Marius Watz: Form Studies (Makerbot)

Announcing Generator.x 3.0: From Code to Atoms, a workshop and exhibition focusing on digital fabrication and generative systems. This event is an evolution of Generator.x 2.0: Beyond the Screen, which took place in Berlin during Club Transmediale 2008. Generator.x 3.0 is produced by iMAL in collaboration with Marius Watz.

Context: Digital fabrication drastically changes manufacturing by democratizing access to industrial tools as well as changing the way objects are produced, opening the door for the on-demand creation of bespoke objects. Combined with the “craft” of code it becomes possible to directly connect parametric software processes to an instant manufacturing workflow, turning bits into atoms and introducing a paradigm that is radically different from traditional 3D modeling.

Generative systems shift the focus from static models towards a computational logic – what Bruce Sterling calls processuality. Here objects are understood as mere instances of a family of forms, produced by a specific interaction of parameters. Such forms may be data-driven or created through interactive means, adapting to conditions coded into the system. The artist becomes a “gardener” of possible forms, harvesting desirable results in an iterative process of coding and prototyping.

Workshop format: Participants will be chosen from a call for projects, with a focus on experience combining coding practices with digital fabrication. We will have large and powerful laser cutter machine on site, as well as several low-cost 3D Printers (Makerbots). The main software tool will be Processing (http://www.processing.org), but we also welcome users of other coding tools like VVVV, PD or OpenFrameworks.

The workshop will be hands-on and geared towards producing projects ready for exhibition at the end of the project. Participants will be expected to be familiar with code and generative strategies. There will be short tutorials demonstrating certain techniques, but the main focus is on the participants’ own independent work.

Call for projects: Submit projects or concepts for consideration through the online form on the iMAL web site.

Support: Generator.x 3.0 is produced by iMAL, and is made possible by the support of the Brussels-Capital Region, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, and our sponsors Hackable-devices (Paris and Ghent) and i.materialise.

SOFTlab: (n)arcissus, 2010
Site-specific installation, laser cut mylar & acrylic

“(n)arcissus” is a site-specific spatial intervention in the stairwell of the Frankfurter Kunstverein, an artificial skin that drops down through the vertical space using gravity as a principle. By designing the form as a parametric model SOFTlab are able to manipulate the formal qualities of the final output while simultaneously optimizing it for physical construction. Their script breaks the surface down into individual surfaces for laser cutting, producing the unique modules needed to produce the larger structure.

Digital tools are not new to the field of architecture, but the last few years have seen an explosion in the use of generative systems combined with digital manufacturing processes. This new style of computational architecture explores the creation of complex forms based on parametric processes, giving rise to a new range of architectural expression while eliminating the economy of mass-produced form. Positioned at the heart of this movement, SOFTlab is an emerging architectural practice whose work combines scripted processes with knowledge of materials and principles of construction.

This text is taken from the NODE10 catalogue, written by Eno Henze and Marius Watz and edited by Valérie-Françoise Vogt. Please read the introductory curator text for an overview of the exhibition topic.

John Powers: God's Comic, 2010
5 x 3 x 5 meters, Sculpture constructed from polystyrene blocks (site-specific unique installation)

The impenetrable geometries of John Powers’ abstract sculptures call to mind a wide range of influences, borrowing equally from art movements like postminimalism and pop culture icons like Star Wars. Meticulously constructed by hand, Power’s forms are constructed out of a limited formal vocabulary: Polystyrene blocks cut to a selection of preset sizes, attached to each other at 90 degree angles. The resulting structure gives the appearance of being a computer-aided design but is in reality the outcome of a human-executed algorithm, dictated by the artist’s intuition expressed through the repetitive action of connecting blocks.

This text is taken from the NODE10 catalogue, written by Eno Henze and Marius Watz and edited by Valérie-Françoise Vogt. Please read the introductory curator text for an overview of the exhibition topic.

Brandon Morse: Achilles, 2009
Multi-screen video

In “Achilles” we are presented with a collection of rigidly modeled three-dimensional grids, recalling the skeletons of tall buildings. Suspended in space and rendered in monochrome, they at first appear stable and solid. This illusion is broken as the forms begin to deform and collapse, their networks of vertices and lines collapsing as a result of simulated gravity.

Brandon Morse exploits the digital simulation of rigid body physics to construct static tableaux, only to be destroyed by inevitable collapse towards entropy. He makes no attempt at photorealistic trickery, simply allowing the event to unfold without adding any expressive affect. His compositions recall the formal language of minimalist sculpture, updated to include simulations of kinetic behavior.

This text is taken from the NODE10 catalogue, written by Eno Henze and Marius Watz and edited by Valérie-Françoise Vogt. Please read the introductory curator text for an overview of the exhibition topic.

Louise Naunton Morgan: The Human Printer, 2008
Various sizes, felt tip on tracing paper

As “The Human Printer”, Louise Morgan offers her services of ‘printing’ images manually. In the same process as for offset printing, the motifs  are separated as CMYK halftones. These grids are then, dot by dot, meticulously transferred onto paper by hand. The motifs dissolve into a coarse technical structure with a washed-out quality that reminds of the approaches to representation invented by pointillists.

Morgan’s indifference toward the motifs that are ordered bespeaks a democratic image regime in her work, which is otherwise encountered only in the production lines of industrial photographic laboratories. At the same time, she makes a new case for technical image production in art, which has been discussed ever since Warhol’s Factory and Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’.

This text is taken from the NODE10 catalogue, written by Eno Henze and Marius Watz and edited by Valérie-Françoise Vogt. Please read the introductory curator text for an overview of the exhibition topic.

Robert Hodgin: Sketches 2005-2010
Digital video

Computer code is perhaps the most immaterial of materials, consisting of text sequences dotted with obscure typographic symbols that read almost as concrete poetry. Writing code requires the description of the desired outcome as a result of the atomic steps required to achieve it – an algorithm.

Robert Hodgin is an alchemist of such algorithms, manipulating computational processes as the very material from which his work is created. In “Sketches 2005-2010” we trace the evolution of his work, often disregarding final versions in favor of work-in-progress sketches revealing the material explorations Hodgin goes through in order to produce the final work.

This text is taken from the NODE10 catalogue, written by Eno Henze and Marius Watz and edited by Valérie-Françoise Vogt. Please read the introductory curator text for an overview of the exhibition topic.

Leander Herzog – Sound object (data.matrix, Ryoji Ikeda), 2010
Laser cut plastic

The human ear perceives sound as an intangible presence, produced by vibrations travelling through a physical medium (air, water, even solids). Recorded sound is produced by measuring these vibrations for later reproduction by mechanical means. What we experience as harmony and rhythm appears to the computer as a one-dimensional number sequence.

Leander Herzog’s data sculptures perpetuate this disregard of the emotional dimension of music, looking at the sound input simply as a frozen space of random-access data. Herzog replicates this data stream by perforating plastic ribbons at intervals matching amplitude measurements, producing ornate collections of short and long loops. The result is a curious data artifact, numerically correct but completely disconnected from its own origin as sound.

This text is taken from the NODE10 catalogue, written by Eno Henze and Marius Watz and edited by Valérie-Françoise Vogt. Please read the introductory curator text for an overview of the exhibition topic.

FIELD: Interim Camp (2008), Muse (2010)
Computer-generated short films

The experimental short films “Interim Camp” and “MUSE” show us a glimpse into fluid dream worlds, synthetic spaces generated through custom software processes. The cinematic vision is here a product of algorithms controlling the camera’s motion as well as the simulated terrain it moves through.

The creation of artificial worlds has been a constant trope in computer graphics since its inception, reflecting the desire to model an alternate reality in silicon perfection. FIELD (Marcus Wendt and Vera-Maria Glahn) acknowledges this utopian vision, embracing a graphic style that clearly reveals the illusion they present to the viewer. Their films show three-dimensional landscapes but are constantly on the verge of becoming pure abstraction, space devolving into a composition of surfaces. Perhaps we should understand them as much as moving paintings as renderings of artificial worlds.

This text is taken from the NODE10 catalogue, written by Eno Henze and Marius Watz and edited by Valérie-Françoise Vogt. Please read the introductory curator text for an overview of the exhibition topic.

Interim Camp

Muse

Ralf Baecker: The Conversation, 2006
250×250 cm, Solenoids, strings, custom electronics, cables, wood

“The Conversation” is an autonomous apparatus, consisting of one analogue and one digital part. These elements, which are almost inseparably tied together, simultaneously attempt to adapt to one another. As the process follows no linear program, it is not obvious which part is controlling which.

Even if Baecker describes the arrangement as a “Pataphysical Processing Environment” and declares it nonsense or else a machine without a purpose, we can nevertheless read it as a cybernetic diagram. Cybernetics employs the same method to describe both machines and living organisms as information processing (communicating) objects. In this, circular causal and feedback mechanisms play a crucial role. Through a feedback loop, the installation constantly supplies itself with the data on its deviation from “inner equilibrium.” The state of the apparatus, which in theoretical discussion is generally represented as a ‘black box’ and remains hidden, is visible in “The Conversation” as a relation of tension, so that we may view the machine talking to itself.

This text is taken from the NODE10 catalogue, written by Eno Henze and Marius Watz and edited by Valérie-Françoise Vogt. Please read the introductory curator text for an overview of the exhibition topic.

This post consists of the curator text by Eno Henze. It will be followed by a series of posts describing all the works in the exhibition.

John Powers, God's Comic

abstrakt Abstrakt – The Systemized World
NODE10 – Forum for Digital Arts
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Nov. 15-20, 2010

Artists: Ralf Baecker, FIELD, Ben Fry, Leander Herzog, Robert Hodgin, Thilo Kraft, Brandon Morse, Louise Naunton Morgan, John Powers, Patrick Raddatz, SOFTlab, Jorinde Voigt, Zimoun

The way of the world is increasingly controlled by relations and conditions that reside on an abstract plane. Cause and motivation for many events remain secret, because they trace back to invisible sets of rules that permeate our society and guarantee its functioning.

The two complementing events of the festival, exhibition and symposium, seek to analyze the nature and effect of such systems of abstraction. The exhibition draws upon artworks as visual evidence for the changing conditions of production in an abstract world. The symposium approaches the topic from a more theoretical perspective, facilitated by contributions from economists, scientists, artists and philosophers.

At first, abstraction appears as a method to contain certain properties of the world in a new medium. Formalized in this manner, these properties can be edited in a completely new way, demonstrating the power of abstraction as a productive tool. By these means the things of reality become transformable in an unprecedented way. This also implies a reversion of causality: the motivation for ‘real’ events now resides in an abstract place, in a certain constellation of values of the formalizing medium.

Such an occult motivation might be transparent in a simple case. But what if abstraction itself becomes a material, which then again is formalized into an even higher abstraction?

Ben Fry: All Streets / Zimoun: 150 prepared dc-motors, filler wire 1.0 mm

In mathematics abstraction is conceived as a construct for generalization that can be applied to a set of different elements. Yet, it can be embodied in a medium representing this abstraction. In a medium like money for instance, apples become comparable to pears, and these even to immaterial goods like work or moral integrity. Apparently the world can be represented by money comprehensively. By this measure, the world obtains a formerly unknown relation, the presence of which effectively transforms it.

However the system of money reaches far beyond the valuation of everything. Money is becoming a commodity of it’s own, one can bet on developments of the market, bet on bets, and even valuate and sell these bets again. A hierarchical system of abstraction emerges, in which the lower abstraction represents the concretization of a respective higher abstraction. In this hierarchy abstraction is both material and instrument.

The complexity of abstraction systems surrounding us today – economy, science, internet, medicine, transport … – is inconceivable to the human mind. For both their creation and application we need technical auxiliaries.

As a mediator of abstraction the computer has proven capable of representing the most diverse systems, effectively becoming a universal machine of abstraction. By means of the computer abstract systems may be constructed and manipulated, residing outside the realm of human perception yet affecting the fate of humanity to a great extent.

Robert Hodgin: Sketches 2005-2010 / FIELD: Interim Camp

Looking at the power and effect of these systems of abstraction, important questions emerge, which we will investigate during the symposium. Can we still speak of a primacy of man before machine, or have we become agents of a self-fulfilling regime?

The artworks that comprise the ‘abstrakt Abstrakt’ exhibition can be read as reflections on the reality of life in an abstract world. On one side we see attempts to develop a subjective, corporeal understanding of these systems. Artists seek places of reification of these systems of abstraction, or render system designs of their own in drawings and kinetic sculptures. On the other side we analyze the aesthetic consequences of the use of these universal machines of abstraction for the production of art. If we conceive of abstraction as a material, what would an aesthetic of this abstraction look like? Which new forms are entailed in the work with complexities that lie beyond our comprehension? Do we have to re-evaluate the term ‘abstract’ in the field of art, when abstract images appear as concretizations of higher abstractions?

Eno Henze, curator

Artworks & catalogue texts

• Ralf Baecker: The Conversation
• Ben Fry: All Streets
• Leander Herzog: Sound object (data.matrix, Ryoji Ikeda)
• Robert Hodgin: Sketches 2005-2010
• Thilo Kraft: Und
• Louise Naunton Morgan: The Human Printer
• Brandon Morse: Achilles
• John Powers: God’s Comic
• Patrick Raddatz: In The Control Room
• SOFTlab: (n)arcissus
• Jorinde Voigt: Territorium (4), VI/aus: Position 1-x; Nord-Süd-Achse; Zentren A-Z; Position-Zentrum/Identisch; Territorium 1-x; Zentrum 1-x; N,S,W,O; Drehrichtung der Himmelsrichtung im Verlauf; Konstruktion; Dekonstruktion; Countup-Countdown-Loop: 1-x Tage; Kontinentalgrenze
• Zimoun: 150 prepared dc-motors, filler wire 1.0 mm

More information

NODE10 Forum for Digital Arts is an event by NODE Verein zur Förderung Digitaler Kultur in cooperation with Frankfurter Kunstverein. Partners: MESO Digital Interiors, Satis&Fy. Festival direction and production by David Brüll, Ingolf Heinsch. Corporate design by Strukt. Editorial production: Valérie-Françoise Vogt.

• NODE10 – Forum for Digital Arts
• NODE10: abstrakt Abstrakt – The Systemized World
• Flickr: NODE10 – Forum for Digital Arts