features 09

British Science Festival [guildford]
Chasing Stillness [berlin]
Pattern Recognition [leicester]
STRP Festival [eindhoven]
Kinetica Art Fair [london]

RealSnailMail (2008)

Wish (2006)

more artwork

Vicky Isley & Paul Smith
aka boredomresearch is represented by [DAM]Berlin

t: +44 (0) 23 80844095
e: info at boredomresearch dot net

Isley & Smith are currently Research Fellows in Computer Animation & Computer Art at the
NCCA, Bournemouth University

Exhibition catalogue
Real Snail Mail catalogue is on sale for 7 euros + P&P to purchase contact [DAM]Berlin

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British Science Festival
boredomresearch exhibit Real Snail Mail installation in the Guildhall, Guildford (5th/6th Sept 09)

“I took my two young boys to see the snail mail at the Science Festival on Saturday - what a fantastic thing, we loved watching the snails and have now 'sent' e-mails….you made the whole thing interesting and fun - well done on a brilliant bit of live art. I have even got my teenage son interested in the concept - we will all be following the snail mail progress from now on.” Visitor comment, British Science Festival 2009

Real Snail Mail installation at the British Science Festival, 2009

Real Snail Mail made its first national public appearance at this year’s British Science Festival in Guildford, one of Europe’s largest science festivals, bringing the public the latest in science, technology and engineering. The installation version of Real Snail Mail was exhibited in the Science Festival’s weekend family hands on event at the Guildhall on the 5th & 6th September. boredomresearch was available throughout the weekend to explain the project and children was allowed to handle the snails and find out more about their behaviour and their transfer times.

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Chasing Stillness
boredomresearch solo exhibition at [DAM]Berlin launches on the 28th August 09

Lost Calls of Cloud Mountain Whirligigs (view left & right), 2009

"You can persue your desire for slowing down your bustling everyday life in the new exhibition Chasing Stillness by boredomresearch. Discover the universe of the seldom songs of the whirligigs and observe the transmission of emails in real snail speed." Susanne Massmann, [DAM]Berlin

Catch boredomresearchs' latest computational systems in their solo exhibition Chasing Stillness at [DAM]Berlin until the 24th October 2009. Their new artworks Lost Calls of Cloud Mountain Whirligigs have a cycle where it gradually shifts from daylight to nighttime. It is the first time boredomresearch have used lighting in a system which really affects the Whirligigs appearance and their environment. At nighttime the lights have a moonlike quality and occasionally a Whirligig’s colours are electrified by the light. Slowly the lights move along the cables from the right to the left computational systems; lighting the colours of the Whirligigs propellers and nose cones.

Over the last couple of years boredomresearch have been learning Blender a 3D application. Creating 3D models and then exporting components of these models with different textures, then recompositing them within a 2D system. Lost Calls of Cloud Mountain Whirligigs is the first computational system they have created which uses this technique. The Whirligigs have a certain lifespan and when this ends a new generation of bots are created, compositing different textures on their propeller’s and nose cones.

With the majority of boredomresearchs' other computational systems there is always movement from the Biome creatures who seem to be endlessly perpetual to the springtails in their Ornamental Bug Gardens which continually ping. In these new artworks boredomresearch are interested in there being moments of stillness, where the viewer has a sense of anticipation when watching the bots. When the Whirligigs are still they can start to go into hibernation mode where they start to close their propellers and go to sleep. During this mode the propellers turn in and the colours are more subdued. Once they are awakened they open their propellers and their vibrancy contrasts to their subtle hibernation colours.

Each Whirligig has a unique song, occasionally they call out. Their environment seems like its out of reach with cables high above a mountain. When the Whirligigs perch on the high wires they seem lost and often restless and their melancholy calls feels like they searching in their abandoned world.

boredomresearch are also exhibiting an installation version of Real Snail Mail (the world's first webmail service to use live snails) in the Chasing Stillness exhibition. Visit [DAM]Berlin to watch the six new Snail Agents (aka Ada, Fritz, Edith, Engelbert, Heinrich & Wolfgang) delivering emails at a snail's pace....If you can't make it to Berlin you can always follow the progress of the new additions at www.realsnailmail.net/profiles.php

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Pattern Recognition
boredomresearch exhibit Ornamental Bug Garden 002 in The City Gallery, Leicester (20th June - 24th October 09)

Ornamental Bug Garden 002, 2007 (custom software)

"The artists in this exhibition are all exploring the point at which patterns begin to emerge or where they start to disintegrate." The City Galley, Leicester

boredomresearch exhibit their computational artwork Ornamental Bug Garden 002 in this group exhibition which includes works by Robert Smithson, Bridget Riley, Roy Lichtenstein and Graham Dolphin.

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STRP Festival
boredomresearch exhibit Biomes in the Kiosk.Artefacts of a Post-Digital Age Space (2nd - 13th April 2009)

Biome, 2005 (custom software)

"Many people collect art while others collect technology. Then there are the pioneering types who look for a combination of art and technology. They collect art objects that are continually changing, or as Yves Bernard and Domenico Quaranta put it: “They love screens. They love bits with atoms. They love things that move and change, because they live in a world that moves and changes.” They love the process, not necessarily static finished products. “They wouldn’t mind a Mona Lisa, provided it alternates between smiling and crying. For these art lovers KIOSK is bound to be a dream come true.”

Bernard and Quaranta are the joint curators of KIOSK, which is one of the possible outcomes of the exhibit “Holy Fire: Art of the Digital Age” at iMAL in Brussels in 2008. Holy Fire was an attempt to organise a New Media Art show in cooperation with galleries and collectors, who are far and few in between in the field of New Media Art. KIOSK collects works of art related to digital art and technology that are not “afraid” of becoming objects.

KIOSK refers to the small vending stalls where you can buy lighters, newspapers, magazines and scratch cards. The name plays with the fleeting “collectible” nature of the works on display. KIOSK is about technology, screens and the changing nature of information. While the line between art and everyday consumer items sometimes can be very hard to define, the work nevertheless has that special something. And that is why we call it art. Come be amazed!" STRP Festival, Eindhoven

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Kinetica Art Fair
boredomresearch exhibit two artworks in the [DAM]Berlin space at Kinetica Art Fair (27th Feb - 2nd March 09)

Ornamental Bug Garden 002, 2007

"The Kinetica Art Fair specialises in art that reveals the mechanisms of the Universe, art that encompasses all ideas and knowledge, art that has a life of its own and art that moves you." The Kinetica Team.

The Kinetica Art Fair was located in P3, a huge concrete hall in the University of Westminster - artists included Peter Bosch & Simone Simons, Tim Lewis, Mark Napier, Chris O'Shea & Cinimod Studio, Jack Pavlik and Tom Wilkinson. boredomresearch exhibited a biome & for the first time in the UK Ornamental Bug Garden 002 the second work of this series which contains a colony of objects catapulting around a garden containing bubble pumping lifts and algorithmically composed plant life. Collisions with its elements trigger sounds and compose an incidental sound piece.