Lucy and Jorge Orta

Antarctic Village

From February-March 2007, Antarctic Village - No Borders, was installed in Antarctica by the artists. They travelled from Buenos Aires aboard the Hercules KC130 flight on an incredible journey lasting several weeks. Taking place during the Austral summer, the ephemeral installation coincided with the last of the scientific expeditions before the winter months, before the ice mass becomes too thick to traverse. Aided by the logisitical crew and scientists stationed at the Marambio Antarctic Base situated on the Seymour-Marambio Island, (64°14’S 56°37’W), Jorge Orta scouted Antarctica by helicopter, searching for different locations for the temporary encampment of their 50 dome-shaped dwellings.

Antarctic Village is a symbol of the plight of those struggling to transverse borders and to gain the freedom of movement necessary to escape political and social conflict. Dotted along the ice, the tents formed a settlement reminiscent of the images of refugee camps we see so often reported about on our television screens and newspapers (official figures estimate that 141 foreigners have died trying to reach Spain in 2004, Human Rights claim the death toll was 289. 58 Chinese people discovered dead through dehydration by customs officers in the back of an articulated lorry in Dover UK in June 2000, etc., etc.)

Physically the installation Antarctic Village in Antarctica is emblematic of Ortas’ body of work, composed of what could be termed modular architecture and reflecting qualities of nomadic shelters and campsites. The dwellings themselves are hand stitched together by a traditional tent maker with sections of flags from countries around the world, along with extensions of clothes and gloves, symbolising the multiplicity and diversity of people. Here the arm of face-less whitecollar worker’s shirt hangs, there the sleeve of a children’s sweater. Together the flags and dissected clothes emblazened with silkscreen motifs referencing the UN Declartion for Human Rights, make for a physical embodiment of a ‘Global Village’.

Antarctic Village - Metisse Flag: By way of calling the Orta Antarctic expedition to an end, the artists staged the first in a series of symbolic football games, ‘Heads or Tails, Tails or Heads’. Meteorologists, paleontologists and geologists from the Marambio Antarctic Base joined the Orta team to play a symbolic ‘All Nation’ match. The Metisse Flag and the Antarctic football shirts, created by the artists make it difficult to identify the adversary. The front and back of the players’ shirts are stitched together with different countries’ football team colours. The match mirrors human behaviour. Appearances are often deceiving. Someone we think is a friend may actually be playing against us, while a total stranger can surprise us with an act of solidarity. It is not appearances that count, but rather decisive actions in critical moments.

Also see:

Antarctic Village - No Borders, Expedition Tarpaulin
Antarctic Village - Dome Dwelling 5005 and more.

Originally from Networked_Performance by jo
reBlogged by michael on May 23, 2007, 5:46PM

infographic earth facts guide

a collection of “moving diagrams” that illustrate basic planetary science & geographic related data, aiming to solve curious questions such as “where is the earth located?”, “how is the earth different from other planets?”, “where does the sky become space?”, or “how big are the oceans?”.

[link: jvsc.jst.go.jp]

see also universal scale & cell biology infographics.

Originally from information aesthetics
reBlogged by michael on May 15, 2007, 11:46PM

“Electrohydromechanical monster robot” for sale

Inventor Doug Malewicki, like Thomas Edison and Dean Kamen, has worked on a wide and odd variety of projects. While some have been benevolent (a mass transit monorail system, a recumbent bicycle that enabled his eight-year-old daughter to hit 30 mph) and others have been potentially sinister (a military jet pack, a “Droid of Death” unmanned aerial drone), his strangest invention of all is probably the Robosaurus, above.

ROBOSAURUS is the most incredible man made monster ever conceived. He was designed to grip, lift, crush, burn, bite and throw…full size cars and airplanes around with ease!

This 40 foot tall electrohydromechanical monster robot weighs 58,000 pounds and is totally controlled by a human pilot strapped inside the monster’s head.

The Robosaurus toured North America starting in 1990 and packs up into a trailer, meeting all U.S. Highway specifications. Retired in 2006, it’s now for sale! So if your neighbor keeps parking his SUV in front of your driveway, here’s a decisive way to end that dispute once and for all.

thanks Porter!

…

Originally from core77.com's design blog
reBlogged by michael on May 17, 2007, 10:07AM

Frankenphone: ID lecturer mods phones

Apparently not all college professors are squares. Mehmet Erkok, industrial design lecturer at Istanbul Teknik Universitesi’s Department of Industrial Product Design, hacked the heck out of some Nokia phones to better suit his tastes. We’re not sure about the machine-screw keypad, but that old-school earpiece is the first comfortable-looking phone speaker we’ve ever seen.

via Jan Chipchase

…

Originally from core77.com's design blog
reBlogged by michael on May 7, 2007, 1:30PM

Pocket Gamelan

Several posters were presented at the Mobile Music Workshop yesterday afternoon, a good opportunity to discover new projects and have a chat with their author.

Pocket Gamelan (PDF), developed by Greg Schiemer and Mark Havryliv, couldn’t make it to Amsterdam on time (seems to be somewhere in the caring hands of the post) but that won’t prevent me from mentioning it. The interactive musical interface allows non-expert performers to create microtonal music using bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. Players swing the handsets on the end of a cord in a circular trajectory. As the phone is swung it produces audible artefacts such as Doppler shift and chorusing which are generated as a bi-product of movement. The device works like a network of operations in which melodies and the speed at which they’re played can be altered.

Pocket Gamelan, draws on Schiemer’s “Tupperware Gamelan” instruments of the 70s and 80s. The custom-made electronic instruments, housed in plastic kitchenware, were designed for non-expert players and used in dance and performance (via.)

Video 1 and 2.

Image.
Related: the 1999 performance Improvisation for Two Altered Telephones.

Originally from we make money not art by Regine
reBlogged by michael on May 6, 2007, 10:35PM

Luminous Green

Yesterday, i attended the Luminous Green symposium, organized by the lovely FoAM people, on the Groenhoven Estate, near Brussels. The event was exactly what it promised to be: a fantastic gathering of people from different fields and who all battle for a more sustainable environment. There were artists, fashion designers, grassroot activists, business leaders, people from the governement, etc. The aim of the event is to get them to talk together. Not in a self-congratulory spirit but to collect successful stories and see if people from different background can define a common ground.

If you’re in Brussels on the 4th, i can only recommend you to head to FoAM and see how artists, designers and engineers translate the issues and suggestions that popped up during the conference into sketches and prototypes.

FoAM set up Luminous Green to reflect on the importance of creativity practice into the environmental debate. The aim is to go beyond the discussion about the effects of global warming. The debate is rather to see how we can adapt to life in turbulent and anti-environmental conditions and more precisely: How can designers, artists and other creative people contribute to the discussion? Maja Kuzmanovic, who curated the event, suggested that what designers and artists can bring into the discussion is:

- 1. An integrated approach to complex problem solving.
Problems cannot be isolated, they are part of a big picture. We have created unstable systems and they have to be attacked from different approaches and fields. Everything is interconnected and interdependent. This requires a holistic trial and error approach.

- 2. The participatory nature of creative practices.
Today, prescribing universal solutions doesn’t work. There are as many approaches as there are problems. We shouldn’t look for solutions but for ecologies of solutions

- 3. The ability to design beautiful things that people might want to surround themselves with.
Buckminster Fuller said: “When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
If we design or create beautiful things, people will not only want to have it but will also want to be part of the community that made it. Beauty makes it easier to draw people’s attention.

It’s time to be proactive and behave like the avant-garde that many claim to be.

The conference was as sustainable as possible which was not easy at all:
- difficult to find furniture created in a truly sustainable way (good recycling conditions, good working conditions, etc.) The only things they could find were prototypes or showroom pieces,
- they wanted to organize the event in an eco-chateau but nothing of the kind exists in Belgium,
- they got two hybrid cars from Lexus but 50 persons cannot fit in a car. Now Brussels uses hybrid buses for public transport, the only problem is that they cannot go out of Brussels. Regulations wouldn’t allow that.

However, they produced very little printed documents, offered picnic snack in lovely bags designed and hand-crafted by people from the Barefoot College and managed to convince the speakers to either use no projections or be content with the very poorly lighted ones. And it worked marvellously.

Conclusion: there’s still so much work to do, especially for people who don’t have large pockets. We need more tangible products and we need to connect them together to achieve the desired impact.

Originally from we make money not art by Regine
reBlogged by michael on May 1, 2007, 8:57AM

Reorganizing vision

Yesterday was the presentation of Picture House - Film, Art and Design at Belsay Hall near Newcastle. English Heritage and Dott 07 (Designs of the time 2007) invited film directors, artists and designers to take their inspiration from the 17th century manor house and inhabit it with art installations.

I’ll come back to the event with more information and images but for now i just can’t resist talking about one of the 3 installations commissioned by Juha Huuskonene.

Aleph, by Adam Somlai-Fischer and Bengt Sjölén, is a kinetic reflection display system made of 200 side mirrors from cars. A small mirror reflects only a fraction of the space around us; a mirror façade reflects most things around us, containing segments that are dark or bright, red or green. But a matrix of small mirrors, which can adjust their tilt according to the site they are facing, will form a display that uses the ever changing flux of the place to show images from certain points in space. That’s exactly what Aleph is doing.

The installation, which will spend six months in the gardens of Belsay, is experienced as a large matrix of reflections of the environment. It uses the spaces, people and objects placed or passing in front of it as a palette to display images from hidden viewpoints.

The reflections in the matrix of mirrors are changing and eventually building up images and other visual information.‭ ‬This is perceived fully from one specific viewpoint at a time,‭ ‬while getting fragmented by moving away from it.‭ ‬The installation produces its content in response to the presence,‭ ‬position and behavior of visitors.

Movement is achieved by‭ ‬2‭ ‬small electric motors, each mirror is equipped with a small circuit board with a microcontroller,‭ ‬a motor driver and an angle sensor.‭ A computer is using cameras to continuously analyze the surroundings, implement interaction and distribute targeting information to a network of microcontrollers positioning the mirrors.

The name Aleph was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges: Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping or confusion.

All my images.

Originally from we make money not art by Regine
reBlogged by michael on May 3, 2007, 9:54PM

Artists’ Television Access

Call for Work

Artists’ Television Access (ATA) is accepting experimental and independent shorts (running 20 minutes or less) in all genres for the ATA Film & Video Festival 2007! POSTMARK DEADLINE: June 15, 2007. More details.

Artists’ Television Access is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, all-volunteer, artist-run, experimental media arts gallery that has been in operation since 1984. ATA hosts a series of film and video screenings, exhibitions and performances by emerging and established artists and a weekly cable access television program. To celebrate and promote experimental film and filmmakers, ATA hosts the ATA Film and Video Festival —an assembly of short films you won’t see anywhere else.

Originally from Networked_Performance by jo
reBlogged by michael on May 4, 2007, 6:30AM

The Last Tag Show - *Pash

“The Last Tag Show, a live “net performance,” took place on Last.FM on April 14, 2007. Last.FM is a social networking site centered around tracking its users’ music listening habits and creating a profile based on that data. As a user listens to music, the track title and artist name are sent to his/her profile and listed publicly, allowing the service to create connections between users and the musicians they listen to. Another notable aspect of the service is its reliance on user participation, through wikis, in the creation of artist profiles.

The Last Tag Show cleverly took advantage of Last.FM’s technical structure to pull off a 24 hour performance. As the allotted time progressed, viewers saw tracks and artists appear in succession on Last.FM user profile lasttagshow’s profile page. These were no ordinary songs however, the artists instead altered the metadata of audio tracks such that when they were uploaded to the Last.FM servers they appeared as a multi-character dialogue. The principal personages in the performance include “Moderator,” “Hannah,” “Voiceover,” “Instructor,” “Marck,” “Zita Vass,” and “Gregg,” with occasional guest stars like Thom Yorke. Since each of these characters take the role of a musician in Last.FM’s data-centric view, each of them have a dedicated user-editable artist page, which The Last Tag Show took full advantage of by developing the identities of their subjects in these spaces. As such, Moderator, for example, existed beyond his archived snippets of speech, complete with a photograph and short biography.” Continue reading The Last Tag Show by Nathan Lovejoy at Furtherfield.

Originally from Networked Music Review by jo
reBlogged by michael on May 2, 2007, 9:46AM

Image, Space, Object 2007: People Centered Brand Experiences

at RMCAD, in Denver, Colorado, August 9-12, 2007
I have to say that I am a bit biased — having been involved in producing the last two Image, Space, Object conferences — but ISO offers a workshop-like experience that doesn’t have a true parallel in today’s conference scene.
ISO participants are divided up into [...]