yugen
Generative, Dynamic, Imagery

YUGEN

Yugen is the title of a moving-image artwork by Martha Fiennes, film director, writer and artist. In this groundbreaking work, Fiennes explores the boundaries of a radical new medium to create a visual and meditative exploration into perceptions of reality. Here AI and creativity come together opening a new portal into the realm of creative possibilities.

In a pioneering union between actor and director in an artwork, the actor Salma Hayek Pinault is Fiennes’ muse and it is her character who dominates the screen as a leading visual presence.

With her production team headed by Peter Muggleston, Fiennes brings to her art substantial experience of filmmaking and visual effects technology to create dynamic works which are able to perpetually self-generate in a continuous, effectively infinite, non-predictable ‘random’ cycle. This means that each viewing enables a unique, non-linear, spontaneous experience which is liberated from any need to ‘loop’ or repeat.

The combined media process utilises generative computer coding technologies to enable a continuous, self-selective visual display. Fiennes’ SLOimage™ works sit in an evolving space between film, art, audio and technology. Nativity (2011), the debut work in this genre, has had showcases at the V&A, the National Gallery, Sotheby’s London and Paris, the Venice Biennale 2018 and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in December 2018.

The Yugen experience is akin to the world of the subconscious; to dreaming, hallucinations or an out-of-body experience. With a hypnotic sound score written by the composer Magnus Fiennes, we are led on an on-going, dreamlike often surreal journey suggesting an encounter with both the ‘consensus’ world as well as with that of alternate dimensional realities. Through both technique and subject matter, Fiennes creates a dramatic and unusual evocation to stimulate the depths of the subconscious mind.

The project has been produced by Tendercapital via its subsidiary arts incubator Tender-to-Art (www.tendercapital.com).

Moreno Zani, CEO of Tendercapital was immediately drawn to Fiennes’ visionary work when he encountered Nativity after it was exhibited at the Venice Biennale, 2017.

Yugen was first premiered at the Venice Film Festival, hosted by Tendercapital, on September 1st 2018. It exhibited subsequently at the Palazzo Grassi Museum, Venice.

Yugen was subsequently showcased at The Serpentine Gallery during London Frieze week in October 2018.

Yugen is the first work to be registered as an Art Record, the new standard for Art Object identification on the Internet. Digital Twin serve as an excellent tool to provide evidence of provenance, establish artwork chain of ownership and provide meaningful and valuable art work information in a variety of formats. Digital Twin is based on the standard developed by J. Paul Getty Trust and adopted by UNESCO, ICOM and major law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol.

YUGEN STILLS

CREDITS

Director / Artist
Martha Fiennes
Producer
Peter Muggleston
Visual Effects and CGI
Michal Konwicki at ORKA STUDIOS
Digital Coding
Music & Sound

TEAM

Martha Fiennes is an award-winning filmmaker, director, writer and artist. Her multi-layered work is informed by technological developments and ideas in contemporary art whilst maintaining the artistic expression of a highly gifted filmmaker. Her debut artwork Nativity, 2011 has been exhibited at the V&A, the National Gallery, Sotheby’s London and Paris and the Venice Biennale 2017 and The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg June /December 2018

Fiennes has directed two high profile feature films including the sumptuous Russian period piece Onegin, starring Liv Tyler and Ralph Fiennes. Onegin, which won the Tokyo Film Festival, was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best British Film in 1999 and won her the London Critics Award for Best Newcomer. Her second feature Chromophobia attracted a star studded cast (Penelope Cruz, Damian Lewis, Kristin Scott Thomas) and was applauded for its powerful contemporary style and ‘icy and superb script’. Chromophobia, both written and directed by Martha closed the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. She is an active member of the UK film industry and has served on several BAFTA juries. In 2015 she headed the Film Jury at the annual Film Festival in Tblisi, Georgia.

Pete Muggleston is an award winning producer with a wealth of experience in making television commercials, cinema trailers, corporate videos, sponsorship campaigns and digital domain projects in the UK and internationally, working across a whole range of FMCG brands.

Pete has worked for both Production Companies & Advertising Agencies, always at the cutting edge of technology. He was a founding member of the UK’s top contemporary Animation Studio BLINK and was later invited to work at one of the UK’s seminal Advertising Agencies, HHCL & Partners which was voted Agency of the Millennium by Campaign magazine.

Here Pete produced the Blackcurrant Tango ad “St George “ voted Film 4ʼs “Best Long Commercial of the 20th Century” and becoming one of the 100 best commercials of all time. Pete gained degrees in Architecture at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Graphics at Goldsmiths College, London. Pete has collaborated with Martha on several high profile campaigns. As Martha’s producer, they created the first random concept digital film-work Nativity and now Yugen.

Magnus Fiennes is a Los Angeles based British multi-disciplinary composer and creator of transmedia art and entertainment. As a producer, songwriter and arranger he worked with a range of artists that defined the British fin de siècle pop zeitgeist from, Pulp, Massive Attack, Morcheeba, Sinead O’Connor and Neneh Cherry to chart-topping successes with All Saints, Sugababes and The Spice Girls, as well as helping to re-interpret the oeuvres of music icons such as Marianne Faithfull, Tom Jones, Gary Moore, Shakira and Bryan Ferry. Fiennes also produced Damien Hirst’s singular musical adventure, the post-modern 1998 World Cup football anthem Vindaloo.

More esoteric outings include a 2002 collaboration with Canadian violin virtuoso Lara St John and India’s leading percussionist Trilok Gurtu on an album of genre-defying Bach arrangements for Sony, composing and producing three albums for all-female string quartet Bond on Universal and in 2016, the composition of a body of work for William Close and the Earth Harp, the world’s largest stringed instrument.

Fiennes has written over 200 hours of music for film and television including previous collaborations with Martha on scores to both Onegin (1999) and Chromophobia (2005). TV soundtracks include Hustle, Murphy’s Law, The Fixer, The Last Enemy, Hooten and The Lady, Death In Paradise and Five Days for which his contribution was winner of Best Music at Reims International Music Awards.

Extending his remit, Magnus created, produced and scored 40 episodes of the groundbreaking music-driven BBC animation series Freefonix, nominated for best children’s animation at Annecy Film festival in 2008. In 2013 he teamed with immersive theatre company Punchdrunk to create music and sound design for its seminal National Theatre co-production The Drowned Man. 2011 marked the beginning of his collaboration with Martha on her SLOimage platform with their inaugural work ‘Nativity’.

Magnus is currently developing an inter-related triptych of media projects that investigate the critical and precarious relationship between humanity and technology. A conceptual music act ‘Deep Machines’ that will tour as an immersive, AR augmented experience, a film about transgender electronic composer Wendy Carlos, and LA’s most comprehensive experiential digital arts event that will converge the ideas and worlds of future-facing contemporary art, Californian festival culture, and technology enhanced live performance, to launch in January 2019.

Pete Muggleston is an award winning producer with a wealth of experience in making television commercials, cinema trailers, corporate videos, sponsorship campaigns and digital domain projects in the UK and internationally, working across a whole range of FMCG brands.

Pete has worked for both Production Companies & Advertising Agencies, always at the cutting edge of technology. He was a founding member of the UK’s top contemporary Animation Studio BLINK and was later invited to work at one of the UK’s seminal Advertising Agencies, HHCL & Partners which was voted Agency of the Millennium by Campaign magazine.

Here Pete produced the Blackcurrant Tango ad “St George “ voted Film 4ʼs “Best Long Commercial of the 20th Century” and becoming one of the 100 best commercials of all time. Pete gained degrees in Architecture at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Graphics at Goldsmiths College, London. Pete has collaborated with Martha on several high profile campaigns. As Martha’s producer, they created the first random concept digital film-work Nativity and now Yugen.

TEAM

Martha Fiennes
Martha Fiennes is an award-winning filmmaker, director, writer and artist.
Her multi-layered work is informed by technological developments and ideas in contemporary art whilst maintaining the artistic expression of a highly gifted filmmaker. Her debut artwork Nativity, 2011 has been exhibited at the V&A, the National Gallery, Sotheby’s London and Paris and the Venice Biennale 2017 and The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg June /December 2018 Fiennes has directed two high profile feature films including the sumptuous Russian period piece Onegin, starring Liv Tyler and Ralph Fiennes. Onegin, which won the Tokyo Film Festival, was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best British Film in 1999 and won her the London Critics Award for Best Newcomer. Her second feature Chromophobia attracted a star studded cast (Penelope Cruz, Damian Lewis, Kristin Scott Thomas) and was applauded for its powerful contemporary style and ‘icy and superb script’. Chromophobia, both written and directed by Martha closed the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. She is an active member of the UK film industry and has served on several BAFTA juries. In 2015 she headed the Film Jury at the annual Film Festival in Tblisi, Georgia.
Peter Muggleston
Pete Muggleston is an award winning producer with a wealth of experience in making television commercials, cinema trailers, corporate videos, sponsorship campaigns and digital domain projects in the UK and internationally, working across a whole range of FMCG brands.
Pete has worked for both Production Companies & Advertising Agencies, always at the cutting edge of technology. He was a founding member of the UK’s top contemporary Animation Studio BLINK and was later invited to work at one of the UK’s seminal Advertising Agencies, HHCL & Partners which was voted Agency of the Millennium by Campaign magazine. Here Pete produced the Blackcurrant Tango ad “St George “ voted Film 4ʼs “Best Long Commercial of the 20th Century” and becoming one of the 100 best commercials of all time. Pete gained degrees in Architecture at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Graphics at Goldsmiths College, London. Pete has collaborated with Martha on several high profile campaigns. As Martha’s producer, they created the first random concept digital film-work Nativity and now Yugen.

Digital Twin

The New International Standard for art object identification using stable, reliable, safe Internet infrastructure.

The information available about art objects on the Internet is scattered and decentralized. This makes it difficult and tedious to navigate and find the information you seek. There is an enormous amount of data of which only some is relevant to you. It is impossible to find or trace anything due to the absence of a unified database.

Digital Twin provides an opportunity to centralize all of the information about an art object in a single online address. Digital Twin registrations provide evidence of provenance, as well as the ability to store, share, and sell information about an art object one owns: making it true asset.

Digital Twin is based on “Object ID” – a universal art object identification standard developed by J. Paul Getty Trust and adopted by UNESCO, ICOM, and major law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Scotland Yard, and Interpol.

The information available about art objects on the Internet is scattered and decentralized. This makes it difficult and tedious to navigate and find the information you seek. There is an enormous amount of data of which only some is relevant to you. It is impossible to find or trace anything due to the absence of a unified database.

Digital Twin provides an opportunity to centralize all of the information about an art object in a single online address. Digital Twin registrations provide evidence of provenance, as well as the ability to store, share, and sell information about an art object one owns: making it true asset.

Digital Twin is based on “Object ID” – a universal art object identification standard developed by J. Paul Getty Trust and adopted by UNESCO, ICOM, and major law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Scotland Yard, and Interpol.

Digital Twin is based on “Object ID” – a universal art object identification standard developed by J. Paul Getty Trust and adopted by UNESCO, ICOM, and major law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Scotland Yard, and Interpol.

CONTACT

Enquiries / exhibition
mugglestonp5@aol.com / +44 (0)7714 754634
Press