Artist Selection: Chris Milk

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Chris Milk Interactive Works

The artist that I have chosen to work with is Chris Milk.

Beginning his career in music videos and photography, Chris Milk’s work has expanded beyond the traditional: his art straddles experimental genres and unfamiliar mediums, turning new technologies, web browsers, ephemeral events and even physical gestures into new found canvasses.

Chris Milk Installation Art

In recent years, Milk has focused on using cross-media innovations to enhance emotional human storytelling, exposing the beauty in the physical, the digital and the intangible; the things that connects us all. His works span from making use of intensely personal, emotive and powerful music and breakthrough technologies to create a visual experience rooted in a global consciousness while not losing its meaning, to making a crowd-fueled installation that physically connects the audience and their collective emotional response.

Treachery of the Sanctuary by Chris Milk

One of my favourites from his range of interactive installations is ‘Treachery of the Sanctuary’, which is a large-scale interactive triptych: a story of birth, death and transfiguration that uses shadows of the participants’ own bodies to unlock a new artistic language.

Treachery of the Sanctuary by Chris Milk is an interactive art installation created to explore one’s creative process through interactions with digital birds. The installation consists a giant triptych, and gallery visitors can stand in front of each of the screens.

The first screen allows a person’s shadow to be reflected on it, while it slowly disintegrates into a flock of birds who flies away. This represents the moment of creative inspiration, our imagination taking flight form our own minds and identities.

In the second screen, the shadow of the person will be pecked away by virtual birds diving in from above. This symbolizes critical response, where ideas and the person’s identity are being evaluated and critiqued by others.

The last screen, things start to look up; the person interacting with the screen will be able to generate their own set of majestic, giant wings that flap as you move. This is supposed to capture the instant when a creative thought transforms into something larger than the original idea.

This whole installation draws upon the idea of how human interactivity (and their active participation) can be key in creating art alongside technology. This art installation demonstrates the interdisciplinarity through the integration of art and technology simply by allowing participants to dictate how they want their art work to look like.

At the same time, participants are also immersed into this experience because every single movement they make will affect the final presentation of the performance created by the installation. Whether you move to your right or left, or start raising your arms, these little movements do matter.

Armed with emotive and high-impact works which binds art and technology together on not only a physical level but also an emotional level, this is why I have chosen to work on Chris Milk for my Hyperessay.