VIDEO TEASER:

The founders and directors Estela Oliva and Carmen Salas tell us about the ideas behind the exhibition and the criteria they’ve used for choosing the work of arts.

Presented in collaboration with Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Lima, New Realities is a project that aims to explores the implications of technology on human behaviour and identity, and how the ever ­changing nature of the Internet and use of new technologies are bringing about new avenues for creative expression. The exhibition runs until Friday 17 June 2016, free access, all ages.

“It’s been an amazing experience to present the exhibition at Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Lima. They’re doing such a great job, and we found many synergies with what we do here. We’ve worked very closely with them for over a year to adapt the project to their spaces and audiences.” says Carmen Salas.

Photo credit: LaTurbo Avedon.

Through this journey of art, technology and digital creativity, we seek to provide new perspectives on the reality we live, and anticipate the future we are all heading to. A future in which we can decide what role to adopt in order to make a more harmonious place for future generations. The exhibition illustrates a culture of continuous change and complex transformation in which the digital tools we once created are now acting as important agents of change.

Photo credit: Espacio Fundación Telefónica.

New Realities includes the works of 12 contemporary artists and designers featured across three thematic areas. The criteria for selecting the works has been to choose projects that significantly deal with defining questions of this new reality in which we live; artworks that blend artistic research with innovative practices to break boundaries, and foster the development of new disciplines. The artists featured in the exhibition include: Karolina Sobecka, LIA, LaTurbo Avedon, Jan de Coster, Lawrence Lek, Mark Dorf, Quayola, Universal Everything, Ustwo, FIELD, Fabrica and Realität.

Photo credit: Energy Flow by FIELD.

For Alpha-ville, it is essential that all technological developments go hand in hand with a critical reflection through research and artistic creation, so that we can deepen the impact and possibilities that these new technologies have on society and culture. This is the message we wanted to convey with New Realities, a concept that is also explained in the Marshall McLuhan’s quote we’ve used in the exhibition text: “artists are always ahead of technology offering us clues to understand the impact these technologies will have later on. “

Photo credit (left to right)
First: Ustwo.
Second:Espacio Fundación Telefónica
Third: gEOF by Jan de Coster.

More details about the exhibition can be found here.

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More: Website | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | Vimeo

SyncList is a showcase of people who are doing remarkable things in the arts and technology sector. The people featured on SyncList include producers, directors, designers, academics, artists, musicians, consultants and more to come in a growing community.

The SyncList is managed by Sync who support cultural organisations in Scotland develop their technology and technologists.

A selection of profiles to look at:

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

Alpha-ville launches EXCHANGE – a new series of events designed to give the London art, tech and creative communities the opportunity to connect, exchange ideas, get inspired and discover new talent.

The concept “EXCHANGE” underlines the notion of crossing talents and further connecting the frontiers of artistic expression with design and technology. The first of the series takes place on Friday 17 January 2014 at Rich Mix Cinema and Arts Centre and brings together some of the world’s most talented artists, creatives and designers of today to talk about their practice, influences and recent works.

“Energy Flow _ Life” (print) by Field.

The first set of artists include: Eno Henze, Field, Onformative, Quayole and Shantell Martin with more to be announced soon.

EXCHANGE 1 features a day programme packed with presentations, talks and social events alongside a music programme in the evening for attendees to network and enjoy. Work will be presented across: motion graphics, graphic design, illustration, interaction design, generative design, digital and software art, mixed media art, data visualisation and more. Professionals from across the arts, culture, digital media and creative industries spectrums are welcome to attend.

For more information, go here. To book your tickets, visit here.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

Led by Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj, the group’s work explores interactivity and confronts a media-saturated world in which popular culture rules, using performance, installation, video, mobile and online technologies to ask questions about the ideologies present in the information that surrounds us.

I’d Hide You (2012) commission from The Space, a BBC / Arts Council England initiative

Why we like it:
Blast Theory is innovative and has a strong track record of taking major artistic risks – in Kidnap (1998), for example two members of the public were kidnapped as part of a lottery and the resulting event was streamed online. They have tackled themes of violence, pornography and politics.

A Machine To See With (2010) commission from the Sundance Film Festival, 01 San Jose Biennial and the Banff New Media Institute

In Blast Theory’s film, A Machine To See With (2010) participants play the lead in a heist. Participants signed up online with their mobile phone numbers. On the day, they received an automated call giving them an address to go to. From there, a series of calls instructed participants through the city, they hid money inside public lavatories on the way, met up with a partner in crime and onwards to the bank, the tension rising. This seems like an utterly unique experience as it’s up to the individual participants to deal with the bank robbery and its aftermath.

Find out more:
Website | Vimeo | Flickr | Facebook | Twitter

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

FutureEverything is an annual festival of art, music and ideas hosted in Manchester, UK. Listed as one of the ten best ideas festivals in the world by The Guardian, and ranked as a must see by Resident Advisor, the festival is held over four days at venues across the city and includes a conference at MOSI Museum of Science and Industry.

We scan the horizon of art, innovation, society and the environment to create a two-day conference of international speakers with the latest thinking on the hottest topics. The art exhibition pushes the boundaries of contemporary digital art from international platforms alongside a digital craft fair at Victoria Baths. And continuing the festival into the night, the music strand is a celebration of sonic pioneers, from the best emerging talent to established musicians who continue to innovate and inspire.

FutureEverything 2012 takes place Wed 16–Sat 19 May 2012 in Manchester city centre. It features 52 artists, 45 musicians and 70 speakers across 11 venues over three main days with exhibitions and partner events extending over 3 weeks.

FutureEverything Art

The FutureEverything Art Exhibition, FutureEverybody, is hosted at the MOSI 1830 Warehouse between 16 May-10 June, with participatory art happening across Manchester 16-19 May. Over 18 international and UK artists will exhibit work from the cutting edge of sculpture, video and new media art.

Highlights include – immersive theatre group Blast Theory premiere a new work ‘I’d Hide You’, a game that connects virtual worlds, video streaming and performers on the streets of Manchester; ceramicist Lawrence Epps & Sykey Collective distribute 8000 handmade little clay men into secret city locations for commuters to use in online artworks; and Ollie Palmer displays the world’s first ballet to feature computer controlled ants.

Admission is free, the exhibition preview takes place on Weds 16 May.

Handmade at Victoria Baths

Handmade is a digital DIY craft fair hosted at the recently restored Manchester heritage site, Victoria Baths. This exciting event includes a craft fair, talks, events, Fab* Manchester, Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention, and a vegan cafe. Collaborators include Manchester Craft and Design Centre, Manchester FabLab, Salford Zine Library and an array of jewellers, ceramicists and sculptors. Handmade is hosted on Saturday 19 May. Admission is £2 and free to conference ticket holders.

FutureEverything Music

In collaboration with venues and promoters including Salford’s Islington Mill & St Phillip’s Church, Instituto Cervantes, RNCM, Manchester Cathedral, Contact, Quay House Spinningfields and Manchester Academy – FutureEverything hosts live music and DJ/Club events across Manchester between 16-20 May 2012.
Confirmed music acts include Amon Tobin ISAM (Live), Matthew Herbert One Pig, Dieter Moebius, Polinski, Tim Hecker, Forest Swords, The Haxan Cloak, DJ Cheeba, Alt J, Shabazz Palaces, John Talabot, Falty DL, Deadbeat, Andy Stott, No Ceremony, Money, Marcel Dettmann, and Holy Other. Tickets can be purchased via our music website pages.

FutureEverything Conference

The FutureEverything Conference, panels and workshops will be hosted at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester on Thurs 17 & Fri 18 May. Confirmed speakers include Birgitta Jonsdottir, Bilal Randeree (Al Jazeera), Cesar A. Hidalgo,  Carlo Ratti, Rohan Gunatillake, Dr. Ian Brown, Loz Kaye, Sanaz Raji, Moritz Stefaner, Juha van’t Zelfde, and Andy Miah.

Festival Locations

FutureEverything 2012 offers a festival footprint around MOSI and the city centre. Our venues have been carefully chosen to allow a natural progression from daytime event to evening show to late night events. We will be re-using venues across each night, to allow a festival ‘feel’ and will combine large scale venues (Manchester Academy and RNCM) with smaller, underground venues such as Islington Mill, St Philip’s Church and Quay House, Spinningfields. A free bus is available on Saturday when events take place at Victoria Baths and MediaCityUK.

Download brochure and timetables here.
Buy tickets here.

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See more festivals we’ve featured here.

An audio-visual stop motion delight by  ftjelly (aka Lu Sisi) – that’s how we’d describe today’s featured work.

Here is what Lu Sisi has to say about the work:
“This stopmotion animation is an iteration of my working process, in which I create the audio and the visuals simultaneously. The images are abstracted to relate to the process of how I create sound, in that in music, a sample is created and then edited and sampled again. I wanted to share a technical connection between how I create sound and visuals. The mechanical aspect of the machines is kept and enhanced to contrast the age of the machines with that of the digital projection.”

See more work from ftjelly on Vimeo.
Find out more about ftjelly here.

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Discover more work by creatives on our creative networks here.
If you have a Flickr, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Behance or Cargo account connect with us.

The aim of Alpha-Ville is to ‘address the transition from a digital to a post-digital culture’ and my main interest there lies in their attempts to highlight how the web has become so central to daily life. What does this mean for creative people? The web is a game-changer for artists; the fact that it allows people to cut out many of the middlemen of yesteryear (galleries, record companies, publishers etc.) means that those that use it well can become autonomous and control their future in a way that artists in the past could only dream of, and those that aren’t so successful can find it hard not to disappear in the cacophony. My attendance at Alpha-ville gives me food for thought on this matter as well as introducing me to new artists, ideas and items that I’ve not been aware of before.

When I first enter the main exhibition space I pass by an area defined by tiny walls containing a wee army of miniature robots blinking in the darkness, as well as a growing mountain of print-outs of updates added to Wikipedia. I pass by on my way to a talk by Helen Hockx-Yu on her work archiving and preserving the UK websites that are of ‘scholarly or cultural importance’. My first thought on this matter is why bother? The web is constantly evolving in what seems to me to be a productive and worthwhile evolution. I admit to myself that I’ve never accepted the web as being anywhere near finished (in a way that newspaper, television and radio content can be seen as being in a set format), that its current unpredictable state was a teething stage, and in some small way I’ve always assumed that it would one day all settle down and become something that is nice, civilised and safe for children. This is my big naive mistake. The very fact that the web is such a free-for-all, a place where anything can happen as long as there are great ideas, designs and coding talent is the reason why it should be catalogued. This is a time when the subtle chaos is an enabler for people to make the web what they want it to be; to bring their work to the masses on a relatively level playing field and we may one day look back on this time and wish we had a second chance.

After the talk I view the pile of Wikipedia print-outs. This piece is called Edits by Dean McNamee and Tim Burrell-Saward. Every time someone updates an article on Wikipedia their entry is made physical by way of a small printer mounted up in the ceiling, and the printed text then drops to the floor and adds to the pile. I look on it with fresh eyes and realise that it reinforces a potent point that was contained in the talk. While Wikipedia is designed to be a place that is democratic and free for definitions to be formed by anyone, this is the aspect that is equally applauded and criticised. Discussions I’ve had will often include the sentence “take it with a pinch of salt but I saw something on Wikipedia that said….”. While many people will admit to the fact that they think Wikipedia is a great idea, I’m not sure that many would swear their life on its content being entirely accurate and therefore a suitable archive of information. However when I view a print-out of a Wikipedia article I feel something slightly different, and I’m aware that this is slightly bizarre. It becomes real and in some small way the words printed upon it seem more believable. It becomes something that is wasteful; paper, ink and energy have been used and it will very likely end up in the bin or recycled once the artwork is no longer on display. To me the point is that it didn’t have to exist in solid form. This is at odds with how I view the Internet, which I feel is a place where no matter how daft the information is at least I don’t have to take it too seriously as it’s not hurting anyone right? It’s as if I had previously felt that the boundary between online and reality means that what happened on the web didn’t really matter in my daily life as the two could be quite easily separated. However it’s true that I spend far more time on Wikipedia than searching through libraries, and I spend more time on social sites like Facebook than I do socialising. I’m sure I’m not alone in these two facts. I should probably start taking the web more seriously!

The Web Archive
Edits

The Alpha-ville Festival had a varied exhibition space with works that ranged from abstract pieces of art to simple devices for everyday use, one example of the latter being a machine called Pas a Pas by Ishac Bertran which was designed to allow children to easily experiment with animation. I was shown how the device operates by one of the Alpha-ville staff and it did indeed seem to be very intuitive. I could imagine children getting to grips with this easily in the same way that smart-tables are being used in schools now. I’d say that encouraging the children to animate simple coloured blocks seems a good idea as it means that they have props to use straight away. One note of caution though – the vintage Moog synthesizer styling is definitely to my taste but I think that when children have had the chance to animate a plasticine rendition of Shrek on it the owner will wish that they hadn’t had to fork out for an expensive wood finish as  plasticine goo and wood are hard to separate once they’ve discovered each other! It’s a well designed compact device though.

One piece that spoke to my inner child was Influencia by David McLellan wherein a small area had been cordoned off to quarantine a colony of robots. When I first saw them my initial reaction was to marvel at how great they looked – a combination of Wall-E’s sad bug eyes and the wee flying saucers from Batteries Not Included (an 80’s movie classic made in the time of Steve Gutenberg, silly tough-guys with punky leather jackets and robots who, sob, just want to be taken seriously even when they say daft crap like “Johnny Five is alive!”). I was transfixed. I thought the idea was fantastic – to separate the robots in their own small area with tiny walls so that although the border was easily crossed, you still had to choose whether you wanted to step into their lair (docking station?) or not. I had to check and re-check that this was actually the way the exhibit worked – was I really allowed to go into their space? They looked flimsy and extremely delicate and I expected that the artist had intended for people to feel a need to approach them with kid gloves in they way you would approach a new-born baby. Perhaps I was completely wrong and the intended mood was supposed to be purely scientific. Either way, I wanted to know what would happen when I stepped into their space.

Sadly, very little worth mentioning happened. One robot’s little bug eyes lit up in an ominous red and it approached me in a slow arc through it’s wee robot buddies and then it bumped off my shoe. Worried that I’d break an exhibit I carefully stepped back to stop this happening again, at which point the same wee robot’s eyes went dark again. Then another one further back in the space spun round on the spot, stopped, and went dark also. They remained still for some time so I tried to encourage them to do something by making animated movements that I hoped their sensors would pick up. Nothing happened. To be more specific, what really happened was that some of them seemed to have a brainwave which enlivened their red eyes for a moment, and then they must have thought better of it and decided to go back to sleep. Perhaps it was me? Maybe they were tired after a riotous conversation earlier in the day with some dude from Dalston who can rap in C++ code? Who knows? Unfortunately after my initial excitement I left this exhibit feeling that Johnny 5 was most definitely not alive.

Pas a Pas by Ishac Bertran
Influencia by David McLellan

An Alpha-ville exhibit that really took my attention was called The Johnny Cash Project. The aim of this project is collaboration through the web; to create a video to a Johnny Cash song where each frame has been contributed by a different person around the world and all are collated and shown on the dedicated website. This seemed to me to be a good idea. It also pointed something out to me that made perfect sense: although the web can be a riot of information with seemingly little order (and as a consequence it is a very hard place for the wheat to rise above the chaff), when someone has a good idea, and the talent to orchestrate the people and ideas that the web let’s them access, then there is potential for great things to occur. In the particular case of the Johnny Cash Project the emphasis is less on the individual contributions of each artist, and more about the way that each person’s view gives a wider impression when combined. In this video collage the frames are constantly changing and I’m given a glimpse of each contributor’s idea. I see skulls, flowers, guns, halos, barbed wire and more skulls. Although it could just as easily be a video for a Norwegian Black Metal band as Johnny Cash, it’s exciting to see all of these elements (and many, many more) whizz past my eyes! The project is in constant evolution too; it is always open for contributions and new frames are being added daily so in theory you may never see it the same twice. It’s as if the overwhelming flow of information that the web presents to us can be transformed into something beautiful and exciting when someone takes the reins and guides it towards their desired result.

Another exhibit that explores similar themes in a unique way is Cell by Keiichi Matsuda and James Alliban. The angle that Cell presents is to show us a reflection of ourselves where our body has been replaced with a mass of tangled text. The exhibit makes use of Microsoft Kinect sensors which follow movements and a projection screen which displays the text (which are randomly picked words from keyword tags from randomly picked online profiles) and in so doing it aims to give us a unique insight into our online selves by providing it as a mirror image. It’s another great example of artists orchestrating information from the web in imaginative ways. As the text is entirely made up of words that people have chosen because they feel that it defines them, there is something weirdly enlightening about this – among many other things I’m labelled with ‘blazing saddles’ and ‘menace to society’ and it’s hard to imagine how these labels can really be effective at representing a personality. The flip-side is that they are used everyday for that exact purpose and the lack of depth makes me feel like a caricature – like a description on the back of a movie box, people are reduced to soundbites and superlatives, ‘awesome’ this and ‘lol@’ that. Cell is presented in such an instantly enjoyable way that it’s hard to not get engrossed in it, either by viewing your reflection or those of others. It will be going on tour soon so check the link below if you’d like to find where it’s going next.

I encountered an exhibit called BitQuid hidden away in its own space, where the surrounding barrier allowed viewers to be immersed in its peculiar glow. It was composed of a mass of tubes laid on the floor following a circuit around the room, through which a combination of clear and reflective liquids flowed to a repetitive rhythm. The constantly alternating flow of liquid between clear and reflective meant that there was definition to the movement; the reflective liquid represented content and the clear liquid represented the gaps between. The artist, Jeroen Holthuis, aimed to “transform bits to atoms” by representing computer-based binary 1s and 0s as a flow of liquid in the real world. This piece was one of the few at Alpha-ville that didn’t invite the viewer to interact with it, and therefore one can only watch as the endlessly repeating rhythm continues onwards like watching a line of ants following a set route from their hive to food and back again. I found it calming, as if the digital flow of information has become an accepted phenomena like the flow of the tides or the rotation of the planet.

My Alpha-ville experience ended with some films and documentaries showed in the cafe upstairs in Netil House. I arrived in the cafe to see a video of Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix remastered in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) code. It’s not something that’s easy to describe, basically the video becomes a hypnotic swirl of seemingly random text that only starts to evoke the image of Hendrix and his band performing the song after you’ve been viewing it for a minute or so. The sound is comical – what once was a snarling psychedelic song about drug experiences has become a tinny Muzak ditty that could be piped into a Toys R Us tannoy system if it weren’t for the gnarly screeching digital distortion that the ASCII code has imparted on the material. I found it on the Internet should you want to view it, amongst many more ASCII Rock pieces (go on, I dare you, follow the link at the foot of this blog).

Finally a documentary titled PressPausePlay was projected for our enjoyment. It’s a well-made documentary about the effect that the Internet has had on artists and how they present their work. It made for fascinating viewing and touches on many of the important issues that we all face, such as whether it is a good thing that there is now no ‘middle-man’ between the artist and their audience, thereby meaning that everyone can easily approach a potential audience even though it’s become harder to navigate through the clamour of attention-seekers. The film makes a good job of answering this question and more and left me feeling positive about the Internet as a resource to people who want to make their living from creative pursuits. It seems that the Internet has broadened the potential audience that every artist has available to them, and possibly made it a little easier to connect with them but to the detriment of being able to hold their attention once that first connection is made. The lasting impression Alpha-ville gave me is that the Internet is a phenomenon that is barely understood, and those that explore it and learn to focus its many peculiarities into meaningful forms will be able to stand out from the din of the mundane. Thanks Alpha-ville and thanks to Central Station for helping me to attend the festival.

First up, we’re learning a little about Central Station.

[21:23] As regular readers of this blog & community will know, Central Station is an arts hub – a place to find creative people and inspiration. We’re being shown around some of the portfolios and site features.

[21:25] Central Station has been working with a number of projects. Art/Roc/Docx is a collaborative cross-disciplinary documentary featuring the band Isocele, a shooter, photographer, fixer, designers, curators, a producer and editor. At the beginning they didn’t know what they were making; ultimately they ended up with a 75 minute film that premiered at the Glasgow Short Film Festival. (I wish I’d been part of it. Sounds like fun. Who wants to make a film with me?)

[21:28] CenSta was also involved with the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. They’ve done a lot of work extending art in an interdisciplinary way using the Internet as both a communications and creative device; something I think more technologists should also be involved with. It doesn’t have to be all about extending XMPP and creating decentralized social networking protocols, you know; there’s a lot of human discovery and creativity that can be facilitated. Not just facilited – made. Technologists can be artists too!

InSpace is a beautiful space, by the way, but it’s a little echoey at the back. I’m straining to hear.

Central Station is being compared to WordPress and Facebook. It’s a community that involves people, says a representative of member organisation Savalas – but by implication it’s also a community about opportunities for creatives and creative organisations.

[21:34] We’re being shown a short film which links computer-generated animation and orgiinal composition in a really dynamic way. It’s like an iris reaffirming itself in a radar swoop, set to some arresting beats and atmospheric sound.

The last time I liveblogged anything, it was the Eurovision Song Contest. Alas, I don’t think the chances of anyone bursting out with a saxophone and avant garde sunglasses are anywhere near as great here.

[21:39] “Although it is global [...] There’s a tangible, physical community behind it.”

[21:43] Roderick Buchanan is talking about his soundtrack project. He’s talking about the freeing aspects of doing group shows (relatively little responsibility, the ability to see others’ work at the same time), and how independent shows are significantly more stressful. Central Station has been a useful community for him throughout the process of transitioning from one to the other, partially as a resource for help and advice.

[21:50] A discussion of the narcissism of social networking sites and how Roderick is on the “social networking rocks”. In particular, he has a problem with the terminology: calling people “friends”, for example. This is my day job, and my observation would be that it’s a cultural difference – not necessarily generational. I think people in California, where most of this technology comes from, are far happier with labelling strangers as friends than the Scots are. Generally, the most complaints I’ve heard about the wording on these sites come from Scotland; why is this, and what does it say about Scotland as a culture? (Or, indeed, California?)

[21:52] Indeed, Roderick says that when he was approached by Central Station to work on the “Composer wanted” project, he didn’t like the narcissistic aspects of his personality that the site drew out of his personality.

There does seem to be a very wide conversation that could be had here. As a half-American who lives in Edinburgh, I feel conflicted: should we all be getting used to promoting our personal brands? (This tends to be where I sit.) Or is it a worrying trend that really undermines something important in different cultures?

[21:54] Not everyone enjoys blogging. That’s absolutely true; what’s great about Central Station is that it allows for different forms. When I approached designing an open source social networking platform, back in 2004, our team made the same assumption: not everyone would be interested in writing text, or writing about themselves. Privacy and different media are crucial. CenSta has, in my opinion, made the right decisions here.

[21:56] Here’s a question (from me): do contemporary artists inherently need to be self promoters?

[21:59] Ultimately, Roderick says, his optimism has been restored thanks to the real-life community behind the site. “Giles [Lamb] and Savalas are the guys with the right trainers and haircuts on this project. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.”

[22:01] Roderick: “I was feeling all open and connective about collaborating with Central Station and Savalas on the production of a new artwork until I saw the streamed version of my video ‘Traffic’ online. Now I’m feeling naked and exposed.” But it’s surely good promotion? “Central Station is another set of opportunities, and we all try to make them work for us.” He doesn’t know if people are more connected to his practice thanks to his presence online, but feels that other people may see him (and the sountrack project) as an opportunity.

[22:04] “Technology is always making [promises] and not paying off.” I respectfully disagree, although, of course, I’m biased …

[22:05] We’re being shown a short film. I won’t describe it; hopefully it’s available to view online. Meanwhile, Sasha has uploaded some great photographs (aside from the one of me).

[22:08] Roderick: “the technology is still not there.” Technologists: opportunity! There are creatives out there dying for more tools, more infrastructure. Central Station is doing a fine job with the community – what else can you provide?

[22:10] The short film we’re being shown involves those awesome liquid-filled pen lids where little plastic characters float across the length. There was a bear. I always condone bears.

[22:12] The soundtrack project has received 41 responses; 2677 blog posts; 1641 group members; 2400 project pageviews. Much easier than trying to get that kind of participation offline.

[22:13] Those participants eventually boiled down to six shortlisted members developing soundtrack ideas for Roderick’s next piece of experimental filmmaking.

[22:15] Sasha has left us, but I’ll be liveblogging for the rest of the evening. Don’t forget to also check out the Central Station twitter account (and my own).

[22:17] We’re talking to Nils Mugel Meisel, who is one of the shortlisted musicians, and looking at some of the newly-soundtracked films. It’s inspiring stuff: original films seem to turn into completely new works when creative audio is independently applied. Makes you think about how much of a difference sound really makes, and also makes me want to get my hands dirty, or collar some of the musicians I know.

[22:27] Ultimately, Andy Sim and his team Fear Wasabi won the Central Station soundtrack competition, and went into production with Roderick and Savalas. Tonight’s event, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, is the world premiere of the resulting film.

[22:40] Argh, we just lost 10 minutes of updates! In brief:

The standard filmmaking process can take years from inception to distribution. The process of making this film took between 6-8 weeks, which is revolutionary!

Furthermore, the team – in the end – found blogging useful. The reflection, far from being an act of narcissism, kept them focused; it ultimately ended up being an archive of their creative process.

There’s clearly a lot of work still to do in terms of creating a digital infrastructure for these kinds of activities, but this sounds like it’s been a successful project with a tangible outcome.

[22:43] We’re settling down to watch the films: Tattoo and Lament.

[22:49] Tattoo: centuries of deep conflict laid out on living flesh. Genuinely fascinating and – despite being essentially static – shot through with raw emotion.

[22:56] Lament: a shocking play on Paddy’s Lament that plays with expectations and ends like a lightning bolt.

[22:57] And that’s it – we’re closing down. Thanks to everyone who’s been following tonight, everyone who’s in the room, and to Central Station for making it all happen.

With a sense of serendipity, three events have aligned themselves recently suggesting an interesting connection between creativity, warfare, social networks and these supposedly widespread but ‘hidden’ parts of the terrorist internet. The first is a meeting that took place recently at the offices of the Scottish Government, between Wendy Wilkinson, deputy director of culture, and several people from the ‘creative industries’ (including illustrators, games designers and others), “to brainstorm/discuss how creativity can help in the study of terrorism and forensic science and in how the outcome or story from that is told.” 

The second is a lecture given yesterday, here at GSA, by Dr Mats Fridlund on ‘the terror of things’ (presumably alluding to the internet of things). Mats is interested in the design aspects of terrorism, from the distribution of bomb-making instructions through the ages, to the design of terror related paraphernalia.

The third is an upcoming seminar at Glasgow University, Thursday 22nd April, entitled ‘Influence through cyberspace‘ (which you can still book for) hosted by the ministry for defence and the Glasgow University innovation network. The invite blurb states;

“Success in modern conflicts is more than just the physical defeat of enemies; lasting success needs to win the “battle for hearts and minds” through influence and effect in the cognitive, rather than the physical, domain. This has traditionally been fought using personal interaction and broadcast media, but the increasingly ubiquitous nature of the online world as the communication medium of choice for many represents a new challenge and demands new thinking to be effective…”

Readers can drawn their own conclusions from these events, the hidden internet spaces they point towards, and the ways design, creativity and technology are being co-opted to various ends, but its also worth exploring the parallel efforts of anthropologists to avoid becoming part of a mechanism of control and paranoia.

Read more about Neil McGuire here.

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Hidden Spaces – a month of blogs by members about their hidden space – whether they be real, imagined, unbuilt, cut-off from the public, demolished, spiritually significant or politically sublimated. Read more from the series.

At its core live visuals can be seen as continuation of a tradition that has existed since the inception of cinema itself. This movement is in direct opposition to cinema and is constantly trying to free itself from its rigid format by embracing improvisation and alternative projection spaces in an effort to create a form of language that can adequately describe the increasingly unstable and fast changing world around us.

All modern technology – electricity, mobile phones and our ability to permanently illuminate the world – stem from unraveling the mystery of light. Video Mix artists are on a similar quest attempting to gain ever more control over light, creating new tools that allow them to investigate space, time and our interconnectedness to it.

These new ‘real-time’ tools are opening up completely different worlds for contemporary VJs, taking them beyond free flowing visual performances in club land; to becoming Inter-media artists working with trans-disciplinary methods towards building programmable environments.

Some of the best Video Mix Artists are also software artists in their own right. Neuromancers that believe the act of code writing itself is very important, (regardless of what this code actually does at the end) because the actual message is expressed in the abstract new mediums that they create.

Whether its about live audiovisual performances, controlling lighting systems, interactive environments, light sculptures or immersive 3D spaces –software becomes the central working media, consuming all that came before.

Software like VVVV, Isadora, Max/MSP/Jitter and Quartz Composer are some of the most popular toolkits available for real time video synthesis – they are graphical programming languages, which allow you to draw a program rather than write it. These programs are designed to facilitate the handling of physical external interfaces (Midi/Wireless/Touch controllers) in combination with real-time motion graphics output.

Noodle based graphical programming applications like VVVV (PC) and Quartz Composer (Mac) use a “visual programming” interface, wherein programs are created by connecting various functional blocks of code by “wires” or “noodles”. In this way, they provide an easy method for the prototyping and development of software that can open up real and imagined rich sensory spaces.

Here are a few examples of what people are making just now.

1024 (formerly EXYZT) experiment with real-time graphics in architectural spaces. This demo video shows really nice synergy between sound and light.

Robert Hodgin uses Processing to achieve amazing results with code based visuals.

David Dessens uses VVVV software to achieve these great generative visuals from superformula.

Apparati Effimeri are a collective who specialise in interaction and Motion design for the visual environment.

The “Polygon Playground” is a large scale interactive lounge object, where up to 40 persons at a time to walk, sit and explore its multifaceted surfaces.

A Video artist who experiments in VJ software, data visualization and writing tools is Vade. He produces some great custom plugins for Quartz Composer including the great OpenEMU project that allows the user to remix old skool 8 Bit video games.

Find out more about YuVA here.

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Mix-Blog: A bit like a mix-tape but with blogs instead. Read more from the series here.