or: Ben van Berkel meets meso. Portikus/Frankfurt 2007.

ampop during the setup

In the last month I was part of a really nice project here in Frankfurt. Let’s start with some official words:
“Ben van Berkel & the Theatre of Immanence is a combined art and architectural exhibition wherein the different parts in the exhibition are synthesised into a complete whole. The exhibition stages a theatre or space of communication: communication between the visitors and the exhibited works, between the virtual and the real, between the different visitors in the gallery and between the different parts in the exhibition. Throughout its period, the architectural installation will serve as a hub for various events including lectures, art performances, and hosted talks with invited guests, DJ-sessions that are to be broadcast and more.”

Our part was developing a solution for projecting on the piece of architecture, and developing and implementing the interaction. We created a vvvv application which enables us to use the 3dimensional surface for our projections in a very comfortable way, and allows to using more than typical 2d content but also things like volumetric textures and virtual lights. We called it “a case study in augmented architecture”. It is an attempt to create a reactive surface of extraordinary spatial complexity.
The interaction works over the internet - you can try it here (only when the exhibition is opened).
The exhibition ends on January 13th.

Some of my photos made during the setup (that’s why the projections are not fitting perfectly!):

official post at meso.net / official site Portikus / review art-magazin (german) / review transform-magazine (click “interior”)

wusste ich nicht und find ich total strange:
“SpiekermannPartners betätigen experimentell ein Gerücht, nach dem Farblaserdrucker diverser Hersteller – angeblich auf Geheiß der US-Regierung – auf jeder gedruckten Seite einen unsichtbaren Geheimcode hinterlassen, der ein minutengenaues Datum und die Seriennummer des Geräts enthält. Hintergründe dazu bei der Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Paul Weihe druckte eine A4-Seite mit wenig Text auf einem Xerox DC-12, dann las er mit einem Quato-Scanner einen Ausschnitt von 7,5 × 7,5 cm bei 3200dpi (260MB) ein, zog die Sättigung im Gelbtonbereich voll auf, verdunkelte alle Farben (Master), erhöhte den Kontrast und erhielt das oben abgebildete Ergebnis: Seriennummer, Datum und Uhrzeit – codiert im Rahmen eines Punktrasters, das EFF geknackt hat.”
via www.fontblog.de

via www.spiekermann.com

I just came back from my rainy Sunday museum visit, today I chose the Schirn Kunsthalle again.
“In general we presume that artists make art, but what happens when machines produce art?”, is the question the current exhibition deals with. The answer is of course multi-layered, but in many cases it could be: beauty.

Most impressive digital work is by the Austrian artist Lia: I said if. It’s a quite complex application which allows you to generate own compositions like the one shown above. The best thing is: you can do it online as well!
One of many mentionable machine works is Roxy Paine’s “Scumak No. 2″, which produces random sculptures with melted plastic. Some pics are avaliable at my flickr account. It is by the way controlled by max msp.

It’s definitely worth a visit, and a very good choice if you think about going to a museum with children! The various interaction possibilities led to a lot of amused families around.

was ist das für ein scheiss? wenn man mit safari refect.org/intern betrachten möchte kommt bei jedem seitenaufruf folgende alert message:

‘Safari support is very limited and should be considered experimental.
So there is no need to even submit bugreports on this early version.
You can disable this message by setting: safari_warning option to false’

nervig.

nach langem wieder einmal ein beitrag, nichts weltbewegendes, aber damit ich wieder in schwung komme…

die vinyl-dvd

As promised, meso relaunched the website: meso - digital interiors
A lot of great humour in the details - as actually expected from people naming nodes after Taxi Driver actors!

‘Mit SUN_D entwickelte Jonas Burki das Konzept eines zukunftsweisenden Systems der Bildprojektion, das auf der mechanischen Manipulation von Licht und Schatten einer bestehenden Lichtquelle basiert. SUN_D findet ohne Screens und energieraubende Beamer-Methoden das Auslangen und bedient sich ausschließlich bestehender Lichtquellen – im öffentlichen Raum etwa dem Sonnenlicht.’ [quote: prix.aec - next idea]
ein netter typ außerdem, und der prototyp für das display schaut schon vielversprechend aus.
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