ISEA2008 Juried Exhibition
Sourcing Water
Georg Tremmel (Austria/Japan), Shiho Fukuhara (Japan) & Yousuke Nagao (Japan)
Collaborating with: Singapore-Delft Water Alliance (SDWA)
Water in Singapore can never be taken for granted. Most of it is brought into the country from Malaysia, but the city-state is always looking for ways to produce its own supplies, with reverse osmosis being the most recent method. Mindful of this situation, the artists will be sourcing for water across Singapore in the weeks prior to the exhibition using an ancient, albeit completely un-scientific technique. Dowsing is the practice of using a rod or specially shaped stick to ‘divine’ the location of water underground. It was believed that magnetic energy would animate the rod if the dowser walks above a natural well. Despite numerous tests, no one has ever been able to prove that it actually works, but many continue to believe in its power - just like Homeopathy. As a fusion of body, instrument and landscape, dowsing was an pre-scientific form of location-positioning technology, and so for the artwork, the artists will try to combine this age old 'technology' with modern sensoring methods. The dowsing rods will be enhanced with GPS and Motion Sensors, allowing data to be collected to create a map of potential water sources that will be presented in the gallery. And if all goes well, we could end up with ‘new’ newater!
Shiho Fukuhara (Japan) and Georg Tremmel (Austria/Japan) have been collaborating on projects involving art and science since 2001. They have founded Biopresence BCL, an artistic research laboratory and open development platform dedicated to exploring the interfaces between art, science, design, technology and society. Yousuke Nagao (Japan) has a background in Information Design (Kyushu Institute of Design) and Media Art (IAMAS). In his work he is concerned with the mediation of technological tools, human relations and social dialogues.
