Chris Joseph

New Reviews at Furtherfield.org April 2008.

http://www.furtherfield.org

Artwork by Willy LeMaitre & Eric Rosenzveig
Artwork Title - The Appearance Machine
Review by Natasha Chuk
Review Title - Trash Talk: A Review of The Appearance Machine by Willy Le Maitre and Eric Rosenzveig.
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For nearly ten years, trash has been the focus of a massive project, an audiovisual work called The Appearance Machine, by artists Willy Le Maitre & Eric Rosenzveig. This is a project that deals firsthand with an overabundance of material that won’t go away, and about seeing the beautiful possibilities of trash, giving the act of recycling a new context. The result is conflicting, producing in the viewer a sense of alienation and comfort, disbelief and wonder.
Permlink: http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=303

Artwork by Richard Wright
Artwork Title - The Internet Speaks
Review by Mark Hancock
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The Internet Speaks: contemplating the nature of images on the net and how we read them without recourse to text and context.
There are two versions to this project. The gallery based piece that automatically selects random images and displays them on the gallery wall, and the Internet version that offers the viewer a next and back button with which to scroll through and reverse the sequence so that they can return and reconsider the images. The second, Internet-based work allows the viewer to cheat a little bit, giving them the opportunity to think through the sequence and rework the narrative as it unfurls.
Permlink: http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=302

Artwork by Kate Armstrong
Artwork Title - Why Some Dolls Are Bad
Review by Eliza Fernbach
Review Title - Dolls behaving truly madly, but not really badly…
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Why Some Dolls are Bad invites the user to a collection of streamed images culled from the Internet, which take on random editorial positions in the frame of an original text written by Armstrong. The result- a bespoke book for the users of Facebook, an infinite precipitation of stirred structure. A ribald evolving commentary on our world of Good and Bad dolls. The same page never appears twice but the user can capture and save a favorite page. This is an intriguing re-enactment of the experience of reading a narrative book where particular passages haunt the imagination and are saved to our cognitive hard drive.
Permlink: http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=301

SwanQuake - the user manual
Artists - Igloo
Review by by Rob Myers
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SwanQuake - the user manual, is a collection of essays regarding a major interactive virtual installation art project by igloo (Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli) and their collaborators. SwanQuake is, as its name suggests, a meeting of computer game technology and dance. It consists of a series of interactive virtual environments built using the Unreal Engine 3D game system and populated by characters animated using motion capture techniques. Edited by Scott deLahunta. Essays by Johannes Birringer, Helen Stuckey, Shiralee Saul, Bruno Martelli, Ruth Gibson, John McCormick, Katharine Neil, Alex Jevremovic, Adam Nash, Helen Sloan, Stephen Turk,
Marco Gillies, Harry Brenton & David Surman.
Permlink: http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=300

Other Info:

If you are interested in reviewing for Furtherfield or have media art related projects, exhibitions that you wish to have featured or reviewed, please contact: marc.garrett [at] furtherfield.org

:: Open Ear ::

Open Ear (http://openear.wordpress.com/) is a loose collaborative group formed in 2006 by Paul Adams, Garrett Lynch and Matt Wright with the purpose of creating audio-visual art and organising live events within club, gallery, open air or site-specific venues.

:: Open Ear - Cardiff 13/06/08, open call for works ::

On June 13th 2008, Open Ear will host a free one night only event of experimental work in the ATRiuM Theatre at the University of Glamorgan’s newly built ATRiuM, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries, Cardiff, Wales (http://cci.glam.ac.uk/). Curated by Garrett Lynch (http://www.asquare.org/) the event will present a series of interdisciplinary performances and projections by various artists.

Sound and visual artists / groups working across the areas of art, music, media and new technologies within live performance / projected contexts are invited to contribute to this event under an open theme.

What does this mean?

There is no imposed theme instead we want to present a selection of time-based work by artists based on their themes, their continuing research, as an event which will explore the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of audio-visual arts. Proposed performances / projected works can be new or pre-existing works, improvised, dynamically generated (such as software art) or pre-composed, abstract or figurative, individual or collaborative, experimental, site specific and much, much more. All proposals are required to be:

1. time-based (remember this is a audience based event in a theatre)
2. and ether audio-visual, audio only or visual only work (selection preference will be given to works which are audio-visual)

Works should aim to be a maximum of 30 minutes each however this is flexible.

As the event is free we are unable to offer individual payment to artists however we will provide access to reasonable requests for equipment (please include a list of requirements in your proposal and we will attempt to cater for this) at the venue and of course the opportunity to present work in one of Cardiff’s newest cutting edge venues.

Proposals should take the form of a word / pdf / rtf / txt document (two pages maximum) with:

1. A description of the work (500 words maximum).
2. Images to give us an idea of the proposed work.
3. A full list of required equipment (please note that the event will host several performers so complex configurations involving lengthy set-up times will not be catered for).
4. Urls to previous examples of work online (videos or sound files online are particularly useful).
5. A short bio (200 words maximum).
6. Artist(s) / group / performer(s) name and full contact details.

Please email proposals as compressed attachments (.zip / .dmg / .sit / .sitx / tar.gz / .tgz) to Garrett Lynch (garrett [at] asquare dot org) no later than 12pm (GMT), Friday 16/05/08.

To get an idea of the type of events we organise please see our website (http://openear.wordpress.com/
) for full details of all past events and our YouTube account (http://ie.youtube.com/openeargroup) for videos of pasts events.

:: The Venue ::

The University of Glamorgan’s newly built ATRiuM in Cardiff, Wales opened in 2007 and houses the Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries which comprises of Art & Design, Media & Communication and Drama & Music. Situated in central Cardiff, Wales, this specially-designed building contains cutting edge technology and facilities including industry-standard studios, a theatre and cinema.

Address: ATRiuM Theatre, Adam Street, Cardiff, Wales, CF24 2FN

Detailed information on how to get here can be found on the university website (http://www.glam.ac.uk/visiting#atrium).

Open Ear, audio-visual events and performances are supported by The University of Glamorgan, ATRiuM, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries, Cardiff, Wales.

http://arsvirtuafoundation.org/research/ updated every Friday

Ars Virtua is pleased to announce _Augmentology 1[L]0[L]1_ by Mary-Anne (Mez) Breeze. Mez has initiated this work as part of her ongoing interrogation of the space, place and language of synthetic worlds.

This text brings Mez’ prodigious talents and experience to bear on several fundamental issues relating to the nature of game and social space:

“_Augmentology 1[L]0[L]1_ explores concepts that shape and are shaped by an extensive range of online/synthetic encounters. These concepts are formed through principles generated internally within specific online environments. These environments include - among others - Massively Multiplayer Online Environments [World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Second Life], Social Networking
Platforms [Twitter, Facebook, OpenSocial], Social Gaming [Passively Multiplayer Online Game, Parallel Kingdom] and Alternative Reality Games [I Love Bees, Perplex_City, Year Zero]. Entries will dissect post-geophysically defined notions of reality through a mixture of:
* Platform-specific case studies.
* Analysis of contextual behaviour sets.
* Construction of theoretical projections derived via synthetic, mixed and augmented formats.”

Mez is a Futurist who has had a sustained presence in synthetic realities for over two decades. She is also an established net artist and game theorist who practices _Poetic Game Interventions_ [the creative manipulation of MMO parameters in order to disrupt or comment on various aspects of augmented states].

Ars Virtua is a New Media Center and Gallery located in the synthetic world of Second Life, World of Warcraft and the World Wide Web. It is a new type of space that leverages the tension between 3-D rendered game space and terrestrial reality, between simulated and simulation. The Ars Virtua Foundation is a locus of research around the issues of reality within simulated environments.

Ars Virtua is sponsored by the CADRE Laboratory for New Media.

inter_multi_trans_actions - emerging trends in post-disciplinary creative practice

Thursday 26 June, 2008

Faculty of Engineering, Computing, and Creative Industries
Napier University
Merchiston Campus
10 Colinton Road
Edinburgh EH10 5DT

This one day symposium will bring together a number of leading practitioners from the fields of art, architecture and design who each share a common desire to exploit the latest computing technologies in their creative practice. The invited speakers will reveal their cutting edge work that blurs the traditional boundaries of the creative disciplines.

Emerging trends in post-disciplinary creative practice highlight the interplay of conventional boundaries. “New hybrids of design are emerging. People don’t fit in neat categories; they’re a mixture of artists, engineers, designers, thinkers. They’re in that fuzzy space and might be finding it quite tough, but the results are really exciting.” [West, D., A New Generation, Icon, 2007, 43(January), pp. 56 – 64]

The aim of this event is to inspire and inform the symposium delegates of the significance of this trans-disciplinary research and its impact for creative practice in the UK. This event will appeal to a wide audience including practitioners, researchers, educators, industrialists and stakeholders involved in the creative industries.

Symposium Speakers:

Moritz Waldemeyer [http://www.waldemeyer.com]

Moritz Waldemeyer is at the forefront of mechatronics, a combination of mechanics and electronics, that helps create innovative design ideas for concept cars, smart weapons and washing machines. Over the past few years, Waldemeyer has worked with the likes of Zaha Hadid, Ron Arad and Hussein Chalayan who have all availed themselves of his expert technical know how.

HeHe [http://hehe.org.free.fr]

Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen, the HeHe duo explore the territory that is the common ground for designers and artists. They have developed a concept of Cultural Reverse Engineering, that raises political, economical and sociological questions: to study a device or a software in order to modify its initial function is a way of re-appropriating the technology, in a world where most of us have no idea of the way everyday objects actually work nor how their cultural position has changed over time. The workshops they organize to “teach basic of DIY technologies, to students, artists and designers”, can be seen as a concrete application of that concept. HeHe is clearly related to the Lo-Fi philosophy (and it happens to be the title of one of their works), with its playful, yet serious, issues.

Usman Haque [http://www.haque.co.uk]

Usman Haque has created responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and mass-participation performances. His skills include the design of both physical spaces and the software and systems that bring them to life. He has been an invited researcher at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Italy, artist-in-residence at the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences, Japan and has also worked in USA, UK and Malaysia. As well as directing the work of Haque Design + Research he was until 2005 a teacher in the Interactive Architecture Workshop at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London.

the POOCH [http://www.thepooch.com]

thePOOCH explore non-navigational spaces and interfacelessness. They use less technology, not useless technology and they like extreme prototyping. thePOOCH also prefer to build rather than blog. thePOOCH is a young company with a wealth of experience in computer programming for mobile applications, interactive art installations, advertising and live events. thePOOCH’s team of programmers has 40+ years combined experience in software engineering, user interface design, computer networking and hardware development. thePOOCH work one-on-one with clients and end-users to design, develop and build interactive installations that are tailored for specific target audiences.

TROIKA [http://www.troika.uk.com]

Troika is a multi-disciplinary art and design practice founded in 2003 by Conny Freyer, Eva Rucki and Sebastien Noel, who met while studying at the Royal College of Art. Our backgrounds in graphic, product design and communication allow us to engage in work that is at the intersection of the three disciplines, thinking of design as communication art. We develop a variety of self-initiated and commissioned projects that are both engaging and demanding to the user, from printed matter to product design and custom installations. Our approach focuses on the contamination between the arts and design disciplines and is born out of the same love for simplicity, playfulness, and an essential desire for provocation.

Greyworld [http://www.greyworld.org]

In 1993 Andrew Shoben founded Greyworld in Paris. Greyworld’s goal is to create works that articulate public spaces, allowing some form of self-expression in areas of the city that people see every day but normally exclude and ignore.

Jason Bruges Studio [http://www.jasonbruges.com]

Jason Bruges Studio is a Shoreditch based studio producing a diverse range of work that includes interactive light sculptures, interactive environments, events and screen-based installations. We explore the use of interactivity with the public and environment through the use of highly imaginative technologies. Jason Bruges Studio specialises in ‘interactive light environments’, from installations on the streets of New York to London’s South Bank.

The Owl Project [http://www.owlproject.com]

The Owl Project make sculpture, music and sound art, notably the Log1K, Sound Lathe, Sound Chair and iLog. Drawing on influences such as woodworking, hobby style electronics and open source software to create music-making machines, they take a craft-based approach to designing their own interfaces and objects. The result is a distinctive range of musical and sculptural instruments that critique human interaction with computer interfaces and our increasing appetite for new and often disposable technologies.

Lucy Bullivant [http://www.lucybullivant.ne/]

Lucy Bullivant is an architectural curator, critic and author. Lucy has worked internationally with leading museums, galleries, cultural institutions, publishers and corporate bodies since 1987. Her latest book, Responsive Environments: Architecture, Art and Design (V&A Contemporary, 2006), explores the hybrid discipline of interactive architecture and design. She regularly contributes to Domus, The Plan, a+u, Volume, Architectural Record and Indesign, some of the world’s most authoritative international architectural magazines.

Please visit http://www2.napier.ac.uk/inter_multi_trans_actions for more information.

Networking Event and Residency Closing Party at HTTP Gallery.

Configurations: Technology and Textiles Networking Afternoon
25 April, 3.30 - 6pm, HTTP Gallery (Booking essential)

You are invited to share ideas, discuss and develop future working around art work that investigates the relationship between new technology, traditional making techniques and transformative political actions.

Anna Dumitriu, Ele Carpenter, Nicola Naismith and Rachel Beth Egenhoefer will present their work using diverse approaches to the making of work using new technology alongside textiles, followed by a “Long Table Discussion”.

The “Long Table Discussion” is an experimental public forum developed by performance artist Lois Weaver. It is a hybrid performance, installation and round table discussion designed to facilitate informal conversations on serious topics encouraging everyone to contribute. Previous “Long Table Discussions” include conversations on Women and Prisons, Human Rights and Performance and Manufacturing Bodies.

This event is free however advanced booking is necessary. To book places please email Aaron, visibility [at] furtherfield.org

The event will be followed by a party 6pm - 9pm (all welcome): - to celebrate the close of Rachel Beth Egenhoefer’s residency at Furtherfield/HTTP Gallery and providing an opportunity to discuss her work and experiences during the residency.

Rachel Beth Egenhoefer’s residency and Configurations is part of Distributed South an initiative co-curated by SCAN and Space Media. The residency and event is funded by the Arts Council England, University of Wales, University of Brighton, Lighthouse Brighton with support from Furtherfield.org, Textile Futures Research Group (TFRG) and University of the Arts London.

71, Ashfield Rd, London N4 1NY

Distributed South
www.distributedsouth.org.uk

Speakers
www.rachelbeth.net
www.elecarpenter.org.uk
www.nicolanaismith.co.uk
www.annadumitriu.co.uk

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The HTTP Gallery is run by Furtherfield.org (www.furtherfield.org)

Writing Digital Media: The Poetic

Monday 21 April 2008, 19.00–20.30
Tate Modern, London, Level 5 East
Free

Following the successful e and eye series of 2006, this session will include performance and discussion of work in progress by poetic writer John Cayley and artist Brigid McLeer, a showing of Caroline Bergval’s Ampersand and contributions from Penny Florence and Tim Mathews. A discussion of the proposed new AHRC Digital Writing network will conclude the evening.

In collaboration with The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London and Brown University, Rhode Island.

http://the9th.com/?p=151

Quicktime Video, 48MB, 5:20 min.

MERZBOW with the DIRTY ELECTRONICS ENSEMBLE

Merzbow is joining forces with the twenty-five piece strong Dirty Electronics Ensemble led by noise doctor John Richards to perform a specially commissioned piece for the DIY instrument the Sudofuzz (aka Merztin). The Sudofuzz is a collision of oscillators, feedback networks and distortion housed in a junk tin can with grip bolts and electrode-controllers. Collective noise creation on a mass scale.

Capsule present
Thursday, 17th April @ 7.30
MERZBOW with the DIRTY ELECTRONICS ENSEMBLE
PACE Building, De Montfort University, Leicester
Free Entry!!!
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/cepa/merzbow.jsp

BROADWAY CINEMA
STUDIO
THUR 24 APRIL, 8PM
FREE

Commissioned local artists Sasha Andrews and Hetain Patel with Louise Clements will be talking about their new work for Digital Broadway.

Hetain and Louise will also hold a short performance of tabla druming and Kathak dancing as part of their presentation about A SILENT SEARCH FOR 16 CLASSICAL BEATS to illustrate their collaboration and the how the dialogue exists in its classical form.

HETAIN PATEL
A SILENT SEARCH FOR 16 CLASSICAL BEATS
On the Glass Screen until April 30.

Borrowing a 16 beat rhythm cycle from Indian classical music and dance to structure this new video work, Hetain Patel and Louise Clements investigate notions of origin and displaced culture. Using the movement vocabulary of traditional Kathak dance to shape the visual rhythm of this silent work, the performers play with the conversational relationship inherent between Tabla drummer and Kathak dancer. As the performers fall in and out of sync with one another, Hetain uses red Kanku pigment both to provide structure for and to trace movements from Louise’s dance.

www.hetainpatel.com

Thursday 1st May 2008, 6.00pm - 7.15pm

Paul Brown, Origins and Emergence - a brief history of the digital arts

Doors open at 5.30pm for drinks. This event is free and open to the public, however places are limited - please email info [at] ioctsalon.com to reserve a seat.

Download the flyer for this event (PDF)

This illustrated presentation will give an overview of the history of the digital arts from their origins in the analogue kinetics and Jazz/Poetry performances of the 1950’s to current practice. Key themes like Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life/Emergence, Computational and Generative, Interaction, Convergence, Communication and Networking will be identified and discussed. In particular the speaker will revisit predictions he made in the late 1980’s when he suggested that any new media need a minimum 40 year gestation period which he suggests is now coming to term. He will illustrate this hypothesis by using current web2 manifestations as examples of digital media emerging in their own right in contrast to our previous metaphorical adaptations.

About Paul Brown:

Paul Brown is an Anglo-Australian artist and writer who has specialised in art, science & technology since the late 1960s and in computational & generative art since the mid 1970s. His international exhibition record spans four decades and includes the creation of both permanent and temporary public artworks. He has participated in shows at major venues like the TATE, Victoria & Albert and ICA in the UK; the Adelaide Festival; ARCO in Spain and the Venice Biennale. His work is represented in public, corporate and private collections in Australia, Asia, Europe, Russia and the USA.

From 1997-99 he was Chair of the Management Board of the Australian Network for Art Technology and he is a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards for LEA, the e-journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (MIT Press), and the journal Digital Creativity (Routledge). From 1992 to 1999 he edited fineArt forum, one of the Internet’s longest established art ‘zines and he is currently Chair of the international Computer Arts Society (CAS) and moderator of the DASH (Digital ArtS Histories) and CAS e-lists.

During 2000/2001 he was a New Media Arts Fellow of the Australia Council when he spent 2000 as artist-in-residence at the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics (CCNR) at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England. From 2002-05 he was a visiting fellow in the School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he worked on the CACHe (Computer Arts, Contexts, Histories, etc…) project and he is currently (2005-08) visiting professor and artist-in-residence at the CCNR, University of Sussex where he is working on a project to evolve robots that can draw.

He lives on the Sunshine Coast in SE Queensland, Australia.

Examples of his artwork and publications are available on his website at http://www.paul-brown.com.

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