International artists to gather for NEoN Festival

International artists to gather for NEoN Festival

Shining 360

An eerie 360 degree reinterpretation of The Shining, an intricate woven spiral made from hundreds of discarded computer mice and delicate 3D printed models of artefacts destroyed by ISIS are among an array of exhibits at this year’s NEoN Festival in Dundee.

For the first time, Abertay University’s new ‘Weave’ outreach project will support a selection of works during the city’s North East of North Festival of digital art.

Organised by a collaborative city partnership, NEoN has run since 2009 and will this year take on a Media Archaeology theme, featuring artists who are recorders of our information-based society.

Material Speculation: ISIS by Iranian artist Morehshin Allahyari will be among those supported by Weave at Dundee’s West Ward Works cultural space as the festival runs at venues across the city from November 7 – 12.

The 3D modelling and printing project reconstructed 12 statues from the Roman period city of Hatra and Assyrian artefacts from Nineveh, destroyed by ISIS in 2015.

Also on display will be Shining 360 from Pittsburgh artist Claire Hentschker.

Her 30-minute audio-visual experiment was derived from the physical space within Stanley Kubrick’s film and uses photogrammetry to recreate 3D spaces from the movie.

Fragments are stitched together and viewed along the original camera path in 360 degrees to create an eerie new experience.

Abertay’s Professor of Games and Tactical Media, Joseph Delappe from San Francisco, will exhibit his Mouse Mandala.

Mouse Mandala

The ongoing piece began in 1999 using rejected computer mice from Silicon Valley and is still being added today. Edinburgh-based artist Nicky Bird will showcase Heritage Site, an art and archaeology project recreating a house buried underneath five industrial spoil heaps in West Calder, known as the Five Sisters.

By collaborating with members of the Calder History Group, an artist who works with scents, computer scientists, modellers and animators, Bird was able to create a physical and digital depiction of what may lie under the ground.

Heritage Site

She said: “My work investigates the contemporary relevance of ‘found’ artefacts, their archives and specific sites through collaborative art processes with people who have significant connections to a hidden history.

“I am interested in how such artefacts, archives and sites carry both social and personal histories.

“This leads to a key question: what is our relationship to the past, and what is the value we ascribe to it?

Abertay’s Weave project aims to provide a platform for Creativity, Community and Collaboration in Dundee and is closely linked with the University’s BA (Hons) Computer Arts course.

The Weave selection is just a small part of NEoN, which chimes with Scotland’s Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology.

Weave curator Clare Brennan said: “Dundee’s digital arts scene is second to none and coming just days after the submission of the city’s Dundee 2023 Capital of Culture bid there’s never been a better time to experience NEoN.”

NEoN is a charitable organisation that brings together partners from across Dundee including Fleet Collective, Weave by Abertay University, University of Dundee, DJCAD, New Media Scotland, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Creative Dundee, Nomas Projects, Red Pepper Events, and is generously supported by Creative Scotland and the High Commission of Canada.

For more information visit www.northeastofnorth.com