Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media 5th Anniversary Program: Minimum Interface :: November 1 – February 8, 2008 :: YCAM, 7-7 Nakazono-cho, Yamaguchi-city, Japan.

This exhibition focuses on new possibilities of the “interface” as a basic component of information culture. The aim is to convey a new sensation of “fun of being connected through media” by introducing an optical, acoustic and tactile interface conceived with an art / design sort of mindset to appeal directly to physical sensation, rather than relying on ready-made design tools. Continue reading

[Image: Tropisms by Neri Oxman] CHI 2009 Workshop: Programming Reality: From Transitive Materials to Organic User Interfaces :: April 4-5, 2009 :: Boston, Massachusetts, USA :: Call for Participation - Submission Deadline: October 23, 2008 :: Submissions and enquiries: programmingreality [at] media.mit.edu.

Over the past few years, a quiet revolution has been redefining our fundamental computing technologies. Flexible E-Ink and OLEDs displays, shape-changing and light-emitting materials, parametric design, e-textiles, sensor networks, and intelligent interfaces promise to spawn entirely new user experiences that will redefine our relation with technology. In one example, future flexible displays will allow us to design devices that are completely flexible, and that can curve around everyday objects or our bodies. Continue reading

The Jeremy Bailey Show :: September 19 - October 19, 2008 :: Opening and Performance: September 19; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: HTTP Gallery, Unit A2, Arena Design Centre, 71 Ashfield Road, London.

If Jeff Koons had fallen for the Microsoft Help Paperclip rather than vacuum cleaners or La Cicciolina, presumably the result would have looked a lot like The Jeremy Bailey Show. “Canadian artist Jeremy Bailey creates cutesy digital interfaces which facilitate computer-aided performances that bring art and technology, techies and technophobes into tension. Fusing an expert knowledge of software design and acclaimed performance and video art skills, Bailey asks his audience to examine their acquiescence to the GUIs (Graphic User Interfaces) that provide the face of contemporary living. More than that, he invites one and all to watch his unique brand of ‘interface-off’.” (Charlotte Frost) Continue reading

Urban Screens Melbourne 08: Conference: Mobile Publics; October 3-5, 2008 :: Exhibition: Connected Communities; October 3 – 8, 2008 :: BMW Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne :: Registration Reminder.

Urban Screens Melbourne 08 (USM08), hosted by Federation Square Pty Ltd, is the first international urban screens conference and exhibition to be staged in the Asia Pacific region, following successful events in Amsterdam in 2005 and Manchester in 2007. USM08 will present an integrated conference program of keynote lectures and panel sessions in the BMW Edge Theatre and an outdoor multimedia program of curated screenings, skype enabled “townmeetings”, joint broadcasting, interactive and participatory screen-based projects. Continue reading

Developing the most “natural” human-machine interface has always been one of the IT industry Holy Grails. The ancestral codes that oversee our instinctual behaviors are more often than not misguided by cultural signs and related meanings expressed in the software and hardware aesthetic. Playing with these ideas, Cyberskin by Joan Healy brilliantly conveys the idea of the body as an extension of a machine. The author’s passion for the seventies performance scene is perfectly exploited in this piece. In the context of a parody of IT fairs, she hides herself inside a “machine”, so that a rectangular portion of her back can be touched and used by visitors as a touchpad. She secretly “draws” with a real touchpad, her movements tracing the patterns she feels on her back. A monitor displays the marks she makes with the touchpad in front of the user. Continue reading

Keep in Touch designed by Nima Motamedi at Simon Fraser University, Canada, is a networked fabric touchscreen designed to support and maintain intimacy for couples in long distance relationships. To achieve this she created a novel sensorial interface by combining the visual and tactile senses together. Each partner is presented with a blurred digital projection of their lover. When they touch their partner’s body, the image comes into focus revealing their features. Continue reading

intelligent agent Vol. 8 No. 1 - Social Fabrics print issue now available. It can be ordered as hardcover and paperback (here) or downloaded for free as PDF. It features the catalog of the Social Fabrics fashion & technology exhibition (curated by Susan Ryan and Patrick Lichty) of the Leonardo Educational Forum at the 2008 College Art Association conference. Essays:

Susan Elizabeth Ryan, What is Wearable Technology Art? Susan Ryan proposes that wearable technology projects contribute to a history of projects that might not seem to be linked together or thought of as part of a cohesive practice. Continue reading

Aya Karpinska has published her first work of digital literature for children, Shadows Never Sleep, as an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is available for free from the iTunes Apple Store.

Shadows Never Sleep tells the story of a restless shadow on a nighttime adventure. This “zoom narrative” introduces a new storytelling format that takes advantage of the multi-touch interface of the iPhone and iPod Touch, allowing readers to swipe their fingers across the screen and zoom in and out of images instead of turning pages. Continue reading

Upgrade! São Paulo: Interface: The Bridge Between Worlds - Rafael Beznos :: August 16, 2008, 7:30 pm @ i-People: Av Vergueiro 727, next to the Vergueiro Subway Station.

The DreamLoading project, created by Rafael Beznos, consists in a set of researches, installations and interactive interfaces integrating multiple technological media, artists and collaborators from all around the world, uniting music, video projections, fine arts, architecture, graphite, interactive programming, 2D and 3D animation and digital art in the creation of multimedia experiences, among them interactive samplers of audiovisual for touch-screen or tabletop surfaces (projection over an interactive film on glass or acrylic), interactive art and video exhibition with related animation. Continue reading

The Discreet Charm of Technology: Arts in Spain :: until August 24, 2008 @ Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, Spain:: September 26, 2008 - February 15, 2009 @ ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany.

This exhibition presents for the first time, both in Spain and abroad, a representative selection of over sixty artists and more than one hundred artworks that, by means of its thematic curatorial concept, will make it possible to retrace the principal aspects of production in art, science and technology that have been carried out in Spain from the earliest manifestations to the present day. In it, the 13th century is linked to the 21st through a modular approach that focuses on five key themes representative of the artistic condition: the formal code; the visual code; the sensory and space-time code; the body and the identity; and the construction of reality. Continue reading