Piem Wirtz presented Protei together with naval architect Alvaro Takiuti at the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands in Wageningen on a day about natural propulsion. The day was concluded with a guided tour to the MARIN facilities and the student sailing contest which was held the same day as the seminar.
MARIN has for eighty years been involved in optimizing hull forms
to reduce resistance and fuel consumption. There is an emphasis on reducing emissions
and the impact on the environment. According to MARIN a radical change in propulsion
sources could (well, should) be considered as alternative to engine driven ships. This is natural propulsion, and Protei is an interesting example of that – as it can sail semi-autonomously upwind.
More at: www.marin.nl/web/Events/Natural-Propulsion-Seminar.htm
What is a ‘wearable’? We define it as 'something designed to fit the body and to stay there when you are not actively holding it' (as opposed to ‘portables’). The BODY is an essential component, a structure to hold it up, and to make a wearable ‘work’.
Statement: Wearables are intended to DO something.
This provokes the very important question: does it work?? And if not, did it fail as a wearable? (“do” can be both input and output. Input is things like energy harvesting, CO2 sensing, solar panels. Output relates to sound, light, visual change). Remark on the side, to test the definition: Is a piece of cloth still considered wearable technology if you put hundreds of LED’s on it, without including the battery? How is this different from a garment studded with Swarovski crystals?
In this context, performance is defined as an action or process of accomplishing a task, which sorts an effect to a human perceiver. How does performance relate to interaction and participation? KEYWORD: experience. Important: for who is the experience?
Performative wearables are pieces of clothing that are amplifying the body, adding a question of scale or adding layers of mediation.
Statement: If it is not mainstream, it is called a wearable.
A wearable is performative if some sort of transition/transformation is taking place, during a live demonstration. The notion of ‘live demonstration’ leaves us with another issue: wearables often have multiple lives. Real time (live) demonstration is documented by video registration and professional photography, and end up being displayed in several media. Some wearables are famous as icons; most people only get to know them through visual documentation. The audience never experiences the pieces up close. Many wearables look great on pictures, but do not live up to the expectations in real life.
Question: can a wearable piece still have performative quality if it is represented on video or paper?
People like to see ‘how it works’. If you demo a work live, it can add to the appreciation to show the raw technology behind: “where’s the battery”? It might as well shatter the dream, but it contributes to the notion of something being ‘real’, another important criterion in considering performativity in wearable technology.
Nevertheless, considering the popularity even from visual documentation only, wearables have an appealing factor. Will eventual performativity come across to an audience from documentation only? If documentation is your end game, the concept should be very strong or it should simply look very good. This is a totally different exercise compared to showing an interactive/ participatory/ performative artwork.
Our definition of performance implies a ‘stage’ and an ‘audience’. We were trying to categorize wearables by different stages. Each stage dictates or prescribes specific properties the wearable must have. Thus different stages could bring different wearables.
This list is ordered by ‘reality check’. Stage 1 needs to be fully operational and retard-proof to be successful, where as stage 8 can be completely fake or virtual. Again, crucial is the notion “does it work?” or “is it real”?
Observation: we do not wear wearables everyday. Why? Are wearables for special events? Are they simply a statement piece?
The whole point of considering performativity and wearables as an interesting combination is because we are looking for the effect it generates.
Therefor we did a second categorization attempt, this time focused on techniques. How do different techniques make you perform differently, when implemented in a garment or costume?
Two reasons: Look at me! (Show off) and See me! (Functional: Don’t run me over).
On a conceptual level, illumination does not have much to offer. Truth be told, LED’s or similar are popular because it is a stable platform (nature of the technology). However: if you ask fashion designers, with little or no knowledge of the technical constraints, to include technology in their designs, they will mostly come up with “light” or “movement”. So there is some natural attraction to it.
Question: does wearing light influence the behavior of the wearer/performer?
'Barreleyes' (Dattah + Evelyn Lebis) positions the dancers in a humble position, they are only the carrier of the light source.
Question: can you ‘wear’ light as such?
For example the Chunky Moves performers do not wear LED’s, but the light is following the body with projection mapping. Thus becoming the clothing in itself. This is balancing on the borders, stretching the definition of wearable technology. It is somewhere in between second and third skin. Check also the youtube video on face projection mapping.
Statement: if something is acting as a kind of skin, it is considered a wearable.
Or in other words: is the definition of a ‘wearable’ related to the distance between technology and the body?
In most cases it will make you freeze, because you don’t want to disturb the fragile technology or you don’t want to withdraw the attention from the garment. The wearer becomes a live mannequin doll. Gliding scale: Who is the performer? Wearable versus wearer...
Statement: People want to touch.
People expect garments to be able to withstand a certain level of touch. They are used to clothing, so they should be able to feel it, explore it, without being anxious to ruin it. Live up to the expectations!! If you need a sign “Don’t Touch Me”, your wearable has a bad interface design. There often is a mismatch between what an audience expects and what (fragile) technology can handle.
Interesting to consider: what does “touch me” in a demonstration setting mean?
Statement: Most wearables are ugly.
If they are meant to do something, then it is about the effect. The effect should be meaningful and subtle. If the wearable is badly designed, it distracts attention. Don’t design for the sake of using lights or any other technology, but do something meaningful with it.
Performance and wearables are highly related, yet very difficult to define or to categorize. The main thing we would like to conclude from this discussion is that artists and designers can use performativity as a starting point for creating meaningful concepts. Tracing back from the audience to the stage to the technique to the garment itself. What story would you like to get across? Who is your target group? In what context will it be presented and what do you need to make that happen?
We believe it can be a powerful tool to start thinking from the perspective of ‘performativity’ rather then to be technology driven.
Coming up next:
V2_Agency will show the following works at the festival: Edwin van de Heide's Evolving Spark Network; Marnix de Nijs and Edwin van der Heide's Spatial Sounds (100dB at 100km/h); Carolien Teunisse and Bram Snijders's augmented reality installation RE:; Telcosystems' 12_Series; Palm Top Theater; Marnix de Nijs's Exploded Views; Nicky Assmann's new installation, Solace; and Geert Mul's God’s Browser, recently nominated for the Share Prize, to be awarded at the Share Festival in Turin, Italy, in early November.
More information on some of the STRP exhibition's highlights is available in the V2_Archive on this website. Many of the historic works on view in Eindhoven were previously exhibited by V2_ in Rotterdam or Den Bosch. Delusions of Self Immolation, Erik Hobijn's "suicide machine," was part of V2_'s 1993 exhibition The Body in Ruin in Den Bosch. Jeffrey Shaw’s 1989 The Legible City appeared at the fourth Manifestation for the Unstable Media.
Although it could be argued that we should have put together an exhibition like this ourselves, we're honored to be part of the STRP program. We'll hold another DEAF festival next year in Rotterdam, and then in another 50 years we'll see which other works will have become classics and put them in our survey exhibition of 100 years of media art in the Netherlands.
]]>Source: http://www.witteveenbos.com
]]>Anouk Wipprecht: The idea for Intimacy 2.0 came up in a brainstorming session after Vienna Fashion Week. Although the fashion world responded enthusiastically to the 1.0 version of the project (Intimacy Black and Intimacy White), there was also a lot of confusion. Maybe that’s a logical consequence of working at the cutting edge of art, technology and fashion. Either way, the fashion world didn’t always understand our approach. Was it fashion? Or was it art, or a prototype? Those were the kinds of questions I got. I don’t make designs that follow trends or can be developed into a collection. My designs are more of a look into the future, and so I deviate from the usual way of working. To move Intimacy more in the direction of fashion, I decided to make a version that was more wearable and to combine the e-foil with leather. There’s also more emphasis placed on the top part now. And we’ve hidden the sensor in a matching envelope bag carried by the model. But there’s still so much work in this design that’s been done by hand that large-scale production would be impossible. I’d rather concentrate on making custom versions.
And you hear the art world criticizing fashion for being vacuous.
AW: Yeah, you’re trapped between two worlds. Whether or not fashion has substance I can’t say. Should a design have substance or should it communicate a message? I see my work as a formal investigation of the human body. For example, shoulders are interesting; they have an architectural quality. The combination of that with the fragile e-foil, which is sometimes transparent and then not, has a poetic quality. I think Intimacy and works like DareDroid are about control, too. Who has the power – the wearer, the audience or the technology?
Media art is often produced by teams of specialists. Can you tell us about your role in that process as a fashion designer?
AW: We worked on Intimacy 2.0 for more than two months. Of course, I already knew the Studio Roosegaarde team (Peter & Christiaan) from Intimacy Black, so it went really smoothly. I developed the designs and ideas in my own studio, and I spent one or two days a week with the team. We tested various forms and materials in the studio. The models are also really important in projects like this one, which stand or fall on a good performance. For Intimacy, we worked with two regular models. Lara’s my main model, who I often use as a persona; we get each other. And Aleide also has exactly the right bearing and knows how to get the feeling we want Intimacy to project across to the audience. The same is true of Robert Lunak’s photography. It’s all about getting the right balance.
Intimacy 2.0 is on view at the STRP festival in Eindhoven, November 2011.
]]>The Spanish-South American telecom company Fundación Telefónica has held the international Vida competition since 1999. Until 2011, it focused exclusively on artificial life art projects, but the organization has decided to open the competition to work of a more interdisciplinary nature in light of the dynamism and broadening of the field.
“The hybrid forms of the artistic proposals recently submitted to VIDA, and the transformation of the discipline of Artificial life itself, have prompted us to consider new issues, such as the rising importance of simulation in both social life and the life sciences. VIDA has been broadening its reach by remaining interested in A-life inspired projects and also expanding: VIDA seeks artistic projects engaged with any dynamic living process that has been affected by simulation.”
The jury on Protei:
"The objective of Protei is the global, distributed, and interdisciplinary development and production of a series of self-governing ships equipped with a structure that acts in environmental disasters, especially in the case of oil spills. Launched after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Protei team seeks to spread these mechanisms in all the Earth’s seas, as a way of raising awareness and establishing a global alliance that promotes their regeneration and the removal of polluting materials and human waste."
"This project illustrates the global concern about impending environmental disasters caused by humans, showing the confluence of science, design, art, environmental activism, and an open code ethic that believes that an interdisciplinary alliance is the way to improve our environment."
Source: http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com
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A welcome talk by Olof van Winden (director of TodaysArt) Alex Adriaansens (director of V2_) will be followed by the presentation of Chico MacMurtrie's Totemobile installation, a coproduction of DEAF and TodaysArt.
Chico MacMurtrie and his team at Brooklyn’s Amorphic Robot Works present the Totemobile in the Atrium of The Hague’s city hall. The Totemobile is a robotic sculpture that initially appears as a life-sized representation of the Citroën DS automobile. During the performance, this cultural icon is visually exploded, subverted and elaborated through various levels of abstraction until it reaches its final form: an organic twenty meter tall totem pole.
There is more news to come on DEAF2012 so stay tuned!
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DEAF2012, May 16–20 (exhibition: May 17–June 3), 2012: www.deaf.nl
TodaysArt, September 23–24, 2011: http://todaysart.org
Protei_006, the first full-scale prototype of the sailing robot that could clean oil spills in the ocean was unveiled for the first time to the audience and the press last Friday September 2nd at the Protei team’s workshop. Attendees of the press conference had the opportunity to watch an explicit video explaining the project, the innovative properties and attributes of Protei_006 as well as its significance for the environment and especially the contribution it can make in the "battle" against oil spills.
On Friday evening, Cesar Harada and the international Protei team were ready to present what they have been working on during this summer with so much devotion. After the projection of a video made by Toni Nottebohm, documentarist who was keeping a video journal of the team throughout the summer, Cesar presented Protei_006 as well as the prototypes that were made before the first full-scale one. This way, visitors could see the gradual development of Cesar’s initial idea. All guests seemed to be impressed not only by the innovations born throughout the project but also by such an international and diverse team that worked really hard to make Protei_006 a reality! The press conference was followed by dinner with the team, in a warm atmosphere at the Hofman & Zonen project space which hosted the team for three months. A perfect ending to an exciting day!
After its first unveiling, Protei_006 will be exhibited at V2_ during the World of Witte de With festival on September 9th, 10th, 11th 2011. Visitors will have the chance to have a close look at Protei_006, see it moving with its special articulated hull as well as have an overview of the previous prototypes starting from the inception of Cesar’s idea until today. Last but not least, guests will have the chance to contribute personally to the fight against oil spills by helping Protei_006 be further tested in the sea and under real conditions on the oil spill in the North Sea!
Protei_006 is not done after the Wereld van Witte de With festival - this summer was just the beginning!
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& while the Protei team is fine-tuning the last details - last week the skin of the prototype was adjusted - an interview with Project leader Piem Wirtz explains her input into and oversight over the summer long project development:
Piem Wirtz - Protei Project Manager from toni nottebohm on Vimeo.
The production process will be a challenge for the group as their expertise lies largely in electronics embedded in wearables and textiles. The TK Series project will rely heavily on mechanical movement of the knitting machine. The typewritten text will be translated into a two-tone pattern that can later be scanned to make a new translation into a different media.
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After the final adjustments, the team threw the prototype into the lake firstly without a mast so that they could test the movement of the hull on the waves. After that, the mast with the sail were added on the hull as well as some weight on the bottom of the boat to improve its balance. The model was ‘thrown’ again back into the water along with the Protei team member, Roberto Melendez with the help of co-team member Francois de la Taste. Roberto’s small ‘accident’ proved to be a creative contribution to the testing as he tried to surf on the boat in order for the team to examine its movement and endurance. Protei 005.6 proved to be rugged and it survived 4 to 5 power wind.
Also on: http://www.youtube.com/embed/Uxla-3FE9Gc
The testing gave important feedback to the team about the Protei prototype. After that, everybody was ready to work hard on the development of Protei 006.
In the meantime, Protei has acquired a visual identity! The logo will be a paper boat that symbolizes the constant development of Protei as well as its open source nature.
In addition to that, Protei has attracted the local media attention. The Dutch magazine Zeilen has devoted a four-pages article to describing the project and the team. You can find the relevant article below: Krom en toch rechtschapen.
For updates from the Protei team you can visit the following link:
]]>V2_Lab (Rotterdam, NL) and Baltan Laboratories (Eindhoven, NL) launch a call for proposals from media labs around the world for recently produced artworks (developed by artists in labs in 2011-2012) to be featured at the next edition of the Dutch Electronic Art Festival taking place from April 19-22, 2012 in Rotterdam (NL). The intentions of the show are to provide a unique overview of the diversity and quality of work being developed at the crossroads of art and technology today, to present ‘best practices’ of different labs, and provide input for a conference on new forms of contemporary art production in the form of concrete work and working processes. Through this we aim to stimulate new productions, open up the ‘ways of producing’ of labs and fuel the debate on the socio-cultural functions of artistic research and production facilities.
Call for proposals
Any (self-defined) lab, in collaboration with an artist (or artists), can apply with an artwork that they will produce, to be presented in the show. The final selection will be made on the basis of the quality and feasibility of the proposed project in relation to the aims and context of the exhibition. The envisaged total number of participating labs/artworks in the show is 10.
Interested labs should apply with the following material by September 16, 2011 to: labsshow[at]deaf.nl
Budget and conditions
Each selected lab/project will receive a budget of 4000 Euro to support costs directly related to the presentation of the project at the Dutch Electronic Art Festival, including:
Labs are responsible for making their own individual arrangements for the above, although assistance will be available in relation to equipment rental and accommodation in Rotterdam.
In addition to this budget, DEAF will also provide production/technical assistance for the installation and dismantling of the work.
Presentation
We aim to present the different works in an open, spatial setup. A scenography based on separate spaces in the form of black boxes, etc. would work against the primary concept of the show, which is to open up and address the diversity of practices within the individual labs.
The venue for the show will be confirmed later this year.
Award
A prize will be awarded to the lab presenting the most outstanding work in the show, as selected by the audience of DEAF 2012. The award is intended to support the development of a new project in the lab. More details on the prize will be available in early 2012.
Seminar
In conjunction with the show and in connection with Baltan Laboratories’ ‘Future of the Lab’ research, we will organise a seminar to present and discuss the different approaches to production, with the specific projects of the participating labs as case studies.
We will also organise moments during the duration of the show when visiting artists have the opportunity to present / pitch new projects to the labs involved in the exhibition (in a similar manner as the professional markets at film festivals).
]]>The past weeks, after the transformation of the workspace, the Protei team went on brainstorming and designing different prototypes. Two of them, one catamaran model, 2,5 meters long and one model with a fully articulated hull were tested in real conditions on the water. The Protei team members not only “threw” the two models in the water but also dared to sail on the catamaran model in order to measure its stability and generally its behavior on the water. The testing gave important feedback to the team about the progression of prototyping and after the first results, the team went deep into improving and enhancing the design of the prototypes but also working on the communication between the boat and the computer off-shore.
In the meantime, the team has also been working on the development of the Protei’s visual identity! For that purpose, an online competition is launched in order for the best design submitted to become the official visual identity of Protei. For those interested, the competition will be running until the 20th of July. For more information check the following link:
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/protei/landing
The team is still growing with new members travelling from all over the world to participate in this great project that is being developed in the harbor city of Rotterdam!
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Fifty years ago, against the backdrop of war and a growing consumer society, Hannah Arendt wrote "The Crisis in Culture: It's Social and It's Political Significance." Seeing the cultural realm disappearing, Arendt sought to defend it on the grounds that culture, through the practice of honoring the past and present to preserve our judgment and taste, offered the capacity for an "enlarged mentality" (Kant) — to see the world through another's eyes, and so to build up the imagination and the capacity to think. For Arendt, this was strengthening the foundation of public life. She believed it was precisely the absence of this foundation, thinking in the place of another, that allowed totalitarianism to take over so much of Europe, to permit people to turn in their neighbors in cities everywhere, and so to plunge the civilized world into barbarism.
This argument is not new - in fact the entire European post-war framework - a humanism defined by commitment to liberty, social justice, and a vibrant public life - was guided by this fundamentally conservative insight. This was precisely the rationale for the now established tradition of public support for culture all over Western Europe.
From this perspective, the recent attack on public support for culture in the Netherlands - while often seen as coming from the "right" - is certainly not conservative. While the planned financial cuts are severe, the ideological cut is far deeper. Terms from management and marketplace cannot obscure that what is being attacked, what is being abandoned, are the lived traditions and practices, the guiding principles, of post-war European humanism. Given that the Netherlands has historically been a leader in the political dimension of the European project, and has enjoyed the peace and prosperity this project has produced, for an active participant in European and Dutch cultural life to see this anti-conservative program gaining momentum is confusing.
The contemporary cultural realm of the Netherlands might have many failures and wants, but this space of living practice is one of the crucial stages for raising questions and critical reflections in a public realm threatened with the loss of thinking and judgment. Or, in the case of recent debates on immigration, the capacity to see the world through someone else's eyes, especially when they are our neighbors.
The idea that this could be done in response to a relatively minor budget problem, and in the name of the public good is radical. As the Archbishop in England recently commented, to use budgetary policy as a cover for widespread ideological changes to national institutions is fundamentally undemocratic as well as a betrayal of the taxpayer's money. Damaging the infrastructure of the European humanist project, by cutting back and closing cultural institutions, raising the VAT tax for theater tickets and art in the Netherlands, while keeping VAT discounted for tickets to the cinema and football, is not what people voted for.
At the time of this writing, those who practice and support culture have been roused in anticipation of imminent plans to radically withdraw public support. It is constructive to defend cultural space, good working conditions, and even particular institutions, but it is crucial to put these issues into a broader context. The withdrawal of public support is not a matter of fiscal priorities or shared sacrifice, but a profound attack on tradition, one that has served the Netherlands well for seventy years. Indeed, one of the origins of the post-war policy of public support for culture in the Netherlands was recognition of the contribution of artists and writers in the Dutch resistance of the Second World War. Public institutions of all sizes, dedicated primarily to culture, are in turn some of the foremost organs of contemporary civil society and true anchors of public life. It is barbaric to justify their destruction in the name of the public good, for no public good is served by this attack.
Jeremiah Day,
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