Exquisite Corpus is a performance installation exploring the feedback loop between bodies — the human body, the machinic body, and ecological bodies.
Exquisite Corpus is a 30 minute performance by Sougwen Chung in featuring three generations of robotic collaborators in a space made up of visual projection and sound. During the performance, Chung’s bio feedback and the environment are linked.
Each thematic chapter showcases an evolving robotic behavior linked to the artist's explorations of art and AI.
Exquisite Corpus is a reference to exquisite corpse, a surrealist drawing game exploring collaborative drawing and corpus, latin for ‘Body’
The work is part of an ongoing series of Drawing Operations projects by Sougwen Chung.
collaboration as sympoiesis, or the art of making-with.
Collaboration is an exercise in behavioral empathy
The systemic stories of our linked co-productions of economies and ecologies, of human and non-human, must be relentlessly relational, sympoietic, and consequential.
Chapter 1
SYSTOLE
Chapter 1, Systole begins as textural landscape of eeg and emf recordings, on a backdrop of abstract geometric lines with an image of the dimensional trigrams of the I-Ching.
We use drawing to denote ourselves; our existence within a scene.
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Chapter 2
EPOCH
Chapter 2, Epoch, combines chopped up and textured satellite time-lapse imagery of cities over the past several decades, including Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Toronto, accompanying a dissonant musical score.
Chapter 3
OASIS
Chapter 3, Oasis, is a vibrant landscape comprised of nature inspired visualizations of the artists recorded eeg data over the course of several months.
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Chapter 4
AUBADE
Chapter 4, Aubade, combines elements from the first three chapters, exploring human machine ecological sympoietics. The environment is linked directly to the data from Sougwen’s heart rate, linking the collective experience to the embodied nature of performance.
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Exhbition & Performance
Drawing performances are 30 minutes in length. The collaboration is entirely improvised and showcases a process of human & robotic co-creation.
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To learn more about the body of work, please visit the Press section.
For booking inquiries, please contact office@scilicet.xyz
For official press images, go here
CREDITS
Concept by Sougwen Chung
Robotics & Visual Direction: Sougwen Chung
EEG Visualization: Sougwen Chung
Musical Score: Chris Leung
EMF/EEG Sound Composition: Wesley Goatley
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INSTALLATION TEAM
AV Technical Direction: Igal Nassima
Sensor Implementation: Superbright
End Effector Fabrication: Charlie Whitney
Fabrication Support: Chris Lunney
Producer: Scilicet
READING LIST
Haraway, Donna Jeanne. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press, 2016.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt, et al. Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
To learn more about the body of work, please visit the Press section.
For booking inquiries, please contact office@scilicet.xyz
For official press images, go here
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works by sougwen
GENESIS (2024)what becomes of the human hand?
BODY MACHINE (MERIDIANS) - 2024machines as extensions of living systems
Assembly Lines (2022)a painting performance with a robotic swarm connected to the flow of a city
Mutations of Presence (2021)Exploring spectrality through sequencing bio-feedback to a machine
F.R.A.N. Flora Rearing Agricultural Network (2020)exploring machine and flora as part of a sympoietic, self-supporting networked system with human as gardener.
Ecologies Of Becoming WithProject type
Exquisite Corpus (2019)a performance installation exploring human, machine, and ecological bodies
Omnia per Omnia (2018)a painting performance with a robotic swarm connected to the flow of a city
Into The Light (2019)an audiovisual AR installation
Artefacts (2019)a human and machine collaborative drawing
Drawing Operations (2018)a human and machine collaborative duet
Drawing Operations (2018)soon...
Drawing Operations (2017)a human & machine drawing collaboration involving memory.
Drawing Operations (2015)a human & robot drawing collaboration involving mimicry
Chiaroscuro (2013)a spatial interplay of light and shadow as an immersive installation
Preparatory Gestures (2017)a series of sculpture studies in VR
Mycelia (2018)a series of sculptures inspired by bio-inspired cognition
Ecdysis (2013)a study in performative architecture
High Tide (Étude Op. 2, No. 4)a painting exploring the dynamics of change
The Limitless, The Absolute (2017)a painting inspired by the 八卦 Trigrams of the IChing
Cardia (2012)a short film depicting a transgression from interior to exterior
Apolysis (2014)a short film in collaboration with Clint Mansell
Untitled (Étude Op. 1, No. 1-4)a series of drawings exploring synesthesia
Chiaro Oscuro Prototypesa series of form studies with paper
Topographies (2015)a series of paintings inspired by nature and flow states
Dénouement (Recurrent fevers of unknown origin)
