pure-data.ca ~

INSTALLATIONS

The works in the exhibition have been selected by curator Marc Fournel in collaboration with the artistic committee of the convention.

Hear and now - SAT, FIRST FLOOR

by Florian Grond
http://www.grond.at/

A floor projection shows the trajectories of a nonlinear dynamical system flowing from the center outwards. When the particles reach the end of the trajectory, their position is represented by sound entities moving in a circle through 8 speakers. The dynamical system generates a constantly changing audiovisual cluster. Hear and now invites the audience to enter a space in progress but without destination.

Panic in Montreal - SAT, FIRST FLOOR

by Jenny Brown

Photo and video montages of mass panic in Montreal are projected into an interactive, overwhelming installation. Informed by Godzilla as one of Japan's responses to the trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, "Panic in Montreal" is the sequel project in a series about our reaction to 9/11 and the mass media in general. Constructed from elements of monster movies and sensationalist news, the humorous, uncanny scenes depict the rampage of a monster dust cloud that acts as a manifestiation of society's fears of terrorism, the unknown, and the uncontrollable. Inserted into the compilation on screen are the viewers themselves.

Unité 01 - PLACE DE LA PAIX (park beside SAT)

by Jérôme Abel
http://impala.utopia.free.fr/index.php?page=travaux&id=32

Unité 01 is an autonomous sonic unit intended for installation in a public space. A location’s ambient sound track is transformed by an interactive system that is simply composed of a microphone and a speaker, connected to each other by a microcomputer. The composition of the sonic events is reorganized and manipulated autonomously by the system’s custom software. These sonic manipulations alter and interrupt the usual atmosphere of the location.

Sync - SAT, FIRST FLOOR

by Jim Ruxton and Camille Turner
http://www.year01.com/camille/sync_small.mov

Sync is an installation which expresses the beauty of natural systems. The name of the piece is inspired by the book Sync, written by mathematician Stephen Strogatz. In this book he investigates nature's miraculous synchronization processes. The installation reflects the forces of nature using light as a medium. It consists of a 6' x 6' x 6', 3 dimensional matrix of amber LEDs ( ie. 216 lights with each light one foot from it's nearest neighbour) which have been embedded in fabric pods constructed by artist Camille Turner.

Poltergeist - SAT, WINDOW #2 (near main entrance)

by Erki De Vries and Tim Vets
http://www.timvets.net/projects/erkiandtim/

« a noisy usually mischievous ghost held to be responsible for unexplained noises (as rappings)”
The installation consists of 13 identical units, each holding an electromagnet used as a hammer that hits the surface it is placed upon. Our version at De Singel in Antwerp consisted of 13 such units, but depending on the location this number can vary. The noises of hitting the surface follow rhythmical principles and algorhithms imposed by the central program controlling the units. Due to the physical placement in a wide configuration the poltergeist's rhythms also suggest spacial structures and movements. The rhythms can literaly transplant themselves along the units in the space. At times it becomes possible to literally see a rhythm propagate along the units and displace itself in space. Complex polyrhythmical structures can transplant themselves onto straightforward grooves. The sonic structure is generated in realtime, with little or no literal repetitions or predictability. Alongside each hammer a piezzo element is attached to the surface, like stethoscopes capturing heartbeats, amplifying them, while at the same time keeping the natural spatialization of the soundsources.

Sei Personaggi: Part Two - SAT, FIRST FLOOR

by Valentina Vuksic
http://sei.personaggi.ch.vu

The starting point of this work is Luigi Pirandello’s theater play: "Six Characters in Search of an Author" which debuted in 1921. The original title is "Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore". It is about six theater figures without a play. The characters go to a theater, trying to persuade the theater director and his actors to create a play out of their family drama. They partly discuss and partly live their scenes in front of them. Their attempt fails.
     " Sei Personaggi: Part Two" is the second attempt of the "Sei personaggi" to find a form, a stage and an audience. Mechanically they stick to their family drama, seeking to repeat their scenes. Without a piece though, they are still left party undefined and forced to take action themselves. As processes they now occupy the machinic kernel spaces of networked computers and they perform within the RAM modules of these old machines. The ambivalent nature of the figures is represented through the physical conditions of the underlying hardware, which disturbs the determined procedures of the software. This spare room is being used as material for the play and its characters.

Untitled (solenoids)-v2 - SAT, LOWER FLOOR

by Lorena Salomé
http://www.lorenasalome.com/untitled_solenoids.html

This piece consists of 15 objects that repeat a pattern over and over. They move in groups and interact with the others building a conversation. The 15 objects are rotary solenoids that are programmed to turn on and off, making the sounds that we hear as participants of the piece.

Human Sequencer - SAT, LOWER FLOOR

by Alexandre Quessy
http://alexandre.quessy.net/?q=humansequencer

This audio game is an interactive installation for collective musical creation. The challenge is for a group of visitors to collaboratively create interesting rhythmic patterns with a giant sequencer controlled by their feet on the floor. The generated music consists of voices singing the scat, a vocal jazz improvisation technique using nonsense words. This work invites anonymous passers to create transitory interactions by collaboration and laughter.

SOOS1 (Self-Other Organizing Structure #1) - SAT, WINDOW #1 (near main entrance)

by Ben Bogart
http://b.goto10.org/

“SOOS1” is the first prototype in a series of site-specific responsive installations. Rather than depending on the artist to define how these works relate to their site, the task is given to the artwork itself. The structure of the artwork changes in response to continuous stimulus from its context.
    Three screens are framed in front of a large window that overlooks a public street. The centre screen shows an abstracted grid of images from the street beyond. On the right screen a montage of images free-associate and evolve continuously. The left screen is a live feed from a small robot camera that pans and tilts to examine the world around it.
   The self-other organization creates a field of memories categorized by similarity and presented on the centre screen. A model of creativity explores this memory field, activating different associations between the present context and the system's past sensory experience and showing that creative act on the right screen. The image on the left screen is the memory system of “SOOS1”. The image is a map that plots elements of the system's memory (the collection of images captured by the camera) by similarity. The grid position of the items of the memory are determined by an artificial neural network.
    The model of human creativity, inspired by the work of cognitive scientist Liane Gabora, is implemented on top of this memory system. Gabora's theory considers creativity as a controlled form of free association. Each image the camera captures is added to the memory and stimulates this new memory location. This initial stimulation causes those areas nearby (holding similar images) to also be activated. Depending on the organization of the memories, this cascade of activation selects a series of images from memory. This process creates a flow of images that resembles how free association could work in the human mind. “SOOS1”'s free association is visible on the right screen.
    Self-other organization is similar to the process of self-organization, where the structure of an organism is formed by interactions between its parts, except the structure is created through the interaction of an organism and its context. In “SOOS1,” the structure of the work is defined through its negotiation with its context, over which the artist has little control. “SOOS1” is intended to be a creative machine.

Auditory Tactics - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY, EV BUILDING, GROUND FLOOR CORRIDOR

by Philippe-Aubert Gauthier & Philippe Pasquier
http://auditorytactics.blogspot.com/

As a first experiment of a serie on spatial sound in public spaces, “Auditory Tactics”, the sound installation, stems from a collaboration of Philippe Pasquier and Philippe-Aubert Gauthier for an exploratory work while the artists were in residency (Vidéographe, Montréal, Canada). The artists created a compact loudspeaker array for acoustical beam forming as a spatial sound platform. Using the array and specifically created Pure-Data pacthes, the hyperdirective sound beams can be steered at various angles from the loudspeaker array.
    The two sound artists work and explore the notions of public and private auditory spheres while producing private listening areas using the sound beams. Locally projecting a sound, a voice for example, as it is the case for these “Auditory Tactics”, in a space populated by moving noises and voices, is connected to the general and common strategy of listening delimitation (the cut of a private sphere, possibly secret, in public spheres, communicative). Such sound projection techniques, soon passing in the real world, will contribute to the general reconstruction process of listening and speech, auditory practices and strategies, as cultural fashionable objects. With the intentions of questionning such issues, the artists created a sound composition based on interaction with the public, fragment of altered, cutted and transformed voice samples, as marks that put communication technologies on spoken and listened language as a cultral, plastic product. The main intention is then to explore and engage the social and human evocations, behind the technological possibilities, of beam forming and new spatial sound technologies in the social field. The artists acknowledge Yann Pasco for the fabrication of the loudspeaker array.

	Hear and now - SAT, FIRST FLOOR by Florian Grond http://www.grond.at/ A floor projection shows the trajectories of a nonlinear dynamical system flowing from the center outwards. When the particles reach the end of the trajectory, their position is represented by sound entities moving in a circle through 8 speakers. The dynamical system generates a constantly changing audiovisual cluster. Hear and now invites the audience to enter a space in progress but without destination.

	Panic in Montreal - SAT, FIRST FLOOR by Jenny Brown Photo and video montages of mass panic in Montreal are projected into an interactive, overwhelming installation. Informed by Godzilla as one of Japan's responses to the trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, "Panic in Montreal" is the sequel project in a series about our reaction to 9/11 and the mass media in general. Constructed from elements of monster movies and sensationalist news, the humorous, uncanny scenes depict the rampage of a monster dust cloud that acts as a manifestiation of society's fears of terrorism, the unknown, and the uncontrollable. Inserted into the compilation on screen are the viewers themselves.

	Unité 01 - PLACE DE LA PAIX (park beside SAT) by Jérôme Abel http://impala.utopia.free.fr/index.php?page=travaux&id=32 Unité 01 is an autonomous sonic unit intended for installation in a public space. A location’s ambient sound track is transformed by an interactive system that is simply composed of a microphone and a speaker, connected to each other by a microcomputer. The composition of the sonic events is reorganized and manipulated autonomously by the system’s custom software. These sonic manipulations alter and interrupt the usual atmosphere of the location.

	Sync - SAT, FIRST FLOOR by Jim Ruxton and Camille Turner http://www.year01.com/camille/sync_small.mov Sync is an installation which expresses the beauty of natural systems. The name of the piece is inspired by the book Sync, written by mathematician Stephen Strogatz. In this book he investigates nature's miraculous synchronization processes. The installation reflects the forces of nature using light as a medium. It consists of a 6' x 6' x 6', 3 dimensional matrix of amber LEDs ( ie. 216 lights with each light one foot from it's nearest neighbour) which have been embedded in fabric pods constructed by artist Camille Turner.

	Poltergeist - SAT, WINDOW #2 (near main entrance) by Erki De Vries and Tim Vets http://www.timvets.net/projects/erkiandtim/ « a noisy usually mischievous ghost held to be responsible for unexplained noises (as rappings)” The installation consists of 13 identical units, each holding an electromagnet used as a hammer that hits the surface it is placed upon. Our version at De Singel in Antwerp consisted of 13 such units, but depending on the location this number can vary. The noises of hitting the surface follow rhythmical principles and algorhithms imposed by the central program controlling the units. Due to the physical placement in a wide configuration the poltergeist's rhythms also suggest spacial structures and movements. The rhythms can literaly transplant themselves along the units in the space. At times it becomes possible to literally see a rhythm propagate along the units and displace itself in space. Complex polyrhythmical structures can transplant themselves onto straightforward grooves. The sonic structure is generated in realtime, with little or no literal repetitions or predictability. Alongside each hammer a piezzo element is attached to the surface, like stethoscopes capturing heartbeats, amplifying them, while at the same time keeping the natural spatialization of the soundsources.

	Sei Personaggi: Part Two - SAT, FIRST FLOOR by Valentina Vuksic http://sei.personaggi.ch.vu The starting point of this work is Luigi Pirandello’s theater play: "Six Characters in Search of an Author" which debuted in 1921. The original title is "Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore". It is about six theater figures without a play. The characters go to a theater, trying to persuade the theater director and his actors to create a play out of their family drama. They partly discuss and partly live their scenes in front of them. Their attempt fails. " Sei Personaggi: Part Two" is the second attempt of the "Sei personaggi" to find a form, a stage and an audience. Mechanically they stick to their family drama, seeking to repeat their scenes. Without a piece though, they are still left party undefined and forced to take action themselves. As processes they now occupy the machinic kernel spaces of networked computers and they perform within the RAM modules of these old machines. The ambivalent nature of the figures is represented through the physical conditions of the underlying hardware, which disturbs the determined procedures of the software. This spare room is being used as material for the play and its characters.

	Untitled (solenoids)-v2 - SAT, LOWER FLOOR by Lorena Salomé http://www.lorenasalome.com/untitled_solenoids.html This piece consists of 15 objects that repeat a pattern over and over. They move in groups and interact with the others building a conversation. The 15 objects are rotary solenoids that are programmed to turn on and off, making the sounds that we hear as participants of the piece.

	Human Sequencer - SAT, LOWER FLOOR by Alexandre Quessy http://alexandre.quessy.net/?q=humansequencer This audio game is an interactive installation for collective musical creation. The challenge is for a group of visitors to collaboratively create interesting rhythmic patterns with a giant sequencer controlled by their feet on the floor. The generated music consists of voices singing the scat, a vocal jazz improvisation technique using nonsense words. This work invites anonymous passers to create transitory interactions by collaboration and laughter.

	SOOS1 (Self-Other Organizing Structure #1) - SAT, WINDOW #1 (near main entrance) by Ben Bogart http://b.goto10.org/ “SOOS1” is the first prototype in a series of site-specific responsive installations. Rather than depending on the artist to define how these works relate to their site, the task is given to the artwork itself. The structure of the artwork changes in response to continuous stimulus from its context. Three screens are framed in front of a large window that overlooks a public street. The centre screen shows an abstracted grid of images from the street beyond. On the right screen a montage of images free-associate and evolve continuously. The left screen is a live feed from a small robot camera that pans and tilts to examine the world around it. The self-other organization creates a field of memories categorized by similarity and presented on the centre screen. A model of creativity explores this memory field, activating different associations between the present context and the system's past sensory experience and showing that creative act on the right screen. The image on the left screen is the memory system of “SOOS1”. The image is a map that plots elements of the system's memory (the collection of images captured by the camera) by similarity. The grid position of the items of the memory are determined by an artificial neural network. The model of human creativity, inspired by the work of cognitive scientist Liane Gabora, is implemented on top of this memory system. Gabora's theory considers creativity as a controlled form of free association. Each image the camera captures is added to the memory and stimulates this new memory location. This initial stimulation causes those areas nearby (holding similar images) to also be activated. Depending on the organization of the memories, this cascade of activation selects a series of images from memory. This process creates a flow of images that resembles how free association could work in the human mind. “SOOS1”'s free association is visible on the right screen. Self-other organization is similar to the process of self-organization, where the structure of an organism is formed by interactions between its parts, except the structure is created through the interaction of an organism and its context. In “SOOS1,” the structure of the work is defined through its negotiation with its context, over which the artist has little control. “SOOS1” is intended to be a creative machine.

	Auditory Tactics - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY, EV BUILDING, GROUND FLOOR CORRIDOR by Philippe-Aubert Gauthier & Philippe Pasquier http://auditorytactics.blogspot.com/ As a first experiment of a serie on spatial sound in public spaces, “Auditory Tactics”, the sound installation, stems from a collaboration of Philippe Pasquier and Philippe-Aubert Gauthier for an exploratory work while the artists were in residency (Vidéographe, Montréal, Canada). The artists created a compact loudspeaker array for acoustical beam forming as a spatial sound platform. Using the array and specifically created Pure-Data pacthes, the hyperdirective sound beams can be steered at various angles from the loudspeaker array. The two sound artists work and explore the notions of public and private auditory spheres while producing private listening areas using the sound beams. Locally projecting a sound, a voice for example, as it is the case for these “Auditory Tactics”, in a space populated by moving noises and voices, is connected to the general and common strategy of listening delimitation (the cut of a private sphere, possibly secret, in public spheres, communicative). Such sound projection techniques, soon passing in the real world, will contribute to the general reconstruction process of listening and speech, auditory practices and strategies, as cultural fashionable objects. With the intentions of questionning such issues, the artists created a sound composition based on interaction with the public, fragment of altered, cutted and transformed voice samples, as marks that put communication technologies on spoken and listened language as a cultral, plastic product. The main intention is then to explore and engage the social and human evocations, behind the technological possibilities, of beam forming and new spatial sound technologies in the social field. The artists acknowledge Yann Pasco for the fabrication of the loudspeaker array.