The Asturian artist Román Torre shows the installation LifeFloor at the Church of La Laboral
It is the restaging of the work produced by LABoral Centro de Arte for the exhibition ‘Homo ludens ludens’
Lifefloor by Román Torre, work produced by LABoral for the exhibition Homo Ludens Ludens at the Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial. Photo: LABoral/Marcos Morilla
The Asturian artist Román Torre is showing the interactive installation LifeFloor at the Church of La Laboral, which is a restaging of the work produced by LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón for the exhibition Homo ludens ludens, displayed to the public in 2008.
LifeFloor is based on the “Game of Life”, the most widely known algorithmic variant of so-called cellular automatons (mathematical representations of intelligent cellular systems), devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970 and used by scientists, mathematicians and economists as an example and simulation of the self-organisation and development of complex systems from the implementation of simple rules.
The piece invites the spectator to interact with the sound and visual environment from both inside and outside the space, turning the algorithm into the protagonist, which makes the operation of the entire installation possible. As such, every step or movement in the public system will be monitored and displayed along with other internal data from the operation of the piece.
Román Torre carried out the work on the concept, software development and interaction of the piece, and Felipe L. Navarro was responsible for sound design.
The installation can be visited from today, Friday 13 December, until next 7 January, from Monday to Friday, from 4.30 pm to 7.30 pm; and on Saturday and Sunday, from 12.30 pm to 2.30 pm. On 24, 25 and 31 December and 1, 5 and 6 January, the exhibition will remain closed. Admission is free of charge.
Román Torre (1978, Candás, Asturias)
He has been active creatively in a self-taught way since 2001 and began to make his first collections of lamps, working with recycled materials and other “gadgets” which later evolved into handcrafted serial designs, light sculptures, urban interventions, as well as additional projects and collaborations centred on design, technology and the interaction between humans and machines.
During his career he has received support from various institutions and bodies, winning, in the beginning, the Astragal Prize in 2002, the INJUVE young designer National Award 2004 and the Golden Pen Award at the IMAFY Festival 2008, in El Cairo.
In 2010 he got involved with the scenic world of Avatar*, an interactive dance solo that premiered mid-2010 at Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid and was the beginning of an ongoing collaboration with the dance company Erre que erre, with which he continues to be involved. He has directed and produced various productions with them, enabling him to show his visual work on the stages of several continents.
From the beginning of 2011 until the summer of 2013 he co-directed the Welovecode studio, exploring the possibilities of code to create interactive software and hardware which can be applied to different creative projects. This has allowed him to work on and develop the visual part in different projects and large-scale scenic events, such as interactive videomappings, trade shows and various operas, all with the director Carlos Padrissa of La Fura dels Baus.
From this platform and his studio based in Barcelona, he continues developing his own artistic research lines, trying to carry out in parallel and professionally projects which are focused on the integration of a diverse range of interactive visual techniques in different artistic and cultural spheres.
http://www.romantorre.net/
Felipe Luis Navarro (1987, Villena, Alicante)
Electronic musician and multimedia creator based in Barcelona. Interested in exploring interactive media as a way of connecting the disciplines of digital and scenic arts in order to generate new experiences. In addition to producing electronic music under the name of Voltereta, he has worked in theatre, video and film, contributing his music and sound design.
Over the last year he has developed various music and audiovisual interactive installations with the Barcelona collective Diffuse, being selected to produce one of them as part of the artist residency programme at L'Estruch (Sabadell) in 2014.
