Graham Smith
Artworks 1978-2008
Intersection
Intersection
A 3.6 meters high by 36 meters long interactive video installation that is designed to allow the audience the ability to interact with the image so that when people are more than 6 meters away it will appear to be a huge panoramic mural made up of 300 separate images that I will shoot in Berlin in the Fall of 2009. As people get closer to the image, ultrasonic range finding sensors and computer will morph the images into a set of similar images that I shot in 1988 with 5 Polaroid cameras and a custom dolly. When people are 1 meter from the image it will revert to an image of the original Berlin Wall.
the third eye
The Third Eye
A 4 year multi-disciplinary project for the Culture Capitol 2010 in Essen, Germany by the art collective Cybercity Ruhr. It connects groups from Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom in a process that explores “What is a city?” and “What could a city be? The project unites university researchers, high school students, artists, architects, urban planners and designers in the creation of new model future cities based on the themes Urbanism, Identity and Integration. In “THE THIRD EYE” the participants construct and exchange visions and ideas on how they live, how they want to live and how to design and plan their future urban landscapes. It consists of a real three-dimensional model, a remote-controlled video robot and a screen or TV monitor. The video robot travels through the model. The objects that it sees through its camera eye are displayed on the screen. It can be controlled at the location or via the internet. People who guide the robot through the model are able to stroll through artificial streets, look at houses and squares, and even enter one or two buildings, in this way to provide a unique perspective through the eye of the robot.
Liberation
Liberation
A project to create a new form of video display technology that allows people to experience video in a weightless state in order to simulate the effect of being an astronaut and seeing the earth from orbit, to experience the "Overview Effect". I have been working on the project since 1983 and have developed numerous types of technology for the project including virtual reality Head Mounted Displays displayed at SIGGRAPH 1990 in Dallas called Videosphere with VR pioneer Jaron Lanier. With the help of the IMAX corporation in 1993 I conducted a demo using a 2-meter wide screen in a pool to demonstrate that movies can be projected underwater onto the inside of domes. Currently I am developing technology that uses a glass bottom swimming pool which has imagery rear projected onto the screen under the pool, to allow people with a diving mask the possibility of seeing the earth in a very powerful new way.
Current & Works in Progress
Existing & Past Works
2008
Emotion Chair
3 year research effort by Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada to develop and test the Assisted Sensory Information Display (ASID). The idea is to provide deaf people with a mixture of sensory experiences to allow them to better "feel" the effects of music and sound in a film. The chair is built on a motion platform, has 12 speakers under various body parts, can blow cold or hot air at the face or neck, the area around the 22" LCD lights up with different colors and can it even can generate various smells. The project will be demonstrated at V2 in Rotterdam Feb 21, 2008. This project was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and the National Science and Engineering Research Council.
2007
Morphing Machinery
A Cybercity project for the DEAF 2007 exhibition done in collaboration with Fine Art students from the Willem de Kooning Acadamie in Rotterdam that explored the world of nanotechnology, and takes as it thematic foundation a new urban landscape filled with transforming machines and architectural forms in motion. Just as plants grow and alter their structures over time our machines, buildings and environments may in the future reconfigure themselves based on environmental and programming influences. Our cities will then become alive in a real sense as they will change and evolve in ways that more resemble the growth in a forest.
2006
Utopia Machen Cybercity
A Cybercity project that explored the possibilities of using telepresence robotics as a tool to visualize the transformation of urban spaces by artists. Working with the Wandelbar gallery in Essen Germany 8 artists created new facades for the buildings along a 3 block area of a run down downtown street. A photographic model of the street was built and a remotely controlled robot then allowed people to see how the changes the artists had created would look like if implemented.
Touch Me Touch Me
A Cybercity project displayed at the Villa Zebra museum in collaboration with Fine Art students from the Willem de Kooning Acadamie in Rotterdam that explored the concept of remote presence and touch.
MOBI
MOBI (Mobile Operating Bi-directional Interface) is a human sized telepresence robot that users remotely control to move through distant environments, see through its camera eye, talk through its speakers and hear via its microphone ear. Simultaneously a life sized image of themselves is projected onto the robots LCD face, creating a robotic avatar. MOBI allows people to "explore far away art shows, attend distant presentations and make public appearences from anywhere on earth, thus helping to reduce air travel and reduce global warming". The project was developed with the Industrial Design and Robotics department at the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands.
MOBI jr.
A smaller version of the MOBI robot that was designed to interact with children as a telepresence entity. It was shown at the STRP new media festival in the Netherlands and the Ontario Science Centre in Canada. The project was developed with the Industrial Design and Robotics department at the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands
2005
Echos
A project that linked 8 High school students in Canada and the Netherlands with telepresence technology called the Presence Chair to people who had lived through WWII to give the students a human perspective on the effects violence has on society. This project was funded by the Foreign Affairs Departments of Canada and the Netherlands.
Submersive Cinema (model)
A model shown at V2 in the Netherlands of the technology to allow people the ability to experience video in a weightless state in order to simulate the effect of being an astronaut and seeing the earth from orbit, to experience the "Overview Effect".
Telepresence Stairs
An interactive telepresence installation that linked 2 sets of stairs over a distance via the internet, speakers and sensors done in collaboration with Multi Media and Interaction students from the Willem de Kooning Acadamie in Rotterdam. The piece allowed people at both V2 and the National Architecture Institute the ability to hear other people as they walked up and down the other locations set of Steps for the 2nd International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam.
2003
Pebbles
A demonstration at the Communications Museum in the Netherlands of my co-invention PEBBLES (Providing Education By Bringing Learning Environments to Students) which uses a telepresence robot to link critically ill children back to their schools from home via videoconferencing.
2002
LiveForm:Telekinetics - Telematic Dinner
A 9 person group exhibition directed by Jeff Mann and Michelle Teran that linked the art and technology centres Interaccess in Toronto and the WAAG in Amsterdam with streaming video and various types of kinetic sculptures that connected 2 dinner parties via the Internet. I participated by constructing the Teletables for the project and helped the other artists Robert Erlich, Dmytri Kliener, Amada Ramos, Jim Ruxton, Tamara Stone, Veronica Verkley with their elements of the group project. This project was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
2000
Pandora’s Box
A robotic telepresence exhibition that I curated which featured works by Christian Bock, Joe Davis, Francis LeBoutillier, Dinka Pignon, Victoria Scott and kent Tankerd. The artists created miniature environments at both Interaccess in Toronto and the Flykingon in Stockholm which were linked by telepresence robots and allowed audience members in each city the ability to control the robots in the other location.
1998
Rainsphere
"Rain Sphere" is an interactive sound sculpture that translates the movement of the viewer into the sound of rain. The main component is a metal sphere supported by four motors that have rubber wheels on them. Surrounding the sphere is a ten-foot wide circular carpet with switches hidden under it. The switches are grouped into segments so that as the viewer comes up to the piece the sphere rotates away from them creating the sound of rain. As more people gather around the piece, the sculpture takes on a random movement and sound that mimics the physical environment surrounding it. This piece is a reflection on earlier work I have done which translates an environment into another sense dimension. As a former west coaster I have always held a fascination for the magical effect the sound of rain has on me and this piece is an attempt to recreate this effect through kinetics and interactivity.
1995
Electric Skin
An interactive telecommunications exhibition displayed at Interaccess in Toronto and linked to ISEA in Montreal, The Knitting Factory in NY, Tokyo and Los Angles via ISDN and videoconferencing. Miniature robots were linked to the other sites and allowed viewers the ability to control and see through the video eye of the machines and explore artworks created by Nancy Paterson, Steev Morgan, Francis LeBoutillier, Victoria Scott, Simone Jones, Doug Back, Jeff Mann, Karen Tzventarny, Graham Smith, Johanna Householder, Cathleen Richardson and Norman White. This project was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Cybercity Net@works
A Cybercity project done in collaboration with the The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto in Canada and the National Centre for the Arts in Mexico city. The installation consisted of the works of 12 local artists and was linked locally to the video robot as a videoconferencing connection was not technically possible.
LINKS
1994
Senator Pobot Goes to Washington
A work done in collaboration with Dan McViegh and the Electronic Café International in which a poetry robot named Wilma picketed the White House in Washington DC. The robot was teleoperated by poets and musicians from around the world who appeared on the face of the robot via an ISDN videoconferencing system. Like an electronic soapbox the piece allowed people 1,000's of kilometres away the ability to project their thoughts and image directly onto the streets of the US capitol.
1993
Cybercity
The worlds first Cybercity exhibition that linked the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto with the Aperto at the Vennice Bienniele in collaboration with I curated for the Aperto at the Steev Morgan, Francis LeBoutillier, Victoria Scott, Doug Back, Simone Jones, Karen Tzventarny, Graham Smith, Johanna Householder, Runt, Vera Frankel and Norman White
1992
Laura’s House
An interactive installation that used 3 "periscope" like displays to project 360 degee panoramic images of the Funny Farm installation of media artist Laura Kikauka. The piece used obsolete projector technology reconfigured into ultra inexpensive VR displays.
1989
Intersections Through Time
A project that recorded the areas around the Berlin wall that used a camera system I invented to record panoramic scans as it was moved through space. The device used 5 Polaroid Spectra cameras mounted on to an aluminum frame that pointed the cameras from straight up to down. All 5 cameras where signaled to shoot 1 image simultaneously by an infrared remote control and the bottom camera was pointed directly at a large clock mounted to the frame which visualized the passage of time. After each scan the cameras were swiveled 30 degrees and the entire rig was moved forward the exact width of a Polaroid print. This sequence was repeated again and again as the instant prints where mounted directly to a series of cardboard boards place behind the moving camera dolly creating a literal carpet of images that grew out from behind as it moved through space. This project was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
1988
The Ambassadors
A 360 degree panoramic movie made in collaboration with artist Phillip Barker which used a spherical lens to record and re-project the imagery.
1986
Displaced Perspectives
A project done in collaboration with the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto for the "Strategic Arts Initiative" exhibition which used 2 robots with cameras via slowscan video between Salerno Italy, Paris France and Toronto. The project was not successful due to telecommunications problems and was displayed non-interactively.
1985
Wreck Beach
A color panoramic photograph of Wreck Beach in Vancouver Canada made up of 432 individually shot images.
Metro Motion
A series of 3 panoramic murals made up of 2060 individually shot slides that were recombined onto light boxes for display. The project was done as part of the city of Toronto's 175th anniversary.
1984
Spherical Animation
A panoramic movie shot with 5 cameras mounted onto a large mobile robot that moved through the city. The resulting 90 frame images were then optically printed onto single frames and projected as a moving image at 24 frames per second. This project was funded by the Integrated Media Department of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Stationary Animation
A site specific panoramic mural shot and displayed at the Harbourfront Photography gallery from June 5th to July 4th. It was composed of 2880 colour slides shot in sequential order using Polaroid instant slide film which was developed and mounted as the imagery was shot. The resulting imagery was mounted onto a 9 meter light box in the same location as the imagery was shot as a panoramic record of a 24 hour period of the location and environment.
1983
Moebius
A kinetic sculpture done in collaboration with artist Karen Tzventarny which consisted of a 2 meter long kinetic Moebius strip with the electromagnetic colour spectrum woven onto its surface.
Displaced Perspective
An interactive telepresence installation that linked 2 sets of stairs over a distance via the internet, speakers and sensors done in collaboration with Multi Media and Interaction students from the Willem de Kooning Acadamie in Rotterdam. The piece allowed people at both V2 and the National Architecture Institute the ability to hear other people as they walked up and down the other locations set of Steps for the 2nd International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam.
The War is On
A series of 3 black and white photographs each made up of 432 individually shot images based on the theme of the Falkland Islands war.
Whole in the Wall
A 360 degree B&W photograph of the Whole In the Wall Café which included various parts of the owner in all432 indiviualy shot images.
1982
Orientation
A site specific installation which used a panoramic image of the gallery mounted onto a sphere which was rotating in a specially designed kinetic sculpture. A live video camera was placed to project a small portion of the image in an exploration of the relationship between observed reality and recorded imagery.
1981
Skinned
A 360 degree photo of a woman and the machine that created it.
The Domino Effect
A kinetic sculpture performance using twelve flaming ice blocks as huge dominoes.
1980
Flock
Kinetic sculpture made up of 15 crossbow launchers and Mylar hang gliders that simulate the chaotic patterns of birds flocking.
Infinite Vision
Interactive light sculpture activated by the sounds in the environment.
1979
Dependence
A series of wooden sculpture made up of triangular wedges shaped parts forming arch like shapes.
1978
Vanamation
Kinetic sculpture made up of 15 crossbow launchers and Mylar hang gliders that simulate the chaotic patterns of birds flocking.
this is an interactive panoramic photograph - use the controls to zoom and pan