Scott Hessels & Gabriel Dunne Celestial Mechanics
Celestial Mechanics is an artwork intended to be viewed in a planetarium dome. Instead of stars and planets, the ‘night sky’ program reveals many of the aerial technologies hovering, flying, and drifting above us. The project mixes science, statistical display, and contemporary art by presenting these mechanical patterns and behaviors as a dynamic visual experience.
The sky is filled with aircraft that transport people from place to place, perform utilitarian duties, assist in communications, enact military missions, or wander above us as debris. With help from government agencies and the science community, the artists worked with accurate tracking and protocol statistics to create 3-D models of the airborne systems. They then led a team of top animators to visualize those models in a style that reflects the chaos, force, and influence of these technologies.
At any given moment, there can be 30,000 manmade objects in the sky above us—planes, helicopters, satellites, weather balloons, space debris, and other diverse technologies. They watch, they guide, they protect, they communicate, they transport, they predict, they look out into the stars. In less than 100 years, the deep blue has become a complex web of machinery.
Our lives are closely tied to these networks in the sky, but a disjunction has occurred between us and the aerial technologies we use every day. We rarely consider the hulking, physical machines that have now become core to our lifestyle. By not being aware of the hardware we use every day, we may also not be aware of the social, economic, cultural, and political importance of these technologies. By visualizing them, it may lead to a better understanding of the forces that are shaping our future.
biography:
Scott Hessels je međunarodno priznati filmski umetnik i skulptor, koji u svom radu spaja film sa novim tehnologijama i tako proizvodi nova medijska iskustva. Tokom tridesetogodišnje karijere radio je na poljima filma, videa, weba, muzike, radija i televizije, publicistike, kinetičke skulpture i performansa. Njegovi filmovi prikazivani su na mnogim svetskim festivalima, a instalacije su izlagane u/na MoMA u Njujorku, Ciberart u Bilbau, Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH, ISEA, i Media Art festivalu u Japanu. Njegove instalacije mogu se naći u različitim knjigama o medijskoj umetnosti, kao i časopisima poput Wire i Discover.
Hesselsovi recentni radovi dovode film u vezu sa senzorskim, robotičkim i GPS sistemima, kao i alternativnim oblicima interaktivnosti, u svrhu čega je sarađivao sa NASA-om, američkom Federalnom agencijom za vazduhoplovstvo i kompanijom Nokia, između ostalih.
Scott Hessels trenutno predaje na School of Creative Media pri Gradskom univerzitetu u Hong Kongu.
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