InterAccess is pleased to present ZOO, an exhibition of three works by three artists that artfully integrate natural and artificial life, colliding the realm of living things with the genre of creative electronics. Artists Ingrid Bachmann, Garnet Hertz and Amy Youngs explore the complex relationship between technology, culture and nature. This exhibition includes a cockroach-controlled robot, a holodeck for house crickets and hermit crabs that surf the net! Read the essay by Matthew Brower here.

Please join us for a special opening reception on Friday February 2, 8:00 pm at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, 9 Ossington Avenue. Artist talks will take place prior to the reception at 7:00 pm. Live demonstrations of "Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot #3" will take place at the opening reception, as well as on Saturday, February 3 from 12:00 to 5:00 pm.

More information about the works in the exhibition:

"Digital Crustaceans v.0.3: Homesteading on the World Wide Web" involves live hermit crabs and their avatars that explore the World Wide Web. The hermit crabs have two homes - a large glass terrarium and a 'home' page on the Web. The movements of the real crabs within the terrarium are tracked by a motion capture system and animate a mechanical plotter that traces its movements onto a surface. These mappings serve as formal drawings as well as a record to track the movements of the avatars, as they map their itinerary and journey across the structures and sites of the World Wide Web. More information about this project can be found at http://www.digitalhermit.ca/

"Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot #3" is an experimental mechanism that uses a living Madagascan hissing cockroach atop a modified trackball to control a three-wheeled robot. If the cockroach moves left, the robot moves left. Infrared sensors also provide navigation feedback to the cockroach, striving to create a pseudo-intelligent system with the cockroach as the CPU. More information about this project can be found at http://www.conceptlab.com/roachbot/

"Holodeck for House Crickets" is a suspended artificial landscape that is designed to house Acheta domesticus (house crickets), who are raised in climate-controlled tanks as food for reptiles. As actual nature would be a bit harsh for these domesticated crickets, artist Amy Youngs provided them with an artificial landscape where they can interact with a video "holograph" of the pastoral grasslands and woodlands experienced by their wild relatives. Through the use of a computer interface, the crickets are able to "interact" with their projected environment by chirping. Each chirp advances the panoramic, cricket-eye-view video footage of outdoor scenery. More information about this project can be found at http://www.ylem.org/artists/ayoungs/holodeck.html

More information about the artists in the exhibition:

Ingrid Bachmann http://hybrid.concordia.ca/~ibachman/ is an Ontario-born new media artist working on the front lines of experimental art and emerging technologies. She has received critical acclaim for interactive installations that have been featured in group and solo shows throughout the United States and Canada. As a curator and writer, Bachman continues to interrogate the interface between what she calls "hand and high technologies," combining her training in the fiber arts with her interest in digital and virtual innovations. A gifted instructor, Bachman has taught at several institutions, including Vermont College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received the Award for Excellence in Teaching. She is currently on the faculty of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.

Garnet Hertz http://www.conceptlab.com/ is a Fulbright Scholar, Research Fellow at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and is a doctoral student at the University of California Irvine. He also holds an MFA from the Arts Computation Engineering program at UCI and has completed UCI's Critical Theory Emphasis. His current interests include the history, theory and practice of electro/mechanical art, computing, media theory, digital/internet art and robotics. He has shown his work at several notable international venues and is also founder of Dorkbot-Socal, a monthly Los Angeles-based lecture series on electronic art. Popular press about his work is widespread, disseminating through 25 countries including The New York Times, Wired News, I.D. Magazine, The Washington Post, Slashdot, NPR, USA Today, NBC, CBS, TV Tokyo, ZDTV and CNN Headline News.

Amy Youngs http://www.ylem.org/artists/ayoungs/index.html creates mixed media, interactive sculptures and digital media works that explore the complex relationship between technology and our changing concept of nature and self. Youngs has lectured on her work widely and has participated in numerous panels as well as exhibiting extensively across North America and internationally. In 2002, Youngs was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship Grant from the Ohio Arts Council. Youngs is currently an Assistant Professor and the Coordinator of the Art and Technology Area at The Ohio State University.

Media Contact: Swintak, Programming Coordinator (416) 599-7206 or email swintak-at-interaccess.org
Press kits available upon request.