The Digital Arts Studios is pleased to announce that it will be relocating to new premises in the Cathedral Quarter at the beginning of July 2012. DAS will be moving into new offices that offer improved facilities and accessibility and we look forward to welcoming you all to a new and improved Digital Arts Studios at 38-42 Hill Street!

We aim to limit the disruption to our services and programme and will be running workshops right up to the end of June in our current premises in Queen Street. Our programme of residencies, talks, outreach and exhibitions will also continue as normal.

Exact dates for the closing of the current office and the re-opening in the new offices will be published on our website, with updates on the re-opening and associated events also posted on our website & forwarded to those who have subscribed to our mailing list.

Don’t miss out! Please add your name to our mailing list to be kept up to date with the move and re-launch of DAS. You can sign up at http://www.digitalartsstudios.com/contact/. 

The move comes as part of DAS’s 3-year strategic plan for 2012- 2015. The most important objective of 2012/13 was to acquire accessible premises and we are delighted to be able to announce the relocation at this stage and look forward to providing improved facilities to all our clients in 2012 and beyond.

DAS will be in attendance at the Visual Arts Sector Meeting tomorrow morning from 10am-12pm at the Arts Council so please come along and hear more about our exciting news as well as an update on services available to all VAI & DAS members including the new VAI at DAS Residency Competition!

Breath III: Boom Box Mantra, Laura Graham, (2012)

In a continuing series of work looking at the breath, this installation considers where breath and consciousness meet. In a purpose-built room lined with acoustic foam, sound emanates from the retro speaker system of two, three-speaker boomboxes. The room offers a reinterpretation of the ghetto blaster from the 1970’s when people actually wanted to let others hear what they were playing. The room becomes the boom box. Sound has tremendous power to condition our consciousness for good or for ill and influences us on subconscious, conscious and supra- conscious levels. It can reach deep inside and touch our core desires and aspirations, and whether as music or words, no other sensory potential has such a capacity to affect us. Most of our conditioning occurs through the medium of sound and as the most primary sensory potential, sound generates the strongest emotions. In this installation by using a seed sound mantra, an ancient Hindu form of repetitive language, that is reputed to influence our bodies through vibration, I explore the idea that conditioning is nothing but sound patterns to which we have accustomed our minds. The word Mantra comes from two root words: Trayati- that which saves, and Manas- the mind. Implicit in this etymology is the question of how much we unconsciously absorb, through continually mediated sound sources from radio, TV, music and numerous other outputs, and how our behaviour may be affected. I have digitally recorded myself singing an ancient Hindu mantra for healing and empowerment. In the development of the work I have layered my voice 18 times to play through the boom boxes. The speakers then play in canon. Each sound cycle lasts for 4 minutes (3 minutes 54 seconds of which is sound).

* I would like to acknowledge and thank Shin Shiva Svayambhu Maharaj for his permission to use the Bhairava Mantra in this work. The mantra comes from the teachings of SHIN SHIVA SVAYAMBHU MAHARAJ Http://www.min-ilit.org/

The Word Universal, Jacqueline Holt, (2012)

When I first moved to Belfast in 2010, I moved into a flat where the TV was tuned into the visually impaired voiceover which describes the action depicted on the telly for people who have trouble seeing the images on the screen. One evening I was overwhelmed by the narration describing the logo for a production company at the beginning of a film that was being shown. The brief description read like a poem and combined with the purpose for this narration; the description of what one cannot see but can imagine, made me reflect on the nature of utopian ideas and ideals.

Two works by Emmanuelle Nègre

Untitled I, (2012)

The Iceland Spath has the ability to split what we see through it like duplicating the real, by an ordinary ray and an extraordinary ray. Explorers called it the ‘Sun’s Stone’, using it as a navigational tool. Beyond the crystals’ spiritual and scientific optic characteristics, the Iceland Spath has inspired lots of writers by its poetic potential. The projection shows an Iceland Spath floating in space. The slow-motion of the projected image produces a mesmerising sensation inspired by the auto-kinetic effect, a phenomenon of human visual perception in which a stationary, small point of light in an otherwise dark or featureless environment appears to move. The publication by Raymond Bellour Le Corps du Cinéma: Hypnoses, Émotions, Animalités, offers the opportunity to study the links between cinema and hypnosis, discussing the relevance of a rapprochement between the posture of the cinema spectator and that of the hypnotized subject.

Untitled II, (2012)

When you look at video projection in a gallery space, if you move your eyes from one side to another they percept a range of colours mostly composed by RGB. From this observation, the work installed utilises the white light from a video projector and metamorphoses it to a range of colours. The fan turning as a spiral in a hypnotic dance.

Audio, Video, Lego runs from the 23rd April to the19th May in the University Gallery, University of Ulster, Belfast. For more information visit www.digitalartsstudios.com or telephone 02890312900.

Laurie Sumiye’s unique video installation House of Glass will take place at the Tropical Ravine in Botanic Gardens on the 28^th March at 8.00pm – for one night only. Laurie will provide a brief introduction to her work from 8.15pm.

House of Glass is a video installation that captures intimate views of the Tropical Ravine House in the Belfast Botanical Gardens, built in 1889 to house exotic plants unable to survive outdoors. A unique Victorian-era greenhouse, the heated glass and brick structure was built as a sunken glen that allowed plants to take root in the ground. Video is projected upon the glass facade of the Tropical Ravine House and viewed at “plant-level”; glistening images of foliage hint at a human presence that enables tropical and temperate plants such as ferns, palms and hibiscus to flourish. It tells a story of a flower; born in a greenhouse in a pot, transplanted, and nurtured to live forever in a man-made house of glass. For more information contact the Digital Arts Studios Manager on 02890 312900 or email angela@digitalartsstudios.com. Or visit www.digitalartsstudios.com.

Please note, access is via the Ulster Museum’s Stranmillis Gate only.

Greenhouse by Laurie Sumiye

House of Glass (video installation)

House of Glass is a video installation that captures intimate views of the Tropical Ravine House in the Belfast Botanical Gardens, built in 1889 to house exotic plants unable to survive outdoors. A unique Victorian-era greenhouse, the heated glass and brick structure was built as a sunken glen that allowed plants to take root in the ground. Video is projected upon the glass facade of the Tropical Ravine House and viewed at “plant-level”; glistening images of foliage hint at a human presence which enables tropical and temperate plants such as ferns, palms and hibiscus to flourish. It tells a wordless story of a flower; born in a greenhouse in a pot, transplanted, and nurtured to live forever in a man-made house of glass.

Transplant (artist’s book, koki’o ke’oke’o seeds, limited edition of 5)

Transplant is a collaborative project, documenting the artist’s relationship with people in Belfast that she wishes to stay connected to through a gift of an artist’s book and koki’o ke’oke’o seeds; (white native Hawaiian hibiscus) the only species of hibiscuses in the world known to have fragrant flowers. Recalling the artist’s roots in Hawaii where she was born and raised, the Japanese-Hawaiian gift-giving custom of omiyage is enacted to express gratitude and reciprocity. Gift recipients are asked to sow the seeds, record the location of the planting, and send updates of the seedling to a website, a digital space to exchange weather, news and personal anecdotes. The site’s main interface features a hand-made map of Belfast by the artist.

Ex Situ by Laurie Sumiye

Laurie Sumiye is a Hawaii-born filmmaker and artist who uses media and technology to explore new ways of looking at natural and urban environments, and investigating the ephemeral traces in those spaces through people who live and work in them. Her digital practices in video, animation, interactive media, and sound combined with “traditional” materials and media uniquely informs her work by synthesizing documentary and visual languages. She received an MFA in Integrated Media Arts at CUNY Hunter College in New York, Bachelors degrees in Radio/TV Communications and Art from Bradley University, and studied art at the Institute of Italian Studies in Florence, Italy and Pratt Institute. Her work has been presented at EXIT Art in New York, Asian American International Film Festival, Summercamp ProjectProject in Los Angeles, Arts@Renaissance in Brooklyn. Laurie has worked as a designer, illustrator and art director in interactive design and advertising in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

Up to date information on Laurie’s projects and dates/times of related events will be posted on our website. If you wish to receive short e-mail updates of all DAS events please subscribe.