Demonstrations: Kasia Molga (PL) | Julie Legault (CA) | Jelle Valk and Olav Huizer of artist collective WERC (NL) | E-Textile Workspace represented by Leonie Urff and Anja Hertenberger. Introductions: Boris Debackere, Piem Wirtz, Jan Misker and Michel van Dartel. Critical Respondent: Valérie Lamontagne

Every year, V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media invites a small group of up-and-coming artists to spend their summer at V2_Lab for an intense short-term residency. During these so-called Summer Sessions, the selected artists are given the opportunity to develop an artwork in close collaboration with V2_'s expert developers, curators and project managers.

This year’s Summer Sessions welcomed three individual artists and two collectives into V2_Lab to realize projects in the fields of augmented reality, wearable technology and ecology - the three current research themes of V2_’s lab. By holding the Summer Sessions residencies in parallel, V2_ aimed to promote a creative synergy between the selected artists. The outcome of this process will be presented during ISEA201 Istanbul, as a special edition of V2_’s acclaimed Test_Lab event series. In the Test_Lab tradition, the projects will be demonstrated live and the audience will be invited to ‘test’ the artworks hands-on.

Test_Lab is a bimonthly public event organized by V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media that provides an informal setting for the presentation, demonstration, testing and discussion of artistic Research and Development (aRt&D).

The Watch That Sound Software has been developed in the past four years at the V2_Lab. The software enables young sound designers at a very young age to create a real soundtrack for movies or animations in a fun way. In recent years, workshops were provided at different schools and at festivals like the IFFR, Osaka Film Festival and Cinekid. 

The Watch That Sound software is available for downloading along with a few short films. The tool is free and completely open source.

Watch That Sound organized it's own festival in Rotterdam in February 2011, a new edition is planned for 2012.

Impressie Sound Track Festival 2011 from Sound Track Festival on Vimeo.

Featuring: Elio Caccavale (IT/UK) | Amy Youngs (US) 
Wilfried Hou Je Bek (NL).

Maybe in a few years, Fido (or Fikkie) will go to the museum without you. The first edition of Blowup will examine art and design projects that are created with animals in mind as the end users and active participants – not people. This evening event will feature three leading practitioners discussing their work that is created for animals to appreciate and actively use. The speakers will address how their work can instill greater empathy for animals in us, and what they think the animals' experience of the art actually is.

We'll hear from American artist Amy Youngs, who has created new habitats for hermit crabs and a lounge space for crickets; Dutch thinker, psychogeographer and writer Wilfried Hou Je Bek who has translated the Epic of Gilgamesh into the pictograms that scientists use to teach language to apes; and Italian designer Elio Caccavale who has designed a TV for pigs to use among other speculative design pieces in his work Utility Pets.

Plus, as a nod to the genre of YouTube videos that consist solely of cats doing cute things, we introduce the Cats Only iPad Play Zone. Bring Fluffy along and let her enjoy some iPad games especially for cats. 

Download the Blowup: Wild Things Reader

Contents:

1. Introduction, by Michelle Kasprzak

2. Art for Animals, by Matthew Fuller

3. Cricket Call – Communications Between Insects and Humans? - Interview with Amy Youngs by Giovanni Aloi

4. Creating, Culling and Caring, by Amy Youngs

5. Excerpt from Gilgamesh for Apes, by Wilfried Hou Je Bek

6. Miracles, Monsters and Disturbances, by Elio Caccavale & Michael Reiss

7. A Pig Saved My Life, by Elio Caccavale

8. From the V2_ Archives: Squids, by Louis Bec

9. Final Word

People often think of augmented reality (AR) as a single technology, but a wide range of technologies (markers, tracking, mapping, etc.) can create augmented realities. This set of tools offers artists a rich variety of creative possibilities, yet relatively few artists seem aware of AR’s potential for their art practice. Every AR technology can give rise to a different experience; learning about each type’s properties helps an artist to determine which best suits his or her aims. An artist also needs to know where to access AR tools if he or she is to employ AR as a medium.

At Test_Lab: Tools for ARt, we will open the AR toolbox and look closely at the diverse technologies inside. Through live demonstrations of AR technologies and artworks, we will show which AR tools are available to artists and where. We will also shine light on the relationships between these technologies and the kinds of artistic experiences they can give rise to. As it is customary at Test_Lab, we will invite audience members to personally test all the demonstrated artworks and AR technologies.

Event Stream:

Interactive Landscapes offers a futuristic perspective on everyday reality. Dutch artist and architect Daan Roosegaarde (1979) explores the dawn of a new nature that is evolving from technological innovations by designing interactive landscapes that instinctively respond to sound and movement. Daan Roosegaarde’s remarkable works of art do function as a documentation of the dynamic relations between architecture, people and e-culture. His sculptures Dune, Liquid Space, Flow and Intimacy embody an environment of ‘tactile high-tech’ in which both visitor and the space become one. The connection that is established between design and content, between ideology and technology, results in what Roosegaarde calls ‘techno-poetry’. 

The book features a series of related interviews conducted by Adele Chong and an engaging essay by design historian and professor Timo de Rijk, this publication presents a complete overview of Roosegaarde’s work, which has been shown at V2_, the Tate Modern, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and at the National Museum in Tokyo, as well as in public spaces all around the world.

The program will feature contributions by Timo de Rijk, Adele Chong (via Skype), Siebe Thissen, Piem Wirtz and of course Daan Roosegaarde.

You can order Interactive Landscapes online at: http://www.naipublishers.nl/art/daanroosegaarde_e.html

In 2010 the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality  (ISMAR) took place in Seoul, Korea. The symposium focused on the impacts of Mixed and Augmented Reality on industry and society. In this highly interdisciplinary field it aimed to bring together signal processing, computer vision, computer graphics, user interfaces, human factors, wearable computing, mobile computing, computer networks, displays, sensors, to name just some of the most important influences. 

Mixed and Augmented Reality concepts are applicable to a wide range of applications. Since 1998, ISMAR and its forerunner events, IWAR/ISAR and ISMR, have been the premier forums in this field.

http://www.ismar10.org

http://www.nabi.or.kr

Exhibition

In the framework of the ISMAR, the Nabi art center in Seoul organized the exhibition Borderless Reality in collaboration with V2_ that will be open for the public for a month. V2_ contributed three works, all of them co-produced by V2_Lab.

Selected works:

Mirror Piece, by Marnix de Nijs is a mirror version of his previous work Physiognomic Scrutinizer. The installation detects and scrutinizes the faces of the people looking into the mirror. Rather than trying to identify the person, the software developed for this interactive installation probes for facial features and characteristics that are similar to one of the over 250 pre-selected persons in the database: all chosen for their controversial or infamous acts, but at the same time people that contributed to our contemporary culture. Mirror Piece is co-produced with V2_Lab.

RE: is an audiovisual installation by Bram Snijders (Sitd) and Carolien Teunisse. RE: is a 360 projection-mapping installation that uses mirrors to allow a projector to project on its own surface. The mirrors bounce the projections back onto their source. Virtual pixels become points of augmentation in actual space. ‬

The reflected projection makes a mixed reality appear and disappear. In most cases the projector has a functional role in a video-installation; the projector in RE: functions as a symbol for both sender as receiver of the medium light.

The work is the outcome of the question what could the role of the projector be, explored in an installation presented by Bram Snijders at the Academie Gallery of the HKU (NL) in 2010, and is inspired by the research Carolien Teunisse has done on Augmented Reality during her internship at V2_. With the help of V2_Lab the artists have been able to take RE: to a higher technological level.

Serendipitor, by Mark Shepard, is an alternative GPS navigation software application for mobile phones that determines a route to a destination that the user has not previously taken, designed to facilitate finding something by looking for something else. Serendipitor was developed during Mark Shepard's Summer Session 2010 at V2_Lab and is part of his broader project Sentient City Survival Kit.

In 2010 Yolanda de Los Bueis was an artist-in-residence at Het Wilde Weten in Rotterdam. Next to her “artist talk” she curated an evening with a lot of V2_ related guest speakers. The conductive thread for the evening is the connection between physical and digital space and how it relates to every day life, to physical intimacy, to the individual and collective emotional spaces, and to the way we relate to space and to each other.

Guest Speakers

Anne Nigten, director of the Patchingzone and former manager of V2_Lab.

Jan Misker, project manager in the V2_Lab with a focus on Augmented Reality in art.

Melissa Coleman, former artist-in-residence at V2_, specialist in the field of wearable technology.

Marnix de Nijs, one of V2_’s favorite artists, he presented his ongoing project Exploded Views.

Every year, V2_ invites a small group of up-and-coming artists to spend their summer in the V2_Lab for an intense short-term residency. During these so-called Summer Sessions, the selected artists are given the opportunity to (further) develop an artwork in close collaboration with V2_'s expert developers, curator and project managers.

This year’s Summer Sessions welcomed artists Anouk Wipprecht, Joachim Rotteveel, Mark Shepard and Ivan Henriques into the V2_Lab to work on projects in the fields of augmented reality, wearable technology, and ecology - the three central research themes of the V2_Lab. By holding the residencies in parallel, V2_ aimed to promote a creative synergy between these up-and-coming artists. The outcome of this synergy was showcased in this special summer edition of Test_Lab. As it is custom to V2_’s Test_Lab, the four residency projects were demonstrated live and the audience was invited to assess the works hands-on.

Event Stream:

Also available at: http://live.v2.nl/v2/2010/testlab/20100902-testlab_summer-sessions-2010.mov

V2_Lab presented the outcome of the 2010 Summer Sessions at The International Symposium on Electronic Art. ISEA2010 RUHR is one of the most prestigious festivals for digital and electronic art. Being one of the projects of RUHR.2010 European Capital of Culture, the symposium was be held in Germany for the first time! At several venues in the cities of Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg, the festival presented current works and debates in Media Art worldwide. 

Every year, V2_ invites a small group of up-and-coming artists to spend their summer in the V2_Lab for an intense short-term residency. During these so-called Summer Sessions, the selected artists are given the opportunity to develop an artwork in close collaboration with V2_'s expert developers, curator and project managers.

This year’s Summer Sessions welcomed artists Anouk Wipprecht, Joachim Rotteveel, Mark Shepard and Ivan Henriques into the V2_Lab to work on projects in the fields of augmented reality, wearable technology, and ecology - the three central research themes of the V2_Lab. As it is custom to V2_’s Test_Lab format, the four residency projects were demonstrated live and the audience was invited to assess the works hands-on.

www.isea2010ruhr.org

Visitors should come to MK Gallery in the morning: the time difference between Shanghai and Rotterdam implies a live link is only possible from 9:00 to 13:00/14:00.

Next to steering the 3rd i robots in Shanghai, visitors could meet their Chinese counterparts through the Web Booth at the Telepresence Cafe, and watch Couscous Global’s video interviews with the workshop participants.

Next to the 3rd I project, V2_ organized an exhibition and a series of presentations by Dutch and Chinese artists, curators, combined with international guests, all of which have been involved in collaborative projects. These presentations took place every Wednesday and Friday.

Exhibition

Next to the 3rd I project by Graham and Christina Smith (Cybercity Ruhr), V2_ presented the following continuous installations and screenings at MK Gallery:

Chinese Portraiture, Zhou Hongxiang (CN), interactive video art installation, 2006

Overdue, Jin Shan (CN), installation, 2009

Red Flag Flies, Zhou Hongxiang (CN), video installation, 2002

Compilation of Chinese video art, by Li Zhenhua (CN), 2010

CityOneMinutes, collaborative video project, 2010

Presentations

V2_ hosted a special China program at MK Gallery during the exhibition with presentations on  Wednesday and Friday starting at 20.00. 

August 20: Institute for Provocation, presentation by Els Silvrant (BE), and Speedism / Rotten Drone Temple Doom Rock by Pieterjan Ginckels (BE) and Julian Friedauer (DE);

August 22: Sunday Brunch with good food and a live connection to the exhibition in Shanghai;

August 25: Urbanian Pavilion by Herman Kossmann (NL), and WATW by Bas Vroege from Paradox (NL);

August 27: P.A.P.A. by Lino Hellings (NL) and Modernity to Modernization: Chinese Media art since 1988 by Li Zhenhua (CN);

September 1: Project-presentation City One Minutes by Sophie Leferink and Jos Houweling, presentation of The Patchingzone by Anne Nigten (NL);

September 3: Happy Street by John Körmeling (NL) and Chinese Urbanism by Shuo Wang (CN);

September 4: Finissage with Martijn Sanders (NL);

General Information:

Mk Gallery, Witte de Withstraat 53, Rotterdam

Exhibition: 9:00-17:00, closed on Mondays, free entrance

Presentations: 20:00 on Wednesdays and Fridays, free entrance

Brunch: 12:00 on Sunday 22, reservation needed, € 14,50

Finissage: September 4, 15:00, free entrance

For more information on the 3rd I exhibition in Shanghai, Rotterdam and to participate online:

http://www.the-third-eye.org

Demonstrations: Selena Savic (SRB), Piet Zwart Institute | David Benque (FR), Royal College of Art | Michael Dotolo (US), Frank Mohr Institute | Renee Hulshoff (NL), Royal Art Academy | Gabriel Vanegas (CO), Academy of Media Arts Cologne | Oliver Goodhall (UK), Royal College of Art

Performance: Joram Kroon, a.k.a. Prace (NL), Utrecht School of the Arts

As Italo Calvino illustrates in his classic novel Invisible Cities, the notion of ‘city’ extends far beyond its visible physical architecture. A city is characterized as much by the ways in which its urban life is organized, the problems and threats it faces and the memories, desires and fears of its inhabitants, as by the buildings and spaces that define its physical form. Due to the rapid and ongoing process of urbanization - resulting in half of humanity now living in urban environments - we are forced to radically rethink our cities. While we can see our physical urban environments transforming at a rapid pace however, who is rethinking the ‘invisible’ counterparts that Calvino wrote about almost forty years ago?

Artists, architects, and designers play an important role in revealing ‘invisible’ aspects of cities, often providing new insights into how our cities function and develop. To rethink the ‘invisible city’ under the pressure of rapid urbanization, this edition of Test_Lab featured a selection of freshly graduated artists, architects, and designers from European art and design academies whose projects explore the invisible aspects of our contemporary urban environments. The selected projects range from artistic representations of invisible cities, to simulations of urban economy and concrete scenarios for urban production and energy development. As it is custom to the Test_Lab event series, the audience forms the critical test panel for the demonstrated works and was invited to examine each graduation project 'hands-on'. 

The evening kicked off with an introduction by the Rotterdam-based urban mapping expert Theo Deutinger, featured a special opening of Disrupting Systems (see inset), and closed with a live music set about one of the world’s most conflict-ridden places.

Event Stream:

Also available at: http://live.v2.nl/v2/2010/testlab/20100708_testlab-the-invisible-city.mov

Speakers, workshops and short sessions on themes like "Humans and Machines," "The New Lab," and "Play and Learn" were part of ICTCelta. Universities, colleges, businesses, government bodies and research institutions  presented their research and demonstrated their latest innovations on the floor.

V2_Lab presented various demos linked to the reserach areas of "augmented reality" and "wearable technology", as well as their archive software at ICTDelta.

The increased accessibility and affordability of contemporary media technologies has greatly expanded possibilities for the dissemination of independent and grassroots information. At the same time, these developments have also greatly increased the opportunities for (mis)use of media technologies as powerful and effective tools for political and commercial propaganda. Although many theorists, artists, and activists have addressed the latter perspective on contemporary media technologies, critical debates have rarely relied on concrete demonstrations to prove their point. This edition of Test_Lab will therefore investigate the face of propaganda in the digital age by means of live artistic demonstrations, and will allow the audience to test hands-on how new media technologies can be applied as effective tools for propaganda.

How does Google determine which website shows up first and which one on page 2.480.133 of a search? Does a photograph only represent its own reality? How does social tagging affect the meaning of an online image? Why is spam persuasive and profitable? Is Uncyclopedia perhaps the true Wikipedia? What would the world look like if all advertisements were covered with artworks? And can Google’s Street View be a stage for artistic intervention?

Test_Lab: Tools for Propaganda allows you to experience and test for yourself how new media technologies can be (mis)used to direct, divert, distract and manipulate your gaze on the world.

Subvertr.com and streetwithaview.com are screened with kind permission of the artists, Les Liens Invisibles, and Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley, respectively. 

Event Stream:

January 7th–10th 

January 14th–17th 

12:00–18:00

Program January 7

15.00–16.00: Lecture by Edwin van der Heide, Creating Parallel Realities.

Location: TENT, Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam

17.00: Official opening by Michel van Dartel at V2_. 

Crisis: A Non-Economic Approach

The Media Technology MSc program is a place where students are encouraged to formulate their own scientific questions, and to translate personal inspiration and curiosity into their own research projects. To answer these questions, students are stimulated to create actual installations, by creating and doing, new scientific insights into the underlying questions are encountered. The students draw from the knowledge available throughout the Leiden University and the ArtScience program of the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague.

The theme for this year’s semester project exhibition is "crisis." The intent during the course was to approach crisis in the broadest sense (social, mathematical, philosophical, etc.) and have associated it with terms like control, projection and collision. The students have been collaboration in groups of two or three students where each group has been asked to choose one of the sub-themes. The semester project has three phases. First of all the students are asked to explore their themes as broadly as possible. After gaining insight in the theme they are asked to formulate compelling statements relating to the theme. Once this is done they are asked to translate their statement in a work that can be exhibited in a group exhibition. It is surprising to see that the resulting works all question our personal position and role in daily life. The exhibited works question for example our behavior in and over crowded world, the ethics of the waste of data we create and whether we have control over control.

Participants

Maarten van der Mark

Roberto Ramadhin 

Alwin de Rooij

Frank de Boer 

Jeroen Jillissen 

Marie de Vos

Mois Moshev 

Berend Nordeman

Joey van der Bie 

Maarten Melenhorst

Thijs de Boer 

Vincent Vijn 

Thijs Waardenburg

Zane Kripe 

Hanna Schaffenberger 

Arnout Terpstra

Robbert Winkel

Graduation Presentations

January 9th 

15:00 Stelios Giannoulis

15:45 Maarten Wesselius