MIKAMI SEIKO Desire of Codes | 三上晴子 欲望のコード

01 Preface

NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] is proud to present a new version of Desire of Codes, a large-scale, interactive installation by MIKAMI Seiko, originally commissioned by and exhibited at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] in 2010.

Desire of Codes, installed across a large wall, consists of 90 wall-mounted devices equipped with sensors and micro cameras as well as six robotic arms suspended from the ceiling and equipped with cameras and projectors. Each device detects the position and movement of viewers, hovers insect-like toward them, and monitors them. At the end of the exhibition space is a large, circular screen reminiscent of an insect's compound eye, onto which is projected a complex mixture of images from the past and the present, fed by an original database comprising images from the cameras in the installation as well as images from surveillance cameras at public places around the world.

MIKAMI Seiko whose works are based on the theme of the "information environment and the body," explores communications technology and the interactions created by the information ecosystem. Desire of Codes poses the question, "What new desires do we have, now that we live in an information-oriented environment and have perceptions shaped by that environment?" The work reconstructs images, sounds, data and other information from the network environment using codes governed by an autonomous system. Within a space/device that moves in response to viewers as if it has a life of its own, viewers can experience the metamorphoses of time and space resulting from today's information technology and the interactions it creates. After the exhibition at ICC. Desire of Codes will travel to venues around the world.

 

02 Work and Artist

Desires inspired by a system of multiple views and perspectives and this installation involving visitors as subject s of both observation and expression.

This interactive installation consisting of three parts. A large number of devices resembling tentacles with built-in smallcameras are placed across 1,5m x 4,5m wall [90 Wriggling Wall Units] ,while six robotic search arms equipped with cameras and laser projectors are suspended from the ceiling in the center of the exhibition space [Six Multiperspective Search Arms]observe and follow visitors with insect-like wriggling moves. Furthermore, a giant round-shaped screen that looks like aninsect's compound eye is installed in the back of the exhibition space.

[Compound Eye Detector Screen]. Projected onto this screen is a complex mixture of images transmitted from the wall-structures' built-in video cameras, and footage recorded by surveillance cameras installed at various places around the world, stored in the Desire of Codes database. In addition, superdirective microphones set up at various places inside the venue pick up voices, machine sounds and other noises in the installation space caused by visitors and by the work itself. Based on the conditions of each of the three parts, sounds are culled from a database of previously recorded audio files, to generate a constantly changing acoustic setting. The installation' s acoustic environment and projections, together illustrating a new reality of fragmentarily recombined aspects of time and space, investigate into contemporary appearances of human corporeality and desire via the visitor as a subject of expression and surveillance at once.

Excerpt from "MIKAMI Seiko Desire of Codes" (2011)

Profile MIKAMI Seiko

Artist, Professor of Tama Art University. Since the 1980s, has been showing large-scale installations themed on information society and the human body. In the 1990s, most of works are interactive media art installations incorporating human perception, eye-tracking project "Molecular Informatics," about acoustic sense and the living body sound "World, Membrane and the Dismenbered Body," "gravicells - gravity and resistance" on the theme of the gravity called the 6th consciousness and "Desire of Codes" focused in coded individual at information society.

Her Art works were shown at Fundacio Joan Miro, Le Musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes, Künstlerhaus Vienna, Kulturhuset Stockholm and Canon ARTLAB. Also shown at the number of international Media Art Festivals such as transmediale (Berlin), DEAF (Rotterdam), SHARE (Turin), Ars Electronica (Linz), MoiMulti (Quebec), TESLA (Berlin), VEROCITY Festival of Digital Culture (UK), TRUST (Dortmund), ISEA and the other. Solo exhibition "Desire of Codes" held at Yamaguchi Center for Art and Media [YCAM], NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] and from 2012, will travel to around the world.

Past Exhibition / Event

03 Events

Artists' Talk
MIKAMI Seiko, IKEGAMI Taskashi, KURENUMA Norihisa, HATANAKA Minoru (ICC)
Date: December 16 (Fri.), 2011 6:00pm– [Finished]
Venue: ICC 4F special space
Capacity: 200 persons (first-come basis)
Admission: free (Ticket is required to see the exhibition)

Event will be broadcasted on the internet

  • photo: SHINODA Hidemi
Guided Tour by the Artist
Date: December 17 (Sat.), 2011 6:00pm– [Finished]
Capacity: 50 persons
* Numbered tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis at ICC 4F reception from 11:00 am
Admission: free (Exhibition ticket is required)
* Japanese Only
* The demonstration will be held, but the visitors may not experience "Eye-Tracing Informatics" in the Guided Tour.

04 Related Exibition

"Eye-Tracking Informatics"

Date: December 9 (Fri.) – 18 (Sun.), 2011 [Finished]
Venue: ICC Theater
Closed: Mondays
* Ticket of "MIKAMI Seiko Desire of Codes" is required to see the work.

Commissioned by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
Sound Programming: evala
Visual Programming: HIRAKAWA Norimichi
ABE Kazunao (YCAM Curator)
YCAM InterLab (ITO Takayuki, OWAKI Richi, HAMA Satoshi, TAKAHARA Fumie, WATANABE Rina)
Corporate Sponsor: Color Kinetics Japan Incorporated
Cooperated with: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]

Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] Eye-Tracking Informatics

05 Hours

Admission Fee
Adults / University students 500Yen (400Yen), Admission free for High school students and younger
* Rates shown in parentheses are for groups of more than 14 persons.
* During the exhibition, you can be admitted twice per one ticket. At second admission, please show your ticket you purchased for first admission at reception.
Discount Information
"MIKAMI Seiko Desire of Codes" discount coupon
Please print out and have the coupon here. It is possible to enter to the exhibition at a discounted fee.
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Discount with the exhibition held at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery

If you show ticket stub of the following exhibition that will be held in the same period at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery at 3F Tokyo Opera City, we offer discount to admission fee. Also, you can be admitted at discount if you show ticket stub of the exhibition "MIKAMI Seiko Desire of Codes."

Discount with "Grutt Pass 2011" (PDF)

Discount with "MuPon"

Hours
11:00 am–6:00 pm (Admission until 30 minutes before closing)
Closed
Mondays
Access
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