Juha Huuskonen of PixelACHE has posted a summary of the lectures Casey and I gave in Helsinki directly after the Generator.x conference. Juha has captured the essence of the lectures well, I particularly like the soundbites he has saved for posterity.

Reas & Watz go to PixelACHE

Not content to rest once the Generator.x conference finally happens this weekend, Casey Reas and I will go to Helsinki to present our respective work next Tuesday at PixelACHE. I will be presenting the Generator.x project as well as showing some of my own work.

The invitation is online on the PixelACHE site. Thanks to Finnish mastermind Juha Huuskonen for inviting us. No matter what happens, a trip to Helsinki is always interesting. Just see how exciting it looks when my bio is translated to Finnish:

After Helsinki we’ll head for Berlin, where Casey has a solo show at the Digital Art Museum.

Ben & Casey get their Golden Nica
Photo copyright Ars Electronica

Processing got the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Net Vision, and so the international fan club converged on Linz to see Ben and Casey get their prize.

A word of advice: Never sit through an Ars Electronica Gala without being prepared for a few hours of bürgermeisters and landeshauptmänner shaking each other’s hands or congratulating the local children for their participation in the u19 competition. Ars Electronica relies on political backing to achieve their impressive and obviously capital-intensive projects. And the Gala is the politicians’ chance to shine. So even with performances by Zach Lieberman and Toshio Iwai on his TENORI-ON, it can get a bit langweilig, as they say.

Casey gives his official description of the event on the Processing forums. The Nica certificate does in fact read “Benjamin Fry, Casey Reas, Processing community”, so suggestions have been made as to how best to chop up the trophy and disseminate it among the worthy.

Artificial.dk has posted 4 new articles, including two observations on the exhibition The Algorithmic Revolution at the ZKM German Center for Art and Media. Søren Pold gives an art historical perspective, with references to the early history of algorithmic art. Emil Bach Sørensen looks at two specific works, SeoulB by Casey Reas and Yellowtail by Golan Levin.

From the ZKM exhibition statement:

C.E.B. Reas: Process 6

C.E.B. Reas: SeoulB

C.E.B. Reas is an alumnus of the MIT Aesthetics & Computation Group and is well-known for his work with generative strategies, both as an artist, educator and co-creator of the Processing software. His artistic method is purely generative, exploring abstract surfaces through the simulation of kinetic systems.

Inspired by conceptual and minimalist artists such as Sol LeWitt , Reas’ work is stringently defined yet wonderfully organic. He is a formalist, working with 2-dimensional surfaces in an almost painterly fashion, using color in a way that is simulatneously playful and restrained. Reas can easily be described as one of the foremost aestheticians of the generative art field.

As an educator, Reas has worked to further the understanding of computational approaches to art and design through his work with Processing, as well as through numerous workshops worldwide. He worked as professor at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea 2001-2003, and is currently professor at UCLA Design | Media Arts. He has exhibited extensively all over the world, and is widely published.

Recent projects include the Process/Drawing show at the Bitforms gallery in New York, Software Structures for Whitney Artport and SeoulB for W Hotel, Seoul.

C.E.B. Reas will give a presentation at the Generator.x conference. He will also be presenting a new piece for the Generator.x exhibition.

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