Extagram/Oscilo

Extagram/Oscilo, 2007
Sound objects in noisy domains
Author: Tanja Vujinovic
Soft plush objects, custom electronics (micro-loudspeakers, video camera, contact microphones, computers, and audio and video mixers)
Production: Exstat, 2007
www.exstat.org


Location: Institute Jozef Stefan Gallery, Ljubljana
Date: 14th November - 22nd November 2007
Opening: Institute Jozef Stefan Gallery, Ljubljana, 14th November at 15:00
This project is supported by: MOL Culture Department, Tosama d.d., and Conrad Electronic d.o.o. k.d.
Producer: Jan Kusej
English language editing: Dean J. DeVos

Description:
Extagram/Oscilo consists of a multitude of soft, plush, toy-like objects incorporating custom electronics. The objects are of various dimensions, entirely hand-made and hand-sewn, and stuffed with sanitary cotton and electronic and analog devices. By touching and moving the stuffed toy-like objects, visitors create or affect already existing sound in a site-specific space.

The toy-like, soft, and plush sculptures from these cycles consist of several non-linear sound and video systems. They recode real situations as a broken data stream of glitch sounds. They address and question the main features of contemporary toys by means of close personal contact through touch, simplified cute shapes, and the construction of micro-worlds through modularity and limited, mostly sound-based interactivity. Extagram/Oscilo sculptures are built through a bending of visual and sound data via generated and routed signals. This flux of data is sometimes paused in order to enable insight into the uncanny events of the digital and analog signals, and into the aesthetic of the corrupted data. By touching and moving the stuffed toy-like objects, visitors create or affect the already existing sound. Objects are de-characterized by an absence of any facial features and by the uniformity of the black fleece texture they are made of. They are variable in terms of dimension, entirely hand-made and hand-sewn, stuffed with sanitary cotton and contain various electronic components that generate sound and video output. The paradox of the interactivity of this series is explored by assigning almost indistinguishable sounds that become noise whenever there is an interaction with the sound sculptures.

In Extagram1, close contact with the user is monitored by means of a real time video system that routes the contact through one of the toys containing a video camera. The toy-sculpture captures the signal from the space and sends it to a computer, where it is processed and transmitted to the screen of another toy-object. Extagram2 is a soft plush sculpture containing a video monitor that recycles audiovisual fragments. Extagram3 provides insight into the textures and landscapes of toy micro-worlds by means of a micro camera that captures the surfaces of the stuffed sculptures. The second part of the sculpture is made of 16 corresponding clay objects that contain loudspeakers. Sound is generated from samples consisting of synthetic, play related, and childish sounds. Oscilo consists of objects which each provide a different kind of sound by means of touching or moving objects that contain pick-up microphones, miniature sound producing devices, or loudspeakers. The length and intensity of the tactile contact affect the audio signals produced. Supermono is a multi-piece sculpture based on mono audio signals in which three embedded microphones pickup signals which are then processed and re-routed to other objects.

Tanja Vujinovic (Tatjana Vujinovic Kusej, b.1973), is a visual and sound artist. Her work includes intermedia objects and sound and video pieces. She is the author of a number of video and sound works, installations and public art projects.
She currently works on "Sound objects in noisy domains", where she unfolds the signals in anomalies of intermedia textures through the creative use of technology and rhythmic images for touching and hearing.
Her A/V works and installations have been exhibited at numerous galleries and media festivals throughout Europe and the United States, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Kunst Palast Museum Düesseldorf; the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Strasbourg; Kunsthaus Meran in Italy; and the Medienturm International Forum, Graz, Austria. Her works have been included in numerous collective exhibitions such as the Madrid Abierto, Euroscreen21 project, Zero Visibility, Ctheory Multimedia NetNoise and Web Biennial Istanbul.
Exstat (Zavod Exstat) is a non-profit art project production and research institution that works with various intermedia projects related to sound and visual art, art in public spaces, and theory. It continues the work of the institution "Automata", which Tanja Vujinovic co-founded in 2002 and reorganized as Exstat in 2006.