Amir Rostami
Elahe Rostami
Ephemeral pulses of a finite scroll |
Listen,
Will you echo my sound exactly?
How many intervals of infinity can measure my distance from you?
Listen,
Which direction are you swinging to?
I yearn to situate your body,
Where are you scrolling from?
Then sound.
Will you synchronize your pulses to the motion of my grief?
Sound,
and arrive,
in this deprived, throbbing, tellurian place.
This participatory sound-driven installation responds to the anxieties and isolation caused by the abrupt shifts in the society. It investigates a new form of playful somatic interface that mediates virtual presence through interpersonal synchrony, rhythmic motions and audible creations. Distant participants are encouraged to situate their own bodies through the soundscape interface and in relation to one another.
By incorporating reflective, plastic sheets and white ropes the sculptural and visual aesthetics of the swings act as materialized metaphors of time, place, and longing in a the digital infinity scroll. Infinity scrolling that is used most famously by popular social media in times of social isolation can create a feeling of disorientation and as people endlessly travel down a page that never ends.
The interactive experience explores the idea of telepresence through motion and collective auditory harmonization. It invites distant participants to listen and to create melodic pieces through the rotation and rhythmic motion of the pendulum swing-seats. The installation allows participants to harmonize, compose and co-create tones as they question their collective somatic experiences of time and space in relation to each other living as distanced bodies in hybrid digital worlds.
Each of the distanced pendulum swing units consists of two parts, a stationary sculptural reflector ring, and the rotatable pendulum swing seat which houses the Sound Synthesis Unit (SSU).
Amir Rostami is a Tech-Artist and researcher based in Toronto. His work is centered within but not limited to multidisciplinary installations. Amir has worked as a Research Assistant within many different Media labs at his home university (YorkU/Canada) and abroad(University of twente/Netherlands). In recent years his focus has been Artificial Life and Virtual Reality however his work portfolio spans over many different areas such as Computer CV during his residency at DispersionLab(YorkU), Audio systems design at Living Architectures Systems Group (YorkU/UWaterloo) and most recently within Alice Lab for computational worldmaking.
Elahe Rostami is an interdisciplinary designer and media artist. Over the course of her career she has moved from creating research driven industrial design solutions, into interactive toy invention and playground design, development of interactive games, media art installations and digital media as pedagogy. Living as a lifelong immigrant and a transnational moving from Iran to Malaysia, Germany and now residing in Toronto Canada, she cultivates ways in which societies experience connection. She is drawn to incorporating natural play patterns as a universal language of communication. The topics of her artwork mostly excavate ruptures of personal and collective cultural experiences, mediating storytelling through a migration of physical forms onto digital platforms.
