Syndicate: Wiretap 6.07: Time-based Space

[Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@v2.nl>]

Wiretap 6.07: Time-based Space

Date: Sunday July 9th, 2000, 14.00 - 17.00
(Doors open 13.00hrs)

Location: V2_, Eendrachtsstraat 10, Rotterdam

Entrance Fee: Fl. 7.50

Presentations by: Maja Kuzmanovic (HR/B), Lars Spuybroek/NOX (NL), Sabine
Schäfer (D)
Moderation: Andreas Broeckmann, V2_ (D/NL)


WT 6.07 deals with the relation of space in time: architecture as movement,
interactions between virtual and real spaces, the transformation of space
through sound.

Modern physics has forged a wide-spread understanding of the
interdependency of time and space. Space is not a given but is created in
time by the movement of bodies and sound waves. Space is an unstable,
time-based concept that has to be established by our perceptual and
cognitive apparatus through continuous looking, listening and moving. Thus
we construct our spatial environment through perception (especially seeing
and listening) and  proprioception (the intuitive spatial 'knowledge' of
our body, for instance in eye-hand-coordination).

Digital technologies are particularly relevant in this context, because
they are themselves time-based and allow for a transformation and
representation of virtual objects and virtual structures in real-time. The
manipulation of space in time can be simulated and projected by digital
media, offering images and experiences of unexpected space-time
configurations.


Presentations

The insight into the interrelation between space and time has interesting
ramifications in the arts.

Digital artists and designers are developing interfaces which serve to
extend the human body into its virtual environment, allowing the body to
manipulate the surrounding space and its perception. Maja Kuzmanovic
presents an artistic research project in progress, T-Garden, which she is
developing together with the Californian art and research collective
Sponge. T-Garden is a responsive environment where visitors can put on
sound, dance with images and play with media together in a tangible way. As
visitors enter the performance, they can put on special clothing which is
embedded with wearable sensing devices as well as small audio speakers. The
actions and interactions between visitors then trigger polymorphous and
liquid sound and video textures which seem to turn the space into a
responsive organism.

Similarly, architects have come to rethink the relationship between human
behaviour and built space by conceiving an architecture that is not static
and fixed, but fluid and temporal. Lars Spuybroek of NOX Architects insists
that space must be conceived from the perspective of the moving body:
'Bodies try to transgress themselves in time, that is: connected to other
bodies, other rhythms, other actions. In this sense, you can really only
talk about 'space' as a result of an experiential body timing its actions.
Space is never a given.'

Music and sound art are fundamentally time-based and are therefore
particularly effective in spatial representation and manipulation. In the
project series TopoPhonien, the composer and sound artist Sabine Schäfer
researches the possibilities of a spatial sound art. Her installations and
performances deal with the construction of spaces through sound, building
on the inner 'architecture' of sound. In different collaborations with the
composer Joachim Krebs and the software developer Sukandar Kartadinata she
has created programmes for composing 'area-sound-movements' which define
virtual sound spaces within and against the built architecture. Sabine
Schäfer will be presenting her projects and will demonstrate the principles
of TopoPhonien in a live performance.

Participants

Maja Kuzmanovic (HR/B)
Nominated by MIT as one of the 100 'Young Innovators' of the past year, Maja
Kuzmanovic holds a Master of Arts in Interactive Multimedia and her
specialisation is Interactive Film and Storytelling.  She is currently
director of the newly formed Foundation of Affordable Mysticism (FOAM, at
Starlab in Brussels), where she works with various art and technology
collectives and is exploring novel modes and resources of cultural
expression.  She was involved in the development of the Design Technology
course at the Utrecht School of the Arts, where she taught the modules
'Wearable Computing' and 'Hybrid Architecture'. She previously worked as
Artist in Residence at CWI (Center for Mathematics and Computer Science) in
Amsterdam, and GMD (National Center for Information Technology) in Sankt
Augustin (Germany).  She was specifically involved in projects concerning
Internet innovation and Virtual Reality technologies.  She has participated
in high-level discussions about SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration
Language),XML and WAP and has researched the possibilities of storytelling
in immersive Virtual Reality (CAVE).

Lars Spuybroek/NOX (NL)
Holds a degree in architecture from the Technical University Delft and is
co-founder of NOX: a design office that has produced videos, installations,
a magazine, texts and architecture.  Lars Spuybroek has been editor of the
quarterly magazine Forum (1994-'97) and has lectured extensively in Holland
and abroad.  In 1998 he was Visiting Associate Professor at Columbia
University, New York.  By means of a genetic engineering, NOX tries to
generate a flexible architecture that nestles itself in the transitional
area of two worlds often thought of as parallel: the world of biological
organisms on the one hand, and that of the metallic and electronic fauna of
modern technologies on the other.  NOX operates in the expanding twilight
zone of blurring and fluidity.  Over the past few years, NOX realised a.o.
'Soft City', a television production for VPRO TV which was presented at
several international festivals such as Ars Electronica 94; H2O eXPO, a
waterpavilion for the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water
Management; 'SoftSite', an installation for DEAF 1996, presented on the Internet
and projected at the NAi, (Netherlands Architecture Institute), Wet Grid for
the exhibition Vision Machine (Musée des Beaux Arts, Nantes).  In 1998 NOX
designed the V2_ MediaLab.  Spuybroek's work is currently represented at the
architecture biennial of Venice (2000).

Sabine Schäfer (D)
Is free-lance sonic art composer and media artist.  She studied composition
with Mathias Spahlinger and Wolfgang Rihm, and piano at the Hochschule für
Musik (Karlsruhe).  She has developed numerous interdisciplinary art
projects with visual artists, writers, dancers and other musicians.  She has
researched the artistic application of system-exclusive data at the Center
of Art and Media (ZKM, Karlsruhe), and computer-controlled pianos at the
Institute of Sonology (The Hague). Since 1992 she has been creating computer
controlled spatial sound installations and has staged multimedia
performances; she has also been producing radio plays on sonic art since
1994.  In her walk-in sound environments, Sabine Schäfer often refers to the
architectural environment in which the works are staged.  For ZKM
(Karlsruhe) she developed together with Sukandar Kartadinata "TopoPhonien"
(1994): an art project quering the spatialisation of sound.  Sabine Schäfer
has been awarded the Acustica International award, and the Siemens Media Art
Prize.  Her most recent project is 'Sonic Rooms' in collaboration with the
composer Joachim Krebs.


Bookmarks

Maja Kuzmanovic
http://www.cwi.nl/~maja
http://www.deepfoam.org
http:// www.deepfoam.org/sponge/tgarden.html
http://www.starlab.org

Lars Spuybroek
http://synworld.t0.or.at/level3/text_archive/testing_ground.htm
http://synworld.t0.or.at/level3/text_archive/strategy.htm
http://www.v2.nl/deaf/96

Sabine Schäfer
http://www.sabineschaefer.de
http://www.topophonien.de
http://www.swo.de/SabineJoachim


The Wiretap series is supported by: Cultural Affairs of the City of
Rotterdam; Rotterdam Art Foundation; Ministry of Education, Culture and
Science; Foundation Bevordering van Volkskracht; and Luna Internet.  Wiretap
6.07 is organised in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Rotterdam.


V2_Organisation
Eendrachtsstraat 10
NL-3012 XL Rotterdam
tel 0031-10-2067272
fax 0031-10-2067271
v2@v2.nl
http://www.v2.nl/wiretap

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