New Media Shortlisted Artists 2019
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Thomas Webb
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Roberto Grosso
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Sarah Selby
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Forevermore (Raquel Palis and Paulo Ramos)
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Ziwei Wu
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Introduction
Our New Media Award invites artists whose practice involves the use of technology; examples include moving images, mobile apps, virtual and augmented reality, interactive installations, and sound art. The winner of the award will receive a £1,000 cash prize and a solo show at Rich Mix London, 18th October to 1st December 2019.
This award allows us to extend our support to artists we couldn’t previously. We’re excited that we can now provide opportunities for an even wider range of artists and their practices and create an even more inclusive artist community. This online exhibition presents the New Media Shortlist, and they go forward to being considered for the New Media Award 2019.
Our New Media Award invites artists whose practice involves the use of technology; examples include moving images, mobile apps, virtual and augmented reality, interactive installations, and sound art. The winner of the award will receive a £1,000 cash prize and a solo show at Rich Mix London, 18th October to 1st December 2019.
This award allows us to extend our support to artists we couldn’t previously. We’re excited that we can now provide opportunities for an even wider range of artists and their practices and create an even more inclusive artist community. This online exhibition presents the New Media Shortlist, and they go forward to being considered for the New Media Award 2019.
Thomas Webb
About Thomas Webb
Thomas Webb is a British born artist living in London, UK. His work orbits around real-time data and how it can be applied to reveal present contemporary life but also exact thoughts, feelings and beliefs of digital data. Webb uses a variety of media, mainly producing works that are programmed utilising numerous server systems connected to real-time data sources and social media. By using social media APIs, his work can obtain millions of tweets, statuses and statistics each second which he applies to visualise present moment being through the lens of his dispositions.
By utilising real-time data, his work is not a static account of emotion or emotional acknowledgement. Instead, it is a fluid entity that can modify its opinion, employing millions of users to define the artistic message of the works in real-time. Webb portraits the emotional state of the internet world and the rate at which we are affecting it. Some of his recent works include a collaboration with Valentino, Proof of Parallel and Depression Has No Face, a smart mirror using sentiment analysis AI to display individual tweets from all users worldwide expressing views of depression, stripped of their profile, picture and location.
Thomas Webb born in 1991, has given varied TEDx talks and global keynote addresses on the themes of hacking systems for artistic purposes. In 2018 Webb was featured in Wired Magazine for creating a mind-reading AI.
Thomas Webb is a British born artist living in London, UK. His work orbits around real-time data and how it can be applied to reveal present contemporary life but also exact thoughts, feelings and beliefs of digital data. Webb uses a variety of media, mainly producing works that are programmed utilising numerous server systems connected to real-time data sources and social media. By using social media APIs, his work can obtain millions of tweets, statuses and statistics each second which he applies to visualise present moment being through the lens of his dispositions.
By utilising real-time data, his work is not a static account of emotion or emotional acknowledgement. Instead, it is a fluid entity that can modify its opinion, employing millions of users to define the artistic message of the works in real-time. Webb portraits the emotional state of the internet world and the rate at which we are affecting it. Some of his recent works include a collaboration with Valentino, Proof of Parallel and Depression Has No Face, a smart mirror using sentiment analysis AI to display individual tweets from all users worldwide expressing views of depression, stripped of their profile, picture and location.
Thomas Webb born in 1991, has given varied TEDx talks and global keynote addresses on the themes of hacking systems for artistic purposes. In 2018 Webb was featured in Wired Magazine for creating a mind-reading AI.
About the Artwork
I want the viewer to realise the digital realm. We are now all truly connected. After struggling to find a way out of depression, I began searching online for communities of people, mainly reddit, that were sharing their stories. It was an empathy among strangers. We all used anonymous usernames, known as throwaways, to avoid people knowing the truth about how we felt.
It was empowering, their messages became internal scripts that would reflect how we all felt. I think, depression, is a mutual feeling of utter helplessness and lack of smell, taste, sight and emotion. A constant state of nothing with no way out.
I searched online, how could I find this data, how could I break down the internet and reveal the purest form of emotion between total strangers.
I found that twitter was a canvas of emotion. Every second there were at least 5 tweets posted from around the world.
I obtained the Twitter API, which gave me real-time access to everything that was being posted to twitter.
Using sentiment analysis, I was able to remove everything in the data, except someones pure emotion.
I now had my cloud server system posting messages, just text… retweets sometimes, but always someone saying how they feel right now.
It’s important to explain that once they hit the tweet button and post their thoughts, within 100ms that message appears on my server. 100ms later, the digital mirror slowly typewrites their message.
As the viewer, you’re taken away from distractions, from the adverts, the hashtags and the bias of profile pictures and handles. Instead you watch your reflection in the thoughts feelings and emotions of a total stranger, somewhere in the world who feels depressed. For 10 seconds you’re tied to them in the present moment. Then the message disappears, it’s not saved or stored, it vanishes, and another message begins to be written.
I want the viewer to realise the digital realm. We are now all truly connected. After struggling to find a way out of depression, I began searching online for communities of people, mainly reddit, that were sharing their stories. It was an empathy among strangers. We all used anonymous usernames, known as throwaways, to avoid people knowing the truth about how we felt.
It was empowering, their messages became internal scripts that would reflect how we all felt. I think, depression, is a mutual feeling of utter helplessness and lack of smell, taste, sight and emotion. A constant state of nothing with no way out.
I searched online, how could I find this data, how could I break down the internet and reveal the purest form of emotion between total strangers.
I found that twitter was a canvas of emotion. Every second there were at least 5 tweets posted from around the world.
I obtained the Twitter API, which gave me real-time access to everything that was being posted to twitter.
Using sentiment analysis, I was able to remove everything in the data, except someones pure emotion.
I now had my cloud server system posting messages, just text… retweets sometimes, but always someone saying how they feel right now.
It’s important to explain that once they hit the tweet button and post their thoughts, within 100ms that message appears on my server. 100ms later, the digital mirror slowly typewrites their message.
As the viewer, you’re taken away from distractions, from the adverts, the hashtags and the bias of profile pictures and handles. Instead you watch your reflection in the thoughts feelings and emotions of a total stranger, somewhere in the world who feels depressed. For 10 seconds you’re tied to them in the present moment. Then the message disappears, it’s not saved or stored, it vanishes, and another message begins to be written.
Roberto Grosso
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About Roberto Grosso
Painter and new media artist Roberto Grosso takes inspiration from music and produces his work on metal, metallic paper or Perspex. The key elements of his artworks are the use of vibrant colours and augmented reality which brings the artwork to life by showing the stages of its creation to a soundtrack of the music that inspired it. See more at... www.robertogrosso.com www.instagram.com/roberto_grosso_art 
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Sarah Selby
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About Sarah Selby
Bristol based Sarah Selby is an interdisciplinary artist interested in the creative applications of pervasive technology. Born at the intersection of the Millennials and iGeneration, her work is heavily inspired by her unique perspective on the rapid changes in technology and the societal impacts of this. She explores the relationship between the digital and physical through tangible objects that fuse our two worlds – exploring how they overlap, contradict and impact one another. Sarah graduated from Interactive Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2017 and was awarded the MMU Science Community Award after being selected to participate in interdisciplinary residency “Roche Continents”. She was also recently selected for Arebyte Gallery’s “Hotel Generation” programme. |
About the Artwork
'If you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you' is an interactive artwork that examines how anonymity and a sense of disconnect between the digital and physical affects how we communicate online. Inspired by celebrity culture and the behaviour of online ‘trolls’, this piece draws on the power of the public to nurture or destroy. It was inspired by Marina Abramovic’s ‘Rhythm 0’ (referenced in the title) and aims to put a contemporary twist on her exploration of pack mentality.
The viewer is invited to interact by 'tweeting' the rose. Sentiment analysis technology (commonly used in market analysis) rates each tweet from -1 to +1 (with anything below 0 registered as a negative comment and anything above 0 as positive). This then triggers the release of either water or poison (salt water), depending on the overall sentiment of the message. The aim over time is to see whether the audience choose to nourish or kill the rose.
'If you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you' is an interactive artwork that examines how anonymity and a sense of disconnect between the digital and physical affects how we communicate online. Inspired by celebrity culture and the behaviour of online ‘trolls’, this piece draws on the power of the public to nurture or destroy. It was inspired by Marina Abramovic’s ‘Rhythm 0’ (referenced in the title) and aims to put a contemporary twist on her exploration of pack mentality.
The viewer is invited to interact by 'tweeting' the rose. Sentiment analysis technology (commonly used in market analysis) rates each tweet from -1 to +1 (with anything below 0 registered as a negative comment and anything above 0 as positive). This then triggers the release of either water or poison (salt water), depending on the overall sentiment of the message. The aim over time is to see whether the audience choose to nourish or kill the rose.
Forevermore
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About Forevermore
Based in Toronto Brazilian artists Raquel Palis and Paulo Ramos collaborate to form the collective “Forevermore”. The duo bring use augmented reality as their medium to highlight discrepancies between the analog/real and virtual worlds, and observe what happens when these environments collide. They investigate how we are influenced by digital communication on a largescale by pushing the boundaries of contemporary art, engaging demographics with innovative use of technology and empowering the public in order to get them to explore narratives beyond the digital. 
About the Artwork
Learn more by looking at this QR code on your phones camera... |
Ziwei Wu
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About Ziwei Wu
Wu Ziwei is a new media contemporary artist from China currently studying an MA in Computational Arts at Goldsmiths. Her artworks are mainly based on biology, science and their influence in the society. Wu uses a range of media such as painting, installation, Audio-Visual, 2D and 3D animation, VR, mapping and so on. About the Artwork
This inspiration of this work from the part of music torture in Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights. Through the mechanism of the punishment of Tantalus, I created a new mechanism which can control others through audio. In several dimensions of magnifying glass’ view, we can see seven different little worlds. ‘they’ are being tortured. The work hopes to explore and reinterpret the phenomenon of individual behavior being controlled and watched by external perspectives and sounds. Tantalus offended the gods and suffered in hell. He stood in the deep water. Whenever he was thirsty. The water immediately flowed away from him. Whenever he wanted to eat the fruit from the tree in front of him, the fruit rose in the air. |
The Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize 2019 New Media Shortlist go through to the final round, more details coming soon...