talk at The Place, The Choreodrome Lecture Series

the place

During The Place’s biennial Choreodrome research and development project for choreographers there will be three presentations given in the Robin Howard Dance Theatre on different aspects of creativity. The series involves theatre, performance and live artists working on the far edge of choreographic practice, and are designed to inspire new conversations about choreography, movement and performance. The seminars are open and free to all who wish to attend.

Martin John Callanan is an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans numerous mediums and engages both emerging and commonplace technology (http://greyisgood.eu). His work has included translating active communication data into music; freezing in time the earth’s water system; tampering with banknotes; writing thousands of letters; capturing newspapers from around the world as they are published; taming wind onto the internet and broadcasting his precise physical location live for over two years.

Martin’s work is always decidedly deadpan and served with a dash of ennui. Some of his more well-known pieces include the ambient audio installation Sonification of You, the meta-news aggregator I Wanted to See All the News From Today and Text Trends, which abstracts the casual manner in which we receive, scan and process information and language on a daily basis.

Martin is currently Artist in Residence at UCL Environment Institute and Teaching Fellow at the Slade School of Fine Art UCL.

He will discuss the power of narrative and the role of performance and metaphor within his work. You will be asked to question whether the artist or audience is the real performer: where and when the performance really takes place.

http://www.theplace.org.uk/1701/whats-on/the-choreodrome-lecture-series-martin-callanan.html

Sonification of You / Sonifikacija tebe / Sonificazione di te at PixxelPoint, Slovenia

PixxelPoint, Nova Gorcia, Slovenia,Sonification of You. Martin John CallananPixxelPoint, Nova Gorcia, Slovenia,Sonification of You. Martin John Callanan

Sonification of You was part of 8th Pixxelpoint Festival (Green Desert), Nova Gorcia, Slovenia, December 2007. Curated by Narvika Bovcon and AleÅ¡ Vaupotič, organized by the city of Nova Gorica.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/110094067″ params=”auto_play=false&show_artwork=false&color=c8c8c8″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Interaktivnost je postala ambient. Zaradi povečevanja omrežij in zmanjÅ¡evanja naprav za sprejemanje in oddajanje posamezniki niso več izolirani. Različne naprave za komuniciranje, ki jih vedno nosimo s seboj, neprestano sprejemajo in oddajajo informacije. Neprestani tok podatkov je neviden in večini ljudem nepoznan. DanaÅ¡nje prenosne naprave lahko vidimo kot podaljÅ¡ke človeÅ¡kega telesa, ki ustvarjajo vseprisotno medsebojno povezanost omrežij, ki ji ni mogoče ubežati.

Delo »Sonifikacija tebe« poskuÅ¡a ta tok podatkov »prikazati« uporabnikom aktivnih napravic. NaÅ¡a oprema na določenem območju pasivno spremlja različne frekvence radijskega spektra, ki jih uporabljajo mobilni telefoni, omrežja Bluetooth in WiFi, ter druge mobilne naprave. Podatkom so bili dodeljeni zvoki, ki predstavljajo aktivnost, oddaljenost in moč signalov.

Delo temelji na tehnologiji za kontrolno spremljanje velikih računalniÅ¡kih omrežij, rezultat pa je »zvočna podlaga« v sobi, ki jo ustvarjajo prisotni in njihove naprave.

Nevidno tako postane sliÅ¡no in s tem tudi vidno. Tako se posamezniki začno zavedati nenehne omrežne povezljivosti, ki jih spremlja.

L’interattività è diventata ambiente. Le persone fisiche non sono più isolate, dato il graduale aumento della presenza del network e la graduale riduzione degli impianti per la trasmissione e la ricezione. I vari dispositivi di comunicazione mobile emettono e ricevono continuamente informazioni. Questo continuo flusso di dati è invisibile e spesso anche sconosciuto dalla maggior parte delle persone. I dispositivi portatili odierni possono essere visti come prolungamenti del corpo umano che permettono un’onnipresente e inevitabile interconnetività di network.

L’obiettivo di ‘Sonification of You’ è quello di rendere questo flusso di dati ‘visibile’ a coloro che possiedono dei dispositivi attivi. Questo apparecchio visualizzerà passivamente le varie frequenze dello spettro radio impiegate dai dispositivi di telefoni cellulari, Bluetooth, WiFi network, e da altri dispositivi mobili impiegati all’interno di uno spazio delimitato. I dati saranno rappresentati da suoni che indicheranno l’attività, la distanza e la potenza dei segnali.

Ricorrendo ai metodi per il monitoraggio di ampi network di computer, il risultato è quello di creare un ‘suono’ di sottofondo per uno spazio figurativo di persone, e dei loro dispositivi, il presente.

L’invisibile diventa intelligibile e perciò visibile, permettendocosì all’individuo di essere consapevole della propria costante connettività.

Green Desert
Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Nostalgia (1983) closes with a renowned travelling camera shot that gradually traverses the film space, tracking from images of Russian landscape in which the protagonist is framed to a final image of the interior of a Tuscan church. In the third phase of this uninterrupted shot, it can be seen that the church has no roof and is exposed to the influences of weather. The shot concludes with snow falling in a hybrid of interior and exterior. Another example of such hybrid style can be found in the Diesel Company’s advertising campaign Global Warming Ready (2006) which features images of spatial collage: for example, Mount Rushmore as a coastal cliff, and a Venetian scene in which colourful tropical parrots replace the ubiquitous pigeons. These very different visual effects combine a common theme: the association of two seemingly disassociated spaces in one place. The consequence of this type of catachresis is the revelation of specific socio-political problems that can be either complex, as in the example of the differing states of Russian and Western understanding of life found in Tarkovsky’s Tuscany, or half-serious, as in the example of the advertising campaign that wants to increase the global public awareness of environmental protection issues using shocking and attractive images of various ecosystems that have fallen out of balance. The theme of Pixxelpoint’s Green Desert refers to the controversial linkage of something beautiful and dead at the same time, the positive connotations of greenness combined with its absence in the desert. There is of course a way out of this quandary, though one solution remains limited to virtual technically-simulated reality. The second solution lies with the change of humanity and efforts to sharpen its sensitivity to the delicate balance of the environment that is not an object to be exploited but a complex and layered entity encompassing different worlds in the same geographic location, worlds that appear different to different eyes.

Zelena PuÅ¡čava

Film Nostalghia (1983) Andreja Tarkovskega se zaključi s slavnim travalingom kamere, ki razkrije postopno prehajanje filmskega prostora iz podobe ruske pokrajine z glavnim junakom v okvirjajočo se podobo notranjosti toskanske cerkve. Zanjo se v tretji fazi nepretrganega posnetka izkaže, da je brez strehe in odprta za vremenske vplive, saj se prizor sklene s sneženjem v tem hibridnem interjerju-eksterjerju. Drugi primer je reklamna kampanja podjetja Diesel Global Warming Ready (2006) s podobami prostorskih kolažev, npr. Gore Rushmore kot obmorske pečine ali pa prizora barvitih tropskih papig v Benetkah namesto letečih podgan. Sicer zelo različni konkretizaciji združuje skupna tema, povezava dveh, na prvi pogled nezdružljivih prostorov na enem mestu. Posledica tovrstne prostorske katahreze pa je praviloma razkritje specifične družbenopolitične problematike, ki je lahko kompleksnejÅ¡a, kot v primeru raziskave razmerja med ruskim razumevanjem življenjskega sveta in zahodnjaÅ¡kim, ki ga predstavlja Toskana pri Tarkovskem, ali pa le na pol resna, kot v reklamni kampanji, ki želi ozaveÅ¡čati globalne javnosti o problematiki varstva okolja s podobami Å¡okantnih in obenem privlačnih ekosistemov, ki so že zdavnaj padli iz ravnovesja. Tema Pixxelpointa “zelena puÅ¡čava” se nanaÅ¡a torej na kontroverzno povezavo nečesa sicer lepega vendar obenem mrtvega, s pozitivnimi pomeni zelenine, ki je v puÅ¡čavi seveda ni. Ostaja pa seveda pot iz te zagate, vendar pa je predlagana možnost omejena na virtualnost tehnosimulirane realnosti. Drugi izhod pa je sprememba v človeku, ki si s prizadevnostjo izostri posluh za krhko ravnovesje v svoji okolici, ki ni zgolj predmet za izkoriÅ¡čanje, ampak preplet plasti različnih svetov na isti geografski lokaciji, ti pa se kažejo različno različnim očem.

8th Pixxelpoint, Slovenia

Pixxelpoint, Nova Gorica, Slovenia

Sonification of You (Sonifikacija tebe / Sonificazione di te) will be at 8th Pixxelpoint Festival, Nova Gorica, Slovenia, in December 2007. I shall also be giving an artist’s talk. [PDF: Festival Program< , includes translation of Sonification of You into both Slovenian and Italian] I’ve been invited to stay in Slovenia 5-15 December 2007.

Pixxelpoint is one of the most successful and renowned festivals of new media art in Slovenia and also abroad. Its purpose is firstly, to bring the information technology and new media art closer to the general public, and secondly, to raise awareness about a different potential to use computer among the young. In previous editions the festival had a big media response and over 3000 visitors visited it every year, so this is a challenge for the organizers to further expand it and trespass the boundaries of the gallery space which has become too small for all the projects which are to be carried out. The exhibition of new media art projects, as the central event of the festival will be mounted at City Gallery Nova Gorica but will include also other locations (Mostovna, Kulturni dom Gorica (Italy) and DAMS (Italy)), besides we will also include a symposium on the given topic, as well as workshops run by guest-lecturers. Accompanying activities will include numerous concerts by well-known music performers.

Curated by Narvika Bovcon and Aleš Vaupotič, organized by the city of Nova Gorica.

Sonification of You part of Paraflows Festival Vienna

Sonification of You. Martin John CallananSonification of You live at Paraflows, Martin John Callanan
Sonification of You live at Paraflows, Martin John CallananSonification of You live at Paraflows, Martin John Callanan

Sonification of You was part of the city wide Paraflows Festival, Vienna, Austria, in September 2006, hosted at the Blumberg Gallery.

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Diese Arbeit ist Phasen9. bis 16. September 2006

Wechselwirkung ist umgebend geworden. Einzelne Leute sind nicht mehr lokalisiertes aus der Skalierung oben der Netze resultieren und der Skalierungabstieg des Apparates für Getriebe und Aufnahme. Verschiedene Kommunikation Vorrichtungen immer getragen ununterbrochen strahlen aus und empfangen Informationen. Dieses ununterbrochene Datenfluß ist unsichtbar und häufig, durch die Mehrheit einen Leuten, unbekannt. Heutige Handvorrichtungen können als Verlängerungen von gesehen werden menschlicher Körper erlauben überall vorhandenes, unvermeidliches Netz interconnectivity.

Das `Sonification von dir’ zielt darauf ab, dieses zu bilden Datenfluß das `, das’ zu jenen Leuten sichtbar ist, welche die aktiven Vorrichtungen tragen. Unsere Ausrüstung lichtet passiv die verschiedenen Radiospektrumfrequenzen ab, die durch Vorrichtungen des beweglichen Telefons, Bluetooth, WiFi Netze und andere verwendet werden durch bewegliche Vorrichtungen, innerhalb a verwendet werden gegebener Raum. Die Dateninformationen dann vorbei dargestellt zugewiesene Audiotöne, die Tätigkeit, Abstand und Stärke der Signale anzeigen. Zeichnen auf Methoden für die überwachung des Großrechners Netze, das Resultat ist, einen Hintergrund `Ton’ für einen Raum, der representational der Leute ist, und ihre Vorrichtungen, Geschenk zu verursachen.

Das unsichtbare hörbar geworden und folglich sichtbar. Einzelpersonen erlauben, ihrer Konstante bewußt zu werden Konnektivität.

paraflows 06 – Annual Convention für Digitale Kunst und Kulturen in Wien, 09.-16.09.2006

Das Motto hinter paraflows 06 – Annual Convention für digitale Kunst und Kulturen in Wien ist das Konzept der ‘Netze hinter dem Netz’, was sowohl das Digitale hinter dem sozialen Netz als auch das Soziale hinter dem digitalen Netz meinen kann.

Ein viertägiges Symposium setzt sich mit Vorträgen und Workshops zur paraflows 06 Thematik auseinander. Die Ausstellung zum Festival widmet sich aktuellen künstlerischen Positionen der digitalen Medien- und Netzkulturen. Lokale und internationale Projekte werden vorgestellt, deren Intention es ist, mittels neuerer medialer Kulturmittel unsere heutige Gesellschaft besser zu verstehen, zu kritisieren und zu gestalten. TUagliche Abendveranstaltungen runden das Festival mit einem Vermittlungskonzept ab und laden zum Austausch ein.

paraflows 06 – annual convention for digital arts and cultures, 9 through 16 September 06

paraflows 06 focusses on the idea of a ‘net behind the net’ which can mean both the digital behind the social net, and the social behind the digital net. paraflows (the Greek prefix ‘para’ meaning: beside, near, moreover) emanates from the main motors of freedom of the net and its para-experts, the wikipedias and slashdots of all areas within which consumers help each other voluntarily to become and remain critical users and experts in their fields.

The symposium draws participants from all over the world and consists of lectures and workshops on the topic of paraflows 06: ‘nets behind the net’. The exhibition will display works dealing with the ‘social web’ focussing on the topic of the ‘nets behind the nets’. Installations and performances are meant to encourage visitors to actively participate in the event. The horizontal concept of the exhibition consciously takes on the approved principles of a decentralized organisation and of participatory practices. The exhibition will therefore be held in seven locations within the Viennese art and culture scene. The daily evening events will top off the festival and encourage participants and visitors to communicate with each other.

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