Alex May (b. 1972) is a British contemporary artist questioning how our individual and collective experiences of time, and formation of memories and cultural record, are mediated, expanded, and directed by contemporary technologies. His work forges creative links between art, science, and technology through a wide range of digital new media, including virtual and augmented reality, photogrammetry, algorithmic photography, interactive robotic artworks, video projection mapping, generative works, performance, and video and sound art.
His international exhibition profile includes Ars Electronica, LABoral (Spain), IMPAKT (Netherlands), FACT (Liverpool), Furtherfield (London), WRO Media Art Bienalle (Poland), HeK (Basel), The Francis Crick Institute, Bletchley Park, Eden Project, Science Gallery in Dublin (Ireland) and Bengaluru (India), ZHI Art Museum (China), and the Beall Center for Art + Technology, University of California, Irvine.
He gives talks about many aspects of digital art, art/science collaboration, digital preservation, and public engagement with social robotics through art (UCLA, USC, School of Visual Arts (SVA) New York, University of Boulder, SUNY, TEDx Bucharest, Chelsea College of Art (in conversation with curator Robert Storr), Waag Society in Amsterdam) and runs workshops for artists using his own software (UCLA, for Fluxmedia at Concordia University in Montreal, International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) in Istanbul), and gave the 2012 Christmas lecture for the Computer Arts Society.
Alex is a Visiting Research Fellow: Artist in Residence with the computer science department of University of Hertfordshire since 2011, and a Digital Media Arts MA sessional lecturer at the University of Brighton since 2012, and the University of Hertfordshire since 2019.
He is the Head of Projective Geometry at The Institute of Unnecessary Research.
A Kolkata, 2021, 6’36”
本錄像藝術作品在「印歐駐留計劃加爾各答2021」下誕生，由歐盟國家文化研究所支持、英國文化協會加爾各答協力。
這件作品從疫情下足不出戶的狀態出發，反思旅遊的經驗和作用。如果我們要為了減低碳排放而減少旅遊，我們是否需要重新思考「親身去過實地才算到訪某處」的定義。
因著疫情關係，是次駐留計劃完全移師網上。法國、德國、意大利、印度和英國各有一位藝術家入選，他們透過一系列精選的材料和網上活動，以虛擬的方式遊歷加爾各答。
Alex在駐留期間與四位居於加爾各答的攝影師合作，拍下城市景物作為3D模型。攝影師參加了簡介這項技巧的工作坊後，Alex請他們外出選擇一些物件，作為他們探索這座城市的私人座標。有了每樣物件的多張不同角度2D相片後，Alex就能靠攝影測量的程式以3D重塑它們。
這些迥異的物件經數碼化，組合成一首視像詩，反思何謂到訪過一個地方。Alex在駐留期間做了一次逼真的清醒夢，他在夢中漫步加爾各答，這經歷成為了作品的部分靈感來源。這件作品是一趟極其私密的旅程，探索一個未至之城的概念。
錄像與音軌︰Alex May
協力︰
Neel Bhattacharjee
Bappaditya Dasgupta
Ritaban Ghosh
Rohan Mukherjee