___ lowstandart

.doc update, Action Research workshop & link.age

walter langelaar — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:38:57 GMT

(but first off a sneak preview at two upcoming projects, clicky-clicky here and here)

got word from David that documentation of the recent Games Lab festival is up. Check out the video below and their site!

UCLA Game Art Festival 2012 from UCLA Game Lab on Vimeo.

... and working towards the last events i'm doing at WORM this year, with a good deal coming up this Saturday: join in for the very awesome 'Action Research' workshop with Markus Hafner and get in to the evening event at WORM for FREE!!!! enjoy moddr_'s last workshop for now combined with one of the last decent gigs at WORM for the coming time..

as usual you can find more info via http://moddr.net/,
and also keep an eye out for the upcoming multiplayer Indie game tournaments with added chiptune frenzy late November - more info on that one here soon!

also updated some links on the side here to reflect my posts/work at WORM better, and the MDMA link again points to where it should @PZI...

[a]typical week

walter langelaar — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:33:17 GMT

again a rather crammed update of sorts, surely in turbulent times, but plenty good stuff going on.

Last week did my first EWIDS project (part of the COMMIT research initiative) workshop at the excellent D-CIS Lab, with talks by Nanda Weijermans and Claudine Conrado among others.

Sideways related, i'm working on a new project with Bureau M.E.S.T for Rotterdam Open Data in which we're mapping vacant buildings and property in the city of Rotterdam. Looking at these datasets for days now is kind of like a dream come true thinking back on Kongsi days.... ;)

With this project i'm also teaching a class of CMI students on working with CKAN, the Open Data Store and how to rip things in Fusion Tables and some maps geekery.

More awesomeness from our friends at Force of Freedom and Snijlab, in the context of also below mentioned LGRU research commisions; check out the up and coming Partsba.se project and the recent workshop clip on that. With Snijlab we're working on a prototype for a new, small format/low-cost DIY OpenHardware lasercutter - with fully open design docs and again a workshop series to go along with it...
Check out their initial, large format build via here

Keep an eye out for a new project in the aftermath of Web2.0SuicideMachine craze, made over summer with moddr_residents Owen Mundy and Tim Schwartz, and lastly here's a snap of an actual Aram Bartholl i had standing around - now in the bedroom as commode_dust :)
(cheers Aram)

LGRU Abstracting Craft: Federated Publishing

walter langelaar — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:50:39 GMT

here's an outline for the upcoming research meeting at WORM of the 'Libre Graphics Research Unit', which I am organizing in collaboration with the excellent FLOSS Manuals.

We comprised a programme of lectures, project presentations and writing sessions revolving around the theme of 'Federated Publishing', with guests including Nuraini Juliastuti, Marcell Mars, Sacha van Geffen, Mick Fuzz and Eric Kluitenberg + a netlabel presentation of Panospria with scant intone + freida abtan + martijn comes + ∆D∆E∆W∆ + special guests: ike yard

please find more info via http://worm.org,

and/or have a read below:

"Federated publishing takes all of the concepts of ease of online book
production, collaboration, and reuse - and applies them to a new
networked model of publishing.

Federation is not new to the web, Email is a federated system - it
doesn't matter where you have your email account you can still
communicate with other people who have email accounts elsewhere. However
federation of this kind is not the architecture of choice for
monopolistic social network enterprises like Facebook. Facebook will not
enable you to install your own Facebook for your business or school, nor
does it enable communication between users on Facebook and users on
other social networks.

We want a federated architecture for online book production and
publishing. Anyone should be able to set up their own online book
production/publishing service and share books with other book
production/publishing networks. Enabling anyone to reuse any book, anywhere.

Federated Publishing supports traditional, established book production
techniques while fueling radically different approaches. To achieve
healthy Federated Publishing on the web 4 key elements need to be built up:

* Free content
* Federated book production platforms
* People participating
* Economic models
There is currently not a prolific exploration of this model. Federated
Publishing is currently only illustrated, I believe, by FLOSS Manuals.
In FLOSS Manuals anyone can clone or migrate a book to another platform,
reuse and change the book without permission, and publish it wherever
they like. This is Federated Publishing.

Federated Publishing was anticipated by this astonishing passage from
Marshall McLuhan ("Predicting Communication via the Internet (1966)",
interview with Robert Fulford, May 8, 1966, on CBC’s This Hour Has Seven
Days):

"Instead of going out and buying a packaged book of which there have
been five thousand copies printed, you will go to the telephone,
describe your interests, your needs, your problems’ and they at once
Xerox with the help of computers from libraries all over the world, all
the latest material for you personally, not as something to be put out
on a bookshelf. They send you the package as a direct personal service.
This is where we’re heading under electronic conditions. Products
increasingly are becoming services."
This passage is usually quoted as a prophesy of the Internet to come.
However it is not a vision of the Internet, but a vision of the book and
Federated Publishing. An open network of book production platforms
connecting people and books.

In contrast proprietary publishing dominates the search for new
distribution formats and economic models, reward systems for authors and
others, and fuels an unwillingness to make content interoperable on a
technical, legal, or social cultural level. It was this context McLuhan
imagined we were escaping. Federated Publishing provides this mechanism."

in LA: 2012 UCLA GAME ART Festival

walter langelaar — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:38:25 GMT

i'm in it!

DOUBLE TAKE @Blaak10

walter langelaar — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:29:23 GMT

During DEAF 2012, BLAAK10 Gallery & Store exhibits the work of the following alumni of the Willem de Kooning Academy;

Birgit Bachler
Walter Langelaar
Olivier Otten a.k.a. Selfcontrolfreak
Jonas Vorwerk
Leonie Urff- In collaboration with Anja Hertenberger, Ricardo O’Nascimento and Meg Grant from the eTextiles Workspace group

In DOUBLE TAKE these artists paraphrase analogue forms of media with a digital attitude in order to provoke surprising experiences. Some of them let the analogue and digital forms merge where others let them meet in the unknown.

The exhibition is designed by Bowie Barbiers, Daphne Rijkoort, and Nikki Spil, second year Spatial Design students.

Together with BLAAK10 they would like to invite you to take another look at some of Willem de Kooning’s most talented alumni.

The Dutch Electronic Art Festival 2012| The Power of Things, May 17- June 3.For more information DEAF 2012.

DOUBLE TAKE
Opening: Thursday May 3 2012, 17-20 hrs
Exhibition: Friday May 4 - May 20 2012

BLAAK10 Gallery & Store
Witte de Withstraat 7a
3012 BK Rotterdam
Opening hours: Tue till Fri 11-18hrs / Sat – Sun 13-17hrs

trashed bin

walter langelaar — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:16:58 GMT

oww happy daze

walter langelaar — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:49:42 GMT

pretty much an epic night which started out at the 'ouwe lullen' punkweekend @WORM with old tyme heroes De Kift, Diana Ozon and G.W. Sok among others (and fsckin'amazing new mural by Hugo Kaagman!), to then head off to meet old friends at the new Rialto bar - which is kind of a continuation of the Club Attent situation we ran here, also in deep south Charlois ;)

got a ride /home from a very charming young lady, check out these wheels....

current&upcoming events December 2011

walter langelaar — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:57:33 GMT

the 'Art of Hacking' show at NIMK just ended, where i compiled the moddr_ contribution dubbed "Subroutines", which included works by Birgit Bachler, Tim Schwartz, Kim Asendorf, Loud Objects, Philipp W. Teister, Travis Goodspeed, Wim van Eck and Dennis de Bel,

and also I invited Dennis to do a residency to work on a new piece in our space in Vienna's MQW, certainly one of the best things we've seen there so far, check out the video below:

still on is the 'Space Invaders' show at Nikolaj in Copenhagen, where you can find me again in January for the Nordic Game Jam,

but first up some stuff i'm organizing at the very awesome new WORM currently; the first events in a series of the 'Libre Graphics Research Unit', or LGRU for short.

check out our Call for Entries, the FREE! programme for Friday, and the PARTY! on Saturday ;)

as you see...

walter langelaar — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:35:14 GMT

there's a 'slight' discrepancy in date of posts above and below; pretty much the result of an overflowd schedule, many new projects, moving between studios and traveling the world like a deranged salesperson.

Some steps can be retraced by clicking on the following image:

Roll Yr Own workshop at UCLA DMA!!!

walter langelaar — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:53:29 GMT

twas here

in .ZA

walter langelaar — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:44:27 GMT

many thanks to Doung & Rike @ DALA for an awesome and inspiring time.

meanwhile, in ...

walter langelaar — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:34:51 GMT

Amsterdam at the moment, working in the Media City project at NIMk, thought i'd take a few minutes for some updates here:

A lot of stuff happened since the SuicideMachine's release, busy times indeed. The project recently got nominated for the 'Digital Communities' [sic!] award in the Ars Electronica festival, we're preparing a publication and open source release, and there's numerous talks and exhibitions of the work coming up, so watch out for that.

Last month (feb) there was the Gamezone festival in Antwerp, courtesy of Villanella, where i organised part of the exhibition related to videogame art. Some shots of that are here, and many thanks to all the artists who participated!

We'll have some new additions to the work in our exhibition space in Vienna, that's here, where now still an 'offline' exhib model of the SuicideMachine is presented - next week we'll add the great Mobile Broadcasting Unit by the VIE branch of the Graffiti Research Lab - and surely we'll take it out for a spin or two in month's ahead...
Also on June 8th we'll be opening a new show with, among others, a new site-specific work by Damian Stewart, possibly a small workshop and tunes by Robotcowboy!

In Rotterdam there's two 'FOO_bar's' coming up; one focussing on live performance and dance combined with realtime audiovisual's, where our current Artist in Residence Marie-Hélène Parant will show her work EXTASE, and there'll be some talk/discussion and several other works on show - that's April 18th at WORM.
The next one will be on May 7th, and will feature the amazing Duracell, Perrine Bailleux, AiR Philip Lammer and a grrl oriented workshop by Stefanie Wuschitz + more!

On May 1st the exhibition 'CECI N'EST PAS UN CASINO' will open at Casino Luxembourg, where i'm showing nOtbOt.
Other confirmed exhibitions later this year include new site-specific work at the Melkweg, a new iteration/derivate of nOtbOt in a show at NIMk, and a larger exhibition showcasing moddr_ + side-programming at iMAL in Brussels...

Web2.0 Suicide Machine now online!

walter langelaar — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:00:45 GMT

Tired of your Social Network?

Liberate yourself and your 'friends' with a web2.0 suicide!
The Web2.0 Suicide Machine lets you effectively delete all your energy
sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and
completely do away with your web2.0 alterego. The machine is developed in
the moddr_lab at WORM (Rotterdam), and serves as a metaphor for the
http://suicidemachine.org website which moddr_ hosts; the belly of the
beast where the web2.0 suicide-scripts are maintained...

Our services currently run with Facebook.com, Myspace.com and LinkedIn.com;
simply enter your username and password for the required service, and our
machine will systematically login to your account, change your profile
picture, and then one by one delete all of your friends.

For more specific information on the Web2.0 Suicide Machine please have a
look at the videotour and FAQ on http://suicidemachine.org

'unfriending' has never been this easy,

Commit NOW!

http://suicidemachine.org
http://wormweb.nl
http://moddr.net

libs/convert.h:206 assertion failure :: NetRadiant

walter langelaar — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:13:12 GMT

made a small fix for the Netradiant package for *nixes, after a recurring "assertion failure" bug on machines with an Intel graphics board - so if your 'radiant.x86' fails to start with a message like so:

libs/convert.h:206
assertion failure: decode: invalid character: AE

you might wanna try the binary thats here instead. Questions and comments via here
.

year's end...

walter langelaar — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:54:38 GMT

opening an exhibition space in the MQ in Vienna with moddr_ and WORM (i'm there from 9th till 14th of november btw!), first show holds new work by JODI - workshops @ moddr_ by TagTool crew, Derek Holzer, HOTGLUE and Julian Oliver - showing work at TENT. till end of November - and then off to Berlin to spend the holidays with old and new friends, and of course 26C3 !!!

presentation IABR : November 6th @ NAI

walter langelaar — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:46:11 GMT

i'm giving a presentation on my work and other activities at the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, November 6th - 20.20 at the NAI.
Since i don't really do slideshow-style presentations, i'm making a Pecha Kucha Bot ;)

Nacht van de Geschiedenis

walter langelaar — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:26:24 GMT

tonight i'm showing an installation at the 'Nacht van de Geschiedenis' in the lovely hotel Krasnapolsky, it's a shoot-em-up rendition of the famous wintergarden in the hotel, pic bleow:

オフに日本へ!!!

walter langelaar — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:27:37 GMT

coming weeks i'll be in Japan, first in and around Tokyo where i'll give a talk at the excellent Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory and to meet up with Alvaro...

... after that i'll head over to Yokohama with the 5uper.net crew for the Japanese edition of the CodedCultures festival. I'll be showing work and giving a presentation at the YCC, there's a symposium at the Tokyo Art Uni and there's one of the famous minimal tokyo nights in UNIT.

Mediated Remains by Josephine Bosma

walter langelaar — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:21:22 GMT

excerpt below partly on my 'TODO' work:

Mediated_Remains: hidden bits of ourselves
*
The following text is an excerpt from Josephine Bosma's essay 'Mediated Remains: hidden bits of ourselves', june 2007.
*

Defragging Culture

There are also other trails through the static. The digital terrain is layered, logical, but 'flexible'. We create distinctions and rules in this environment that are by no means demanded by its structure. We tend to disregard the importance of what we choose to leave out (and what we can only hide from sight). As we develop our physical selves in this further mediated environment (as in Katherine Hayles' posthuman) we accumulate a huge amount of technological and cultural debris in our trail, which is just as telling about us as our 'official', neatly raked path is. In the digital age the amount of hastily discarded trash and obscured technological traces has grown exponentially.
This explosion of technical, cultural and social traces might be a nightmare for authorities, but they offer a radically fertile ground for all kinds of explorations. The fecundity of our current media environment is almost poisonous in its strength. It is because of this that we witness an explosion of all kinds of play with existing digital structures (like SecondLife, Google or social software such as MySpace). Artists and designers are tapping into the boiling sources of our information flows and they find a huge amount of superfluous, hidden, 'cached', filtered, forgotten or trashed material to toy with. This is the new wealth: a simultaneous, indistinguishable production of culture and cultural sources.

In 1998 the american artist Perry Hoberman presented an installation called 'Systems Maintenance' at the Rotterdam based institution for unstable media V2. In this installation the audience was invited to allign a set of furniture in physical space with its copy in digital space, the result of which could be followed realtime via a projection on the wall. This deceivingly simple work revealed its magic when interacting with it. It turned out to be very, very difficult to allign the apparently identical objects in the two different worlds. Frustration and despair grew by the second. 'Systems Maintenance' was a brilliant combination of poetic and conceptual gestures. I was reminded of it when seeing Walter Langelaar's project 'TODO (Tangled_Object_Description_Overview)'. Langelaar uses 3D object material from Second Life which is 'mixed' with a representation of the WORM building (in which the Media Design graduation show takes place) taken from Google Earth. The new virtual structure that is created this way is then 'collided' with the original building. Differences are emphasized by adding them to the original building physically, by "perforating" the real space with virtual architecture. Whereas Hoberman lets the audience actively experience the awkward split between physicality and activity in real and virtual environments, Langelaar chooses a more subtle approach.
Much like Jan Robert Leegte, just like Langelaar originally a sculptor, he creates a sense of estrangement by literally placing virtual objects outside of the digital grids into the real world. If Hoberman is skeptical of our new environments, Leegte and Langelaar experience it much more as a room for play and surprise.

The mathematical structure of the internet, despite the human landscape created in it, simply begs for systematic and generative art practices to explore it. Like traditional sculptors will see a lump of clay or wood and feel the possible structures inside of it, artists working with the net see connections and metastructures most of us are blind to.

shaded >> [paralevel.real.shader] @ TENT.rotterdam

walter langelaar — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:24:04 GMT

gogbot09 >> atompunk...

walter langelaar — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:12:51 GMT

3 DVD's playing selected work gathered from different sources, while the machine on the left runs a modded Call_Of_Duty4 showing the Chernobyl/Pripyat area...

i must say it was real great to put up a show in a shipping container ;)
thnx kees!

starting 090909

walter langelaar — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:34:57 GMT

new works in BLURRR at TENT. Rotterdam, with Nina Boas, Iddo Drevijn, Sophie Krier, Walter Langelaar, Gyz La RiviÈre, Strange Attractors, Studio Spass, EsmÉ Valk and Volksrekorders - till 15th of November.

then on Thursday 100909 i'm showing a collage type installation at the GOGBOT festival in Enschede, with work by several artists and authors, revolving around a cultural thread inspired Andrei Tarkovsky’s "Stalker", to a more contemporary rendition in form of the videogame "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" and the ensuing "fan fiction" or fanfic's...
come look me up, i'm playing curator in a shipping container on market square ;)

then the next day (110909, yes it's another crazy week) i'm showing some /tmp projections outside in De Wereld van Witte de With:

"The World of Witte de With ushers in the cultural season of the dozens of leading arts centres and galleries located on the 'cultural axis': the Witte de Withstraat and the Museumpark of Rotterdam."

paralevel++

walter langelaar — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:37:37 GMT

Oscar just sent a link to a post on his blog, including the video below, showing the final moments of configuring the latest paralevel at Arteleku...

Basically what you see is the reddish cube controlling a custom gamelevel (projected on the ceiling) via camera tracking (using the excellent Gamuza), and additional navigation done via a 3D accelerometer (hacked Nintendo Nunchuck + Xbee's). I'll post some more detailed info on the build process and tech setup soon...

@Arteleku!

walter langelaar — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:26:57 GMT

currently working on a new project at the excellent Arteleku, in the Interactivos?'09 entitled "Mixed episodes in Hybrid Bases" ::

"Mixed/Hybrids – Episodes/Bases. Such transversal, permissive concepts allow us to prepare alliances and exchanges where the poetries of architectural spaces and of any situation. They provoke explorations and relations between what seems not to have a simulated purpose and those small minuscule narrative derivations between consumers and users. They provoke episodes, mixed chapters in hybrid bases stimulating a combination of devices and forces between what is intervened and the intervener, an interactive transit, a fugitive reading between what is contingent and its container."

Moises Mañas & David Cuartielles

coded cultures footage

walter langelaar — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:21:21 GMT

with a short bit on the new nOtbOt ::

blabla

via TAGR.TV

OA_NIMK2

walter langelaar — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:57:50 GMT

here's some shots from my work at the 'Fluid Architectures' show in the NiMK, a more detailed desciption is here, and a video will be up soon..

(camera + me on camera)

at the beach...

walter langelaar — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:00:16 GMT

yesterday i went to an amazing place to visit the beautiful MaaKali, which turned into a truly inspiring experience. The place is called Villa Ockenburgh and it's an old hotel-slash-youth-hostel which is now run by StichtingZ. The main building houses several artist studios and projectspaces, surrounded by gardens and a park, proper estate style...
oh yeah and it's at the beach too ;)

Next to the villa there's this excellent building by Frank van Klingeren which totally reminded me of my old academy, AKI.
The building has been empty for several years now and for some reason got completely trashed by dutch ME idiots, who apparently needed some target practice, and it then got further vandalized by local youth...

(solid steel trying to blend in...)

Since i'm in for a small 'retraite', i might just hang out there for some weeks come summer to work on projects, aaaahhhh

two shows

walter langelaar — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:31:35 GMT

quite a crazy week; flew off to Vienna last Tuesday to setup for the opening of the CodedCultures festival and symposium, first time showing the new nOtbOt hardware and casing (pic below). Press conference and opening on Wednesday, great times, and then flew back to Amsterdam Thursday evening to setup for the Fluid Architectures show at NIMK on Friday. Setting up there was no less problematic than usual, ended up recoding much of the work on the day itself (which turned out real nice actually) and more on that show soon...

the Coded Cultures exhibition is on till the 7th of June, the show at NIMK till 16th of August.

more talk

walter langelaar — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:54:23 GMT

last week we presented one of our upcoming projects, tentatively dubbed the 'Web2.0 Suicide Machine!', at the Urban Studio Symposium for the Hogeschool Rotterdam.

Tomorrow, Friday 15th, I'll be presenting a new nOtbOt and giving a short talk at the 'Digital Material' book launch, at Studio T in Utrecht.

dorkbot#7

walter langelaar — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:55:20 GMT

giving a talk tonight at Dorkbot Vienna, showing off the new hardware base for nOtbOt, which is kind of a project in it's own - but more on that later, and a brief intro on moddr_ and previous works.
Kindly hosted by monochrom and Coded Cultures, around 19.00 at Metalab.

LiWoLi09

walter langelaar — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:21:26 GMT

just got back from the LinuxWochen in Linz, which was quite amazing...

>> spot TUX ;)

went over to do the VGA Tester workshop with Arjan Scherpenisse, which was really great!
Despite a huge hangover from the great party the night before at OK, I still managed to cram this moddr_ logo thingie together like below - the circuit generating the image is in the lower-right corner ::

cheers to Arjan and workshop participants, and all the wonderful people i met over the last few days - and thnx dan for letting me crash ;)

résidence

walter langelaar — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:55:57 GMT

during the month of April I'll be resident artist at the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, courtesy of Quartier21.

I'll be working on several projects and events leading up to the CodedCultures festival, so drop me a line if you're around or maybe see you there!

/tmp/411/*

walter langelaar — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:52:47 GMT

since my posting 'ere seem to stay somewhat sporadic anyhow, here's a whole string of new stuff i'm doing in coming times...

CODED CULTURES is a binational festival (Austria – Japan) in the year 2009 to explore new artistic practices and creative ability profiles within media integrated project-cultures and digital media related art, focusing on Japan and Europe.

I'll be showing work in the exhibition which takes place at Quartier21 in the Museumsquartier of Vienna - from 27th of may till 8th of june - and then later in the year in Yokohama(!!!) from 14th till 18th of October.

Also starting in May is an exhibition at the 'Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts' (or NIMK for short) on fluid architecture in which i'll be making a new site-specific work for the institute, and also i'll be giving a workshop.
The plan for this is to combine tech developments made in the nOtbOt and [[recursive]descent] projects into a new piece which deals with the NIMK building and context itself - let's say the working title is 'The Institute and it's Double'..

This show also features the excellent Pablo Valbuena and Mark Napier, and is curated by Susanne Jaschko.

On the 15th of May i'll be showing nOtbOt at a book presentation for the University of Amsterdam, i'll also be giving a talk there on my 'access' to digital media as an artist - which will probably entail me giving many kudos to all the wonderful opensource projects i've been able to base my work on.

For the 2009 edition of the GOGBOT festival i've been invited as a guest-curator for a videogame oriented part of the exhibition, where i'll also be showing new work made within the Fallout game series - that should fit nicely with the 'Atompunk'(?) theme i guess ;)

more on that here by BruceS...

then somewhere in the meantime some good friends and I are setting up a new studio+gallereh/parteh facility in Berlin someplace (so watch out if u see me crashin into stuff over there again), doing a lot of cool stuff with moddr_ at WORM, and re-working q3aSocialLadder with some Chlorgeschlecht tunes!

and surely there's more to add... soonish.

Transmediale@C-BASE and xxxxx@CTM09

walter langelaar — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:58:18 GMT

feels like i'm spending more time in Berlin than in Rotterdam lately ;)
from the 23rd on, for a full week i'll be participating in a daytime program of events which under the theme 'STRUCTURES – Backing-up Independent Audio-visual Cultures' will address both theoretical and practical aspects of today’s independent and experimental music production at the intersections of pop and sound & media arts.

More specifically, you can find us at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien - where xxxxx hosts an experimental nine day structure, widening the scope of construction and constructivism to embrace the social and economic structures of production and performance. Public interface is to be made explicit, inviting participation, visit and conversation.

Works produced during this week will be on show in the Bethanien gallery during the month of February.

Then on 30/31 of January i'll be showing several works/installations at C-BASE, Berlin's famous hacker space.

From their site:
"Join us for two days with a selection of installations, video-screenings, virtual worlds, electronic-noise performances and DJ-VJ live shows. We prepare for a battle with VJ Shithead, VJ Sandwoman, the Berlin-based noisecore live act Chlorgeschlecht, video artist Jan van Nuenen and game hacker Walter Langelaar.

If we survive the first night, we expect more to explore with Poppekastkrakers with electrotheatro, Paul Klotz with whitelight LED art, C-men micromusic visuals, Unyx, Via Oral’s nouveau hippie dada, Reinier Kranendonk with his running meat machine and more state-of-the-art computer- and web-technology by Eelco Wagenaar & Arjan Scherpenisse, Sander Veenhof, Angelo Vermeulen, Danja Vasiliev…"

DADAMACHINIMA @ PLANETART -- till March 1st

walter langelaar — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:35:44 GMT

DADAMACHINIMA is an exhibition I curated for Planetart on the topic of 'avant-garde videogame modification', showing great work by some of my favourite people in this particular field...
hell, it even holds a brand spankin' new JODI, so if yr around Amsterdam go check it out!

artists on show include Aram Bartholl, Julian Oliver, JODI, Gottfried Haider, Ludic Society, Joan Leandre, Paul B. Davis, Marc van Elburg, Friedrich Kirschner Gordan Savicic and maself..

Big thanks to teh moddr_ crew and WORM for backing this up.

pirates-of-the-amazon redux

walter langelaar — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:22:36 GMT

ok, so i just came off dutch radio show Radio Online where i was asked to shed some light on the Pirates-Of-The_Amazon situation;

While being portrayed as one of the 'driving forces' behind the project and possibly even 'the author', i was asked about how the add-on actually works, how this is an artistic project, and several questions regarding Stichting Brein's response and also the response from Amazon (and their lawyers) - and the consequent take-down.

To conclude some of these things here:

Sure, i know the guys who made it. I think it is great work and believe this shows through the discussion it now generates, therefor i have supported the project and will continue to do so. This also goes for the medialab which i am a part of, and i am happy to say that we have worked with the project authors which also led us to organise and host the upcoming Artzilla.org Launch Party on the 13th.

However as far as being 'responsible' for it or even being one of the authors, i will say this: The afore mentioned anti-piracy organisation seems to conclude from a post i made to Nettime that i am the projects author, while my main purpose there was of course to advertise the event i am organising at WORM, since thats what i do... and besides that I think from looking at the stuff on this website (which is my homepage) you could conclude that i am not really into coding Firefox add-ons... not my thing really ;)

Nevertheless Brein proceeded to send me an email claiming I was the author and kindly requesting me to take the website down, accompanied by several reasons why I am, according to them, breaking the law.
This subsequently went into dutch mainstream media, which i find rather unfortunate since it presumes the 'student' to be me, while (again) i am not and furthermore i'm not even a student at PZI/MDMA at all, at least not anymore.

I won't go into the further details on this here, but basically my response to Brein director Tim Kuik was an invitation to the event on the 13th - so he can engage in the discussion there, and i certainly hope he does exactly that.
And just to say the actual take-down of the website was done by free choice of the authors after they had been contacted by Amazon lawyers, already one day after the release, so Brein really didn't have anything to do with that..

Here's a selective overview of major articles and blogposts on the topic, with also the current state of the project as it now roams the interwebz:

initial release: Torrentfreak.com posts an article with a rather suggestive title, the story also appears on digg.com, where it receives quite some attention.
The story goes crazy in the blogosphere and later also mainstream media catch on, like the Washington Post, Wired, and the New York Times - to name but a few.

In the meantime the letter from Amazon lawyers arrives and the work gets taken down; since many people complain about the site not being accessible anymore, Torrentfreak decides to mirror the .xpi file on their site, which can be found on the bottom of the original article (actually also Wired links directly to that file in their article).
Also the torrent-community decides to host the file, as it now also appears on the Pirate bay.

In the comment section on the Piratebay a discussion emerges on how to improve the add-on and plans are made to release and host a new version. Next to that, after an article on CNet, comes the (imo) most hilarious bit so far: a new add-on that 'reverses' the original 'Pirates of the Amazon' code:

"You've seen "Pirates at Amazon", now here's the reverse - adds GoogAzon-style quick Amazon results to ThePirateBay.org and Mininova.org websites. For those with an attack of Conscience (or simply impatience), here's a plugin to help you sleep at night."

you can get that one here, and to me this shows (quite elegantly i might add) that at least some people appreciate the humor of all this...

edit: as far as the current 'revision into parody' on the original site goes; i dont agree with this at all, i believe the authors/artist should stand behind what they have created - and besides that i believe the reasons to be 'scared' are largely overblown...
but thats another story.

christmas shopping anyone?

walter langelaar — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:27:40 GMT

!! EDIT: the pirates got (sort of) shut down already, however in the process of putting the site back up..
in the meantime you can also get the file and project info here !!

you also might wanna check this out

___________

go here ...

[walled garden]

walter langelaar — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:41:56 GMT

will be talking at the Walled Garden conference in Aymeric's workgroup on Future Cultural Organisations..

20/21 november - Lloyd Hotel, Amsterdam

möddr_?

walter langelaar — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:19:48 GMT

new website is up:

!BLINK!

till the 26th..

walter langelaar — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:56:37 GMT

... q3aSocialLadder is showing at Plimsoll Gallery, Tasmanian School of Art,
and nOtbOt is at Avecom, where we will also be giving a workshop next week on the 22nd... (drop me a line for more info on this, there should be some seats free)

new host, new bot, new job, new ...

walter langelaar — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:08:29 GMT

i recently switched hosting providers on a diy whim, this site now lives on a serf provided by the wonderful k0a1a.net - if you experienced trouble contacting me in the last few days it was because of the move, so shoot again..

a new version of nOtbOt will be presented at WORM as a new work by WORM T. Schippers in the 'Exposé Varié' exhibition [which is actually an ode to the work of dutch artist Wim T. Schippers]

also landed a new job at my favourite dutch academy, the AKI. I'm teaching a minor on art in public space, with a more specific focus on the blending between virtual and physical realms in this. The academy had to deal with many structural re-organisations lately, which also led to a new naming scheme for all the departments >> I'lll be working mainly in the 'autonomous3D' department, how cool is that ;)

last update here is that i got nominated for a very nice two month residency at Hangar in Barcelona...
despite being crazy busy the coming time i so hope to get this, so more soon!

nOtbOt@Avecom

walter langelaar — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:39:13 GMT

just returned from the Avecom festival/exhibition, where nOtbOt currently resides..

nice show with some interesting selections, k0a1a and yugo are also there - there's some coverage on the VirtueelPlatform site, and Keith has a good set on his flikkr..

the exhibition is on from 3rd till 26th of oktober.

q3aSocialLadder@encoding_experience, Hobart - Tasmania

walter langelaar — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:25:05 GMT

thrashmetal game-art [[q3aSocialLadder]] showing at Plimsoll Gallery, Centre for the Arts, University of Tasmania.

image by Nathan Menglef

Exhibition: 10 October - 31 October, 12:00- 17:00 daily EST.

Opening: Friday 10 October, 17:30 EST.

encoding_experience

[[recursive]descent]

walter langelaar — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:04:48 GMT

added a page for my new work which is on show at the MediaLab Prado in Madrid till oktober,
check it out here or via the sidebar..

~[current]~

walter langelaar — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:33:52 GMT

if you are around Rotterdam be sure to go down to Witte de Withstraat and check out the PZI_MDMA alumnishow at galerie Blaak10, which is on till the end of june.

on the 21st of june the Rotterdam Schouwburg area will host the Free Gaming festival; a one day event on gaming and gamers filled with activities, and there's also an art section where i be - together with ma moddr_comrades binary koala and FleshGordo...
all day from 14.00 till 23.00 - !free of charge!

at the moment i am in Madrid for the Interactivos?08 seminar and workshop, in the wonderful Medialab Prado.

[snip]
Interactivos? is a research and production platform for the creative and educational uses of technology. Its main goal is to expand on the use of electronic and software tools for artists, designers and educators, thus contributing to the development of local communities of cultural producers in this field.

Interactivos? events are a hybrid between a production workshop, a seminar and an showcase. A space for reflection, research, and collaborative work is created, in which proposals selected by an international open call are developed, completed and displayed. Theprocess is open to the public from beginning to end.

The theoretical seminar �Juegos de la visi�n� (Vision Games) does not aim to present a linear history but instead, open up for reflection several contemporary approaches that explore the meaning of images and perception thresholds in the contemporary world. It is possible however to give an overview of the ways that images have changed us.
[/snip]

more updates on my work here soon..

moddr_eve on [t]error

walter langelaar — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:30:16 GMT

moddr_

walter langelaar — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:09:45 GMT

as of this weekend teh lab is finally getting some shape and form, we're done building tables, the studio is online and only waiting now for some fancy red carpet...

look out for multiplexed_microcontrolled_led_logo's, custom home-security-sys wif python2skype, Rotterdam's first shopwindow exhibition room for geeks, and our next public event will be a night on [t]error at moddr_mother WORM.

you can find us at WillemBuytewechstraat 188 - Rotterdam [NL], or in here at http://moddr.net/

punkrockpacman, she said

walter langelaar — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:45:27 GMT

worked on another pygame modification, this time the classic Pac-Man underwent some changes for sister0's exhibition 'Resist, she said' in the AIRBASE, located in quartier21, MuseumsQuartier Vienna [AT].

the mod is based on a PyGame which can be found here (thnx for putting that back up David, and thnx for troubleshooting Andy), and you can download the modified version here - the game depends on Python and PyGame being installed, and it will run on windoze and *nix systems...

/pub/Filter67_WEB.pdf

walter langelaar — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:36:24 GMT

got a feature in ANAT's (Australian Network for Art and Technology) Filter magazine.

you can find the online version here,
thnx Melinda!

tonight@subotron!

walter langelaar — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:42:58 GMT

giving a talk at the SUBOTRON 'electric meeting' on 'custom interfaces and gender'.

We'll be in 'Raum D', the lecture room of the Quartier f�r Digitale Kultur, right at the end of the 'Electric Avenue' in quartier21 - which is located in the Museums Quartier in Vienna [AT].