JAMES COUPE
art projects
Saatchi Gallery

ENTER UNKNOWN TERRITORIES: A FESTIVAL OF NEW MEDIA ART, CAMBRIDGE, UK

A major new festival of new technology, digital and new media art is taking place in and around Cambridge from 25 to 29 April. Enter_ Unknown Territories will present interactive installations, workshops and talks on new technology art, as well as interactive and playful public art events, live performances, a conference and club nights. The festival hopes to find new audiences for the challenging and exciting things that happen when art and new technologies meet.

Among new works commissioned specially are several works of public art which will give visitors a unique and interactive experience of new technology art.

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James Coupe, Digital Warfare Network

James Coupe, an artist who works with installation, electronics and digital media, addresses and questions the proliferation of surveillance in the UK in his new work (re)collector. Every day during the festival, CCTV footage will be gathered, and scenes of generic behaviour (e.g. greeting and saying goodbye) will be collected and grouped by an intelligent software system (i.e. software that builds up a profile of the images based on the way people and things behave in those images). Scenes will be randomly generated from the footage to build a storyline for computer-generated feature films which will be screened in the temporary structure on Parker’s Piece during the festival and in the foyer of the Junction.

Coupe is currently an artist and Research Associate at the University of Washington’s Centre for Digital Art and Experimental Media. His previous projects include I, Robot and Digital Warfare Network, which was selected for the highly prestigious New Contemporaries exhibition in 2001. Both explored the relationship between the individual body and digital system, and featured installations that allowed people to remotely control physical, robotic devices connected to a computer network.

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