PIKSEL 07
HELLO HACKABILITY!
"Fun House"
mixed media
Project in cooperation with BEK
16.11. - 16.12.07
With:
Paul Magee | Christian Gutzer | Daniel Palacios Jimenez | Gregory Shakar | Emanuel Andel and Christian Guetzer | Ralph Kistler | Julien Ottavi and Dominique Leroy | N_DREW | Olle Corneer, Martin Lubcke and Christian Horgren
Piksel is an international event for artists and developers working with open source audiovisual software, hardware & art. Part workshop, part festival, it is organised in Bergen, Norway, by the Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK) and involves participants from more than a dozen countries exchanging ideas, coding, presenting art and software projects, doing workshops, performances and discussions on the aesthetics and politics of FLOSS & art.
This years event - Piksel07 - continues the exploration of free/libre and open source audiovisual code and it's myriad of expressions, and also investigates further the open hardware theme introduced at Piksel06.
The theme of Piksel07 - Hello hackability! - celebrates hackability as an essensial feature which allows for new artistic possibilities in the use of open formats, free software and DIY hardware as creative platforms.
Piksel07 is in collaboration with Gallery 3,14 which will host this years exhibition. Piksel is organised by BEK and a community of core participants including members of collectives dyne.org, goto10.org, ap/xxxxx, hackitectura.net, riereta.net, gephex.org and others.
VOICE 2.0
by Paul Magee (UK)
sound installation, 2006-2007
"Voice" analyses English texts and calculates the overall probabilty of each phonetic being spoken. It also analyses - for each phonetic - which of the other phonetics are more likely to precede and follow it. Using the overall probability table to bias a random generator, Voice generates a seed sentence. It speaks this sentence through a bank of 44 speakers. Each speaker being associated with one particular phonetic.Using the proximity probability tables, it then rearranges the phonetics in that sentence into more comfortable positions. It speaks the sen-tence again. It does this until it gets bored and then generates a completely new sentence.
GROW
by Christian Gutzer (AT)
Under normal conditions a plant grows, if it is phototrophic, always to the source of light and away from the earth - gravitation. What, if you manipulated the natural growth of a plant and would addict its prosperity to a machine which forces the plant into a thetic form. “Grow” is a project that deals with the plant/machine conception. A machine that is con-trolled by a special algorythm, changes the position of the plant relatively to a static light source. This determinates the direction of growth. Thus unnatural forms are created and the algorythm becomes manifest in the form of the plant.
WAVES
by Daniel Palacios Jimenez (ES)
The installation uses a long piece of rope to make a 3-D representation of a group of waves floating on the space. These waves generate sound because of the physic of the movement, so sound and images are linked, making only one shape: the rope which creates the volume, creates simultaneously the sound when the rope cut the air. This will shape only one element that will be altered as we behave in front of it, as our body is moving around it. The wave will go from a still line when we are quiet to chaotic shapes of irregular sounds when there are lots of movements around the installation.
The Analog Color Field Computer
by Gregory Shakar (US)
"The Analog Color Field Computer (ACFC)" is an interactive video and sound installation that makes both minimal and maximal use of computer monitors. The piece endeavors to revisit the computer as a standardized multi-function instrument. By reducing the content of its au-diovisual renderings to solid colors and pure tones, the device offers relief from the myriad of visual, sonic and operational conventions traditionally associated with computer displays. Each unit provides controls for users to adjust its hues, pitches and rhythms. The audience is offered a renewed ability to determine what they see and hear.
[www.hz-journal.org/n11/shakar.html]
KNIFE.HAND.CHOP.BOT
by Emanuel Andel (AT) Christian Guetzer (AT)
The Robot is equipped with a knife that the Machine uses to s(t)imulate the test of courage - a kind of game known as “Mumblety-Peg”. The User puts his/her hand into the Machine and starts the knife game at the push of a button. The knife starts to hit the space between the fingers, first slowly then continually getting faster. The Machine knows where to chop by receiving signals of a sensor that guides the knife to the place between the fingers.
The work is about the a fascinating paradox that results from this close relationship between humans and artifacts. A fascination that tries to run a risk and avoid it at the same time. Therefore we like games that, by playing them, put their rules to the test.
SALTO MORTALE
by Ralph Kistler (DE/ES)
This video installation is possible by combining video projection with physical computing. The projected image will be divided in five parts. A static mirror reflects the hands, two moveable mirrors with step motors amplify the jumps of the persons and two little light spots are illuminating the light sensitive resistors. The light spots in the video are responsible for controlling the movements of the mirrors and synchronizing the movement of the (virtual) video-image and the (real) mirrors.
[https://www.subtours.com/cms/node/11]
AROUGATE
by Julien Ottavi (FR) Dominique Leroy (FR)
"Arougate" is an installation that involves the environnement of the space he is invited to hunt in. "Arougate" is a digital beast who hunts information, tracks it, feeds on it, and generally reacts to it. "Arougate" behaves like a wolf when he eats his preys ; no one can disturb him without consequence; the combination of a machinic system with the poetic-modelisation of animal reactions creates an uncontrollable noise activity in a specific place. When people in-vade the digital den, they enter simultaneously the beast’s belly and mind, or rather, a strong chaotic mixture of wires (electrical, networked, metal...etc), speakers, machines (nuxbox), radios and others unexpected objects, where vibrations (light and air) come to crash!
[apo33.org/noise/doku.php?id=installation]
MOBISPHERES
by N_DREW (US)
"Mobispheres" is an installation comprised of a group of six custom designed mobile, hand-held audio-visual instruments, as well as ten sound reactive light spheres.
Viewer/participants can improvise together and explore the sounds and lights of the spheres in a gallery environment. The Mobispheres light up and produce noisy tones controlled by knobs. They are also light sensitive via a photo-resister.
[vimeo.com/audiovisuality] [median.s151960.gridserver.com/?page_id=447]
BACTERIAL ORCHESTRA
by Olle Corneer (SE) Martin Lubcke (SE) Christian Horgren (SE)
"Bacterial Orchestra" is a self-organizing evolutionary musical organism. It consists of several audio cells. Every cell listens to its surroundings and picks up sounds trying to play them back in sync with what it hears. It can be the background noise, people talking or sound played by other cells.If you happen to be in the same room as "Bacterial Orchestra" - interact with it. Listen to it’s reactions. The cells communicate with each other, as well as the sound environ-ment they’re placed in.
Every cell has a unique DNA. Only the ones that are musical fit enough survives. If the sur-roundings doesn’t meet up to its conditions - too noisy, too quiet or no distinct pulse - the cell dies to be reborn with a new set of DNA.
[www.corneerlubcke.com/works/bacterial-orchestra]
[tagr.tv/category/festivals/piksel-07]
[piksel.no/2007/11/18/fun-house-2]
[digicult.it/news/piksel-2007]
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