Degeneration is a video work by french artist Hugo Arcier:
“All my 3D objects are afflicted with a degenerative disease. Gripped by terror, they understand what fate awaits them. Gradually they disintegrate, face after face they lose their appearance, with a fatal outcome. In this way the 3D objects die.”

http://www.hugoarcier.com

Don’t Trip is a multimedia installation by Calvin Waterman that explores the relationship between written prose and illustrated scenarios. In what moment does information become a tangible narrative, how do we build our realities?
The piece consists of five written character outlines each with a corresponding button. When one of the five character buttons is pressed a version of that character’s scenario is chosen from a database of possible outcomes. The scene is projected on to the “stage” which consists of a small white cube resting in the corner. The white cube connects object to character, bringing the illustration into the third dimension while providing a consistent platform for the directing object of each scenario.
The relationship between the written prose and projected scene allows a linear reading. The randomization of the projected scene creates endless narratives. The resulting narratives follow Ben through different steps of his accident.

http://calvinwaterman.com

Lost in Space is the most recent work by Richar Kolker:

“Deals with our relationship with our online selves explored through the loose narrative of an imaginary protagonist.

The global population of avatars is estimated to be well in excess of 200 million (higher if we include Facebook, Twitter profiles etc.) each with an identity that is neither completely separate from, nor totally unified with, that of its creator. The user accumulates experiences, memories and friendships as an avatar which are distinctly separate from those her/she has gained in the physical world. The player and the “player as avatar”, therefore, inevitably grow apart, and it is this physical / onscreen relationship that I am interested in exploring.

The images are constructed using 3D modelling and rendering software, and although they portray an imaginary location they reference the aesthetic and tradition of conventional photographic representation and at first glance can confuse the viewer into thinking that he is looking at a photograph.

The narrative, although ambiguous, builds upon the concept that paradoxically virtual time is rarely wasted – time “in world” accumulating assets, fighting enemies etc. is often a lot more predictable and certain than the precarious randomness of everyday life, where unforeseen events can often have catastrophic personal results.”

http://www.richardkolker.com

Stephanie Syjuco fabricated a selection of “sculptures” designed by anonymous users of Google SketchUp, a free 3-D modeling program: “Many–but not all–of the digital designs are created by non-artists who are just trying to figure out the software (”Something I made while I was bored”), but some are very earnestly made (”best sculpture ever!”) and all are lovely in their own way. Using their designs, I became the “unsolicited” fabricator of their work. The final sculptures are cleanly made from simple materials such as cardboard, plastic, Coroplast (a stiff, corrugated plastic material), paper, and tape.”

http://www.stephaniesyjuco.com

Artificial Paradise, Inc., by Jean Paul Frenay, is an experimental film anticipating a future where a major corporation has developed an unique software, based on organic virtual reality, which holds all the lost memories of humankind. A user connects to this database of the forgotten…what is he searching for?

http://www.frenayjp.be

Rhonda is an amazing 3D drawing tool developed by Amit Pitaru and James Paterson in 2003, when they were collaborating for a project named Insert Silence. For the last several years this software has been shown in galleries, museums, festivals and conferences but now, thanks to Zach Lieberman (openframeworks) and Zach Gage (synthpond) the program development is restarting, in order to create stable releases of Rhonda for various platforms.

www.rhondaforever.com

Bulding Rome in a Day is part of the Community Photo Collections project at the University of Washington – GRAIL Lab. which explores the use of large scale internet image collections for furthering research in computer vision and graphics.
In this particular research the team is “considering the problem of reconstructing entire cities from images harvested from the web. Our aim is to build a parallel distributed system that downloads all the images associated with a city, say Rome, from Flickr.com. After downloading, it matches these images to find common points and uses this information to compute the three dimensional structure of the city and the pose of the cameras that captured these images. All this to be done in a day.”

http://grail.cs.washington.edu/rome

BIOGRAPHIES

SILVIA LAURENTIZ: Professor in the department of Fine Arts at the School of Communication and Arts, University of SÑo Paulo, Laurentiz holds a PhD in Communication and Semiotics and a Masters Degree in Multimedia. She is also a graphics and multimedia designer an artist who works in virtual reality, multimedia and web art an art and new technologies researcher and a speaker at art and technology conferences.

MARTHA CARRER CRUZ GABRIEL: An engineer with postgraduate studies in Marketing and Graphic Design, Gabriel’s Masters Degree in Art & Technology is in progress at the University of SÑo Paulo. Web/MM artist, professor at the Business School and Digital Design Program of the Universidade Anhembi Morumbi, and director of technology at New Media Developers (NMD), Gabriel is the winner of 11 Internet Best Awards from 1998 to 2005 and a highly acclaimed speaker.

“Turbulence Spotlight: “Community of Words” by Silvia Laurentiz and Martha CC Gabriel”
http://turbulence.org/spotlight/cm/community-of-words.htm

[ITALIAN BELOW]

1st Ave Machine è uno studio di produzione video con sede a New York specializzato in grafica tridimensionale. Ciò che rende le loro realizzazioni davvero uniche è un’efficace mix di realtà e immaginazione. Per rendere la linea di separazione tra natura e artificio il più indistinta possibile.
Fondata da Arvind Palep e Serge Patzak, rispettivamente regista e produttore, la 1st Ave Machine realizza cortometraggi, videoclip e spot pubblicitari. Nonostante la diversità di intenti e tematiche, un filo conduttore ben riconoscibile lega tutti i lavori. Attraverso la fusione di riprese tradizionali e una raffinata postproduzione tridimensionale, il team riesce a dar vita ad effetti straordinariamente affascinanti. Dai robot che vivono nello spazio urbano alle forme vegetali aliene, le visioni di 1st Ave Machine parlano di un presente tecnorganico e immaginano un futuro (non troppo lontano) in cui la sempre più sottile linea di confine tra naturale e artificiale sarà indistinguibile.

www.fallen-art.com