CyberArts 2013

Interactive Art

Golden Nica Interactive Art

MICHEL DÉCOSTERD / CH
ANDRÉ DÉCOSTERD / CH

Pendulum Choir
Installation / Documentation
codact.ch

The project Pendulum Choir by the brothers Michel and André Décosterd is a performance, a music composition, and a human-computer dynamic installation at the same time. A choir of nine singers is supported by hydraulic platforms that move autonomously. As they operate, the position and inclination of the singers’ bodies change. The aim of this symbiotic relationship between the singers and the mechanical structure is to explore the role that movement could have in the human voice, building a “living organ.”

Random International / GB

Rain Room
Installation / Documentation
random-international.com

Rain Room is a 100 m2 room in which water is constantly pouring from the ceiling. When visitors enter the room, the water avoids their movements, thus animating them to play with the room. While the project incorporates important technical breakthroughs, the formal elegance of the Rain Room and its playful character connect it with classic pieces in the history of interaction, making it a truly timeless piece of art that transcend the technologies it uses to operate.

Masaki Fujihata / JP

Voices of Aliveness
Project / Documentation
voicesofaliveness.net

Voices of Aliveness invites people to ride a bicycle on a special path called the “shouting circuit” prepared exclusively for this project and asks them to shout out loud. The bicycles are equipped with a GPS recorder and a video camera. As participants ride the bicycle, traces of their path and shouts are transformed in cyberspace. The collected data from each participant are compiled to form a tower-like “time tunnel”—a cyber tunnel of collected shouting. The project humorously questions how we can convey our actions as collective memory to the Internet. The participants’ shouts are the key to connecting technology and memory.

Hernán Kerlleñevich / AR
Mene Savasta Alsina / AR

AHORA. A song in the Hypertemporal Surface
Installation
cargocollective.com/operadora/ahora

Ahora is an interactive song composed and installed in the Hypertemporal Surface, a software environment developed for musical composition in space. The distribution in space of four sound layers, each one belonging to a speaker, sets up the interaction possibilities for this musical piece. Entering the installation makes it possible to experience the temporality inherent to each sound. Ahora reflects on the notion that all times exist simultaneously on one plane.

Daniel Rozin /US

Angles Mirror
Installation
vimeopro.com/bitforms/rozin/video/61823984

Since the late 1990s, Rozin’s constructions have investigated the psychological and optical cues inherent in image building. The Angles Mirror-Series explore a system of linear rotation that indicates the direction of an object’s contour. An image recorded by a camera is transferred to the numerous angles in Mirror, so that the image of the person or object in front of it is “mirrored”. A nuanced contour results, as the viewer shifts back and forth, altering the way the structure of space is perceived.

Dmitry & Elena Kawarga / RU

Down with Wrestlers with Systems and Mental Nonadapters!
Installation
kawarga.ru

Using a run-simulator, visitors start up “a social mechanism” that moves a multitude of small figures all of the same type. The users are active causes and onlookers at the same time. This raises the question, is society absorbing each of us? Or do we ourselves form this enslaving mechanism? If you speak the “DaDa” manifesto into a microphone some figures fall off, liberated from the structure. One conveyor has a micro video camera, which shows a space inside a black box on a monitor—there is another reality in this box.

Olivier Bau / FR
Yuri Suzuki/ JP
Ivan Poupyrev / RU

Ishin-Den-Shin
Installation
ishin-den-shin.com

The installation Ishin-Den-Shin (Japanese idiom which denotes the concept of interpersonal communication through unspoken mutual understanding) addresses physicality and intimacy in digital audio communication. It consists of a microphone that can record sounds and transmit them through touch. Once recorded, the sound is transformed into an inaudible signal. This is transmitted to a person’s body when they hold the microphone. The transmission depends on physical contact, and the recorded sound becomes audible only when touching someone’s ear. Bodies become a broadcasting medium for intimate, physical, sound communication.

Hybrid Art

Golden Nica Hybrid Art

Koen Vanmechelen / BE

The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project
Project
koenvanmechelen.com

Cyber Arts presents the latest generation in an artistic crossbreeding project: the “Mechelse Styrian” chicken. Koen Vanmechelen’s ultimate goal is the creation of a cosmopolitan Chicken carrying the genes of all the planet’s chicken breeds. The starting point for all these species was once the red junglefowl, which was spread all over the world and made an indigenous breed by humans, shaped to reflect the typical cultural characteristics of its community. The “Mechelse Styrian” chicken is much more than a mere domesticated animal, it represents the globalization of our world and symbolizes the permanent intermixture of ethnic groups and cultures.

Tania Candiani / MX

Five Variations of Phonic Circumstances and a Pause
Organ
Pianolas
Sound Stories
Installation
taniacandiani.com
vimeo.com/63364803

Five “poetic actions in regard to machines” draw with great sensitivity how technologies of all times have dictated relationships between orality and literacy, and created subsequent relationships of power. Each machine translates and interprets sound events - noises, orality, narrations, murmurs, music… - by changing them from one phonic register to another and transmuting them into text and code. Each work is part of a discourse surrounding the culture of listening: the audible, acoustic technologies, the gesticulation of narration, the audible texture of the voice.

Phil Ross / US

Mycotecture
Installation
philross.org

Since the 1990s Ross is working on sculptures that consist entirely of living fungi. To make them, small pieces of mushroom tissue are introduced into a cellulose-based medium such as sawdust, which the living organisms eagerly devour and also use as a framework on which to grow. Within a week, this solidifies into a mass of interlocking cells. Like plaster or cement, mushrooms can be cast into almost any shape. The notion of constructing architecture from entirely biodegradable, non-toxic, fireproof, water- and mold-resistant materials is what propels Ross in his research.

Thomas Feuerstein / AT

PANCREAS
Prozessuale Sculpture
thomasfeuerstein.net

Cyber Arts presents the model-like setup of PANCREAS, a machine that uses biotechnologies in order to translate language and books into matter and flesh. It transforms books (Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit) into sugar that feeds human brain cells. The books’ paper is shredded, soaked in water, and pressed into an artificial intestine (a fermenter); in which bacteria break the cellulose down into glucose. After filtering and purifying, the glucose, as a universal fuel of life, is fed to the cells growing inside a glass tank (a brain in a vat).

Louis-Philippe Demers / CA / SG

The Blind Robot
Installation
processing-plant.com

The Blind Robot has the complex task of touching people softly, something achieved by hardly any contemporary robots. The visitors are invited to sit in the front of this machine and engage in a non-verbal dialogue with it. The robot delicately explores the body - mostly the face and upper body - of the visitor in a manner that recalls what blind people do to recognize a person or an object. The Blind Robot creates an empathic situation and a positive predisposition to the engagement. The machine then produces a visual rendering of what its fingertips have “seen”.

Digital Musics & Sound Art

Golden Nica Digital Musics & Sound Art

Nicolas Bernier / CA

frequencies (a)
Performance
nicolasbernier.com

Nicolas Bernier’s sound performance frequencies (a) resonates with the perfect interplay of a conventional medium, digital sounds and light. The entire setup is thus reminiscent of a scientific laboratory—one in which Nicolas Bernier mixes the ingredients of his sound experiment. Depending on which sequences he sends via computer to the valves, they impart precisely timed strikes to the tuning forks. The result is a vibrating tonal tapestry. Synchronized with a pulsating light installation it becomes a minimalist sound/light composition.

SjQ++ / JP

SjQ++
Project
sjq.jp/sjqpp

SjQ++ is an audiovisual project that was launched in 2012 in Kyoto. The interaction of six musicians is visualized and, depending of each one’s respective sound, projected onto the group’s bodies or a screen behind them. The relationships between the individual players are made visible through the musical and visual dialogue between the musicians and the projections. In addition, it uses animated visuals to make each musician cooperate/ compete. Control of the interaction flow produces a dynamic performance.

Chris Carlson / US

Borderlands Granular
Software
borderlands-granular.com

Borderlands Granular is a sort of new musical instrument that lets iPad and desktop computer users explore, play and transform sounds via an innovative interface for granular synthesis. The samples aren’t played back in conventional fashion, but rather in small fragments of sound, so-called “grains”. These grains can be superimposed on one another, and their volume, speed and pitch can be modified when they’re played back. The intuitive user interface allows the user to engage with the creative process in a very playful way.

Digital Communities

Golden Nica Digital Communities

El Campo de Cebada / ES

El Campo de Cebada
Community Project
elcampodecebada.org

El Campo de Cebada is both a physical and a virtual space, an open-source square in the center of Madrid. Until two years ago this square was a closed-down construction site. In the meantime it is managed by local residents and the city council together. Open Source tools are used to overcome traditional misunderstandings between these two parties. The virtual space is just as important here as the physical space and is programmed together with other community projects of the city. It is a space to develop new ways of understanding and to construct an open-source urbanism based on ad-hoc solutions and common sense.

Award of Distinction Digital Communities

Christopher Mikkelsen / DK
David Mikkelsen / DK

Refugees United
Information Platform
info.refunite.org

Refugees United is the world’s first online databank that enables refugees to search for missing family members and friends. It’s up to each user to decide what and how much personal information to reveal in going about this, and anyone who wants to remain anonymous is free to do so. Such individuals can nevertheless be (re)located on the basis of details known only by their next of kin or close friends. As a non-profit organization, Refugees United’s platform can be used free of charge.

Visualizing Palestine /PS

Visualizing Palestine
Information Platform
visualizingpalestine.org

Visualizing Palestine develops creative infographics to describe a factual rights-based narrative of Palestine / Israel. The team identifies pressing issues through first-hand experience, partnerships with grassroots organizations, advocacy groups and a network of journalists and bloggers, going through a process of story generation, highlighting the absurdities of the injustice. Next, the researchers collate extensive data, which is then aggregated by the data analysts, exposing patterns and correlations. The design team then turns the data into powerful visuals, which the communications team publishes via Visualizing Palestine’s partners, the mainstream media and social media, under the Creative Commons license.

Jepchumba / US, KE

African Digital Art Network
Website
africandigitalart.com

African Digital Art is an online collective, a creative space where digital artists, enthusiasts and professionals can seek inspiration, showcase their artistry and connect with emerging artists. It is dedicated to serving the African creative economy and is mainly directed towards creatives, artists and those with an inclination towards the creative arts. African Digital Art is focused on encouraging more creative participation in ideas of citizenship by understanding the need for design focus and artistic solutions as it relates to social innovation.

Gerald Kogler /AT
Derivart / ES
Jordi Puig / ES

Casastristes
Community Project
casastristes.org

Casastristes, launched in 2007, explores housing problems in Spain. Its objective is to serve as a platform for exchanging information and resources through the creation of a reliable public database of empty houses in Spain. The platform provides data visualizations and a list of references on the website, and the team also collaborates with social movements and neighborhood associations around Spain, organizing housing safaris to map empty houses and teaching the use of the platform to upload the data.

Anusha Yadava / GB

Indian Memory Project
Archive
indianmemoryproject.com

The Indian Memory Project was founded in February 2010 by Anusha Yadav. It is an online, curated, visual and oral-history-based archive that traces a personal history of the Indian subcontinent, its people, cultures, professions, cities, development, traditions, circumstances and their consequences. Using images, letters and stories from family archives (submitted and collected from contributors), it reconstructs a visual history that is emotionally rich, vivid, informative and even more surprising than we think.

Swati Ramanathan / IN
Ramesh Ramanathan / IN
Sridar Iyengar / IN

I Paid a Bribe
Website
ipaidabribe.com

I Paid a Bribe was launched as an India-wide online anti-corruption initiative on Aug 15, 2010—India’s Independence Day. It is the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy’s unique initiative to tackle corruption by harnessing the collective energy of citizens. Through its innovative, crowd-sourcing model, it has already collected a ground-breaking 22,491 bribe reports, has registered more than 1.8 million unique hits. On the website, citizens report on the nature, number, pattern, types, location, frequency and values of actual corrupt acts, providing for the first time a snapshot of bribes occurring across India’s cities.

Daniel “hromi” Hromada (SK), Marek “freezy” Viger (SK), Tomas “maniac” Halgas (SK), Niekt0 (SK), Kybu (SK), Harvie (CZ)

Kyberia
Website
kyberia.sk

Kyberia ist ein unabhängiges, innovatives Archipel digitaler Gemeinschaften, das 2001 initiiert wurde. Ursprünglich war es eine Webseite, die über Themen informierte, die das slowakische Mainstream-Web damals ignorierte wie z.B. trans- und posthumanistische Philosophie, künstliche Intelligenz, Nanotechnologie). Kyberia entwickelte sich von einem klassischen Forum in eine wirklich digitale Gemeinschaft, wo HackerInnen, KünstlerInnen und WissenschaftlerInnen miteinander in einem dicht hyperverlinkten Graph interagieren können.

Lucas Bambozzi / BR
Gisela Domschke / BR

Labmovel
Mobile Platform
labmovel.net

Kyberia is an independent and innovative archipelago of digital communities that emerged in 2001 on the Slovak domain kyberia.sk. Initially a website informing the Slovak public about topics that were ignored on the Slovak web at the time (e.g. trans- and post-humanist philosophies, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, entheogens). Kyberia swiftly evolved first into threaded forum and subsequently into a fully-fledged digital community where hackers, artists and scientists were able to interact in a densely hyperlinked graph.

metropolitalia / DE

Metropolitalia
Online Platform
metropolitalia.org

Metropolitalia ist eine Online-Plattform, auf der italienische MuttersprachlerInnen ihr Wissen über ihre Muttersprache testen können. Es handelt sich um ein „Game with a purpose“ (GWAP): Die Gemeinschaft der NutzerInnen kann einerseits Spaß am Spiel und am Wettbewerb haben und andererseits zur Sammlung und Beurteilung sprachbezogener Daten (Ausdrücke in regionalen Umgangssprachen und Dialekten) beitragen. Diese Plattform kann nicht nur von ForscherInnen genutzt werden, sondern auch von den SpielerInnen selbst: Sie können hier nachschauen, wie die Mehrheit der SprecherInnen spezifische Ausdrücke beurteilt.

Koichiro Eto & NicoNicoGakkai Beta Executive Committee / JP

NicoNicoGakkai Beta
Project
niconicogakkai.jp

NicoNicoGakkai Beta, initiated by Koichiro Eto, is an online and offline research academy that recognizes research on a diversity of merits, from cultural and artistic values to academic and industrial strengths. NicoNicoGakkai Beta brings these users, university researchers and researchers in the professional world together to hold open research presentations, aiming to deepen relationships and help to increase the level of research across the board. The presentations are broadcast live on NicoNico Live and the archives are available for anyone to view on the web.

Mladen Adamovic / RS

Numbeo
Database
numbeo.com

Numbeo is the world’s largest database of user-contributed data about cities and countries worldwide. Numbeo provides current and timely information on world living conditions, including cost of living, housing indicators, health care, traffic, crime and pollution. By May 5, 2013, it has 744662 prices in 3390 cities entered by 87370 users.

Seeed Studio / CN

Seeed Studio
Open-Hardware-Facilitator
seeedstudio.com/blog

Seeed Studio is an open-hardware facilitator based in Shenzhen (China). Its goal is to promote the maker movement and the spread of maker culture (do-it-yourself, do-it-together, innovative spirit etc.). Seeed Studio was started out of love for the concept of open hardware. With the development of maker culture and the upsurge in open hardware, Seeed Studio is taking advantage of the favorable situation to start research and development in open-hardware components and modules and then to provide them to the community. Communicating with the community members has shown that one of the main problems for innovators is the difficulty of getting ideas into prototypes and from prototypes into production.

Alabs / ES

oiga.me
Website
oiga.me

oiga.me is a resource to generate online petitions and support campaigns, but also a platform for citizenship lobbying. Through a massive mailing and fax-contact function (and soon IP telephone too) it serves as a catalyst for collective demands and petitions by multiplying and transforming the energy of the social networks. It is a tool for social democratization and empowerment that serves as a mechanism to enhance voices and express demands.

Hidenori Watanave / JP

The East Japan Earthquake Archive
Digital Archive
e.nagasaki.mapping.jp/p/japan-earthquake.html

The East Japan Earthquake Archive is a digital archive using Google Earth to visualize and report on the real state of the damage from the earthquake in eastern Japan. Since data such as photographs, panorama pictures and disaster victims’ testimonies are unified on Google Earth, users can browse all the data from a bird’s-eye view. In addition, a time-stamp function is incorporated in this archive, so users can also browse all the data along with the time elapsed since the earthquake. All the material was collected by online volunteers.

Aaron Swartz / US

Digital communities exist through the selfless efforts of many activists in the field, among whom we wish to mention Aaron Swartz. Aaron Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was a US-born computer programmer, writer and activist involved in countless Internet projects such as the development of Creative Commons, social news site Reddit and the web feed format RSS. He was an active defender of open access who at the age of 12 started writing programs to liberate information. A year later, he was working with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World-Wide Web, and others on enhancing the Internet through the Semantic Web.
He devoted himself to protecting freedom of expression through initiatives such as Demand Progress and his tireless work against proposed legislation such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). His digital political activism was work of genuine consequence; it was risky, and he suffered for it. Digital communities worldwide marked his passing as a watershed moment for the network society.
In the words of his friend and mentor Lawrence Lessig, “He was a hacker, someone who uses technical knowledge to make a better world.” Aaron Swartz will be remembered for being at the forefront of Internet freedom.