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.
This seems to have spread all over the design and architecture blogs. Cloud by Troika is a beautiful object and really superb piece of engineering, especially with its mix of high tech digital control and nostalgic low tech actuation.
There’s a nice video here from youtube and Chris O’Shea has some details on pixelsumo blog which includes some behind the scenes images of the custom software used on the project.
