If you’ve ever been to an art exhibition then you know each event contains coldzones and hotspots.  Hotspots are the installations are constantly being crowded with onlookers, the type of pieces that will perpetually arrest an individual until they’ve finally taken their fill or are eventually elbowed out.  Coldzones are…well…you know.  But what if you happened upon a show that was chocked full of hotspots?  The place would have to be at capacity, standing room only, with a bustling line draped down the street outside.  It’d have to make some outrageous claim like showcasing “eight of the world’s most talented emerging filmmakers, video artists and design collectives.”  Welcome to the first annual Flux Super 8 at the Scion Installation Gallery.  It’s time to be wowed.

The Flux Super 8 is a special art show which features creatives carefully picked from nominations made through the global Flux network.  Each were selected based on their “originality and perspective” that is already making waves and promises bigger things for the future.  These individuals produced artwork specifically for the show, which is currently being hosted at Scion’s Scion Installation Gallery in Culver City.

The daily specials:

The exhibitors hail from all corners of the globe.  From Cape Town, Portland, London, Paris, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Amsterdam, and New York City they all have one thing in common:

They are all quite noticeably super.  No joke.

Evil Monito dropped in on the showcase’s opening night to see what the fuss was all about.  As it turned out, fuss was just the beginning.  Each installation was not only a wonder to behold but also each uniquely interactive.  Without others nagging anxiously behind you, it would be easy to spend excessive amounts of time at each station.  Dazzling videos, interactive projection, and musical animation–the Flux Super 8 had it all.  While many art shows feature pieces that require careful consideration and sometimes a great deal of mental stretching, every single Super 8 project demanded awe and attention.

Rather than take you station by station through the entire showcase, which would be excessive, we’ll peruse through the space, stopping at objects that particularly caught my eye.  Ultimately my cursory overview will do these pieces no justice.  If you have any interest in visual communication, art, and innovation you definitely need pay the Scion Installation Gallery a visit for some quality time with each artist’s work.  For more comprehensive background on each of the projects visit the Flux site.

Sophie Gateau’s Bonjour! wall, a collage of photos, polaroids, videos, and music providing a window into her world.  You’ll find her fingerprints on graphic work for films like The Matrix Reloaded and Wong Kar Wai’s 2046.

Max Erdenberger’s video display and flag stops traffic.

Each visitor was gifted with a very clever “CARRY ON” tote, filled with goodies and information from Scion and Flux.

What, you might ask, are these hip, intelligent youths doing?  They’re sniffing scented records provided by Terri Timely, the start of a whole collection of commonplace objects doing uncommon things.

Taking something conventional and putting a simple yet fresh twist on it: genius.  Terri Timely is making our world magical one vegetable at a time.

First we were smelling vinyls.  Now we’re listening to vegetables.  Next we’ll be eating books.

Told’ja.

What’s a good Flux event without the sweet nectar of the gods?  The patient bartender attends to an unending line of thirsty visitors.

Interactive collective YesYesNo makes the common man magicians.  When face down, the stage remains silent, but once you flip them the environment responds with music and animation, caught on a vertically mounted camera which projects the table and your activities in front of you.

Tucked away in the back of the Scion Installation Space was the enigmatic work of The Blackheart Gang.  One would think that by this time spectators couldn’t be surprised.  But “fascinated” and “blown away” would be hollow attempts at describing their reactions.  Their latest project, The Tale of How, combines painstakingly detailed illustrations with animation and startlingly rich music for a brief cinematic experience that engages the viewer with a gusto reminiscent of The Nightmare Before Christmas.  By now the short has become somewhat of a cult classic for motiongraphics buffs and casual viewers alike.

What started as a short film expanded into prints, soon to be followed by sculptures, subsequently resulting in installations, and finally manifest in a creepy book.  Yeah, what are you doing with your life?

A second bar to satiate parched art lovers.

It was Miwa Matreyek who undoubtedly stole the show.  Every half hour a quick eruption of applause would echo through the space as she appeared and cued her computer and projectors.  If you weren’t already at the edge of the taped line you probably weren’t going to get to see the breathtaking display until the next showing.  Using a projector, pre-designed animations synchronized with music, and real objects, Miwa put on a brilliant performance showcasing an ingenious interaction between composed spaces and real objects.  Working behind the shroud of the projection screen, Miwa orchestrated perfectly timed movements that created a realtime vector animation with special effects that seemed to react to her actions.  The second part of her presentation started with an empty floor.  As she carefully placed white boxes on predetermined locations a frontal projector began to “construct” buildings in SimCity-esque fashion.  She was literally “building” a cityscape before the audiences eyes!

This little fixture by United Visual Artists (UVA) was my personal favorite.  What first appears to be a normal flatscreen displaying what the built-in camera captures actually takes the information its receiving, slows it down, and then shows the video nearly ten or fifteen seconds later in hi-def slow motion.  So what you see on the screen now is what you actually did moments ago–in slow motion.  Hereafter, as the screen is called, is about memory and perception, designed to “mimic the experience of self-observation in a mirror as closely as possible…showing how spaces can be affected by what has happened in them over time.”  Whatever its purpose, Hereafter is damn cool and unreasonably fun to play with.  If you still don’t understand what I’m talking about, you need to go mess around with the screen yourself.  Just don’t hog it like some kind of attention-whore.  This is ironically harder than you think.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the–I kid, I kid.

Honorable mention: Saam Farahmand – the London based director–who’s resume boasts the Klaxons, Janet Jackson, Soulwax, and Alexander McQueen–his installation was constantly crowded by viewers so I couldn’t get off a decent shot.  Be sure to check it out when you’re there.

The Flux Super 8 will be displayed in the Scion Gallery Installation until September 5th.  Don’t miss it;  you never know when these talents are going to all be under the same roof again.

Flux.  Brilliant.

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Scion Presents Flux Super 8
August 15 – September 5, 2009

SCION Installation L.A.
3521 Helms Ave. (at National)
Culver City, CA 90232
Gallery Phone: 310.815.8840

Flux: website
Scion Space: website