Change is the only constant

Additional Information

Artists Gao Yujie and duo Laura Kavanaugh and Ian Birse (aka Instant Places) transform the gallery into a site for the complex interplay between technology, time-flow , sensory haptics, and human experience. Using visual and sound-based electronic media and traditional art methods, Kavanaugh and Birse explore the reflexive interflow between the body and the machine. Similarly, Gao Yujie questions the perception of time as it is interpreted and manipulated by both humans and the machine. Together the work situates our experience along an expansive continuum defined by the flux of time.

Simultaneously dense and light, still and dynamic, refined and complex, the works embody the running concept that change is the only constant.

* This exhibition changes from time to time.

Under the name Instant Places, Laura Kavanaugh and Ian Birse have created intermedia performances and generative artworks across Japan, Australia, Argentina/Uruguay, the UK, Europe, New York/Chicago, and Canada. Recent highlights include an audio commission and livestreamed performance in Vienna for Kunstradio ORF, hybrid performances with Company Blu in Italy, a graphic score composition for Ensemble SuperMusique in Montreal, and Bell Curve, a midi-controlled carillon and audio installation at Edmonton City Hall for the Works Festival 2024.

Gao Yujie is a media artist, performer, and researcher who explores time as an artistic material through site-specific performances, interactive installations, and data visualizations. Her generative, participatory work examines the materiality of duration and the elasticity of space and time in rule-based environments. Gao’s work has been showcased internationally in Canada, China, and Italy, earning an Honorary Mention at Ars Electronica 2022 and a longlisting for the 2017 Lumen Prize. She holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia in Digital Arts and Humanities and teaches Creative and Media Studies.

Gao Yujie

Laura Kavanaugh

Photo credit: Instant Places

Ian Birse

Photo credit: Instant Places