Art and Technology-Projects

Each semester there is an exhibition on ArT. Making the artwork and then writing a report is our semester projects. There is an exhibition website that can be found here.

Mørkest tryghed/Comfort of the dark (2019)

by Caroline Thrane, Lenette Langsø, Matias Gaarde, Rebekka Holm, Shobana Sutharsan, Victor Mikkelsen

Comfort of the Dark was our project for 1st semester on Art and Technology. The installation took the shape of a white doll that hung in wires from a cloud. The strings were pulled up and down by spools inside the cloud and the doll was therefore moved like a marionette. At the same time, the cloud flashed in bluish and reddish hues. While the puppet was being controlled by the cloud, a soundscape was playing in which the poem Det er ved at komme igen by Michael Strunge was read aloud. The spectators were placed around the installation, as this made them more intimate with both the installation/doll and with each other. The purpose of the work was to shed light on mental vulnerability and to remove the taboo that can be present when talking about or having mental disorders. This was done through the intimacy that came between the audience and the puppet, where the poem was to be seen as a kind of inner monologue. At the same time, the unity that came between the audience members created a safe space to be with mental vulnerability.

box.Auditus (2020)

by August Enghoff, Astrid Graungaard, Jesper Thiemer, Matias Gaarde

box.Auditus was our project for 3rd semester. It was a far more experimental and research-based artwork than my/our previous works. The artwork took the form of a box, 2.5×2.5×2.5 meters. A kinect that tracked the movements of the participants hung over the box. On the back wall, the movement of the participants was projected, along with a grid. For each column in this grid, there was a different sound. Depending on where the participant stood, the sound and its volume changed. Beforehand, we had tracked where test subjects were most and least likely to stand in the grid. From this data, we made two heatmaps that showed the average of all the test subjects. These heatmaps were also projected onto the back wall so that the participant could see themselves being tracked, the grid with the sounds and the attitudes of the previous test subjects. Our research was based on the psychological field priming, which describes how people can be influenced to behave in a certain way before they experience something. One half of the participants was told that the heatmap they saw was of the sounds people liked best and the other that it was the sounds people liked least. It was, in fact, the other way around. We hoped that this could prime the participants to agree with the heat map, even if it was “wrong”. It turned out that we could not, but this also followed priming. Under this, there is a topic called reactance, which describes how a person who is asked to do one may do the opposite.

The Greenscape (2021)

by Dorian Sinclear, Linda Flensborg, Matias Gaarde, Victor Mikkelsen

The Greenscape was our project for 4th semester. It was a digital experience, created in Unity. The experience took the form of a long straight road where the participant starts in a city. As they moved further into the experience, more and more nature emerged, and eventually the participant ended up in a forest. The aim of the work was to create awareness of the positive impact green areas have on physical and mental health. This could be seen in the digital experience, in that the closer the participant got to the forest at the end of the experience, the more powers they gained. These were running, jumping, interacting with the world, picking things up, throwing things. To show that green areas actually have an impact, we investigated a theory called attention restoration theory. This describes how and under which criteria focus and peace of mind can be restored if one is in a green area. We therefore asked our participants to meditate or relax in the city and then the forest. We then interviewed them and found that to some extent there had been a restoration of focus and serenity in the forest compared to the city and even compared to the participants before taking part in the digital experience.

by Anne-Kathrine Søndergaard, Ask Fogsgaard, Dorian Sinclear, Jesper Thiemer, Lenette Langsø, Lizette Guldfeldt, Lucas Arngrimsson, Maria Rohde, Matias Gaarde, Victor Mikkelsen

The Blind One’s jealousy was an interactive performance created by the whole of 5th semester. Our performance was based on the myth Balders Drømme from the Edda Poems in Norse mythology. This myth tells the story of how the Norse god Balder becomes impervious to everything but the mistletoe. Loki finds this weakness and exploits it, resulting in the death of Balder. Apart from being interactive, the performance was also mostly non-verbal. No words were spoken, and the only human sounds were occasional exclamations.
In our performance, we incorporated elements from the West-African religion Yoruba. We chose this because it has many similarities with Norse mythology. Both have several gods and many seem almost like the same god but with another name.
Our production was organized in collaboration with Trekanten – Bibliotek og Kulturhus, a cultural facility residing in the eastern part of Aalborg. They provided the space for us to create a public performance.
The production was created by the whole semester, divided into smaller teams, where each teams had a significant role in the successful creation of the play. Due to the small size of our class, the majority of us had to take on roles in multiple teams for the production to work out. Because of this I worked both with visual production and as a performer.
As a visual designer I created the visuals that played in the beginning of the performance, where Balder lays on the floor, dreaming. This gradually turns into a nightmare and in the end an omen, warning him of the arrow. This was created in the program TouchDesigner, as well as all other visuals for the rest of the performance.
As a performer, I played the Norse god Thor, whose visual design was influenced by Shango from Yoruban mythology. In the performance, my role was to initiate the audience’s ineraction and make them further engaged in the performance.