Vida

VIDA 10.0 AWARDS

The hybrid forms of the artistic proposals submitted to VIDA and the transformation of the discipline of A-Life itself have prompted the jury to consider new issues, such as the rising importance of simulation in both social life (for example, in the concept of virtual personality) and organic life (evident in the concept of “neo-organisms”). These phenomena are increasingly present and have therefore received special attention in our current approach to art and artificial life.

A great resource for art and artificial life.

http://www.telefonica.es/vida/

ken feingold

where I can see my house from here so we are, 1993-95.

copied from :

http://www.kenfeingold.com/catalog_html

What is there to say?
Does it make a difference if you are not seen, but rather a projection that sees and speaks and hears in your place?
Is the ‘I’ saying ‘Me’ to ‘It-You’ (or its reflection)?
Is it that the one who stands in your place is not free to go where they wish, or that even as you move them “freely” in their mirrored infinity theater that there are borders?
Is it that they can see their wires but know not where they lead?
Is it that in the space of the art exhibition there is also a meeting of those who see but are not seen and those who learn to play the game with their projections?

I learned in 1991 that the Mbone had been invented, making it possible to transmit “real-time” video and audio over the Internet. A networked metaphor would seem to offer a new genre of complexity - were it not for the fact that “here” and “there”, “I” and “you” and “mine” and “yours” have always been bones in the skeleton of our sense-selves and in our ideologies. I found myself thinking: “Maybe creating a telematic videoconference among three ventriloquist dolls would be enough to ask the guest ventriloquists if having a voice, having a ‘body’ in this tele-space, could create new ground for discovering the metaphors of long-distance impersonation? …”

In one exhibition there is a constructed labyrinth. The walls are mirrored. Inside of this space, there are three robot-puppet ventriloquist dolls. In three other locations are darkened spaces, each with a place to sit, a small table upon which sits a special controller-interface (an attaché case containing a joystick and a microphone), and upon the facing wall a large projected video image showing their robot’s vision, effectively, computer controlled “video-telephones.”

Each robot has a video camera for “sight”, microphones for “hearing”. Each robot is connected, remotely, to one of the other spaces (anywhere on the Internet Mbone). In these other locations, a viewer may see (via the video projection) and hear what the robot sees and hears, can maneuver it with a joystick, while the voice of the remote viewer is transmitted back to the robot, that speaks (like the doll of a ventriloquist) the words of that person. It is then possible for three people to communicate with each other in the hall-of- mirrors via their respectively controlled robots. Viewers in the public/gallery space with the robots can see over the walls, allowing them to talk with people at the connected distant locations via the robots.

Participants are inevitably pressed to regard these questions:
“Which one is me?” “Am I talking to you or to myself?” “Am I moving towards or away from the mirror?” “What are the limits of this space?” “Am I having any effect on what is happening?”
-kf 1995

Gregory’s Sun Suckers Nominated for award

Ken Gregory’s Sunsuckers, have been nominated for the 01SJ Prix Green for Environmental Art, which will be awarded at the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge (San Jose, CA, June 4 – 8, 2008). The $ 10,000 award is sponsored by Salas O’Brien Engineers and will be given to an outstanding work of art that creatively uses technology to support or reflect on environmentalism or sustainability.

more here; http://cheapmeat.net/SunSucker.html

Robots exhibition at 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge

Robots
Evolution of a Cultural Icon
San Jose Museum of Art
April 12, 2008 - October 19, 2008

Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon examines the development of robot iconography in fine arts over the past 50 years. In 1920, the term robot was coined from a Czech word robota, which means tedious labor. Since then, the image and the idea of a robot have evolved remarkably from an awkward, mechanical creature to a sophisticated android with artificial intelligence and the potential for human-like consciousness.

more here; http://01sj.org/?p=383

Jason Van Anden, Neil and Iona – Mixed Feelings, 2003. Image courtesy of the artist

Simon Yates

Simon is a Sydney artist and inventor sadly i was away when his multiple robot show was exhibited at Mori Gallery, luckily someone (kentocky) posted video documentation of it on you tube, enjoy. For more on Simon’s work see this link http://mechanickinetica.tripod.com/

Simon Yates; The robot who looked like me, 2007.

Nam June Paik «Robot K-456»

Nam June Paik here deploys his new ‘Robot K-456′, history’s first non-human action artist. About the robot, which he built in Japan, Paik wrote: ‘It was more difficult and more expensive than my Wuppertal show’, by which he meant ‘Exposition of Music – Electronic Television’, the exhibition likewise staged in the ‘Galerie Parnass’ in 1963. The robot was purpose-built for street actions, in which it was supposed to mingle – more or less inconspicuously – with bypassers, as Paik recounts: ‘I imagined it would meet people on the street and give them a split-second surprise. Like a sudden shower.’

more robot tagged works at Medien Kunst Netz

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/suche/?qt=robot

Sputnick#3

The current version of my robot; Sputnick#3. The update uses the original #1 configuration but is hyped up. i.e Sputnick#3 now uses an Arduino BT that i can send and receive data from within Max. Some more Ultrasonic rangers and a wireless camera. The next version will be internet controllable. A tele-present/semi autonomous robot. Then there are plans for a colony, stay tuned. If any one wants to help fund this project let me know

Maywa Denki

**Us & them & them: Robots, Artists and Scientists**

The Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) is pleased to
announce the next discussion on the Synapse elist which, throughout
2008, is investigating the leading-edge of art and science research
collaboration.

The April discussion will concern robotics and artists’ engagement with
the field. As well as surveying contemporary projects, the
conversation will focus on the ramifications of artists working
alongside scientists on robotics, now and into the future.

Discussion Guests;

KIRSTY BOYLE is an artist whose passion for robots has led her to
travel the world, working with like-minded puppeteers, animators and
roboticists. Her work examines robots as subjects of culture with
particular emphasis on how we experience and personalise our
interactions with them. She is currently artist in residence and guest
researcher at the AI Lab, University of Zurich, where she is working on
girlton, a robot combining artificial intelligence with traditional
automata. www.anat.org.au/blog/boyle/

PAUL BROWN is an artist and writer who has specialised in art, science
and technology since the late 1960s. His work has shown at the TATE,
Victoria & Albert and ICA in the UK; ARCO in Spain and the Venice
Biennale as well as being represented in public, corporate and private
collections internationally. He is currently a visiting professor at
the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, University of
Sussex, where he is working on a project to evolve robots that can
draw. www.paul-brown.com

SHUHEI MIYASHITA is a scientist who grew up in Tokyo and Tsukuba
Science City, Japan. He holds a Bachelor degree in Electrical and
Electronic Engineering and a Masters in Computational Intelligence and
Systems Science. He is currently a Ph.D candidate at the Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory, University of Zurich, where he is working on
self-assembly robots in order to explore the extent to which artifacts
can be used to represent life-like behaviours. http://shuhei.net/

LEONEL MOURA is an artist who works with robotics and artificial
intelligence in order to produce “Artificial Creativity”. He created
his first swarm of autonomous painting robots - able to produce
original artworks based on emergent behaviour - in 2003. Since then he
has produced increasingly autonomous and sophisticated ‘artbots’,
including RAP (Robotic Action Painter, 2006) created for permanent
exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
www.leonelmoura.com/

DOUGLAS REPETTO is an artist and teacher. His work, including
sculpture, installation, performance, recordings, and software is
presented internationally. He is the founder of a number of
art/community-oriented groups including dorkbot: people doing strange
things with electricity, ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show, organism:
making art with living systems, and the music-dsp mailing list and
website. He is currently Director of Research at the Columbia
University Computer Music Center, NYC. http://artbots.org/

MARI VELONAKI is a media artist who engages spectators with digital and
robotic ‘characters’ in interplays stimulated by sensory-triggered
interfaces (speech 1995, touch 1997, breath 1998, electrostatic charge
2000, vision system 2000, light 2003, robotics 2003). With Dr David
Rye, she co-founded the Centre for Social Robotics at the Australian
Centre for Field Robotics, University of Sydney and is currently an
Australia Council Visual Arts Fellow.
www.synapse.net.au/people/mari_velonaki

To subscribe to the elist visit: www.synapse.net.au and select
‘Discussion List’

___________________________________________________

ANAT is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia
Council for the Arts http://www.ozco.gov.au its arts funding and
advisory body, by the South Australian Government through Arts SA
http://www.arts.sa.gov.au and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an
initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

Wim Delvoye’s shit making machine

Migros Museum, Zürich 2001

for earlier versions of the ‘highly conceptual’ crap machines see this link

http://www.cloaca.be/machines.htm