eteam

Second Life Dumpster, eteam, 2007-2008

Marisa Olson recently interviewed eteam for Rhizome. The interview is here. From her introduction:

eteam is the New York-based duo of German artists Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger. In 2008 they received a Rhizome Commission for their Second Life Dumpster project in which the levels of consumption and disposal typically occurring blindly in the virtual world are manifest in the form of an ever-evolving garbage heap composed of deleted items tagged with a decay script by the artists. This exploration of the social life of spaces and systemic behavior within them is an interesting follow-up to their incredibly ambitious International Airport Montello project in which, after purchasing a piece of land in rural Nevada on eBay for the sum of US$1, they created an airport employing locals -- which they call "an impossible machine, which is perpetually in motion and sometimes on strike." Despite flying a handful of art world insiders there (putting commissioning organization Art in General's curators to work as flight attendants), eteam worked to underscore Montello's outsider status. The contested frontier between the so-called real world and spaces and cultures operating at the edges of constructed reality provided a nice point of comparison between Second Life Dumpster and International Airport Montello in this interview with the artists. - Marisa Olson

"Untethered" at Eyebeam

The Untethered show at Eyebeam ended on October 25th, but you can still see a nice round-up it at wmmna.

Dead Star, Michel de Broin, 2008

Buttons, Sascha Pohflepp, 2006

Buttons is a camera without optical parts. When the camera’s button is pressed, the camera does not record an image, instead it records the time. It then wirelessly searches the Internet for photographs that were taken by someone else at the very moment of the button press. Pohflepp says:

After a few minutes or hours, depending on how soon someone else shares their photo on the web, an image will appear on the [camera’s] screen... In a way, it belongs half to the person who had pressed the button and still remembers that moment. Because of that connection, the photos are never dismissed as random, no matter how enigmatic they may be.

Blendie, Kelly Dobson, 2003-2004

From Dobson's statement on Blendie:

Blendie is an interactive, sensitive, intelligent, voice controlled blender with a mind of its own. Materials are a 1950's Osterizer blender altered with custom made hardware and software for sound analysis and motor control.

People induce the blender to spin by sounding the sounds of its motor in action. A person may growl low pitch blender-like sounds to get it to spin slow (Blendie pitch and power matches the person) and the person can growl blender-style at higher pitches to speed up Blendie. The experience for the participant is to speak the language of the machine and thus to more deeply understand and connect with the machine. The action may also bring about personal revelations in the participant. The participant empathizes with Blendie and in this new approach to a domestic appliance, a conscious and personally meaningful relationship is facilitated.

Steamboat Ed's calliope

Steamboat Ed left this comment on my post about my vocoder project:

Ha! Interesting timing! Got a Stamp-controlled mini calliope working today; only took a year to get the bugs out, hehe. I suspect it'll take another year to make it as elegant as your slide whistle tho... ;-)

Below is his calliope project... I like his use of sprinkler parts for controlling airflow.

Telephone games

I've always loved the telephone game (and I'm currently working on a telephone-game-like project). Incidentally, the preceding Wikipedia link goes to an article called "Chinese Whispers," which unfortunately seems to be the British Commonwealth's more-or-less derogatory name for the game.

Yuko Mohri's Taiwa-Hensokuki (2006-08), above, is a computer speech-to-text/text-to-speech loop that continually degrades over time. One computer transcribes the other computer reading aloud text, and then the computers swap roles and the transcribed text is read aloud with the other computer now in the role of transcriptor. The result is printed out in real-time on a nearby printer to keep a record of the conversation


Jürg Lehni's Apple Talk (2007), below, seems to be a remake of his earlier Analog Information (2002). Very much like Mohri's work, Lehni's has two computers speaking back-and-forth so that information slowly corrupts.


[via Make]

Heidi Kumao redux

I'm fighting a nasty cold, so just a quick post today.

We Make Money Not Art has a nice interview with Heidi Kumao (who I recently posted about).

Study for a Vocoder

I recently concluded a residency at LEMUR with a performance Study for a Vocoder. For quite a while I've been wanting to build a few vocoder-like sculptures/musical-instruments... and this is the first step towards the first of them.

It's built out of a ink-jet printer and a slide-whistle. It replicates whatever sounds are spoken/sung into a microphone. It can also play pre-recorded music ala a player piano. Its main short coming is being a bit slow in changing notes, but a more powerful stepper motor should help improve its response time.

Prodigies versus late-bloomers

The current New Yorker has a fascinating article by Malcolm Gladwell that breaks creativity into two types: conceptual & experiential.

Prodigies--people like Mozart, Picasso, and Orson Welles--seem to arrive fully formed and able to produce groundbreaking work effortlessly. The do their best work when they are young. In comparison are folks who struggle to reach their potential and only achieve it relatively late in life: Cezanne is the poster child for this.

The idea is that experiential artists (such as Cezanne) have to work through things via trial & error, whereas conceptual artists (Picasso) simply conceive of the idea in a flash of inspiration.

The article left me wondering whether the resulting art is characteristically different. Are the experiential artists doing richer more complicated work? Is the designation of "conceptual" intended to mean that the prodigies tend to do more conceptual work (i.e., more concerned with intellectual ideas rather than aesthetic ones?)? Or are the artists taking different paths, but are arriving at the same destination?

If there is a connection between a conceptual-bent and artists who are a their peak early in their life, it may be one reason why the contemporary art world has a reputation for favoring artists who are under 30 years old.

Subway kinetics

The details about this sculpture aren't available... It appears to be by Mudlevel and to take place in a German-speaking country. I love how it uses the transportation systems for power and its organ-grinder look.

[via Make]

"Oblique Strategies" on the iPhone

An Oblique Strategies deck is now available (for free) on the iPhone. Oblique Strategies (subtitled "over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas") is a deck of cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. It was first published in 1975 (the deck is now in the fifth edition).

Each card contains a phrase or cryptic suggestion that can be used to break a creative block. You draw a card and follow the strategy blindly by applying it obliquely to your problem:

Twist the spine
Emphasize differences
Change instrument roles

From The Oblique Strategies Web Site:

The deck itself had its origins in the discovery by Brian Eno that both he and his friend Peter Schmidt (a British painter whose works grace the cover of "Evening Star" and whose watercolours decorated the back LP cover of Eno's "Before and After Science" and also appeared as full-size prints in a small number of the original releases) tended to keep a set of basic working principles which guided them through the kinds of moments of pressure - either working through a heavy painting session or watching the clock tick while you're running up a big buck studio bill. Both Schmidt and Eno realized that the pressures of time tended to steer them away from the ways of thinking they found most productive when the pressure was off. The Strategies were, then, a way to remind themselves of those habits of thinking - to jog the mind.

On iTunes some of the comments regarding Oblique Strategies complain about the deck not being randomized. That issue seems to have been addressed. However, a nice future feature would be to randomize the deck based on the user shaking the iPhone (as suggested in several of the comments).

Related posts: 100 Acorns, Assignment Art

[via Make]

Heidi Kumao: Misbehaving

I recently came across Heidi Kumao's very interesting (and poetic) kinetic and cinematic machines. From Kumao's Misbehaving: Media Machines Act Out, 2002-2008 statement:

Misbehaving is a series of three female "performers" for intimate installations. In each tableau, a hybrid machine "being" performs: a kinetic, electronically controlled machine speaks with a visual voice of erratic physical gestures and video imagery. As a combination of performance and robotics, they represent girls and women who disobey or resist expectations. Unlike machines designed for perfect job performance, these machines will declare their fallibility, impatience, approval, and disapproval through small gestural acts and embedded video sequences. In contrast to the precise technique and tireless efforts of a robot that plays chess or constructs automobiles, my robotic performers "act out" and misbehave. In these tableaus of protest and transformation, the machine is spirited, emotional, thoughtful, yet irregular.

From Kumao's website:


Translator, 2008, Heidi Kumao
Aluminum legs, plastic bowl, half-scale chairs with video projector heads, wooden table, parts from garage door opener and bicycles, 82 x 168 x 36 inches.

Viewers hand-crank a garage door opener to move the girl between opposing armchairs that have video projector heads. As she moves from one projector to the other, two different sets of imagery appear on her bowl-shaped torso. Like a child caught between two feuding parents, a political mediator, or a mind that alternates between two thoughts, the body of the "translator" switches identities from chair to chair. On one side, the "go-between" unzips her clothes to reveal herself, and on the other side, she closes her torso to conceal whatever information might have been visible.

Resist, 2002-2004, Heidi Kumao
Girl's shoes, aluminum, motors, customized electronics, microphone, wood and plexiglass platform.

A machine portrait: audio-activated 6-year-old girl's legs. As viewers speak to this character, the legs begin a series of random behaviors from imperceptible movement to violent and fast kicking. Her actions leave permanent marks on the floor.

See more work by Kumao

I'm performing tonight at LEMUR

I've spent the last four weeks as a resident at LEMUR (the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots). It's been a great experience! LEMUR's own work is very inspiring and having a residency (and access to LEMUR's tools) was very motivating.

I spent my residency building a study for an interactive sculpture I've been wanting to make. The eventual sculpture is intended to work like a vocoder.

I'm pretty pleased with the prototype... it's a slide whistle which replicates whatever sounds are spoken/sung into a microphone. It can also play pre-recorded music ala a player piano. It's main short coming is being a bit slow in changing notes, but a more powerful stepper motor should help improve it's response time.

Here are some quick snapshots of the Study for Vocoder. I'll try to post a video of it in action before too long. Or if you're in NYC and free tonight (Thursday Oct 9, 2008), you can see it in action at a performance by the LEMUR residents. It starts at 8pm and should be fun. I heard fellow-resident Adam Matta (warning, his website automatically plays sound) rehearse last night and he sounded great! Details about the performance here.




related post: Vocoders

Opportunity: write for "Networked"

Yesterday I received this announcement from the great folks at Turbulence:

Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)
A Juried International Competition
Call for Proposals

Deadline: December 15, 2008
http://turbulence.org/networked

Five writers will be commissioned to develop chapters for a networked book about networked art. The chapters will be open for revision, commentary, and translation by online collaborators. Each commissioned writer will receive $3,000 (US).

Networked Committee:
Steve Dietz (Northern Lights, MN) :: Martha CC Gabriel (net artist, Brazil) :: Geert Lovink (Institute for Network Cultures, The Netherlands) :: Nick Montfort (Massachusetts Institute for Technology, MA) :: Anne Bray (LA Freewaves, LA) :: Sean Dockray (Telic Arts Exchange, LA) :: Jo-Anne Green (NRPA, MA) :: Eduardo Navas (newmediaFIX) :: Helen Thorington (NRPA, NY)

Networked Partners:
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA) :: newmediaFIX :: LA Freewaves :: Telic Arts Exchange

"A networked book is an open book designed to be written, edited and read in a networked environment." - Institute for the Future of the Book

Networked Goals:

1. To commission five chapters and publish them online using Wiki/blog technology to enable the public to revise, update, debate and translate them
2. To present public forums to publicize the online book and solicit participation in its development.

Networked Objectives:
:: To develop and publish an online, trans-disciplinary book that will address recent artistic developments made possible by computers, networks, and mobile connectivity

:::: To present the book in an open, participatory and social form

:::::: To document:

:::::::::: the collapse of the traditional distinction between artist, art work and audience

:::::::::: the shaping of creative practice that is open, contingent and participatory

:::::::::: the building of virtual communities which, in the words of Howard Rheingold, "becomes inevitable wherever computer mediated communications technology becomes available to people anywhere." (The Virtual Community, 1993)


We invite contributions that critically and creatively rethink how networked art is categorized, analyzed, legitimized -- and by whom -- as norms of authority, trust, authenticity and legitimacy evolve.

"Networked" proposes that a history or critique of interactive and/or participatory art must itself be interactive and/or participatory; that the technologies used to create a work suggest new forms a "book" might take.

We hope to spark a conversation between researchers and practitioners, curators, artists, and academics in the fields of art (music, sound, dance, e-lit, visual art), architecture, convergence, mapping, urbanism, games, sociology, visualization, cultural studies, and environmental studies.

In keeping with the transdisciplinary nature of the book, authors may consider, but are by no means limited to, themes such as:

:: cyberspace and identity

:: ubiquitous computing - surveillance, politics, and privacy

:: avatars, wearables, bioart and embodiment

:: collective storytelling, audio narratives and sound art

:: virtual worlds, mixed realities

:: locative media - place, mobility, augmented reality

:: massively multiplayer online games - networked play

:: responsive architecture and relational environments

:: social networks

:: nomadism, psychogeography, and the city

:: tactical media - performance, agency and activism

:: open source and crowdsourcing

:: Originality, copies, remix, mashup

All papers will be reviewed by our international committee.

Commissioned chapters, as well as contributions by collaborators, will be subject to the Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0/Unported: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Once the chapters are published online, registered users will be able to revise, add to, and translate the existing texts. There is no end date for the project. When "Networked" has attracted substantive participation, we will consider publishing a print version of the project, which may itself be updated over time.


GUIDELINES:

Submissions must be based on original, unpublished research. They should include:

1. Name, address, URL, email and one page CV of author.

2. A 1000 word proposal that should be accompanied by an abstract of no more than 250 words and a list of keywords to indicate the subject area of the chapter. [Each of the commissioned chapters will contain text, images, videos, and/or audio.]

3. Three networked writing samples. Samples may include a blog entry, a Wikipedia article the applicant worked on extensively, or samples from any other participatory project (send URLs).

Acceptable Submission Formats: Either a web page (send url in an email) or a single text document (send as an email attachment)

Final chapters must be no less than 5,000 words.

Submissions and Questions should be sent to: jo at turbulence dot org


IMPORTANT DATES

Deadline for Proposals: December 15, 2008
Notification: January 31, 2009
Deadline for Complete Chapters: April 30, 2009
Online Publication Date: July 1, 2009

Join our Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=82123410550

Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photographers' movies lists

Untitled, Winter 2005 by Gregory Crewdson (left)
and a scene from Alfred Hitchock's Vertigo (right)

Film In Focus has an ongoing series which lists various luminaries' favorite 5 films.

Their set of photographer lists includes Gregory Crewdson, who's work often looks very much like a single frame of major motion picture. Crewdson's list of movies that influenced him the most includes Blue Velvet (which somehow I would have guessed) and Vertigo.

More Crewdson:






[via Modern Art Notes]

Roman Haefeli's "Solenoid Concert"

A nice little musical installation by Roman Haefeli using solenoids what looks to be Pure Data or Max programming language.

It reminds me a bit of David Byrne's Playing the Building and the work of League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR). Incidentally, I'm just finishing up a residency at LEMUR and will be wrapping it up with a performance at 8pm on Thursday October 9th.

[via Boing Boing]

Related:
More Songs About Buildings

Credits Neverending

Li Xin and Eirik Fatland's Credit Neverending (2006) is a television show that has been repeatedly broadcast on Finish televsion. From Fatland's site:

You turn on the TV set. What appears is a list of credits, indicating that some movie or show has just ended. But as you wait, the credits keep on scrolling. And scrolling. And scrolling... If you read them, you notice that some of the names and titles make little sense. And if you read them carefully, you eventually find the URL of a website, where you may add your own credits to the list.

Having been an undergrad film production student, I've seen many student films where the credits were longer than the film with the auteurs crediting themselves in every possible way using lingering text.

So this project had me at neverending credits. Perhaps I'm jaded, but the interactive aspect of it doesn't really do anything for me. I'd actually prefer it if it created it own truly never ending credits by seeking out peoples' names from the internet.

By the way, Eirik has an interesting formatted, data visualization-esque CV... though I'm not 100% sure what light green is intended to represent (perhaps it simply that the work experience is in alternating shades of green? blue, I gather, is education). A legend might be a good addition.

[via John Michael Boling on Make]