PSYCHE GARDEN

BEYOND THE METAPHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

PSYCHE GARDEN

Psych Garden uses physical sensations and auras to guide you through multiple planes of being, hosting virtual tours of Thailand’s energy, tastes, sights, and sounds. The tours invite viewers to think about how our physical bodies absorb information through all our senses. We travel for our survival or search for aspirations, and marry our psyches with our sensory understanding of the world or/and other worlds. This exhibition shows snapshots of the search.

BEYOND METAPHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

As you join us from home, watching through your own computer frame,  travel takes on a whole new meaning.  We move viewers through experiences that explore animism rooted in Thai culture and panpsychism, asking visitors to wonder: How do we understand planets, inanimate objects, engineered microorganism, etc. through a cultural framework? How do scientists, anthropologists, and artists outside the Western canon formulate their perception of the observed world? 

Jennifer Katanyoutanat and Scott Kildall have each created different ways to share remote sensations. Scott and collaborator Michael Ang have created a live streamed audio installation that gives voice to Thai plants. Jennifer and collaborators Grace Cong Xin Wong and Zden Brungot Svitekova have created a pathway to exploring remote sensations through a taste based guided meditation. Visitors are encouraged to bring their own garlic. 

Moving onto the wider world, Tentacles and FREAK Lab Thailand investigate the cultural lens of our observed world through 3 different journeys that explore life, synthetic biology, geopolitics and geology, and the future of space exploration. 

IN THE PSYCHE GARDEN

MESSE : Molecular Encoding Storage for Space Exploration

Spaceth.co(Thailand), FREAK Lab(Thailand), MIT Media Lab(US) and team

Unnatural Language

Scott Kildall - Xenoform Labs(US)

Garlic Med.Eat.Ation

Jennifer Katanyoutanant (US + Thailand), Grace Cong Xin Wong - Art Farm (US + HK), Zden Brungot Svíteková (Slovakia)

Pearl of Lunar

Henry and partners(Thailand), SpaceZab, FREAK Lab(Thailand), MIT Media Lab(US)

Lunar Rock

SpaceZab(Thailand) & SpaceTH(Thailand)

MESSE : Molecular Encoding Storage for Space Exploration

SpaceTH / Thailand
FREAK Lab / Thailand
MIT Media Lab / USA

“MESSE (Molecular Encoded Storage for Space Exploration) is an anti-disciplinary space mission that demonstrates the future of bio-digital information system for interplanetary communication. The team developed a proof-of-concept data encoding mechanism, assembly method, and deployment strategies for DNA storage as a digital message carrier for the sub-orbital space flight. The team encoded musical composition with poetic meanings in the DNA storage to illuminate the dialogues and tensions between art and science at the crossroad of existential philosophy, synthetic-biology, and space exploration.

UNNATURAL LANGUAGE

Scott Kildall - Xenoform Labs/ American

Psych Garden uses physical sensations and auras to guide you through multiple planes of being, hosting virtual tours of Thailand’s energy, tastes, sights, and sounds. The tours invite viewers to think about how our physical bodies absorb information through all our senses. We travel for our survival or search for aspirations, and marry our psyches with our sensory understanding of the world or/and other worlds. This exhibition shows snapshots of the search.

Sun, Sep 13, 2020 | 12:01 am - 11:59 pm Unnatural Language: Botanic Quartet

scottkildall - Twitch

"Botanic Quartet" 24-hour Livestream: 12 September 2020, 12:01 am - 11:59 pm, Austria time (UTC +2) for Ars Electronica

GARLIC MED.EAT.ATION

Jennifer Katanyoutanant / US + Thai
Grace Cong Xin Wong - Art Farm / US + HK
Zden Brungot Svíteková / Slovakia

The first chapter in our ongoing Remote Intimacy series, Garlic Med. Eat. Ation, creates sensory solidarity by exploring how intimacy can be shared remotely/virtually through touch and taste. Please bring a clove of garlic to experience the exhibit.

PEARL OF LUNAR

Henry and partners / Thailand
FREAK Lab / Thailand
Space Zab / Thailand
In Collaboration with MIT Media Lab

Pearl of Lunar explored infrastructural desire and the futurity of Belt-and-Road Initiatives as seen through wealth accumulation, labor infiltration, and geopolitical control. But also, more ephemerally, the affective meshwork of greed and possessiveness that functions at the level of the individual and corporate entities. Through researching unfinished projects such as the Kra Canal, Space Technology Roadmap and Digital Belt and Road, we map complex relationships between China and the rest of the world. Departing from a motif of the pearl as a signifier of ambitious strategies and predatory tendencies in the oceanic sphere, Pearl of Lunar portrays both the ancient and future ambitions of the project of the historic Silk Road. The Synchrotron light engraves an unfinished roadmap. The pearl of lunar then sends with a rocket to Low Earth Orbit atmosphere while chemical reactions assemble Nacre or Mother of Pearl which ultimately reflects the future roadmap of an Earth-Moon “Special Economic Zone”.

This project is selected through MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative’s first
international artwork open call to the ISS and the launch opportunity is provided by the initiative.

LUNAR ROCK

Space Zab / Thailand
SpaceTH / Thailand

Lunar Rock is a project by SpaceZab, a group of young scientists’ journey into Trad city, a rocky seaside landscape. They wade through rocks and the oceanside, excavating magmatic rock from the shore and the sea. The quest is to discover earth elements resembling moon dust for their future research and experiments.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

FREAK Lab

Futuristic Research Cluster (FREAK Lab) is an anti-disciplinary research cluster that converge arts, science, and technology for thinking beyond and exploring the the symbiotic relationship between human and the emerging technologies. Found by a group of JSTP alumni and mentors in 2017 inside King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, FREAK Lab use variety of methods and mediums : prototypes, research, arts, and installation to reimagine the possibility of realities. The community of FREAKs are open-minded peoples from multi-disciplines, ages, and expertise that work together on cutting edges projects without bureaucracy and hierarchy. Therefore, FREAK lab is a platform for transforming inspirational futuristic ideas into practical prototypes that have high impact to society in term of aesthetics, knowledges, and economy.

 

 

 

Scott Kildall 

Scott Kildall has been working with art + technology + education for over 15 years, looking at the interplay between territory and technology.

 

Jennifer Katanyoutanant

Jennifer Katanyoutanant is a Bangkok based new media artist exploring social practice through digital mediums such as interactive web, virtual, and augmented reality.

 

Grace Cong Xin Wong 

Grace Cong Xin Wong is a transient artist and designer who uses site-specific architectural installation, participatory performance, and new media as means of creating playful yet insightful dialogues around local culture and memory.

 

Zden Brungot Svíteková

Zden Brungot Svíteková is a moving freelance collaborative artist working in the field of dance, performance, research, choreography and facilitation based in the Czech Republic.

Zden Brungot Svíteková, Grace Cong Xin Wong, and Jennifer Katanyoutanant are artists in residence from Saari Residence in Mynämäki, Finland run by Kone Foundation.

 

Spaceth.co

Spaceth.co is an online media focusing on making space become relevant to lives. We work with the government, companies, education institutes, and scientists to form an ecosystem that will make space become more accessible to citizens. Spaceth appears on national media, government projects, influential social media, and has collaborations both nationally and internationally. 

 

 

Henryandpartners 

Bangkok based, Henryandpartners led by Henry Tan uses performance and installation investigating recent geopolitics and space exploration, using pearl as a motif, the desire for wealth accumulation through supply chain expansion, and labor infiltration. Staged to appealing individual experience, paradigm change, and fun. Gemstones as a source of disposable income as a means of selling on social relations. Limitations and preferences of the ultimate form of pearl in terms of natural availability and elemental potency, the genesis of modern pearl desirability. Henryandpartners exhibits particular technology of operations and fabrication that sees direct engagement with the intricacy of real-life influences. Specifically demonstrating how pearls can be consumed by themselves, or for aesthetic purposes. Becoming a tie, bracelet, or collar.

 

Space Zab

Space Zab is a space technology start-up company founded in 2017 with the mission to design, develop and manufacture technology for future exploration and living in space. Founded by a team of researchers, engineers and scientists. Spacezab developed food production technology with a 3D printer and design tools for space experiments both on the ground and on the International Space Station. Spacezab develops space education products and services creating a space ecosystem and inspiration for space in Thailand.

 

MIT Media Lab

Founded in 1985, the MIT Media Lab is one of the world’s leading research and academic organizations. Unconstrained by traditional disciplines, Media Lab designers, engineers, artists, and scientists strive to create technologies and experiences that enable people to understand and transform their lives, communities, and environments. The MIT Media Lab promotes an interdisciplinary research culture that brings together diverse areas of interest and inquiry.