I. Don’t Press. Just Touch

In a 2007 news article in the ~Korea Times~ covering the then innovative technology of the capacitance v. resistive (i.e., pressure sensitive) touch screens, Cho Jin-Seo uses the lead-in “Don’t Press. Just Touch” to capture the habituated finger knowledge one would have to incorporate in order to switch from the more familiar interface of ATM’s and cashier check-out stands to the newer interfaces of mobile devices. [1] These handheld personal data assistants, iPods, and phones work through a continuous electric current and a multipoint interface that allows for mobile electronic gadgets to detect more than one input (aka touches) simultaneously, as in the “two-finger stretch-and-pinch” that, as Stephen Wildstrom writing in ~Business Week~ put it, “gave the iPhone its initial wow” (5/19/08). [2] “Don’t Press. Just Touch” also provides an apt metaphor for a redirection in critical practice from a penetrating detection of hidden meanings to a more glancing consideration of the ~frisson~ — the shiver of intensity — amplified by a particular event, phenomenon, text, visual medium, and so forth…

Affexity is a play on both ‘affect city’ and ‘a-fixity.’

Affexity is a choreographic exploration with Augmented Reality on mobile devices with 2 intended outcomes: a pilot choreography embedded in urban spaces using geospatial tagging and the groundwork for an initiative in open source choreographies. The innovation of this project is in concept, composition, modes of audience participation, and technological development.

Collaborators:

Susan Kozel Professor at MEDEA Institute of interactivity Malmö University (Malmö)

Jay David Bolter Professor of Media and Technology, Mixed Environments Lab at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, USA)

Maria Engberg (Lecturer at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, Visiting Professor at the School of Literature, Communication and Culture at Georgia Tech, and Visiting Affiliate Researcher at the Wesley Center for New Media)

Jeannette Ginslov, independent Screen Dance Artist and choreographer (Copenhagen)

Karolina Rosenquist (Medea Collaborative Media Initiative, Malmö)

Wubkje Kuindersma (free lance dancer and choreographer based in Copenhagen)

Timo Engelhardt (Masters Student Malmö University Computer Science Department: Software Design)

Two other students from Georgia Tech are also involved in the project: Nachiketas Ramanujam and Sanika Mokashi who will work on the AR programming in USA.

This video Camera & Editor - Jeannette Ginslov

Video produced by Walking Gusto Productions 2012

The convergence of mobile technologies and ubiquitous computing is creating a world where information-rich environments may be mapped directly onto urban topologies. This book tracks the history and genesis of locative and wearable media and the ground-breaking work of pioneer artists in the field. It examines changing concepts of space and place for a wide range of traditional disciplines ranging from Anthropology, Sociology, Fine Art and Architecture to Cultural and Media Studies, Fashion and Graphic design.

Mobile and Pervasive media are beginning to proliferate in the landscape of computer mediated interaction in public space through the emergence of smartphone technologies such as the iPhone, cloud computing extended wifi services and the semantic web in cities. These dispersed forms of interaction raise a whole series of questions on the nature of narrative and communication, particularly in relation to an audience’s new modes of mobile participation and reception.

These issues are explored through a series of focused essays by leading theorists, seminal case studies and practitioner interviews with artists at the cutting edge of these technologies, who are extending the potential of the medium to enhance and critique technological culture.

By emphasizing the role of the audience in this nomadic environment, the collection traces the history and development of ‘ambulant’ artistic practice in this new domain, creating an essential handbook for those wishing to understand the dominant global technology of the 21st Century and its implications for Art, Culture and Audience.

Contents

Howard Rheingold: Introduction
Martin Rieser: Overview

Section 1: Towards Hybridity.
A History of Audience Mobility

Erkki Huhtamo: Pockets of Plenty: An Archaeology of Mobile Media

Susanne Jaschko: The Temporal and Spatial Design of Video and Film-based Installation Art in the 60s and 70s: Their Inherent Perception Processes and Effects on the Perceivers’ Actions

Martin Rieser: Forgotten Histories of Interactive Space

Adriana de Souza e Silva: Art by Telephone: From Static to Mobile Interfaces

Section 2: Critical Issues in Mobile Art
Critical Contexts and Definitions

Mary Griffiths and Sean Cubitt: Mobile/Audience: Thinking the Contradictions

Jon Dovey and Constance Fleuriot: Towards a Language of Mobile Media

Beryl Graham: Snapshots from Curating Mobility

Understanding Public Spatialisation

Martin Rieser: Beyond Mapping: New Strategies for Meaning in Locative Artworks

Anke Jacob: Digital Media and Architecture—An Observation

Mirjam Struppek: Urban Screens as the Visualization Zone of the City‘s Invisible Communication Sphere

The Creative User

Debbi Lander: Future Physical: The Creative User and theme of response-ABILITY

Andrea Zapp: ‘A Fracture in Reality’: Networked Narratives as Imaginary Fields of Action and Dislocation

Section 3: Case Studies
Locative Art

Josephine Reid and Richard Hull: What Makes Mediascapes Compelling?

Valentina Nisi, Glorianna Davenport/Valentina Nisi, Mads Haahr and Glorianna Davenport: Hopstory/Media Tales of the Liberties

Drew Hemment, John Evans, Mika Raento and Theo Humphries: Loca: ‘Location Oriented Critical Arts’

Usman Haque: Invisible Topographies

Jonah Brucker-Cohen: Wifi-Hog: The Battle for Ownership in Public Wireless Space

The Creative User: The User as Co-creator

Paul Sermon: Puppeteers, Performers or Avatars: A Perceptual Difference in Telematic Space

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau: Mobile Feelings: Wireless Communication of Heartbeat and Breath for Mobile Art

Victoria Fang: The Living Room

Arianna Bassoli: tunA and the Power of Proximity

Margot Jacobs: Engagement with the Everyday

Cati Vaucelle: Between Improvisation and Publication: Supporting the Creative Metamorphosis with Technology

Anthony Rowe: Developing Creative Audience Interaction: Four Projects by Squidsoup

Wearable Computing

Lisa Stead, Petar Goulev, Caroline Evans and Ebrahim Mamdani: The Emotional Wardrobe

Katherine Moriwaki: Social Fashioning and Active Conduits

Laura Beloff: Wunderkammer: Wearables as an Artistic Strategy

Section 4: Artist Interviews
Locative

Fiona Raby: Flirt and Mset

Teri Rueb: Trace, The Choreography of Everyday Movement and Drift

Matt Adams: Blast Theory

Steve Benford: Mixed Reality Lab

Drew Hemment: The Politics of Mobility

Wearables

Joey Berzowska: Memory-Rich Garments and Social Interaction

Annie Lovejoy: Heart on Your Sleeve

Contributor Biographies

Glossary

Selected Bibliography

Rodopi, Amsterdam/New York, NY 2011. XV, 481 pp. (Architecture – Technology – Culture 5)
ISBN: 978-90-420-3127-2 Bound
ISBN: 978-90-420-3128-9 E-Book
Online info here.

Related: Interaction and Agency in Real Time Systems by Jo-Anne Green (presented at Soft Borders, Sao Paulo, 2010).

Tracing Mobility sets out to examine the shifting terrain of global versus individual mobility and how its hand in hand development with networked infrastructure is transforming our conceptions of time, space and distance.

Where can we escape to when online- and offline worlds converge? What does the movement of a body in a landscape indicate when every point of the earth is within reach through the aid of digital technology? How do mobile devices and media alter our mindset and change our perception of time and space?

With installations, videos, performances and paintings, but also iPhone Apps, maps and open-source collaborations, we see artists developing strategies in order to position themselves within this dynamic topography.

A Symposium and the Tracing Mobility Open Platform offer further explorations of these themes via lectures, talks and workshops.

Exhibiting artists: Frank Abbott (UK), Aram Bartholl (DE), Neal Beggs (UK/FR), Heath Bunting (UK), Janet Cardiff / George Bures Miller (CAN), Miles Chalcraft (UK/DE), Simon Faithfull (UK/DE), Yolande Harris (UK/NL), Folke Köbberling & Martin Kaltwasser (DE), Landon Mackenzie (CAN), Open_Sailing, plan b (Sophia New & Dan Belasco Rogers) (UK/DE), Esther Polak & Ivar yan Bekkum (NL), Gordan Savicic (AT/NL), Mark Selby (UK), Michelle Teran (CAN/DE)

Programme:

November 23
7pm Opening
9pm Artist Talk with Simon Faithfull, Landon Mackenzie, Esther Polak & Ivar van Bekkum

November 26
11 – 5pm Symposium, Entrance: 20 €/15 €
2pm Participatory Performance „Performing StreetView“ by Esther Polak & Ivar yan Bekkum (NL)
(registration required)

December 12
7pm Finissage | Artist Talk with Aram Bartholl, Folke Köbberling & Martin Kaltwasser, plan b
(Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers)

High-res pictures are available on request: presse [at] trampoline-berlin.com

Tracing Mobility is a project by Trampoline - Agency for Art & Media, in cooperation with Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Radiator Festival Nottingham, curated by Miles Chalcraft and Anette Schäfer.

Vivo ARTE.MOV and NIMk (Netherlands Media Arts Institute) are excited to launch a collaborative residency to develop an art project or workshop programme for mobile lab and presentation platforms. The residence is for two people: a curator or artist living or residing in Brazil, and a curator or artist living in the Netherlands. The total residence period will be 2 months, divided between Amsterdam and São Paulo.

CONTEXT

In August 2011, NIMk started touring its Media Art Mobile (MKM) and would like to further develop its programme. Vivo ARTE.MOV is currently developing its mobile media art lab, and is searching for input for the development of a platform to extend the current actions of its programme. In addition to the technical infrastructure of the media art mobiles, the art project/workshop programme can also draw on the organisations’ rich video and media arts collections.

The collaboration aims to investigate a mobile platform in all its various contexts. Because of their nomadic character and appearance, mobile media labs/platforms can help to create temporary environments for curiosity and openness, and enable a crossing of diverse cultural, social and economic backgrounds. Mediation plays a crucial role in the interaction between such an approach and its audience.

PURPOSE

We are looking for art projects or workshop programmes that involve local communities in innovative, meaningful and exciting ways. Moreover, the proposals should question how temporary interventions facilitated by media labs could generate meaning within a specific context for local groups, and/or a more ad hoc audience. In other words, what components do these interventions (workshop or art project) need to address the interests and needs of the audience, and how can their impact last beyond the very limited time period of the intervention itself?

The art project or workshop programme should be directed towards one or more target groups in the following contexts:

1. Popular culture and media arts festivals, (such as DEAF2012 in Rotterdam & Vivo ARTE.MOV Festival in São Paulo);
2. Higher education institutions, schools and vocational organisations (students between 15 and 17 years of age);
3. Health care institutions.

TIMELINE CALL

Deadline for submissions: 14 November 2011
Final decision: 1 December 2011
Duration / timing of residency: 2 months in the period February to April 2012

OUTLINE OF THE RESIDENCY OPPORTUNITY

The residency is organised by Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk), Amsterdam & Arte.mov, Brasil (more details below).

The residency is aimed at developing a workshop programme or art project with a strong participatory component for the organisations’ mobile media art labs. The conceptual framework should be centred on the critical inquiry of a mobile platform in mediated contexts, as outlined above.

The Brazilian and the Dutch curator/artist will spend a month in each city, starting in Amsterdam in February/March and moving on to São Paulo in March/April. Although the residents do not need to develop a common project, we do want to encourage a continuous dialogue during their research and development process, and they would work in the same cities at the same time.
The organisations will provide targeted support (in the form of resources, space, technical support, local context and time) relevant to each stage of the project development. Depending on the nature of the selected curatorial/artistic project, additional partners will be sought in Brazil and the Netherlands who can provide additional think- and/or workspaces during the residency and who will optimise the process and results.

The residency will also offer the opportunity to explore the potential for collaboration and exchange with creative peers across the organisations, and share knowledge as widely as possible through a structured programme including:

- Regularly scheduled conceptual and technical critiques;
- Online documentation of the project process;
- Research dissemination through a range of social media;
- Scheduled events for discussion with both peers and public;
- Facilitated meetings with other cultural and media arts organisations.

At the end of the programme, the curator/artist in residence will be expected to present and demonstrate the results of their project and produce a research report that considers process, findings and value. The creative process and production phase should be documented by the curator/artist in a blog. This will be published online with an evaluation report and disseminated through the wider networks of the organisations involved.

We offer:

- A 1-month residency period at each of the organisations. Specific dates at each location will be determined in consultation with the selected curator/artist.
- A modest artist/curator fee of €2000.
- A maximum production budget of €1500, depending on the nature of the project.
- Technical infrastructure within the media art mobiles. (Dutch Media Art Mobile: Soundsystem (4 active speakers - Sound Projects X-act) / 2 projectors PANASONIC PT D7700 / 1 projector PANASONIC PT D5600 / 2 curved screens (16:10) / 4 workstations screen (16:10) MAC mini / 1 server with 200 selected (video)works from NIMk collection, WIFI internet connection / 8 laptops for workshops / 4 video cameras / integrated led lights in roof MKM, DMX controlled / optional green screen. Equipment still tbc for the Brazilian Media Art Mobile).
- Travel and accommodation support.
- Public presentation of the project/workshop programme at each of the partner organisations.
- Dissemination of the results.

Requirements:

Proposals are welcome from professional artists/curators who have Brazilian or Dutch nationality, or who work and reside in the Netherlands or Brazil.
The concept should relate to the mobile media lab and presentation platforms as outlined above.
The work should be created using free/open source software.

The curator/artist must:

- Be willing and able to travel to São Paulo and Amsterdam for residency periods with dedicated research time at each organisation (exact dates will be decided upon in consultation with the artist).
- Speak English. Knowledge of Portuguese or Dutch is beneficial but not a requirement.
- Have an open, rigorous, experimental approach and be keen to work in collaborative settings with people from different disciplines.
- Be willing to openly and thoroughly document the artistic process online.
- Participate in events, critiques and discussions.
- Be willing to contribute to the lab communities.
- Produce a work or concept, which is exhibited, tested and investigated as it is developed.
- Present and/or demonstrate a final programme or work concept.
- Complete an illustrated research report, documenting the process, describing findings and considering value.

To apply please provide:

1. Motivation for why you would like to work in the context of this particular residency as well as an overview of your interest in the transnational media mobile residency as outlined above (no longer than 1 A4 page).
2. An outline of the project, including:
- a description of the concept underlying the work that you wish to develop (300 words max.)
- a general outline of the scope of the final work (please include visual sketches)
- an outline of the research and development plan for the work (no longer than 1 A4 page)
- a technical description (if applicable)
- a draft budget proposal.
3. An up-to-date CV.
4. Portfolio, including links to previous works.

APPLICATION FORM

About the organisers:

Netherlands Media Art Institute (Amsterdam, NL): The Artist in Residence (AiR) programme at the Netherlands Media Art Institute supports the exploration and development of new work in digital/interactive/network media and technology-based arts practice. The residency provides time and resources to artists in a supportive environment to facilitate the creation of new works that are produced from an open source perspective. We encourage a cross-disciplinary and experimental approach. This is a practice-based residency designed to enable the development and completion of a new work. The Netherlands Media Art Institute offers an open environment with technical assistance and an active advisory board, which will provide feedback and support on technical, conceptual and presentation issues. There is access to studio and exhibition equipment, technical support from the Institute’s staff, and production assistance from interns. We expect the artist to have knowledge about and insights into the technical realisation of the concept (if required).

More information on the Media Arts Mobile (MKM), can be found online:
http://nimk.nl/eng/michiel-kluiters-designs-mediaartmobile
http://nimk.nl/eng/news/the-mediaartmobile-is-on
http://nimk.nl/eng/calendar/moving-still-uitmarkt-amsterdam-2011
http://nimk.nl/blog/nimk/

Vivo ARTE.MOV (Belo Horizonte and São Paulo, BRZ) is a platform dedicated to the production of and critical thinking about the ‘culture of mobility’. By prioritising the conscious use of mobile media, the organisation intends to create ways of sharing knowledge and expertise. Its cultural programme focuses on access to information and new artistic practices, exploring the creative possibilities in the field of mobile and locative media and its insertion in social and public spaces. In addition, the programme aims to promote research about the changes in contemporary society, resulting from the spread of mobile technologies and digital culture. The organisation offers workshops, debates and art residencies, as well as an international art festival on mobile media.

FACILITATORS:

Annette Wolfsberger / Annet Dekker (NL): http://aaaan.net
Gisela Domschke (BRZ): http://www.giselad.com
Lucas Bambozzi / Rodrigo Minelli (BR) (artemov staff) - www.artemov.net

If you have any further queries about this call, please contact call [at] nimk.nl

This project is supported by the Fonds BKVB (Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture) Amsterdam, as part of the Central de Cultura Program and the Lei de Incentivo à Cultura do Ministério da Cultura, Governo do Brasil.

the optimal value for y, by DataSpaceTime, is a collaboration between sound & visual artist Ray Sweeten and artist & set designer Lisa Gwilliam. The artworks in the show revolve around the QR Code – the modern incarnation of the bar code – and the data it contains, taking our current obsession with obtaining information on demand through IPads, wifi, and smartphones to the next level, turning everyday objects, in this case portraits and wallpaper prints, into interactive data retrieval centers.

Artworks in the show are made completely from QR codes, containing the results of an internet search embedded in each, which is then retrievable by handheld devices. Portrait images including those of Gaddafi connect to hundreds of YouTube videos. A sound piece is a QR code audio visual remix of Handel’s Triumph of Time and Disillusion (Trionfo Del Tempo e Disinganno) Italian Libretto. And, wallpaper prints are primarily a poetic gesture, using Google’s NGRAM Book Project as the source, the codes retrieve 5-word combinations that have been least used in English literature, including the title of the exhibition.

Ray Sweeten is a data artist and programmer, working in the intersection of image, sound and information systems, using a hybrid of digital and analog sound and visual media. Sweeten has performed and screened at The Kitchen, PS1, the New Museum, San Fransisco Electronic Music Festival, Issue Project Room, CinemaTexas, The Stone, Liverpool Biennial, Participant Inc Gallery, Pacific Film Archive, and others. Sweeten studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Richard Povall, Todd Winkler, Gary Nelson and composition with Randolph Coleman.

Lisa Gwilliam is a production designer and painter based in New York City. Her design work can be seen in Italian Vogue, Allure, American Vogue, Interview, Glamour, Rolling Stone, GQ and the New York Times Magazine. She has also worked on special projects for New York Fashion Week including runway presentations for Monique lhuillier, Milly NY and Tadashi Shoji and created installation events for Victor and Rolf and Puma. She is inspired by the affects of light and movement on traditional photographic processes and how that can be approximated through painting.

Nearest subway: J/M/Z - Mrytle/Broadway

Image: Terrorist (Julian Assange), DataSpaceTime, QR Code Printed on paper/YouTube Data, 42 x 42″, 2011 (Courtesy of DataSpaceTime © 2011)

Affexity is a play on both ‘affect city’ and ‘a-fixity.’

Affexity is a choreographic exploration with Augmented Reality on mobile devices with 2 intended outcomes: a pilot choreography embedded in urban spaces using geospatial tagging and the groundwork for an initiative in open source choreographies. The innovation of this project is in concept, composition, modes of audience participation, and technological development.

Collaborators:

Susan Kozel Professor at MEDEA Institute of interactivity Malmö University (Malmö)

Jay David Bolter Professor of Media and Technology, Mixed Environments Lab at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, USA)

Maria Engberg (Lecturer at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, Visiting Professor at the School of Literature, Communication and Culture at Georgia Tech, and Visiting Affiliate Researcher at the Wesley Center for New Media)

Jeannette Ginslov, independent Screen Dance Artist and choreographer (Copenhagen)

Simon Ellis, choreographer and dancer, Senior Lecturer at Roehampton University (London)

Two Masters students: one from the Malmö University Computer Science department’s Software Design programme, one from Georgia Tech in Atlanta will be recruited.

Video and edit by Jeannette Ginslov
Sound mix and voice over by Jeannette Ginslov
Sounds from video and Caleb Fawcett

Video produced by Walking Gusto Productions 2011

The title, Exquisite Zone, references the 1920-30s surrealist drawing game called ‘Exquisite Corpse’, in which each collaborator adds to a collective composition.

Exquisite Zone invites nightly participants to use their smart phones to make digital marks in public space. “The idea is simple, but we’ve never seen it done real time with mobile devices, such as phones.” [See Cell Tagging by Brooke Knight] Many people can add to the ‘collaborative public drawing’. Each time they move their finger over the phone canvas, a colored line will be drawn on their phone and on the wall. Although a participant’s phone displays only their individual canvas, Exquisite Zone projects the collective canvas on an architectural structure.

The concept was developed in a 2010 Baltan Labs workshop.