Automated Hobo Recording Project

This image is from the California high-desert bacchanal Burning Man, during which Mark G. circulated Automated Hobo, a sound-harvesting experiment using cheap tape recorders and hand-written instructions.

I purchase cheap tape recorders at thrift stores and wherever, load them with batteries and blank tape, and write instructions on the outside that tell people to record something and then pass it on to someone else. When the tape’s full, return it back to me. I figured that since Burning Man emphasizes participation over spectatorship, I might get better response than I have in the past. I was right — three out of four recorders came back, and the highlights can be heard here.

Mark G. is with Evolution Controlled Creations (a.k.a. the intellectual-property renegade band Evolution Control Committee). Automated Hobo MP3 files are available for download, although apparently they are from 2000, while the photo is from a more recent festival. Recordings from the project have also been broadcast - knowing ECC they may also have been sampled into current or forthcoming musix.

One of the interesting aspects of found-sound is its uncontrolled natureÂ… one can imagine a similar process whose intermediate point is a speech-to-text system. What wild writings and miswritings might emerge from the text-to-speech transcript of an itinerant tape recording? [blogged by Jeremy Douglass on WRT] Continue reading

Paik, Pioneer of Video Art, Dead at 74

“Nam June Paik, the Korean-born artist and composer regarded as the inventor of video art, died Sunday of natural causes at his Miami home. He was 74. Paik is thought to have coined the terms “information superhighway” and “the future is now,” as well as having global influence with his work.

Paik’s art combined the use of music, video images and sculptures in a way that set the style for future video artists. “Paik’s work would have a profound and sustained impact on the media culture of the late 20th century; his remarkable career witnessed and influenced the redefinition of broadcast television and transformation of video into an artist’s medium,” John Hanhardt, media arts curator at New York’s Guggenheim Museum of Art, said in a statement.

“Through a vast array of installations, videotapes, global television productions, films, and performances, Paik has reshaped our perceptions of the temporal image in contemporary art,” Hanhardt added.” From Paik, pioneer of video art, dead at 74 CBC.CA. Continue reading

PSP Image Cloud

Unique content was driven through a PSP and split across an array of organically arranged screens.

…Jason Bruges Studio created a chandelier (PSP Image Cloud) with 50 small TFT screens hanging from it. They created video content for a PSP, which was then broken up via a grid on to each of the small screens. The PSP video was then fed into a computer, where Isadora software was used to split the signal into components, through multiple outputs and up to the chandelier. Here are my Flickr Photos and a quick poor quality video (962kb).

Also Playstation promotions staff were on hand to give you a demo of the PSP, plus lending out PSPs to play with exclusive content. Designers Intro were running a workshop studying unconcious explorations of mind mapping and thought patterning. There were animation screenings and short films, plus four literary walks through the V&A organised by Zembla Magazine.

Missed it? BBC2 were filming and will be showing the event on the Culture Show, Feb 16th at 7pm… [blogged by Chris on Pixelsumo] Continue reading

MTAA

Artists M. River and T. Whid formed MTAA in 1996 and soon after began to explore the internet as a medium for public art. The duo’s exhibition history includes group shows and screenings at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Postmasters Gallery and Artists Space, all in New York City, and at The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. International exhibitions include the Seoul Net & Film Festival in Korea and Videozone2 - The 2nd International Video Art Biennial in Israel. In the forthcoming New Media Art (Taschen, 2006), authors Mark Tribe and Reena Jana describe MTAA’s 1 year performance video (aka samHsiehUpdate) as “a deftly transparent demonstration of new media’s ability to manipulate our perceptions of time.” The collaboration has also earned grants and awards from Rhizome.org, Eyebeam, New Radio & Performing Arts, Inc. and The Whitney Museum’s Artport web site. Continue reading

Parallel Cities

April 20- May 6, 2006 Chicago U$A; DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: FEB 28, 2005: Version is a hybrid festival focused on emerging discourses and practices evolving between art, technology and social and political activism. Version examines the activities of local configurations and external networks that use visual and conceptual art strategies, innovative social practices, creative uses of new technologies, organizing strategies, emerging activist/artist initiatives, campaigns, public interventions and DIY projects.

During this annual convergence we engage in a dialogue about the possible futures ahead that may interdict or provide alternatives to current social, cultural and political trajectories. Version>06 is our fifth convergence and is dedicated to the theme of Parallel Cities. We will investigate and share local strategies and models to inspire action within local and global counter cartographies. Continue reading

Invitation to Participate

Cinema-scope and IFAC are seeking video art submissions for: PAM - The Perpetual Art Machine to be premiered as a featured project at the -Scope New York Art Fair March 10-13, 2006.

PAM is an interactive video display installation and network designed to aid in the curatorial process by allowing artists and the viewer to play a more active roll in its outcome. PAM is an international survey of cutting edge and progressive film, video and new media art. PAM is looking for looking for screen based works up to three minutes in length and created after 2001. Writers and Curators encouraged to take part as well. Deadline: February 20, 2006, sooner the better. Continue reading

Breathing a Second Life into the Keynote

“DEMOCRACY ISLAND — There are certainly more glamorous ways to spend a Friday night than watching an animated version of a computer engineer discuss approaches to harnessing collective intelligence. But, for more than 25 people who showed up here last week to hear computing pioneer Douglas Engelbart address a Silicon Valley futurist group, the promise of intellectual stimulation prevailed.

In exchange for insights on the concept of the dynamic knowledge repository, audience members watched a speech delivered by a gray-haired, suit-and-tie clad avatar bearing a more than passable resemblance to the man best known for inventing the computer mouse. The talk, held at a virtual locale known as Democracy Island in the multiplayer online world Second Life, drew a less realistic audience. Some in the crowd weren’t even human, sporting features like antennae, fur and wings…” From Avatars Among Us by Joanna Glasner, Wired. Continue reading

Dance and Technology, 2005

[posted by Yukihiko YOSHIDA] The most well-known video dance in TOKYO last year was “Chocolate” by Bokubroll (unit, Nibroll plus Boku-death). The work started with CG like Japanimation and sentimental music. Bodies in this work were choreographed by Mikuni Yanaihara. Dance critic, Yukito Kado called her movement “anti-modern dance complex.” As he said, “Yanaihara sometimes rejects the traditional form of modern dance skillfully.” At the same stage, an Australian dancer Luke George performed. The projected CG was the images of cow, the stereotype of Australia. The mood got better in this stage. As other groups, cell/66b did an excellent work. Tetsu, their video artist would be the best artist in this field. They used to work in Japan and Australia. Thus, their work also has trans-cultural background. Continue reading

Moving Labyrinth at ARTEFACT

NEVEL, by Lawrence Malstaf, is a moving labyrinth (11 X 11 m) consisting of 9 programmable walls able to rotate 360° and react to the presence of the visitors, determining their route. Architecture comes alive, walls become doors, spaces open and close, visitors are locked up, desoriented and set free again.

Performers, visitors and their shadow are part of a tablaux vivant set for each other. The space itself is turned into an actor in the performance. An abstract place in to go astray like in a mutating city.

During the ARTEFACT festival that runs from February 13 till 18 in Leuven (Belgium), four artists / scientists will get to work with or within NEVEL and create new presentation forms and performances. For the festival, artists and scientists will research space, place & distance and translate it into new forms.

There’s more about Malstaf and his works (which include curiosities such as Shrink, a 1995 installation inviting visitors to be vacuum-packed in plastic, with only an air bubble through which to breathe, picture on the right) in kopenhagen.dk and Frame magazine. [blogged by Regine on we-make-money-not-art] Continue reading

Matt Gough in his Splines in Space blog has two entries about the motion tracking and capture system he uses for his dance research and composition - Motion Capture (Dance) and Noodle Dance.

Matt describes the different types of motion tracking technology (Magnetic, Gyroscopic and Optical) and points out the challenges of tracking large numbers of discrete body movements. Ideally, he’d like to have a dancer outfitted with 100 plus markers and more computer power to process results in real-time.

An image that displays results of 1:41 minutes of motion tracking - “The Noodle Dance”:

Using a passive optical motion tracking system with markers that are placed on the dancer’s hands and body:

This area of motion tracking systems and dance movement - both for research and performance - is an area I plan to do a lot more interviews about both for my audio podcasts and upcoming publication. [blogged by Doug Fox on Great Dance] Continue reading