We want to put some new accents in update_4. Previously, the exhibitions were combined with the New Technological Art Award Liedts-Meesen, which enjoyed a growing interest on the part of the artists and the public. For this reason, we want to increase the importance of this contest by taking the following measures:

* New and adapted rules, which are stricter, and will focus more specifically on the artistic contribution of the new technologies,
* The number of nominees who will have the opportunity to show their works of art during update_4 will rise from 10 to 20,
* Finally, the works will be presented at three sites: Zebrastraat in Ghent, La Cambre in Brussels (for works to be shown in the open air), and iMAL, also in Brussels

As previously, the nominees will be selected by a professional jury, which will also award the final prize of 5000 EUR; besides this, there will also be a prize from the audience.

The second part of the event consists of an exhibition of renowned artists in the field of New Technological Art. Only two or three works will be presented at each site.

To these two activities will be added a third one, namely the organization of a three days colloquium on new tendencies in contemporary art. We will invite a number of artists and personalities from all over the world, who would discuss during the day certain topics related to this art movement. The conclusions of their discussions and the texts of their papers will be
published in the form of a reference book, replacing the previously published catalogues.

As you can see, we evolve from the concept of an exhibition combined with a contest, towards an event combining exhibition, contest and colloquium, yielding a reference book.

These are the eternal human questions facing Simon Powers, the protagonist of visionary composer Tod Machover’s new opera Death and the Powers, a full-evening work which premiered September 24, 2010 at l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo. In the opera, Powers, a rich, powerful businessman and inventor, wishes to perpetuate his existence beyond the decay of his physical being.

Reaching the end of his life, Powers uses his vast resources to devise a way to ‘download’ himself into his environment. This transformation turns every object in his surroundings — his books, furniture and walls — into a collective, living version of himself, called The System. His family, friends and business associates are left not only to figure out if The System is, in fact, a true embodiment of Powers, but how to sustain a relationship with him in his new form, and whether to abandon their own organic existence and join him in his world of light, free of death and suffering.

In this cutting-edge work, Machover — called “America’s most wired composer” by the Los Angeles Times — elegantly blends his artistic and technological expertise to create an inventive score filled with arching melodic lines, wry humor, richly nuanced textures and propulsive rhythms. Death and the Powers additionally introduces specially-designed technology – including animated walls, a chorus of robots and a musical chandelier – assuredly launching a new era in opera production and expression.

Death and the Powers’ creative fusion of music and technology could reposition opera as an art form that embraces innovation, says Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, a nonprofit that serves U.S. opera companies. “I’m always cheering when I see opera once again reasserting itself as the richest tapestry for innovative, live art,” says Scorca.

Death and the Powers sets itself apart from other operas with its groundbreaking performance technologies, developed by Machover’s Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab. A new technique called Disembodied Performance employs innovative sensors and analysis software to translate baritone James Maddalena’s conscious and unconscious sounds and gestures, enabling the set to ‘come alive’ with Simon’s thoughts, feelings, memories and desires even after his physical body is no longer on stage. In addition, a chorus of “Operabots” narrates and reacts to the story; robotic furniture morphs and moves about on stage; and a musical Chandelier engages in a sensuous duet with Simons’ beloved wife Evvy.

Machover collaborated with a creative team that reads like a who’s who of movers and shakers of American culture. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky wrote the libretto. Director Diane Paulus received a Tony nomination for her recent revival of HAIR on Broadway, and is joined by celebrated choreographer Karole Armitage and production designer Alex McDowell, who is best known as the creative director behind such films as Minority Report and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Death and the Powers’ cast features baritone James Maddalena as Simon Powers; mezzosoprano Patricia Risley as Simon’s third wife, Evvy; soprano Joélle Harvey as Simon’s daughter, Miranda; tenor Hal Cazalet as Simon’s research assistant and adopted son, Nicholas; countertenor Frank Kelley as ‘The United Way’; baritone David Kravitz as ‘The United Nations’; and bass Tom McNichols as ‘The Administration.’

Death and the Powers receives its United States premiere March 18, 2011 with Harvard’s American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) and Opera Boston; and its Midwest premiere April 2, 2011 at Chicago Opera Theater.

More than 250 artists, performers, musicians and other creative spirits will show their talents at 10 locations of the free entrance expo’s. Four days you can be part of this art music and technology spectacle. Interactive installations, insect-robot-build-workshops, electric fish, bio-installations, nano-technology, film, Japanese bacteria machines, artificial intelligences, cyborgs, magnetic fields, Beauty Parlour of the Future, Revenge of the Killer-iPhone, The bad days of Britney-Spears and of course an extended music program! ( for music program, see: http://2010.gogbot.nl/en/program/music.html

GOGBOT 2010 deals with the controversial concept of the Technological Singularity, about the exponential growth of technology today leading to an explosion of Artificial Intelligence within a few decades, declaring man to become the pet of computers, where in the end AI will be ruling the universe….

Ray Kurzweil about Technological Singularity in his film Transcendent Man

The field of American studies has long been a familiar home to scholars interested in the social and cultural worlds of sound. Yet while visual culture has had a more visible presence on the pages of American Quarterly, sound has been heard in sporadic bursts, forceful whispers, and sudden critical noises. We propose a special issue of American Quarterly that highlights the key role of sound in the formation of central themes and areas of inquiry within contemporary American studies.

While the study of sound has gained momentum in the last three decades across a variety of disciplines, much remains to be gleaned from a rigorously interdisciplinary focus on sound in its cultural, political, technological, economic, socio-historical, spatial, temporal, affective, and formal contexts. The rise of new technologies for the production and circulation of sound has coincided with exciting historical investigations into the ways sound has functioned as a cultural force through various media. Provocative investigations into the sonic valences of subjectivity and the socio-cultural politics of listening have nuanced our understanding of the ways that sound functions to both disturb and recalibrate processes of identity and identification, and to form and de-form notions of nationalism, transnationalism, and post-nationalism.

Scholars whose work has been gathered into the emerging field of sound studies have played a vital role in thinking through sound as a critical space, thinking through listening as a critical and cultural act, and thinking through sonic media as key technological sites of investigation. New developments in network technologies, digital audio, and mobile media have not only shaken up the financial models of conventional media structures, but have radically altered the workings of the everyday sensorium (as Walter Ong might have called it) and the way we re-visit sound’s role in media histories — old and new, localized and transnationalized — across the Americas.

How are new sound technologies and sonic media practices impacting “American” identities in the age of globalization? What role have hearing and listening played in “American” formations of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, community, and class, and how has the birth of recorded sound in the late 19th century informed those formations? What are the political economies of sound? How do we begin to theorize the sound of American studies?

We seek work that delves more deeply into questions already being addressed about sound and/or that takes existing scholarship in new directions. We are particularly interested in scholarship that analyzes sound from within an interdisciplinary American studies framework and/or that explores inter-American soundscapes within the following areas:

-sound and media technologies
-sound and consumption
-sound and U.S. racial formations
-sound and citizenship, belonging, and community
-sound and nationalism
-sound and religion
-sound and time and/or temporality
-sound as historical method
-sound and political economy
-sound and social change
-sound and U.S. sexualities
-sound and/as theory

Email essays by August 1, 2010, to aquarter [at] usc.edu. Information about American Quarterly and submission guidelines can be found on our Web site.

After 11 years of using the Director multimedia tool to create pieces such as dbCinema, Jig Sound, Arteroids, Nio, A Pen, On Lionel Kearns, War Pigs, F8MW9, The Idea of Order at Key West Re-Ordered, and Oppen Do Down, I’m attempting a major bit of re-tooling to Flash.

I’m interested in the audio capabilities of Flash. And I’m interested in the visual processing possibs of Flash. But in this post, I’ll show you why I’m interested in the audio capabilities of Flash. There’s some interesting work going on in Flash audio. Not too much actual art, at this point, that utilizes Flash’s new audio capabilities–by anyone. But there are some Flash pieces on the net that show some of the capabilities and poetential of the new Flash audio features. When you look/listen to these pieces, you’ll have to use your imagination to conceive of the artistic possibilities before you.

Read on: http://netartery.vispo.com/

This workshop is intended as a practical introduction to network music performance. Both technical and musical topics will be discussed, including: history of the field, Internet technologies for streaming, control messages and laptop performances, transcontinental high-quality network performance, performance issues like delay and presence, installations and synthesis in the network, future and potential as a compositional medium, programming techniques and software survey, virtual worlds in musical network performance.

The goal is to give participants a practical grasp of this upcoming trend, with musicians performing habitually from separates parts of the country and the world in a not-so-distant future. Travel for rehearsal and performance will be less important. Concerts will be held routinely in several venues simultaneously. Recording, composing and performing will be done with people you have never met. We will discuss how to fine-tune the network and software specifically for musical purposes. The correlation of physical and acoustical distance in this medium and what it implies for musical performance/composition will be analyzed. Commercial tools to perform from home will be showcased. We will “remote-control” musical instruments like Disklaviers mechanical pianos. We will learn how to use popular computer music programming languages (SuperCollider, Pd) for interconnected music. Software design techniques and synchronization will be explored though hands-on experiments. Depending on interest and time, visual score programing (Pd, Processing) will also be featured. We expect participants to leave with an embodied sense of network performance to with the skills use and design their own systems.

This workshop is intended for: Musicians, composers, programmers and technologist interested in performing with distant musicians, designing systems for the medium or composing with the network in mind. No music theory or technical skills background necessary, the workshop will put emphasis on the participants’ particular interests and goals.

Workshop structure: The schedule will be organized around morning lectures and afternoon lab and practical sessions. We will have access to CCRMA’s state-of-the-art stage, studios and computers to experiment and perform. Special sessions will be arrange with remote musicians. During the labs, participants will have the chance to experiment with provided tools and build on top of them.

[image: Wearable sonic dress with felted patch cords - patch cord by Sarah and Lara Grant]

The party celebrates the people making original tools to make original music, this one another grab bag of unusual inventive sonic technologies. Such as:

GREAT TIGER is an electro rock duo from Brooklyn. They get the party started with the help of The Box, a homemade MIDI controller made out of arcade buttons. Taking inspiration from Daft Punk to Deep Purple, GREAT TIGER fuses themselves into your brain with the help of bright lasers and poison-gas fog machines.

SARAH AND LARA GRANT, two sisters who specialize in blending textiles and technology, offer a wearable music instrument with a performance by a dancer. Their felted sound garment which turns the body into a sound emitting interface.

…and, as always, some surprises.

Makers, you’re free to bring projects - working or not - to share, troubleshoot, and play! Power / PA / projector available; bring your own cables and (if you can) extra speakers.

RSVP handmade@3rdward.com

For complete details please visit http://www.3rdward.com/handmade-music/

Artech 2010 is the fifth international conference held on the topic of Digital Arts. It aims at promoting contacts between Iberian and International contributors concerned with the concept, production and dissemination of Digital and Electronic Art.

Artech 2010 aims at bringing the scientific, technological and artistic community together, while promoting the interest in the digital culture and its intersection with art and technology as an important research field, a common space for discussion and exchange of experiences, a forum for emerging digital artists and a way of understanding and being delighted with new forms of digital expression.

Artech 2010 includes new topics concerning the relation between digital culture, architecture and design. In traditional design processes, architects work with aesthetic, functional, technical, economic and social elements in order to achieve a final structural design proposal. Generative Computational Design processes share these same concerns, despite the fact that innovative digital tools are forcing new approaches for architectural design to emerge. If in the past paradigms, architects have built what they could represent and represented what they could build, in the new emerging paradigms they are less limited in this regard, due to the integration of generative design systems with digital production technologies including, among others, virtual reality and ambient intelligent artifacts.

image: Loud Objects — USA

Espacio Enter Canarias is a International Meeting for all sectors related to art and digital culture, for ideas that will allow us to design the future of technological innovation. Espacio Enter Canarias will embrace contemporary artistic expression related to innovation and new media and also the Future Now Symposium. It aims to strengthen the linkage between Art, Science, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise in order to construct Knowledge Society for all citizens.

Art-Science-Innovation: Digitals Communities- Storytelling- geoespacial- Artificial Life- Software Art- Transgenic Art- Generative- Art- Videogamess- Robotic- Open Source- Animation, 2D, 3D- Videocreation- Net-art- Blog, Videoblog- Creation for mobile platforms- Videodance. Go to registration form: art_science_innovation

International Digital Experimental Cinema Festival: Film- Webfilm- 3D_Cinema- Short Film- Animation- 60seg. Go to registration form: internacional_digital_cinema_experimental

STAGE call: Performance- Theatre new media- Dance new media- Fashion Innovations- Web development 2.0, 3.0- Others. Go to registration form: Stage_call

ADVANCE MUSIC call: DJ S- Wj S- Electronic Music- Experimental Music- Live Visual Sessions- Streaming Music- Experimental Sound Sessions. Go to registration form: Advance_Music_call

ARTISTS: http://www.espacioenter.com/artinnov_generativo.htm

Sound artist Tristan Louth-Robins and new-media arts collective Shoot will collaborate to produce Tensions. With original soundscapes, performance and projected imagery the exhibition will explore emotion and tension through the use of personal technological devices — what they transmit, store and receive, the emotional implications for the user, and how this ultimately influences society. Tensions will examine specifically how the omnipresence and application of communication technology affects the way information is disseminated, emotions are received and perceived, and the many ways new (electronic) languages are interpreted. A major component of the exhibition will investigate the idea that transmissions of invisible, emotionally charged data – mobile phone calls, sms, emails – across public environments affects the emotions of passive recipients as the data passes through their bodies (e-motion).

BIOS

Tristan Louth-Robins (b.1981) is an Adelaide based sound artist working in areas of electro-acoustic and new media art forms. His works utilise various forms of technology and iterative, generative, and feedback processes to realise ideas and concepts associated with sound and its signification. As a sound artist, Louth-Robins has performed and exhibited work in South Australia and interstate at various venues, galleries and conferences. As a visual artist, Louth-Robins’ works embrace simple materials and themes which in part reflect the nature of his sound art work. As a curator he directed the successful Tyndall Assembly experimental music concert series in 2006 and 2007 which showcased the work of local artists as well important historical works. He is also a contributing writer and reviewer for the online Australian new music magazine Resonate.

Shoot is a group of media artists based in Australia that attempt to push artistic boundaries through conceptual collaborations with other artists and through experimentations with popular technologies. The group often draws upon the outcomes of degeneration/regeneration of imagery, creating content to cultivate the conceptual aims of the collective. Shoot was formed in 2002 with a view for like-minded artists to develop a conceptual ‘collective’ to stage innovative art exhibitions and events, mostly within unconventional locations. The group have been involved in many festivals and productions, including the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Adelaide Fringe, and the Adelaide Film Festival. Their most recent work, Sounds from Level Four, was presented as part of the 2006 Adelaide Fringe and was nominated for best visual art exhibition at the 2006 Adelaide Fringe Awards. The work was also presented at the Australian Computer Music Conference in July 2006 and was nominated for two Australian Business Arts Foundation Awards in 2006 and 2007 for the exhibitions and their collaborative efforts with local industry.

Jen Brazier is a photo-media artist based in Brisbane, Australia. She graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Visual Art & Applied Design, majoring in Photography and Digital Imaging. Jen Brazier has presented her work in several exhibitions since 2001 and is a founder and core member of Shoot collective. Her work has won places in several respected competitions, has toured Australia, and been exhibited in London.

Charissa Davies has participated in several Shoot exhibitions since graduating with a major in printmaking from Adelaide Centre of the Arts in 2002. Working in a range of media including printmaking, photography and digital media Charissa’s practice often draws on themes such as everyday life and the thoughts that pass through our heads. In Tensions Charissa’s work is based on the idea that each individual’s life is in some way fragmented. ‘We portray different parts of ourselves to different people depending on the situation. Our lives are fragmented by technology: bits of phone conversations overheard in public places, photos put up on the internet, blogs and emails, all offer insights into small fragments of an individual’s life.’

Edward James has a BA in Visual Art & Applied Design majoring in photography and is a practising photo-media artist. A founding member of the Shoot Collective, the artist has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne. With a strong belief in bringing art to the public and breaking down barriers to arts participation Edward has jointly produced exhibitions, new-media civic projections and art events usually in non-traditional art spaces. In 2007 Edward along with artist and lecturer Greg Ackland, established ‘Undercurrent’ as an ongoing platform to further promote photo-media art to the wider community.
Lauren Playfair graduated from Adelaide Centre of the Arts in 2006. She is a practicing photographic/media artist who has exhibited work in several South Australian galleries.

Ryan Sims has developed a keen interest in ideas associated with ‘the performance that is life’. The artist produces crafted artworks and performances that transform everyday materials and images into new and unusual combinations. With a sense of whimsy, playfulness and theatricality he experiments with aspects of change and time through cultural comment and personal exploration. Ryan has initiated and participated in exhibitions and events both solo and collaborative, primarily in South Australia and also interstate and overseas, including the presentation of work at garden and performance art festivals in France, Switzerland, the UK and Quebec, Canada.