13:00
Generator.x Tour: Frank Bretschneider live on the tour (more photos on Flickr)
A veteran of electronic music, Frank Bretschneider is currently based in Berlin but was born in 1956 in East Germany, growing up in what was then Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz). He originally trained as a graphic designer and painter, but in 1984 started experimenting with electronic music through tape loops, a Korg synth and treated guitars. In 1986 he founded the now-defunct AG.GEIGE, an experimental group mixing popular music with avantgarde performance strategies, borrowing from Dada and the Surrealists.
In 1995 Bretschneider formed the Rastermusic label with former bandmate Olaf Bender, releasing experimental electronic music. Rastermusic merged in 1999 with Noton Archiv für ton und nichtton (run by artist and musician Carsten Nicolai), creating the now renowned Raster-Noton label. With artists like Bretschneider, Nicolai and Ryoji Ikeda, Raster-Noton is famous for releasing uncompromising musical abstractions. The label also focuses on the interaction between music and visual art, with its artists frequently producing audiovisual performances or art installations.
Bretschneider’s music is often described as minimalist, but when asked he prefers to describe it as simply economic. Whatever the term used, his music is highly structured, marked by pinpoint precision and micromanagement. His raw materials are sine waves and white noise, resulting in a sound which is clearly digital and synthetic, although not without warmth.
As strategies for composition Bretschneider emphasizes accidents and the intentional misuse of software. Claiming to be “lazy”, he experiments with connecting modular synthesis systems until he gets interesting sequences. These are then saved and processed further. The final track is then constructed using these elements as building blocks, with looping and filtering applied to introduce further unexpected results.
Bretschneider’s interest in visual representation of sound comes naturally from his background in visual work. Using spectral analysis and custom software, he takes visual cues from music software (dots, lines, bars etc.) and turns them into representations of musical structures. The visuals mirror Bretschneider’s sound perfectly, with hypnotic repetition and precise micro-events drawing audiences into a synthetic visual space. Again, he claims that his use of a limited visual vocabulary of shapes and colors is a matter of economics rather than a minimalist statement.
To watch one of Bretschneider’s audiovisual performances is to be placed inside the logic of the composition, seeing and hearing it simultaneously. While this highly structured environment somewhat restricts possibilities for improvisation, the result is immensely precise in its connection of sound and image. To overcome the improvisational challenge, Bretschneider is currently working on new software solutions for realtime visuals.
Frank Bretschneider is touring with the Generator.x concert tour for 7 performances all over Norway. The tour is produced by Rikskonsertene and co-curated by Alexander Rishaug and Marius Watz.
Related links:
- frankbretschneider.de
- Photos of Frank Bretschneider on the Generator.x tour
- Raster-Noton
- Bretschneider on the 12K label
- Interview with Surreal Sound
- "Micro-economics", article by Susanna Bolle for Boston’s Weekly Dig
17:02
Zachary Lieberman: Drawn (installation)
Zach Lieberman has released documentation of the installation version of his “Drawn” performance piece (previously blogged here.) “Drawn” uses computer vision techniques to allow a user to paint with ink on canvas, with the resulting drawings coming to life through computer intervention. Ink blots are “erased” from the page and are free to move around the canvas in reaction to user interaction.
Drawn is a perfect instance of “augmented reality” used to create a poetic space between the real and the virtual, with plenty of playfulness and generosity thrown in. The installation came about as a result of the obvious interest shown by audiences after each concert, wanting see the drawing table and possibly try it out for themselves. The installation provides an intuitive software interface, and the projected results become both a work screen for the user and a perfomative space for observers. A delightful side product of the installation is the buildup of completed sketches left behind by users and displayed on the walls in the gallery as a document both of the work’s intention and of its users.
Lieberman’s work is concerned with interactivity, frequently appying sophisticated technological solutions to the creation of playful and poetic spaces. Drawn is an attempt at creating pure magic, as opposed to a dry augmented reality application. Be sure to explore Lieberman’s Thesystemis site, and for a small bonus see his lovely 2006 New Year's greeting card.
The Drawn installation will be on display at the OFFF Festival in Barcelona in May, where Lieberman will be taking part in leading the EXTEND workshop.
03:53
Jonathan McCabe: The Origami Butterfly Method
Last week I opened an exhibition by Canberra artist Jonathan McCabe – The Origami Butterfly Method. The show presents a family of images made with a supremely elegant – and as far as I know original – generative technique. The Method goes something like this. Imagine a square sheet of paper, and mark a dot somewhere on it and record its position. Fold the paper along a random axis, and watch where the dot ends up, recording this position. Repeat this thirty-two times. Use a weighted average of that list of points to determine the colour (or at least hue and brightness) of that original point. Now repeat, using the same folds, for as many points on the square as you like (say, several million). What I love about this is that despite the intensely tactile quality of the surfaces, these images have no “thing” to them: they’re visualisations of transformations of space – traces of topological history. This generative technique has lots of neat features. It’s resolution-independent (you can sample as many points as you like), the procedure is simple and compact (32 folds) and because it’s a sequence, it’s richly connected with image structure: the first fold is the most significant in controlling macro-structure, and the last fold influences the smallest level of detail. McCabe uses genetic algorithms to search and “optimise” the space of possible fold sequences / images. Oh and also, he’s making animations out of them. In this exhibition McCabe printed high-res images onto 72cm square canvases, in (very affordable) editions of one. More than half this show at The Front gallery, Lyneham, sold on the opening night.
McCabe isn’t plugged in to the generative arts scene – I had to ask him to make this site so I could write this post. Maybe that’s part of the reason his work seems so fresh – he’s been refining these techniques by himself for quite a while. After seeing this show I think the work could do with some attention: it’s got “retinality” to burn but underneath that is a generative technique that is poetic in itself.
00:01
This is mostly of interest for Norwegian and Nordic readers, but the experimental network organization PNEK (i.e. “Production Network for Electronic Art”) has published a report on the first four years of their exists. PNEK was created to promote collaboration and knowledge production in the Norwegian electronic art scene, and was one of supporters of the Generator.x events in Oslo last year.
For more information about the PNEK and the Norwegian network model for the support of electronic art, read this previous post. Last year a decision was made to continue the PNEK project past its initial four year trial period, but the details of the future of the organization and in particular its finances are uncertain.
The report is unfortunately only available in Norwegian. While much of the statistics and straight facts are only relevant to PNEK, there is also an article by Grethe Melby about the network function in Norway. This could be of interest to other countries looking for a model for supporting the electronic arts.
Download the report here:
http://pnek.no/pnekrapport_2001_2005.pdf (PDF, 4 MB)
15:07
Soda was one of the original interaction design companies that really walked the walk. Instead of talking about the future, they were making it all the way back in 1996. Originally focused on technology and art with more than a slight architectural interest, they created a number of installations exploring robotics and unconventional interfaces. See 2743, Corrupted Nature and C20 Screen for examples of this activity.
More recently, Soda’s Journey presents the viewer with an oh-so-subtle journey through artworks owned by the National Art Collections Fund. An advanced algorithm identifies similar structures in two different images, so that zooming in on a small area of the first image gradually reveals the second. The result is a hypnotic never-ending fractal zoom. When Casson Mann Designers were asked to create an exhibit on Energy for the Science Museum, they worked with Soda to develop the concept and behaviour of the 40 meter long LED screen that is the Energy Ring (see the video).
Soda’s biggest claim to fame is without doubt the SodaConstructor. Launched in 2000 as a personal experiment (Ed Burton wanted to learn Java), it quickly exploded and within months was receiving more than a quarter of a million visits per week. Since then, several improved versions have been launched and the SodaConstructor community has grown immensely. Some very exciting SodaConstructor projects are in the pipeline, more about that in a separate post.
Pure resarch is central to Soda. Alongside commercial work they have received and worked on numerous research grants. Their research is then fed back into the commercial work, or made available to the design and engineering communities. SodaConstructor and Moovl have received considerable interest and support from NESTA, with exciting future developments still to come. These tools have then been used in schools from kids at primary level up to engineering graduates.
Soda’s work is analytical, minimal and of high technical quality. Their projects always retain a purity of form and function, without unnecessary showiness or designer flourishes. Instead of scoring points for trendiness, Soda’s work is the real deal. Producing a high-quality mix of science, design and art projects that actually work, they remain a leading light in an interaction design industry filled with funky demos and non-functional prototypes.
22:50
Andy Lomas: Once a Mathematician always an Artist
Once a Mathematician always an Artist is a recent article posted at CGSociety.org on Andy Lomas’ artwork “Aggregation” which has been displayed at several art galleries around the world this past year. Lomas was a CGI Supervisor at ESC for Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions when he researched simulation of growth processes for use in visual effects for the films. He wanted to create an organic look and feel to the black “goo” surrounding the victims faces upon being punched by Mr. Smith. The mathematical rules used for Aggregation is inspired by a base algorithm called “diffusion limited aggregation” – a fractal growth model – which was invented by physicists T.A. Witten and L.M. Sander in 1981. The complex black and white life like 3d forms are “grown” in virtual cylinders in a process resembling the growth processes in coral reef structures.
20:53
Hudson-Powell: Luke / Jody / Sketches
Brothers Jody and Luke Hudson-Powell have been on my to-see list after their excellent Responsive Type project last year. Their Shoreditch studio is a modest space shared with friends, constituting a miniature creative community. Like many small design studios they are expert collaborators, teaming up where necessary.
Hudson-Powell’s portfolio is quite varied, featuring print work, graphic identities, motion graphics and interactive work. While at home in digital media, they also use drawing and found objects in their work, giving it a playful lo-tech feeling. They often use a system-based approach, following a British tradition of conceptual graphic design. Their cover for SHIFT is an excellent example. Here they used found objects to spell out the word SHIFT for a webcam, changing the image gradually over the scope of a month.
Hudson-Powell: Shift Cover / Responsive Type / Barbican
Luke and Jody are not hardcore coders themselves, although Jody did attend the MSc Virtual Environments course at Bartlett, learning VRML and C++. Following the Responsive Type project, they have recently continued their code-based exploration in a set of illustrations for the Barbican classical music programme. Working with V3ga and Michael Zancan (both of whom were involved in Responsive Type), they developed a tree-like system which grows in real-time based on audio input. The project was based on V3ga’s Vision Factory platform. The final output is a series of illustrations based on classical music, for use in the Barbican’s printed material, banners etc.
Hudson-Powell links
- Hudson-Powell (make sure to look at their portfolio PDF and showreel)
- SHIFT Interview
- Responsive Type
23:14
Wilfried from Socialfiction sent us this info about a new Crystalpunk event in Utrecht:
11-12 March 2006 Utrecht: A “Crystalpunk Workshop for Soft Architecture” event; Oudenoord 275, Utrecht, NL
Essentially it was William Butler Yeats who defined soft architecture as early as 1888 when he wrote:
“Behind the visible are chains on chains of conscious beings, who are not of heaven but of earth, who have no inherent form but change according to their whim, or the mind that sees them. You cannot lift your hand without influencing and being influenced by hoards. The visible world is merely their skin.”.
12:18
London views: National Theatre, Dan Flavin retrospective, Rachel Whiteread
I am passing through London on my way back from the AV.06 festival and using the opportunity to meet up with the London scene. Last night saw a very pleasant gathering of Tom Carden, Karsten Schmidt, Andreas Müller (who turns out to be Swedish / Finnish, not German as one might suspect), Christian Giordano, Ed Burton and more.
A London Flickr set is already up, more blog posts to come.
Things seen:
Tate Modern: Rachel Whiteread’s Embankment installation
Hayward Gallery: Dan Flavin retrospective
Relevant books purchased:
Alex Coles: Design Art
Frances Follin: Embodied Visions. Bridget Riley, Op Art and the Sixties
Eye Magazine #58 (it has an article on the “decriminalization of ornament”)
13:25
Alva Noto: Concert (video)
Fenwick: What I know about stem cells
Back online after a few days spent at the AV.06 festival in lovely Newcastle, where the architecture is baroque industrial (except for Norman Foster’s very sci-fi Sage Gateshead) and the local females brave the sub-zero conditions in flimsy tops. This is only the second time the AV festival has been organized. The last (2003) version was a VJ- and film-oriented event. This year director Honor Harger and her team has created an ambitious event around the theme “Lifelike”.
Spanning three cities (Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Sunderland), it features commissioned performances and installations by artists like Ryoji Ikeda, Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto, see live video) Michael Nyman, Critical Art Ensemble, Ken Rinaldo and many more. Concerts and VJ culture are still important to the programme, as is film (the Tyneside Cinema is one of the organizing partners). The festival includes not one but two premieres of new work by experimental filmmaker Richard Fenwick, including an excellent deadpan edutainment piece on stem cell research.
All in all, a very strong showing of varied events, successfully mixing film and VJ culture with classical music and media art. The festival is on for another week, if you’re in the neighbourhood be sure to drop by.
Disclosure: I participated in the festival with a new projection piece commissioned for the Sage Gateshead and with System C in the Animated Drawing programme organized by the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. My thanks to Honor, Fiona, Dan, Mark, Adam, Beckie etc. for assistance and hospitality. I’ve uploaded a Flickr set from AV.06.
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