18:25
Generator.x has been on extended (and unannounced) one-month holiday, but now summer is ending and blogging will slowly resume. To warm up, here are a few random links that have accumulated:
- AOL reSearch has just managed to release a substantial data set containing 20 million search queries from over 650 000 users. What was probably an eager attempt at scoring Open Source brownie points, has rapidly become a public relations disaster. Americans are rightly paranoid about their privacy, and the data set is likely to include personal data like names, social security numbers, unpleasant searches for porn and violent images etc.
The original post has not surprisingly been removed from AOL, although a cached copy can be seen using Google's cache. Mirrors posting the data set can easily be found, one of the best bets is to try the Bittorrent download. While the release of these data is bad news, it’s sure to be of interest to information visualizers and dataminers. It would almost be surprising if no art works came out of this debacle.
Read Techcrunch for a good overview of the whole story.
- Kunstverein Medienturm in Graz will feature a show called Further Processing in September. The show will show software-based works created with Processing, and also give a presentation of the tool itself. Contributing artists are Pablo Miranda Carranza, Fabio Franchino, Ben Fry, Golan Levin, Lia, Mark Napier, C.E.B. Reas, Karsten Schmidt, Martin Wattenberg, Marius Watz. The show is curated by Sandro Droschl (director of Medienturm and one of the curators behind Abstraction Now) and myself.
- Art.ficial Emotion 3.0 is an interesting exhibition at Itau Cultural in Sao Paulo, Brazil, featuring a major presentation of media artists whose works relate to cybernetic theory. See Paul Prudence's writeup on Dataisnature for a summary. Regine over at we-make-money-not-art recently did a interview with Guilherme Kujawski, one of the curators of the show. In it he presents his ideas about the exhibition and its relation to cybernetic theory.
For visual impressions of the show, see the following Flickr sets : mrprudence, watz.
- Code & Form is a new blog I’ve started to cover more technical and code-related issues that would be too geeky for Generator.x. This separation of content means that Generator.x will be more clearly focused on finished works and theory, rather than tools and technology.
- Ars Electronica is around the corner, if anyone is going and would like to meet up please send me an email on marius at unlekker net. I had thought of organizing an official Generator.x gathering, but there are not enough hours in the day… Hope to see some of you there anyway!
15:47
Nostalgia can be distracting, particularly the “good old days” variety that makes one feel things used to be so much better. But when Emigre launches a redesign of its web site (the first in 9 years – yes, that’s 1997) it’s hard not to feel at least a pang. A lot of Generator.x readers probably know the Emigre story, but here’s a short history lesson for those who don’t.
Although it was always the Emigre fonts that paid the bills, it was Emigre Magazine that built the cult. Founded by Rudy VanderLans and first published in 1984, it finally closed with issue 69 in 2005. Always uncomprisingly dedicated to eclectic visions and new voices in graphic design, it concerned it self with a theoretical and subjective approach to design.
Emigre was declared public enemy #1 by much of the design establishment of the 80’s and 90’s. Its unpopularity had several causes. Emigre openly embraced computers as design tools and digital artifacts like pixels as new design elements in their own right. This put them in the midst of the “desktop publishing” controversy, which would eventually cause the obsolescence of professional typographers. More importantly, Emigre championed postmodernist and deconstructivist design experiments, and became a soapbox for new ideas coming out of schools like Cranbrook and Calarts.
Emigre’s willingness to showcase stylistic exercises that explored “form as function” rather than “form follows function” was an affront to Modernist schools of thought. But by the mid-90s Modernism was on the run, and the idea that a designer is merely a neutral translator of content was all but dead and buried. The Emigre revolution was soft, but irreversible. But nothing lasts forever.
With little to fight against, Emigre started losing steam towards the end of the 90’s. The internet took over as the most important influence on graphic design, and the excesses of postmodernism fell out of fashion. Emigre were among the first type foundries to have a web site and offer downloadable fonts, but it didn’t have such a good grasp on the new issues brought up by digital design. Some early computational experiments like the RandomFonts from Letterror, found space within the pages of Emigre Magazine. But web design as a field was largely passed by in silence.
The final issue (#69) features a collection of 69 stories by Rudy VanderLans, chronicling the trials and tribulations (but also successes) of Emigre Magazine. The font foundry remains one of the most important independent foundries out there, dedicated to solid typography with an eye for the curious and eclectic. Don’t miss out on Zuzana Licko’s fonts, including her lovely Puzzler pattern generator.
Related links
- Emigre essays, a collection of essays about Emigre.
- Collection of essays published in Emigre.
- The Cult of the Ugly.
- Wikipedia: Emigre magazine
11:41
Some new calls for projects in the Nordic region, the first being the brain child of several people involved in the Generator.x conference in Oslo. Please note that these calls are also for international artists.
Organized by Atelier Nord, to take place at Henie-Onstad Art Center. Curators: Atle Barcley, Erich Berger, Jana Winderen.
In our everyday life we constantly have to cope more or less successfully with interfaces. We use the mobile phone, the mp3 player, and our laptop, in order to gain access to the digital part of our life. In recent years this situation has lead to the creation of new interdisciplinary subjects like “Interaction Design” or “Physical Computing”.
[...]
The project INTERFACE and SOCIETY investigates how artists deal with the transformation of our everyday life through technical interfaces. With the rapid technological development a thoroughly critique of the
interface towards society is necessary.
The role of the artist is thereby crucial. S/he has the freedom to deal with technologies and interfaces beyond functionality and usability. The project INTERFACE and SOCIETY is looking at this development with a special focus on the artistic contribution.
Deadline: 1 July 2006
URL: Atelier Nord: Interface & Society
Call for entries. Electrohype 2006, the fourth Nordic biennial for computer based art.
Organized by Electrohype, to take place in Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden.
Electrohype has since the start in 1999 focused on what we choose to call computer based art. Art that runs of computers and utilizes the capacity of the computer to mix various media, allow interaction with the audience, or machines interacting with each others etc. in other words art that can not be transferred to “traditional” linear media. This might seem as a narrow approach but we have discovered that it gives us a better focus on a genre that in no way is narrow.
We are not looking for “straight” video art (even if it is edited on a computer) or still images rendered on computers and other material that refers to more “traditional” media forms. Forms were the traditional tools have been replaced with computers and software.
Deadline: 3 July 2006
URL: Electrohype 2006 call
The Electrohype call is exciting, since they had long ago announced the likely death of the Electrohype organization and thus also the biennial. With Electrohype resurrected, there are currently three major exhibitions of media art underways in Norway and Sweden (the third being Article). With Pixelache in Finland and various projects in Denmark completing the picture, that means the Nordic scene is still going strong.
10:12
Jared Tarbell: HappyPlace
Most people reading this blog are probably familiar with the work of Jared Tarbell, but he has never been properly blogged here. So stumbling over his HappyPlace piece provided me with a pleasant opportunity.
Jared is perhaps best known for his playful Flash work, which he has published on his Levitated.net site since the very early days. These consist mostly of generative sketches involving recursion, motion studies or technical experiments, which he generously provides the source code for. But these days he focuses more on his generative artwork, which finds a place on Complexification.net, his “Gallery of Computation” and “generative artifacts”.
HappyPlace is a good example of his more recent pieces. It uses the underlying structure of a network of “friends” and “non-friends”, simple agents acting on local rules. But through a baroque rendering style Jared has developed called Sand Stroke, these simple interactions become the raw material for delightfully intricate drawings. This strategy is not unlike that of C.E.B. Reas, who uses agent interaction as the basis of popular works like his Process series. Jared helpfully provides applets showing the agents moving both with and without the Sand Stroke rendering to make it easier to understand their behavior.
The style of drawing used in HappyPlace has taken Jared’s work in a direction which is visually quite different from his earlier Flash work. Where Flash tends to produce smoothly rendered vector objects, he now explores grittily detailed surfaces with a painterly interest. Interestingly, this change coincides with his move to using Processing, which allows pixel rendering in the very high resolutions needed to produce print-ready pieces.
For more Tarbell goodness, see some of these examples:
- Orbitals a
- Intersection aggregate
- Sand Traveler
- Invader Fractal is a different type of work, dealing with permutation of simple systems (pixel graphics). The results are both familiar and likely to make you smile.
18:18
Franchino: Petals #1 / Capozzo: Code.specific / Limiteazero: Laptop orchestra
C.STEM | Art Electronic Systems and Software-Art practices
1-2 June 2006, Sede 32 Dicembre, Turin
An upcoming exhibition / conference / club event in Turin looks set to blow the lid on the Italian generative art scene. C.STEM is organized by artist Fabio Franchino, and is possibly the first Italian event dedicated to generative and software-based procedural art. In a traditionally conservative Italian art scene this should prove an interesting event.
C.STEM will show the work of 3 Italians and one Norwegian, with myself (Marius Watz) representing the Nordic contingent. The remaining three are Fabio Franchino, Alessandro Capozzo and Limiteazero, all significant Italian artists or artist groups working with code. Their work has long been seen on blogs and web sites, and despite individual differences shows a tendency towards poetic, self-contained works. Aesthetics is a clear focus for all three, with a warm organic feel given to even the most abstract visuals. Whether this is an Italian specialization is hard to say, but it is interesting to note local differences in style and expression. Compare for instance to the Austrian scene with its focus on hard-edged abstraction.
Fabio Franchino shows an interest in autonomous virtual drawing machines, and has an at times painterly approach to his images. At home in print media, he creates sumptious compositions like City on sea, Suff and Petals. Other works like Homo and Blow are carefully exposed chaotic systems, in what is practically a kind of generative photography. Yet others (Silus, Toys) explore permutations of algorithmic form systems.
Alessandro Capozzo is more concerned with structure and topologies than with surface. His online works often deal with organic growth processes, but recently he has been branching out into installations and more complex interactive projects. One example is RGB, “an interactive musical installation for 2-9 users” where colored flash lights are used by the audience to influence the live music. Code Specfic is a new Processing application which interactively visualizes the structure of its own source code.
Limiteazero is an architecture, media design and media art studio based in Milan. Together, Paolo Rigamonti and Silvio Mondino create installations that are elegant not just in their simplicity, but also in their pureness of concept. Their Laptop orchestra sees the user “conducting” the sound and visuals on 15 laptops, turning them off and on to create a variety of soundscapes. The glass of a_mirror mirrors the world around it, but not without adding its own visual modifications, tracing the outlines of what it “sees”.
As for myself, I will be showing a new series of 4 prints called C/M/Y/K, produced as offset-print posters to be given away in the gallery. This project marks a welcome experiment with a medium I have not worked with for a long time, and it’s exciting to be able to exploit the sheer detail and scale of large prints.
For the purpose of stimulating discourse, C.STEM will feature a short panel of presentations moderated by theorist Domenico Quaranta. See the event program for details. The panel will then be followed by a C.STEM club event, with projections by the artists in many different locations. C.STEM is organized by Fabio Franchino and produced by Associazione Culturale 32 Dicembre with the support of Teknemedia.net.
For the record, I generally try not to blog exhibitions I am participating in. But this show is too interesting not too, purely by virtue of the quality of the work shown by the Italian contingent. I hope it will prove a fruitful platform for future C.STEM events.
11:44
This call for works is very exciting, as there are very few bigger exhibitions of electronic art in the Nordic region. Electrohype in Malmö did an excellent biennial for many years, but had to close down due to short-sightedness of the local funding bodies.
i/o/lab in Stavanger has long been aiming to become a full-fledged node in the Norwegian electronic art network. With the Article project they will contribute significantly to the scene.
Article is one of the main projects for Stavanger 2008 – European Capital of Culture. Article 2006 will be a pilot project for the 2008 installment, but also to underline that Article is intended as a biannual event BEYOND the scope of the European Capital year.
Article will be comprised of: a main exhibition; a conference related to the themes of the biannual; in-depth practical and theoretical workshops and seminars; and contributions from local resources and other collaborative partners.
The goal of Article is to promote artforms which don’t merely employ electronic techniques in its production and display, but also actively comment on technology, the ethics and politics of technology and the evolution and dissemination of technology. Article wishes to establish an open arena for artforms which critique and engage social processes and present reflected positions on the expressive qualities and contexts of the media.
By «Unstable artforms» we intend to encompass art which is not institutionalised and stabilised by traditional frameworks of production and distribution, art which crosses disciplinary boundaries, which engages unusual contexts and references, or art which is not anchored by permanent, static objects. [...]
Deadline: 15 June 2006
URL: iolab.no/article/
URL:PDF with call details
The i/o/lab initiative was set up by Kevin Foust, Jens Laland and Hege Tapio. The programme committee for Article consists of Jon Brunberg, Kevin Foust, Juha Huuskonen, Mogens Jacobsen and Hege Tapio.
16:40
Dein Lieblingsgestalter: Generative hip hop visuals
Jannis Kreft has uploaded videos of his generative hip hop visuals (made in VVVV), which was blogged here a while ago. It looked good in pictures, but in motion it really rocks. Massive kudos to Jannis for proving that abstract generative visuals can stand its ground against speculative booty videos. You can find the video over on DeinLieblingsgestalter.de, it’s short but most excellent.
For those who of you who don’t know German, Dein Lieblingsgestalter roughly means “your favorite designer”, but Liebling also means beloved and so is a more ambiguous word. The name is a play on a German rapper whose artist name is Deine Lieblingsrapper. I have no idea if Jannis knows him or not. In any case, the video features a gem of German rap, created specifically for Jannis’ finals show (note that this is transcribed from the video, and my German grammar is dodgy at best):
Dein Lieblingsgestalter: Generative hip hop visuals
I should say that Jannis is an ex-student of mine from the Universität der Künste, so I am probably biased when looking at this project. But I love the way he has managed to make the hip hop expression effortlessly his own, all the while making no attempts at satisfying any visual clichees from the genre in his visuals. He manages to create visual 3D spaces with sound-responsive input, without it feeling contrived or unoriginal. The colors are good, and he has a solid grasp of graphic vocabulary. Makes me think it would have been an excellent addition to the Generator.x tour.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I was still his teacher I’d be proud. Way to go, Jannis. It’ll be interesting to see what you do next.
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.
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