NEW THURSDAY CLUB EVENTS @ GOLDSMITHS

JOHN MCCORMACK, Co-director, Centre for Electronic Media Arts, Monash University (Australia) :: Thursday September 7th, 2006 at 6-8pm in the Lecture Theatre, Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Corss, SE14 6NW :: FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME.

SIMULATION, SYSTEMS, ARTIFICE: In this talk I will give an overview of how I have used generative processes as a creative system. My aim is to enable new modes of creative expression with computation that are unique to the medium. Most existing software tools borrow their operational metaphor from existing creative practices: for example Photoshop uses the metaphor of a photographer’s darkroom; 3D animation systems borrow from theatre, film and conventional cell animation. In a tool with an oeuvre as diverse as the modern digital computer, one would hope that computation itself as a medium might have things to offer that are not based on metaphors borrowed from other media. I will illustrate some possibilities using the software systems I have developed over the last 15 years and the creative works that I have produced with them. These works include: Turbulence: an interactive museum of unnatural history (1994); Eden an evolutionary ecosystem (2000-2005) and the Morphogenesis series of evolved forms (2002-2006). Examination of these works will be placed in a philosophical framework and historical context. I will also discuss some possibilities for future development of generative software based on these ideas. Continue reading

FREE WORKSHOPS

IN BARROW, CUMBRIA – STARTS SEPTEMBER 9TH – PLACES STILL AVAILABLE :: Grow Your Own Media Lab is a trans-regional action research project that aims to investigate, improve and document a low cost, participatory, open source media lab model.

folly is delivering a series of 5 GYOML workshops throughout September-December at The Canteen Film Project, based in Northern Riviera in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. The workshops will give participants the opportunity to work in a variety of computer-based artistic disciplines under the guidance of some of the best-known and well-respected artists working in the field.

The Workshops will be led by 7 artists from the international collectives: Openlab, Goto10 and dyne.org. Continue reading

Gathering of Independent Artists

When: Friday, September 1, starting at 10.00 p.m. :: Where: extreme couching, Goethestraße 30 (map)

The Medienstammtisch* Linz invites interested Ars Electronica Festival guests and visitors to come by during the festival. The MST includes individuals – artists, activists, cultural workers and others – from the Freie Szene (the independent art scene of Linz) and various organizations and institutions, whose special interests include tools & skills for independent artists and others working in cultural contexts, electronic and social networks, possibilities for accessing and using various types of media …

We would be happy to talk about some of the things going on in Linz and hear about similar and related interests and experiences elsewhere, including: infrastructures (e.g. public hotspots) that can be meaningfully used for artistic and social-critical projects; working and production conditions needed for independent media art and how these can be secured; various (online and offline) communication structures and platforms that can promote cooperation and collaboration; how cooperation, collaboration, solidarity are even possible when everyone is competing (has to compete) for limited resources; the use of free software for independent media work; how tools and software need to be designed so that they can be used effectively. Continue reading

From Corporate Monologue to Public Dialogue

The Bubble Project is created by Ji Lee and is a comment on the fact that communal spaces to an ever increasing extent are being filled with ads of various kinds. The idea behind the project is to place Bubble stickers on the physical ads, thereby transforming them from corporate monologue into a dialogue open to the public. The Bubble stickers are meant to encourage anyone to fill them in with any form of self expression, free from censorship. Continue reading

DIY Exhibition: Call For Entries

DIY Exhibition: DIY (do-it-yourself) is the overarching theme for the exhibit. We live in an era of increased technological dependency in which the phrase, “Do-it-Yourself” has and will continue to take on new cultural meanings. The Upgrade! OKC and IAO (Individual Artists of Oklahoma) are inviting local and regional artists working with digital and electronic media to submit examples and interpretations of this concept to be exhibited as part of the 2006 Upgrade! International Symposium. These works will be shown at the IAO Gallery with a net art exhibition curated by Tubulence.org, Rhizome.org, and Upgrade! New York. The Symposium will be a four-day event running from Thursday, November 30th – Sunday, December 3rd. However, this exhibition will remain on display through December 29th.

About Upgrade!: Upgrade! is an international, emerging network of autonomous nodes united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides. While individual nodes present new media projects, engage in informal critique, and foster dialogue and collaboration between individual artists, Upgrade! International functions as an online, global network that gathers annually in different cities to meet one another, showcase local art, and work on the agenda for the following year. Continue reading

Channel Communication Amplifier

Lise Autogena’s Sound Mirrors Project is inspired by the derelict acousic mirrors at Denge, England, it aims to create two new sound mirrors on the coast of England and France which will enable people on either side of the Channel to speak to each other.

The Channel Communication Amplifier incorporates the latest technology to transmit sound but has at its heart a device first developed before to World War II and the invention of radar: the acoustic mirrors built as early warning devices around the coasts of Britain to detect airborne invasions. These giant concrete dishes also existed in mobile and even wearable versions btw.

Autogena plans to build two acoustic mirrors. One will be placed in Folkestone, the other will be sited on the coast of France, 25 miles across the Channel. Continue reading

Joburg-Derby-London & You

The Premises Gallery at The Johannesburg Civic Theatre invites you to join us for a Red Bull and some live online performance: NETWORKED_PERFORMANCE VisitorsStudio performance Joburg-Derby-London live at The Premises and online at http://www.visitorsstudio.org.

A live-online collaborative performance by Nathaniel Stern, Marc Garrett and Ruth Catlow. And open laptop mixing by audiences and invited local artists at the Premises Gallery (Johannesburg), HTTP (London) and Q Arts (Derby).

EVENT: Saturday 2nd September, 16:30 – 19:00 (SA time)
Getting started and uploading at The Premises: 16h00 (SA time)
Live scheduled performance: 17h00- 17h30 (SA time) and 16h00 – 16h30 (UK time) by Nathaniel Stern, Marc Garrett and Ruth Catlow
Open collaborative mix: 17h30 (SA time) and 16h30 (UK time) Everyone welcome to join! Continue reading

New Reviews/Articles

New Reviews/Articles on Furtherfield.org (August 06):

SCANZ – Article Written by Helen Varley Jamieson :: SCANZ (Solar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand, represented several firsts: it was the first Polar/Solar Circuit event to be held in New Zealand, and the first festival of its kind in this country, bringing together 25 artists from NZ and around the world for a two week collaborative residency. SCANZ provided the context for the first faces meeting in New Zealand, and it was also the first time a group residency had been offered to Avatar Body Collision – our first opportunity for the four globally dispersed Colliders to actually meet and work together in the same physical space Â… !!!

Slippage – Review by Yasser Rashid :: An exhibition of net.art curated by Nanette Wylde, bringing together a group of 8 artists that include: Mez Breeze; Krista Connerly; Juliet Davis; Lisa Hutton; Paula Levine; Jess Loseby, et al.; UBERMORGEN.COM; and Jody Zellen. The exhibition presents an eclectic mix of work under the broad concept of ‘exploring and exposing relationships between intention, perception, control, experience, behavior, memory, knowing and the unexpected’. Continue reading

A Combination of the Crowd’s Desires + Turbulence

bur.ble n.: 1. A gurgling or bubbling sound, as of running water. 2. A rapid, excited flow of speech. 3. A separation in the boundary layer of fluid about a moving streamlined body, such as the wing of an airplane, causing a breakdown in the smooth flow of fluid and resulting in turbulence.

In Open Burble, a crowd of participants designs and constructs a “burble” that rises towards the sky like a plume of smoke. The project came about because we wanted to find a way to use the technology developed for Sky Ear in a more intuitive way that enables people to engage directly with the tactile experience of flying the cloud.

Participants will divide into groups in order to assemble about 140 hexagonal “clouds” into a complete Burble, built to such a scale that, when inflated with helium, it will soar upwards like Jack’s beanstalk. Just as the participants are the generators of the Burble’s 60m tall form, so too are they the ones to control it. They hold on to it using handles with which they may position the Burble as they like. They may curve in on themselves, or pull it in a straight line – the form is a combination of the crowd’s desires and the impact of wind currents varying throughout the height of the Burble. Continue reading

Naturalis Electronica

Digital and organic are never antonyms at Interferenze, the annual festival of new arts taking place in San Martino Valle Caudina (Italy). In the middle of a beautiful chestnut trees forest the 2006 edition lead the young local enthusiastic curator crew to succeed in integrating digital culture with their own cultural roots. ‘Naturalis Electronica’ was the leit motif of three days of electronic art, celebrated in a friendly atmosphere with no barriers between artists and public, sharing almost the same spaces, perfectly mixing the local environment and food tradition with the artistic research on the edge of digital and organic. The curators’ commitment to this philosophy is almost total and it was seamlessly implemented in the festival program attracting the usual mass of thousands of local curious people plus experts arrived from all over the nation attending the event. Amongst the most popular one there were the workshops of the solar-powered micro-robots by Ralf Schreiber: they were unofficially repeated every day after the first crowded one. Schreiber scattered also some of his chirping electronic lifeforms around the forest as an installation (‘Living Particles’), forcing the hanging around crowds to always wonder themselves if the sounds they heard was real or virtual. Continue reading