Project GuitARS brings the rock out of your living-room! It is a game played with a guitar-shaped usb controller on a 5100m² LED facade. The player has to hit the buttons and stroke on the controller at the right time, depending on the falling blocks on the building.
The game was developed during the course “interface technologies” with Robert Praxmarer at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. Project GuitARS was written in Java, the controller input is piped via xpadder. A note-recording tool was written in C++.

http://artcore.mediacube.at

Life Across Words, by Rachelle Viader Knowles, is a 24-channel synchronized video installation. A creative response to Georges Perec’s novel Life A Users Manual, an experimental, conceptual game of a book, where the narrative travels from room to room within a fictional Parisian apartment building. Life Across Words consists of 24 tv’s in the form of a crossword puzzle with 5 intersecting words, each the name of a project participant, who moves through the tv’s that spell out their name, performing an action for each letter. Where words cross, the participants perform an action together. Shot at the Elsewhere Museum in North Carolina, a ‘living museum’ and art centre based on a ethos of ‘play’ as a serious strategy for human interaction, learning and engagement with the material world.
The back end consists of 8 networked computers running quicktime and MaxMSP. Video delivery and synchronization system designed by David Ogborn. Constructed into a looped 30 minute cycle, each cycle begins and ends with images of books on shelves and the whole piece begins and ends as a library.
The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Dr Carmen Robertson and Stephanie Sherman. Project participants: Danna Rooth, Stephanie Sherman, Eliza Fernand, George Scheer and Dan White.

http://uregina.ca/rvk

[via gameart]

The Heart Chamber Orchestra – HCO – is an audiovisual performance. The orchestra consists of 12 classical musicians and the artist duo TERMINALBEACH.
Using their heartbeats, the musicians control a computer composition and visualization environment. The musical score is generated in real time by the heartbeats of the musicians. They read and play this score from a computer screen placed in front of them. HCO forms a structure where music literally “comes from the heart”.

www.heartchamberorchestra.org

From 27th to 30st of May 2010, at Brancaleone in Rome, will take place the eighth edition of LPM – Live Performers Meeting: an international meeting of live video performers, visual artists and vjs, focused on live video performances.
Rome 2009 edition, registered the presence of 362 artists coming from Italy, Portugal, France, Germany, Canada, Hungary, United Kingdom, Poland, Spain, Uruguay, Latvia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Mexico, Greece, Denmark, United States, Austria, Australia, Turkey. During the whole four days, 289 performances, workshops and showcases, gave life to each area of the 900 square meters space of Brancaleone, enhanced with 15 projectors and as many screens.
For the second consecutive year, the edition of LPM settles in an exclusive location, the long-standing Brancaleone that with its structure, perfectly fit the growing needs of a meeting, that year after year has definetely enlarged its range of contents, artists and audience.
LPM once again, will use its 4-day formula, creating a truly unique event and granting a program full of workshops, project showcases, softwares and brand-new products.

click here for more info
download the workshop program
(subscribe to one of the workshop by writing to: workshops@flyer.it)

www.liveperformersmeeting.net

Live Video Ensemble is a live audio-video project conceived by Claudio Sinatti and performed by a 10 element ensemble together with a musician or band. The shows follow a 2/4 day workshop in wich 10 people are prepared for the execution of the performance. During the show the musician and the ensemble compose a single, abstract, completely improvised, yet perfectly synced, audio-video stream.
The visual track is performed in real time, using a custom generative software. Images are controlled by the ensemble through a set of midi instruments connected to a single computer. The software recieves the music and the performers can link it to different image parameters as well as controlling the scene manually. The result is a highly organic audiovisual show in wich the sounds seem to be produced directly from the images.

http://www.livevideoensemble.com/

SVEN (Surveillance Video Entertainment Network), by Amy Alexander, Wojciech Kosma and Vincent Rabaud, is a system comprised of a camera, monitor, and two computers that can be set up in public places – especially in situations where a CCTV monitor might be expected. The software consists of a custom computer vision application that tracks pedestrians and detects their characteristics, and a real-time video processing application that receives this information and uses it to generate music-video like visuals from the live camera feed. The resulting video and audio are displayed on a monitor in the public space, interrupting the standard security camera type display each time a potential rock star is detected. The idea is to humorously examine and demystify concerns about surveillance and computer systems not in terms of being watched, but in terms of how the watching is being done – and how else it might be done if other people were at the wheel..

http://deprogramming.us/sven

Street With A View introduces fiction, both subtle and spectacular, into the doppelganger world of Google Street View.
On May 3rd 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s Northside to collaborate on a series of tableaux along Sampsonia Way. Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more…

http://www.streetwithaview.com

The virtual communities created by online games have provided us with a new medium for social interaction and communication. Avatar Machine, by Marc Owens, is a system which replicates the aesthetics and visuals of third person gaming, allowing the user to view themselves as a virtual character in real space via a head mounted interface.
The system potentially allows for a diminished sense of social responsibility, and could lead the user to demonstrate behaviors normally reserved for the gaming environment.

http://www.marcowens.co.uk

“This performance is going to be about ‘Continuous Partial Awareness‘ — a phrase that was first described to me as meaning ‘you know, like, when you have 3 IM windows open, 2 email inboxs dinging away, are txting 5 different people, and also have 5 tabs open on your browser, each with updated content.’ It is about paying attention to everything all the time, but not really concentrating on anything. It is different from multitasking, because with multitasking, one actually is expected to concentrate on tasks at some point, even if in small doses.
Continuous Partial Awareness is the eroded degenerate modern version of multitasking. I still don’t know how this performance will take shape, it might be a lecture, a music show, a broadcast, a chess game, etc, etc, but what I do know is that the feeling of ‘non-concentration’ that has seeped into today’s life through our flat screen displays and wifi will be its starting point.”

(Cory Arcangel)

On September 20 at 2pm, MTAA and Mike Koller organized the “World’s First, Possibly Only and Probably Last iPhone Drum Circle (aka IPDC)”. They set out a brightly colored blanket surround by a circle of chairs at McCarren Park, Williamsburg, Brooklyn and brought amplified iPhones on which they have downloaded touchscreen drum and bongo applications.
As explained by M.River of MTAA “The main objective of the iPhone Drum Circle is to get a total stranger to do a little dance on our blanket. That and hopefully enjoying the last summer Sunday in the park this year for an hour.”

http://tinjail.com/ipdc/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mriver/sets/72157622295990595/ (photos)
http://mtaa.net/video/iPDC_h264_VGA.clip02.mov (video .mov)

Dutch designer Maarten Baas‘ Real Time Analog Digital Clock, a movie in which a performer replicates a digital clock by painting over and wiping clean panels on a glass screen (the actual video runs for 24 hours).

http://www.maartenbaas.com

A crew of Freeborders took over a San Francisco street to create a real life video game. Which game? Tetris of course. The tetraminoes are giant neon structures set up over every skater’s head.

http://www.freebord.com

Latent Figure Protocol, by Paul Vanouse, is a media installation that uses DNA samples to create emergent representational images. The installation includes a live science experiment, the result of which is videotaped and repeated for the duration of the gallery exhibit. Employing a reactive gel and electrical current, Latent Figure Protocol produces images that relate directly to the DNA samples used. Each performance lasts approximately one hour, during which time audience members see the image slowly emerge.

http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~pv28/electart.html

Donkijote.org, the winning entry of the open competition Digital_LAB 2009 (curated by Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana), is an analogue/digital project that will gather data using altogether innovative techniques during four journeys taken by the artist Cristian Bettini a.k.a. P.ankh and the donkey Minuto through different areas of Asturias.The donkey will operate as a living interface equipped with digital hardware such as a GPS, a mobile Internet connection, a computer, a camera and a video camera with which it will create a memory of Asturias, producing and collecting information, re-mapping the territory and geo-categorising knowledge. The rules of the journey are determined by the natural rhythm of the donkey’s pace, giving everything that enters into our perception a measure of human attention.
The people that cross their paths, as well as Internet users, will participate in the project by providing advice and suggestions, contributing to the evolution of the project and the enrichment of the audiovisual and anthropological patrimony of Asturias. The travellers will return to LABoral after each journey where they will carry out activities using the material they have collected. In this way, the exhibition, located in the gallery Platform 1 of LABoral, will evolve and grow throughout the length of the journey and the advancement of its digital representation, connecting virtuality to reality in an indissoluble way.

http://www.donkijote.org
http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org

Public Avatar, by Martin Bricelj, is a project documenting the relationship between virtual reality and our perceptions of self and society. This installation will allow a global audience to explore real-world locations remotely, and to interact with objects and people in those locations through real-time control of a human test subject. As digital and physical worlds collide, the boundaries between self and other, reality and simulation are constantly challenged and redefined.
Public Avatar will be available online on special events during the year. The dates and times will be announced online. During these events, users will be able to login at www.public-avatar.com. Each logged in user will be placed in a queue and wait for his turn, when he/ she will be able to give simple instructions (such as ‘Turn’+’Left’, ‘SAY’+’hello’ etc) to the avatar for a limited timed period. Users will be able to see and hear what Public Avatar sees and hears via live video stream.

Upcoming performance: 12.- 13. September 2009 MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Paraflows Festival- Saturday 8PM

http://www.public-avatar.com
http://www.martinbricelj.com

ATOM is a performance for a matrix of 64 gas balloons, lights, and sound. A room is filled with deep, evolving noises from a four-channel sound system. An eight-by-eight array of white, self-illuminated spheres floats in space like the atoms of a complex molecule. Through variable positioning and illumination of each atom, a dynamic display sculpture comes into being, composed of physical objects, patterns of light, and synchronous rhythmic and textural sonic events. Change, sound, and movement converge into a larger form.
The height of the helium balloons is adjusted with a computer-controlled cable, whilst the internal illumination is accomplished using dimmable super-bright LEDs, creating a pixel in a warped 8×8 spatial matrix.
The sonic events, the patterns of light, and the movement of the balloons are manipulated in real time as a 45-60 minute-long performance.
ATOM is a performance by Monolake and Christopher Bauder

http://www.electricmoons.com/indexAtom.htm

Body Paint by Mehmet Akten is an interactive installation and performance allowing users to paint on a virtual canvas with their body, interpreting gestures and dance into evolving compositions. Custom software analyzes live feed from infra-red cameras in real-time, and converts shape and motion into colors, drips and brush-strokes. The software was written in C++ using the open-source toolkit openFrameworks and computer vision library openCV.
The installation is designed to work with any number of people and is scalable to cover small or large areas. The interaction is very simple – movement creates paint. Hidden in the simplicity, are many layers of subtle details. Different aspects of the motion – size, speed, acceleration, curvature, distance all have an effect on the outcome – strokes, splashes, drips, spirals – and is left up to the users to play and discover.

www.memo.tv/body_paint

Video-documentation of a performance piece by Holly Lester.  The work, inspired by the 1969 Moorman/Paik collaboration “TV Bra for Living Sculpture”, was part of the Digital Art Area Show at the SOFA Gallery (Indiana University, Bloomington, IN).

http://www.indiana.edu/~sofa

AIDS-3D (Daniel Keller b. 1986, Detroit, Michigan, and Nik Kosmas b. 1985, Minneapolis, Minnesota) is a Berlin-based collective whose work touches on both technological utopianism and digital kitsch. Their installations, performances, and Internet-based work use these themes to flippantly engage with the unmet promises of the twentieth century: religious enlightenment, sexual liberation, artistic freedom, and human progress through technological advancement.

http://aids-3d.com
http://aids-3d.com/jpegs.html

From 28th to 31st of May 2009, at Brancaleone in Rome, will take place the seventh edition of LPM – Live Performers Meeting: International encounter of live video performers, visual artists and vj meeting, dedicated to live video performances.
The Rome 2008 edition, followed in September by a special mexican edition, registered the partecipation of 257 artists from: Algeria, Argentina, Austria, France, Germany, Japan, Guatemala, UK, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Hungary. 142 shows and performances gave life to the 900 square meters of the Macello IV – Mattatoio di Testaccio, setup during the four days with 13 beamers and screens.

This edition will take place in brand-new exclusive location, the historical Brancaleone. Its spaces perfectly fit the needs of the Meeting, which during this years has definetely enlarged its range of contents, artists and audience.
LPM will again use its 4-day formula, creating a unique and unforgettable event, which every year grants a program full of workshops and showcases of projects, softwares and brand-new products.

LPM is not a festival, it is an opportunity of meeting to get a glimpse of what visual-artists are creating or, even better, what they could create. Therefore, and in order to allow the many interesting artists to perform, the maximum length of a performance is 30 minutes.

More infos: http://lpm.flyer.it