International Triennale of Contemporary Art

YOKOHAMA 2005 - Yokohama’s second International Triennale of Contemporary Art - builds on the success of YOKOHAMA 2001 and will feature the work of around 80 participating international and Japanese artists exhibiting in the main venue - two enormous warehouses located on Yamashita Pier. The Triennale offers an alternative to the conventional style of art exhibition in which the observer simply looks at the works, instead offering a dialogue-based exhibition in which the barrier between the observer and the exhibitor is transcended, with the observer present during the artist creative process and being able to actually experience the work.

There will be an emphasis on “involvement with the site” in YOKOHAMA2005. This will be a new type of venue for people to encounter art realized through initiatives such as home-stays by artists and also by featuring participation-based art. The public will have the opportunity to view or be involved in the artist’s creative process while much of the work will undergo change as a result of interaction with the community (works-in-progress). Continue reading

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First Rabbit

Nabaztag is a newborn bunny, one of a unique species of intelligent, smart objects. I’m 23 cm tall, I wriggle my ears, I sing, I talk and my body lights up and pulsates with hundreds of colours. Thanks to Wi-Fi technology, I’m always connected to the Internet. Oh, and I’ll only set you back 95 €.

Set me up in your home or office and I’ll be your personal companion. I can tell you about tomorrow’s weather, about traffic jams on the ring road, keep you posted about the stock market’s roller coaster rides. I can tell you discreetly, just by flashing or moving my ears about. I can also do it with music or talk. Obviously, you’re always in control of what news you want to hear. And there’s more… Continue reading

Plato’s Cave

Many ‘Media spaces’ have taken the form of always-on video conferences between selected remote locations. However, users may still perceive a sense of separation because they see each other through wide-angle views captured by cameras mounted at a distance from them. Passages allows passers-by to “touch” the silhouettes of their remote counterparts.

A translucent surface, made of glass and textile is set in two different locations connected with each other via a network. As a passer-by walks in front of this surface, the contour of his/her silhouette is reflected in a style that evokes drawing or sketching. Continue reading

Hybridization of Practices

TRANSMISSIONS crystallizes the integration of creativity in the arts, science and technologies. Today research, experimentation and creation in new media are, by their volume, at least comparable to what could have been produced in the 1960’s, with the development of mass media. The hybridization of the practices and the digital components between the scientific, technical and artistic fields invigorates inventive processes, experimentalism, interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity. The artists are unceasingly exploring the potential of technology for new relations with the world, new constructions of knowledge and new social spaces and means of expression. The researcher thus intersects with the artist or the mediator, in their common zest for experimentation. Continue reading

Facades as Autonomous Skins

aperture–by UDK–is a facade installation with interactive and narrative display modes. Composed of single aperture-modules with receptor and actuator, aperture acts like an autonomous skin, capable of precise external control. Visual information is transmitted from the inside of the building to the outside, the surface permeability is regulated when the aperture‘s opening diameters are changed.

Each single aperture and all the apertures as entity “see” what happens on the inside of the facade and react accordingly: like the human eye‘s iris and the iris diaphragm of the objective, they react to light, widening and contracting according to the intensity of incoming light. If no human activity is to be distinguished on the inside, a “memory” mode recalls images and abstract animations captured throughout the day and displays them. Continue reading

Telecommunications Wilderness

Fursicle Safurry invites people to enter a space of make-belief adventure through the wilderness of telecommunications. Upon calling the fursicle with their cell phones, users will receive a password composed of animal sounds such as gerrrs, wooww, barks, cries, and meaows. They then have to go to the head that is outside the installation. Staying on the phone they tell the password to the head which responds by sending a sound feedback and a blue light. If the head likes the password, the user gets to enter.

The voice on the phone asks users if they want to MATE, KILL, or RUN with the fursicle. According to their choice, users will be guided by instructions from the voice on the phone: they will have to touch and move in various ways with the fursicle, inventing the feedback as they move. While the user is interacting with the fursicle corresponding sounds and projected images are texturing the experience with rich animal sights and languages. By Dana Karwas and Liubo Borissov. [blogged by Regine on we-make-money-not] Continue reading

The Anti-Map

ANTIPODE/2 interweaves photography and cartographic process to reconstruct in virtual space the landscape of two cities juxtaposed within one another. This mapping process captures not only the structural pattern of the cities, but the events occurring at moments in time, progressing along the path taken by the photographer. This operates as an antithesis to the traditional cursory representation of maps. It occurs at the street level, recorded visually as seen by the eye of the observer and then viewed from the originating perspective; witnessing the flow of pedestrians and traffic, commerce and cultural activity. It is an “anti-map”…

ANTIPODE/2 was part of Segue/Ãœberlappen, a collaborative exchange project between faculty and students of UMBC, Baltimore Maryland, USA, and Fachhochschule Schwabisch Hall, Germany, June 5-19, 2005. Continue reading

Merged with Our Technology

“Ultimately, we will merge with our technology. This will begin with nanobots in our bodies and brains. The nanobots will keep us healthy, provide full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system, provide direct brain-to-brain communication over the internet and greatly expand human intelligence. But keep in mind that non-biological intelligence is doubling in capability each year, whereas our biological intelligence is essentially fixed. As we get to the 2030s, the non-biological portion of our intelligence will predominate. By the mid 2040s, the non-biological portion of our intelligence will be billions of times more capable than the biological portion. Non-biological intelligence will have access to its own design and will be able to improve itself in an increasingly rapid redesign cycle.” From Human life: The Next Generation by Ray Kurzweil, New Scientist (subscription required). See The Singularity is Near. [via smartmobs] Continue reading

Networked Equilibrium Sharing System

“ABSTRACT: This paper presents a networked system connecting real space, which is shared and operated by three people. We made three pneumatic triple-axis motion platforms as a system to share a “sense of balance” with other people, and examined control methods for this system. Cylinders, which go up and down due to air pressure are used as actuators, and by moving the cylinders up and down while performing position control, the system can make the platform tilt. We considered whether it was possible to represent bodily sensations as symbols when shifting shared work performed in virtual space to real space. For our sensual symbol we chose the sense of balance, being a sense that is common to everyone. We constructed a system enabling users to share the sense of “balance”.” From Networked Equilibrium Sharing System “Balance Seat” by Nobuya Suzuki, Takahiro Kobayashi and Hiroshi Yasuda. Continue reading