Threatbox.us by Marie Sester :: November 17, 2007 - January 13, 2008 :: Fargfabriken, Laboratory of the Contemporary, Stockholm, Sweden.

Threatbox.us is an art installation with web surveillance interface in which a movie frame “attacks” visitors via a robotic video projector and computer vision tracking system. The beam of light that technologies of vision cast upon the world is also always the line of sight for a weapon with which to destroy what the beam presents as its ‘objective’ — its target. The moving projection becomes an aggressor. The merging of these technologies of vision and of destruction result in our “military-entertainment” industry. Threatbox.us seeks to question the ideological onslaught of American military-entertainment politics. Continue reading

Fastforward on New Media Art: Robots - with France Cadet / Christian Faubel / Pascal Glissmann e Martina Hofflin / Ken Goldberg / Leonel Moura / Kenneth Rinaldo / Robotlab :: curated by Laura Bardier :: November 8 - December 3, 2007 :: Palazzo delle Arti Napoli [PAN], Via dei Mille 60, 80122 Napoli.

A recurring image in contemporary society is the growing speed of digital information. Technology evolves and absorbs information at a dizzying speed, whereby knowledge is transmitted to intelligent machines in a process which seems to be leading us towards a post-human hybrid state. The exponential evolution of information technologies may produce the means by which artists will be able to create beyond their own vision and knowledge. Continue reading

TECHNARTE :: April 24-25, 2008 :: Bilbao, Spain :: Call for Papers :: Papers can be sent by Internet through this web page or by e-mail to technarte [at] technarte.org before January 14, 2008.

TECHNARTE is an international conference on art and technology that seeks to become the most important event of its kind. The aims are to present technological developments that enhance a broader expression of modern art, and to provide a forum for debate and reflection on the convergence between technology and art. Modern art, stimulated and encouraged by new technologies and its own impetus for innovation, is advancing in a surprising manner. Continue reading

Upgrade! Scotland: ~ in the fields’ ima flue (k) – Hybrid Lifeforms :: October 31, 2007; 5.30 -7.30 pm :: Dundee Contemporary Arts, 152 Nethergate, Dundee.

~ in the fields, Nicole Heidtke and Stefan Baumberger, is a partnership based in interdisciplinay practice combining “art with science, philosophy with poetry and virtual with real architecture”. ~ in the fields have produced installations which collide research into natural phenomena, such as the growth of plants and organisms, with computer aided installations. One example: Continue reading

[Image: Eric Paulos’ Personal Roving Presence] “And so talking about “presence” lets us transform the question from “Must we keep moving?” to “can we make moving part of a much larger set of tools, choices that we have for projecting presence?” Or alternately, “how can we combine moving with other things to move less?”

So if you can, imagine a spectrum: one end where we’re constantly engaged in high-energy intensity mobility like airplanes, the other end where we’re locked in our bedrooms playing World of Warcraft. Its in this spectrum where we can create interesting combinations, leverage telecommunications technology to alter the way we move, that help us live our lives more sustainably. As a designer, imagine a dial that we can use to move along that spectrum - as we dial down movement, we dial up telepresence - but never fully substituting one for the other. Continue reading

19th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre: Drama, Performance and Digital Multimedia (September 2007); with Antonio Pizzo, Josephine Anstey, Christina Finger, Vincenzo Lombardo, and Emanuele Quinz.

Introduction to Drama and Artificial Intelligence by Antonio Pizzo, University of Turin, CIRMA - This round table has been designed to provide a broad approach to the use of digital technology in theatre and performing arts. The issue about the relation between theatre, performance and new media, has been arisen since the Eighties, when contemporary dance started to introduce robots and electronics on stage, or when fringe theatre investigates the relation between live event and TV camera and monitors. Since then, much has been written about it, so that it is now possible to follow different approaches to the question. Continue reading

Art Machines Machine Art :: October 18, 2007 - January 27, 2008 :: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Romerberg, D-60311 Frankfurt :: March 5 - June 29, 2008 @ Museum Tinguely, Basel.

We generally assume that artists make art. But what happens when machines produce art? Do artists then become engineers? What does the artist’s apparent withdrawal from the creative act signify, and what are the consequences of that action for the originality and uniqueness of the artwork? What is then the work of art: the machine, the product, or the act of producing it? Beginning with Jean Tinguely’s drawing machines from the 1950s and continuing to the present, this exhibition, jointly conceived by the Schirn and the Museum Tinguely in Basel, features art machines that have one thing in common: they produce art themselves. Continue reading

Angelo Vermeulen is currently in residency at the Aesthetic Technologies Lab in Athens, Ohio to work on his latest project. Biomodd brings together ecology, game culture and installation art. Inspired by the case modding scene, a custom computer is built as a form of expanded sculpture. Inside the case, excess heat of over-clocked processors is recycled by an elaborate living ecosystem. The computer hardware is used as server for a new computer game. The objective of this game is to bring some of the main themes of Biomodd into an imaginative multiplayer game experience. Continue reading

This summer we began work on the third of three autonomous entities we’ve been developing with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and Renew Media. It’s an “unmanned surface vehicle,” or water robot, made for protests on or near aqueous points of interest . Of course, it’s too dangerous for people to do such protests, so we need robots.

It’s early days on the project, which is essentially control systems, power, and software to convert a commercially available $400 kayak. We are hoping for DIY imitations, and encouraging other technologists to get involved, as our resources are pretty limited. If you’re thinking about joining the effort, let me just assure you that nothing makes your month like building a robot kayak that demands the restoration of habeas corpus. Continue reading

Inflatable Architectural Body + Totemobile by Chico MacMurtrie / Amorphic Robot Works :: October 18 - December 1, 2007 :: Opening : October 18, 6-8 pm :: Andrew Edlin Gallery / AE S P A C E, 529 West 20th Street, 6th Floor, New York.

Gallery: A site-specific installation by Chico MacMurtrie, Inflatable Architectural Body is an interactive architectural sculpture. This new work highlights the artist’s fascination with the connections between man, machine, and architecture. Here the onlooker’s movements determine the sculpture’s size, height, speed and variety of motions, making manifest humanity’s interconnectedness with the environment. Continue reading