All art media employ technology - from the paintbrush to the VR headset, technology has enabled the creation of art from the beginning of human expression. 21st century artists are actively incorporating the latest technology into their studio practices. Coding electronics to create interactive work, incorporating the Internet of Things into live installations, and creating wearables that respond to a user's body are only a few examples. These new tools, used alongside very traditional tools, are rapidly expanding art's possibilities, and changing the understanding of art disciplines and media. Tech Art Fair, at the Ontario Science Centre February 16-18, will showcase the aesthetic and creative potentials of technology in the hands of artists.


Participating Tech Art Fair artists: Gordana Brelih, Phuong Diep, Tricia Enns, Jessica Fu, Anthony Furia, Maryam Kidwai, Michael Lucenkiw, Olga Nabatova, Nath Family, Taiwo Odunlami, Joel Ong, Luc Palombo, Jasmin Pannu, Joy Peng, Matt Russo, Lorena Salomeé, Sean R. Stewart, Yang Sui, Tosca Teran, and Alejandra Vera.


Tech Art Fair is presented by the Ontario Science Centre in collaboration with: SciArt Center, North York Arts, ArtSci Salon, STEAMLabs, InterAccess, Fashion Art Toronto, and Daily Goods Design Lab.

Virtual exhibition: SciArt Highlights from Tech Art Fair 2019

One of the powers of art is the ability to provide perceptual, emotional, and conceptual experiences otherwise out of reach or impossible. While the physical world is the place we inhabit, it is the virtual, other-sensory world in which we travel through the expanses of outer space with ease, dive into the tangled web of the Internet, listen to the sounds of cellular biology, and play the harp that is the rings of Saturn.

Our interconnectedness with nature is omnipresent, spanning the scales of life both lived and experienced. These works, selected from this year's Tech Art Fair at Ontario Science Centre, give tangibility to that which normally resides in the realm of the imagination.

- Julia Buntaine Hoel & Marnie Benney

JESSICA FU

This photography series is inspired by Hubble images of the recently discovered terrestrial planet system 39.13 light-years away from Earth. These abstract imageries of imaginative landscapes were created on the surface of water with ink, acting as a metaphor to a parallel world.
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"Moonlight 50%" (2018). Image courtesy of the artist.
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"Distance to the moon, 385,968,53km" (2018). Image courtesy of the artist.
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"Distance to the moon, 374,955,48km" (2018). Image courtesy of the artist.
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"Flight Duration (Voyager): 65,000 years" (2018). Image courtesy of the artist.

JOY PENG

​People spend more and more time in virtual worlds due to the technology development nowadays. Gardener is an installation exploring the energy flow of the Twitter environment. It gathers the data from Twitter api and uses the data to trigger two different pumps. Both pumps are triggered in real time. “Love” presents by clear water and ”Hate” presents by blue water. After it operates several times, the audience can observe the living plant as representative of how the virtual world influences us.

YANG SUI

​Some people have the natural ability to visualize sound as color - this ability is called synesthesia. I wanted to create a piece which would give this multi-sensory experience to anyone, so I turned to technology and built a bridge between the auditory and visual dimensions. 
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My piece in this year's Tech Art Fair is a real time interactive media visualization (the GIF sample is playing below). A color spectrum is mapped onto the musical scale such that a specific musical note is linked with a specific color. As a result, this exhibit transforms music, and sound in general, into the visual dimension.  

TOSCA TERAN

​Bio-sonification is the translation of the bio-rhythms of organic subjects into sounds that we can hear. My fascination in working with mycelium (the root structure of mushrooms) is compounded by a number of factors; members of the fungi family are neither plant nor animal and a better understanding of their abilities to remediate ecological disaster suggests hope for the future of life on our planet. If that were not enough, compared to many of the organisms I have attached electrodes to, mycelium feels particularly musical when their bio-data is translated into sound.

​Nanotopia invites participants to have the unique experience of hearing sounds created by another organism and by directly participating in our bio-sonification, to hear their own bio-rhythms translated into musical sounds. The experience often has the aftereffect of creating a heightened sense of awareness of our own interconnectedness with nature and invites conjecture on the subject of sentience and collaboration with non-human organisms.

OLGA NABATOVA

​These images are from “Bring Art to Life,” a virtual reality art series. Working in Google’s Tiltbrush program allows me, and anyone else with a creative streak, to paint brilliant three-dimensional drawings and craft virtual sculptures. Inspired by my previous career in theater stage design, this series draws from the aesthetics and dramatics of set design. It is my hope as an artist to create a 'theater of the future' in the form of virtual reality environments, specifically geared towards children and youth. For the Ontario Science Centre’s Tech Art Fair, I augmented my creations so that anyone with smartphone and corresponding Augmented Reality app can enter my virtual world. 
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Image courtesy of the artist.
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Image courtesy of the artist.

MATT RUSSO & ANDREW SANTAGUIDA

​SYSTEM Sounds is a science-art outreach project that converts the rhythms and harmonies of the cosmos into music and sound. Their work has been featured in the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, and their exhibit "One Sky" was featured at Nuit Blanche Toronto. They regularly collaborate with NASA to make astronomy more accessible to the visually impaired. Their co-founder Matt Russo’s TED Talk has been viewed over 1 million times.
This virtual exhibition of SciArt Highlights from Tech Art Fair is presented in partnership with: