SA '21: SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 Art Gallery

Aerobanquets RMX is an immersive, multi-sensorial culinary experience focused on taste perception. The project debuted in 2019 and has been exhibited, in collaboration with international Chefs, in Shanghai, Gwangju, Sanya, and New York. The project investigates rituals, behaviors and modes of eating and experiencing food in the future.

Aerobanquets RMX is loosely based on "The Futurist Cookbook," the Italian book of surreal recipes and fantastical dinners published in 1932, a seminal work that discusses the future of nourishment, aiming at transforming dining into performance art and touching issues of post-capitalism society and labor.

For this iteration of the project, Aerobanquets RMX will be constructed as a site-specific demo installation. Each activation will include three participants for a 5 minutes experience.

The project deploys several technologies, software and custom solutions from the fields of 3D modelling, CGI and mixed reality. Core of the project is a custom made software designed to "visualize flavor". Inspired by the Flavor Thesaurus" by Niki Segnit, flavor profiles for each dish served in Aerobanquets are categorized into parameters for shapes, colors, texture and points and used to generate thirteen unique digital models. These models are subsequently used as augmented representations of the bite-sized dishes consumed by the audience in the virtual environments of Aerobanquets RMX.

The project challenges the way we construct our reality: a negotiation between senses and what our brain is making of the environment around us, and at the same time explores new social spaces and practices through the use of immersive technologies.

Aurora Australis Ultimo Choro depicts the final Australian voyage of the RSV Aurora Australis to the Antarctic continent. The Aurora Australis has been carrying expeditioners and resupply to Antarctica for over 30 years. This final voyage was special in many ways. It departed with COVTD-19 just a whisper and returned to a fundamentally changed world. The extra protocols instituted on the ship in response to COVID-19 reinforced the interdependency and collaborative actions of such a tightly knit microcosm, already essential for survival in Antarctica, but with a renewed sense of urgency in the emerging emergency. At that time Antarctica became the last COVID-19 free continent and we had a duty to preserve that status.

Using laser and photogrammetry scans and ambisonic sound recordings of the ship, crew and expeditioners, Aurora Australis Ultimo Choro presents a VR experience depicting the intricate choreography of ship and expeditioners. Using an artistic rendering of the ship along with choreographed impressions of the crew and expeditioners, Aurora Australis Ultimo Choro portrays the final voyage as an intricate dance sustaining life.

Aurora Australis Ultimo Choro is an immersive visual and sonic feast of three-dimensional environments and spatial sound visualising and sonifying the last grand Antarctic dance of the Aurora Australis, crew and expeditioners. John McCormick and Adam Nash (Wild System) were the 2020 Australian Antarctic Arts Fellows on the final Australian voyage of the icebreaker Aurora Australis to the Antarctic continent.

The artists would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Australian Antarctic Division, Australian Network for Art and Technology, Swinburne University, RMIT University and Stephen Jeal.

This work is based on the artist's personal experience during quarantine, and it aims to inspire imagination and hope for the future, for unreachable places, especially in the particular situation of the year 2020.

In Book VIII of The Republic (Plato, 375 BC), behind the people trapped in the cave, there is a passage that leads through the entire cave. The people staring at the shadows have a passage behind them, one that leads through the entire cave. With this piece, the artist evokes a new type of experience, one that bridges the tension between shadows and passage, in a piece that is both figuratively fleeting and offers an imaginary redemption.

There is a Chinese proverb: "Before the body moves, the mind is already far away," which means that the physical body is still in place, but the mind is already set free to wander through time and space. Sit, and lift your head to feel the clouds of London or Tokyo pass overhead, listen to familiar sounds from another city and you will feel being carried a thousand miles away for a moment.

"Ethereal Phenomena" is an illustration based on Tibetan thangka art that reacts to the breath.

Breathing is the only visceral function of the body that we are able to control. It reflects and influences all aspects of our perception and emotion. It is physiological, psychological, and a conditioned behaviour.

Breathing links our inner and outer experiences. As an essential element of meditation, it is also crucial for the transformation of consciousness beyond the boundaries of self-identity.

Tibetan thangka paintings are meditative practices as well. Their layered structure and spatialization depict the metaphysical cosmos. Contemplating these images is meant to bring an experience of liberation.

"Ethereal Phenomena" integrates both ways of meditation by connecting the breath to the motion of the image, creating a circular process in which the body is mirrored and influenced by the visual field. The sense of self is expanded into the work and vice versa.

The music and mantra-like chant set an immersive atmosphere. Thangka paintings are representations of sound.

"Returning to the breath" is the main technique in meditation; to keep the focus on breathing and if lost in thoughts simply go back to the breath.

It is possible to consider two main types of breath. Slower and deeper abdominal breathing is more calming, efficient, and possesses cumulative health effects and accelerated, shallow thoracic breathing produces and indicates unease and anxiety.

In "Ethereal Phenomena", abdominal breathing generates more movement and a slower pace makes the motion smoother, inviting to focus and relax through the interaction.

The different parts of the thangka and audio indicate how the breathing is fluctuating. The whole work progressively transforms and reveals new movements and sounds throughout the meditation.

The invitation of "Ethereal Phenomena" is to become part of the exchange of "wind energy" (in Tibetan rlung) with the work.

Wade Marynowsky, 'From our deceased bodies, flowers will grow we are in them and that is eternity', high definition video, sound, 3mins, 2021.

Artbreeder (Simon 2020) is a collaborative tool for discovering new images and generating animations. Images are 'bred' by having 'children', or by mixing an images 'genes' with other images. The lineage of the hybrid image may be traced through a collaborative family tree, thus breeding and sharing can be used as methods for exploring highly complex spaces. The main technologies enabling the creative tool are Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), (Goodfellow, 2014). In particular BigGAN which was trained on ImageNet, a large visual database of more than 14 million images, designed for use in visual object recognition software research.

Marynowsky has applied experimental methods in an attempt to generate unexpected outcomes from the image generating network. In the work, "From our deceased bodies flowers will grow, we are in them and that is eternity", the artist has purposely input photography of local flowers into the Portrait AI engine, forcing it to find faces where there are none. Some of the local flower images include: Acacia trees; Nasturtium; Camellia, Magnolia; Lavender; Callistemon, etc. The images are not bred any further and exist as the first translations of the Portrait AI algorithm. The most interesting images are then selected to become part of the animated morph sequence. The sequence flows from machine abstraction to the representation of faces, confusing the threshold of anthropomorphism, human's innate tendency to see faces in the world around us.

In recent years, there has been a transition towards new implementations of digital augmentation and optimization at everincreasing scales. With metropolises now being equipped with a myriad of sensors, these agglomerations are becoming entangled with a new class of infrastructure. Yet, current propositions of big data-based sustainability implementations leave much to be desired in terms of transparency. To the detriment of personal and interpersonal comfort, these configurations operate solely as city-wide optimizers, on a scale that is alienating for the individual. The benefits therefore remain intangible in the eyes of the inhabitants. Could these benefits operate on a smaller, personal scale to a similar effect as that of a larger scale? In a fundamental sense, current environment & sustainability implementations represent a disconnect from the individual needs of the community as the process falls solely on the system developer, rather than the public willing to accommodate such changes in their space.

For the 2021 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism: Crossroads - Building the resilient city, the University of Tokyo Department of Architecture Advanced Studies Program (T_ADS) sought to promote appreciation and compassion for our personal environments through the collective care of plants and fish, all while providing people with the therapeutic benefits from the process of caring for pets and the satisfaction of harvesting ones own produce. While the goal of the laboratory's production in the case of the Biennale is the design and construction of an architectural prototype encapsulating two remotely manageable aquaponic systems that seek to provide urban communities a symbiotic relationship between fish, plants, and users, for SIGGRAPH Asia, we intend to take advantage of the unique architectural expression of virtual environments, which we treat with equal importance to that of physical reality, to design a Digital Twin closely linked with the constructed prototype.

Iris is a wearable robot. As an experiment designed to bring onscreen animation closer to physical, real-life animation, Iris is given independent perception and temperament by using facial expression recognition and emotion synthesis. Similar to cartoon animation, this temperament is expressed through movement but generated in real-time. By connecting sensors that measure physiological signals of the wearer's body, the emotion of the Iris is affected by the wearer's emotions. It can be perceived as an independent individual and also a part of the wearer's body. This ability to perceive and emote reflects both a certain connection and difference with the wearer, as if showing a split personality. Giving different responses to others, affects interpersonal interactions and relationships. These effects are heightened during Covid-19, when our faces are covered by masks, the Iris performs a special way to augment humans' expression.

Microbiology invokes features of our environment that are often unseen - interacting without our direct intent or involvement, while automation conjures views of large-scale, tightly controlled mass-production. As our technology has progressed, our abilities to manufacture have extended into the micro world, aided by ever more refined industrial machinery. At the same time, these technologies have allowed us to further populate our own world while extracting from it ever greater resources. I seek to explore this convergence through a merged visual metaphor, involving human bacterial colonies, their interactions amongst wild-spawning microflora, and the automated systems that will be used for their surveillance. This is to be achieved through a clear sphere upon which shall be a layer of sculpted microbial growth media. Human seeded bacterial populations monitored by automated microscope shall present visual landscapes and satellite-style vistas of their expansion. Each day, further growth shall be visible upon the mountains, valleys and planes of the agar topography. The combined built and spontaneous cartographies shall provide means to internalize population expansions and resource depletions of our own biosphere, while the proximal automata presenting these unseen worlds draws focus on the approaching micro : macro interactions of mechanical : biological manufacture and our own potential technological limits of growth.

'MR Ulysses' is a creative project investigating the possibilities of live performance using volumetric video (VV) techniques displayed via VR and AR technologies. It explores the opening scene of James Joyce's acclaimed modern masterpiece of twentieth-century literature, 'Ulysses'. Set in 1904, 'Ulysses' is noted for its geographic specificity, and every year Joyce scholars and enthusiasts ritualis-tically visit Dublin on June 16th to celebrate an annual literature pilgrimage called "Bloomsday." The tradition involves dressing up in the fashion of the day, retracing the steps of the central characters by visiting many of the sites that are mentioned, and eating, drinking, and re-enacting scenes from the book.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the global culture industry of live performance events all but collapsed. The impact on theatre performers, artists, audiences, and stakeholders has been substantial. Bloomsday usually attracts thousands of literature tourists to Ireland's capital city to engage in performances at multiple locations around Dublin; however, in 2020, it was canceled due to the pandemic. In 2021 there was a better effort to hold online events, but they lacked the sense of place and presence so crucial to Bloomsday. This sociological turn has occasioned a profound new emphasis on the need for theatre/performance practitioners to explore the immersive potential of AR/VR technologies because the shortcomings of simple videoconferencing/webcasting are obvious for theatre audiences.

'MR Ulysses' is the first part of a series of creative-cultural experiments investigating questions around preservation, access, reactivation, and the transmission of dramatic/literary heritage in the twenty-first century. Captured using cuttingedge VV techniques, MR Ulysses enables audiences from any part of the globe to experience a live-action Bloomsday ritual in a site-specific 3D simulation via a VR headset. The goal is to suggest new horizons for the performing arts in the context of interactive digital media technologies.

City walks, runs, chats, shouts, sings, dances and moves. City flows. City talks. City shows. City still struggles under the pandemic. There still are managing lives with dripping sweat and popping joy. Continuing vitality of city, vitality of streets like shooting buds.

Streets of city are filled with sounds. Running automobiles and rushing bikes' roars, busy steps, oozing commercials, loud laughter and chatters. Streets of city express with sounds. Reveal and show that they are still there.

Feel the city, literally. Sense the chatters, shouts, and speeches of city. By sensing, sympathize and understand it. By sensing, embrace and accept it. By sensing, explore and discover it. By sensing, appreciate each and every note of the city. By sensing, show and reveal it. By showing, by revealing, shout the city with the city.

SeoulVibe is an effort to feel the city of Seoul through the sounds produced by it, and to reveal the vitality of the city by converting the sounds to lights. SeoulVibe is composed of units that are capable of sensing sounds and converting the amplitude to vibration and the frequency -note of sound- to colors of light. These individual units multiply to amplify the experience.

The Jacket covered with pockets can carry 45 units. It enables you to feel surrounding sounds by the vibration made by the units. In addition, you see the sounds by the lights of the units through. Depending on the position of each unit and subtle discrepancies in sensor data, the composition of vibration and light becomes more dynamic.

We experienced the streets of Seoul at Gangnam, Hongdae, Gwanjang Market, Gwanghwamun Square, Seoul Square through the sounds they uniquely produce from cars, people, shops around. They form the city of Seoul.

Awaiting for light in the darkness(covid-19) is similar to searching for hope(normal life). The artwork is combined with the physical space, projection visual, laser light, smoke, represent as a "Cyber Sea".

Present the emotions of people who looking for connection through real time computer animation (projection and laser light) in space. The way to interact with the work can be from the connection of people's mobile phone, or the audience who walks into the artwork.

• Realtime: If the artwork senses people or receives a connection from the Internet, then the laser light will oscillate and reverberate in real time. Indicates that the signal was received or responded. Through images of projection visual presents the concept of a huge network with moving images such as coordinates, particles, gravity, and geometry.

• Real Data: Visualize the latest Covid-19 diagnosis data in various countries every day and present them in the projection screen, symbolize the information impact of continuous updating and accumulation of information.

• Connect: Each mobile devices connected to the work through the Internet, can project geometric dynamic images, include the IP data that symbolizes the uniqueness.

• Interactive Instruction:

(1) When audience walks into the artwork, there will be an irregular dynamic aperture around the audience, just like the received a signal.

(2) The viewers can scan the QR Code on the work description with their mobile devices, and log in the interactive system. Follow the instruction and walk into the work to get the trajectory. Viewers can control the movement of various light points in the space thought internet signal transmission.

I use 3d scanning scan a lot of expressions of a reel girl to make this animation, song of siren is electronic sound which is made from virtual singer software. In the ancient Greek mythology, siren attract the sailors with the song and kill them. In the future, is there also the program who use disillusioned human like siren in the virtual world?

Strands Of Mind is cinematic VR, aimed to give the viewer a strongly immersive and emotional audio-visual experience. The film was created fully digital in stereoscopic 4K at 60fps with immersive spatial audio. It is conceptualized to be viewed on high quality VR Head Mounted Displays like Oculus Rift/Quest/Go, HTC Vive and similar.

A cross-sectoral project utilizing high-end MR research results, 'The Tides Within Us' is an ongoing exploration into the world beyond the limits of our senses at the intersection of art, science and technology.

To create this project Marshmallow Laser Feast - one of the world's leading immersive art collectives - partnered with Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS: pioneers in digital transformation of health care. Scientific data sets that peer deep into the human body formed the starting point of this ambitious collaboration. The Institute's expertise in digital medicine and the MR-Lab research has enabled MLF to work with medical data acquired at a modern clinical MRscanner. The result is a series of stunning interactive screens that allow the audience to explore the human ecosystem investigating the flow of oxygen through the cardiovascular system, with cutting edge tracking technology; painting a picture of a human body as a fluid event.

This project actively humanises technology- allowing audiences to see the inner workings of their body through interactive approaches; as such the collaboration between the organisations has opened new ways of seeing and experiencing our bodies. As immersive technology continues to offer new platforms for experiential and embodied learning, the potential for this collaboration grows too.

The ultimate goal is to change the way people learn and think about themselves in relation to the environment. Where does the human body end, and where does it begin?

The Tides Within Us was originally co-commissioned by York Museums Trust, York Mediale and Coventry City of Culture. Funded by Arts Council England. In June 2021, Marshmallow Laser Feast evolved and expanded The Tides Within Us, into Observations on Being, for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021.

Volume II of Voids is an intelligent interactive art experience that is generated based on the voids between humans. Inspired by the social distancing regulations during the pandemic, people are disconnected physically by keeping social distance to avoid spreading the Coronavirus. It influences the way we live, communicate, and socialize in a profound way. When we keep our distance from other people, what is the volume of voids? How do those negative spaces connect us and shape our connections as a new normal of intricate social networks?

In the concept of MA in Japanese culture, the empty space is often full of possibilities. The interpretation of negative spaces helps to perceive positive spaces. Similarly, the Chinese Philosophy of Yin and Yang indicates that the beings and non-beings produce each other. We visualize the negative space between audiences to evoke the universal feelings of alienation and rethinks the meanings of disconnection on the new ways of connections.

This work is the second chapter of the series works Volume of Voids. Compared to the previous chapter that used photogrammetry and 3d printing techniques to visualize the voids, this work emphasizes interactive properties: mobility of the responsive voids. It generates interactive visualizations of the voids by using volumetric capturing, real-time visualization, and machine learning algorithms.