In this television segment from the 1970s Canadian show Arts '74, artist Evelyn Roth discusses her work in textiles. In the first clip, she shows how she uses videotape as a material for crocheted wearable sculptures (including one which fastens the viewer to a television set) and even a car cozy. Roth's costumes reminded me of those in Forcefield's videos, and her interiors echo a bit with some of Donna Huanca's stage installations and Jacqueline Gordon's Dream Blankets. Neat!
Elastic Youth: Interpreting the Scrunchie Video
In case you missed November's Elastic Youth: Interpreting the Scrunchie lecture by David Riley, organized by DIS Magazine, videos of the event are now online. The lecture comprised part of the programming for the exhibition Free.
NY Art Book Fair 2010
(from the studio alabaster booth)
Printed Matter's annual contemporary art book extravaganza The NY Art Book Fair opened last night, and I dropped by today to take some shots of the festivities for the blog. Easily one of my favorite yearly art events in New York, the fair hosts an overwhelming amount of booths, lectures, screenings, performances, and more by 200+ participating independent publishers, booksellers, zinesters, and artists. The fair is at PS1 in Long Island City, it's free, and it will be open today until 7pm, Saturday from 11am-7pm, and on Sunday from 11am-5pm. Also, be sure to scroll down to the end of this post for a round-up of media art and digital culture-related highlights.
(Dispatch did another version of this project at No Soul For Sale at the Tate Modern, which we covered on Rhizome, here.)
Homebrew Electronics
I met with sisters Sarah and Lara Grant of Felted Signal Processing the other week at their Brooklyn apartment. Felted Signal Processing is an ongoing project, which came out of their individual research as graduate students in NYU’s ITP program. Sarah entered the program to further her skills in new media and Lara went to learn how to program, play with hardware and generally learn the electronic side to apply to her interactive fashion. Now graduated, they have teamed together up in their Felted Signal Processing project, which allows them to explore their joint passion for soft circuitry and wearable technology. Together, they build colorful, handmade felt interfaces that allow users to manipulate sound through physical interaction such as pulling, scrunching or stroking. Most of their interfaces are built to output sound, but they are also interested in the development of new materials and techniques for fabricating soft sensors for interfaces that can be hooked up to a variety of outputs. Lara has been felting for 7 years, and they explained that felt is their “dream medium.” Sarah was the first of the two to apply the medium to soft circuitry; the name “Felted Signal Processing” actually came from her thesis, where she hacked a guitar pedal and integrated conductive felt into the circuit, letting users squeeze and scrunch the material in order to literally shape sound. Once Lara embarked on her thesis, she chose to develop a skill set of techniques to create and control variable resistance in soft circuitry. Sarah, a programmer with a background in new media art and a long standing interest in sound, focuses on the software and hardware side of their projects while Lara, who spent years working in fashion and textiles with an emphasis in conceptual ...
Fold Loud (2007) - JooYoun Paek
Fold Loud is a (de)constructing musical play interface that uses origami paper-folding techniques and ritualistic Taoist principles to give users a sense of slow, soothing relaxation.
Fold Loud interconnects ancient traditions and modern technology by combining origami, vocal sound and interactive techniques. Unlike mainstream technology intended for fast-paced life, Fold Loud is healing, recovering and balancing.
Playing Fold Loud involves folding origami shapes to create soothing harmonic vocal sounds. Each fold is assigned to a different human vocal sound so that combinations of folds create harmonies. Users can fold multiple Fold Loud sheets together to produce a chorus of voices. Opened circuits made out of conductive fabric are visibly stitched onto the sheets of paper which creates a meta-technological aesthetic. When the sheets are folded along crease lines, a circuit is closed like a switch. Thus, the interface guides participants to use repetitive delicate hand gestures such as flipping, pushing and creasing. Fold Loud invites users to slow down and reflect on different physical senses by crafting paper into both geometric origami objects and harmonic music.
PARTY FOOD (2006-Ongoing) - Joseph Gillette
[Stills from various episodes of PARTY FOOD.]
PARTY FOOD is a multi-dimensional art project that began as a few drawings and short stories in 2006. What followed has become a blend of performance, installation, and media that cannot be defined but through experience.
Knitoscope Testimonies (2006) - Cat Mazza
Knitoscope Testimonies is the first web based video using "Knitoscope" software, a program that translates digital video into a knitted animation. Knitoscope is a moving image offshoot of microRevolt's freeware knitPro. Knitoscope imports streaming video, lowers the resolution, and then generates a stitch that correspondes with the pixels color. The title "Knitoscope" is based on Edison's early animation technology the kinetoscope, which was a "coin operated peep show machine…watched through a magnifying lens". The "Testimonies" in this piece are from various professionals who work against sweatshop labor.
Google Tea Towels (2007) - Thomson & Craighead
[Source: Arc Projects Flickr]
A beautifully crafted set of four tea towels sporting a series of authentic search engine results returned to a user when the criteria, 'Please Help Me', 'Is Anybody there?', 'Please listen to me' and, 'Can you hear me?' were entered into the search field, while using Google in Netscape 4.7 on Mac OS 9.2 or Netscape 6 on Windows 98.
Call for Submissions:
IEEE VISAP'15 / Data Improvisations / Call for Papers and Artworks
Posted by Angus Forbes
Edwin VanGorder