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| Source: National Museum of Singapore. Randy Chan, Sonic Womb, 2019, Interactive mixed media installation. Image courtesy of the artist. |
As part of its aim to lead digital innovation in the cultural sector, the National Museum of Singapore has exhibited seven projects that bring to life the amalgamation of art, culture and technology in its latest edition of DigiMuse Presents, launched on 18 January in conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2019. Co-created by digital designers and creative professionals in partnership with cultural institutions and technology companies, DigiMuse Presents will enable visitors to explore new perspectives of art, culture and heritage via immersive and interactive exhibits, dynamic conversations enabled by artificial intelligence, and more.
Iman Ismail, Curator, National Museum of Singapore, said, “The second edition of DigiMuse Presents will explore the creative use of technology, art, and even sound, to create immersive experiences for museum-goers. The showcase demonstrates the exciting potential of marrying digital innovation with culture and the arts, to create playful and thoughtful interactions with our audiences.”
As a progressive cultural institute, the museum encourages the use of technology-driven storytelling to create moments of self-reflection and meaningful exchanges for its visitors. This new edition of DigiMuse Presents will feature Face of the Day (FOTD), a platform that showcases fresh digital and visual content daily. Using social media as one of its key mediums, FOTD fuses photography, videography, fashion, culture, arts and trends to share wry, witty and wondrous moments of everyday life.
Another highlight of DigiMuse Presents is Sonic Womb, an inhabitable suspended tensile womb structure and soundscape that allows visitors to explore the process of human gestation. As visitors walk, crawl and lie within the responsive “womb”, they will experience a reactive audio system that mimics the way a fetus would experience sound. The immersive, interactive exhibit was inspired by the organic process of human exploration, cognition and response.
Featuring contributions from local designers like Yang Derong and Randy Chan to internationally acclaimed artists and choreographers such as Justine Emard and Hiraoki Umeda, DigiMuse Presents and the larger DigiMuse initiative are the result of the National Museum’s partnerships multiple organisations.
Through Co(AI)xistence, museum-goers will get the chance to discover an artistic interface between data and human motion. The video artwork by Justine Emard shows an artificial life system created by Ishiguro Lab (Osaka University) and programmed by Ikegami Lab (Tokyo University) interacting with Mirai Moriyama, a Japanese actor and dancer embodying a non-anthropomorphic way of understanding things.
In a series of 3D-printed garments, Beeing Human by design label Baëlf Design pays tribute to the wonders of nature. Inspired by the honeycomb, a fusion of geometric, architectural and organic forms overlaying the human body brings to light the relationship between humans and nature.
Giving new meaning to the phrase ‘high-fashion’, Galina Mihaleva’s work Talking Cheongsams showcases Singapore’s DNA through clothing and textiles hung from the museum’s glass rotunda. In what is set to be a feast for the eyes, her work at the Banyan Tree, Pulse, is a tactile playground for visitors to experience digital interpretations of today’s urban landscape.
In the visual installation Dual Blur, Hiroaki Umeda takes reference from the museum’s William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings, deconstructing and distorting images from the collection. Interacting with the audience in real-time, sensors within the installation detect movement from the audience, presenting visitors with a fresh and dynamic perspective of the collection.
This showcase is part of the wider DigiMuse initiative, which was launched with the goal of building a vibrant cultural sector that is invested in digital innovation. The museum was among the first cultural institutions worldwide to launch an initiative of this scale.
Details:
DigiMuse Presents will be on view till 17 February 2019 at various locations within the National Museum and its galleries, between 10 am to 7 pm daily. Visitor access to the featured projects is free with a General Admission ticket.
