Nick Hardy, UK
Tonight We’re Not Afraid of Anything (2006)

Interactive Installation
This playful installation built specifically to fit the architecture of the CUBE invites the public to interact in a model subway, with sculptured lighting and sound elements, by small apertures and hidden miniature microphones at each end of the structure. This illusory microcosm attempts to transport the viewer to a virtual, other world, challenging issues of time, absence and movement. By using viewing interfaces within the contradictions of scale it poses the question whether or not the space is a real or representational one.

Nick Hardy graduated in June 2006 from Manchester Metropolitan University with a BA (Hons) Degree in Interactive Art. Having exhibited his work at the Sydney College of Art, Australia and at the Liverpool Biennial 2006, Nick’s work was selected for the Celebration of Talent exhibition held earlier this year at Urbis, Manchester. Nick has also been nominated for the Jerwood Artists Platform taking place in London, 2007.

h.o Media Group, Japan
Perfect Time (2004)

Mixed Media Installation
Perfect Time explores the concept of time as a non-spatial phenomenon that we cannot visualise nor materialise. An hourglass motivated device displays a curtain of running quartz sand to be refilled. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to interact with the installation by continuously keeping the sand curtain running. Miniature worlds and motion graphics are floating on the interactive sand screen. The images can only be seen while the sand is falling, thus indicating a fragile and ambiguous construct of time, ephemeral scenery, and space.

h.o is a media art collective creating conceptual art works by using a mixture of media combined with digital technology. Its 14 members’ diverse specialities uniquely collaborate on each work. ‘h.o’ derives from the chemical symbol for water, H2O, implying h.o’s interest in various forms of communication between people. Members: Hideaki Ogawa, Kaori Honda, Tomonori Kondo, Emiko Enkawa, Yoko Minagawa, Taizo Zushi, Satoshi Onodera, Shota Ishimura, Sakura Toyabe, Yukiko Okamura, Yuichi Tamagawa, Mizuya Sato, Yuichiro Haraguchi, Junichi Yura

Hilary Jack, UK
Tap (2007)

Mixed Media Installation
Jack’s site-specific installation plays with the galleries’ infrastructure and repairs that need to be mended. On a recent visit to CUBE Jack noticed an existing dripping tap, the resulting work now harvests clean drinking water from this tap on the top floor of the gallery. The drip is redirected into a reservoir and used to nourish an indoor plant. The plant in turn acts as a host; feeding a myriad of miniature self propagated baby plants to which it is umbilically connected. The installation acts as a model and metaphor for domestic mains water systems and their satellite networks - while creating a miniature self-sustaining system of its own.

Hilary Jack works across media in socially interactive research based projects, which often involve themes of collection, repair, transformation and redistribution. A significant part of Hilary’s practice involves channelling energy into potentially misguided areas in order to highlight certain aspects of everyday life. The activity she generates often takes on the role of volunteer for various hopeless domestic and civic tasks, such as gardening, tidying, repairing, championing unsung causes, and making general unsolicited ‘improvements’ to particular objects or areas deemed to be in need.

Markus Kison, Germany
Roermond-Ecke-Schoenhauser (2005)

Networked Installation
A model structure illustrates a faraway location as something seemingly closer, real and tangible. Four live web cam streams (Denmark, junction; Amsterdam, laundromat; Berlin, inner courtyard; Holland, marketplace) are projected onto their physical replicas. Consequently, the image is displayed in the same geometrical shape as it is being filmed, turning the models into a canvas or film set. The remote scenery is brought almost magically to life in the gallery, recalling uncanny transformative effects of the 19th century’s magic lanterns.

Markus Kison worked as a graphic designer and editor in film productions and 3D animation. He studied Physics and IT at the University of Ulm in Germany. Since September 2003 he studies Visual Communication at the University of the Arts in Berlin. He received several international awards for his work Roermond-Ecke-Schoenhauser.

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, USA
Traffic 2: At Home (2004)

Video Installation
The miniature environment tells the story of the artists at home, watching a scene from the film Sugarland Express on TV in their living room - which is shot in real time right next to them by using self-controlled mini cameras and a customized computer editing programme. The work is situated between popular culture, new media formats and analysis of cinema language. It ironically re-stages and deconstructs the production of Hollywood movies. Mass media clichés are combined with personal experiences and memory.

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy are based in New York and have worked together since 1996. They have exhibited extensively internationally, in many group and solo exhibitions, their work being in many museum and private collections.

Amanda Oliphant, UK
Birdhouse (2007)

Mixed Media Sculpture
Exposing elements of our daily surroundings that would otherwise go unnoticed, this series of sculptures explores a material’s ability to be ‘re’-represented. The physically encapsulated narratives and metaphors inside the small houses allow for further engagement with space and objects while the shift in scale from the original ‘habitat’ reflects upon the everchanging environment and the transience of man.

Amanda Oliphant was born in the UK and has located to five other countries since. This has formed a passion for her desire to respond to different environments, expressed through material manipulation. She is an active member of two North West arts collectives. Exhibitions include Urban Splash, Liverpool 04; Liverpool Biennial 04; Parkgate, UK 06; Collaborative project, London 06; Museumman, Berlin 06; Transmute, Albert Dock, Liverpool Biennial 06; Fellowship, Wirral 06; Source, Liverpool 07. Her current research incorporates Art as Environment at MIRIAD (MMU).

Mark Pilkington, UK
Synth-City (2007)

Interactive Sound Sculpture
Viewers are invited to alter certain parameters within the model city by changing and controlling the shape of music in this interactive installation. The work presents a constructed model of an ever-changing cityscape underscored by electronic music. The model’s outline, texture, colour, and movement directly influence the type of sounds used in the music. They are mixed with sounds of the city of Manchester. The model interface plays with the idea of how a landscape and sound are directly related.

Mark Pilkington is a performer and composer of electronic and electroacoustic music. He graduated with an MA in electro-acoustic composition from the University of Huddersfield in 2004.His main interest lies in fusing digital audio-visual structures that can be manipulated from a score or improvised in real-time thus presenting performances that question traditional concepts of art, music and technology. He also runs his own audio-visual label and studio called ‘Thought Universe’.

Joel Porter, UK
Welcome to the Countryside (2007)

Photographs
This playful investigation questions our perception of real and fictitious worlds. Porter explores the countryside by merging the real with the imaginary. The large-scale images comment on these issues by interweaving the natural photographic scenery with model objects and figures to ultimately not only recreate but also alter the conventional landscape view. Nevertheless, the works are produced in a traditional way, with the models being shot in the actual given location.

Joel Porter is currently a postgraduate student within the MA Media Arts route at Manchester Metropolitan University. He graduated from West Surrey College of Art and Design, with a BA (Hons) in Photography in 1994, and has since continued to pursue exhibiting whilst working in the field of web design.

Andrea Zapp, UK/Germany
Eye 2 Eye (2006)

Interactive Networked Installation
Two black boxes are connected with each other in the gallery: Visitors are invited to glimpse inside, a camera captures their eye and transfers it to the other box. Views are exchanged in real-time above a miniature set of the universe. The installation recalls a satellite perspective, underlined by the surveillance interface. The joint observation of this small cosmos glowing in the dark, reminiscent of toys even, implicates ironic commentaries in itself – resulting in thoughts about who controls and who observes whom, in a more globally networked sense.

Andrea Zapp was born in Germany and is currently Senior Lecturer for Media Arts at MMU. She has edited two books, Networked Narrative Environments as imaginary spaces of being, MMU/FACT Liverpool, 2004; and New Screen Media, Cinema/Art/Narrative, BFI, London/ ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2002, (with Martin Rieser). She curated StoryRooms, International Exhibition on Networking and Media Art, shown at The Museum of Science and Industry Manchester, from October 05 to January 06. Her art works have been shown widely at international exhibitions and venues.

Special Thanks to:

Alastair King (Technical Production Manager)