Project Proposal – Guy van Belle

/in /by

Within the context and continuation of the projects I have been doing over the last years I would like to propose to work out a short collaborative/open project on location, with one or more Maori artists. My own background is within the areas of sound and music, extending what I call ‘media writing’ (or “writing” with all possible media) to more interactive forms of online involvement and creativity. Over the last years I have been trying to introduce radically ecological components within new and experimental forms of art, related to current communication and multidisciplinary media forms. The purpose is to bring out a new awareness and at the same time a new sense of sensibility.

In most of my works, I am trying to work on the borderline with sound and music, but again on the edge, exploring possible relationships between the auditive and visual, starting from a perceptive point of view. Over the last years I have been living within a very multilinguistic context, and am becoming very much interested in overlapping differences. For instance, how come that certain terms in completely different language families reflect similarity, as if a master translator was at work. In a more abstract sense I would like to work in New Zealand with onomatopoeia words, which can bridge cultural differences between all age and gender categories, and different cultural backgrounds.

An onomatopoeia or onomatop¦ia (about this sound pronunciation (US), from the Greek ὀνοματοποιία; [1]  ὄνομα for “name”[2] and  ποιέω for “I make”,[3] adjectival form: “onomatopoeic” or “onomatopoetic”) is a word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Onomatopoeia (as an uncountable noun) refers to the property of such words. Common occurrences of onomatopoeia include animal noises, such as “oink” or “meow” or “roar”. Onomatopoeia are not the same across all languages; they conform to some extent to the broader linguistic system they are part of; hence the sound of a clock may be tick tock in English, dī dā in Mandarin, or katchin katchin in Japanese. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia)

The idea of the project, would be to start recording specific sounds coming from water and stones. Different people would interpret these and transform these sounds through language, making onomatopoeia out of it. It is essential for working with different communities, indigenous or not, to have a local artist involved. I would do everything together with that artist. From the recording of the natural sounds to the community work and contextualisation, to the representation and documentation for a presentation at the end. And when I mean working with another artist I mean working with that artist(s) together, without any hierarchical or leading role, deciding together on every aspect of the resulting work.

 

Givan Bela (aka Guy Van Belle)  In his early years he studied literature and linguistics, a little philosophy and sculpting but after 1989 he made a radical switch to computer music and experimental media art. Since the millenium bug, he refuses to work but in a collaborative context. Currently he is involved in the artist run organization OKNO, finishing the larger collaborative and experimental ecological art project Time Inventors’ Kabinet <http://okno.be><http://timeinventorskabinet.org>. Additionally he is developing a series of ecological mixed media works in the Czech countryside (Vysocina). Apart from lecturing and organizing workshops, he is also finishing a series of articles about ecology and media art, as part of a continuing effort to extend current artistic research. For SCANZ 2012 he is preparing a transcultural media work about onomatopeias. For the 7th of November, 2022, he is preparing a homage to Arseny Avraamov in Baku.<xgz@societyofalgorithm.org>

 

 

Remote Connections – Tracey Benson

/in /by

Mobile music machine – home made ipod

Despite Australia’s position as an industrialised nation, there are still significant limitations to online access in regional and remote locations. This scenario presents as a challenge as well as an opportunity for residents. Arguably, one of the most negatively impacted demographics are people living on remote Indigenous communities. There is much talk of ‘closing the gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, which has resulted in a range of policy measures titled ‘Closing the Gap’.These initiatives have implications on a range of issues aside from online access – most significantly access to health, education services, housing and reliable power sources. In remote regions of Australia, there is also the added issue of vulnerability to climate change, which is extreme in Central Australia.

This project explores how strategies and technologies could be used in remote Australia to leapfrog the digital divide, empower communities and help build capacity. There are a number of steps in the life cycle design of the project that allow for the exploration of technologies and building capacity via skill sharing and cultural engagement.

In brief, the steps are:
•    scoping study and environment scan
•    the delivery of a series of skill sharing workshops on location at Alice Springs and Papunya
•    the development of collaborative works in each location utilising digital technology and online tools
•    building networks across communities to share outputs and to enhance communications between locations
•    the presentation of the work in various sites and forums

The scoping exercise is focused on developing a best practice approach to engaging with remote Indigenous communities to collaboratively develop effective information communications technology (ICT) literacy skills and improved access to communications technology. It is also a documentation of my evolving understanding of the many challenges people face in remote areas and the significant impact of the digital divide specifically in smaller remote Indigenous communities.

The other linked concern having a direct impact to online access in remote localities is reliable sources of power. On this topic there has been a number of excellent energy and sustainability initiatives in remote Indigenous communities. I focus specifically on a number of communities in the Central Australian region, mainly Alice Springs, Yuendumu, Papunya and more broadly Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY).

My decision to research online access for remote Indigenous communities came about after I read an article discussing the high uptake of mobile phones in remote communities, particularly ‘smart’ phones with 3G Internet access. This was shortly after attending ‘Web Directions South 2010’ in Sydney where I was switched on to flexible device delivery with a web standards approach (which encompasses accessible and usable design). The developments in HTML and CSS have added increased flexibility and functionality to web design, making websites more elegant and streamlined. I also have an interest in researching semantic web and geolocation technologies and their application to genealogy and Indigenous kinship systems.

Over the years I have run many workshops in regional areas, with a focus on ‘identity’ as a means to explore media in creative ways. In ‘Remote Connections’, I will use this methodology to guide the development of collaborative works about identity and place, which will evolve from the workshops.

 

 

Pattern Recognition – Vicki Smith and Aroha Timoti-Coxon

/in , /by

Project Proposal

Tukutuku panels between the poupou in many wharenui are a beautiful series of patterns, the holders of memory and complementary to the story told in the kowhaiwhai, and whakairo that also decorate the walls and roof. They are complex patterns of single or crossed stitches that reveal their information to those who can look beyond the seemingly random pattern.

A black-and-white photograph of two unidentified Māori women working on tukutuku panels (woven panels) inside Rangiātea, the Anglican church at Ōtaki on the lower west coast of the North Island of New Zealand taken by Walter R Oliver around 1947 and its negative measures 5 cm x 7 cm. Accessed from TePapa Image Collection.

QR or Quick Response codes are also holders of information to the discerning viewer or those who have the technology to unlock the code embedded in the pattern of squares. This can be a scanner or reader usually on a late generation mobile phone or tablet.

This project proposes to take the craft of tukutuku and to create panels that are accessible via QR readers to be installed around the city. The first stage would be to explore the tukutuku panels of the Owae marae to hear their stories and to understand how these are told. Through researching the meaning and gaining an understanding of patterns and themes used locally it is hoped the memories are shared as well the objectives for the iwi, and the environment around them.

The information gathered will then be situated online and a QR code created to access this, referencing the world wide web as the biggest repository of ‘woven information’ [Tukutuku-Ao-Whanui].

The final stage of the project will be the creation and installation of the QR/Tukutuku within the city and environment of Taranaki. The act of creation of the work in public space will serve to engage the local community in conversation about issues of environmental impact locally and to seek to build connections with the future and creative solutions.

The artist would prefer to work through this process alongside manu whenua of Mankorihi pa and as a workshop with local youth. Ideally exploring the possibility of creating the QR codes with enough coding information but also flexible enough to emulate in some manner the patterns of environment or environmental dislocation they refer to.

For more information please see: Pattern Recognition Project Page

 

Vicki Smith is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, digital storyteller and community agent using a range of creative tools. She is one of a global collective of artists who began performing through networked environments in the last millenia and is co-creator of UpStage (a realtime online performance environment) that is ‘made in NZ’ and internationally acknowledged especially through the annual festivals she co-curates.

Vicki is an observer, explorer and navigator siting one of her current works on an 11 metre sailing vessel – Kiritea. She has always been interested in how digital spaces can be site and tools for exploring traditional technologies. Through her online activities, she is part of an arts and education community that is global.

Aroha Timoti-Coxon is a weaver who currently lives in Hokitika, she is Ngai Tahu (Te Runaka o Makaawhio). In 2004 Aroha spent two months working on the Tukutuku panels at Te Tauraka Waka a Maui. She has taught at most of the local schools (including the ICARUS project Raraka Wanaka). Aroha has also taught Tuahiwi Marae, and wanaka with high school rangatahi over the christmas holidays 2008 – 2009. Aroha has taught at staff at Department of Conservation as well as the Driftwood and Sands Symposia. Vicki and Aroha have worked on several projects together since first meeting at a Raraka Wanaka (Weaving workshop) that Aroha ran through Karoro Learning in 2008.

 

 

Darko Fritz

Internet Error Messages – Darko Fritz

/in /by

204_NO_CONTENT

An on-going series of works / projects of different nature, each making use of texts of internet error messages, i.e. Web Server Result (HTML Error) Codes / HTML Error Codes / WWW Error Messages / HTTP Status Messages. Installed using plants and materials commonly used locally in municipal or other official plantings of the area.

 

Kāinga a roto | Kāinga a waho
 (Home within | Home on the outside) – Sonja van Kerkhoff & Sen McGlinn

/in /by

Proposed Project

To research Māori building and construction techniques, using the archives of Puke Ariki as well as via interviews with tangata whenua and visits to existing buildings and sites in Taranaki. Then with the material collected, we intend to build two structures, one intended to house a 5 screen video installation to be located inside (possibly Puke Ariki) and another that will function as a sculptural-shelter in Pukekura Park. We will combine what we learn from our research with other building techniques to create a hybrid work that straddles various worlds. Ecologically sound materials will be used either utilizing recycled materials, straw bales (perhaps the strawbale + clay building technique, a skill we have), or bales made from weeds or perhaps woven or bound flax. An aim in the choice of materials for the interior work will be to bring the outside (rural Taranaki) in and for the outdoor work we will be looking at reflecting something of the ‘inner’ world/s or make a play on inside/outside through a construction that functions as a sculptural intervention. If feasible, we will incorporate a natural process for the work to return to nature in the form of a compost-able work of art. Our goal while working on both projects would be to network and coordinate with others, either teaching skills as they help us or to make use of the knowledge or skills of others in the manner of workshops where the public can participate.

 

Sen McGlinn and Sonja van Kerkhoff, both born and raised in Aotearoa (New Zealand) have been based in the Netherlands since 1989 and have been making art works independently, together, or in collaboration with others since the mid 1980s. Most of their work, often in the form of a site specific installation, relates to the human condition as an interweaving of the spiritual, social and material. For example in 2009 they participated in the “Treetop Gallery” in Regents Park in London, U.K., where Sen delivered a lecture in a tree house on “Structuring Society in an age of globalisation” while Sonja’s contribution was the hanging of orange tinted translucent tulips.

 

 

Gather – Kate Genevieve and David Montgomery

/in /by

Project Proposal

This work will emerge out of a conversation between interested members of the Maori community and artists, Kate Genevieve and David Montgomery, and consider how members of this community situate themselves in the second decade of the 21st Century.  Kate will bring to this conversation her research into experiments devised within contemporary neuroscience to explore the neural bases of time perception.  The resultant installation will explore Maori notions through technology associated with contemporary neuroscience’s explorations.

Through Gather they intend to explore marginalised traditional ways of experiencing time as opposed to the West’s clock time, using the engaged bodily experience of participants.   The immersive environment seeks to manipulate participant’s experience of subjective time by using animated visuals and soundscapes that respond to the audience’s real-time heart beat in the space.  Through combining bio-sensor technology with multi-sensory and haptic exploration of the botanical gardens, the intention is to destablise the body’s normal experience of time and its sense of being separate from the environment.

The film footage will incorporate patterns from the plant life of the site and, drawing upon David Montgomery’s expertise as an experimental film maker working with natural specimens, create experimental animation from the Park’s vegetation.  The visuals will incorporate leaves and plants from the Botanical Gardens, and draw on local knowledge of the gardens and the different plant species from across the globe that thrive together.

 

Background

As Artist in Residence at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex, UK, Kate Genevieve has been collaborating with scientists investigating consciousness and the subjective feelings of presence and embodiment, and researching the methodologies and technologies science is using to approach subjectivity.  Her work within the centre has used immersive visuals as a means of investigating presence through the bodily experience of participants, often incorporating particular experiments into narrative performances.  An example of this is the interactive performance, NO PLACE, a walking meditation on presence within constructed environments that extended and pushed at the techniques of the “rubber-hand illusion”.

Recently Kate has been working with pulse-sensor technology to respond to the Centre’s work on how increased interoceptive awareness correlates with heightened feelings of presence.  This work led her into a particular interest in considering how bodily experience effects temporal experience.  With reference to experiments probing the neural correlates of time perception, as found in the research of neuroscientists Patrick Haggard and David Eagleman, Kate is now beginning to explore heart-beat responsive immersive environments to explore how heart beat feedback effects time perception.

The Gardens interestingly represent one instance of the blending of indigenous New Zealand culture and British culture, both in its history and its botanical life.  Gather seeks to respond to this site through incorporating the plant life of the Botanical Gardens into the visual experience.  Experimental film maker David Montgomery developed an animation technique using found objects, such as flowers, leaves, shells, and seed pods, while studying Digital Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida.  As Artist in Residence at the Exploratorium he created animated loops from the flowers of the Pohutukawa tree and conducted initial research which he will develop through Gather into the links between particular flowers and trees and Maori folktales.

 

Aims

Whilst contemporary western brain science and philosophy is key to Gather, the aim of this art practice is to widen out neuroscience research from its focus on standard western experiences of time and subjectivity.  Their attempt is to take neuroscience research into the world, into places not represented within science studies: outposts, islands, places and communities distant from the lab and the FMRI machine.   We hope that this effort towards cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary dialogue might suggest directions for returning science, as Merleau-Ponty puts it, “to the site, the soil of the sensible and opened world such as it is in our life and for our body…”[Eye and Mind].

Gather will be installed within the Pukekura Park Bandstand, a constructed and symbolic site that represents the spread of a Victorian mode of formalising and containing nature and experience. Installing Gather within the bandstand, that curiously British ornamental construction scattered round the globe in the Victorian era, involves a serious attempt to broaden and perhaps undo a production focussed, urban, industrial understanding of time and space that the bandstand signifies.

Exhausted by identity politics that lead to fixed binaries – western/non-western, art/science, male/female, technology/nature – their working processes seek out common ground.  This work is born from and results in communication and collaboration and will use digital technologies to create multi-sensory experiences that facilitate and suggest alternative (rather than new) ways of being in spaces.  The exact set up of the performance must emerge out of specific meetings, conversations and exchanges between groups of people and sites during the residency.

Brickets – Pierre Proske and Damian Stewart

/in /by

Project Proposal

The outcome of this project is to sonify environmental data through a series of small solar powered audio-visual devices. Each device will be roughly the shape and size of a brick, hence their name – Brickets.

The devices collectively create an ecology of cricket-like sounds in a outdoor setting. Each Bricket  contains an electronic circuit that produces digitally generated chirps that resemble the sounds made by crickets or frogs. Each device also contains a series of LED lights that glow every time the device produces a chirp.

The devices are also capable of listening to their environment, communicating among themselves and receiving information every time another device chirps. The regularity of the chirping depends on the time of day (they become active at dusk) and the responses of the neighbouring Brickets. Different devices will tend to couple more strongly with their neighbours, producing pockets of synchrony as the population of Brickets moves between chaos and a common period of calling.

When a Bricket generates a sound, a ring of LEDs light up in sequence on the device’s face, visualising the duration of the playback of the chirp. While active, the Brickets have an interactive component as passing pedestrians will be able to influence the rhythm of the chirping by standing over the bricks or waving a limb over them. Brickets charge up their batteries using their in-built solar panel during the daylight hours, and then expend the energy as sound and light during the night.

One presentation opportunity for the Brickets would be to connect them to the daily water consumption of a building or area. Recent improvements in water and power data collection and measurement could enable this.  Just as frogs call after prolonged rain, so too would the Brickets sing if the building’s water use fell below a daily threshold. The devices would begin to call after dusk, and would serve as positive reinforcement to encourage thrifty water usage.

Brickets – proposal image

3rd nature: Hideo Iwasaki

/in , /by

iwasaki hideo

Introdcution

Professor Hideo Iwasaki runs the Laboratory for Molecular Cell Network & Biomedia Art at the Department of Electric Engineering and Bioscience of Waseda University in Japan.

In the images on this page it is possible to discern the intersection of art and science quite clearly. There is a blending which is a combination of aesthetics and scientific method.

This is quite different from the oft stated assumption that science and art are at loggerheads – that one (science) seeks to close knowledge by final solutions whereas the other (art) is open in terms of potential understandings.

The closure of scientific solutions often rests at a certain level of investigation. Thus when the structure of DNA was finally settled upon by Watson and Crick (based on the work of collaborative predecessors),  there was closure at a specific level of  investigation but of course the doors that have opened are far reaching and not able to be anticipated fully.

If the level of understanding of the Watson-Crick model is broadened then the dynamic role of DNA in the wider world becomes apparent, singularities in solutions dissolve and the integrated nature of biological systems becomes apparent.

What I mean by this is that in the laboratory, DNA is a molecule whose structure is examined and tested. It is only when stepping back, and examining experimentation from an ethical perspective that questions arise. What is the allowable extent of DNA manipulation? If an athlete was bred for physical supremacy should that athlete be allowed to compete against mere natural biological specimens?

It is how the DNA plays out at the 1:1 scale of reality that becomes the important factor. These aspects are open ended rather than closed. If science can prompt such questions, then structurally the same process is active as when art prompts similar questions.

Increasing the depth of understanding about a subject belongs to neither to the arts nor the sciences and can be the domain of both.

In the end it is not how art and science are different, but the fact they have both differences and similarities that matters. The boundary is one that can be dissolved and then be reformed dynamically.

As well as his cyanobacteria forms in the shape of proto-humans, we have asked Professor Iwasaki to also exhibit a paper cutout, which are expressions of complex natural forms made with scissors and paper. These works also follow a line intersecting science and art decisively. Below is shown a detail of Boundary Garden. For more information see  http://www.f.waseda.jp/hideo-iwasaki

Hideo Iwasaki

 

 

 

 

wai

/in , /by

By Te Huirangi Waikerepuru

Wai is an exhibition whose main theme comes from Dr Te Huirangi Waikerepuru. Wai means water or flow and occupies a central place for Māori. The first stage of this project will be exhibited at 516 Arts in Albuquerque as part of ISEA2012, the International Symposium on Electronic Art.

One of the works in the exhibition Wai is a work by Te Huirangi – Te Taiao Māori.

In 2011 for Istanbul ISEA, Te Huirangi had composed a chart of Te Taiao Māori, the Māori universe. This was presented as a 2.5metre x 3metre chart of words on the wall.

For presentation at Cultura Digital in Rio de Janeiro, the chart was formatted as an animation using After Effects. The background is photo astronomy by Paul Moss, who also took part in the Istanbul show.

The work will be also shown as part of SCANZ 2013: 3rd nature in Puke Ariki New Plymouth opening February 2nd 2013. This will be it’s first exhibition in Aotearoa New Zealand, an important moment for the local audience.

The image above is from a presentation at the Planetary Collegium’s Technoetic Telos on Kefalonia Island, Greece. Previously this detail of the chart had been presented on Waterwheel in Tunisia and had been translated into French.

It is intended that the ISEA Albuquerque version will contain Portuguese and Spanish translations. Part of Te Huirangi’s kaupapa (policy) is that of recognising local cultures.

Clearly there is world wide interest in the Māori worldview and particularly in the context of electronic art. As Steven Kovats observed after seeing the exhibition in Istanbul “the interconnections between the Māori concepts of flow, movement, space, time, collaboration say much about the ideals of open and critical digital culture and theory today.”

Wai or flow is central to Māori who also speak of “Ika Moana, Ika Whenua, Ika Tangata” – fish, fish land, fish people. The Māori expression for ‘Who am I?’ – “Ko wai au?” literally means “Whose water am I?”