CONNECTED!
Part of the LF:TK installation by Michelle Teran and Jeff Mann
Beth Coleman and Howard Goldkrand at work with Vernacular
Underwater database act by sister O
Interaktionslabor
CassisCaput
Wireless Walks
Interfacing Realities Collaborative Culture
Streaming video samples at Interfacing, March 2003
THE CONNECTED! ARCHIVE
DECEMBER 2004
LiveForm:Telekinetics – A connected social space is a picnic in the park, among other things
A LiveForm:Telekinetics Test Kitchen was installed in Theatrum Anatomicum with installations placed within public wireless hotspots throughout the cities of Amsterdam and Montreal. The Theatrum Anatomicum was used as an archive and presentation space for artist talks, guided cooking classes and movie screening. Live tele-connected events occurred within public social spaces during the two weeks. The project was therefore a multi-nodal experience, a tension between object as artefact and object within a social context.
Locations: LF:TK December installation: Theatrum Anatomicum. Connected hotspot interventions took place at cafés and home locations throughout Amsterdam ans Montreal, Canada.
SEPTEMBER 2004
Artist-in-Residency Beth Coleman and Howard Goldkrand Summer 2004 – Vernacular Music Box: sound and media installation in the Theatrum Amatomicum
The Music Box Installation from the artists Beth Coleman and Howard
Goldkrand was on show in Waag Society during the period of the 26th of
August until the 8 of September 2004. The installation was one of the
outcomes of their Waag-residency.
The sound-installation was located in the dome of the Theatrum Anatomicum,
consisting of 16 speakers hanging on a grid made from PVC-materials. The
artists designed a 16-channel surround sound system that grafted a
relationship between the physical installation of the sound system and the
Vernacular software automating it. Audio created by the Coleman and
Goldkrand could be moved around the room using the Vernacular program for
sound mixing and mapping. The speakers were made by Coleman and Goldkrand,
using found and constructed materials.
The Vernacular software enables the user to create a digital media mix in
a 3-d environment. The focus of the use of Vernacular for the Music Box
installation was sound spatialization and automation. Waag Society's Fokke
de Jong and Jan Kees van Kampen worked with the artists on the Vernacular
software to add a controller and multi-sound channel elements. Beth Coleman and Howard Goldkrand presented their work during the Artist in Residency two times for an audience in the Theatrum Anatomicum. Beth Coleman and Howard Goldkrand are New York-based artists who work together since 1995. The Rockefeller Foundation and the HGIS Cultuurfonds sponsored the residency.
APRIL 2004
Nancy Mauro-Flude – April 24-30
Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand
Nancy Mauro-Flude presented sister O media divination at switch media_
art festival pathiharn electron [supernatural] in Chiang Mai, Thailand 24-
30th April 2004.
This project was partially developed during her residency at Waag/Sensing Presence in 2003 in collaboration with Michelle Teran and Linda Dement.
Performance: Viroid Flophouse by Josephine Dorado – April 26
Location: Waag Theatrum Anatomicum
"Viroid Flophouse" is a hybrid game/performance environment created
collaboratively by de Waag Society for Old and New Media (Amsterdam, NL),
and ADaPT (Association for Dance and Performance Telematics) which
includes among others, Arizona State University (Tempe, Arizona),
Nottingham Trent University (Nottingham, UK), and Wayne State University
(Detroit, Michigan). Each site will function as a room in the "flophouse,"
in which on-site participants can interact with remote participants. The
Viroid Flophouse is an exploration of playable art in an online gaming
environment, which incorporates dance, motion tracking, streaming
technologies and telematic performance, within the common theme of "virus."
Performance: Sonnet Subterfuge by Josephine Dorado – April 10
Location: Waag Theatrum Anatomicum
"Son(net) Subterfuge" is an invitation to subvert Shakespeare's sonnets!
Interpret/sample/re-mix/re-generate > create. A collaborative project
between several institutions: de Waag Society for Old and New Media
(Amsterdam,NL), the New School University and New York University (New
York, New York), InterCollege (Nicosia, Cyprus), and Sibelius Academy's
Center for Music and Technology (Helsinki, Finland) - this effort will
consist of exchange amongst artists at each locale and will culminate in a
telematic performance at each venue. Subversion can happen as sound,
video, or movement pieces, which will then be shared and used as material
for a live performance in which the work is projected telematically to
either space to allow for a real-time collaboration and thus inviting
trans-cultural interpretations of classic literature.
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2003
Each Wednesday from 1 October until 26 November 2003, the Sentient Creatures Lectures were held in the Theatrum Anatomicum of Waag Society. In this lecture series, Waag Society presented speakers with an international reputation in the field of robotics, conciousness and communication. The complete programme as it was published can be found here.
Sentient Creatures lectures series: Graham Smith – November, 26
In the last lecture of the series, Graham Smith, host of the lecture series, spoke about his recent robotic invention Pebbles, that enables ill children to be virtually present in the classroom, and the role new media may be playing in the evolution of new technological life forms.
Sentient Creatures lectures series: Joe Davis – November, 19
Mr. Davis lecture was about his recent work with Cyborg sculptures and dna based artworks.
Sentient Creatures lectures series: Kit Gallaway and Sherrie Rabinowitz – November, 12
Ms. Rabinowitz and Mr. Gallaway lecture was about their 25 years of experimentation using communications technology and the implications for the internet generation of artists.
Sentient Creatures lectures series: Jaron Lanier – November, 5
Mr. Lanier talked about his new project called Phenotropic Computing, in which pattern recognition is used as a way of connecting components of software systems.
Catherine Richards lecture was about concepts of Post Humanism and the role this theory will play in determining our relationship to intelligent machines.
Sentient Creatures lectures series: Dick Bierman – October, 22
Prof. Bierman talked about the Global Consciousness Project
(GCP). This project aims at understanding the unexplained correlations
between global attention like what happened on Sept. 11 and the
behavior of material sensors.
Sentient Creatures lectures series: Theo Jansen – October, 15
The artist Theo Jansen uses simple materials to give birth to wind powered beach creatures. Plastic pipe and air become 'organic intelligence'. He lets his huge skeletons walk on the beach. This lecture was partly in Dutch.
Sentient Creatures lectures series: Rupert Sheldrake – October, 8
Dr. Sheldrake's lecture was about the way the mind extends beyond the brain, as described in his new book "The Sense of Being Stared At, And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind" (2003). He discussed the implications of a field theory of the mind for sentient creatures, natural and artificial.
Sentient Creatures lectures series: Norman White – October, 1
White talked about his award winning sculpture The Helpless Robot, which asks for your help as soon as you come near it. White meant this machine to be able to assess and predict human behavior. It was built from plywood, angle iron, proximity sensors, a modified 80386 computer, and custom electronics. The result is a robot that speaks French, Spanish and English. Its synthetic voice invites people to move it as they like. White made the robot between 1987 and 1996.
The lectures were live streamed on the internet.
The recorded streams can be downloaded as QuickTime movies (QuickTime Player required). Use right click, 'Save target as...' (Windows) or control click-'Download Link to Disk' (Mac) to download from the link.
SEPTEMBER 2003
Connected! presentation at ICT-Kenniscongres – September 4, 5
Anatomic Event at Next Five Minutes4 – September, 13
AUGUST 2003
sister O – August, 17
Connected! artist in residence Nancy Mauro-Flude presented the outcome of her Amsterdam residency: sister O electrik-theatrik Operation – a translocally connected session in order conjure sound light dance text rupture across the cellular network (something is rotten in the corporate body and needs to be recoded in an electrik-theatrik Operation).
This event took place inside and around Waag Society and Artspace/The Gunnery in Sydney.
sister O re-codes her-selves in an electronic theatre of Operations that exists somewhere between the physical and the virtual. By synthesizing text, sound, light, ephemeral objects, sister O investigates how the body is susceptible to various kinds of conducts. Networks will not mobilize until unspoken, subjugated knowledge´s have been brought to light from the underwater data base, and opened to the elements of an electrik-theatrik Operation.
A major part of nancy mauro-flude’s research of merging digital and analogue technologies is the form of an 'electrik-theatrik Operation' this will be realised in various stages; first it will take place in the street zone around, and inside the ‘Theatrum anatomicum’ at Waag Society for new and old Media in Amsterdam, on the 17th of August, with a station also hosted by Artspace in Sydney, Australia. This is the first series of public manifestations by sister O, which a recent Open-rehearsal was held in Colombia at the Colombo Cultural institute.
It's conception has since involved a research period at the Society for Ethno-medicine in south Colombia, at Waag Society for New and Old Media, Sensing Presence lab, where translocal meetings in a KeyWorx environment between nancy mauro-flude, Linda Dement and Michelle Teran took place. This is a DasArts: Field Work Project. Mentored by Michelle Teran.
JULY 2003
Connected! AIR – Presentation Mark Meadows – July, 15
InteraktionsLabor, Göttelborn, Germany – July, 1-14
The intention of the IKS, the cultural organization hosting the Interaktions – Labor workshop was to place artists in an abandoned industrial site (a coalmine) as part of a process to repurpose its use into a cultural space. 21 international artists from 12 countries were invited by the coordinator, Johannes Birrenger, to create interactive media installations and performances for a public presentation on 13 July. Arjen Keesmaat and Sher Doruff from Waag Society were among the participants. Additionally, Waag Society provided support for the program by contributing wirless routers and technical equipment.
JUNE 2003
Wireless Walks
Michelle Teran at Impakt Festival – June, 5-9
In "Life: a User's Manual", the city of Utrecht is a game board, where every story, every piece stands on its own, but is part of an intricate jigsaw puzzle. Both public physical spaces and private interior spaces contain traces of fragmentary personal [hi]stories tied together by an invisible network of media. How people inhabit the hidden 'image spaces', discovered by a wireless surveillance camera scanner, while at the same time inhabiting physical outdoor spaces, was revealed through the daily practice of walking during the Impakt Festival 2003. The findings of Michelle Teran's walks have been arranged on a map of Utrecht's secret transmissions.
Connected Club
Presentation by Tobi Schneidler – June, 19
CassisCaput/Helmet Heads – Berlin, London, New York, Brussels, Pincher Creek, Amsterdam – June 28, 2003
Dance new media research presentation by Nora Heilmann and Sher Doruff
Performers at six different locations (London, New York, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels and Pincher Creek, Canada) were joined through live public webcams in a synchronous choregraphic score. Performers were in psychogeographical urban spaces with simple movement phrases and postures adapted to the rhythmic counterpoint of the image refresh rates and location parameters. The performance works on multiple levels of observation. A live audience in the Waag Theatrum witnessed unison behaviours across continents and time zones, mixed with the unpredictabillty of the local dynamics which include the weather and the observers in those public spaces. The performance was streamed to an on online audience.
APRIL 2003
23+1 – Paris, New York, Amsterdam &ndash April, 26-27
An Anatomic manifestation
23 hours media purification from the propaganda war + 1 hour of silence for the shame about it. From Amsterdam, all the artists will share the same name, Anatomic. Starting at 11.00 hours Amsterdam time, they participated in a 23 hour cleansing process for the transformation of media. Each of us represented his/her own "stand", using their own media, performance, and software systems. All media were accepted and eligible for transformation. Our transformation was guided by group discussions as we worked through our process of understanding what was happening, and how to process that into a personal and new message. During these 23 hours, we extended our transformation process to other artists connecting from New York and Paris. Our output was broadcasted for 23 hours via the Anatomic site.
CIVIC Centre Symposium – Reclaiming the Right to Performance, London – April 9-16, 2003
Sher Doruff presented Waag Society's KeyWorx software
MARCH 2003
Interfacing Realities –Rotterdam, New York – March 1
Live transatlantic performance at the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival DEAF03 by artists Michelle Teran, Isabelle Jenniches, Lodewijk Loos, Eric Redlinger, Arjen Keesmaat and Daniel Vatsky.
Three artists sitting at a DEAF03 location in Rotterdam are connected with three artists in New York City. Three translocally linked pairs, three simultaneous and connected performances.
Inspired by a Surrealist game 'Parallel Stories', a word sent by performer or member of the public from a mobile phone appears simultaneously in all three performances. Each performance pair responds to this foreign text input sent via 'sms' by creating a visual story around it. Three parallel translocal exchanges within one physical space (a room in New York, the V2_ bookstore) are connected by the same word yet are unique in the visual interpretation of it. The performance is improvised and created collaboratively in real-time. The compositions are projected onto screens throughout the V2_ space.
For thorough documentation of the creative process and performance results see:
For the V2_ archive of the event see:
Interfacing Realities Collaborative Culture
Masterclass – March 3 – 7
The role of interdisciplinarity in the current arts practice was addressed in the Collaborative Culture masterclass given by Sher Doruff of Waag Society. One of four masterclasses in V2_'s Interfacing Realities series, it dealt with various aspects of cooperative mediated interplay in distributed environments. The class touched on elements of complexity theory, critical theory, p2p architectures (Just van den Broecke) and examples of artist driven projects from Sharon Daniel, Sara Diamond, Anne Nigten and Michelle Teran.
Sher Doruff was assisted by members of Anatomic and the KeyWorx team. Making Art of Databases published by V2_, details the results of the masterclass series.