the most distinguished media artists in Australia who has pursued and sustained an innovative exploration of the relationship between art and technology. Informed by her early involvement in performance art and interests in the body, subjectivity and interaction, kinetic sculpture, and pre-cinematic devices such as mechanical toys and Theatre Optique, Velonaki’s recent artworks reflect the more complex and beguiling dynamics that have evolved between ourselves, art and technics.
On first encounter, Fish-Bird: Circle C – Movement B and Circle D: Fragile Balances may resemble, respectively, pre-industrial automata and eighteenth century wonder boxes. However, the deceptive simplicity of both artworks belies their ingenious conceptual rigour, technical sophistication, and aesthetic subtlety.
Fish-Bird and Fragile Balances were produced by Velonaki, principally in collaboration with robotic scientists David Rye, Steve Scheding, and Stefan Williams (Fish-Bird), at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, University of Sydney. The first of their three collaborative projects, a light-reactive installation titled Embracement (2003) ? in which a younger and an older woman repeatedly move towards each other, in either an affectionate or loathing embrace, then disappear ? utilised a specially constructed photodynamic screen.
Each of these works involves dual protagonists who are engaged in a delicate yet ambiguous relationship. In the case of Fish-Bird and Fragile Balances, we affect the state of their relationships the more we interact with them. In the process, we are simultaneously delighted and unsettled by their uncanny responsive behaviours, and, by our own empathetic connection to their individual ‘personalities’.
Fish-Bird: Circle C – Movement B was inspired by a Greek fairy tale about a fish and a bird who fall in love but cannot be together because of their differences. In Velonaki’s work, the ill-fated characters are embodied as autonomous robotic wheelchairs ? two temperamental desiring machines that learn to communicate intimately with each other, and with their visitors, via movement and printed text. A distributed network of sensors monitor the ‘body language’ of the wheelchairs and participants, while the information is communicated wirelessly.
Circle C – Movement B (2005)
In Circle D: Fragile Balances, the characters are embodied as two luminous cubes, each comprised of four high resolution crystal screens and Bluetooth wireless links. Fragments of personalised messages wrap around each cube, and also flow between the two objects. If abruptly handled by the visitor, the texts become disturbed and barely readable. The visitor must therefore establish a delicate and respectful relationship with the objects in order for them to yield their messages.
As with Velonaki’s earlier interactive works ? most notably, Unstill Life (2000) and Pin Cushion (2000) ? Fish-Bird and Fragile Balances elegantly explore the intricate interplay between artwork and audience/participant, based on notions of trust and shared intimacy. For Mari Velonaki the dialogues between Human and Machine are personal and poetic, revealing not only the creative potentials between art and technology, but also the profound implications of our being with technology.
Text by Alessio Cavallaro
Alessio Cavallaro has been a leading figure in the development of electronic arts in Australia for over twenty years, primarily as a curator, producer, and publications editor in film, video, new media, and sound arts. Since 2000, he has been Senior Curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne (www.acmi.net.au). Major exhibitions include Transfigure (2003/04), SenseSurround (2004), World Without End (2005), and 2006 Contemporary Commonwealth. Alessio was founding Director of dLux media arts, Sydney (1997-2000), where he initiated and produced a range of innovative programs, including the international annual events d>art and futureScreen. He was co-producer/curator of ISEA 92, and the Australian Film Commission’s seminal Filmmaker and Multimedia events (1993 & 95); and an inaugural member of the New Media Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts (1997–2000). Publications (as co-editor) include OnScreen/RealTime (1996-2000) and Prefiguring Cyberculture (MIT Press/Power, 2002). alessio.cavallaro@acmi.net.au
Details of Work
Circle D: Fragile Balances 2008
Base is 28.0 cm deep x 60.0 cm wide x 96.5 cm high approx.
Cubes (2) 12.1 cm deep x 12.1 cm wide x 10.5 cm high approx.
Interactive installation, Black Bean timber, LCD screens, 3140 aircraft grade steel tube, custom-made microcomputers (3 per cube), power supplies, sensors and amplifiers.
This artwork was produced by the artist in collaboration with David Rye: mechatronic systems design and Steve Scheding: software architecture. The production was sponsored by Centre for Social Robotics, Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR), The University of Sydney and supported by Iain Brown: Detail mechanical design of cube, machining and assembly; Bruce Crundwell: Steel fabrication and precision component machining; Andrew Hill: ‘Handwriting’ trajectory generation; Craig Rodgers: Electronics development; David Silvera: Prototype cube design and programming; Geoff Tonkin: Timber milling and base construction.
Fish-Bird: Circle B – Movement C
2004-2006
Interactive installation, custom made steel wheelchairs, custom-made vision and laser measurement systems, multiple computers with wired and Bluetooth wireless networks.
dimensions variable.
This artwork was produced by the artist in collaboration with David Rye: mechatronic systems design; Steve Scheding: software architecture; Stefan Williams: tracking system. The production was assisted by a Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council and sponsored by Australia Council for the Arts; Australian Centre for Field Robotics Artspace, Sydney; Australian Network for Art and Technology; Museum of Contemporary Arts, Sydney; Patrick Technology and Systems. Substantial contributions were made by the following: Lead programmer: James Hudson; Mechanical fabrication: Bruce Crundwell; Plastics fabrication: Alan Trinder; Upholstery: Grant Panozzo; Research and prototyping: Martin Edgren & Erik Wahlström; Bluetooth circuitry and firmware: Alex Green; Wheelchair trajectory generation: Luke Sassé; Visual tracking algorithms and software: Alex Brooks; Network and communications software: Alexei Makarenko, Matt Ridley & Alex Brooks; Font manipulation and text processing: Dave Wood; ‘Handwriting’ trajectory generation: Andrew Hill; Technical support: Chris Mifsud, Richard Grover & Jeremy Randle.
Artist Biography
Mari Velonaki b.1968, Athens, Greece. Currently resides in Sydney. Velonaki has worked in the field of interactive installation art since 1995. Her practice engages the spectator/participant with digital and robotic ‘characters’ in interplays stimulated by sensory triggered interfaces. She has worked with speech (1995), touch (1997), breath (1998), electrostatic charge (2000), vision system (2000), light (2003) and robotics (2003). She was awarded a PhD in Media Arts at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in 2003. Velonaki’s installations have been widely exhibited. Exhibitions include: ZENDAI Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh, Millennium Museum - Beijing Biennale of Electronic Arts, Ars Electronica, Austria, Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Conde Duque Museum, Madrid, European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Arco, Madrid, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. In 2006, with Dr David Rye, she co-founded the Centre for Social Robotics within the Australian Centre for Field Robotics1 at the University of Sydney. Mari is currently the recipient of an Australia Council Visual Arts Fellowship (2007-09).
1The Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) is a partner in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Autonomous Systems. Drs David Rye, Steve Scheding, Mari Velonaki and Stefan Williams form the core art/science collaboration at this institution. Areas of research include robotics, distributed and decentralised systems and human/machine interaction.
Mari Velonaki’s Collaborators:
David Rye works in embedded and applied control of machinery, and in the design and implementation of computer-controlled systems. Although his background is in mechanical engineering (BE, University of Adelaide 1981; PhD, The University of Sydney 1986), he now works principally on computerised machinery, electronics, software and systems design. Rye has conducted a number of industrial research and development projects related to automation and control of machinery, including methods for reduction of load sway in shipboard cranes; reeving arrangements for cranes used for container handling and the system design of an autonomous container handling vehicle. Rye is also internationally recognised as a pioneer in the introduction and development of university teaching in mechatronics, having instituted the first Australian Bachelor of Engineering in Mechatronic Engineering in 1990.
Steve Scheding’s research concentrates on the acquisition, representation, interpretation and visualisation of three-dimensional environmental data. He has used disparate sensors, such as laser, radar, cameras and multi-spectral sensors for capturing data from outdoor terrains. The data include information such as range, reflectivity etc., as well as terrain properties such as colour and plant health. Scheding’s innovative software enables the acquisition-representation-visualisation pipeline to operate in real-time. Scheding has a PhD (1998) and a BE (1995), both in Mechatronics from The University of Sydney. Apart from his work in representation and visualisation, he has conducted extensive R&D work on the automation of land vehicles and mining machinery.
Stefan Williams’ current research focus deals with architectures for autonomous systems. He is interested particularly in the area of distributed and decentralised data fusion, and in how systems can be designed to enable autonomy. An important research question arises from the interaction of autonomous systems with an audience. How can people be integrated into these systems, either as an audience or from the point of view of control? Stefan has a PhD in Field Robotics from The University of Sydney (2001), and a BASc in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo (1998). He is currently working on demonstrating multi-vehicle Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping using a newly created indoor robotics facility at the ACFR. This work will be adapted to field environments as it matures. His field work focuses on the area of marine systems, where he is deploying an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle for surveying marine habitats, including coral reefs.