Changing Room by Michael Takeo Magruder — A mixed-reality installation exploring the mutability and reusability of artefacts, concepts and situations in the Digital Age.

Changing Room is an evolving artwork that considers the transitory nature of shared, virtual and mixed-reality environments and the creative potential of working within these liminal spaces. Blending the shared virtual environment of Second Life with the shared physical environment of Eastside Projects, the artwork facilitates the realisation, curation and documentation of distinct – yet interrelated – art projects arising from a common pool of virtual and physical resources. Over a seven-week period, a series of resident artists will be invited to use the spaces and materials to realise works of their own conceptual and aesthetic design. Each project will last for a single week, after which, it will be documented in situ and then be handed over to a new artist for repurposing. Continue reading

Are You Conductive? - hands on, creative workshop & interactive installation with Stefanie Wuschitz (Vienna) :: March 17 - 20, 2010; 2:00 - 7:00 pm + March 20, 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: Werkstatt, Brienner Straße 48, München.

Focusing on uniting sustainable low tech and untypical materials with high tech in a poetic and fluent way, we will be creating changeable patterns, forms and shapes within the electric circuit, experimenting with resistance and conductivity to create hand made switches and analogue sensors from magnetite stones, conductive thread/ fabric, graphite, organic and found materials to be joined to a spatial interactive and sensual circuit, consisting of movable parts, connected to the micro controller Arduino. Continue reading

The 2010 Comparative Literature Symposium: Longing in the Age of New Media :: February 19, 2010; 10:00 am - 4:00 pm :: University of Southern California, Social Sciences Building, B40, Los Angeles, CA.

In the current age of new media, various fields of study are experiencing a literal vanishing of the very materials that have traditionally defined them. With this disappearance of the physical material, how has our perception and interaction with the new medium altered? Does the end of the age of mechanical reproduction lead to a resurgence of the aura in older media? Is this the result of nostalgia for the tactile or other sensory experiences that no longer act together in the same way? How does the designation of spectral / material change across different media? Continue reading

DarkMatr :: December 17-19, 2009; 2:00 - 7:00 pm :: Opening: December 16; 6:00 -9:00 pm :: iMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, 30 quai des Charbonnages, 1080 Brussels.

After 2 residencies at iMAL and one year of work, Tom Heene and his colleagues artists, developers and scientists show the results of the research project DarkMatr. DarkMatr investigates the way virtual and physical data can be merged and presented in a total user experience. The resulting installation uses meaningful representations of web data so that we can empathize with. Taking place within an immersive environment, the visualization is lived as an interactive sensory experience, combining body movements to elements from the internet. Continue reading

“The injunction everywhere to ‘be someone’ maintains the pathological state that makes this society necessary.“- The Invisible Committee

“This is the end. My only friend, the end.” - Jim Morrison

A Virus is haunting the busy communication highways of the social networking sphere: the virus of Seppukoo. The infection has been started off last month with a viral marketing campaign for the launch of the homonym notWorking platform Seppukoo.com. The alert has now reached the pandemic state. Nobody’s safe.

EARLY SYMPTOMS. YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR VIRTUAL IDENTITY. Continue reading

RTests: Will Pappenheimer :: November 5 - 21, 2009 :: Opening Reception: November 5; 2:00 - 5:00 pm :: Choate Gallery, Choate Gallery House, Pace University, 861 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, New York.

RTests by artist and Pace Professor, Will Pappenheimer, refers to a selection of his artworks which feature processes resembling or following Herman Rorschach’s Psychodiagnostic directives for the inkblot tests. Using the media of online networks, communications and data exchange, a system or participatory call is set out to test the psychological conditions of a situation. The testing ground includes the intersection of virtual and physical. Continue reading

You Fade to Light, a responsive installation by rAndom International for Philips Lumiblade, with software by Chris O’Shea.

They Watch by Workspace Unlimited :: October 30 - November 20, 2009 :: Opening: October 30, 2009; 5:00 - 9:00 pm :: Lecture/Panel: November 18; 7:00 pm :: Studio 1, EMPAC, Troy, New York.

They Watch is an immersive art installation with virtual characters literally watching visitors. Several duplicates of the virtual characters - one man, one woman, and both portraits of the artists - surround and interact with visitors, who are tracked as they move about the physical space, and even projected into the virtual space. Continue reading

Thierry Fournier: Un geste qui ne finit pas (A Never Ending Gesture) :: October 10 - November 16, 2009 :: lux Scène nationale de Valence, 36 bd du Général de Gaulle, 26000 Valence, France.

By exploring figures of trace, appearance and disappearance, Thierry Fournier’s works challenge presence and otherness, by way of spaces and the time-frames they introduce. Whether they take the form of visual or sound projects, interactive installations or performances, they usually develop within the perceptible - even physical - experience which they propose to their spectators.

‘Experiencing present time, but, even more so, trying to formulate what it is, is like wanting to catch a fish in the water of a river with your bare hands. Continue reading

Natural Fuse: Usman Haque from Architectural League of New York on Vimeo.

Continue reading