iancorcoran.com

Sorry for delay in Updates - my week in Austria blew my mind at Ars Electronica & my two days at Pani were very hard but rewarding work.
In dublin now with very good wifi
Stay tuned
ian

Expo day 2
June 16th
My big day at expo.
Managed to visit about 15 pavillions, however these were the ones to write home about. i never got to the Hitachi pavillion as the queues were nearly 3 hours at some stages - I couldn’t justify that much time - though my friend Bernard said it is amazing - you wear VR goggles & get transported about the place. Here is the link:
And I won’t even go into the length of the queues at the Toyota pavillion.

New Zealand
Special mention here. I felt a little underwhelmed until i was told of the actual budget. There was a large projection and interactive plasma screens that were triggered by using the business card off the pavillion much like a touch screen. It only had a budget of $3 million and is fully staffed by Kiwis for the six months!!!!

Saudi Arabian Pavillion
Saw my first panoramic 360 degree projection here describing life in the dessert state. Nice excecution however the content was a little bland - there was however a very nice little projection onto a printed image (an idea i’m really interested at the moment).

South Korean Pavillion
Went back here twice.
You are presented with a cross of four plasmas as one screen - brilliant separation of content delivering to each screen. Around the corner you were presented with a projection of butterflys onto a fine screen of water - quite beautiful when you spent time with it, however as it was within a wind tunnel the water was dispersed quite quickly.

Next up was an interactive projection which reacted to the participants body movement. It triggered a traditional South Korean landscape drawing depending on the shape of the body. Very cool, really like the intersection of the digital and the traditional (like my snug project) and really well done. Mirror projection with a serious perspective correction so no shadow was thrown.

Now you may think that was all - but the reason I came back again was for the stereoscopic 3d animation in High Definition which only played intermitently (the only HD thing I saw - note to Dave Carson - go to korea they are really nuts!!!!)
Of all the pavillions it was the only one which wasn’t recomended by anyone - I managed to find a one of lynettes wallworths gems!!

It really hooked into the theme of the expo a narrative based around 2 friends - a robot and a midget. Beautiful computer graphics and a really engaging narrative. It relates to the current war mentality gripped by australia and the US at the moment whilst commenting on the wastefulness of current captialistic society. The robot is a draft evadee & gets arrested by a Matrix type flying vehicle. The next scene sees him at the back of

Techwise the room held about 500 people & had a massive biobox which used large polarising filters in front of the HD projectors. Part of the show included a performer with LEDS on them!!! Very impresive worth a check on the Sth Korean website.

Australian Pavillion
Thanks very much here to Bernard Hellier for putting me up & being a gracious host in Japan. (He is also the tech guy for the pavillion)
As you enter you see a presentation about Australia using a peppers ghost.
Very amazing.
From there you go on to the tower of plasmas the content made by Chroma in melbourne. All the screens are interlinked & driven by a mass of G5’s. When I upload the pics you’ll understand. One of more standout pavillions.

Russian Pavillion
Very big panoramic projection. Content not so good though (they did have a frozen wolly mammoths foot though)

June 15th
EXPO
Spent half of the first day at the world expo casing out the site and observing the main traits of Expo: the queues. Some of these for the pavillions could take up to three hours.

Some highlights - Pictures to follow.

Irish Pavillion

Four plaster casts of celtic crosses are surrounded by a dome of Irish sky. It used some technology that utilises small lights and perforations to create a kalidoscope video effect. I managed to speak to the artistic director who told me that it was an Irish/Japanese collaboration. Produced by the Goto group (the guys behind the Japan pavillion - which I never saw due to excessive queues) it was a smaller version of that. Very impressive - I’ll include a link later.

UK Pavillion
After a walk through an english forest you find yourself in a room full of projections - most of which had an interactive element. The whole roof is one large rear projection. Lots of Christie projectors here. There was a flower that span & was followed by bees that was interesting plus an interactive wave.

Lithuanian Pavillion
Projectors anyone?
The whole pavillion is based around two massive strands of DNA looping through the room acting as projection surfaces with many many many projectors delivering the content. Content was pretty dire but great idea & excecution.

Dutch Pavillion
You enter a squarecroom with delft walls of an old Amsterdam scene and a curtain comes down over the entrance. In the middle of the room is a large screen which is projected from above. Has to be one of the more impressive pavillion, I had missed the tech director on the day & didn’t get any more background detail on the content delivery system.

Wednesday 15 June
Travelling Shinkansen to Nagoya as I type. These trains go fast, make the FAAAAASSSSST, every kick of acceleration pushes you deeper into your seat. Travelling at 400km breaks the landscape into one highly edited strip. Its like watching the landscape in a chemical brothers clip.

Tokyo is nuts. Advertising hoardings everywhere, screens also. Thought I’ld see a lot more High Definition stuff publicly, guess Australia isn’t the only place not without a high take up rate. Read an article yesterday that noted the death of NTSC in 2011 in Japan (Death to NTSC!!!!!!)
Went the Mori art gallery yesterday. 2 great shows - The world is a stage: Stories behind pictures & The elegance of Silence: Contemporary art from East Asia.

The first show, had some engaging video works, William Kentridge being the standout. There was also an HD piece projected in standard def - good - better then some of the other works - Still haven’t seen anything in a gallery to match the show I saw recently at VCA gallery. It’s getting to a stage where you dump dvd & use a mac mini with an xga quality image streaming off the computer.

2 screens outside mori tower - 1 as you leave the station, another round corner.
outside the Mori tower scoped the Asahi screen. Resolution on the station screen was quite low - it was delivering content from the Mori art museum much like fed square. The Asahi screen however is huge, pictures to follow. It was delivering television content - I believe it is also used for performances in the arena.

We came across huge rear projections of numbers at the bottom of the building onto frosted glass. Very nice.

Monday 13 June
Well this can be the first blog for my Run_Way travel bursary. I will be on a study tour of the World Expo Nagoya, Ars Future-lab Linz, Pani Factory Vienna, Digital Hub Dublin, Edinburgh Sculpture Society and Tate Modern London.
The purpose will be to investigate new projection technologies

Just on the last two hours of my flight to Tokyo via Sydney drinking JAL Original Drink “SKYTIME YUZU”. Though will be having ASAHI, no Heinekin for me.

The flight was quite empty & I had two free seats next to me which allowed me to get a couple of hours kip. Old 747 though no separate screens but it has offered the first piece of projection technology for the trip.

The main screens are three gun projectors, which are of course quite useless. Remember them? A swine to install and never have good color. I’d rate them at 800 ansi lumens. I’ll try to get a video shot before we land.

Got some greta video footage from the window, might be some great stuff for the book of loco, though I should have brought the ccd camera for time-lapse of the flight.

This will act as part of my acquittal and as a way for me to document my trip.
I’ve included my travel details below Ian’s Itinerary
==============
June 13 Fly to Tokyo
June 15 - 16 At world expo Nagoya
June 17 Fly to London 12pm
June 20 - 22 Fly to Linz @ 1pm & Visit Ars Future-lab
June 23 - 25 Pani factory Vienna
June 25 - 29 Fly Dublin 1pm Dublin, Meeting with Digital-Hub in Liberties, Director Fire-station studio and MoMA Kilmainham.
June 29 Fly Edinburgh 1 pm
June 30 Giving a talk about my practice at Sculpture Society Endinburgh
July1 Train 2 london 11.45pm
July 2 London
July 3 Back to Australia Fly London @ 1945.
July 5 Melbourne 9am