2010
Installation
Grisha Coleman (USA), Todd Ingalls (USA)
Supported by: Arizona State University
ASU Art Museum and The School of Arts Media and Engineering. Other ASU partners include Institute for Humanities Research (IHR), Global Institute of Sustainability [GIOS], Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (HIDA). Local community partners and advisors include: Desert Botanical Garden, and Southwest Environmental Consultants (SWCA). echo::system has received seed funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
The echo::system installation looks at the geographic, historical and cultural conditions of the U.S. southwestern desert with a dynamic, simulated walk through the landscape on “smart” treadmills. The work investigates links between large issues of socio-ecological complexity and direct embodied experience: emphasizing the importance of a self-direction, aesthetics and physical investment.
Our refitted treadmill is an interactive interface that encourages a kinetic sense of navigation through abstract knowledge. This affords the user a physical, highly embodied experience to reconnect complex ecological data sets with cultural narratives. By involving the intention of the whole body in a motor-sensory experience, this work looks to create new scenarios for comprehension and contemplation of the environment.
As one of the fastest growing urban areas in the world, the Phoenix Arizona area is uniquely situated around issues of sustainability. Water usage, transportation, climate change, and migration bring immense challenges to this region. Yet these issues are not new – historically, a diverse range of strategies for living sympathetically with the land developed by indigenous people living in the Sonoran Desert, are generally overlooked or misunderstood by much of the current population.
echo::system is an installation work lead by Grisha Coleman and a collaborative team of artists, technologists and researchers at Arizona State University.
Artist bio:
Grisha Coleman is an Assistant Professor of Movement, Computation and Digital Media at the School of Arts, Media and Engineering and School of Dance at Arizona State University. She is a dancer, composer and media artist working with performance and experiential media systems. Ms. Coleman was an invited research fellow/artist-in-residence at Carnegie Mellon University’s Studio For Creative Inquiry. She has created large scale works for a variety of residencies and venues; her current work, echo::system has been presented at the Banff New Media Institute (Canada), the Beall Center for Art and Technology (USA), Eyebeam Centre for Art and Technology (USA) and the Montalvo Arts Center in Silicon Valley. Notable work includes a commission by Robotics Institute for a public, site-specific work Reach, Robot; a sound/kinetic installation for public interaction and participation. ame.asu.edu and echo-system.org.
Todd Ingalls is an Associate Research Professor and Chair of Graduate Studies at the School of Arts, Media and Engineering at Arizona State University. Todd Ingalls is a media composer who works with interactive performance and experiential media systems. He is currently Associate Professor of Research in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering at Arizona State University where he also serves as Chair of Graduate Studies. His research focuses on gestural communication and embodied media interaction, affect in music, and algorithmic media composition as well as novel mediated environments for stroke and Parkinson’s disease rehabilitation. He is involved in both the Mixed Reality Rehabilitation and Participatory Culture groups at AME.
