Pete Hindle's Repository of Stuff

All blogs start with a test. It's like a science experiment - "Does this work? If not, why?"

Roman Kirschner, Roots

Roman Kirscner, Roots (detail)

David Rokeby, Taken

Herwig Weiser, Death by Disco

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ghost engine - Sprechen ohne Sprache' (Talking without Language

4:3

Ushi Reiter - Turntable Improvisationen

Ushi Reiter - Turntable Improvisationen

Ushi Reiter - Turntable Improvisationen

Ushi Reiter - Turntable Improvisationen

Ushi Reiter - Turntable Improvisationen

These are some brief notes on the lectures,
Ingebourg Reichie is an art historian with main focus of her present research is into image production in art and science. She talked about how scientists were creating artificial systems to study models of disease. That science was a different form of selection outside of Darwinism. She suggested that much of the natural world was being replaced by technology.
So, to explain a bit more of the background. In order to study disease in humans, scientists often study it in closely related organisms, such as mice. With current technology these organisms are increasingly bioengineered to replicate the disease state. Thus there are mice that are engineered get cancer, or alzheimers, animals that would not survive outside the lab. These she terms biofacts. Manufactured organisms.
More to come......

I know its still a week and a bit away, but at the moment berlin looks
abit sleety/slushy/icy. Give me temperatures below 0 anyday to that! i
want any surface water to be frozen as snow!

I'm in C-Base, the hangout of the Chaos Computer Club, germanic hackers with fantastic wifi. Soon, the hardcore rapping group 'the joseph boys' will be on stage to rap over aggressive dance music (I'm sure their namesake is turning in his grave). I'm not the only person in this nightclub on a laptop, but I'm willing to bet I'm the only who just emailed his mum.

There are some interesting things happening at Tesla in berlin. I would like to see Seiko Mikami's work in progress, based on seeing her gravicells work at TM.05 and her talk at Newcastle Universities CultureLab last year. She is interested in exploring the human senses one at a time.

From the Tesla site
tesla at podewils palais
klosterstraße 68 - 70
d - 10179 berlin-mitte

subway: u2 klosterstrasse

for the transmediale '07 we are presenting the first and second parts of a full-scale project by the american media artist chris salter, as well as the work which defines the tesla laboratory : that of our resident artists. for three days, interested visitors from berlin and abroad are invited to roam the open studios, witness the installations, attend the works in progress, and talk with the producers about current artistic work.

studio 1 | wed. to sat. | 18. jan. to 03. feb 2007 | 6:00 to 10:00 pm

opening: thurs. 18. jan. 2007 | 6:00 pm
sei personaggi part 2
valentina vuksic [ch]

valentina vuksic's 'six people' play through luigi pirandello's theatrical concept on a fictive electronic stage. in the system core of her computer, which is built up into a room installation, the mechanical dialogs pop, plop and crackle. the zürich-based artist records the processor's emissions, and in her studio, she amplifies, filters and modulates the sounds into a sound-setting, which uses an age-old loudspeaker system to emit a pleasant, warm, lo-fi character.

www.sei.personaggi.ch.vu

studio 2 | wed. to sat. | 18. jan. to 03. feb 2007 | 6:00 to 10:00 pm

opening: thurs. 18. jan. 2007 | 06:00 pm
desire of codes
seiko mikami [j]

in an open studio, seiko mikami presents a new version, developed at tesla, of her interactive installation desire of codes. a matrix of sensors, mini-lightspots and surveillance cameras fills the room, following the movements of the visitor. until march, 2007, seiko mikami is in berlin as a visiting fellow at the udk.

http://www.s--m.org

probebühne | wed. to sat. | 18. jan. to 03. feb 2007 | 6:00 to 10:00 pm

opening: thurs. 25. jan. 2007 | 6:00 pm
audio kinematics
jost muxfeldt [d]

audio kinematics is a virtual kinetic sound-sculpture, in which the mechanical principle of a mobile determine the dimensions of the sound. this principle is based on a binary tree structure and circular motion. after his three-month-long project residence at tesla, berlin-based composer and artist jost muxfeldt presents the first realisation of his work as an installation on the expansive rehearsal stage of the podewils'schen palais.

www.glyph.de

One of the questions in the talk was "Why do the artists exhibit a lab next to their artwork?"
The answer given was that they were trying to demystify the process of life science, that there was some theoretic aesthetic reason for it, and there probably is.....but there is a more physical fundamental reason for this....that bioart is living, that it needs to live in a sterile environment, that it needs to be fed, so, as much of a disadvantage it is, there needs to be a specific environment for this to be carried out. The choice is whether this is in the public sphere or somewhere else.....
I think however the suggestion/question was that this is not part of the process, that the lab was a static object used initially and was now just documentation.

A series of films that used found footage as its main source of...um...footage.

There were 8 films in total but I think I'll only comment on my favourite ones.

Les Leveque's 'Dramatically Repeating Lawrence of Arabia', re-dited the 217 minute film into a '15 minute hallucination' where the famous theme sounded like the Trance Remix, which I have to say I quite liked. I found myself trying to spot all my favourite pieces from the film which flashed past at an incredibly fast pace. Not for anyone who has issues with flashing lights. Lawrence of Arabia has been used a number of times by artists but I can't blame them when it is such an amazing classic.

Next up Marine Gioti's 'B-ALLES', a re-edit of a Greek TV commercial from the 80's for a long dead beach racquet game. This was a comical piece not just because of the remixed pop song with a chorus about California but also the fact that the advert tried to look like it was on a California beach when it was obviously shot in Greece and the models looked like they were all of Scandinavian descent. Not a Greek person in sight. It gives a simplistic view of how advertising gets implanted into our subconscious.

'Miss Popularity' by Wayne Yung used 1950's American information films aimed for teenagers and their love life's to funny affect. Followed by another of his films where a voice over by a young gay man talks about the troubles of having two boyfriends and how he has to juggle them as well as any other dates he gets over continous 3 week periods.

'Gospels' by Erik Bunger whilst being a small epic at 22 minutes was easily the best in the screening. Stringing interviews of famous (and not so famous) celebrities discussing a mysterious 'he', it brings together an idea of hero worship and as the artist said himself religious undertone's. Putting each cut into simple themes brings together the thought of collective worship. This is an ongoing project so if you ever get a chance to see it get comfortable in your seat.

Finally Mark Boswell's 'St. Petersburg Paradox' takes the casino game invented in Russia and archive footage from the Wolfson Archive in St Petersburg, Florida and St Petereburg, Russia. The viewer is navigated through the stories of both cities towards a 'duelling apocalyptic finish'. If you want to see Joe Pesci menacing Marcel Duchamp and warning him about what he did to Picasso's sausage you can't go wrong with this one.

Technorati Profile

Media Art Undone

Panel Discussion: Timothy Druckley, Diedrich Dierdeirichsen, Inke Arms and Olia Lialina

Four presentations from each member of the panel aimed at offering alternative viewpoints around issues of whether the term Media Art is no longer relevant. This year was the 20th year of Transmediale and saw it change the subtitle of the festival from ‘festival of Media Art’ to ‘Festival of art and digital technologies’.

The Panel also discussed the position of ‘Media’ art within the wider umbrella term of ‘Contemporary art’ and what separations, cross overs occur between the two.

By all accounts this ‘discussion’ was a lot tamer than what I expected and a lot of time was wasted discussing titles and terms which should replace ‘media art’ to better represent art and new technologies. It’s not that I disagree with the argument, but I remain sceptical about whether a name really changes what something means.

The presentations from Dierdeirichsen and Druckley proved to be most interesting and most opposite. Dierdeirichsen representing (metaphorically) the gallery and contemporary worlds and Druckley speaking on a collective ‘we’ defining the media art community.

There was very little time left after all four speakers had said their part and therefore the discussion didn’t really get much of an opportunity to develop.

Overall it was quite a mediocre summery of a ageing topic, with a lot of unexplored potential.

Apologies for misspelling of names and words etc, im sure you get the general idea.

Teaching Media Art in Schools

Daniela Reiman - Flensburg University

A research project focusing on how media art and computer sciences can be incorporated into the curriculum, to increase awareness and skills of children and young adults. This presentation didn’t just focus upon creating a new generation of media artists, but also revealed an interesting debate on the advantages and disadvantages these technologies can bring to other subjects within the curriculum.

The research highlighted a number of obstacles to such research becoming a reality. How can media arts be taught in schools where teachers are too busy or perhaps uninterested in learning the skills required to teach media arts? What are the costs of completely restructuring a curriculum? How can the new phenonmenum of ipods and mobile phones with added extras, pod casts, video, audio recording equipment be included rather than excluded and how can these aid teaching and learning?

At present this is just a research project. However it is a valid reflection on how quickly technology is evolving, and the advantages of introducing skills that are increasingly relevant to modern techno-savvy youths.

The main focus of this talk was around the incorporation of these skills in primary and secondary education.

My main interest in this talk was to see what developments had been made. I wanted to bring back what I had learnt to Newcastle. My main interest is to increase the knowledge of media arts and computer science in university departments where I still feel there is a lack of knowledge of advancing technology and media art history within the arts.

for more information visit

http://daniela-reimann.de/media-arts-education/

Part of the talk was recorded on video and audio and will hopefully be uploaded at a later date.

Marius Watz sends word via his Flickr account that Berlin is covered in snow. Marius is doing the visuals for Club Transmediale this year, which seems to be building on work he presented both at Transmediale06 and last year's AV festival.

Me and Sarah walked throught the memorial today, after reading of its history it was good to see it. From the outside it seems small, but wonce you are walking down the corridors it expands. The ground undulates, you are encompased. It protects you from rain in some parts, and not in others. I have photos, but they will have to wait. From some sources it seems to be potrayed as a failed art work. It has weight, but the effect of waves that the artist went for was not apparent. In other aspects it is a tribute to engineering, to the formation of concrete blocks, monoliths etc. From a google search I came up with this link to the concrete centre. concrete is there just a strange bit of irony here?

On Berlin itself, the wide open spaces combined with larger than life architecture impressed and work well together. The overall effect means that even with the scale and height all around you never feel confined. Plenty of cool cafes and bars (with good food and beer on the whole, with one notable exception but that's another story) offer readily available fuel. For a relatively short visit living from place to place just about works, though more spacious and less pubesent orientated accomodation (the Generator Hostel in all it's glory), which allows for self-catering and relaxation wouldn't go amiss.

Transport around the city was efficient and in abundance, encouraging experience beyond transmediale. The U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams and buses all available and a travel ticket, which sorted us out for the whole trip was a great convenience. So convenient in fact that on our return to newcastle Clare had to remind us that this marvellous ticket did not in fact cover the joys of the NE metro"sorry excuse for transport"sevice as well (shame really). Possibly something to look into for the EU.

On the whole getting around Berlin was relatively easy and to some degree fun. Though I have to admit to getting slightly confused at Warschauer Str. when I ventured out on my own. But this was largely due to the fact I'd been following everyone else around up to that point, in rather a sheep like fashion it has to be said. Once I had found my bearings made a few enquiries and got myself a map, which admittedly I should have done at the start it all added to the experience.

General concensus for the trip was very much in the positive. A feeling of being energised and of broadening horizons. A determination perhaps to get out and about and check out the goings on elsewhere in the world, as well as in your own back yard.

I was lucky enough to see Stelarcs third ear up close.

Transitlounge: a series of residencies for Australian artists, focussing on process-based and transitory works.

website: Transitlounge

Panel: V. Styliandou, Rob Curgenven, Miriam Mlecek, Katie Herman

Last year, overlapping the residencies of the artists facilitated the collaboration. Taking artists our of their comfort zones, and getting them to respond to their surroundings. Collaborations start online, and then the artists finally meet each other when the residency begins. Exhibitions are not in the 'white cube' space, but rather the real workings spaces. Berlin was chosen as a city that had a lot of transitory factors.

Basically, last year was a multimedia-flavoured year. And most of the artists who were using the space were responding to the city of Berlin. Issues that were discussed on the blog, typically Australian-focussed political ideas on immigration, would shift when presented with the multicultural reality of Berlin.

The exhibition for tonight will have Lea (vilea?) and Rob's work, as a performance/performative piece.

Rob: Sound artist from the Northern territory. Environment is very important there. As artist, is interested in field recordings and environmental sounds. Tonight's show is a one-hour piece made by using field recordings. If you come tonight, says Rob, there will be extra tricks that make it different from guzzling beer and staring at white walls.

V. Sytliandou; Investigating walking and language, and the systems of transit and security. In the video "Do you want to Kill me, Baby?", systems of order and disicpline are investigated by use of a fictional company that sells people as products. (I think...)

(Note - This is also the show that Brian is taking part in)

Transitlounge is based in Sydney and Berlin, and in the future work will be made in Sydney and brought over to Berlin, rather than the reverse. They are also collaborating in a show of architecture in Berlin, all whilst the residency program is continuing.