Aaron Spectre

www.drumcorps.cc

aaronspectre.com

breakcore / hardcore / grindcore hybrid.
amen blast beats, guitar soundwalls, screaming, cohesive structure, electronic tension and release.

Aaron Spectre started out playing drums in central Massachusetts hardcore bands at age 16. At 19 he moved to New York City and began DJing and producing Jungle, Drum & Bass, and Ambient music. He moved to Berlin at 23, released several sold-out vinyl 12″s, and began touring on the strength of his live sets. Aaron started Drumcorps at 24,
adding live guitar to his sets, as always bringing raw energy and enthusiasm from his hardcore days. He’s since maintained a ferocious tour schedule throughout Europe, North America, and Japan, building a solid fanbase the hard way.

Aaron’s recent Drumcorps album Grist won an award of distinction at Austria’s Prix Ars Electronica, a yearly prize whose past winners include Aphex Twin, Chris Cunningham, Peter Gabriel, Sunn ((O))), Plastikman, and Gescom. Aaron’s new melodic album Lost Tracks just released on Germany’s Ad Noiseam.

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“this one scared me within an inch of my life…” - Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC Radio 1
“like Dillinger Escape Plan with Venetian Snares on drums… fucking amazing” Aquarius Records

“modern grindcore / metal filtered through electronic music… a hugely entertaining and intense record that fuses the two genres” - Rock a Rolla Magazine UK
Selected Performances
•Glade Festival (UK) w/ Autechre, Clark, Tim Exile, Luke Vibert
•Sonic Acts (Netherlands) w/ The Bug, Hrvatski, DJ /Rupture, Drop The Lime, Vex’d
•Club Transmediale (Germany) w/ Orthrelm, Otto von Schirach
•Milk (Japan) w/ Melt-Banana, Jason Forrest
•& various others w/ Venetian Snares, Soundmurderer, Enduser, Remarc
Current Releases
•Drumcorps - “Grist” - ADN79/VROCK010 12″ EP - Ad Noiseam / CRD (Germany)
•Drumcorps - “Grist” - ADN70/CROCK013 CD - Ad Noiseam / CRD / Cargo (Germany/UK)
•Drumcorps - “Live and Regret” - VROCK008 12″ - Cock Rock Disco / Cargo (Germany/UK)
•Drumcorps - “Rmx or Die” - KRISS02 10″ - Kriss (Netherlands)
•Aaron Spectre - “Evil Most Foul” - D$R12 12″ - Death$ucker (UK)
•Aaron Spectre - “Amen, Punk” - OMEKO06 12″ - Electro-Violence (Japan)
•DJ C + Aaron Spectre - “Conscience a Heng Dem feat. Capleton” - MASHIT001 12″ - Mashit (USA)
•w/ Math Head, Drop The Lime - “Bonafidekilla (Aaron Spectre mix)” - RED002 CD & 12″

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Alan Rath

www.alanrath.org

Rocketry and Rock

As a child growing up in the U.S. during the 1960’s, I was constantly exposed to two dominant strains of contemporary art of the era: rocketry and rock. The exemplary practitioners of the respective crafts are NASA and Jimi Hendrix. Both art forms were rapidly evolving in the late 60’s and reached their zenith during the summer of 1969. NASA’s unequaled conceptual art project comprised a walk on the moon during July of 1969. Hendrix made his iconic appearance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair during the following month. Both artists were laying the groundwork for the emerging field of electronic art.
The widely divergent artistic approaches of Hendrix and NASA help illuminate the richness of this then new medium. As a teenager I quickly determined that I would never be a musician or a performer, but I was intrigued by the potential of electronics to enable a new kind of kinetic sculpture. I formally studied the new medium at a U.S. art institute on the east coast before moving to the west coast to be near California’s fertile Silicon Valley. For more than 20 years I have been building and exhibiting my own autonomous electronic systems. I build all of my mechanical, electronic, and software systems from scratch.

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Antony Hall

ENKI

http://www.variableg.org.uk/ENKItech/introduction.html

“ENKI allows electric fish and humans to commune on the same level - that of electrical fields and brain waves - avoiding the use of language as such; instead stimulating a shared empathy through and actual physical connection. Using the bioelectric communication signals from live Electric Fish to control an immersive sensory environment for humans - through which the human can communicate back to the fish. Electro-active fish are in a continual state of electro reception & have high intelligence, memory, and learning ability.

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Historically there is a deep connection with electric fish and medical ‘healing’ technologies. The project makes reference to the status of these electric fish and the ethics of their use as neurological research tools; As research specimens, they become sacrificial to the greater purpose of furthering human knowledge. The project more generally could be seen as a reference to the ‘babel-fish’ (Hitch Hikers Guide’) and through this to the Tower of Babel (thrust for knowledge, conflicts of language and interoperation).

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My deeper motivation for this project, relates to my long-term interest in aquariums both public and private. A typical tropical aquarium is a multi cultural space - consisting of farmed and wild caught species. Aquariums are installed as calming objects, though on closer inspection the contained environment is one of both aggressive conflict, tolerance and submission. The skill of the aquarium keeper is to create harmony among fish - and through this; craft an impossible window into an otherwise wild world by creating a controlled illusion of it.”

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THE OWLPROJECT

http://www.variableg.org.uk/owlweb/Owl_home.htmilog_create-400.jpg

Believe Your Ears - ‘Call it astonishing. Unbelievable. Impossible, even. Then pick it up and hold it in your hand. Take in the brilliant splinter-less wooden display. Run your thumb around the rose wood wheel. Your ears begin to perk up. That’s when everything becomes clear: It’s an iLog.’

Though forest use has always been the hallmark of the Owl Project, we believe in constantly moving perfection forward.

Log
Hand crafted from select pieces of found and surgically removed timber and finished in teak oil; every iLog is utterly unique. We think you will agree there is nothing like a the feel of real ‘tree grown’ timber.

These special editions come with a iLog power base and display stand, all made from the same piece of wood as your iLog.

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Ben Hibon

www.statelessfilms.com

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(1) The Background
In the early/mid 80s, Japanese animation was very cheap to buy for western TV channels, so all the kids programs in Europe were full of animes. I literally grew up watching all the classic Japanese series. I was curious to find out more about them, and that’s when I discovered the source materials for all the animated TV series; the manga books. I’ve always loved western graphic novels, and from a very early age I used to make my own. Over here, graphic novels are very text heavy, with broken strips of still frames that are only there to illustrate the story. In mangas, the unfolding of a story is much more fluid, using the frames as sequences to move the story forward. I think that was a key moment for me, when I started appreciating the differences between comics and mangas. It was the missing link between illustration and animation, which made me want to explore that format. Once I started playing around with animation programs to try to bring my illustrations to life, I unconsciously started to apply the same rules that I made me love Japanese mangas in the first place. Because of its very stylised approach to motions and very dynamic style of editing, the manga techniques allowed me to maximise my visual style and create simple sort films having very limited knowledge of the art of animation (Full Moon Safari or HMS Live Young).
Storyboarding and drawing comic are very similar in many ways; when I storyboard my films I’m actually drawing frames sequences like I used to do in my bedroom when I was a kid. It’s like I’ve going full circle.
I have also worked as an illustrator and a designer ( I was creative director in a design company for four years), and done a lot of photography in the past. Although the road to get to were I am today has not been straight forward, I feel that every art form and every technique that I have learnt along the way has made my work richer and more divers. It has also widen my interests, which I can then filter back into my films and stories. The more I could take in and learn from different fields the more I felt able to adapt and be original in other ones. It now allows me to be part of many aspects of a project, from storyboarding to concepts and designs, from editing to directing.

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(2) The Art
I always thought that art was about reaching out; without an audience, musicians, painters or film makers would have no reason to create their work. It’s about communicating an idea, sharing a vision or telling a story. I don’t think that any art form is better than another; it’s about the message, and choosing which media is the most appropriate to deliver it.
In my films I try to tell enjoying and compelling stories. If I direct a TV commercial, a promo or a short, I always try to have a story to drive the film forward. I want to give enough for the viewer to feel something is happening, creating a world around the main protagonists that they will enjoy for 30sec, 2min or 10 min. The difference between pure art and entertainment lies in the creative process. Pure art is free from constraints, and only it’s creator defines its boundaries. Entertainment is a much more commercial process, with many factors to be taken in consideration; market, society, culture, etc… I think that in any creative project, limitations and constraints can be very constructive; it’s about the ability to make the best of what you have at hand, and finding creative and original solutions along the way. Of course I love the art of filmmaking and directing, from a script to a concept, to then a film on the screen. It’s a great process. But I also love drawing and painting, which is simpler more straight forward in the making than animation; it’s something I enjoy doing in my own time, away from commercials ties.

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(3) The Direction
I think there are two key elements to good storytelling; the story and the characters. If your script is solid and your protagonists engaging, then the direction style should follow naturally to serve the structure of the film. I always try to include in my films moments of silence and contemplation; i like the concept of slowing down the pace of a scene and looking at it. It’s like having the time to enjoy every aspects of a single frame and capture the stories within. My directorial style is very visual, stylised and illustrative in the framing. I love using simple and strong character poses, mixing sequences of stills, breaking motions in key frames, all of which creates very dynamic framing. I generally work on creating the story from within the shots, not just with camera movements. Storytelling comes from everything, even from the framing itself.
Directing is about telling a story, delivering an experience that will be engaging and immersive enough for an audience to watch from start to finish. And hopefully once the story is told, the viewers can take all these images away and make it their own. A film is like a painting; there’s so much to see, but so much more to be added by the viewer’s own imagination.

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(4) Story Telling
The way I think of stories generally starts with an overall concept for a world. Once the universe is defined, I imagine the kind of characters that would live in that world. During the development of the visual concepts for the characters/environments, the different scenes slowly take shape to then create the main plot. Everything is interconnected from the very first concept, and each one of the different aspects of the universe belong together.
Visually, it all needs to work as one. Storytelling is also about immersing the characters and the plots within relevant and compelling environments. Backgrounds elements and secondary characters are as important in telling the story as the main action or heroes. If you have a scene in a bar for example, the very first shot of that place will define in many ways the what/where/how/when of that world, even before any dialogue or action unfolds. That why I always pay a lot of attention and importance to sub-plots, environment and props designs, and all the other details that make up an interesting backdrop for your story.

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(5) The animation
What I like so much about animation is the freedom of creativity you can have with the medium! Pretty much anything can be possible; the most crazy visual ideas, scenarios, characters and worlds. If you can draw it you can animate it. It’s very liberating if you compare it to live action, which generally take a lot more production and budget to achieve similar ideas. My films have always been visually very particular, and animation has been the perfect vehicle to produce those ideas. It gives me a level of control (even on a small production level) over the delivery of the creative that no other techniques would allow.
2D and 3D are two different language. They don’t compete because they don’t achieve the same thing. I generally approach them from a storytelling point of view, and choose the medium that will suit that particular story best. It also comes down to your visual treatment, and decide which of the two techniques will translate that style better on the screen. For me, 2D animation allows a great deal of freedom in the visuals. Every key frame is a new drawing, so every position can be re-adjusted to fit the motion/situation. With 3D or live action, you’re set with a CG model or an actor that you then “film” in situation; those parameters are pretty much pre-set to some extend. On the other hand, 3D gives you a lot more “for free”. Take the example of animating a shadow; in 3D it will be pretty much generated by the application, animated and calculated for you throughout the shot. But in 2D, you have to animate the shadow on every single frame by re-drawing it. I always say that 2D animation is a labour of love; it doesn’t give up anything easily, and you have to work really hard at it to make it come to life. But it such a great creative format, and it can be so versatile and original. Directing 3D is much closer to film; you have your cameras, effects, motion capture, etc… I guess for me the big difference between 2D and 3D is how I approach my directing role; with 3D I can focus more on the directing and storytelling, because I worry less on how every key frame is going to look. Once the visual look is locked down, I pretty much know how it’s going to look on screen, which is great. With 2D, I generally find myself simultaneously overlooking the visuals as much as the storytelling. It’s easier to control visually, but more difficult in the production.
They are two totally different experiences, but both are equally rewarding. For me it’s about how you can use the techniques, and you find creative ways to make it look different, make it your own.

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(6) The Development
I want to expand my work into longer formats and new techniques, always trying to push it forward. It’s not so much about how/where the content is distributed, which could be cinema, web, TV, phones, etc… but more about the possibility of telling longer and more complex stories. I’m now working on a couple of scripts, which could potentially lead to animated feature film projects or series. I’m also very interested to do more live action projects. But I’m very aware of how complex and costly it would be to shoot some of my animated films, so I’m waiting for the right opportunity to transpose my ideas into live action without having to compromise too much on the originality of the visuals. I have had a lot of interest from producers from the video game and film industry, and it’s been very interesting to see how all these mediums are finally getting closer to working together. I’m always very interested to be working on many different projects; films, video games, series, commercials, promos, and always try to tell good original stories in the process. That’s what it’s all about.

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BIOGRAPHY:
Ben Hibon

Ben Hibon was born in Geneva, Switzerland where he completed studies in Fine Art. He moved to London in 1996 to study Graphic Design at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, followed by a Masters Degree at the same school. On graduation he joined a prominent London based design company, where he worked for 4 years as Creative Director. During this time Ben also completed numerous short films, music videos and character design projects, and had his work featured at Onedotzero, Resfest, BAA and the Stockholm Film Festival.

Ben joined Blink in Autumn 2004 and was instrumental in the founding of Blinkink, Blink’s hybrid/animation/CGI division, for which he immediately set about to designing the identity.

He made his commercial debut with a highly successful Kwik Fit campaign for DDB London, a very unconventional mixture of live action performance and graphic 3D animation.

A busy 2005 saw Ben working for MTV Europe and Asia (his action intro sequence for MTV Screen featured in shots issue 90) and he designed characters and animated in-game sequences for Killer7, Capcom’s highly acclaimed video game. Ben also created a sequence for “Tokyo Zombie”, a Japanese horror film written and directed by the infamous Sakichi Sato.

2006 saw Ben’s short film Codehunters premiered at the MTV Asia Awards held in Bangkok, Thailand. His film provided the visual theme for the awards ceremony and its lead-up marketing campaign, with the animation itself being revealed throughout the show. Since it’s release, Codehunters has been shown in more than 30 festivals all around the world, and received nominations at the Raindance Film Festival and the Rushes Shorts Festival. It won a gold award for Best Animation at the Promax/BDA Asia awards in 2006, and took the IMAGINA award and the Golden Nica in 2007 for best short film.

In 2007, SONY Computer Entertainment commissioned Ben to create an animated series for their upcoming Playstation3 flagship title “Heavenly Sword”. The films, released weekly on the Playstation Network, tell the story of Nariko and her clan leading up to the opening scene of the game.

Ben’s work has been recognized by D&AD, Imagina, Promax, British Animation Awards, Creative Circle, Webby, OFFF, Flash Forward Festival/NY and shown at festivals such as Raindance, Rushes Soho Short, onedotzero, Resfest, the Berlin Interfilm Festival, the Edinburg and Stockholm International Film Festivals. His commercial work includes clients such as SONY Playstation, Electronic Arts, MTV Europe, MTV Asia, Sega, Puma, Capcom, Channel4, Namco, Nissan and Kwik Fit.

Ben is currently represented as a commercials/promos director at the production companies “Blink Productions” in the UK and “Furlined” in the US. Colonel Blimp represents for promos in the UK.

Donna Conlon

www.donnaconlon.com

I am a biologist-turned-artist, and I think the methods I naturally employ in making my work are very much influenced by this background. I am an observer and analyst of my surroundings, and a collector of the remnants of ordinary life.
The comparative advantage of an artistic analysis is that it allows for a subjective, critical mix of humor, irony, and beauty. It allows me to be an archaeologist of the present and an anthropologist of my own culture.

In the presentation I will elaborate on this process and the work that results.

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Some examples are the performative intervention “Country road” and the video “Natural refuge.” During a summer residency in Skowhegan, Maine, in the United States, I would frequently walk the couple mile stretch of road from the isolated countryside cabins and studios of the residency program to the nearest small crossroads where there was a tiny store. During these walks I started realizing that, although the vegetation-covered roadside and adjacent woods would seem pristine and idyllic to people passing by in cars, the reality was that these areas were strewn with garbage, much of which appeared to have been there for quite some time. I decided to make it visible with a simple gesture. I took all of the trash from the roadsides and lined it up in the center of the road along the double yellow line.

During this action, which took place during one entire morning, I realized that many times when I lifted up a piece of plastic or metal from the ground beside the road, that I disturbed insects or other animals that had taken up residence underneath. Our refuse had become so incorporated into this natural setting, that in some cases it had become useful. My act of cleaning up was therefore neither good nor bad (or was both good and bad). Revealing this contradiction was the aim of “Natural refuge” which simply shows my hand lifting pieces of trash, and the displaced creatures scurrying for cover in response.

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Another example is the video “Más me dan.“ I am one of those people who never throw anything away. Plastic bags are useful and so I keep them. At some point I had the realization that my rate of accumulation was simply outpacing my ability to re-use plastic bags, in part because they are so durable. Plastic is also a very beautiful material, the colors are bright and saturated, and companies take advantage of these assets to advertise. So I started realizing that if I looked carefully at the bags in my closet, they had their own story to tell about consumption and marketing and a culture of convenience.

The resulting performative video shows my hands, against a black background, opening a nested series of plastic bags, each one different and smaller, much as in Matryoshka dolls. The video opens with a typical black plastic garbage bag, works it’s way through a representative selection of the colorful bags from my collection, and ends with a tiny bag of the same black plastic as the first one.
“Más me dan” (They give me more) takes its title from one of the smallest bags in the series, labeled with the name of a one of the largest pawn shops in Panama City.

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Donna Conlon (U.S.A., 1966) lives and works in Panamá City, Panamá. In 1991 she received a Masters degree in biology from the University of Kansas (USA) and in 2002 earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Rinehart School of Sculpture (Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore). Although she began her artistic career as a sculptor, in recent years she has worked with video, installation, photography, and performance art. In 2001 she was selected for the exhibition Sculptors at Work at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. In 2003 she was awarded the Residency Prize at the Caribbean Biennial (Dominican Republic) with the videos Country Road and Natural Refuge, and also received Second Prize in the First Central American Emerging Artists Exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Costa Rica for her videos Untied and Coexistence.

In 2004 Conlon received First Prize at the IV Biennial of Visual Arts of the Central American Isthmus, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Panamá for her video Urban Phantoms. She was also selected by Guatemalan curator Rosina Cazali to participate in the seventh Panamanian Biennial of Art (2005).

In 2005 Conlon participated in the 51st Venice Bienniale (Italy) in the exhibition Always a Little Further, curated by Rosa Martínez, as well as in the exhibition of the Italo-Latin American Institute, Warp and Weft, curated by Irma Arestizábal. Her work has also been shown in Ecuador, Spain, Australia, Taiwan, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, among other countries.

Eduardo Kac

http://www.ekac.org/

TELEPRESENCE AND BIO ART

After an introduction contextualizing his pioneering telepresence work, in progress since the mid-1980s, Kac will give examples and further discuss his current transgenic work. Eduardo Kac’s art deals with issues that range from the mythopoetics of online experience (Uirapuru) to the cultural impact of biotechnology (Genesis); from the changing condition of memory in the digital age (Time Capsule) to distributed collective agency (Teleporting an Unknown State); from the problematic notion of the “exotic” (Rara Avis) to the creation of life and evolution (GFP Bunny). Kac will conclude with a brief explanation of some his most recent transgenic works — “GFP Bunny”, “The Eighth Day”, and “Move 36″. “GFP Bunny” is comprised of three elements: the birth of a rabbit that has a gene from a jellyfish (a gene that produces green fluorescent protein), the public dialogue that the project has generated, and the social integration of the rabbit in the context of the artist’s family. “The Eighth Day” is a transgenic ecology that includes a biological robot, all linked interactively to the Internet. “Move 36″ sheds light on the limits of the human mind and the increasing capabilities developed by computers and robots, and includes a new plant created by the artist. Kac will also introduce his current series of living works “Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous Discoveries”.

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Eduardo Kac is internationally recognized for his interactive net installations and his bio art. A pioneer of telecommunications art in the pre-Web ’80s, Eduardo Kac (pronounced “Katz”) emerged in the early ’90s with his radical telepresence and biotelematic works. His visionary combination of robotics and networking explores the fluidity of subject positions in the post-digital world. His work deals with issues that range from the mythopoetics of online experience (Uirapuru) to the cultural impact of biotechnology (Genesis); from the changing condition of memory in the digital age (Time Capsule) to distributed collective agency (Teleporting an Unknown State); from the problematic notion of the “exotic” (Rara Avis) to the creation of life and evolution (GFP Bunny).
At the dawn of the twenty-first century Kac opened a new direction for contemporary art with his “transgenic art”–first with a groundbreaking net installation entitled Genesis (1999), which included an “artist’s gene” he invented, and then with his fluorescent rabbit called Alba (2000).

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From his first experiments online in 1985 to his current convergence of the digital and the biological, Kac has always investigated the philosophical and political dimensions of communication processes. Equally concerned with the aesthetic and the social aspects of verbal and non-verbal interaction, in his work Kac examines linguistic systems, dialogic exchanges, and interspecies communication. Kac’s pieces, which often link virtual and physical spaces, propose alternative ways of understanding the role of communication phenomena in creating shared realities.

Kac merges multiple media and biological processes to create hybrids from the conventional operations of existing communications systems. Kac first employed telerobotics in 1986 motivated by a desire to convert electronic space from a medium of representation to a medium for remote agency. He creates pieces in which actions carried out by Internet participants have direct physical manifestation in a remote gallery space. Often relying on the indefinite suspension of closure and the intervention of the participant, his work encourages dialogical interaction and confronts complex issues concerning identity, agency, responsibility, and the very possibility of communication.

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Guy Ben-Ary

http://www.fishandchips.uwa.edu.au

Guy Ben-Ary is an artist and researcher (Part of The SymbioticA Research Group) whose work uses emerging medias, in particular biologically related technologies (tissue culture, electrophysiology and optics). His work focuses on cybernetics, the boundaries between the living and non-living and focuses attention regarding the use and future possibilities of biotechnology. In his talk Guy will present two of the projects he has been involved with in the past few years.

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“MEART – the Semi Living Artist” is bio-cybernetic research and development project. MEART is a geographically detached artist that is distributed between two locations in the world. Its “brain” consists of cultured nerve cells that grow in a neuro-engineering lab, in Atlanta. Its “body” is a robotic drawing arm that is capable of producing two-dimensional drawings. The “brain” and the “body” communicate in real time with each other for the duration of an exhibition.

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“The living Screen” project produces new poetics, made possible by fusing bio-technology into a living cinematic apparatus. This work explores what occurs when we cinematically engage with a living screen and employs film theory to understand Bio-Art as a Freak Show’. The Nano-Movies are projected (projection is 200 microns square in size) on Living Screens made from skin, blood, sperm or cornea cells that transform, react and change over time and eventually die. Therefore, it contorts the projected Nano-Movie in – unknown ways, and confront the spectators with issues such as life, death, virtuality and reality.

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Guy Ben-Ary
Artist & researcher, working in the area of art & biology. Currently living and working in West Australia. Guy is an artist in resident in SymbioticA – The Art & Science Collaborative Lab at the University of Western Australia, since 2000. Guy specializes in microscopy, biological & digital imaging & artistic visualization of biological data. His Main research area is cybernetics and the interface of biological material to man made devices. Member of the core SymbioticA Research Group that developed “MEART - the semi living artist” project (http://www.fishandchips.uwa.edu.au). Guy is also a member of the “Biokino” collective that is developing the “living screen” project (Http://www.biokino.net). He collaborated with the Tissue Culture & Art Project for 4 years (1999 - 2003). Guy is undertaking a Masters course in the school of architecture landscape and visual arts, UWA.

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SymbioticA

http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au

- winners of the inaugural Golden Nica for Hybrid Arts in the Prix Ars Electronica, 2007.
SymbioticA is a research facility dedicated to artistic inquiry into new knowledge and technology with a strong interest in the life sciences. SymbioticA has resident researchers and students undertaking projects that explore and develop the links between the arts and a range of research areas such as neuroscience, plant biology, anatomy and human biology, tissue engineering, physics, bio-engineering, museology, anthropology, molecular biology, microscopy, animal welfare and ethics.

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Oron Catts

Having access to scientific laboratories and tools, SymbioticA is in a unique position to offer these resources for artistic research. Therefore, SymbioticA encourages and favours research projects that involve hands on development of technical skills and the use of scientific tools.

The research in SymbioticA is speculative in nature. SymbioticA strives to support non utilitarian, curiosity based, and philosophically motivated research.

In broad term the research ranges from identifying and developing new materials and subjects for artistic manipulation, researching strategies and implications of presenting living art in different contexts, and developing technologies and protocols as artistic tool kits. Some of the projects in SymbioticA are also very relevant to scientific research and the complexity of art and science collaborations is intensively explored.

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S. Chandreasekaran

Areas of continued research
• Art and Biology
In broad terms the main focus of research in SymbioticA is to do with the interaction between the life science, biotechnology, society and the arts. As an area of growing interest, SymbioticA is well positioned as one of the major international centres researching and developing art and biology projects. Beside the support for hands on art and biology projects, SymbioticA has already hosted philosophers, anthropologists and social scientists for short and long term research projects into art and biology.

• Art and Agriculture/ Art and Ecology
As a subset of art and biology and through the strong connections with the Faculty of Agriculture and natural Sciences, SymbioticA is interested in research in the somewhat contradictory areas of agriculture and ecology.

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Hege Tapio

• Bioethics
As part of the engagement with debate over the implications of developments in the life sciences with culture and society; SymbioticA encourage research into the ethics of manipulating living systems for utilitarian, speculative and seemingly frivolous ends. Art can act as an important catalyst for ethical exploration. In addition some of the research in SymbioticA attempts to approach bioethics form a secular non-anthropocentric perspective.

• Neuroscience
SymbioticA has a long involvement with neuroscience as it is one of the main research areas of SymbioticA’s scientific director Prof. Stuart Bunt. Projects that deal with neuroscience and robotics are of particular interest. See www.fishandchips.uwa.edu.au

• Tissue Engineering
SymbioticA have built a reputation as the leading laboratory that investigates the in vitro growth and manipulation of living tissue in three dimensions. The work of The Tissue Culture & Art Project, and many other subsequent projects, guided the developments of protocols and specific techniques of tissue engineering.

• Bioreactor
The development of a life sustaining device for tissue engineered art is an area of investigation that requires expertise in diverse knowledge pools from biology, through engineering and fluid dynamics to art and display strategies. Artists in SymbioticA and scientists from the School of Anatomy and Human Biology have been researching the development of an “artistic” bioreactor for the last five years.

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Nigel Helyer

Nordic Sound Art

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Nordic Sound Art

The Joint Study Programme in Sound Art (MFA level) is a Nordic cooperation established within the KUNO network www.kuno.no. The study programme is a cooperation between the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, Malmö Art Academy, Oslo National College of the Arts and Trondheim Academy of Fine Art.

The ambition is to create a study programme that will provide the student with the necessary knowledge and professional competence to create and analyse sound art. Further it is the aim of the program to enable the student critically and indenpendently to make use of the sonic dimension in the visual arts.

In relation to Trondheim Matchmaking, the students will present the result of a two weeks long workshop at the festival. The workshop is being led by Ivar Smedstad and Per Platou.

Roman Kirschner

www.romankirschner.net

Hot or not - looking for the impossible image

We are all being heavily bombed with pictures and stories about climatic changes, empty oceans or deglaciation. We all seem to experience together the big adventure of interpreting the world. But this creature is far too big and complex for the human perception. What kind of imaginations does that create in us? Can we feel the climatic change?

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Roman Kirschners current artistic research aims towards animation in a more general sense: imbueing matter with a soul and looking for a integral combination of moving image, sculpture and sound.
In his presentation he will not only try to give a short introduction to his recent works but also show some ideas and projects which are still in progress.

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Roman Kirschner

Born 1975 in Vienna, Austria
93-98 studies at the University of VIenna: philosophy, art history
99-04 studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany
01-04 cofounder and member of the artist collective „fur“.
05 research artist at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne
lives and works in Cologne and Vienna

His work has been shown internationally and won prices in Germany and Japan.

Stacey Spiegel

pwlabs.com

The New Nature

The rise of new technologies have empowered the individual to revision nature and express it in new forms within the virtual environments of the Parallel World. This talk will illustrate extraordinary examples of this new form of expression and how it extends other artistic traditions of exploring nature.

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Stacey Spiegel is the CEO of Parallel Worlds Labs a Canadian company focused on enhancing creative expression in on-line worlds. Previously Spiegel co-founded
I-mmersion, which provided advanced interactive cinema experiences in museums around the world. Spiegel was the co-creative director on the design of the Canada Pavilion for the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan and Virtual Canada a 3D massively multiplayer game world providing an open dialogue, in three languages, on the theme of cultural diversity.  Spiegel is on an internationally recognized artist exhibiting in MultiMediale in Germany, DEAF in the Netherlands, Ars Electronica in Austria and Elecrta in Norway. A former fellow of MIT Center for Advanced Visual Study in Boston, and Adjunct Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Toronto he is  Director of Industry Relations at the Center for Advanced Media Research Amsterdam @ VU University Amsterdam.

Recently named  Artistic Director of “Rockheim” an innovative music experience project in Trondheim , Norway.  Spiegel will  launch Virtual Rockheim , a real time Virtual Museum and social networking environment spring 2008.

Theo Jansen

The0 Jansen / www.strandbeest.com

Theo Jansen wants to make “life” and he figures the best way to do it is to start from scratch.

A self-styled god, Jansen is evolving an entirely new line of animals: immense multi-legged walking critters designed to roam the Dutch coastline, feeding on gusts of wind. Over the years, successive generations of his creatures have evolved into increasingly complex animals that walk by flapping wings in response to the wind, discerning obstacles in their path through feelers and even hammering themselves into the sand on sensing an approaching storm.

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A scientist-turned-artist, Jansen’s bizarre beach animals have their roots in a computer program that he designed 17 years ago in which virtual four-legged creatures raced against each other to identify survivors fit enough to reproduce. Determined to translate the evolutionary process off-screen, Jansen went to a local shop and found his own alternative to the biological cell — the humble plastic tube.

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“Animals are machines as well,” said Jansen. “I was making animals with just the tubes because they were cheap but later on they turned out to be very helpful in making artificial life because they are very flexible and multifunctional as well. I see it now as a sort of protein — in nature, everything is almost made of protein and you have various uses of protein; you can make nails, hair, skin and bones. There’s a lot of variety in what you can do with just one material and this is what I try to do as well.”

(Exerpt from an article by Lakshmi Sandhana)

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Since 1990 Theo Jansen is working on a new nature. By doing this he hopes to fathom real nature.

His nature exists of skeletons made of yellow electricity tubes. They walk by the wind. In the end Theo Jansen wants to set out his animals (Animari) on the beaches so they can live their own lives.
During the years the animals were due to evolution; they become better and better. In the future they will survive the storms and the tides.
BIOGRAFIC NOTES OF THEO JANSEN (1948).

1968 Studies Technical Science at Delft University
1975 Cuts of his study and becomes an artist.
1980 UFO over Delft. Flying scaucer (four metres)
flies over Delft and throws the town in commotion.
1980 Film about the UFO by Otakar Votochek
1986 Start of the column “REFLECTIE” in the science part of
De Volkskrant (national newspaper).
1986 Rotterdam Computerprint, fourty metres, three metres high
Central Station.
1987 The Hague Drillingmachineproject. Instead of a drill there
was placed a propellor in the drillingmachine. It was hanging
at the cord between two high buildings. It flew so called
lissajous figures. Recorded by openlens photos.
1992 Appearence of the book “Zogenaamd Ik”(”So Called Me”)
Bzzth The Hague.
1992 Ideas for televisionprogram “WATT!?” VPRO about phylosofy
and science.
1994 Columns for Metropolis M (Artmagazin)
1994 Gets the Sandbergprize (encouranging part) by the city of
Amsterdam
1996 Max Renemanprize
1996 Appearence of the book KLIMMEN IN LUCHT Uitg. SUN
1999 Exibition Panorama 2000 Centraal Museum Utrecht