Art Exhibition

Quick Facts

• Important Dates:
  • Installations
  • Submission deadline: 27 October 2017 (12pm (noon) PDT / 3pm EDT)
  • Notification: 08 December 2017
  • Publication-ready deadline: 16 January 2017 07 January 2017

Submission Details:

Online Submission: PCS Submission System

Template: Extended Abstracts Format

Submission Format: 6-page Extended Abstract, video preview, still image, and a supplemental PDF describing what attendees will experience as well as technical and space requirements.

Submissions are not anonymous and should include all author names, affiliations, and contact information.

Selection Process: Curated
Chairs: Curated
Thecla Schiphorst, Andruid Kerne, Luc Courchesne, Kristina Andersen
(art@chi2018.acm.org)

immerse: the art of present t[s]ense

The CHI2018 art show seeks artworks that immerse us.

Immerse as experience, as code, as process, as interaction, as game, as life or death. Immerse as verb – something that is experienced, that happens, that is acted upon, that is transformed through our attention in a single moment that continuously shifts and changes in time and in space. In our contemporary world, we begin to consider the plethora of data—and of technologies that produce and expand that data—as a new type of space; space that engulfs us as connective tissue – bridging between the countable and the uncountable noun named immersion*.

To immerse means to plunge into, to involve deeply, to absorb, to embed, to enclose or envelop completely, to bury, to thrust or throw into. In Hindi, to immerse is to devote oneself to fully. The state of immersion explores our capacity to embody, live, design, explore and live within the uncountable abundance of data, meaning and representation that abounds around and within us – and becomes us.

In collaboration with SAT (Société des Arts Technologiques) in Montréal, located just a few blocks from the Palais des Congrès de Montréal, the CHI2018 art show invites artists to submit artworks that explore the theme of immerse: the art of present t[s]ense.

SAT is a unique artist space in Montreal that focuses solely on immersive, virtual, augmented, and mixed reality artworks. SAT features a dome space, called the Satosphere, and a VR Lounge housing immersive interactive Virtual Reality platforms. CHI2018 seeks art works created for 1) the ‘Satosphere’ or any other 360° digital dome environment; or 2) immersive interactive virtual reality artworks, to be presented in the VR Lounge, using mobile VR platforms.

Come join us at CHI2018 at SAT and immerse yourself. La Société des Arts Technologiques (La SAT) is located at 1201 St Laurent Blvd, Montreal.

*immersion is both a countable and an uncountable noun

countable, countable noun, count noun
Describes a noun which can be freely used with the indefinite article (a or an in English) and with numbers, and which therefore has a plural form.
uncountable, uncountable noun, mass noun
A noun that cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, and which therefore takes no plural form. For example, the English noun information is a mass noun, and at least in its principal senses is uncountable. For those senses, we cannot say that we have *one information, nor that we have *many information (or *many informations).

Technical Requirements

1. Satosphere Dome

Artworks exploring immersive experience and interactive virtual, augmented, and mixed reality will be preferred:

• Manipulation of a multitude of tridimensional audio sources via Supercollider* and SATIE (a high-density 3D audio scene rendering environment for large multi-channel loudspeaker configurations);
• Use of sensors, cameras, pointers, positioning tools or movement tracking for interactivity, performance management, or real-time editing of immersive scenes;
• Use of 360° spherical cameras, ambisonic microphones or other A/V immersive capture toolsl use of 3D scanning tools;
• Original use of live performative mapping.

Works should offer an experience of approximately 10 minutes.

2. Virtual Reality Lounge

Projects revolving around the creation of immersive interactive artworks for the HTC VIVE, Daydream View Google Pixel, Oculus Rift, and Samsung Gear VR platforms, which take advantage of these devices’ features. This includes:

• Artwork that promotes the production of an original A/V and interactive experience;
• Explores the concept of presence and/or physicality;
• Touches upon questions around multiple users in virtual/augmented/mixed reality space;
• Questions the relationship between physical and virtual space;
• Promotes feedback from the surrounding “audience”, in the context of exhibition;
• Innovates in terms of scenography within the virtual piece, outside of the VR headset;
• Artworks exploring specific and innovative subjects of immersive experience and interactive VR:
• Use of sensors, cameras, pointers, positioning tools or movement tracking for interactivity or real-time editing of immersive scenes;
• Use of 360° spherical cameras, ambisonic microphones or other A/V immersive capture tools, use of 3D scanning tools;
• Original use of VR headsets.

Criteria for consideration:

• Challenge people’s conceptions of the role of technology in society.
• Stimulate critical thinking and discussion.
• Use interactivity in novel, unexpected ways.
• Involve people as participants, not just viewers.
• Deal with uncomfortable issues, such as loss of agency, as well as more comfortable areas, such as human connection.
• Engage the senses–touch, motion, auditory, visual– in embodied interaction.
• Use rich sensory media in visual, textual, and sonified forms
• Incorporate mobile as well as co-located components, involving people outside and inside the gallery.
• Aggregate data from the world and exhibit in the cloud, and re-present using visualization, sonification, and tactile actuation.
• Invoke performative strategies from dance, theater, and ritual within the context of urban activities
• Combine modalities and fields to create new synthesis.
• Connect strong technical, aesthetic, and critical aspects.
• Incorporate site-specific, urban elements.
• Utilize computational techniques such as generative art, emergent behaviours, and machine intelligence
• Involve the body as a site of experience and reflection.

What to submit:

• 6 page extended abstract – describing work and intended experience.
• still image – you are required to upload a still image of at least 1500 x 1200 px that represents your work. The image is required for publications and conference publicity.
• video (max 100Mb)
• Supplemental PDF, describing technical and space requirements, including lighting, power, floor plan.