(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...

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)

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."

i'm in it!

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

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....

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,

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 ;)

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:

twas here

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...

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

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
.

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 !!!

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 ;)

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:

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.

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.

more pics and video on this one soon..

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!

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."

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...

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