Disturbed City #3

to follow the detailed working process visit the disturbedcityblog

Disturbed City #2

Documentation and city sample collection:

Disturbed City Proposal

Group: Mattia, Michael, Olga

Project Outline:

„For more than a century, the very centre of Brussels has been the concrete subject (and victim according to many) of radical architectural and urban speculation. Regardless of the success or failure of these grand projects, we cannot negate the concrete impact of a bold believe in modernity and progress in the city of Brussels. Among the many speculations and built ideas the 'Jonction Nord-Midi' can rightly be named the project of the century. The construction of the underground connection between the former northern and southern terminal railway stations through the historical pentagon is the project that best symbolizes the early ambitions of Belgium as a nation-state. The supposedly 'derelict' medieval quarters on the trajectory have been demolished to allow a dramatic modernization of the city centre.“ (from Brussels, A Manifesto – Towards the Capital of Europe)

Taking a closer look onto the 'Scar' dividing the upper from the lower city one finds besides the monumental building projects a series of 'urban leftovers'. Fragments of demolished houses on the edge of the erased strip forming 'odd lots' - lacking use and being the by-product of a greater plan; The train stations between Central - Nord (Congress) and Central – Midi (Chapel) with hardly any passenger frequencies and trains stopping (Congress and Chapel stations are served by a limited number of trains during weekday working hours only); Crossings of the rail-tracks managed by tunnels for cars and pedestrians as well as connections between the upper and the lower city in form of stairways bypassing the height-distinction generated through the rail-road tunnels. Several “walks” along the trajectory led to a documentation of typologies of those 2nd rate places and are presented in a catalogue featuring a series of potential “stages” for urban interventions.

The sometimes very odd spatial configurations, their surreality and interruption of the common image of the city structure serve as content and basis for our appropriations. City lightening in the common sense follows mainly commercial, touristic or safety reasons and stages architectural icons. The night and it`s natural darkness puts certain elements of the nocturnal city into oblivion, disappearing in our collective memory. A series of interventions along brussels 'scar' is approaching those second-rate places within the centre of our cities in a new light and treats them as “disturbed” architectural monuments telling us from their past and possible future. A mobile projection unit serves as portable instrument for staging public space. The documentation of the 'urban acts' will be presented as an audiovisual feature video with a soundtrack by element012 (stubenmusicstudio.com) alongside a project booklet with maps and photographs. A further development wants to replace the projection mobile with site specific light artefacts. Self sustaining and fixed on location switching themselves on at a certain time and producing an obscure lightening scenario within the everyday perception of the city-night.


"Destruction as Urban Spectacle", Brussels, 1938 (close to Kapellekerk)

Ambra,

We talked before about Berlin and I am still thinking on planning to study there for a while.Can you recommand me some ateliers and maybe places to stay?

I was thinking to go for 6months.Around november..

Hope to hear from you soon

CIMATICS\08AV\FESTIVAL: Call for Proposals

Hi everyone... I have something that might interest you! (and it would be wonderful if you could spread the news)...the:

CIMATICS\08AV\FESTIVAL:
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The call for submissions is now open!
Cimatics - Brussels International Festival for Live Audiovisual Art & VJing - invites all artists, creatives and producers to send their submissions for the next Cimatics festival.

Cimatics\08AV\Festival takes place from 12th - 15th November 2008
at various locations in the centre of Brussels.

The 6th festival edition will again bring an extensive overview of what's currently taking place at the crossroads of media, art, music and technology. Extra attention will be paid to the central theme 'data visualisation'.

Deadline for submissions: July 31st 2008.

For all information or to submit your project online, go to: cimatics.com/entries

oeps 1tje teveel en zonder geluid

Pictures of an installation using the sound of crickets 

The work evolved from an idea ,more a wondering about the presents of sound in an image It is something I never payed a lot of attention on. And even if I did it always turned out in a dillema between using a composed or original sound.

The proces turned out in doiing the oposite by creating something based on a sound. Sow that the sound can form the image.  

ya, just nodiced u don't see some things on the video.. There's also a black line wich is continuously drawing horizons.. I'll try to git it fixed! bye

one last experiment.

just one more experiment I did.. Don't know what happened with the quality but I post it anyway. Me and Sarah will post more serious stuff in august en july.. Hope to still meet you all on the blog. Regards, kristof

16mm loops and loopboxes

hi!! gabriel asked about 16mm loops, so here's some info for all:

last summer i did an installation with 4 meter long 16mm loops

it's called "spinners" and you can see a short clip here: 

http://www.youtube.com/user/endlesswebsite

for longer loop projection there is something as a loopbox

it's just 2 custom made spinning discs that you put on top of your projector and let the film go through as a spiral. 

the end of the spiral comes from the exit of your projector and the midst of the spiral goes to the beginning of your projector. 

the longest one i did with it was about 6 minutes. but everything depends on how smooth the wheels of your loopbox turn (often these are wheels of an old 16mm editing table or projector)

at the bottom of this link there's 2 clips as an example of the loop boxes:

http://www.supersens.nl/index.html?/supersens/paginas/projektie.html@theanchor~sensmain

you can rent it in holland for 25 euro's per week:

http://www.super8.nl/frame_prijs_huursub.htm

also: check out the archives of the experimental film email list "frameworks".

http://www.hi-beam.net/fw.html

reflections...

Further development of the idea working with mirrored (half)spheres and producing a negotiation with light between screen and space incorporates a first application in a live performance setup, the development of modular "screen objects" and a modular software patch.



The improvised live performance took place in a patio (outdoors) with a serial pattern of 8 mirrored half-spheres mounted on a concrete wall. Sound samples of Wieland Samolaks "steady state music" where transformed according to the material the light patterns where facing.







The modular Panels consist out of a set of half spheres (3x3 or 3x1) and allow different setups according to a spatial environment. To achieve an satisfying result the environment should be as dark as possible and the projection distance adapted to the light-intensity of the projector(s)...

Quotes (Michael)

Pop(ular) Culture:
"Popular Culture works in the spaces in-between our controlled society - is by definition defensive, denies the control of social order - plays with it, but is always prepared for a guerilla action, for a play of tactical resistance, always aware for moments of weakness, to turn them to it`s own advantage." (John Fiske, "Reading the Popular", 1989)

Objects:
"Through objects every individual and group searches it`s or their place in a system" (Baudrillard, 1981)

Places:
"Memories tie us to that place... It`s personal, not interesting to anyone else, but after all that`s what give a place it`s character..." (A woman living in the Croix-Rousse quarter in Lyon, interview by Pierre Mayol)

"It is striking here that the places people live in are like the presences of diverse absences. What can be seen designates what is no longer there... Demonstratives indicate the invisible identities of the visible..." (Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everday Life, 1984)

“To start seeing you have to eliminate certain things.” (Carsten Nicolai)

Link to translation of Simondon book

Here

Ambra's Quotes

Umberto Eco

The beauty of cosmo is not only in the unity of variegation, but also into variegation of unity.

Andy Wharol

In the future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes .

To say radical things in a conservative way is controculture.

Jean Baudrillard

The said things of artificial intelligence is that it's missing the artifice..so the intelligence

Quotes (Arnold)

Music
"Music is everything one listens to with the intention of listening to music."
-Luciano Berio

Technology
"The opposition established between the cultural and the technical and between man and machine is wrong and has no foundation. What underlies it is mere ignorance or resentment. It uses a mask of facile humanism to blind us to a reality that is full of human striving and rich in natural forces. This reality is the world of technical objects, the mediators between man and nature."
- Gilbert Simondon (On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects 1958)

Affectivity
"Affectivity is more than simply a supplement to perception (as Deleuze maintains) and it is more than a correlate to perception (as Bergson holds). Not only it is a modality of experience in its own right, but it is that modality - in contrast to perception - through which we open ourselves to the experience of the new."
- Mark B. Hansen

quotes

-windkracht 4-

papier waait op, haar raakt verward, geen last van muggen meer

KMI (poëzie)

-windforce 4-

paper blows on, hair is getting confused ,no more bottering mosquitos-

royal institute for meteorological (poems)

-less is more-

Robert Browning

-Birds do not suddenly appear-

Further experiments for Flat Corner-Ambra's proposal

Dear Flat Corner 

here following the things I would like to try out next time within Cimatics  :

Technical experiments 

Projection on face profile

Projection on the person while she is smoking ( I'm curious to see which kind of meaning development and practical effects the projection  of a digital face on a real face can gives while the person is smoking)

I would like to edit a  long emotional or action sequence ( played with the face) in a very fast way and then projecting it to the real one (like this documentaries of flowers growing so fast etc...that you can see in National Geographic that try to show a whole flower's life in 2 min...)

Projection of different patterns on different body parts ( hairs growing, food...liquids...)

As we have done with the faces, I would like to try to project body parts of someone else on my body...( like old breast...or old hands..etc..)

Filip do you think you will be able to bring some animation stuff for the next time? Will be great!

Would also be nice to try with motion tracking again if possible,maybe with a full body images !

Then I would like to start to note all the interaction possibilities between the real performer and the digital projection.

With it I mean to write our practice in order to collect a theorethical material for our blog, which will be nice to make already in Brussels, I think it's time to have a Flat Corner communication platform, keeping it  linked to cimatics blog.

Performance experiments :

Concerning the dramaturgical part,I would like to work on some topics as Lotta said keeping the base simple.

As I was telling you last time I was working on this "secrets" practice.

Turning around the idea of giving a completely different point of view to what the audience is looking just changing the contents ( in this case it can be a series of texts ) related to the same scene..

So, I was thinking that we could write and record some text, even short sentences, able to tell a story or to give an imaginary and experimenting this thing with headphones( I think we can borrow them in Cimatics).

And I think is good because will allow Lotta to produce contents even if she will be not there...

I also want to say to Lotta that you can write us experimentations and curiosity you would like to do and that we will try out there!

Then about the performance and the dramaturgical practice I was wondering about the idea of a duo performance ( like when me and Lotta we were shifting our faces on each other)in order to have some material for St.Petesburg...

So,concerning an hypotethic duo, I would be curious to work on the idea of a conversation between two persons 

( in which we can play with recorded discussions...and in the real performance we can speak and suddenly shift to a weird playback...etc..).

I say discussion because I find good the starting physical position of a discussion for a duo ( sitting beside each other ).

And perhaps working onto discussion  can gives the opportunity to work on text ( played in the headphones- playing with different texts - points of view and contraddictions)and it can give a kind of dramaturgical structure ( like beginning---increasing the desagreement-agreement--etc...)

This hypoethical conversation could turns about some of the topics we were thinking to start to work on :  like sex-gender-age.

As the ideas flows in a discussion between two persons also the two bodys can have a metamorphosis during the discussion... exchanging sex---looking--style---age---identity

Anyway those are my buch of ideas at the moment,perhaps you get inspired by that for further changes and developments!

 I think I can stop now,I'm looking forward to hear your inspirations  to finally go for practice.

Love 

Ambra

Psychogeography.. I don't know why the link didn't work. Here it is again http://youtube.com/watch?v=zVEgOiB7Bo8

Psychogeography

Well I got quite hooked on psychogeography. If you liked it; here's Will Self in a google talk.

headphones

This is excerpt from email to people in Flat Corner. I just thought it could be interesting also for other people.

As inspiration for sound... you remember the idea of different headphones with different messages... today I experienced a performance which was totally based on that and it was very effective. Lundahl&Seitl (they don't have a good site right now.. but here info from the stage they performed http://www.weld.se/program/lundahl-seitl-5-12-april/eng/ ) Further it most of the time took place in a pitch dark room... I couldn't help thinking about Filip's horse..

The sound/voice was giving us instructions individually and specially the transition from the ordinary room to the other world was fantastic.

We were sitting in a room and got informed that we would get headphones. Some time passed and then the headphones arrived. Quite soon after you had the headphones on, people next to you were rising and leaving the room. I was told to stay. By coincidence I was the last of 7 people to leave the room and it was amazing to see the others. I was told exactly where to go and it was kind of surreal experience that it was so exact, like somebody actually watched over me..

In the space they were playing with quite simple but effective parameters of time and out of body experiences. Simply by connecting actions that I was told to do and maybe 10 minutes later somebody did the same thing to me, the voice suggesting me that it was me 10 minutes ago (it was simple things like holding somebody's hand, lying down on the floor etc. but very precisely done). I liked it. Also with the darkness, they did simple things like having a girl lying on the floor, and few seconds later when there was light again, an old man appeared for the first time. Either than these two actors, there were 3 more people involved in creating the feeling of you being touched by yourself or someone. Also one thing I really liked was that when the girl was lying down on the ground I was told to hold her hand. A bit later to let go slowly and imagine her hand floating up. Her hand floated up. So simple but in the moment believable.

So yes! I vote for sometime in the future headphones for flat corner audience. It will be amazing. And just imagine actually being touched by someone with your face.. You look at yourself in a mirror, and from behind somebody comes that look just like you, or almost. Or like you 10 minutes ago... or like you but older (and then you feel the smell of a horse;-)

Kiss Lotta

Arnold's personal approach to the flat corner proposal

For me, the experiments we do within the context of the Cimatics
Masterclass, give me the opportunity to explore different possibilities
regarding live video and sound in interaction with the moving body in a
space.

For a long time already i want to do research on this subject. By making a
space ‘sensitive’ by means of different sensors, this space can become an
organism that communicates with an observer/performer. Working with
choreographers is in this context therefore very inspiring.

On a more conceptual level, a book i just recently started reading, “New
Philosophy For New Media” (Mark B. Hansen, 2006) can give us a lot of
input, especially on the subject of the human body in relation to new
(interactive) media.

The workshops of the Cimatics Masterclass will give me the chance to do
hands on experiments and through that, our group can hopefully turn these
experiments in to a live public (modern dance-)performance.

Experiments i will focus on (and will technically ‘lead’) are:
-Motion tracking with the camera on the ceiling, making a projected face stay
on the performer's body while moving through the space.
-Sound (generated granular sounds of the body, environmental sound).
-Interaction with live sound (for instance: voice triggering
movement/distortion of video projection, movement of body triggering
sound)
-Live filming and projecting with a delay, creating ‘temporal distortions’
-Motion tracking with the camera in front.
-Color motion tracking.

Proposal Flat Corner

Who

The Flat Corner is a group of 4 artists collaborating on a common interest in exploring interaction of the body with live video-projection and live (generated)
sound.
This group consists of Arnold Hoogerwerf, Charlotta Ruth, Filip Sterckx and Ambra Pittoni.

Concept

The main core of our research could be synthesized in the concept of the Digital Facial Image that acts as an interface between the domain of digital information and the embodied human experience.
In relation to this we would like to do several experiments with projecting (recorded as well as live) human facial images back onto the body of a performer. In this way, we try to link 'flesh' (the 'warm', human and tactile world of the human body in performance) with technology (what in this sense could be described as the 'cold', resistant, screenbased world of digital media).

Through our research we will deal with different topics as: subjectivity and multiplicity, affection, gender, age and develop dramaturgical tools as well as technological/interactive tools. See 'Experiments'.
Our research aims to open different points of view on reality (what everybody is supposed to accept as reality). By twisting the appearance of a human, playing with similarities and differences between human faces (and especially the affection one almost automatically has with an image of a face), we want to create an experience of meeting a two faced person and increase ambiguity and 'play' with that in an artistic context.

As an extension of the interfacing real and surreal we plan to meet audience in a an everyday life context.
Flat Corner will site-specificly develop the work for different apartments and create a surreal version of the reality in an ordinary space. From the "Human Facial Interface" we would like to extend our research to a "Human Social Interface" which can be the interaction with an apartment. In this constellation of 4 artists with profound experience in the fields of choreography, performance, animation, VJ-ing, installation, sound and interactivity, we combine our knowledge and creativity to curiously go someplace exciting and 'new'.

Short Term Goals

Within the timeframe of the Masterclass, we will focus on experimentation and conceptualization. At the end of the last workshop we will have a framework which then can be developed into a live performance. The framework includes development of effective tools, try out aesthetics, try out dialog. See 'Experiments'
In order to develop and to concretize our work we would like to create occasions to meet physically. Between physical meetings each one of us would like to keep working and continue researching on our own. The development will be communicated through discussing and presenting further experiments on the cimatics blog.
In the immediate future we would also build a project-blog as a virtual space for meeting, discussing, exchanging and working. Within the blog we will build a database that will function as toolbox: definition and categorisation of what we had already experimented and its relative potential developments.

Long term goals

Within half a year the Flat Corner group aims at gathering in several places at least with two persons at the time. These meetings can simply function as a work in progress inside their own apartments.
We have also sent in an application to the festival "Body Navigation" taking place in St. Petersburg in July 2008. Our proposal for this festival is a site-specific work in progress inside an apartment that will be open to the audience.
Our goal is to have an apartment in Brussels during the Cimatics Festival 08. Based on the continuous process "Flat Corner" will prior to the festival move into an apartment that during the festival will be open for the audience in the evenings.

Experiments

Experiments we have done :
-Live filming and directly projecting.
-Same face on same face projection.
-Different recorded faces projected on live faces.
-`Gender-blending´= projection of a man on a woman and vice versa.
-Motion tracking with the camera on the ceiling, making a projected face stay on the performer's body while moving through the space.
Planned Experiments:
-Sound (generated granular sounds of the body, environmental sound).
-Interaction with live sound (for instance: voice triggering movement of video projection, movement of body triggering sound)
-Filming of a full body and projection on a full body
-Projection with feedback and delay effects.
-Live filming and projecting with a delay.
-Projection of clay animations (frame by frame projection on a sculpture in clay which gets manipulated in a stop-motion way) on a face.
-Motion tracking with the camera in front.
-Motion tracking a persons movements in a bed (nice context..)
-Color motion tracking.
-Recording a person who is smoking.
-Projecting on a person who is smoking (on the smoke).
-Projecting on a face with see though face mask (wet surface).
-Filming the profile of a face/body and projecting on the profile of a face/body.
-Projecting on see through screen (to shift between two dimensional projection and three dimensional projection).
-Projection an old face on a young person and vice versa.
-Collecting and digitizing youth pictures of a person and projecting them on the `now´ person
Possible scene for the apartment:
Bathroom scene: Two performers standing in front of a mirror in the bathroom. Faces/bodies are projected on them. Spectators are standing behind them and
follow the performance by looking in the mirror.

References

Mark B.N. Hansen - New Philosophy for New Media (2006):

In this experience, the infelicitous encounter with the digitally generated close-up image of a face - and specifically the affective correlate it generates in you, the viewer-participant- comes to function as the medium for the interface between the domain of digital information and the embodied human that you are.
(p. 129)

To my mind, the The digital Facial Image (DFI) and the affective response it triggers offers a promising alternative to the profoundly impoverished, yet currently predominant model of the human-computer interface. (p. 129)

Thus, rather than than channeling the body's contribution through the narrow frame of preconstituted software options, the DFI opens the interface to the richness of the bodily processing of information. For this reason, the DFI allows us to reconceptualize the very notion of the interface: bypassing exploration of more effective technical 'solutions', it invests in the body's capacity to supplement technology - its potential for collaborating with the information presented by the interface in order to create images
(p. 130)

If we can allow the computer to impact our embodied affectivity directly, our communication - and indeed our coevolution - with the computer will be opened to a truly new, 'postimagistic' phase.
(p. 131)

Affectivity is more than simply a supplement to perception (as Deleuze maintains) and it is more than a correlate to perception (as Bergson holds). Not only it is a modality of experience in its own right, but it is that modality - in contrast to perception - through which we open ourselves to the experience of the new. In short, affectivity is the privileged modality for confronting technologies that are fundamentally hetereogeneous to our already constituted embodiment, our contracted habits and rhythms.

We can now pinpoint exactly how digital facialization differs from Deleuze's refunctionalization of facialization in Cinema 1:
Whereas Deleuze celebrates the close-up as a liberation of affect from the body, the Digital Facial Image aims to catalyze the production of affect as an interface between the domain of information (the digital) and embodied human experience (p.134)

Gilles Deleuze "Francis Bacon - Logique de la sensation"

'....the figure can be almost reduced to an head. Bacon is a painter of heads and not a painter of faces. Is there a big difference between the two.
The face is a structured spatial organisation that cover the head as the head is depending from the body.
Bacon de-structure the face making the head rising upon the face....
Can we objectively say that the head is flesh? As well that the flesh is spirit?
Is' t the head the closer part to the bones?
The head is flesh, is a block of flesh which separe itself from the bones.'

Shooting in Kairo

Hallo Sarah,I'm back in Cairo.

Would be  nice to meet up here and to shoot the video I was talking about.

Let me know when you will be back.

I was thinking to meet fryday 21th in front of the egiptyan museum (downtown) and then to take a taxi fo rthe place I told you...after the shooting let's have a beer in front of the sunset on the hill beside teh neon building.

If possible would be very nice!

Kiss,enjoy the red sea and this is my egiptyan number. 

Ambra

0020168495568

application for fogscreen

This is an application that WHITEvoid did for the entrance area of a 360 degree cinema. Visitors step right through the dry mist and get surrounded by free floating animations. It features the famous fogscreen projection technology by FogScreen.inc

Animations and software by WHITEvoid.com
http://www.whitevoid.com

Corner projection

'Edges" project by Till Nowak

Wind Orchestra

Interactive graphic-sonic installation

3D TV

Nova is a cubical grid of color-tunable, computer-controlled LEDs that functions as a 3-dimensional, 16-million-color video display.

bit.fall by Julius Popp

German-born artist Julius Popp has developed a technological device to make a waterfall of a liquid screen. Each drop of water is a falling pixel. This technology also allows big three dimensional installations to permit various uses of this work in such areas as those of publicity and the commercial events.

“bit.fall” - a machine that controls falling streams and drips of water to create beautiful, and incredibly temporary, words and images. It’s almost like aquatic data visualization. Described by Popp himself as a “metaphor for the incessant flood of information we are exposed to”, the end result is just incredibly beautiful.

Julius Popp is interested in the process of recycling that which appears to disappear in the structure of information more than the message Bit-fall can carry.

Live A/V is Avant-Pop

Cairo meeting

Hi Sarah,nice to hear from you.

Is there the possibility that also for me Alexandria wil not anymore in my schedule.

I let you know thrugh the blog  my schedule and if not somewhere else we will meet then in Cairo.

Happy u are happy

Ambra

dessert speaking

Dear masterclassers,
as you can see I already posted some pictures I have some video taped but the computers here are first of all very slow and most of the time naked I am now looking at a bunch of wires
The thing that interest me the most are the sound you here the whole day long
especially the claxons of the cars they make conversations with eachother
And then the dessert aaaahhh....the beautifull silence and the endless emptyness
It felt onreal

special delivery for Ambra
I am leaving the 23 of march and I am gonna spend the last 2 days back in Cairo
Alexandria is not on the scheduale because I am now in the south in Aswan than the felucca to luxor and spending some time in Dahab to start my search for the bleu painted rocks
I dont have my mobile with me but I search often for the internet places sow if you send me your plans then we can get together in Cairo maybe
greetz from a very happy person

dessert speaking

Flat Corner Experimentation

Documentation of the last experimentation by Flat Corner  ( Ambra-Lotta-Arnold-Filip ) 

Egypt

Hello Sarah,  it's nice to see some post from you already. I supposed to be already in Cairo , but i had to change my departure.So I will arrive the 11 and living the 22, I'm planning to go to Alexandria during my trip.So if you feel like to join me! I don't know exactly which day..but anyway.Otherwise we will meet in Cairo when both we will be in town.

I wish you a nice continuation and see you soon then!!!

Ambra

cut.n.pasten.paste.npaste

Cut-up, from previous post remind me you may find interesting a couple of my favorite writers.
Both are mix experts.

William S. Burroughs: http://www.ubu.com/historical/burroughs/index.html
and Kathy Acker, from whom I couldn't find anthing available online to post here for you to read. Here you will find the list of her books

Artists writing as they work

Texts written by artists and books edited by artists are of major importance to define this area of practice and to frame it within art theory context. Historians tend to have a perspective and a bias point of view. Not trying to dismissing their role. As I wrote in this text, soon to be published at Vague Terrain:

'As collaboration is an important feature of these practices, when the subject is theory, the same feature is apparent: theory may now be developed by individuals as part of a collective or even collectively.'

Publishing online, which follow the 80's photocopied fanzines and artist books, it is quite easy. But there are also other ways, as magazines and development of publishing houses. As practitioners, we are the voice of our own practice's construction of theory and history.

Collaboration and process

Documenting the process is sometimes of great help as allows going back and forward to some ideas, thoughts and references we came across while working, at any stage. Realtime audiovisual performance, Isn’t it a visible process of making?
The blog ‘Theory notes to Cimatics Masterclass’ aims at being a collective documentation of ideas that inform the projects in development.
Collective and collaborative work is closely related to the practices of realtime performance. The ‘texts box’ has a collection of written works to share. This is in a way, a temporary, little library about VJing and reatime audiovisual performance, to which all contribute with texts and books and that all can enjoy.

Cultura VJ

Here's a video doco of the Cultura VJ event in Spain...

Robert Seidel phyletic museum projection

Hi everyone,


Robert Seidel, the man behind the work of 2minds has created a wonderfully lush new piece designed specifically to be projected onto the Phyletic Museum in Jena, Germany. Seidel explains it as a”35 by 16 meter full facade projection with a corresponding light choreography, ambient music and synced sound effects” that was especially created for the 100th anniversary of the museum in Germany.

check this link for project information
check this link for a quicktime of the projected footage

Jp

skype meeting tomorrow?

hello guys,
i sent emails yesterday but i received no answer :(
who's gonna be on skype tomorrow for a chat?
tomorrow afternoon at 18.00 is ok? JP? Michael?
Someone else?
bytw my skype is mat_kinotek,
let me know who will join..

mat

Place to sleep

Hi all,

I'm still looking for a place to sleep in/near Brussels from monday night - thursday night.
Can someone help me out with a spare bed?
If possible in Brussels?
Or maybe, if others are also still looking, we can rent a place together near the workshop venue?

Regards,

Arnold

Tulle

Hello Sarah but also, hello everyone else ;-)

Bram referred to VJ Legoman (thinking about the splitted projection and possibilities). So take a look at it. In this way we could also think about the communication, when not determed by square screens,  in landscapes for instance. Certainly if we use Egypt as a startingpoint, it would be amazing  if we could combine our mental and fysical perception more into a projection-world instead forcing a world into that of a projection-screen. Since our work will be constantly in progress, we could also create different worlds wich are not overlapping if we have multiple projection-opportunities; creating two different Egypts in one landscape if you want... 

In this way, they're more experiments that we can do. What about communication disturbers or simply other communicators? If you think about that, every masterclasser could mean a pivot in our landscape that gives ous another communication-reaction. 

Of course, as we already fixed our idea, we will first see where our communication goes, without looking to future results. But I really think we should experiment with a lot of screen-setups in order to give ous more freedom in reacting to each other. 

keep me posted ;-)

transparent screens?

Hello,

is there anyone who knows more about transparant or semi-transparent projection screens...? What kind of material can we use for it? (it's for my project with Sarah)

Thanks

(Away. from. digital. technics)

( Webdings )

1. 
   

:: video :: tracking / motion :: system ::
:: non :: conventional recording/sampling -macro lenses - special cameras ::
:: projection on non-conventional surfaces::

(and hopefully artistic )

1. 
   

- ad. ex. fog, water, etc.
:: turbulence in fog with sounds : fine-record (with 600fps JP's camera) the movement of a speaker -sound- immersed in the fog

(and hopefully artistic )

1. 
   

:: build a projector that rotate on its own axis (25 turns every second) so the frame picture is still
:: modular :: networking project ::

(and hopefully artistic )

1. 
   

:: a modulair system :: of multiple computers connected, generating different :: algorhythms/renders of the same input.
:: i.e. motion-tracking, sound-analyses, hearbeats, etc etc).
:: Then the real core-idea is to get to know

(and hopefully artistic )

1. 
   

MAX/MSP, and learn how to generate CG images from this input to create a unique output
:: rendering and 3D in MAX MSP.
:: it would make sense for me, to spend this money wisely, and invest in this software.

(and hopefully artistic )

VJ Sarah and Kristof in question.

Hello everyone,

as you might read before, me and Sarah will coöperate in a project. These are some streams of counsiousness thoughts and ideas:
Experimental fase/concept:

- The coörperation between ous is based on the fact that we are both taking part in this workshop to introduce ourself in the woundrous VJ-world.
- We are both unexperienced in Vj-ing since our background is fine art.
- The interesting thing is that we have a completely different vision and way of working in creating art.
- Out of our conversations we concluded that we have an opposit vision but still can complete each other in ideas and to built upon that.
- It's about finding a connection between the properties of our work.

Properties:
Sarah: Naïvity, associatons, humour, frugality, romantic irony
Kristof: Objectivation, virtuality, alienation, precisely, impressive, memory

We look upon our future - Vj-ing coöperation as a dialog between images. In this way we'll try to find a compromise/melting-together between ous both. Maybe then we could decide to recognise each other as a VJ-duo (instead of deciding that before the actual coöperation). From then on that could be the beginning of a further coörperation. That is why we look at this project as an experiment, a work in progress.

Concrete proposal:

We are goïng to Egypt, Sarah will do this in a fysical way, I will do this in a mental way.
Sarah will be the body, I will be the brains. While fysicial Sarah is in Egypt and mental Kristof is to, we'll communicate each other by posting information on the Masterclass Blog. This could be photos, videos, texts our sounds. It's about taking each other along the other ones journey. At seeïng each other again (after the journey) we'll intent to bring the footage together and work further by a splitted communication method. By this we mean that we'll communicate by projecting images on one screen (each one on the other side of a semi-transparant screen), so that we can see eachothers images but always have two images in one (~a mental and fysical world if you want).

Since we don't know what to expect from each other, it's not obvious to pronounce the final result. But we are enormously curious and feel it as an exciting venture.

Kristof and Sarah

Hello everybody

Can't make it again I have to work
But Kristophe And I decided to work together on a project we are writing about it and we shall send it as soon as possible

Michael I wanted to thank you for the video I really apreciated it
J.P ;I cancelled the doctor because it is a waste of money The results of the recording are just normal heartsounds And that we can find on the internet too I now that it would be more special to actually use my own heartbeat But I just think that is not very interesting We should think further How we can make this idea to work

Wish you all a nice meeting and see you soon

comments on Arnold's post

I would love to try the software tools that you found as downloads. I'm trying to think of what to prepare until next time, do you have suggestions?

I am totally amazed by the Khronos projector. I think it is both a very effective installation to be able to scratch and rub different layers of pre recorded material. As a performative thing it could be insanely beautiful to create a duet between the distorted image and the person touching the screen. I must admit that all technical possibilities make me slightly lost in what I can contribute with. But this Khronos thing is for example something I would die to develop material for.
I think what I can contribute with in a collaboration is unfortunately very basic; Performing/creating material, conceptual development and writing application;-)
Just one thing if one would like to develop a concept using the Khronos projector set up.
How much would it actually cost?

I can be available for a skype-session if there will be a group meeting tomorrow. If I don't hear anything else from you I'll be online at 6pm. My skype name is lottaruth. Further I'm in Belgium already on the 15th and would very much like to meet with some of you during the week-end before the new workshop session.

Looking forward to seeing you soon again. Lotta

Here is a link to a demonstration video of the Khronos projector and a link to a bit simpler distortion prop... my favorite... nylon stockings. I'd like to further explore them...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUDvGJ5ZnY4
http://e-daylight.jp/tights/

meeting_2nd_round

as for tomorrow a second meeting round is planned, i would like to suggest to do this via skype so that those not able to go to brussels can participate, too. a group discussion could lead to possible set-ups for experiments during the next workshop - we should outline what people can prepare in advance or/and what tools, etc. we would need...

tomorrow, 8.2. - 6:00pm at skype?

or better "physical meeting" in brussels?

Some links

Hi all,

Some interesting links related to (history of) projection on spatial objects, bodies etc. I want to use these as a starting point for experiments in the next workshop:


http://hcgilje.wordpress.com/resources/video-projection-tools/

This is very interesting, because HC Gilje made software tools available, perfect for experimenting during the next master-class. Also a lot of other articles on his projectblog about his research fellowship.


http://users.telenet.be/thomasweynants/history.html

Great online catalog (of Belgian origin) of pre-cinema projection techniques and more.
For a long time already, i want to do something based on the 18th century 'phantasmagories', especially those of Étienne-Gaspard Robert (artistname Robertson, also of Belgian origin, so this must be the time to do something with it then ;-)


And some amazing time-related stuff:

http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/members/alvaro/Khronos/
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/time-delay-room/

(...)

26 meeting report

hello all!!
last saturday was the first saturday meeting; we were Michael, JP and me.
We discussed and brainstormed, and finally we outlined a "framework" of ideas
and related techniques to experiment with that can be seen as a future proposal:

" how machine and humans sense the reality ? "

following this broad concept we would develop a toolshack of tecniques to use afterward in the proposal, such as:

- video tracking / motion system
- non conventional recording/sampling -macro lenses - special cameras
- projection on non-conventional surfaces - ad. ex. fog, water, etc.

and explore ad ex. with:

audiovisual contiuum:
where are physically the boundaries between sound and air?
turbulence in fog with sounds : fine-record (with 600fps JP's camera) the movement of a speaker -sound- immersed in the fog

concept of time/movement:
build a projector that rotate on its own axis (25 turns every second) so the frame picture is still
ad ex.: http://www.marnixdenijs.nl/downloads/Spatial_reader.pdf


here some links related to the ideas discussed in the afternoon,
just to have some inspiration ;)

http://www.hentschlager.info/portfolio/feed/feed.html
http://www.evdh.net/
http://www.vms-at.com/


on 8 of february the second round, everyone is more than wellcome, in the physical
space of the JP home as well as the informational of this blog..

take care,
mat

about silence

to sarah: (you might know this, but anyway)

meeting jan. 26th

Hi all,
What time will it be on the 26th?
If this will be during mid-day I could possibly make it there.
I'd prefer an easy-to-find-place to meet in Brussel, if possible.:-)
Olga

saturday 26 meeting

hello guys,
We - JeanPaul, Michael and me- were thinking do a meeting on saturday 26 in Bruxelles
in the afternoon/evening, just to discuss about possible ideas and collaborations;
Everyone's nearby Brussels and want to join is more than welcome, the more the better :)
the venue is still to be decided, if you have same suggestions..
mat

Arnold's ideas

Hi, this is a short introduction of myself on this blog. I will react on some of the ideas already posted and also will (where possible) try to get some discussion going on.

First of all, i found it very inspiring to see so many talented people together in one room. I’m convinced that there will be some interesting results coming out of this Masterclass! Although i was there for only two days now, i think i got sort of an idea of each others fascinations and inspirations. I hope you have the same with me (or else just ask!)

About the different ‘plans’ then. The ideas and experiments of Lotta, Ambra and Filip regarding projections on the ‘contemporary’ body seem very interesting to me, because they closely relate to the ideas i had before applying for this Masterclass; i really want to use ‘my’ motion tracking system in a live performance / choreographic setting (ideally with live and spatial sound-/videoprojections). I definitely would like to contribute and co-develop these ideas into a project proposal!

Furthermore, i would love to make my moderate experience with motiontracking available to anyone interested. Maybe it can be used in the proposal of Olga. And for sure the ideas posted by Michael; i like the idea of working on this abstract conceptual level regarding light, space and motion (like regarding videoprojection as thrown light!)

For all our ideas, i think it is very important to develop them on different ‘levels’ simultaneously, so that we can come to a project-proposal that follows the guidelines as stated in Bram’s last email:

1
Conceptual level. This is where the blog should be used for the most i think. Like posting references to interesting projects to get things going on in our heads (thanks Bram for this new york dance piece!). And also maybe historic examples etc.

I will try to post some things soon. In the mean time you should see:
- the video example that michael mentioned in his post (the ‘Man with Mirror’ video on YouTube, example of Boris)

2
Working out and prepare experiments to be done next workshop. This is i think VERY IMPORTANT. I really think we all should prepare our experiments in advance of the next workshop, at least on paper. In my experience, working with technology, tends to be very time-consuming, and we only have a few days each workshop...

I would like to work out experiments regarding:
-motion tracking in general. Working with camera-tracking, but maybe also different sensors like pressure- or bending sensors in clothing.
-live projection on bodies. How can we make movents of a body in space trigger movements/displacement of videoprojection in space, for instance?

3
Get some idea of what you want to do with your part of the budget, so that there won’t be any ‘doubling’ of expences. For now this is maybe not clear at all, at least not for me, but i do already have some ‘wishes’ ;-)
For instance, i would like to spend something on:
-Eobody2 USB 8 SensorBox (http://www.eowave.com/products.php?prod=39)
maybe i want to buy this in advance of the next workshop already.
-different Sensors
-Overhead expences (traveling, accomodation)
-Materials

Ok, that’s it for now,
Have a nice weekend!

Arnold

Klaus Obermaier/Chris Haring

...as I told a little bit about ideas and what we had tried, my boyfriend mentioned a solo experimenting with both similar thoughts (to things I wrote before) and also exploring video projections on the body.

D.A.V.E. is based on an idea by the media artist and composer Klaus Obermaier,
and was developed in collaboration with the choreographer and dancer Chris Haring.

I have seen another piece by the same austrian choreographer, Chris Haring/Liquidloft where he worked with miming voices in a very creative way, so he's definitely someone to check out as inspiration for many things. It's interesting this thing that things somehow always been done... but he didn't use clay I think;-)

What’s novel about D.A.V.E. is the concentration of the projections on the body in motion while
avoiding conventional spatial and screen projections. You don’t think about the video anymore;
it just belongs to the body. It’s a part of the body, or rather the performer is part of the video.
The boundaries grow indistinct and are deactivated.
Video projection, physical presence and acoustic environment thus blend into a symbiosis and create
their own new reality: D.A.V.E. – digital amplified video engine.

D.A.V.E. switches effortlessly between young and old, male and female; he distorts his body, his limbs.
His anus recites biblical passages both profound and ironic with the voice of a child;
the body dissolves into streaming worlds of digital images.
D.A.V.E. deals with the manipulation and reformulation of the human body by means of biotech,
genetic engineering and computer technology.
D.A.V.E. plays with real and virtual situations and the dissolution of the boundary between these
two states, morphs between nightmare ,redemption and transformation, culminating in the
suspension of physicality.

Review and Outlook...

i would like to post some references of own and related work (like done already in during the last workshop) for documentation reasons but also to point out my interests and where it might lead to... i hope i can keep myself a bit clear in thoughts but i would like to put on some very different refelctions and ideas and hope of plenty of feedback from you...

an interesting issue and discussion during the "sound workshop" was related to space and the characteristics of it - f.e. when Boris put on different frequencies and therefore brought objects in the room to "live" / vibrate or while walking around the space getting different "impressions" of the same sound - thus sound instantly "interacts" with a human body when he changes position in space - this very basic sort of interaction (away from any digital technics) - the human/space relation and the possibility of exploring is something i would like to work around...

transferring this idea to seeing in place of hearing could suggest to deal with space and thatfore with 3 dimensions in place of a two dimensional screen - this was always a very frustating experience during some vj-gigs in the past as one gets captured by a frame, a flat surface placed in space, which might be bearable for dealing with narration but less for creating a visual athmosphere in a space, a sort of sublayer of the physical environment (sometimes i got the feeling that a "disco ball" has more effect as simple as it is in comparison to a small screen somewhere in the upper left corner of a stage)...

As Projections are nothing more than thrown light, a "beamer" or the light that comes out of it also uses air as medium (like sound does) to be transported from A to B - but speaking about a screen, B mostly absorbs all information on a framed surface. The advantage of thrown light is that it doesnt neccessarily need a screen - the digital layer (image/video) can be merged with any physical object... The result thatfore depends not only on the qualities of the virtual part (as screens are optimized to show the best possible equivalent of what was created for a computer screen mostly) but also on physical qualities which might (be used to) influence the digital part - roughness, smoothness, glossiness, dullness, etc. can become parameters of sound and image... some of this ideas where tried to be realized in a very basic way in my last installation which dealed with a transformed surface in a reflective material surrounded by materials with other qualities that where related to sound and image...


documentation video scr_mod


references:
visomat
pablo valbuena
man with mirror (very impressive example of dealing with reflection, virtual and physical space...)

outlook: object (space) - image (projection) - sound (acoustics)
a further development of the "augmented objects"/"transformed screen" mentioned before could place the "object" (screen) in a central position of a space affecting its environment through f.e reflection,... the basic idea lays still in affecting a space in a visible way some further thoughts led to the idea to organize reflection to its space (surrounding walls, ceiling, floor) which would generate the form of the "projection object" - i am not sure about this as i saw the object until now more as something autonomous - like a living structure affecting different spaces in different ways... like a part of a city cut out of it`s context and viewed from above with it`s informal almost random composition of roofs affected by sunlight...



the way of controlling the digital part (projection) could be a symbioses of automatization, interaction with the observer and dictation by a performer (i guess this part might be worked out during trials) - i would like to call on this place arnold and his motion capture installation using infra red cam and light - would it be possible to make some trials with it during the next workshop or even before (maybe you can post some experiences you made with your system - did you use a sort of wide angle lense for the cam? where can you get those things and in which price category do they lay (budget wise)...

the previous thoughts should not be seen as definite proposal but more as subject of discussion and finding nodes of collaboration - i would appreciate to get some feedback from you guys - maybe also from bram (as you saw the installation at eetavontuur), or people who are/were guiding the workshops (and are still following here on the blog ;) )...