Welcome to

We recently posted up about Rosemarie Fiore’s time lapse arcade art - so be sure to check out her works made by exploding live fireworks… bursts of saturated color overlaped and collaged into abstract compositions.

Rosemarie Fiore - “Firework Drawings” Link.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Originally from MAKE Magazine on February 19, 2007, 7:42pm

Jonah Brucker-Cohen is working on a project that turns your Wifi Router into a modem-sounding reminder of the 80s/90s -

Forward Compatible (FC) is a parasitic object meant to be attached to a Wi-Fi or fixed network router. The device monitors network traffic and when packets are sent, they are converted to audio, in the form of a 2400 baud modem dialing up and connecting, and played through the device’s on-board speakers. The focus of the project is to historically inform the way we think about network connectivity in public spaces by disrupting the supposed serenity of modern technology with a reminder of the past. FC is the first of several parasitic network devices I am currently working on.

:::::___coin-operated.com___::::: - Link.

Related:
Yikes, this sound gives me chills, back when SEARS was an ISP - Link.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Originally from MAKE Magazine on February 19, 2007, 11:35am

Chuck writes -

My GPS Chimes are wind chimes that are triggered by an individual’s proximity to a given location — networked via GPS, cellphone and the internet. Think of it as mile-wide radius around the wind chimes, where my networked presence and GPS location (via Mologogo) send a virtual breeze to announce my travel home.

Gravity Monkey - Link & photos.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Originally from MAKE Magazine on February 19, 2007, 5:40pm

Goodness, this is incredible -

How about a “Sauron’s Eye” for your car? My wooden counterweight is on fire here at the top of the coil. It’s quite safe to be in the car although my son was apprehensive. This was a hire car (as I don’t own one) and it still works. I did get extra insurance “in case”.

Tesla_coil_sparks - [via] - Link.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Originally from MAKE Magazine on February 19, 2007, 3:38pm

Cory Doctorow:
Quirks and Quarks, CBC’s national science radio show, aired a great program yesterday on the multfactorial causes of obesity. Of particular interest were the segments on microbial factors. It turns out that obesity can be triggered in mice by changing which microbes live in their gut. The theory is that microbes harvest nutrients from food, and an excess of some microbes leads to superior caloric extraction. That means that depending on your gut’s “microbial nation,” you might get two or three times as many calories out of your food as your best friend.

I listen to Quirks every weekend and have done since I was a little kid. It’s hands-down my favorite science radio show.

Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is also looking for factors that contribute to obesity. He’s been studying microbes that live in the gut, and has found that the types of bacteria found in the stomach vary between obese and lean mice. Not only that, but by transferring these bacteria into other mice, he can influence whether they’ll turn out skinny or fat.

In a similar vein, Dr. Nikhil Dhurandhar is also looking at microbes. But he’s studying viruses. He’s found a virus that infects chickens, and makes them gain weight. He’s tested humans and found that some obese people carry the same virus, suggesting it may be infecting us, too.

f=”http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/06-07/feb17.html”>MP3 Link,

Ogg Link

Podcast feed

See also:
Animated map of American obesity 1985-2004
Obesity growing (ahem) faster than starvation
Sleepdep doubles obesity risk
Promising anti-obesity pill
Obesity in America leads to boom in sales of larger chairs
Is obesity caused by a virus?
American obesity skyrockets, 73% obese or overweight by 2008
Obesity and oral contraceptives
Yale’s obesity blog
Obesity, inactivity overtaking tobacco as top USA death cause
Historical origins of obesity
Does sprawl make us fat?
Is high-fructose corn syrup the devil? Yup.
Global overweight now outnumber global malnourished
GOP shifts priorities, advocates Cheeseburger Bill while Rome burns
Exercise in a pill
America’s supersized asses demand supersized toilet seats
Dance Dance Revolution at 765 schools
Dance Dance Revolution for every school in W Virginia
Kit Reed’s new sf novel
Does fat make you fat?
Adult Happy Meals include pedometers, personal responsibility
Quirks and Quarks is not dead!
Quirks and Quarks on biowar
Radio show on the science of happiness
Is autism a “disorder”? Is psychopathy a “disease”?
Blind woman who sees with sound
Stretching before exercise impairs performance and other heresy
CBC radio’s brilliant science show as MP3s

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on February 18, 2007, 5:44pm

Cory Doctorow:

I just love this thin-sliced grandfather clock from Thwart Design — a horizontal section of the face, the hands sticking out over the edge. It’s a tremendous visual illustration of just how far we are today from mechanical clocks, in an era of $1 Chinese quartz movements that are more accurate than the old gear-teeth could ever hope to be. Maybe “Granddaughter clock” would be a better name?

Link

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on February 19, 2007, 10:02am

Ilya points to a really cool (and free) commercial detector -

Comskip is a free mpeg commercial detector. It is a windows console application that reads a mpeg file and analyses the content based on a large amount of configurable parameters. After analysis it generates a file in various possible formats containing the location of the commercials inside the mpeg file. The formats include input files for interactive video editors (VideoRedo, Cuttermaran, Mpeg2Schnitt…) command line video cutters (mpgtx, cuttermaran, mencoder) and video players (zoomplayer, mplayer, …). Comskip can read MPEG PS files upto HD resolution (max 2000×1200) at 25fps (PAL) and 29.97fps (NTSC).

Comskip - [via] Link.

But wait, there’s more!

Related:

• 2004 paper on “Automatic Detection of TV commercials” - Link.
• DVRMS Toolbox - Link.
• ShowAnalyzer - Link.

Read Ilya’s post - lots of interesting ideas about TVs with built in ad blockers, just like Firefox.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Originally from MAKE Magazine on February 19, 2007, 9:23am

Cory Doctorow:

The residences of Ramenskoye (southeast of Moscow) are painted with giant, colorful murals that run the whole height and breadth of these enormous, brutalist apartment blocks.

Link

(via Neatorama)

Originally posted by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing, ReBlogged by Rosanna Flouty on Feb 19, 2007 at 11:00 AM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on February 19, 2007, 10:00am

Cory Doctorow:

These photos of a Cuban amusement park depict a collection of ingenious skeletal wireframe rides made from welded tube-steel. It looks a little unsafe, but that’s half the fun at your average fun fair.

Link

Originally posted by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing, ReBlogged by Rosanna Flouty on Feb 19, 2007 at 11:00 AM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on February 19, 2007, 10:00am

Reuters - In a novel move to curb
drunk driving, New Mexico is using talking urinals to remind
drinkers to not get behind the wheel when drunk.

Originally from Yahoo! News: Odd News, ReBlogged by Rosanna Flouty on Feb 19, 2007 at 11:00 AM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on February 19, 2007, 10:00am

“Let’s let V be potential difference between dating girls & doing something productive, I be current of love, and R be resistance to current flow. The problem with serial dating is the same as with serial circuits. If resistance starts to increase, you’re stuck: because V = IR, and R is increasing, I must decrease to hold the equality. Worse still, because P = IV, you’re just not going to have as much power with the increased resistance. “

“… dating serially is for chumps. If you really want to have a better fail-safe, be less affected by resistance, and have a wonderful net increase in power, go for parallel relationships. It’s the only way.”

[link: bitquabit.com|via boingboing.net|thnkx Rebecca]

Originally from information aesthetics on February 18, 2007, 10:29pm

a new symbol to help reduce needless deaths & serious injuries from accidental exposure to large radioactive sources. the new icon is aimed at alerting anyone, anywhere to the potential dangers of being close to a large source of ionizing radiation, the result of a 5-year project conducted in 11 countries around the world. the new symbol, developed by human factor experts, graphic artists, & radiation protection experts, was tested on a total of 1,650 individuals in Brazil, Mexico, Morocco, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, China, India, Thailand, Poland, Ukraine & the United States to ensure that its message of “danger - stay away” was crystal clear & understood by all.

see also long-term warning signs.

[link: iaea.org & iaea.org (video)|via bookofjoe.com]

Originally from information aesthetics on February 18, 2007, 3:39pm

I Don’t Know You (2006, 26.7MB, 4:01 min)

Music: Deru
Video: Kari Altmann a.k.a Blackmoth.
Good on the old atmosphere thing…

Originally from DVblog on February 19, 2007, 2:00am

Watch videos from all over the Web right from your Wii with Stumble Video’s new Wii-focused video channel:

The revamped video site includes an interface specifically designed for the Wii’s Opera browser. Wii owners can use their consoles to navigate through StumbleUpon’s video search functions and channel menu, rate and recommend videos, and “discover” more videos that specifically fit their rating histories.

I tried this on my spankin’ new Wii and it actually works pretty well; some of the videos are a bit fuzzy, but that’s to be expected with the different resolutions. However, overall I found it easy to use.. — Wendy Boswell

Originally from Lifehacker on February 18, 2007, 1:00pm

Originally from Tinselman on February 18, 2007, 1:47pm

Blue (one second brainwave transmitted to the star Rigel) | 1993, microwave signal at 44mHz, 1 inch x 186,000 miles; brainwave generated while looking at Hawaii Five-O, transmitted at the speed of light to the bluest star in the night sky, where it will arrive in about 960 years.

Spencer Finch

Originally from Content at February 17, 2007, 01:37, published by Marisa S. Olson

Originally from Rhizome.org on February 18, 2007, 7:20pm

I’ve just been at the very first dorkbot in Second Life which Régine had announced a couple days ago.

First we met at Shintaro Miyazaki’s (Maximillian Nakamura in SL) place and then teleported over to a special place that Ian Murray (Ian Ah) had prepared. There were screenings and small lectures by Jeremy O. Turner (Wirxli FlimFlam) and “Avatar performance art group” Second Front (who apparently recently screened Strange Culture as the first ever feature-length film in SL).

It was an interesting experiment, but with all the lag and the many people around, I must say that it was a bit hard to follow. As SL may mature, this might become an interesting platform for people who do strange things with SL (and lots of electricity) as there were already weird black tentacles floating around and people sitting upside down.

Some photos for those who missed it.

Originally from we make money not art on February 18, 2007, 5:56pm

In December, Yves Bernard invited me to give a talk at Art+Game, a conference and exhibition about video games from an artistic point of view. After my usual little show, a guy came to me, his name was Angelo Vermeulen. He had curated a part of the exhibition with such talent and impeccable taste that i was all ears, i thought he’d want to talk about games. He didn’t. He wanted to give me a CD of his work. Man! Don’t you have a website like everyone? A CD! Something tangible that will meet the same end as all those business cards that people keep handing me: they end up in the bin of some hotel because they just clutter my handbag. I came late to digital data so now i stick to it, if i want to find you, i just google you and that’s it. Anyway, a few days later i was in one of those hotel rooms. There was no internet. I open Angelo’s CD and look at its content. The next thing i did when i finally managed to get online was to ask Angelo if i could interview him. Angelo doesn’t have a website (yet!), he’s way too cool for that.

He wrote part of the interview in NYc, part in Sint-Niklaas and then disappeared somewhere in Andalusia.

Originally trained as a biologist (PhD at the University of Leuven, Belgium), he also followed a photography training at the Art Academy of Leuven. Moved to London to work with Nick Waplington. Back in Belgium he took up post-graduate studies at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts (HISK) in Antwerp.

After that traces of his activities appear online. Most notably, his installation Blue Shift [LOG. 1], introduced last Summer at Isea2006, aims to question the status of the utilitarian in art and science and push interactive installation art into Darwinian realms (detail of the installation on the right). A community of single-cell algae, water fleas, fish and water snails is set up in the exhibition space. Visitors induce a gradual microevolution of the - genetically determined - light-responsive behavior of the water fleas. When the system is in standby, yellow lights illuminate the aquaria from the top. The water fleas are attracted to this light and swim towards it. Whenever a visitor is detected in proximity of the installation, blue spotlights are activated. Water fleas, repelled by this color, flee downwards and pass through holes in a false bottom in the aquaria… where fish are waiting to wipe them out.

What can be considered to be a survival strategy in natural circumstances - blue light indicates clear open water and hence potential detection by fish - has quite a different meaning in this set-up: it is exactly those water fleas that do not swim away from the blue light that survive and reproduce. In this way their genes will become dominant in the water flea populations and a “contra-natural” selection will occur.

He has been working on “SKANNER”, a new media project on human fear in cooperation with Tamuraj, electronic musician and mathematics researcher. The audience is exposed to a frightening live montage of video images and sounds generated by the artists and an artificial intelligent computer system. Physical reactions of the audience such as heart rate, blood pressure and skin conductivity are monitored. An artificial
creative agent uses these data to simulate the relation between fear responses and sounds and images. The agent functions thus as a third “virtual” artist. Through the accumulation of empirical data and learning algorithms, SKANNER finally evolves towards a real fear machine. The performance is shown consecutively in Europe, North America and Asia in order to investigate intercultural differences.

Skanner Labtest - Video stills

Angelo is currently busy writing a book on the relation between art, technology and spirituality in partnership with art philosopher Antoon Van den Braembussche. In collaboration with Quebec-based artist Louis Blackburn, he is also preparing several new media projects and a documentary on computer game culture. They’ll be touring with a series of lectures on games (games & cinema, games & the body) in Europe for Contour Mechelen.

Angelo, you’re one of the few people who are both trained as a scientist (biology in your case) and fine artist. Do you make a clear distinction between your work as an artist and your scientific activities?

In the beginning of my life as an artist I was mainly focused on photography and I was convinced that my scientific background was something I had to get rid of in order to make good art. It was only a few years later that I discovered that combining these things would lead to much more powerful creations. Now I feel a lot of my work is a layered convergence of rationality, intuition and hyperesthesis. In the interactive cinema project ‘SKANNER’ (2002-2005) and the installation piece Blue Shift [LOG. 1] (2005) I explicitly combined both my art and my science background. Certain aspects of these projects were strictly scientific, while others were purely artistically motivated, and there is evidently a different mindset for each of the positions. Blue Shift [LOG. 1] was created with Luc De Meester, a former colleague of mine and a specialist in evolutionary biology. For this project I had to make a lot of choices about the setup of the piece in a larger art exhibition context. I choose a basement location because that gave the right kind of conditions and associations I wanted; a half-hidden and darkened laboratory with close proximity to a workshop where technicians were running in and out. Once the location was chosen the process started of building up the piece in relation to the space itself. These decisions were primarily artistically motivated: I wanted to create a 3D image that had an immediate and strong impact on the visitor. I have learned by now that such creative choices only can be rationally analyzed and (partly) understood after the piece is ready. When creating an installation I strongly rely on intuition to decide which specific materials to use, where to put things, how to set up the lighting etc. Of course there are also significant conceptual issues related to certain choices, it’s not just a formal process. However, with Blue Shift [LOG. 1] things became even more complex than that; whenever I made a creative choice I had to make sure it did not violate the scientific rationale behind the work. The idea of this piece was to create a work that functioned both as an interactive installation, and as a scientific experiment. A true hybrid work.
Skanner Labtest Z33
SKANNER was a collaboration with musician and mathematician Tamuraj. The goal was to create a live horror movie that would use images and sounds from a database in combination with a live-generated soundtrack. During the performance we monitored the public’s bodily responses as an indication of emotional state, such as heart rate and blood pressure. We then used these data to optimize the live montage of image and sound in two different ways. First, all the data were displayed in real time so that we could actively use the public’s emotional state as a directive for mixing sound and image. Second, Tamuraj programmed an artificial intelligence module that constantly compared output (the live movie) and input (the public’s emotional data). The software then automatically optimized the impact of the performance by making autonomous decisions about the sound sequencing for example. In this way, the soundtrack during our last performance was to a large extent created by the audience’s hearts. In an art project like this, the aim is to create a powerful audiovisual experience that at the same time uses systematic scientific analysis.

Did the art audience react to Blue Shift [LOG. 1] in the same way as the scientific audience?

Both audiences reacted strongly to the aesthetics of the piece; to its visual language and its setup in the space. But each audience also responded very specifically from within its own context; art audiences tended to be fascinated by the conceptual dual nature of the work, while scientists quickly started investigating the experimental design of the project. During the exhibition Luc De Meester invited an American colleague who was visiting Belgium. His colleague was extremely enthusiastic because he saw both a scientific and educational value in the project. We were provoking Darwinian evolution of the light responsive behavior of water fleas through exposure to predating goldfish. Our hypothesis was formed from related observations, and had never been tested before. The project was a way to bring specific research to a wider audience. The feeling that your daily practice gets a meaning for a broader public is very gratifying, but unfortunately, this happens hardly ever for scientists.

Water flea and Blue Shift [LOG. 1] installation view

What makes the art approach interesting in a regular scientific context? Can your artistic explorations be fed back to the scientific frame?

I am not sure that the art approach in general can have a major impact on scientific practice. The last decades it’s been very popular to stress the similarities between art and science. Artists and scientists are “creative and inspired”, the artist studio can be seen as a sort of laboratory, etc. Recently, at an exhibition opening in Los Angeles, an artist came up to me and stated that “scientists are artists”. I personally oppose this oversimplification. There are fundamental differences between both worlds that cannot be bridged. First, the idea that scientists have of the world is completely different than that of artists. According to science, the world is something to be fully understood and modeled and mathematics is regarded as its true underlying basis. Through a process of continuous refinement science is looking for the one universal model that will explain everything. This is a very Cartesian way of looking at the world still. As an artist you have the freedom to reject this, and personally I believe you have to reject the supremacy of such reductionist models to make truly engaging art. Art is about what escapes definition, there is a sort of spiritual element in good works of art that defies any analysis. Take poetry for example; a computer program using artificial intelligence could probably convincingly simulate a poetic style. However, true engaging poetry has an authenticity you cannot artificially create. This may seem like a very Romantic notion of art, but I believe ambiguity and ungraspability are crucial characteristics of art.

A second important difference between science and art is the handling of tradition. In a more traditional view, science is a constant flow of historicide, while art production is a process of reiteration. Through the continuous creation of new subsequent models, science progresses towards a sort of utopian ultimate understanding of the world. Older models are replaced by new ones, hence the concept of historicide. In contrast, art would constantly build on the works of former generations. “Unlike art, science destroys its own past” Thomas Kuhn argued in his Comment on the Relations of Science and Art. I don’t fully agree with this. In the daily practice of science its history and traditions are continuously present. One of the most central aspects of scientific practice is its use of statistics, the universally adopted methodology to analyze data and present insights. If your insights do not comply with the norms of this standardized system, they won’t be considered valid. It’s quite a fascinating system in its own respect and works really well. However, for me this was a major difference when I started making art: in art there is no such inevitable standardized context to work in. Art works do not have to comply with a specific set of rules to be considered “valid”. On the contrary, in the avant-garde/modernist model we use today, art should be questioning, even annihilating predecessing art and should create more pertinent and visionary answers. This doesn’t mean that the contemporary art world is always so ‘refreshing’, quite the opposite. Contemporary art seems to suffer heavily from reiteration, and we see the same things over and over again such as conceptualism, minimalism, pop art etc.

Apart from similarities, both art and science have their individual specificity that you have to handle in their own respect. Like I said before there’s no need to throw away things; combining different attitudes is the most fascinating thing you can do. However, the desire to fuse everything into one ‘model’, into one singularity is a typically Western cultural attitude. This attitude not only has its roots in scientific thinking but has also been shaped by religion and economics. A religion in which everything is reduced to one singular deity, and an economic model – capitalism – which at the root is obsessed with efficiency and hence singularity.

So, because of fundamental differences between contemporary art and science, I don’t believe they will blend again into a sort of neo-Renaissance model. Moreover, in practice science is often only superficially interested in art. Scientists don’t have the need and, more importantly, don’t have the time to indulge in an art practice consistently. However, there are examples in which the scientific community truly shows interest in a complementary artistic approach. In the specific example of ‘Blue Shift [LOG. 1]’ there was effectual feedback to the scientific community on different levels. Luc De Meester was happy to see that his year-long laboratory work finally found a way to a broader public, and that the work resulted in actual data to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Personally, this is one of my favorite aspects of the whole project; publishing an art piece in the world of science through a sort of Trojan horse.

On the other side, a lot of contemporary art does happily embrace science and technology. ISEA2006 (International Symposium for Electronic Arts) in San Jose was a clear example of this. This symposium is organized every two years in a different city, and for the 2006 edition the organizers worked together with ZeroOne San Jose, a festival on digital culture. During a full week in August there were numerous artist presentations, lectures by media theorists and curators, panel debates, etc. All this in conjunction with an extensive showcase of art works and performances throughout the whole city. The art projects somehow always made use of recent technology, both in very simple and in very elaborate ways.

Now, this embrace of technology in art has its own problems. What particularly struck me during the symposium sessions in San Jose was the desire of many artists to drown their work in an academic jargon. It looked a bit like a desperate attempt to be taken seriously and make sure the audience realized there was a “deeper meaning” to the work. I think that by doing this so explicitly you basically ‘kill’ the work, you kill the potential for an open experience by your audience. And then again, don’t forget that clever rhetorics can be used to apply ‘deeper meaning’ to almost anything. Of course all this is a consequence of conceptualism and of the enormous influence of academic discourse in the shaping of art careers. Another way in which the importance of an art project was put forward was through stressing its technological innovation value. Most often this resulted in art project presentations that were basically nothing more than fancy tech demos. There’s more – or sometimes less – to art than impressing with a technological trick developed in collaboration with a prestigious university. It’s the sort of techno-fetishism that is rife in the new media art scene. A new creative technology is presented as an art piece but essentially lacks genuine layers of poetic meaning simply because the focus is on the technology itself, and not on what lies beyond. The medium has become the message; nothing new here.

Spiral & Underground Support System (Television)

You wrote that today (new media) artists are often under pressure to present their work as “research”. What are the pitfalls of such attitude?

I have no problem with research in the arts whatsoever. It’s an interesting evolution that artists don’t necessarily have to produce well-defined (collectible) objects. It’s the art practice as a whole that has come to the foreground; what artists stand for, how artists make their attitude come true in the world, how they communicate their ideas, what other experiments and side projects they’re involved in, etc. Such layered activity and exploration is also valued these days. However, there are some pitfalls in overtly stressing research in art practice.

First of all, research may become an end in itself; the artist’s work becomes interesting simply because it is research. As a consequence some artists start legitimizing their work through some sort of research concept hoping that it will make the work more relevant. Well, it’s up to the spectator to decide whether the research presented is actually meaningful or just a “marketing trick”. Sometimes research even becomes an excuse to avoid making a clear-cut artistic statement or finalized work. The work-in-progress-syndrome. I have nothing against work-in-progress tactics but they should be meaningful in view of a chosen strategy, not a pretext to procrastinate. In some cases artists fall victim to their own endless technical research. This is a phenomenon which you often encounter in the new media scene. People start up a technically complex project and keep struggling with it for years and years, continuously working on the technical and financial aspects of the work. Once again, this is not a necessarily bad strategy but in some cases the artist would be better off picking up some completely new ideas and a fresh new project. Experimentation and exploration seem essential for me.

I also believe there is a strong tendency nowadays to instrumentalize art, especially those art forms that do not sell well. This is of course a neoliberal vision on the art practice; art should somehow financially sustain itself within market forces. There’s a big cultural difference between this in Europe and the US. In Europe, art that has less or no commercial value can be funded by the government, much less so in the US. As a consequence, American artists tend to present their new media work more often as research with a utilitarian benefit for society: it has an academic value, it’s technologically innovative etc. I think this is not always a healthy situation. Art should reclaim its rights to be sometimes… well, not useful at all, not in a directly measurable way. I even think contemporary art should become more irrational. We badly need more “nonsense”.

Is Drumlander a way to, as you put it elsewhere, “reclaim the freedom to play”? How did you get into the game culture by the way?

Yes, Drumlander is exactly that. This doesn’t mean we approach our game-related projects in a casual manner; on the contrary, we are very focused on bringing quality in what we do. Computer games are something Louis Blackburn and I grew up with. I was playing a lot but never really thought of incorporating games into my art. All this changed when I visited Louis in Québec City in 2004. We started talking about games; about the beauty, strength and craftsmanship of our favorite games, links with other media, and above all, approaches to recycle this culture in a creative manner. And that’s how we decided to set up Drumlander. Drumlander was originally conceived as a DJ project with game music, but quickly evolved into a much broader platform to explore the creative potential of games. In the DJ set we mix original game tunes, game music remixes and chip music made with old game consoles. We have gathered a massive collection of game songs and sounds, and depending on the venue, things become more dancy or experimental. It’s undoubtedly a great new experience for me coming from a background of science and visual arts.

Drumlander Art+Game montage

I really liked the games you curated for the exhibition Art+Game organized by IMAL in Brussels last December. It presented the most interesting aspects of video games today: activism, education and fun. Which criteria guided your selection?

Drumlander’s game arcade The Sweet and Violent Underbelly of Game Culture is a showcase of independent games, mostly freeware and open-source. The present-day game industry can be compared to the film industry, with a small group of massive studios creating the most lucrative games, and a widespread scene of independent artists and programmers. For the arcade we consistently look for computer games that show a level of artistic ingenuity. As a spectator, this may not always seem so obvious at a first glance; sometimes you really need to submerge yourself in the game to discover this. There are many different levels on which a game can excel in creativity: its concept, gameplay, graphics, music, etc. A crucial aspect of the arcade is that we are constantly around to introduce people to the games, to play with or against them, discuss the significance of games, etc. This results in a whole different experience for the audience. For many visitors, games transform from a previously misunderstood commodity to an exiting medium with loads of creative potential.

For our last installment of the arcade at Art+Game in Brussels, we also included a personal selection of political games. These are games that take current political and social issues as a central theme. Sometimes in truly activist sense, and sometimes more in an ironic way. Through their sheer subject matter these games possess a sort of documentary value; something I learned during a debate with Eddo Stern and Peter Brinson at Gamezone deSingel in Antwerp last year. I find this a very interesting new way of looking at games.

Drumlander - DJ set in Quebec

I read about one of your upcoming projects that will star mad scientists. It is certainly an ironic idea coming from you. What motivated the choice of that character?

I have a strong interest in cultural icons like the zombie, the alchemist, and mad scientist because they represent a sort of underground science. Each icon has a specific and consistent logic of its own but at the same time clearly transgresses the boundaries of normalized rational thinking. They also reflect people’s fears; both about science and the unknown. The alchemist and mad scientist are figures that operate in an ethical no-man’s-land and use technology without constraints, thus provoking fear. On the other hand, the mysticism which is involved in alchemy and zombies reflects man’s inexhaustible fascination-repulsion for the unknown.

I am currently planning an audio piece using the in-game dialogues of mad scientists captured from a wide range of computer games. The piece will be a multichannel surround installation set up around a central video sculpture. My idea is to create a sort of incongruous conversation piece that in a way reflects the representation of science in popular game culture.

Can you already tell us a few words about the book you’re working on?

The book I am currently writing with art philosopher Antoon Van den Braembussche, is a series of dialogues on contemporary relations of art, science, and spirituality. We met some years ago at the HISK; a postgraduate art school in Antwerp where I was studying at the time. During our first meeting at his home we had a non-stop conversation of more than seven hours. Consequently we thought it might be a great idea to use such conversations as the basis for a book. We approach the rather wide spectrum of the book’s subject through ten different angles: art and science, the virtualization of contemporary culture, computer games and visual culture, spirituality in the digital age, etc. It’s an extremely “natural” project that flows wonderfully well. The discussions are almost always unprepared and lead to the most surprising insights. We also travel around for this project. We go to Spain quite often, to work in isolation in a small mountain village in Andalusia, and we’re also planning to make a trip through Asia to go and talk with local philosophers and Buddhist monks.

There’s already a big interest in our book; people keep on asking me when it will be finished. We plan to have the Dutch manuscript ready by the end of this year, and the book should be out in 2008. After the Dutch version we’ll start working on an English and French translation.

Now two silly questions that I think you deserve!
1. When will you have a website?

In February I will have a brand new web site. It will contain both an artist archive, a blog and a vault for all texts, ideas, scans, manuals that I think might be useful for the community. Until then you can check some of my work on the IBK Visual Arts Database.

2. Is there any talent that you don’t have?

Oh, one thing I am pretty bad at is orientation. I don’t know why but I have a harder time than anyone else to get a clear oversight of a city. In the end I usually get it, but it takes me like 15 times longer than a normal brain. However, in games I do pretty well…

Thanks Angelo!

Angelo Vermeulen can be contacted at angelovermeulen[at]myway dot com
Thanks to Morgan Riles for correcting the English.

All images courtesy of Angelo Vermeulen (except the portrait of Thomas Kuhn.)

Originally from we make money not art on February 19, 2007, 3:14am

When Gary Chang spoke at the Simplicity Symposium at Ars Electronica curated by John Maeda last year, I was amazed by his life story growing up in Hong Kong in cramped conditions and how as an architect these experiences have shaped his interest in creating living and working spaces. Gary founded his company EDGE in 1994, and quickly gained a reputation for his dedication to work and award-winning multi-disciplinary designs. In 2003, the company was renamed EDGE Design Institute to better describe its mix of research-based and commercial activities.

His own appartment in Hong Kong which he once lived in with his whole family has now become a testing ground for him to experiment with ways of making reconfigurable spaces. Ultimate spatial flexibility is created through the multiple operations of the partitions. lighting. and mobile furniture. All the mundane necessities of bachelor life - books. CDs. clothing, pictures. stereo, videos are stacked on a chrome factory shelving system and hidden discreetly behind floating white curtains. the central space becomes the actual space for living, working, eating, sleeping, chatting, dressing and reading. Blue fluorescent tubes are carefully placed to wash the floor with an unearthly glow, while bright up-lighting articulates structural members. the main aperture of the front window offers views to the world beyond whether the actual view out of the window, or through the large scale movie screen to the fantasy world of hollywood, the real world of news, or the electronic world of internet.

The progression from this project was the ‘Suitcase House Hotel’ which the images above and below show

"Casting a question mark on the proverbial image of the house, Suitcase House Hotel attempts to rethink the nature of intimacy, privacy, spontaneity and flexibility. It is a simple demonstration of the desire for ultimate adaptability, in pursuit of a proscenium for infinite scenarios, a plane of sensual (p)leisure." 

"Imagine. In the daytime, a couple stays in the Suitcase. They could open up all the sliding partitions and enjoy a totally indoor open space with a dimension of 44 by 5 meter. Later in the day, they may open up a series of chamber according to their mood. Listen to the music in the Music chamber, read a book in the Library, meditate on the glazed floor. In the evening, when more guests arrive, the entire space turns into a lounge for party, celebration and other events. Rooms could then be gradually formulated when the night falls. A maximum of 7 guest rooms would be formed, which may accommodate up to 14 guests if the party goes late and they stay overnight." 

To blur the boundaries between House, Interior and Furniture, the entire structure and elements are monotonically cladded in timber inside and outside of the steel structure supported by and cantilevered out from the concrete base which house facilities including a pantry, maid’s quarter, boiler room and the sauna.

Originally by Ruairi from Interactive Architecture dot Org on February 18, 2007, 5:10pm

Kinky Form is a limited edition furniture series where simple furniture icons are adorned with graphic prints. The Kinky Chair, showcased above, is the latest collaboration.

related links

Kinky Form
Electric Heat

Originally by adnan from sensoryimpact.com on February 19, 2007, 6:56am