Sensxperiment 2011 [Lucena-Córdoba]

Sensxperiment 2011: Sensory Immersion
October 20 – November 12, 2011
Various locations – Lucena-Córdoba

Mark Bain, Justin Bennett, Maki Ueda, Francisco López, Ilios
Pascal Battus, Telcosystems, Hc Gilje, Dallas Simpson

After ten years of activity Sensxperiment International Creation Meeting is organized in a triennial basis. Most physical activities of the current 11th edition take place in October and November 2011 in Lucena and Cordoba, Spain.

The theme chosen for this edition is ‘Sensory Immersion’.

It is not only necessary to talk only about the history of arts and entertainment, the phenomenon has always been integrated in the quotidian experience and it appears also in most popular rituals, from the ancient indigenous cultures to all kinds of Western celebrations, in a rave or a metal performance.

Today there are a lot of artistic and entertainment pieces that promote themselves using extensively the term ‘immersion’. In many cases this term underlines their multisensoriality, hyper-reality or a somewhat intimate and subjective character, in other occasions it is maybe just a way to stress their magnificent technologies.

Anyway, let´s talk about what it was interesting for us and what we dealt with in this project. Our aim was to examine this elusive concept departing from a series of artistic works based mostly in the use of audiovisual media and with a special emphasis in topics related to the exploration of the surroundings, intimate and physical aspects of sound. The aim was to show recent works, but also relevant pieces from the past, all of them considered interesting mostly because (but not exclusively) of their value as perceptive experiences. We also would like to contextualize these kinds of work, examining them from a critical point of view. Several interweaved lines of investigation were drawn, dealing with topics such as expanded and live cinema, the relationships between sound and space, the soundwalk, deep listening or the soundscape. In short, we were more interested in perception and the sensory than in the spectacular or the strictly technological issues behind many works catalogued as immersive.

An investigation process started in 2009 led by a few of the editors from mediateletipos.net in the format of a series of regular online publications has complemented the physical events taking place in 2011 (and some others produced throughout 2009-2010). All the posts resulting from this research have been published within the usual flow of the site, being also grouped in a special section.

Team:

Direction: Juan Cantizzani
Artistic direction / curator: Pablo Sanz
Research / editors: Jose Luis Espejo, Blanca Rego, Juan Gil, Miguel Álvarez Fernández
Translation: Blanca Rego
Design: Sergio Millán
Production / management: Mariam Caballero
Sound production: Juan Antonio Cuevas

+ info | http://www.sensxperiment.es/
+ info | http://www.mediateletipos.net/sensxperiment