In the paper presented at TEI in 2007, the authors describe how this sensory mapping creates an expressive and emotional interface allowing couples to communicate through touch, gestures, and body language.

See also her paper: The aesthetics of touch in interaction design! See also Mutsugoto by Tomoko Hayashi, Stefan Agamanolis and Matthew Karau. [Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure]

For When Absence Becomes Presence, the next installment of the WPA’s Experimental Media Series, curators Sonja Simonyi and Niels Van Tomme have organized an exhibition of international sound and video art at the WPA’s new headquarters. Dealing with issues of memory, meaning and representation, the exhibition is a play between two separate, but inherently linked conditions: absence and presence. Both states can be mediated through representations in images and sound; what is absent can become present and presence can be experienced through the realization that something is not there.

“We have known at least since Magritte that when we look at an image of a pipe, we are regarding not a real pipe but one that has been re-presented. The pipe as such isn’t there, it isn’t present; instead, it is depicted as being absent.” - Boris Groys

For a screening accompanying this exhibition, the curators are calling all video and sound artists to submit works that explore these notions in innovative ways. A selection of the received video and sound works will be presented along with works from the show on December 4, 2008 in the framework of a public screening. Selected artists will be notified during the last week of October. Additionally, two artists submitting the most compelling entries, as reviewed by the curators and based on overall quality and innovation, will be awarded the Kraft Prize for New Media of $750 and the WPA Experimental Media Prize of $750 on the night of the event. Please note that the WPA Prize will go to an artist living and working in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Sonja Simonyi is a film researcher, currently pursuing a PhD in Cinema Studies at NYU. Previously, she has worked at the National Gallery of Art’s film department where she organized the film series Modernity and Tradition: Film in Interwar Central Europe, which traveled to the Guggenheim Museum in New York, among other venues.

Niels Van Tomme is a curator and researcher. His exhibitions and screenings are shown internationally and investigate the sociopolitical aspects of contemporary audiovisual culture. Since fall 2007, he is the Curator and Director of Arts and Media at Provisions Library in Washington, DC.

DOWNLOAD FULL CALL FOR ENTRIES AND ENTRY FORM HERE: For more information please call the WPA office at (+1) 202.234.7103.

Susan Elizabeth Ryan, What is Wearable Technology Art? Susan Ryan proposes that wearable technology projects contribute to a history of projects that might not seem to be linked together or thought of as part of a cohesive practice.

Patrick Lichty, Building a Culture of Ubiquity - Patrick Lichty’s presentation, originally given at the Emotional Architectures summit at the Banff New Media Institute in 2000, illustrates changes in the culture of ubiquity that is based on the proliferation of (mobile information devices) and discusses the impact of wearable computing on the relationships between body and space.

Susan Elizabeth Ryan, Dress For Stress: Wearable Technology and the Social Body - Susan Ryan considers the work of artists, designers, and activists who, since the 1990s, have worked with clothing as survival mechanism and social tool — a “body of records” of technological, biological, and performable wearables that are vehicles for ideas and collective experience.

Susan Elizabeth Ryan, A Virtual Interview with Geert Lovink - Susan Ryan discusses communication- oriented wearable technology with media theorist, critic, and activist Geert Lovink who teaches at the Institute for Networked Cultures, University of Amsterdam.

Laura Beloff, The Curious Apparel: Wearables and The Hybronaut - Laura Beloff investigates wearable artistic experiments that explore concepts related to ubiquitous computing and to the merger of virtual and physical space in a hybrid space. In her research, she introduces the figure of the Hybronaut, a person coupled with a wearable device, who exists in hybrid space.

Daniela Kostova and Olivia Robinson, Negotiations - Negotiations by Daniela Kostova and Olivia Robinson, an interactive performance system consisting of two connected costumes, explores issues of cross-cultural communication using readily available digital effects and surveillance technologies.

Anne-Marie Skriver Hansen, The Body-as-Interface: A possibility to merge mind spaces with hybrids of physical and virtual worlds The essay proposes a set of ideas behind physical interfaces that provide us with the ability to express abstract concepts in the hybrid of virtual and physical worlds. It considers the types of communication that may arise as a result from the linking of body and mind, and it debates the use of stimulus in the communication with other people and our surroundings.

Sarah Kettley, Crafting the Wearable Computer - Sarah Kettley outlines a novel methodology for the development of computational wearable artefacts as everyday sites for authentic engagement. This methodology comprises a set of preliminary protocols for craft in design, a novel approach to the identification of distributed user groups, and a new method for the evaluation of wearable artefacts.

intelligent agent is a service organization and information provider dedicated to interpreting and promoting art that uses digital technologies for production and presentation.

Editor-in-Chief: Patrick Lichty
Director: Christiane Paul

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeuMlGq3X-M

Lumens — by Matthew Belanger, Sean Riley, and Ven Voisey — is an installation of lamps networked across three spaces: Greylock Arts (Adams, MA), MCLA Gallery51 Annex (North Adams, MA), and Turbulence.org. Scores of lamps have been borrowed from the residents of Adams and North Adams to fill the two gallery spaces. Their images and stories are represented on Turbulence.org, which also serves to connect the two locations telematically. The lamps — which have been outfitted with proximity sensors and arduino microcontrollers — light up in response to a visitor’s presence and simultaneously illuminate lamps in the counterpart spaces. Thus, an individual in Adams can communicate his/her presence to an individual in North Adams, and vice versa. Additionally, as visitors investigate the history of a particular lamp online, the lamp will light in the physical gallery space. Lumens re-connects North Adams and Adams — originally a single community. Lumens is a project of Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses.

A project of Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses, Lumens is an installation of lamps networked across three spaces: Greylock Arts, MCLA Gallery 51, and Turbulence.org. Scores of personal lamps that usually inhabit and illuminate the interiors of homes and shops have been borrowed from the residents of Adams and North Adams, Massachusetts, filling two gallery spaces: Greylock Arts in Adams and MCLA Gallery 51 Annex in North Adams. In addition, their images and stories are represented on turbulence.org, which also serves to connect the two locations telematically.

Clusters of lamps have been outfitted with proximity sensors and arduino microcontrollers. Lamps illuminate in response to a visitor’s presence and simultaneously illuminate lamps in the counterpart spaces. Thus, an individual in Adams can communicate his/her presence to an individual in North Adams, and vice versa. Additionally, as visitors investigate the history of a particular lamp online it will also illuminate in the physical gallery space.

Lumens (re)connects North Adams and Adams — originally a single community — through an exploration of location, influence, history, and the present.

Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses is a collaboration of Greylock Arts, MCLA Gallery 51, and Turbulence. Lumens has been made possible through the generous support of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the LEF Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Physical interaction consultant Tom Igoe.
Special thanks to: Larry Alice, Michael Chapman, Abbi Hermosa.

Two seemingly unconnected copper plates in two different locations. When a someone places a hand on the first plate, the second will begin to warm up.

The Association of Lebanese Artists presents Lebanon Now, the art exhibition of the new media. Sponsored by USAID, this exhibition shows works done with the latest technological means. These works question Lebanon today, which is more disconcerting and intriguing than ever. The artists experiment with the binary code and look at Information and Communication Technology from a new perspective. There is no doubt that the sociocultural and the sociopolitical are featured. The artists « tell » their Lebanon through the elements of their numerical world, i.e. images, sound, and words. This event transposes the observer (turned into user) into a new esthetic experiment. It is the long-awaited occasion both by the artists and an art (and technology)-loving public to experience together a form of contemporary art involving not only the observer but also an important team of scientists and computer engineers without whom the new media art would simply be disembodied.

The participating artists:

Message not delivered by Jean-Louis Eddé and Hayla Saab Demelero

Through their « Message not delivered », the two artists build a representation of themselves in society, where elements from their respective lives in relation with their real-life experiences are featured. They deal with the issues of immigration and long-distance relationships through a telepresence system.

6 O’clock by Charbel Haber and Yara Raffoul

The work of these two artists is defined as a leisurely walk that can be perceived in two manners. On the one hand it is a graphic and visual stroll accompanied by music, noises, and sound patches. This same road can also be perceived in the opposite direction: it is the graphic that represents the music. This walk remains a free walk of traditional page layout, proportion, typography, and even readability.

How he lost his right hand finger by Mansour El-Habre

Mansour El-Habre presents a website where the user browses around and collects elements aiming to answer the question: « What did he do to lose his right hand middle finger as a child? ». The reply is attained through a labyrinthine navigation that puts the user in front of numerous disturbing possibilities that question the reality of the civil war of 1975.

Lebanon everywhere by Rabih Khalil

The artist presents a Search Engine under the name “Lebanon everywhere”. It is a letter collector that searches exclusively for the letters composing the word “Lebanon”. In any text appearing on any website, the letters that constitute the word “Lebanon” are automatically selected, reassembled, and displayed.

Digital visuals from Lebanon by Ricardo Mbarkho

Ricardo Mbarkho presents « Digital visuals from Lebanon », a series of digital images printed on large format photo papers based on the numerous agreements signed by the Lebanese State since the independence of Lebanon. In order to obtain these images, the artist made the computer “believe” that the files containing the texts of these agreements are image files. The computer calculated the binary code of each text file and generated the corresponding image. The series comprises images of binary codes of texts such as: the Doha agreement, the Taef accord, the Lebanon-Syria Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination, the tripartite agreement, the Cairo agreement, the national pact, the Lebanese constitution, as well as the word « Lebanon » itself.

Dialogue by Nadia Oufrid

Nadia Oufrid presents an online play entitled « Dialogue ». Once the user is connected to the project’s website, he is greeted by two virtual actors on a virtual stage. They recite texts taken from two URL addresses randomly selected by the system. The user can change the URL addresses to his liking and therefore change the dialogue of the actors, as by drawing from various Lebanese sites (political, artistic, or other). The various emotions that characterize the lines are rendered by the tone of the voice, the noises, and the music.

Construct Lebanon by Shawki Youssef

Shawki Youssef’s project is an online game on the possibilities of a potential « construction » of Lebanon, based on the daily political speeches. The screen displays the pieces of a puzzle that constitutes the map of Lebanon. The player has to manually assemble the pieces, but his success depends on the choice of the “words” of politicians that are published in newspapers. Some “words” might lead the player to victory and end the game whereas others would lead to a higher difficulty level and thus extend the game’s duration.

The project explores the notion of flow. Rather than fixing the digital in a responsive relationship to the user, where every call defines a reply, Slow Furl finds its temporality outside the immediately animate. The thick skin envelops the space in a deep furl. Like a glacier, this robotic membrane, is formed by its slow action, reacting imperceptibly to its inhabitation.

Slow Furl is playful environment that engages the physical presence of its guests. Users are invited to touch, to sit, or lie within its soft skins. As they do they feel the slow pulse of it’s movements. As a landscape, a cloud formation or an ice wall, it forms and reforms around the body of its user. Slow Furl is the making of a cybernetic environment that holds its own patterns of action and reaction. Conceived as an organism of interacting subsystems, the architecture holds an own motility, an own language of movements that defines its behavioural patterning. The skin clads a dynamic armature creating the possibility for movement. The armature is understood as a distributed computational system where separate parts hold their own potential for actuation. Each arm is controlled by a stand alone micro-controller that activates its mechanical movements. The skin acts as a unifier. Cladding the whole of the surface, the skin joins the movement of the individual arms into one fluid surface.

The skin also acts as a sensory system. Active patches are embroidered into the skin. These patches act on touch. As the skin moves, it activates the micro-controller. The simple shift between self activation (through the movement cycles of the armature) and interaction (through touch and movement of the users) allows the organism to engage an inherent indeterminacy. The architecture is behavioural rather than interactive, motile rather than animate.

Slow Furl has received funding from the Arts Council England, Lighthouse (Brighton) and RIBA (Sussex Branch). INTERArChTIVE is a consortium of Lighthouse (Brighton), Architecture Centre Network, interactivearchitecture.org and RIBA (Sussex branch). [via Interactive Architecture dot org]

Improbable Architectures deals with Second Life as a space without parallel in the material world. It is a project developed by Noema Gallery team for the exhibition Memory of the Future, produced by Itaú Cultural. In different terrains, we build improbable architectures: in suspension, transparent, without columns, using only liquid and aerial sources to compose original forms which allow to anyone to navigate in its interior and exterior spaces, crossing its walls and merging with its structures. We depart from Otto Rössler concepts about endofisics, and its unfoldings in the Chaos Theory, in order to produce a space that challenges our perception and react to the interacter’s presence, being reformatted and mutating by its guests.

Improbable Architectures is a project by Giselle Beiguelman and Vera Bighetti, with Juliana Constantino and Lalai Santos. Visit Improbable Architectures in Second Life.