December 13, 2012

Georg Tremmel & Shiho Fukuhara (JP)

Georg Tremmel

Georg Tremmel studied Visual Media Art (Visuelle Mediengestaltung) at the University for Applied Art in Vienna and Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art in London, where he started his ongoing collaboration with Shiho Fukuhara. Their works were awarded serveral distinctions, including the NESTA Creative Pioneer Award, the Science Museum’s Product of the Future Award, a 1st prize at VIPER Media Art Festival and a 2nd Prize at the Biotech in Business Forum in Cambridge, UK. Recently, they formed the artistic collaborative research framework BCL in to explore the relations, congruences and differences of biological and cultural codecs through artistic interventions and social research.

Shiho Fukuhara

Growing up in Japan, Shiho Fukuhara’s main interests were in the linguistic aspects of cultural difference, which she could research while studying and living in Europe for nearly a decade. Shiho remains a keen observer in the science, technologies, cultures, politics and functions of creative practices with focus on the influence on our everyday experiences by technological development and vice versa, and how public acceptance of ‘old’ and ‘new’ sciences are formed through communication.

She received her BA(Hons) in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and MA(RCA) in Design Interactions at Royal College of Art in London. Shiho participated in Le Pavilion, the artistic research laboratory of Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2004. Same year her project ‘Biopresence’ with Georg Tremmel was awarded the London Science Museum’s ‘Product of the Future’ Award, the NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and Art) Graduate Pioneer Award, the grand prize at the international Swiss Media Art festival VIPER, and the second prize at the Cambridge, UK, ‘Biology in Business – Pitch your Idea’ competition. Shiho move to Japan with Georg with an Atelier-Stipend by Austrian Government in Fujino, Kanagawa, Japan. She was an artist in residence at IAMAS (Institute for the Advancement of Media Art and Science) in Gifu, Japan. In 2008, Georg and Shiho were selected as Artist in Residence during the ISEA2008 in Singapore, working in collaboration with the NUS (National University of Singapore) on the metaphysical and social interactions of the theme-complex Water.

Her motivation is to give focal points to existing social issues with science, technology and communication through creating alternative conceptual models, strategies and approaches. Shiho’s works are often taken a form as a set of activities intertwining into known social fabrics such as biotechnology-business and water-business, which seem to be key aspects of the fabric of the 21st century. To advance her research-based approach, Shiho have formed the BCL, an artistic research framework and open collaboration platform dedicated to exploring and critically investigating the interfaces and predetermined breaking points between Art, Science, Design, Technology and Society.