ECTOPIA's Timeline

marta m. on Dipity.

EPAC's "Dreaming of a Butterfly" opening in Lisbon!

23th September, Lisbon, Portugal

"Dreaming of a Butterfly"

António Caramelo

Dreaming of a Butterfly



45 acrylic tubes are arranged within the display box. Each tube has a "mechanical" butterfly placed within and their movements are synchronised with the sound system - where microphones obtain real time sound of the surrounding area, and amplify the sounds to the internal subwoofers speakers to produce the necessary input to cause the aleatory movements of the butterflies. As the sound captured reach higher volume, the movement of the butterflies increase.

Each butterfly is attached inside to the acrylic tube by a filament that runs to the battery housing. There is a certain amount of realness to it, while it is understated up close (people can see the filament when the butterfly is at a standstill - or the sound volume is low), but from farther away the fleeting butterfly appears to be real and trying to find its escape!

The "Dreaming of a Butterfly" inside the acrylic tube flutters and flies around the inside of the tube with true-to-life motion, giving the impression of a real butterfly, so this creates a movement within the tube that appears to be truly random. The users may also interact with the butterfly to flap or flutter its wings on command by producing incoming sound from surrounding area.

EPAC's "The Nerves" opening in Riga!

17th September, Riga, Latvia

"The Nerves"

Gints Gabrāns

The Nerves



Impulses in different colours – red, blue, violet, yellow, etc., are transmitted through the optical fibre with such speed that is so high, that we are not capable to detect these impulses as separated tones - they become invisible and changes into a calmly floating white light. There are about 11'200'000 different colour, intensity and length impulses transmitted per second. This number is equal to the amount of bits that whole human nerve system can abstract. By comparison our consciousness can process only 10 – 60 bits per second.

EPAC's "Bee Box" opening in London!

1st September, London, United Kingdom

"BEE BOX"

Anne Brodie

Opened

Laura Cinti (EPAC project coordinator in London,UK) writes: "Bee box opened last night (ed. September 1st) :) was fantastic! We also had a private view party overlooking the box as the day turned to night and the response was phenomenal. Bee Box has drawn a lot of attention and is located in a truly amazing location where the buzz of the city working meets nightlife surrounded by skyscrapers, markets stalls and cafes."

EPAC's "City Break" opening in Helsinki!

26th August, 18:00, Helsinki, Finland

"CityBeat"

Ben Dromey, Mina Arko, Jari Suominen

Opened

Piritta Puhto (EPAC project coordinator in Finland, Helsinki) writes: "We had our opening and it went super well! The timing was perfect as it is the night of the arts and the streets were full of happy people. The work was received extremely well and people have come to tell me how nice it is. We are very happy about that.




Photo by Tekla Pohjolainen

Marta de Menezes at Visceral Symposium in Dublin.

Marta de Menezes, Artistic Director of Ectopia, will speak at the Visceral Symposium at the Science Galery in Dublin on Saturday, 29th January.

About the exhibition
Why VISCERAL? There is something that makes us a little uneasy, perhaps even queasy, about the idea of creating artworks from living tissue. VISCERAL incorporates ten years of SymbioticA’s challenging work at the frontier between fine art and biotechnology and forms a series of provocations and puzzles around the nature of the living and non-living. Curated by Oron Catts and Dr Ionat Zurr, the works are occasionally playful, frequently uncanny and may even appear to be sentient.
More info here.