When we sample food or drink, we do it with our noses first. Smell provides an introduction to a flavor and makes tasting an experience that’s as complex as it is intimate. For this year’s museum night, V2_ has invited scent specialist Sissel Tolaas to exhibit aromatic artworks that confront us with the role scent plays in taste. Tolaas, founder of the RE_searchLab at International Flavors & Fragrances in Berlin, has developed aromas for companies including the fashion brand Comme des Garçons and the carmaker Daimler Chrysler. 

Her art projects consistently confront us with scent’s social significance. Her work The Smell of FEAR, previously exhibited at V2_ as part of Test_Lab: Multi_modal, treated visitors to several varieties of sweat from frightened humans. Adidas recently asked Tolaas to develop a fragrance for shoes that would the “infect” the wearer’s clothing. Rumor has it that David Beckham provided his scent for the project. Tolaas is currently working on a project that explores why, though the smell of cheese is chemically strongly linked to that of sweaty feet, we like one and not the other. For this project, she’s made cheese using human bacteria. So on museum night at V2_ , don’t be shocked if you’re offered a cheese cube that tastes like British football and induces a vague longing for a Spice Girl.

This rich and complex volume will be explored in the convivial atmosphere of a reading group. The reading group will be led by Arjen Mulder, author of one of the essays in the book and editor at V2_ Publishing. Join us for free refreshments and animated discussion of the book in four meetings in Amsterdam, at SMART Project Space. Joining the Reading Group is free but a reservation is required. The reading group members will also enjoy a 5 EUR discount on the purchase price of the book. 

Reservations

Reserve your place in the reading group (admission: free) and order your book with 5 EUR discount by emailing reservations[at]v2.nl 

Places are limited so book early! 

Location: SMART Project Space: Arie Biemondstraat 105-113, Amsterdam, +31(0)20 457 59 51 

Download the Introduction The Politics of the Impure (PDF) 

Dates and topics

Thursday Dec. 15, 2011, 19:00 - 21:00: Topic: Overview of book, The Aesthetics of Brutality by Arjen Mulder and The Ambiguity of Fanaticism by Alberto Toscano; 

Tuesday Jan. 24, 2012, 19:00 - 21:00: Topic: Stop Consuming Democracy by Raj Patel and The Demographics of Democracy by Gunnar Heinsohn; 

Tuesday Feb. 21, 2012, 19:00 - 21:00: Topic: The Symbiosis between Experiment and Techniques by Isabelle Stengers and The Future is Nothing but Ways Out by Bruce Sterling; 

March 2012 (date TBC): Topic: Artist's works in the book and The Matter of Ornament by Lars Spuybroek 

February 9/10/11/12 and 16/17/18/19

The Media Technology MSc program is a place where students are encouraged to develop a creative approach to science. The students are educated to translate their personal interest and inspiration into research projects. The program is open to unusual questions, unconventional research methods and forms of output that exceed the traditional thesis format. This includes installations, games and books as possible result from a research. The semester project is a good example of such an approach.

Exhibition 50%

The global theme for this year's semester project is "50%". From this global theme five sub-themes are derived: mid-life, floating, halfway, layers and indivisible. The students have been working in groups of three that each have chosen their own sub-theme.

The Semester Project has three phases. First of all the students are asked to explore their theme in the broadest sense (social, mathematical, biological, et cetera) and discover what it could possibly relate to. After gaining sufficient insight in the theme they are asked to formulate compelling statements related to the theme. Only once this is stage is completed they are asked to translate their statements into an installation. Together these installations form the semester project exhibition. Watch the project descriptions at mediatechnology.leiden.edu.

Besides the exhibition the program includes a lecture by Bas Haring on non-textual scientific projects that are meant to convey a statement or trigger reflection; a graduation presentation by Alice Bodanzky on her concept for an intelligent self-moving material shape; a lecture by Wim van Eck and Maarten Lamers on the use of real animals in computer games; and a 'meet the makers' session where the participating students explain who they developed their installations.

LECTURE

Non-textual Scientific Output

Bas Haring

Thurday February 9th, 16:00
Location: WORM, Boomgaardsstraat 71, Rotterdam

Bas Haring is a Dutch philosopher and writer of popular science and children's literature. He holds a temporary special professor chair in the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Leiden and is the initiator of the Media Technology MSc program.

In this lecture he will focus on non-textual scientific projects that are meant convey a statement or trigger reflection. Art and Science is currently a hot topic. This lecture focusses however on less conventional output of scientists that has similarities to art, and is often meant to trigger a debate within the scientific world itself.

OFFICIAL OPENING:

Welcome by Alex Adriaansens

February 9th – 17:00
Location: V2_Institute for the Unstable Media

PUBLIC GRADUATION PRESENTATION

Developing an Expressive Independent Shape-changing Surface
Alice Bodanzky

Saturday February 11th, 16:00
Location: V2_Institute for the Unstable Media

Advances in material science and engineering allow computation to be embedded everywhere. Computers will soon be designed to take any shape, thus radically changing how we interact with our material environment. To explore these developments in a meaningful way, we must first understand the properties and possibilities of computationally enabled materials. This research has led to a proposal for an actuated shape-changing surface itself and investigations into its expressive qualities. It focuses on the surface's ability to move in space following programmed variations in terms of texture and topology patterns.

MEET THE MAKERS

Sunday February 12th, 16:00
Location: V2_Institute for the Unstable Media

Get to know the what and why behind each installation in the exhibition. In short presentations, each project team explains how their work came about and what lies behind it. There is place for discussing the works and ask questions to the makers.

LECTURE

Using Real Animals and Organisms in Computer Games
Wim van Eck and Maarten Lamers

Saturday February 18th, 16:00
Location: TENT, Witte de Withstraat 50

Computer games have undergone major changes in the last decade: the Wii made us play more physically, smartphones made us play more casually, and serious gaming is the current hype. Will biological-digital games be next? What computer games can you play against real cats, pigs and hamsters? Why do crickets play Pacman? How to play Pong against bacteria? This lecture is about scientific research into hybrid biological-digital games.

Smart Talk is a series of discussions and debates organized by De Unie in Debat. The events are designed for film lovers seeking in-depth consideration and analysis of the medium. Events take place nightly from Friday, January 27, through Thursday, February 2, on location in the Kleine Zaal at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg. 

Admission: Free; reservation not required

Signals: For Real

The IFFR Signals: For Real program features a selection of Augmented Reality projects including works by Aram Bartholl, Sander Veenhof and Wouter Huis.

Since 2003 Olivier Otten (WdkA/Sandberg Institute), aka Selfcontrolfreak researches the possibilities of interactive video. His short movies on selfcontrolfreak.com are full of surprises and immensely popular.

Order is his first full length movie. It was realized in cooperation with several artists and designers from Rotterdam. The viewer plays an active role, and is responsible for the development of the story.

Selfcontrolfreak’s daily life is structured according to a regulated system of operations as he continues to wait, caught between love and abandonment. His sense of security starts to diminish as outside interference increasingly takes over...

The world première is followed by a Q&A with the director and participating artists, about the (im)possibilities of interaction in film.

After the premiere Order will be released online in five episodes at http://selfcontrolfreak.com/order starting with the first episode on January 30, 00:00 CET.

Order

Written and directed by Olivier Otten

Concept developed in cooperation with Daphne Heemskerk

Director of photography: Dave Vriens

Editor: Olivier Otten

Programming: Reinier Feijen, Pascal de Man

Music composer: Robert Kroos

Duration 50 minutes

Language Dutch / English subtitles

Free entrance 

Order is produced with the support of the Netherlands Foundation for visual art, design, and architecture.

Selfcontrolfreak shorts: selfcontrolfreak.com

Admission: 3 Euro

Doors open at 19:30, please be on time as the event will kick off at 20:00 sharp. 

(Main language: Dutch)

http://www.facebook.com/dederdedinsdag

Occupy Rotterdam has asked four Rotterdam-area economists to comment on their February 1997 letter to the editor of De Volkskrant. In it, they and more than 60 other economist subscribers to the newspaper expressed their concerns about Europe’s then-forthcoming Economic and Monetary Union. Occupy Rotterdam tracked those still living in the Netherlands’ 010 telephone exchange area to invite them to talk about their prophetic vision. At the summit, we’ll also look at how their concerns of 13 years ago have become reality today. The summit’s overarching purpose is to determine how the economists’ concerns relate to the grievances of the Occupy Wall Street movement, as published at http://www.nycga.net.

Do the same grievances apply to the Dutch and European Occupy movements without adaptation? Or do the Netherlands and Europe face specific monetary, ideological or political circumstances that require attention? How do the economists view our chances of resolving the current crisis, and what do they believe is needed to do so? Is there an alternative? Can we fix the system, or should we replace it? 

The economists’ letter can be viewed at http://www.volkskrant.nl.

The following economists participated in the summit forum: 

Fieke van der Lecq, a professor in pension markets at the Erasmus School of Economics;

Irene van Staveren, a professor of pluralist development economics in the Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam and chair of its PhD Research Degrees Committee;

Jack Vromen, a professor in theoretical philosophy specializing in the philosophy of economics and a board member of the Netherlands School for Research in Practical Philosophy specializing in ethics;

Frank Dietz, head of the sustainable development section of the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Admission free. 
This event was streamed live at www.v2.nl

Don't have a 3D printer yet, but curious to experiment? Just wait for the announcement of the workshop to get your hands dirty! Early next year, we will bring together artists, designers, 3D printer owners and modelers to explore and push the limits of desktop printing...

Ultimaker blog

RepRap wiki

for anyone (more) interested, here June 2011's Ultimaker Masterclass from Piem Wirtz on Vimeo.

This one day conference will bring together a variety of researchers throughout the diverse disciplines. We will present and discuss the current status of the Internet of Things for the effort to articulate elements that will contribute to the actual, ongoing development of home versus technology.

On December 9, 2009, the first Council-conference was held in Brussels. A wide variety of researchers, artists, IT-professionals, architects etc. gathered to discuss questions and answers concerning the Internet of Things. Part of this debate was focused on sub-themes, one of those was ‘Home-Sense’: what are the consequences, implications, questions for our home-environment in relation to the IoT? 

On April 9th, the world-wide IoT-day, this discussion was continued in Rotterdam on a smaller scale: now, 2 years later, it is time to gather the developments and focus once again on the issues involved. This conference intends to do that by bringing together a variety of professionals and researchers throughout the various disciplines, present/discuss the current status and try to articulate elements that will contribute to the actual, still developing issues of home vs. technology. 

The morning session will handle the background, architecture, technology; after lunch the emphasis will be on experience, privacy, spheres. A substantial amount of time will be reserved for discussion between lectures and presentations; to question the speaker and to ensure the possibility for a debate with the visitors. 

Speakers

Architecture, infrastructure, technology 

Introduction by Martin Pot

Rob van Kranenburg (Council): IoT, a reactive and proactive approach 

Ben van Lier (Centric): Connections, information and reality 

Tomasz Jaskiewicz (ONL/TUD): Architectural ecosystems of people & things 

Frans Vogelaar (Academy of Media Arts Cologne/Hybrid Space Lab): Hybridnet

John Post (Open Platform Data Netherlands): Dimensions Blurred

Environment, privacy, experience

Tijmen Wisman (VU): The right to silence in the home 

Eric Simon Thomas (icrest.): Media Connected

Selected students from Willem de Kooning Academy of Arts, Crosslab, will react on theme and subject.  

Schedule

9:00 doors open 
9:30 start morning sessions 
12:45 lunch
13:30 start afternoon sessions 
16:45 drinks 

Conference fee: 35 EURO including lunch.

For registration and payment click here please.

Special fee for students: click here please (On admittance student registration pass must be shown for verification, please).

External Links

www.theinternetofthings.eu 
www.hybridliving.eu

The Internet of Things is supported by Centric  

With austerity budgets slicing into the civil service, healthcare, education, and the arts across Europe, it's a prime moment to stop and assess what we as a society value and hold dear. The straw man argument usually goes that hospitals are more important than art galleries, but is a society with no cultural expression worth living in? We can put a man on the moon, so can't we balance a budget so that people have good local hospitals and a nice film festival to attend, too? Our society has evolved in an amazing way -- flush toilets! airplanes! smartphones! -- and yet when it comes to investing in culture, it can feel like we never left the cave.

This debate will focus on the finer points of how we think about culture and money, and how we can get out of the losing argument with our austerity-minded leaders. Guiding the conversation will be a cultural economist with experience both in Europe and the US (Diane Ragsdale), an artist-economist with insides into both fields (Hans Abbing) and a representative from The People Speak, who masterminded the Who Wants To Be? gameshow/social experiment that saw V2_ audiences spending around 1000 Euro together at the previous night's Test_Lab (Saul Albert).

Following a brief talk show with Diane, Hans and Saul, the audience will join us at the interactive Talkaoke table designed by The People Speak! Talkaoke is a UFO-shaped glowing table with embedded interactive surprises that get people involved and talking to each other. The debate is sure to be animated and heated, as we challenge each other on how economic prosperity and cultural vibrancy can co-exist.

Event stream:

After the event, the Blowup e-Book Reader for this event will be made available for download.

Admission Free if you attended Test_Lab: Who Wants To Be...? on the previous evening!
Free entrance for students (college card)
€5,- for everyone else

Featuring: The People Speak (UK)

Witnessing the largest cuts in state spending since World War II, everyone in the Netherlands seems to have a strong opinion on what tax money should, or should not, be spent on. As a result, large public protests have been organized in response to the proposed public expenditure reductions in education, healthcare, and culture. None of these demonstrations seemed to bear fruit however, giving rise to a feeling among Dutch citizens that their voices are not being heard. But what would happen when everyone got a say in how public money is distributed? Would education, healthcare and culture really benefit from such a democratic model? And would the end result be a solid public spending policy or a poor compromise?

Test_Lab: Who Wants to Be…? is a social experiment in the form of a raucous game show developed by art collective The People Speak. All visitors chip in 10 EUR in advance to enter the game, after which they brainstorm, argue, and vote on how to spend the collective money. Questions around value, worth and common ideals simmer under the surface of this ‘direct democratic game show’. A past performance of Who Wants To Be…? resulted in the collective purchase of a woodland, but participants have also proposed to fire the host and to simply get their money back. Everything is possible in Who Wants To Be…? What is certain is that you will have a say in it.

*Not an entrance fee: you all decide how to spend the money!

"..a hugely liberating and spontaneous night of audience autonomy."

- The Guardian

 http://thepeoplespeak.org.uk/blog/category/who-wants-to-be

Event Stream:

Event teaser:

Related event: Blowup: Show Me The Money
December 2, 2011, 20:00 - 23:00

Featuring: Saul Albert (UK), Hans Abbing (NL) and Diane Ragsdale (US/NL) 

What price tag do you put on priceless experiences and objects? Join us in a discussion getting to the root of notions of "value" and "culture" with cultural economist Diane Ragsdale, electrical scientist Saul Albert, and artist Christian Nold.

Admission: Free if you attended Test_Lab: Who Wants to Be…?
Free for students (college card). 5 EUR for everyone else.

Featuring artworks by Doug Back, Laura Kikauka and Carl Hamfelt, David Rokeby, Graham Smith and Norman White.

EXHIBITION TIMES

Thursday November 3rd  - 20:00 - 23:00:  SAI 2.0 exhibition open and connected live to InterAccess, Toronto.

Friday November 4th - 14:00 - 23:00: SAI 2.0 exhibition open and connected live to InterAccess, Toronto.

Saturday November 5th - 14:00 - 20:00 and 21:30 - 00:00: SAI 2.0 exhibition open and connected live to InterAccess, Toronto. Closing party with custom cocktail begins at 22:00.

This exhibition marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the initial exhibition and coincides with the centenary of the birth of Canadian philosopher and media theorist Marshall McLuhan, whose writings informed and influenced much of the work in the original SAI exhibition. SAI 2.0 is presented as a three-day event in which visitors are invited to interact with their counterparts in Toronto through works of telepresence art. While telepresence has become ubiquitous in the 25 years since the original exhibition (as it predicted it would) many of these works display possibilities that still seem radical today. Instead of merely communicating visually across great distances, the works in the exhibition insist on even more intimate forms of telepresence such as communicating through touch, feats of strength, and actual physical presence across networks.

Strategic Arts Initiative was originally conceived by McLuhan scholar and SAI curator Derrick de Kerckhove as a sort of foil to the American Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars”, created by President Ronald Reagan. The exhibition represented an opportunity for artists, rather than industry, to imagine the future of telepresence. This aligned with McLuhan’s conviction that artists represented a DEW line or Distant Early Warning system that would tell a culture what was beginning to happen to it.

Graham Smith: Displaced Perspectives

The artists involved with SAI were brought together in large part because of a shared interest in the work of McLuhan and a desire to explore the artistic possibilities of communication media such as telephone, radio, television, video, and telematics. As the original exhibition’s program notes stated:

Communications technologies are putting us in touch with the whole planet, but most of us are not aware of how this situation can change our sensibility. We are all trapped in an invisible mesh of electronic talk. We still use communications to transport information. We have not yet understood that the new technologies are also transforming relationships. One of the roles of the artist in this context is to reveal these relationships. 

Far from the slow, erratic, and problematic medium of communication that it was in the late-1980s, telepresence technology is now unquestionably part of our lives.

Norman White: Telephonic Armwrestling

Exhibition Schedule:

Thursday November 3 

20:00 - 23:00: Opening of Strategic Arts Initiative (SAI) 2.0 exhibition, five telematic artworks connected live with InterAccess in Toronto, Canada. Featuring artworks by Doug Back, Laura Kikauka and Carl Hamfelt, David Rokeby, Graham Smith and Norman White, the exhibition is a re-creation and evolution of the original 1986 exhibition curated by Derrick de Kerckhove.
Welcoming remarks and short talks by the artists at 20:30.
 

Friday November 4 

14:00 - 23:00: SAI 2.0 exhibition open and connected live to InterAccess, Toronto.
 

Saturday November 5 

14:00 - 20:00 and 21:30 - 00:00: SAI 2.0 exhibition open and connected live to InterAccess, Toronto. 

Closing party with custom cocktail begins at 22:00.
 

Admission € 5,- pass for events on all three days.
Free entrance for students (college card). 

Events will be streamed live at http://live.v2.nl

Part of McLuhan in Europe 2011, a year-long celebration of Marshall McLuhan's impact and legacy on European art and media culture during the centenary of his birth. http://mcluhan2011.eu. The exhibition in Toronto is part of the Dew Line Festival.

The Strategic Arts Initiative 2.0 exhibition is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Toronto Info:

Strategic Arts Initiative 2.0 is a parallel exhibition taking place at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Toronto, and V2_Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam.

Location: InterAccess, 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto
Date: November 3 - 5, 2011
For detailed programme information please refer to http://strategicartsinitiative.org/

To acknowledge the 100th anniversary of Marshall McLuhan’s birth, this edition of Blowup will present the Strategic Art Initiative 2.0 exhibition of re-created early telematic artworks; the worldwide premiere of Them F*ckin’ Robots, a documentary on the work and influence of electronic art pioneer Norman White; a keynote lecture by Dutch thinker and author Arjen Mulder, examining the things we love and love to hate about McLuhan; and a closing party for the exhibition featuring a custom cocktail.
 

Download the We Are All Crew ebook

Contents

1. Introduction, by Michelle Kasprzak

2. Introduction to the Strategic Arts Initiative 2.0 Exhibition, by Laura Berazadi

3. Texts from the original Strategic Arts Initiative catalogue,

by Derrick de Kerckhove and the participating artists

4. Strategic Arts Initiative 2.0, by Derrick de Kerckhove

5. Strategic Arts Initiative 2.0, information on the works

6. McLuhan in Europe 2011, by Stephen Kovats

7. The Normill, by Ine Poppe (translation by Sam Nemeth)

8. Marshall McLuhan Interview, by Gary Wolf

9. From the V2_ Archive: An Extremely Complicated Phenomenon of a Very Brief Duration Ending 

in Destruction; The 20th Century as Slow-motion Car Crash, by Mark Dery

10. Excerpt from From Image to Interaction, by Arjen Mulder

11. The Wisdom of Saint Marshall, Holy Fool, by Gary Wolf 

Program

Thursday November 3 

20:00 - 23:00: Opening of Strategic Arts Initiative (SAI) 2.0 exhibition, five telematic artworks connected live with InterAccess in Toronto, Canada. Featuring artworks by Doug Back, Laura Kikauka and Carl Hamfelt, David Rokeby, Graham Smith and Norman White, the exhibition is a re-creation and evolution of the original 1986 exhibition curated by Derrick de Kerckhove.
Welcoming remarks and short talks by the artists at 20:30.
 

Friday November 4 

20:00: World premiere screening of Them F*ckin' Robots, a documentary on the life and work of electronic art legend, and participant in the Strategic Arts Initiative 2.0 exhibition, Norman White. Directed by Ine Poppe and Sam Nemeth.

14:00 - 23:00: SAI 2.0 exhibition open and connected live to InterAccess, Toronto.
 

Saturday November 5 

14:00 - 20:00: SAI 2.0 exhibition open and connected live to InterAccess, Toronto. 

20:00 - Keynote lecture by Arjen Mulder: Things We Love and Love To Hate About Marshall McLuhan (and cybernetics)
.

21:00: Response to the lecture and commentary on the SAI 2.0 exhibition by Derrick de Kerckhove
.
21:30 - 00:00: SAI 2.0 exhibition open and connected live to InterAccess, Toronto.
Closing party with custom cocktail begins at 22:00.
 

Admission € 5,- pass for events on all three days.
Free entrance for students (college card). 

The event opening and Arjen Mulder's keynote will be streamed live at http://live.v2.nl

After the event, the Blowup e-Book Reader for this event will be made available for download. 

Blowup: We Are All Crew is part of McLuhan in Europe 2011, a year-long celebration of Marshall McLuhan's impact and legacy on European art and media culture during the centenary of his birth. http://mcluhan2011.eu. The exhibition in Toronto is part of the Dew Line Festival.

The Strategic Arts Initiative 2.0 exhibition is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

"Hello Worlds"

It's sometimes difficult to grasp how Augmented Reality could change our world. The current technological framework often confines the design and development of new AR applications. Artists and artworks can inspire us to envision what the future could look like. It’s the principal motivation of the artists in this exhibition to review and revise how we perceive and interact with the world around us.

We selected four works out of 24 submissions for further improvement and production in V2_'s Lab. These four brand new productions will be presented in the exhibition together with eight installations that form highlights in the history of artistic research in AR technology. Another two works are included as mock-up videos, a category that looks beyond the current technological limitations, and envisions exciting new applications in the field of Augmented Reality.

The Art Exhibition will be co-located at the electronic arts festival SHIFT, running simultaneously with the ISMAR conference. The unique collaboration with the SHIFT festival will provide a dedicated platform for AR artists to present their work in an artistic environment and provide a bridge with the ISMAR conference.

www.ismar11.org

www.shiftfestival.ch

Selected Works

Cashback (give me more) by Nicolas Henchoz (CH)

Geek Run by Emilie Tappolet, Maria María Beltràn, Raphaël Muñoz (CH) (Produced by Master Media Design, Head – Geneva, with support of V2_Lab)

Re: Newspapers by Akitoshi Honda (JP) (Produced by V2_Lab)

Interstitial Space Helmet by James Auger (UK)

Jekyll and Hyde by Martin Kovacovsky and Marius Hügli (CH)

lifeClipper3 by Jan Torpus (CH)

Besides the artistic video documentation shown at the exhibition venue, lifeClipper3 offers visitors an augmented walk during ISMAR11. Visitors can make a reservation on the website http://www.lifeClipper3.torpus.com

Perpendicular Cinema by Julien Maire (FR)

Reverse Blinking by Ief Spincemaille (BE)

Sensible 1.0 by Bram Snijders (NL) (Produced by V2_Lab)

Solace by Nicky Assmann (NL) (Distributed by V2_Agency)

Static by Wim Janssen (NL)

The ... by Kasia Molga (PL/UK) (Produced by V2_Lab)

USB Organs by Wu Juehui, CN

Augmented (hyper)Reality by Keiichi Matsuda (JP/UK)

Mediating Mediums by Greg Tran (US)

NGA Experience by Tate Strickland (US)

Sports++ by Sander Veenhof (NL) (Produced in collaboration with V2_Lab)