5uper.net CODED CULTURES Japan 2009

J-Culture Decoded ( as a hypothesis )

astrid — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:44 +0000

J-Culture Decoded ( as a hypothesis )
Lecturer: Masaki Fujihata (JP)

It is still in the process of making, but I am trying to build up a hypothesis for analysing the oddity of Japanese contemporary culture, which were observed by the eyes from outside.

― Japanese writing is a mixture of ideogram and phonogram.This occasion gives us easy to make a joke “Da-ja-re,” a sentence contains polysemic meanings.
― Image is used and made as a polysemic structure. Somehow an ambiguity is one of the sense of beauty.
Our hand writing culture gives us an impression, which is words are readable images, not like a code like an alphabet.
― Unnecessity of “Communication”. Lack of translation of the word “communication” made an alternate understanding of its meaning in Japan. “Kominyuke-shon” is an act of checking pre-shared senses with the others.
― Beauty is important, rather than art creation. Edo was a period when essencial Japanese culture had been emerged. Commonly understood, object of the art is a container of beauty. Learning art is knowing beauty by copying art object.

Decoding the Dividual and Ephemeral: toward the coupling of Human Nature and Computed Media

astrid — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:20:21 +0000

Decoding the Dividual and Ephemeral: toward the coupling of Human Nature and Computed Media
Lecturer: Dominique Chen (JP)

We need to reconsider the nature of our global Internet and the way it is processing artificial data to embrace the latent opportunities it is fulfilled of. With the permeation of net-based media, we are today experiencing a critical epistemological shift that affects the media culture in a way to provoke a new generation of identity and creativity from within the mass culture of the Web, that became our a priori condition of life. With the multiple-authorship becoming the de facto standard of our media landscape, our perception of our own selves is shifting towards dividual entities, interacting simultaneously in multiple layers. The shift also affects our cognition of the data as ‘objects of expression’, nurturing an alternative philosophy of creativity simultaneously: beyond the contemporary development of lifelog media, and emanating from bionomical fluctuations of the real world environment and the physical human bodies linked through the Web, data are not to be seen anymore as end products controllable by its author(s), but rather somewhat autopoietic entities containing its own vitalism, and thus bringing in the ephemeral phenomena into discussion.

Turning from objects into subjects, data could acquire their own motives to propagate cross-modally. Eventually, this shift opens the perspective of an agrarian model for creativity, where artificiality and probability condition the ecologies of creative expression. In this talk, we will see how these arguments can be deployed pro tempore, so as to shed light in how we can ‘recapitulate’ (in the evolutional sense) the evolution of how we perceive ourselves and our own cultural productions, and possibly the basic raisons d’être of contemporary research of ‘media art’ and ‘media culture’ as well.

Han Long Dominique Chen

astrid — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:09:38 +0000

Han Long Dominique Chen (Artist / Japan)
Participation: Symposium

Title: Decoding the Dividual and Ephemeral

B. 1981, in Tokyo. 1/4 Vietnamese, 1/4 Taiwanese, 1/2 Japanese in blood, French citizen. 1999.09, French Baccalauréat (biology sp.). 2003.03, BA Design/Media Arts, UCLA. 2006.03 MAS Interdisciplinary Information Studies, University of Tokyo. 2003.11~2006.04, archival & curatorial researcher at the NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC], Tokyo. Directing HIVE, ICC’s open video archive (hive.ntticc.or.jp) . 2006.4~2008.04, Fellow researcher at Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS), Ph.D. candidate (University of Tokyo) for research on networked creativity media. From 2006.3, Board Member of Creative Commons Japan (creativecommons.jp). Leading local coordination of license porting, advising projects, student internship and application-driven open content project. International Advisory Board for Ars Electronica 2007 & 2008, Digital Communities category. Founded Dividual Inc. (divudal.jp) in 2008.04, has developed Type Trace (web version) and Rigureto, an online emotional exchange space (rigureto.jp).

Michiko Tsuda

astrid — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:42:04 +0000

Michiko Tsuda (Documentation / Japan)

Michiko Tsuda is a Japanese artist and researcher working on video and interactivity. She also works in a Project “Migratory” which is about filmic exchanges and cinematographic weavings with French video artist Caroline Bernard. In this project, she proposes and experiments with new filmic forms that replay and distort relations between time and space with mobile phones, webcams and so on. She has exhibited widely in Japan and also internationally in group exhibitions such as “version beta”, Geneva, Switzerland and “Re:membering”, Seoul, South Korea and others. Web: 2da.jp

Masaki Fujihata

astrid — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:51:38 +0000

Masaki Fujihata (Artist / Japan)
Participation: Symposium

Title: J-Culture Decoded ( as a hypothesis )

Masaki Fujihata is one of the pioneers of Japanese new media art, beginning his career working in video and digital imaging in the early 80s. He started his career as a digital artist for computer graphics and animations in the early 80s. In the late 80s, he produced computer generated sculptures and, in the early 90s, he entered the field of interactive arts. His networked art piece “Global Interior Project” received a Golden Nika at Ars Electronica in 1996. His interactive book, “Beyond Pages”, travelled around the U.S. and Europe and was finally installed in the permanent collection of ZKM in 1997. Masaki Fujihata is Professor for New Media at the Tokyo National University of Arts.

David d’Heilly

astrid — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:09:19 +0000

David d’Heilly (Translator / Japan)

David d’Heilly was playing in bands and doing theater in Seattle until he was smitten by an Irish girl who loved weird Japanese stuff and wanted to travel. Much later, in 1995, he established 2dk, a creative consultancy to produce the projects he had developed at the time: guest editing an issue of Studio Voice magazine on European hacker culture, co-producing an OMA/Rem Koolhaas retrospective, co-curating the “On the Web” media art exhibition at the ICC, and a lot of translations. In the 15 years since he has translated and interpreted thousands of texts and conversations, his writings have been published in 8 countries, he’s directed two television series and worked on films with collaborators including Nobuhiro Suwa and Michel Gondry, curated and produced exhibitions and festivals at PS1/MoMA, 134 venues throughout Stockholm, and on the Tokyo Yamanote line.

Aki Hoashi

astrid — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:03:38 +0000

Aki Hoashi (Art coordinator / Translator / Japan)

Obtained an MA in Museum and Gallery Management from City University London in 1994, and started working as a free-lance art coordinator in 1996. Focused on art exchange programs in the Asian region, as well as community-based art projects, her experiences include coordinating for the Asia-based art projects (exhibitions, symposia, publication) at the Japan Foundation from 1997, and managing the ARCUS Project, an artist-in-residence program based in Ibaraki prefecture, as director from 2003 to 2007. Current projects include coordinating the Japan Foundation’s JENESYS Programme, which invites young creators from 13 countries in the Asia-Pacific region to Japan, and interpreting/translating for artists’ events.

Christian Fennesz

astrid — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:35:16 +0000

Christian Fennesz (Artist / Austria)

Fennesz uses guitar and computer to create shimmering, swirling electronic sound of enormous range and complex musicality. “Imagine the electric guitar severed from cliché and all of its physical limitations, shaping a bold new musical language.” (City Newspaper, USA).
Christian Fennesz is know from his own particular musical world as well as his impeccable work in creating beautiful compositions for guitar. Somewhere between concrete music, classical and ambience sounds, he stretches musical resources and effects to create melodies and atmospheres that fuse classical and orchestral concepts with conceptual musical research and complex digital structures. Web: fennesz.com

Ujino Muneteru: Ujino and The Rotators

astrid — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:05:39 +0000

Photo credit: Masanori Ikeda

In fact Ujino is the only artist in the Rotators and the other members of the band are consisting of “objects” operated by motors. Ujino uses as his main sound source “standard motorized electrical appliances (hairdryers, drills, etc) the names of which are more or less the same all around the world. Ujino creates interfaces using the kind of DJ turntable available in any city and secondhand copies of mass-produced pop records. Other than these, the objects he uses are all familiar secondhand (not vintage) household items purchased locally, such as automobiles, furniture, toys, and lighting apparatuses. When he incorporates all these things together he ends up with something that’s both an automatically playing sound sculpture and a musical instrument that can be played manually.

Ujino also has said that “I set up the band on the table and control everything from the Rotatorhead, so it ends up looking like a cooking show on TV. The permanent members of The Rotators are: the blender, for its heavy, low frequency sounds — like a punchy kick drum; the drill, set up too for its snappy, tight snare drum sound; and the hair dryer, which is always involved with my performances because it resembles a fuzzy bass but sometimes takes the role of vocals.”

Ujino Muneteru (Japan)
The renowned Japanese sculptor and musician Ujino Muneteru (born Tokyo, 1964) founded The Rotators in 2004, a band whose members consist of ordinary household appliances, including blenders, hairdryers and power tools. While Ujino’s work recalls both the Intonarumori (noise intones) invented by the Italian Futurist artist and composer Luigi Russolo and kinetic sculpture of Jean Tinguely, it also speaks of his childhood and adolescence in 1970s and early 1980s Japan, a time when that nation was undergoing rapid economic development. Growing up surrounded by American pop culture and then-novel plastic household appliances, his passion for Punk and New Wave led him towards an interest, as he puts it, in ‘art as material realism rather than the planar illusions of painting, manga and animation’.

CONCERT
FRIDAY, 16.OCTOBER 2009 – 8.00 pm – 9.00 pm
Yokohama Creativecity Center (YCC) / 1st Floor
JAPAN

*FREE ENTRY*

Ujino Muneteru

astrid — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:45:51 +0000

Ujino Muneteru (Artist / Japan)
Participation: Presentation

Title: Ujino and The Rotators

The renowned Japanese sculptor and musician Ujino Muneteru (born Tokyo, 1964) founded The Rotators in 2004, a band whose members consist of ordinary household appliances, including blenders, hairdryers and power tools. While Ujino’s work recalls both the Intonarumori (noise intones) invented by the Italian Futurist artist and composer Luigi Russolo and kinetic sculpture of Jean Tinguely, it also speaks of his childhood and adolescence in 1970s and early 1980s Japan, a time when that nation was undergoing rapid economic development. Growing up surrounded by American pop culture and then-novel plastic household appliances, his passion for Punk and New Wave led him towards an interest, as he puts it, in ‘art as material realism rather than the planar illusions of painting, manga and animation’.

Elsy Lahner

astrid — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:29:38 +0000

Elsy Lahner (Curator / Austria)

Lives and works as curator in Vienna, Austria. Since 2007 and together with Alexandra Grausam managing and artistic director of „das weisse haus“, an exhibition space for progressive young art, Vienna. Since 2008 and together with Georg Russegger managing director of O.F.F. – O-sutoria Freespace Foundation, Yokohama and Vienna. In 2008/2009 Curator-in-residence at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Main projects include: exhibition series „Space Invasion“ (2006 – ongoing, Vienna), „Into Position“ (2007, Vienna), „DISPLACE – Junge Fotografie aus Wien“ (2007, Salzburg; 2008, Bonn), „The Value Issue“ (with Jasper Sharp, Parabol Art Magazine, 2009), exhibitions at „das weisse haus“ (2007 – ongoing, Vienna) and the Academy of Fine Arts (2008/2009, Vienna), “Next Reality” (with Takahiro Kaneshima, 2009, Yokohama).

Coded Cultures Closing Event/ Party: 31.May 2009, MQ Hofstallungen

parasew — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:13:37 +0000

The evening event of the CODED CULTURES festival in Vienna is situated at the »Hofstallungen« (MUMOK) of MuseumsQuartier Vienna.

Starting with Pecha Kucha Night, followed by a Live-Performance of Artist-In-Residence Tetsuya Umeda and finally leading to contemporary electronic music featuring a selection of live-acts and DJs from the label Trust Records and the Japanese party format Minimal Tokyo.

Pecha Kucha Night

Devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture) in Tokyo, Pecha Kucha Night was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers and architects to meet, network, and show their work in public. As we all know, depending on who speaks, a presentation can last for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images for his/her presentation, each shown for 20 seconds – giving 6 minutes and 40 seconds of fame before the next presentation is up. Since its introduction in 2003 Pecha Kucha has spread over more than 150 cities with events on a regular basis. Since 2007 the communications agency brainiacs and BKK-3 architecture organize Pecha Kucha Nights in Vienna.

For more information: www.pechakucha.at

Tetsuya Umeda (Live Performance)

Tetsuya Umeda, emerging artists from Japan, is well known for his unique sound-performances using everyday objects and subtle electro-acoustic elements. His self made sound tools and custom made sound-systems create an atmosphere of improvisation and composition. He has participated in a large number of exhibitions and events, including “Festival Beyond Innocence” (Osaka, 2002-2007), “Instal” (Scotland, 2006), “Sound Art Lab” (Osaka, 2005), “the listening project” (London, 2006), “waitool sounds” (San Francisco, 2007), “Sound Effect Seoul” (Seoul, 2007), “Blurrr” (Tel Aviv, 2007) and others.

MINIMAL TOKYO & TRUST REC. (Visuals: DEXTRO)

Minimal Tokyo is an international collective of DJs, producers, designers and media artists. Since 2007 Minimal Tokyo has been running one of Tokyo’s top events for electronic dance music with a minimal flavor: minimal techno, click house and tech house, inviting both talented underground producers from Japan as well as internationally re-known artists from all over the world. Minimal Tokyo also closely collaborates with visual artists: photographers, graphic designers and moving image artists striving to create a perfect balance between electronic music and digital visuals.

Trust Records is following its vision of cold, funky machine beats for over 10 years now. TRUST is Vienna’s main outlet for Detroit-style underground electro, techno bass and futuristic breaks. The label is run by DJ Glow, and besides local talent like Microthol, Epy and Lok44 the label’s roster has meanwhile expanded to include respected international artists like Urban Tribe or Clatterbox.

Japan Media Arts Festival

parasew — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:06:32 +0000

AFTER SCHOOL MIDNIGHT (c) KOO-KI Entertainment / GA Digital Graphics.

: net culture space
Japan Media Arts Festival
Anime Screenings
May 27th – June 07th

In cooperation with “CODED CULTURES – Exploring Creative Emergences” the excellent animation works, awarded by the 11th Japan Media Arts Festival, will be presented in May 2009. The screening event is taking place at the former Net Culture Space at MuseumsQuartier Vienna.
The Japan Media Arts Festival has been an annual event in Tokyo, Japan since 1997. Its aim is to promote the creation and development of media arts. The Festival highlights creative works not only in art but also in the fields of entertainment, animation and manga. Besides the annual exhibition in Tokyo, the overseas exhibition of this festival is held once a year. The forthcoming exhibition will take place in September 2009 at MQW. For the first time, those media art works will be shown to a European audience as the cutting edge culture with the topic “OTO” meaning “Sound” in Japanese. We hope the audience in Austria enjoys this selection and and are looking forward to intensify the cultural relations between Japan and Austria during the Austria – Japan Year 2009.

More information about the
Japan Media Arts Festival can
be found on the website:
http://plaza.bunka.go.jp/english

Japan Media Arts Festival
in Vienna 2009
September 12th – 20th 2009
MuseumsQuartier Vienna

Workshop by Hiroshi Yoshioka and seminar on Open Source: Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna – Conceptual art department

parasew — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:59:31 +0000

Photo: Hiroshi Yoshioka, Sendai Mediatheque // Artist: Takamine Tadasu

25.5.-27.5.2009
University of Fine Arts
Workshop: Prof. Hiroshi Yoshioka
Akbild, Semperdepot, Lehargasse 8, M1
25.5.: 7 p.m. – 8 p.m.
26.5.: 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
27.5.: 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.

The workshop by Hiroshi Yoshioka will focus on contemporary art and media art from Japan and other Asian countries in order to discuss economic, political and technological issues. The works presented will be those by Asian artists from the Ogaki Biennale in 2006 in Japan, along with experimental animation works, which are completely different from what is accepted as “Japanimation” or “Japan Cool,” and with modern computer music projects by Masahiro Miwa and his students.
The students involved in the seminar on Open Source formulate their positions in the following way: » In the context of educational institutions, it is important to pose the question towards the access of free software / media in order to give an alternative to the dominant proprietary software / media. The proprietary media mainly used on the labor market, has shaped the knowledge and skills of students, creating a dependency on these tools. There is a need to understand and not allow ourselves to be blindly subjected towards the structures imposed on us during our educational process.« – Annalisa Cannito, Chui Yong Jian, Philip Leitner, Ivette Mrova.

ca. 2 jō – substitute of common places

parasew — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:43:50 +0000

26.5.-7.6.2009
University of Applied Arts
ca. 2 jo – substitute of common places
(Transmedia Arts Department)
Opening: 25.5., 19.00
Open daily: 6 a.m. – 6 p.m.

The exhibition was developed within the course of Dr. Georg Russegger at the department of “Transmedia Arts”. Related to the context of CODED CULTURES and the »Austria-Japan Year 2009« the aim was to explore contents and practices of creative self-design and self-organization, to raise questions about binational cooperations of artists and artistic projects.
By presenting examples and research footage from Japanese arts and cultures the goal was to establish an external view on these conditions. The indoctrination of a cooperation year does not suffice to create common places and common situations per se. Dealing with the issue of artistic ideas and developments opens the opportunity to create a think tank of unforced interpretations and ideas which can also lead to substitutes of cooperation.
In this sense each student had to develop an idea in cooperation with a Japanese counterpart, to establish a set of communications leading to an art piece. Those are exhibited in a glass porch with the size of A (Jap. square measure) which serves as a metaphor for the lack of space in Japan. The thereby percieved spacial density reflects the intellectual density the artists’ aim to achieve in the exhibition.

Participating Artists:

www.transmedialekunst.com

Matthias Tarasiewicz

astrid — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:00:32 +0000

Matthias Tarasiewicz (Festival Coordinator / Austria)

Matthias Tarasiewicz (a.k.a. parasew) is one of the founders of 5uper.net and CEO of the media prototyping company mutti.jp. Together with Georg Russegger and Michal Wlodkowski he is coordinating “Coded Cultures – Exploring Creative Emergences”. He was curating and producing over 100 Exhibitions and Art-related Events with 5uper.net (e.g. Coded Cultures – 2004, Cuisine Digitale – 2006, Playfulness – 2008). While being active as a curator, artist and musician since 1998, Matthias is developing experimental media prototypes and researching in the fields of game theory, network theory and experimental media architectures. He studied visual Arts at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.

Michal Wlodkowski

astrid — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:41:13 +0000

Michal Wlodkowski (Festival Coordinator / Austria)
Michal Wlodkowski is one of the founders of 5uper.net and CEO of Mutti Medien OG, a Software Developing and Prototyping company. Together with Matthias Tarasiewicz and Georg Russegger he is coordinator of the festival “Coded Cultures - Exploring Creative Emergences”. Since the founding of 5uper.net in 2003 he was curating and producing over 100 Exhibitions and Art-Events among them “Coded Cultures - Decoding Digital Culture” in 2004. Michal Wlodkowski studied digital Arts at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna and Ravensbourne College, London and received his Master degree in 2006.

Philip Fischer

astrid — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:08:07 +0000

Philip Fischer (Producer / Austria)

Philip Fischer, born in Vienna, Austria, is a board member of 5uper.net and project coordinator of daal – digital arts and architecture lab. Together with 5uper.net he produced Symposia, Workshops and Exhibitions in MuseumsQuartier Vienna, Kunsthaus Graz and various Off-Spaces (e.g. “Playfulness”, “21st Century Art Practices”, “Vizinhos – Networked Arts in Brazil”, “Cuisine Digitale”). Besides organizing, Philip is researching on man-machine-interaction, new architectural interfaces and hybrid media evolutions. He is actively developing prototypes in the areas between arts and architecture (“ComposingCubes” – 2004, “emotion corner” – 2006, “radione” – 2007 aso.).

Niko Alm

astrid — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:00:33 +0000

Niko Alm (Public Relations / Austria)
Niko Alm is CEO of the Super-Fi Group (advertising, design, web, publishing, software). After a few years as a designer and music journalist he founded Super-Fi (super-fi.eu) in 2001. Over the time other companies ranging from software to publishing were established by or connected with Super-Fi creating a little micro conglomerate (Mikromischkonzern) in the field of communication. In 2005 he became publisher of The Gap Magazine and moved on as a publisher to build the Austrian branch of Vice Magazine in 2007. At the moment he tries to separate state and religion in Austria with his initiative for laïcité (laizismus.at).

Astrid Exner

astrid — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:35:23 +0000

Astrid Exner (Trainee / Austria)

Born in 1988 and living in Vienna, Austria. After completing the Foundation Course at New Design University St. Pölten, Astrid Exner is currently studying Philosophy, Dutch and Art History at the University of Vienna. She has been working part-time as Assistant E-Marketing for Wienerberger AG since 2006 and is now supporting the Coded Cultures team as a trainee.

eSeL

astrid — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:57:59 +0000

eSeL – Lorenz Seidler (Documentation / Austria)

The label eSeL (also serving as a nick name for founder Lorenz Seidler) prototypically represents the crossover of the roles of artist, curator, online medium and infrastructure-provider in contemporary artistic practise in the New media genres. For coded cultures eSeL well be involved in the documentatian of the festival, will do interviews with participants and write reviews. Web: esel.at

Johanna Stögmüller

astrid — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:49:30 +0000

Johanna Stögmüller (Press / Austria)

Born in Upper Austria, living, studying, working and creating since 7 years in Vienna. Studied journalism and communication science, focused on sociological aspects of communication and print media. Works for Monopol GmbH (a part of Super-Fi Group) as senior editor of TBA Magazine, editor of The Gap Magazine and other media related projects. Free time activities: passionate promenader.

Georg Russegger

astrid — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:46:19 +0000

Georg Russegger (Festival Coordinator / Austria)

Georg Russegger is the main-coordinator of the festival “Coded Cultures – Exploring Creative Emergences” in Austria and Japan. Together with Michal Wlodkowski and Matthias Tarasiewicz he is responsible for the conception and organization of the festival. Georg Russegger received a Ph.D. in Media- and Communicationtheory and works at the Graduate School of Film and New Media (Tokyo National University of the Arts) and at the University of applied Arts Vienna. Since 1999 he is active in the fields of media related arts, cultural studies and communication-science, based on the research about new artistic practices and media-integrated knowledge-cultures and its greater impact on projects and individuals.

Claudia Moser

astrid — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:40:04 +0000

Claudia Moser (Grafic-Design / Austria)

Claudia Moser is a multidisciplinary designer based in Vienna, Austria. Originally coming from a background in textile design, she has been working in the media industry for about ten years now and established herself as an innovative art director for selected agencies and international clients. Her award winning projects range from innovative digital communication and identity design to international print campaigns. Apart from graphic and screen design, Claudia enjoys travelling, scuba diving and yoga. She is always on the lookout for interesting design collaborations worldwide. Selected examples of her work are on display at her online portfolio at fortheloveofhoney.com

Christian Gützer

parasew — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:51:04 +0000

Christian Gützer (Artist / Austria)
Group: 5VOLTCORE (with Emanuel Andel)
Participation: Presentation

Title: playing ?

Christian Gützers’ career began in the metalworking industry, where he trained as a machine tool manufacturer. After this, he studied "visual media design" in Peter Weibel’s masterclass at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He graduated in 2007 with his work "Grow – Früchte des Kronos" ("grow ‚ì fruits of the kronos") which engages with the question of artificially manipulating the growth of plants and the implications of this. In 2003 Emanuel Andel and Christian Güzer founded the artist group 5VOLTCORE. They worked intensively on autopoetic and self referential systems, producing several installations and performances which dealt with the behaviour and manipulation of closed, inert systems. The artistic duo won the 2006 Transmediale Award with their work "Shockbot Corejulio", which was a "Jury Recommended Work" at Japan Media Arts Festival, and numerous international exhibitions in Ireland, Spain, Norway and France followed.

Emanuel Andel

parasew — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:48:32 +0000

Emanuel Andel (Artist / Austria)
Group: 5VOLTCORE (with Christian Gützer)
Participation: Presentation

Title: playing ?

2007 Emanuel Andel graduated at the “Visual Media Design” department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Peter Weibel) with distinction for his installation “Knife.Hand.Chop.Bot”, which received a number of accolades, including nominations for the “Künstlerhalle Wien Award 2007″, the “Transmediale Award 2008″, an honorary mention at the “Share‚ Festival” in Turin and was also exhibited at V2_ Labs in Rotterdam. In 2003 Emanuel Andel and Christian Gützer founded the artist group 5VOLTCORE. They worked intensively on autopoetic and self referential systems, producing several installations and performances which dealt with the behaviour and manipulation of closed, inert systems. The artistic duo won the 2006 Transmediale Award with their work “Shockbot Corejulio”, which was a “Jury Recommended Work” at Japan Media Arts Festival, and numerous international exhibitions in Ireland, Spain, Norway and France followed.

playing ?

anna — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:26:14 +0000

Out of curiousness and boredom we deconstructed and short circuited the hardware of an old computer, suprisingly the computer generated a beautiful visual output without programming. That was the beginning of 5VOLTCORE six years ago. Meanwhile we built a Robot that generates creative aesthetic information by shortcircuiting himself, a machine that manipulates the natural growth of a plant, a self-fulfilling cybernetic system, that plays with the senses and perceptions of the user and we save information noninvasive, in a living bonsai tree.

In a short performative presentation we will show an overview of our past and future works and our playful access to media art.

5VOLTCORE (Austria)
Ulrich Emanuel Andel was born 1979 in Vienna, Austria. At the age of 22 he started his studies at the University of Applied Arts and focused on “Visual Media Design” under the supervision of Peter Weibel and Tom Fürstner. Also 2005 Emanuel Andel organized a series of events to encourage the culture of VJs in Vienna called “Equaleyes”. From 2005 to 2006 he spent a year squatting in London and studying at the Ravensbourne College of Communication. In 2006 Emanuel was co-founder of the media art documentation platform tagr.tv. He lives and works in Vienna.

Christian Gützer’s career began in the metalworking industry, where he trained as a machine tool manufacturer and qualified at the age of 22. After this, he also studied “Visual Media Design” in Peter Weibel’s class at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He graduated in 2007 with his work “Grow – Früchte des Kronos” (“grow – fruits of the kronos”) which engages with the question of artificially manipulating the growth of plants and the implications of this. 2003 Emanuel Andel and Christian Gützer founded the art group 5VOLTCORE and created works that deal with the behavior of closed and formal systems and their manipulation. They showed their works at various festivals from Madrid to Tokyo and won the Transmediale Award in 2005.

5voltcore.com – Homepage of 5VOLTCORE

ubermorgen.com: “Superenhanced”: Generator & Tetralogy

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:25:48 +0000

The Lecture-Performance will be split two ways. The main part will feature a superenhanced interrogation. A local detainee will be strapped to the floor in a stressposition and will be interrogated by UBERMORGEN.COM using the Superenhanced Generator as an interrogation software that automatizes, dehumanizes, familiarizes and therefore optimizes examination. The Online-Tool uses a smart – learning – backend which also includes „intelligence“ – additional information about the detainee found via google, facebook and youtube – into the interrogation. The second part will focus on the Generator Tetralogy 2001-2009 consisting of 4 different Generators producing foriginal documents, picking up on the presentation at Coded Cultures in Vienna 2009 with the topic: “How to design hallucinatory software”, surrounding topics such as “The Foriginal”, “consensual hallucination” and the element of artistic “intentionality”, which is substituted with the random factor much sought after by the avant-garde movements.

UBERMORGEN.COM – lizvlx & Hans Bernhard (AT/CH/USA)
UBERMORGEN.COM is an artist duo created in Vienna, Austria, by lizvlx and Hans Bernhard (co-founder of etoy). Behind UBERMORGEN.COM we can find one of the most unmatchable identities – controversial and iconoclastic – of the contemporary European techno-fine-art avant-garde. Their open circuit of conceptual art, drawing, software art, pixel painting, installations, net.art, sculpture and media hacking transforms their brand into a hybrid Gesamtkunstwerk.

ubermorgen.com – Homepage of UBERMORGEN.COM
ipnic.org/superenhanced – Superenhanced Generator, 2009
ipnic.org/psychos – Psych|os Generator, 2006
ipnic.org/BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR – BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR, 2005
ipnic.org – Injunction Generator, 2001

The Process of Nicodama

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:20:23 +0000

The Process of Nicodama
Artist: Ryota Kuwakubo (JP)

When I am thinking about my work, I have never told the process of making some of my projects. For CODED CULTURES in Yokohama I want to take the opportunity and try it. Nicodama in one of my recent projects. I’m going to talk not only about the concept of it but also how I came up with the idea, how I prototyped it and how it was developed as a final version. Talking about the process of making art work is very practical. You may not expect its importance when you are not specialized in making something. But you might find some conceptual aspect by knowing how my work has been built.

Ivan Popyrev: Programmable Reality

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:13:10 +0000

Programmable Reality
What would happen when we will be able to computationally control physical matter? Until recently, this question was mostly dealt in science fiction novels and movies. However, with recent developments of “smart” materials, such as flexible displays and printable electronics, creation of tiny actuators and continuing increase in available computing power we have been gaining increasing digitalcontrol of our physical environments. As this trend accelerates we will be stepping into the new brave world where we no longer programming computers anymore, but programming the reality itself. The emerging vision of programmable reality will be the topic of my talk.

Ivan Poupyrev (Russia, USA)
Born in USSR, Ivan Poupyrev is a Researcher at Sony Computer Science Labs in Tokyo where he designs user interfaces for future digital living environments. In his research he is particularly interested in creating interfaces and technologies that can seamlessly blend digital and physical properties in devices and everyday objects. The results of his research have been presented at international conferences, reported in popular media and released in Sony products. Ivan graduated from Moscow Airspace University in 1992. While working on his PhD at Hiroshima University, he stayed for 3 years at the University of Washington working on virtual reality interfaces. He joined Sony in Tokyo in 2001.

sonycsl.co.jp/person/poup – Homepage of Ivan Poupyrev
ivanpoupyrev.com – Research Homepage of Ivan Poupyrev

Yukiko Shikata: Mission G: sensing the earth

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:06:05 +0000

With ICT, we become active players in the information flows beyond fields. Now we face the shift from “receiver” to “sender” model, welcoming the new emergencies triggered by us.

We are heading for the second decade of 21 century. Looking back to the first the decade, we can recognize the drastic changes in the ways of communication and sharing the huge amount of information, realized by the ICT. The rapid growth of digitalization made us easily receive, create and actively send the information globally, but at the same time, the heavy dependency to the virtual environment caused the serious imbalance of society such as in economy, people’s mentality, etc. It’s time for us to re-examine the role of digital technology. By grasping the characteristic potential of digital and analogue, we would combine or articulate them depending on the situations.

The age of global networks is the age of global awareness. The global awareness is based on the “multi-identities”, reflecting the world and in additon, the feeling of being inside of the world. We live in the age of global networks and multi-reflections and are responsive to the world in complex ways. The circulating information flows – in telecommunications, natural environment and inside of us emerge as the potential resources that would interact dynamically.

In the age of interconnecting various information, we can also locate ourselves as responsible entities for the substantial shift of world – socio-cultural, geo-political, economical, scientific, among others – beyond systems established in modern era. The “world” here includes us as active players being involved in the fluctuating flow of information for new emergencies beyond existing fields and separations. It means that each of us autonomously contributes to the world on various levels by taking responsibility, at the same time mutually collaborating by choosing the way flexible in ever-changing conditions, where sensing, analyzing, and re-interpreting things would appear as creative process.

I would like to raise the perspective to the world, shifting from the “Camera Obscura” model to the “Projectors” model. Both are based on the same system – a box with a small hole, the former fixes the reversed static image by the light coming inside the box. That is a linear and rigid system without the time axis. In the latter, the light from inside of the box projects broadly outside, opens up the dynamic process between the space and things there including the movements and perception of the viewers, participants and other reflecting media in the space, causing a reflective process and further a chain reaction in reflections. Here, the “worlds” appear by the active perception
and involvement of the people and various media in the space.

It is the shift from the “receiver” to the “sender-reflector” model, welcoming the new network of things and information as ever-changing phenomenon triggered with/by us. The “information” here is hybrid, dynamic and open to the unpredictable accidents, welcoming the creative interventions and even playing with them. For creating the proto-culture, we need to have space for such interventions, and it will be only achieved throughout the active research and practice by connecting art, science and technology in the way never done before. Media artists take important roles to interface and stimulate the relation between the world and us and to show new perspectives for the future. Media art has a mission to visualize the invisible dynamics of the world beyond nature and society, beyond art and science to make us notice the world as a dynamic, interactive system, and opening the realm.

In envisioning the future, I would like to add the idea by Felix Guattari in 1989, in “Three Ecologies” – the ecology in nature, society and spirit — where humans and technology, nature and artificial, art and science would interrelate mutually.

Yukiko Shikata
Yukiko Shikata is a senior curator of NTT ICC, specially-assigned professor at Tokyo Zokei University, guest professor at Tama Art University.
Curated many exhibitions including:
“Amodal Suspension” (YCAM, 2003),
“MobLab”(2005),
“open nature”(ICC, 2005),
“Light InSight”(ICC, 2008).

Sabine Seymour: Functional Aesthetics

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:01:37 +0000

Fashionable Wearables as Aesthetic Interaction Interfaces
In my recent book “Fashionable Technology, The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science, and Technology” I describe fashionable wearables as “designed” garments, accessories, or jewelry that combine aesthetics and style with functional technology. The potential for collaboration between the worlds of fashion and technology has been omnipresent since the initial explorations of Hussein Chalayan ten years ago and expanded into scientific experiments with the spray-on-fabric Fabrican by trained fashion designer Manel Torres. Our clothing, accessories, and jewelry are the epidermal interfaces with which we can experience the world.

The expressive value of fashionable wearables can be greatly heightened by the integration of technology. By incorporating electronics into a garment we can transform traditional fashion elements such as color, texture, and cut to include movement, touch, light, sound, and interactivity as new aesthetic interaction interfaces. It is important to recognize the value of the word fashion, pointing out that aesthetics and style have been an obvious tool for the communication of values, culture, status and mood individually over time. Fashionable wearables are associated with adornment and style. Humans are fashionable beings who are attentive to style and the powerful potential of wearable technologies.

Code as Interface
1 of 1 is a design studio founded by Cait Reas that synthesizes fashion and art. It demonstrates the fusion of fashion and code in the project “Tissue Collection”. The individually signed and numbered garments are a result of the collaboration between the artist C.E.B. Reas and fashion designer Cait Reas. The artist created generative images by defining processes and then translating them into images through code using the software “Processing”. These patterns were then applied to the fabric by the fashion designer using digital textile printing. Thus the dynamically generated moving images are converted into static image as soon as they are printed permanently on the fabric not allowing any duplication.

In the next iteration I would suggest that garments become animated canvases through the dynamic display of such generated images. The future calls for the dynamic generation of visuals on the surfaces of our garments to enable real-time interaction and to allow the wearer to create their own aesthetic interfaces.

Aesthetic Interaction Interfaces
Fashionable wearables are aesthetic interaction interfaces that are more than mere fashion. They incorporate technological elements that transform them into interactive interfaces. Today, fashionable wearables are mediators of information and amplifiers of fantasy, ranging from consumer fashion to the stage garment of a performer.

Sabine Seymour (AT/US)
Sabine Seymour has been described as an innovator, visionary, and trend spotter. She is the Chief Creative Officer of her company Moondial, which develops fashionable wearables and consults on fashionable technology to companies worldwide. Moondial’s work is based on the convergence of fashion, design and technology.

fashionabletechnology.org – Fashionable Technology: The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science, and Technology by Sabine Seymour
moondial.com – Moondial – Fashionable Technology

Mathias Fuchs: Expanding Locality? – Collapsing Locality!

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:58:46 +0000

It is a common assumption of cyber-anthropologists, that an increase in virtuality leads to an increased level of internationalism, cosmopolitan lifestyle, and a global, borderless image space. Contemporary social networking environments attempt to look cosmopolitan as well. SecondLife promotes an open and free toy society of semi-anonymous avatars from all around the globe, who peacefully share islands, clubs and shopping malls. The potentially cross-cultural agora turns out to be as Philistine as can be, a petty bourgeois low-cost paradise with garden gnomes, cowboy hats and corporate T-shirts in pink and black.
Go to Japan Resort, France Pitoresque, or to any of the SecondLife art places to find out how restricted and narrow-minded the World Wide Web can be. These locations are characterised by an extreme homogenisation of appearance and talk. Foreign languages are merely cherished as exotic and cool, yet controlled by a unified jargon below the level of language. SecondLife is a conglomerate of cyberprovincialism rather than an international community. I would like to suggest that there is a counter-trend to expanding locality in Virtual Worlds, a user-generated trend of imploding locality. Locality collapses into a digital Mega-suburb of cyber-solarium tanned bores who have set their daylight zone to eternal noon.

Mathias Fuchs
Mathias Fuchs has pioneered in the field of artistic use of game engines in various game art installations. He started the first European Masters Programme in Creative Games at the School of Art & Design at the University of Salford in Greater Manchester. Creative Games is a discipline on the borderline of games, art and critical discourse (creativegames.org.uk).

creativegames.org.uk/ – Artwork, Publications and Lectures by Mathias Fuchs.

From Art to Network: Shozo Shimamoto’s Radical Attempts

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:53:54 +0000

Hiroshi Yoshioka

“Designing Complexity.” In order to think about the idea carefully and seriously, I find it necessary to rethink what “design” exactly means in the age of information technology. Any design should assume a certain purpose, with which we can arrange individual parts or assign particular functions, whether they are of an object, a machine, or an organization. Complexity, however, makes it difficult to predict where a certain design we have applied would finally lead us to. In the world of complexity – which is the essential nature of the world as such but has become more obvious through the development of the digital media – we should always be ready to be deviated from our original purposes, and be tolerant enough to accept and work on with unexpected developments. When we try to design complexity, we are inevitably designed back by complexity at the same time. To illustrate this new understanding of “design,” I would like to show works of a Japanese artist Shozo Shimamoto (1928), and discuss his idea of “network.”

Hiroshi Yoshioka
Hiroshi Yoshioka was born in Kyoto, Japan. He studied philosophy and aesthetics at Kyoto University and teaches aesthetics and art theory at Kyoto University, IAMAS. He is the author of The Present Tense of Thought: Complex Systems, Cyberspace, and Affordance Theory (1997), Information and Life: The Brain, Computers, and the Universe (with Hisashi Muroi, 1993) [both books published in Japanese], and many articles on aesthetics, arts, technology and culture. He was the editor-in-chief of the critical journal Diatxt. (vol.1-8, Kyoto Art Center, 2000-2003) and Yorobon: Diatxt./Yamaguchi (YCAM, 2008). He was the general director of Kyoto Biennale 2003, and Ogaki Biennale 2006.

Interaction Revisited

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:44:54 +0000

Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau

Human-computer interaction (= HCI) is a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and includes the study of the major phenomena surrounding this theme. Human-computer interaction pertains to the joint performance of tasks by humans and machines; the structure of communication between humans and machines; human capabilities to use machines (including the learnability of interfaces); algorithms and programming of the interface itself; engineering concerns that arise in designing and building interfaces; the process of specification, design, and implementation of interfaces; and design trade-offs. Human-computer interaction thus has science, engineering and design aspects. Because human-computer interaction studies a human and a machine in communication, it draws on underpinning knowledge both from the side of the machine and of the human. On the machine side, techniques in computer graphics, operating systems, programming languages and development environments are relevant. On the human side, communication theory, graphic and industrial design, linguistics, social sciences, cognitive psychology and human performance are relevant. And, of course, human aspects such as emotions and feelings become relevant as well.

2. Emotional and Metaphoric Interfaces
Artists and designers have always been skilled in applying metaphors when designing systems, objects or works of art. Metaphors can evoke certain sensations or emotions in the spectators, feelings that can often not be described with words alone. The power of metaphors is in the fact that they tap into cultural, historic and emotional knowledge that we humans have built up in the course of our lives. Touching for example an object that looks like a cat (even if it is in fabric or plastic) will evoke a nice, warm and cozy feeling, or emotions of personal attachment and care might be triggered. Through our daily interactions with objects or even beings that we touch, manipulate, look at, perceive or interact with, we have developed a rich intuitive knowledge of how these things work and what kind of emotions and sensations are being attached to them. Using this immanent, intuitive and emotional knowledge, in 1991 we became interested in exploring the power of emotional and metaphoric interfaces. The first emotional and metaphoric interface we designed in 1992 was a living plant. In this system real plants are the interfaces, and users touch these plants to create artificial plants on a computer screen. When users touch a real plant and see the effect of this touch translated into a graphical form on a screen, they are suddenly reminded of that immanent intuition they already had about plants. It is for this reason that we must increase our awareness of the ways that the interface carries these beliefs as hidden content.

3. Natural and Intuitive Interfaces
Closely linked to designing emotional and metaphoric interfaces is the concept of natural and intuitive interfaces. By this we mean interfaces that feel very easy and natural in their use, without that the user has to go through a lengthy learning process when he or she wants to interact with this system. Natural interfaces are, for example, gesture-, speech-, touch-, vision- and smell-based interactions or basically actions and sensations that refer to our daily life experiences. Using, for example, living plants as an interface not only provides a new, emotionally charged and unusual connection between computers and living beings but it also poses the questions of what a plant is, how we perceive it and how we interact with it when we touch it or approach it. Natural interfaces also circumvent the annoyance of wearing unpleasant devices before entering virtual space (= unencumbered interaction). As the user moves about in the interaction space, he or she starts to learn how to use his or her body for triggering and playing sounds and music.

4. Non-linear, Multilayered and Multimodal Interaction
We also believe that interaction in interactive systems should not be linear but instead feel like a journey. The more one engages in interaction, the more one should learn about it and the more one should be able to explore it. We call this non-linear interaction as it is not pre-scripted and predictable but instead develops as users interact with the system. The interaction path in our systems should also be multilayered, meaning that the interaction feedback should be simpler at the beginning and become increasingly complex when users further interact with the system, continuously discovering new levels of interaction experiences. And finally, a last cornerstone in designing our systems is the design of multimodal interaction experiences that combine several senses, such as vision, sound, touch and smell. Over the past years multimodal interaction has in fact become a mainstream research trend in HCI, and it defines multimodality as the combination of multiple input modalities to provide the user with a richer set of interactions compared to traditional unimodal interfaces. The combination of input modalities can be divided into six basic types: complementarity, redundancy, equivalence, specialization, concurrency, and transfer.

5. Interface Cultures: Creating Innovative Interaction Experiences
In 2004 the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz established a new master study program called “Interface Cultures”. The title of this program was coined by the university based on the book “Interface Culture” by Steven Johnson. He predicted that new types of interfaces will alter the style of our conversations, prose and thoughts in the future and he rightfully predicted that interface designs would be strongly linked to artistic innovation as they reach out into applications in our daily lives. By designing interactive systems that bridge social, entertaining and artistic elements thr prototypes and installations of artists and designers have often reached out in the wider field of media products and entertainment applications. Being situated at an art university, we foremost concentrated on the development of artistic prototypes and projects that bridge the gap between art, design, entertainment and product development. One of our main goals is to create an environment where artistic exploration can be combined with technical and scientific research.

Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau
Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau are internationally renowned media artists and researchers, they have jointly created around 20 interactive artworks. These artworks have been shown in around 200 exhibitions world-wide and are installed in media museums and media collections around the world, including the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Science and Industries in Tokyo, the Media Museum of the ZKM in Karlsruhe, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, the NTT-ICC Museum in Tokyo, the NTT Plan-Net in Nagoya, Japan, the Shiroishi Multimedia Art Center in Shiroishi, Japan, the HOUSE-OF-SHISEIDO in Tokyo and the ITAU CULTURAL Foundation in Sao Paulo.

interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent – Interactive artworks by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau

nOtbOt :: contemporary collage >= open hard- and software.

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:29:34 +0000

= open hard and software." title="notbot" width="540" height="755" class="detailPicture" />

force-feedback looped post-interactive sculpture

nOtbOt is an automated game-player which is controlled and deranged by reactions to its own virtual environment, caught in a vicious force-feedback loop…

The installation consists of a hacked up human-computer interface in which the feedback system, originally intended to provide tangible interaction for a human player, is now used as input data to control a “first-person” videogame. Human interaction with the game/controller becomes obsolete, resulting in a completely erratic form of [art]ifi cial intelligence. The observer of the installation, however, can literally try to “get a grip” on taking control of the system…

“Walter Langelaar’s n0tb0t antagonises conventions of games as slave to our control. n0tb0t decouples the user-agent from the input chain, leaving just a joystick thrashing about in response to every twist and turn of a bot rampaging through a stock QuakeIII level. My fi rst impression of n0tb0t was of a haunting: an AI that would take no more, fighting back at the input device in an urgent attempt to disenfranchise itself from a history of bondage. What is actually going on however is a little more complex, a feedback loop of sorts where the bot is driven by the input device and the input device by the bot.” (Julian Oliver)

Walter Langelaar (Netherlands)
Walter Langelaar is a dutch artist currently based in Rotterdam. His work stems from charcoal drawing and multichannel slideshow geekery, to manifold video-editing techniques and crude 3D animations combined with oblivious hardware hacks. Currently working in the field of post-interactive sculpture, he deploys dedicated machines into a variety of gallery, festival and party circuits.

notbot.lowstandart.net – device art, game art, videogame hack, ai, open source, open hardware

Ryota Kuwakubo: Selected Works

astrid — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:26:09 +0000

Photo credit: Bitman: © Yoshimoto Kogyo Co.,Ltd. / Maywa Denki / Ryota Kuwakubo
VideoBulb: © Yoshimoto Kogyo Co.,Ltd. / Maywa Denki / Ryota Kuwakubo
R/V: co-production : YCAM (Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media)

Ryota Kuwakubo: Selected Works (1998 – 2009)
(Bitman, Vomoder, VideoBulb, PLX, R/V, Nicodama)

Creating each work as a complete device rather than an interactive installation, Ryota Kuwakubo not only intends to offer pure experience, but also to relate it to the visitor’s cultural context. It means that the works can take some aspect even if none of its functions are running. This time, he shows several selected works including the early work “Bitman” and the most recent work “Nicodama”, displaying all the works in a static representation to evoke the visitor’s imagination.

BITMAN 1998/2001: Wearable LED display (in collaboration with Maywa Denki.)
VOMODER 2000/2002: Voice reactive animation device.
VIDEOBULB 2000/2004: Tiny capsule generating a video signal. Plug into your TV set.
PLX 2001: Game machine for two persons. Each player duels in a different context.
R/V 2005: Radio controlled vehicle equipped with a video camera and monitor.
NICODAMA 2009: A pair of mechanical eyeballs. Put in on something to empathize it.

Ryota Kuwakubo (Japan)
Ryota Kuwakubo is a media artist based in Tokyo. Since 1998, after studying contemporary art and media art, he produced art works mainly by means of electronics, focusing on topics that appearing on borders such as analog / digital, human beings / machines or senders / recipients. He was honorably mentioned in the interactive art category at Ars Electronica 2002 & 2003, as well as the grand prize of the art division at the Japan Media Arts Festival 2003.

Ludic Society

anna — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:23:31 +0000

Ludic Society

Hereby, Margarete Jahrmann, Gordan Savicic and Phillip Lammer, members of the Ludic Society, present ToyGenoSonic (2008-2009), an urban play not concentrated in one single location, but dispersed in the urban space and open to the participation of the citizens. In the weekend of the exhibition opening, the city of Vienna/Tokyo becomes a game board in which the players can navigate and develop the game by themselves. Beside the urban intervention, the Ludic Society proposes a playable installation in the exhibition space, which features a simulation interface of the urban play.

device art, toy bending, urban sound, geo-spatial art, locative circuit bending

Yukiko Shikata

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:56:22 +0000

Yukiko Shikata (Curator / Japan)
Participation: Symposium

Title: Mission G: Sensing the earth

Yukiko Shikata is a media art curator & critic based in Tokyo, works as a senior curator of NTT ICC, specially-assigned professor at Tokyo Zokei University, guest professor at Tama Art University. She has been curating many challenging projects at Canon ARTLAB (1990-2001), Mori Art Museum (2002-04) and independently “Power of Codes” by Mischa Kuball (Tokyo National Museum, 1999), “Amodal Suspension” by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (YCAM, 2003), “MobLab” (2005), etc. Selected exhibitions at ICC are “open nature” (2005), “Connecting Worlds” (2006), and “Light InSight” (2008). She is one of Int’l Advisory Boards of transmediale, ISEA2010.ruhr and curators of Shanghai eARTS 2009, juries of N. J. Paik Award and has worked as jury in many competitions inclu. Prix Ars Electronica, UNESCO Digi-Art Prize.

Takahiro Kaneshima

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:48:55 +0000

Takahiro Kaneshima (Co-Producer / Japan)

Born 1977 in Tokyo. Director at FEC, and Producer, East Asia at ART iT. Received MA from the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University and worked at NOKIA Research Center (Finland), TOSHIBA Digital Media Company (Japan) and Tokyo Gallery + BTAP (China) before founding FEC (Far East Contemporaries) in 2007. Lives and works in Yokohama, Taipei and Beijing to do research on East Asian contemporary art and support artists’ production and art exchange program. Major exhibitions include “Techno Orientalism” (2005, Beijing), “JAPANIMATION!” (2006, Beijing), “Art LAN @ Asia” (2007, Yokohama) and “Discharge Mode to Order” (2008, Yokohama) and “LIVE BY PLAY” (2009, Taipei).

Sabine Seymour

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:47:34 +0000

Sabine Seymour (Scientist – Producer / Austria)
Participation: Symposium

Title: Functional Aesthetics

Sabine Seymour is Prof. of Fashionable Technology at Parsons The New School for Design in New York. She is the Chief Creative Officer of her company Moondial, which develops fashionable wearables and consults on fashionable technology to companies worldwide. She curates, exhibits and lectures internationally and has been published worldwide.

Mathias Fuchs

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:45:44 +0000

Mathias Fuchs (Artist – Critic / Austria)
Participation: Symposium

Title: Expanding Locality? – Collapsing Locality!

Mathias Fuchs has pioneered in the field of artistic use of game engines in various game art installations. He started the first European Masters Programme in Creative Games at the School of Art & Design at the University of Salford in Greater Manchester. Creative Games is a discipline on the borderline of games, art and critical discourse (creativegames.org.uk). He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Salford and Programme Leader in MA Creative Technology and MSc Creative Games. He has had sound and media installations in Vienna, London, Mexico City, Tokyo, Helsinki, Stockholm, Norwich, London, Cairo, Vancouver, Paris, and Providence. Commissioned work for ISEA I, Ars Electronica the Greenwich Millennium Dome and many more.

Laurent Mignonneau

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:34:34 +0000

Laurent Mignonneau (Artist – Scientist / Austria)
Participation: Symposium

Title: Expanding Locality: Interaction Revisited

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau are internationally renowned media artists and researchers, they have jointly created around 20 interactive artworks, which can be found at interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent. These artworks have been shown in around 200 exhibitions world-wide and are installed in media museums and media collections around the world, including the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Science and Industries in Tokyo, the Media Museum of the ZKM in Karlsruhe, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, the NTT-ICC Museum in Tokyo, the NTT Plan-Net in Nagoya, Japan, the Shiroishi Multimedia Art Center in Shiroishi, Japan, the HOUSE-OF-SHISEIDO in Tokyo and the ITAU CULTURAL Foundation in Sao Paulo.

Ivan Poupyrev

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:32:32 +0000

Ivan Poupyrev (Scientist / Russia, USA)
Participation: Symposium

Title: Programmable Reality

Born in USSR, Ivan Poupyrev is a Senior Research Scientist in Disney Research, USA where he designs user interfaces for future digital living environments. In his research he is particularly interested in
creating interfaces and technologies that can seamlessly blend digital and physical properties in devices and everyday objects. The results of his research have been presented at major international
conferences, reported in popular media and released on the market invarious products. Ivan graduated from Moscow Airspace University in 1992. While working on his PhD at Hiroshima University, he stayed for 3 years at the University of Washington working on virtual reality
interfaces. After working in Sony for more then 9 years he joined Disney Research in 2009.

Hiroshi Yoshioka

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:28:48 +0000

Hiroshi Yoshioka (Scientist / Japan)
Participation: Symposium

Title: From Art to Network: Shozo Shimamoto’s Radical Attempts

Hiroshi Yoshioka was born in Kyoto, Japan. He studied philosophy and aesthetics at Kyoto University. He teaches aesthetics and art theory at Kyoto University, IAMAS. He is the author of The Present Tense of Thought: Complex Systems, Cyberspace, and Affordance Theory (1997), Information and Life: The Brain, Computers, and the Universe (with Hisashi Muroi, 1993) [both books published in Japanese], and many articles on aesthetics, arts, technology and culture. He was the editor-in-chief of the critical journal Diatxt.(vol.1-8, Kyoto Art Center, 2000-2003) and Yorobon: Diatxt./Yamaguchi (YCAM, 2008). He was the general director of Kyoto Biennale 2003, and Ogaki Biennale 2006.

Christa Sommerer

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:25:27 +0000

Christa Sommerer (Artist – Scientist / Austria)
Participation: Symposium

Title: Interaction Revisited

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau are internationally renowned media artists and researchers, they have jointly created around 20 interactive artworks, which can be found at interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent. These artworks have been shown in around 200 exhibitions world-wide and are installed in media museums and media collections around the world, including the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Science and Industries in Tokyo, the Media Museum of the ZKM in Karlsruhe, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, the NTT-ICC Museum in Tokyo, the NTT Plan-Net in Nagoya, Japan, the Shiroishi Multimedia Art Center in Shiroishi, Japan, the HOUSE-OF-SHISEIDO in Tokyo and the ITAU CULTURAL Foundation in Sao Paulo.

Yuko Mohri

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:53:47 +0000

Yuko Mohri (Artist / Japan)
Participation: Presentation

Title: The Execution of Everything

MOHRI, an artist, was born in 1980. Her main works, shown in Japan and abroad, include “Magnetic Organ” (2003), a three-dimensional piece using powerful magnetism, “Vexations” (2005, joint work with Soichiro Mihara), a sound installation using compositions by Erik Satie, and “Bairdcast Media” (2008), a three-dimensional work in which she attached wheels to a printer and made it run.

Yuka Shimura

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:52:42 +0000

Yuka Shimura (Artist / Japan)
Group: SHIMURABROS. (with Kentaro Shimura)
Participation: Presentation

Title: SEKILALA – Bio Furniture

Born in Yokohama, Japan in 1976. 2007 she graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art And Design London, MA Scenography. A Sister/Brother artist duo, Yuka and Kentaro SHIMURABROS. create works of motion images in formats such as media art, film and installation. A new expression of imagery is achieved through their inventions. ‘X-ray train’ has award winners for the Yokohama Creative Area Competition. ‘SEKILALA-3 screen installation’ presents the concept of live furniture which has been screened at Transgenesis exhibition in Czech Academy of Science and also 2007 Cannes International Film Festival. On December 5, 2008- February 15, 2009 ‘Hibernation / ART RINK’ 9m hight public media art being held at the plaza, Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse No. 1. Web: shimurabros.com

Walter Langelaar

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:51:23 +0000

Walter Langelaar (Artist / Netherlands)
Participation: Presentation

Title: nOtbOt :: contemporary collage >= open hard- and software.

Walter Langelaar is a dutch artist currently based in Rotterdam. His work stems from charcoal drawing and multichannel slideshow geekery, to manifold video-editing techniques and crude 3D animations combined with oblivious hardware hacks. Currently working in the field of post-interactive sculpture, he deploys dedicated machines into a variety of gallery, festival and party circuits.

Shiho Fukuhara

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:47:01 +0000

Shiho Fukuhara (Artist / Japan)
Group: BCL (with Georg Tremmel)
Participation: Presentation

Title: Common Flowers/White Out (Bio-hacking and Open-sourcing)

Shiho Fukuhara received a BA(Hons) in Fine Art from Central St Martins College of Art and Design in London and continued her studies with an MA in Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art. Shiho was invited to participate at the Le Pavillion at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2004 and was selected as Artist-in-Residence at the IAMAS in Ogaki, Japan in 2005, and in 2008 at ISEA in Singapore and at Ambient TV in London. She has been collaborating with Georg Tremmel since their graduation from the RCA on numerous projects investigating the relationships and differences between art and science with a special interest in social implications of the emerging possibilities of biotechnology.

Ryota Kuwakubo

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:41:13 +0000

Ryota Kuwakubo (Artist / Japan)
Participation: Presentation

Title: The Process of Nicodama

Ryota Kuwakubo is a media artist based in Tokyo. Since 1998, after studying contemporary art and media art, he has made art works mainly by means of electronics, focusing topics appear on borders such as analog / digital, human beings / machineries or senders / recipients. He is best known for his works Bitman (collaborated with Maywa Denki), VideoBulb, PLX, Block Jam (as a collaborating member of the project lead by Sony CSL) and loopScape. He wins honorary mention in the interactive art category at Ars Electronica 2002 & 2003, also the grand prize of art division at Japan Media Arts Festival 2003.

Kentaro Shimura

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:34:37 +0000

Kentaro Shimura (Artist / Japan)
Group: SHIMURABROS. (with Yuka Shimura)
Participation: Presentation

Title: SEKILALA – Bio Furniture

Born in Yokohama, Japan in 1979. 2003 he graduated from Tokyo Polytechnic University, College of Art Department of Cinema. A Sister/Brother artist duo, Yuka and Kentaro SHIMURABROS. create works of motion images in formats such as media art, film and installation. A new expression of imagery is achieved through their inventions. ‘X-ray train’ has award winners for the Yokohama Creative Area Competition.’SEKILALA-3 screen installation’ presents the concept of live furniture which has been screened at Transgenesis exhibition in Czech Academy of Science and also 2007 Cannes International Film Festival. On December 5, 2008- February 15, 2009 ‘Hibernation / ART RINK’ 9m hight public media art being held at the plaza, Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse No. 1. Web: shimurabros.com

UBERMORGEN.COM

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:30:11 +0000

UBERMORGEN.COM (Artists / AT/CH/USA)
Members: lizvlx & Hans Bernhard
Participation: Presentation

Title: How to design hallucinatory software (The Generator Tetralogy)

UBERMORGEN.COM is an artist duo created in Vienna, Austria, by lizvlx and Hans Bernhard, a founder of etoy. Behind UBERMORGEN.COM we can find one of the most unmatchable identities – controversial and iconoclast – of the contemporary European techno-fine-art avant-garde. Their open circuit of conceptual art, drawing, software art, pixel- painting, computer installations, net.art, sculpture and digital activism (media hacking) transforms their brand into a hybrid Gesamtkunstwerk. The computer and the network are (ab)used to create art and combine its multiple forms. The permanent amalgamation of fact and fiction points toward an extremely expanded concept of one’s working materials, that for UBERMORGEN.COM also include (international) rights, democracy and global communication (input-feedback loops). “Ubermorgen” is the German word both for “the day after tomorrow” or “super-tomorrow”. Web: ubermorgen.com

Georg Tremmel

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:17:17 +0000

Georg Tremmel (Artist / Austria)
Group: BCL (with Shiho Fukuhara)
Participation: Presentation

Title: Common Flowers / White Out (Bio-hacking and Open-sourcing)

Georg Tremmel studied Visual Media Art (Visuelle Mediengestaltung) at the University for Applied Art in Vienna and Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art in London, where he started his ongoing collaboration with Shiho Fukuhara. Their works were awarded serveral distinctions, including the NESTA Creative Pioneer Award, the Science Museum’s Product of the Future Award, a 1st prize at VIPER Media Art Festival and a 2nd Prize at the Biotech in Business Forum in Cambridge, UK. Recently, they formed the artistic collaborative research framework BCL in to explore the relations, congruences and differences of biological and cultural codecs through artistic interventions and social research.

exonemo

astrid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:15:18 +0000

exonemo (Artists / Japan)
Members: Yae Akaiwa & Kensuke Sembo
Participation: Presentation

Title: un-der-construction

Artist unit comprising Kensuke Sembo and Yae Akaiwa. Since 1996, exonemo has presented experimental website productions, installations, and live performances by the equipment of its own making, crossing over various media, software/hardware and digital/analog. In 2006, it won Golden Nica Award of Ars Electronica in the category of Net Vision. While participating in many exhibitions and festivals at home and abroad, exonemo keeps extending its wide-ranging activities, such as managing the Tokyo chapter of “dorkbot,” a worldwide community that is “doing strange things with electricity.” exonemo is based in Tokyo and exonemo.com.

Common Flowers / City Gardening

root — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:33:08 +0000

Reverting genetically modified blue carnations back to its natural white state using open-source DIY bio-bending methods and procedures.

“Common Flowers / City Gardening” transfers the basic biotechnology knowledge and plant-tissue cultures skills required to prepare growth media, clone genetically modified blue carnation and release the resulting plants in the city of Yokohama. The processes and technologies involved are based on a DIY bio-bending approach, using tools, items and ingredients readily available in any well stocked kitchen or easily purchased at a nearby drug store. The basis for this workshop/performance/cooking show is Suntory Flowers’ blue “Moondust” carnation, the first commercially available and purely aesthetic GM product. The goal is to communicate the necessary steps, to take ownership of the biotechnology, and to discover the joy of gardening with genetically modified plants. The workshops teaches how to make very Common Flowers from the very special flowers that are the blue carnations. Visitors are invited to participate and encouraged to propagate.

Shiho Fukuhara (Japan)
Shiho Fukuhara received a BA(Hons) in Fine Art from Central St Martins and continued her studies with an MA in Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art. Shiho was invited to participate at the Le Pavillion at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2004 and was selected as Artist-in-Residence at IAMAS (Japan), ISEA 2008 in Singapore and most recently at Ambient TV in London. In her art projects she is investigating the relationships between art and science with a special interest in the social implications of emergent biotechnologies.

Georg Tremmel (Austria)
Georg Tremmel studied Visual Media Arts on the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art in London, where he started his ongoing collaboration with Shiho Fukuhara. Their works were shown internationally and awarded serveral distinctions and honours. Most recently, they formed the artistic collaborative research framework BCL with the mission to explore the relations, congruences and differences of biological and cultural codes through artistic interventions and social research.

SEKILALA – Bio Furniture

root — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:24:42 +0000

Observing our surroundings we cannot fail to notice the ubiquity of animal skin. Animal skin is everywhere and used for a multitude of things like bags, shoes, furniture, etc. The fact that our lovely contoured chair is covered in the skin of a dead animal may be repugnant to some. Bio-furniture is living furniture. In modern times since Descartes, we have been neglectful in interpreting the body as an attached part of our consciousness. Merleau-Ponty documented the symptoms of ‘phantom limb’ in patients who had lost a body part in war. Bio-furniture using skin expansion is questioning the boundaries of existence, it threatens to open new avenues into Bioethics by touching the real existence of ‘Others’.

SHIMURABROS. (Japan) (Yuka Shimura, Kentaro Shimura)
A Sister / Brother artist duo, Yuka (b.1976) and Kentaro (b.1979) SHIMURABROS. create works of motion images in formats such as media art, film and installation. A new expression of imagery is achieved through their inventions. The “X-ray train” won the award for the Yokohama Creative Area Competition. “SEKILALA-3 screen installation” presents the concept of live furniture which has been screened at the exhibition Transgenesis (Czech Academy of Science) and the Cannes International Film Festival 2007.

Yuko Mohri: The Execution of Everything

root — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:15:52 +0000

Photo credit: eSeL

Everyday machines, such as computer devices for instance, are specifically designed to work for a special purpose; on the other hand, these machines carry within the possibility to be treated as performative objects or transformative artifacts. In the performance, computers, data devices and artifacts used in an unconventional way, are subjected to unusual operations and becoming “embodied actors”, opening up unpredicted possibilities. The resulting images and interactions represent a record, which enables us to look at these media devices from another point of view. In the performance for Coded Cultures in Yokohama, a printer works like a musical machine connected to several DIY-devices transforming several inputs from the environment and the audience. The sensors on the modified printer are switches to operate everyday machines controlled by black and white colors on a roll paper. At the performance in Yokohama something unpredictable will happen using this system dynamically!

Yuko Mohri (Japan)
Yuko Mohri, an artist, was born in 1980. Her main works, shown in Japan and abroad, include “Magnetic Organ” (2003), a three-dimensional piece using powerful magnetism, “Vexations” (2005, joint work with Soichiro Mihara), a sound installation using compositions by Erik Satie, and “Bairdcast Media” (2008), a three-dimensional work in which she attached wheels to a printer and made it run.

mohrizm.net – Yuko Mohri’s Website
Yuko Mohri on flickr

BCL: Common Flowers / City Gardening

root — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:11:45 +0000

Reverting genetically modified blue carnations back to its natural white state using open-source DIY bio-bending methods and procedures.

un-der-construction

root — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:11:11 +0000

un-der-construction

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exonemo (Japan)
Artist unit comprising Yae Akaiwa and Kensuke Sembo. Since 1996, exonemo has presented experimental website productions, installations, and live performances by the equipment of its own making, crossing over various media, software/hardware and digital/analog. In 2006 they won the Ars Electronica Golden Nica Award in the category of Net Vision. exonemo is based in Tokyo and exonemo.com.

exonemo.com – Homepage of exonemo

SHIMURABROS.: X-RAY TRAIN – LUMIÈRE BROS to SHIMURA BROS.

root — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:08:54 +0000

This project was created to challenge one of the historical constraints / codes of film production / motion imagery. All motion imagery taken by camera is 2 dimensional though crucial developments in film have been made since “Arrive d’un train la Ciotat” (“Arrival of a train” 1895, the first film in the world directed by Lumière brothers). This early work and most film today focuses on projecting images using a two dimensional screen. SHIMURABROS., not unlike the first pioneers Lumière bros, approach from a fundamentally different perspective to extend film beyond the two-dimensional limit. SHIMURABROS. are determined that image exists in an actual three-dimensional space. This screen is formed by a sequence of special shielded film the sequence creates a phenomenon of persistence of vision in a three dimensional direction thus printing out ‘a solid form made of light’ in our retina. Medical technology, specifically a CT scanner creates, for us a new image experience, composed of photographic cross sections this image of the locamotive generates a luster like that of a precious stone for us.

SHIMURABROS. (Japan) (Yuko Shimura, Kentaro Shimura)
A Sister / Brother artist duo, Yuka (b.1976) and Kentaro (b.1979) SHIMURABROS. create works of motion images in formats such as media art, film and installation. A new expression of imagery is achieved through their inventions. The “X-ray train” won the award for the Yokohama Creative Area Competition. “SEKILALA-3 screen installation” presents the concept of live furniture which has been screened at the exhibition Transgenesis (Czech Academy of Science) and the Cannes International Film Festival 2007.

submission

admin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:09:44 +0000

/jp/?p=173

Yuko Mohri: The execution of Mary

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:33:02 +0000

Photo credit: Bairdcast Media – A History of Machine Translation (past work)

Yuko Mohri uses a scanner as a plate with salad and also a printer with four wheels which runs along a platform…?

Everyday machines, such as computer devices for instance, are specifically designed to work with data; on the other hand, these machines carry within the possibility to be treated as real objects. In her installation, computer and data devices, used in an unconventional way, are subjected to unusual operations and becoming “performative objects”, open up unpredicted possibilities. The resulting images represent a record, which enables us to look at these media devices from another point of view. This installation is made of three main devices: a scanner is placed on the wall upright; a gadget made of gearwheels producing motion, is installed in front of the scanner; a printer with four wheels runs along a platform.