If tech leads to anxiety more often than serenity, the VR Live Mandala Experience may alter your state of mind. But you’ll need to dash to Allapattah Tuesday to partake.
Hands in the controls, VR headset strapped on, you’re ready to climb the Himalayas and enter the Temple of the Tilting Buddha.
Marchak said she was one of about 70 businesses that had to rush out of the decades-old building at 168 Southeast 1st Street in downtown Miami.
An unsafe structures notice was posted on the front door a few days later and a police officer was in the lobby Friday as tenants took out some of their belongings and furniture.
“They made it seem like we were going through what Surfside went through and it will collapse on us,” said tenant Diliana Alexander.
129 Flagler
FilmGate Interactive Gallery
Current exhibition:
Seeing Sound/Eating Color
FilmGate Miami is pleased to present an interactive exhibition featuring artists Rafael Vargas-Bernard, Felipe Aguilar, and Nick Hardeman, on view at 129 Flagler Street. Seeing Sound/Eating Color is comprised entirely of new media – ranging from sound installations to augmented reality – bringing us into a new dimension that goes beyond the ordinary art viewing experience and into the future.
The world is changed, and our perception, along with it. We contemplate how to conduct ourselves in this new age, redefining what normal is in the midst of absurdity. Do we even want to go back to what was? Without a true evolution in our methods, how can we comprehend new stories being told today? How do we interact with and respond to this new reality? We urge our audience to actively engage and respond to each work with this in mind.
Distorted sound manipulations by Vargas combined with digital renderings by Hardeman thrust the viewer into a curious void that cannot exist without their own somatic presence. Aguilar’s photographs are not just photos, they are codes to a hidden universe. Increasingly, we question information presented to us by the press, as we are desensitized to violence, can we differentiate between sensationalized stories and true facts?
NICK HARDEMAN (Miami, FL) is a visual artist and programmer born, raised in Miami, FL and a graduate of the MFA Design+Technology program at Parsons The New School for Design. Nick’s work blends his love for making physical marks with dynamic, interactive digital landscapes that provoke curiosity and encourage play. Nick’s work ranges from immersive full body installations, physics based music visualizers to algorithmically controlled drawing machines. He contributes to open source coding toolkits such as OpenFrameworks that are designed to assist artists. Professionally, he is the Minister of Interactive Art at Design I/O, a small studio focused on creating immersive interactive installations.
FELIPE AGUILAR (Bogotá, Colombia, 1977) develops emotionally engaging projects that explore the definition of the realm between fiction and reality; using photography, film, and emerging technologies like Augmented Reality. His collaborations and commissions include projects with The Government of Colombian, The United Nations, USAID, Sony Music, and NatGeo. His independent projects have been present at festivals like The Berlinale, The Cannes Short Film Corner, Imagine Science Cinema, NewImages Paris, Filmgate Interactive, and recently the first exhibition in space by BJP's Portrait of Humanity.
RAFAEL VARGAS-BERNARD (Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, 1979) is an interdisciplinary visual artist, noise musician, and performer with digital art and new media tendencies. Vargas Bernard studied computer engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, sculpture at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico, and La Práctica at Beta-Local (San Juan, PR). His work explores functional and non-functional systems (including power structures, economic systems, and generative systems) and society’s relationship with these. He creates pieces and experiences that are often interactive and require some participation with the intention of provoking dialogue and action. He employs readily accessible materials and technologies, found objects, and a painterly yet utilitarian aesthetic. Vargas-Bernard combines performance, sound, programming, sculpture, painting, humor, and digital media in his creative practice.
Resident artists:
RAFAEL VARGAS-BERNARD (Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, 1979) is an interdisciplinary visual artist, noise musician, and performer with digital art and new media tendencies. Vargas Bernard studied computer engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, sculpture at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico, and La Práctica at Beta-Local (San Juan, PR). His work explores functional and non-functional systems (including power structures, economic systems, and generative systems) and society’s relationship with these. He creates pieces and experiences that are often interactive and require some participation with the intention of provoking dialogue and action. He employs readily accessible materials and technologies, found objects, and a painterly yet utilitarian aesthetic. Vargas-Bernard combines performance, sound, programming, sculpture, painting, humor, and digital media in his creative practice.