I’m currently over in Vienna settng up my work for the upcoming Pask Present Exhibition which opens tomorrow. If your in the area feel free to join us for the opening night tomorrow (25th March). One of the artists exhibiting is Richard Brown, so I thought I’d show a taste of his work. Richard Brown has a BSc in Computers & Cybernetics and an MA in Fine Art and works as a hybrid artist, inventor and entrepreneur creating interactive and mimetic experiences using a wide variety of media, including the digital, the analogue and the chemical. His works explores the perception of space, time and energy encompassing ideas from cybernetics, artificial life, interaction design, emergence, complexity and alchemy.
Static Machine
Between 1995 and 2001 Richard was a Research Fellow at the Royal College of Art where he created and exhibited three major interactive works Alembic (ICA 1998), Biotica (Siggraph 2000) and the Neural Net Starfish (Millennium Dome 2000). Whist at the RCA Richard also published the book “Biotica: Art, Emergence and Artificial- Life“. He has been an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Victorian College of Art, Melbourne University, and artist-in-residence at CEMA (Centre for Electronic Media Arts), Monash University.In 2006 Richard was invited by Edinburgh Informatics to be their first Research Artist in Residence. In this role, he has developed projects combining art, informatics and communications research.
Here are a selection of projects of his but you can see many more at the Pask Present Exhibition.
Electromagnetic Time Machine 1983
An electromagnetic kinetic sculpture using the cybernetic principle of regulatory feedback to generate complex oscillatory behaviour. Each electromagnetic relay is physically coupled to a vertical pendulum and electrically influenced by its immediate neighbour. When a relay closes it causes the relay in front to close only if the relay behind is open, thus creating a regulatory feedback loop with unstable oscillations due to the differing physical weightings of the vertical pendulums. A simple PIR sensor activates the work, the pulsing lights indicating the closing and opening of each relay.
Cybernetics concerns itself with any type of system that involves sensing and feedback, biological, ecological, mechanical and chemical. Gordon Pask created cybernetic feedback mechanisms using electromechanical and analogue components in his works, such as “Colloquy of mobiles” in the same vein, Time Machine represents an alternative paradigm to the digital.
Dendritics I, II and III
The Electrochemical System is inspired by Gordon Pask’s early experiments with electrochemistry. The central negatively charged copper electrode of each glass is surrounded by four positively charged copper electrodes. Copper dendrites grow from the central electrode reaching out to the outer electrodes. The plates are connected so that each glass is in competition with the other, more charge being consumed by the fastest growing dendrite. Each outer electrode is connected via an LED whose brightness indicates the voltage difference.
This work represents an experiment in using dendritic growth as self regulating switching mechanisms, as a dendrite grows, it consumes more potential in competition with other dendrites trying to grow from the same power source. Pask describes the possibilities of chemical computing, the energy systems involved and illustrates a number of circuit possibilities for dendritic circuits on pp 105–108 in his book “An approach to Cybernetics”, Pask 1961.
Atelier Färbergasse, Vienna
26th March to 4th April
Opening ceremony 25th March, 19:00
One of Gordon Pask’s own installations Colloquy of Mobiles exhibited at Cybernetic Serindipity 1968, ICA, London
“Dancing robots, singing sculptures and growing metal tentacles are just some of the bizarre exhibits that will feature in an exhibition of work inspired by eccentric scientist Gordon Pask, one of the forefathers of cybernetics. Gordon Pask (1928-1996) was a British scientist and artist, whose work was key to the development of cybernetics – the study of systems of communication, control mechanisms and feedback. He worked in academia, the arts and industry, producing poetry, plays, interactive sculptures and teaching machines.”
Usman Haques Evolving Sonic Environments III will be one of the works presented
Focused on the influence of Gordon Pask today, the exhibition’s works range from the practical to the bizarre and include pieces by established artists, architects, designers, academics and students. Work has been inspired by many aspects of Gordon Pask’s work, including his interest in analogue computing and his experiments with electrochemistry.
Roman Kirschner’s Roots (2006)
Co-curator Richard Brown, research artist in residence at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics, said: “In many ways Gordon Pask was too far ahead of his time – many of his ideas about cybernetics are only just coming into fashion now. Most computer scientists have a different way of thinking compared with him and don’t necessarily understand his ideas – they tend to see computers as machines which are told what to do, whereas Pask was much more interested in having a conversation with the computer.”
Richard Roberts ‘Hearing a Reality’ (2007)
The ‘Pask Present’ exhibition follows the ‘Maverick Machines’, held at the University of Edinburgh last year, the first exhibition of art work inspired by Gordon Pask. It will be held at Atelier Färbergasse, Färbergasse 6, A-1010 Vienna, from 26th March to 4th April, open daily from 13:00 to 21:00. (The opening ceremony will take place on 25th March, 19:00)
Heres something I’ve been involved in developing recently and one of the many reasons why I’ve been so busy. I’m looking forward to seeing all the exciting entries and I will be profiling the development of the selected work here. Get your entries in!!!
INTERArChTIVE is seeking proposals for an interactive architecture commission, from architects and media arts practitioners. The commission will open and be exhibited during the UK Architecture 08 festival. INTERArChTIVE is aiming to support an innovative, collaborative project that explores the convergence of media arts and architecture.
A budget of £10,000 is estimated for this commission.
Deadline for submissions: 07 April 2008
For further information and the commission brief (pdf) click here.
SCI-Arc presents, Quasar, a new site-specific installation by the LA/NY-based design/media firm slap!, founded by architect Jean-Michel Crettaz, and produced in collaboration with the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and Stanford’s Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. “Quasar is an immersive light and sound space made from prototype membranes realized as an interactive light/sound object and comprised of a dense array of interlinked elements describing an intricate three-dimensional structure.”
The exhibition draws on slap!’s continued interest in developing an awareness of the interconnectedness of space and material, with a goal of extending established notions of volume and scale. The gallery is fitted with sensors that draw real-time data from the installation and the people within the exhibition, which is then synchronized with streamed real-time data of solar activity and nuclear processes provided by SLAC and NASA. This information is then fed back into the object through layers of LED strands, re-visualizing the space in order to create an dynamic spatial experience.
The word “quasar” is a contraction of the term quasi-stellar-radio-source, used historically by astronomers to describe entirely unknown cosmological objects. Today, it is believed that quasars are the most distant, and yet still detectable, objects in the universe. Giving off enormous amounts of energy produced from massive black holes in the center of their own galaxies, quasars are intensely bright; their emitted light drowning out all other stars in the same galaxy.
“Quasar is an artificial counterpart hovering in response to the currents and activities of the visitors, and in doing so, stretches and collapses the horizons of the known. The possibilities of interrelated synthetic and natural processes begin to define new emergent ecologies. quasar questions the boundaries of scale and the psyche, offering immersion into a vastly expanded space which renders perception permeable, and in the end, disperses identity.”
Party Dress by Dana Karwas and Karla Karwas is a roving performance that is part living architecture: part monumental fashion. It functions as a pavilion worn exclusively by five women that seamlessly injects architecture into fashion by using the body as space.
The dress begins as a shared, bustled garment that gradually unfolds to create a temporary, inhabitable structure. Each seam, each dress, and each body are interconnected by a single, amorphous surface of flowing material.
With room for spectators beneath the fabric, Party Dress flirts with traditional concepts of public and private space while adding sparkling wit to the conversation between fashion and architecture. Party Dress works across multiple scales and environments, unraveling conventional notions of space, materiality, and temporality.
Party Dress is part of seamless v.3 fashion show at the Boston Museum of Science on January 30, 2008 at 8pm.
Via Networked Performance
Here’s an interesting wind powered streetlight from the Panasonic Center in Tokyo that I found on hyperexperience blog run by Leonardo Bonanni of MediaLab. I’m a big fan of using these Vertical Axis Wind Turbines for integrating into urban skylines when traditional propellers often seem too dramatic.
Interactive Architecture dot Org explorers emerging practices within architecture that aim to merge digital technologies & virtual spaces with tangible and physical spatial experiences. Instead of defining a fixed architectural product it is an architecture in constant flux best suited to protyping and semi-perminant installations. It is maintained by Ruairi Glynn. Bartlett School of Architecture.
Interactive Architecture
