On July 1st at 18:00, the opening of the exhibition “Colorful Noise” by Victor Giers will take place at the Pop-Up Store in Buhlgässle.
The exhibition features “Glitch Art”. “Glitch” is a programming error, so to speak, a false statement of a logical circuit. Giers intentionally induces such errors in digital image representation to distort given images in such a way that completely new images emerge. The result is colorful, abstract textures, which are presented and offered in the form of limited art prints on high-quality synthetic paper. Also on display is Real-Time Rendering, the calculation of such images in real-time, projected on canvas. It is also possible to bring your own digital images to have them manipulated by the artist on-site. Ambient electronic music will be played. The exhibition runs until July 17th and is open daily from 10:00 to 18:00. For more information: www.victorgiers.de

We expanded the communication potentials of visually impaired participants through technical prostheses, through which they could use their bodies as light and sound instruments.
This involved a bracelet with gesture recognition of the hands, an accelerometer and gyroscope sensor, a ball to be held in the hand with gyro and magnetic field sensor, and a Kinect.
With a quadraphonic audio setup and Max/MSP, Vanessa Barrera Giralda and I created an interactive sound sphere for the blind. Andrew Quinn and Davide Santini used TouchDesigner to allow the movements of the participants to have an extended visual impact on a screen. The sound also influenced the images.
Dr. Daniel Bisig also equipped the project director Jill Scott with electronic shoes that triggered sounds of loud stomping with each performance, symbolically representing the ecological footprint 🙂
With the five participants, a dance performance was developed over the course of a week in the basement of the House of Electronic Arts Basel by the two choreographers Dominique Cardito and Tommi Zeuggin.

The entire performance in video:

Alumni. Prof. Dr. Jill Scott works as an artist and scientist with the senses.
Her wife Alumni. Prof. Marille Hahne asked me if I would like to program something in Max/MSP for a project that works inclusively for the visually impaired, exploring the senses of sight, hearing, and touch, and addressing climate change.
The result was a controller for sound control (sampling, synthesis, effects) through arm movements and hand gestures, which were captured by MYO bracelets worn by each actor and whose operation was tested.

MAX/MSP Audio Controller for six MYO bracelets, 4 audio tracks, 2 effects per track (code available upon request)

A MYO bracelet (Stock Photo)

Invitation from the House of Electronic Arts Basel:

ESKIN 5 Basel is an inclusive media art project on climate change led by the Swiss-Australian media artist Jill Scott. During a workshop phase, five scenes were developed collaboratively involving sound objects, wearable technologies, interactive graphics, and real-time computer interactions on a novel media art stage. In collaboration with five performers, two choreographers, six media artists, and two scientific advisors, a spectacular audiovisual performance has emerged that creates an emotional dialogue between the performers and the audience.

The five scenes in ESKIN 5 Basel cover the following contents: rural life, urban life, rivers, forests, and sustainable climate-conscious living. Individual information and image materials were provided by the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich and the Atmospheric Sciences Meteorology Institute for Climatology at the University of Basel. This information and personal experiences are creatively woven together by the ESKIN group into a 40-minute interactive audiovisual performance.

ESKIN aims to encourage the audience to proactively engage in the preservation of our nature and to contribute to reducing human impacts on our environment. Following the performances, there will be audience discussions with all participants.

Direction: Jill Scott

Choreography: Dominique Cardito and Tommi Zeuggin

Participants with visual impairments: Roberto Collidoro, Pina Dolce, Daniel Fernandes, Leila Grillo, Nicole Sourt Sánchez

Media art team supported by: Hahne/Scott AIL Production, Zurich

Stage design, sound, visuals, programming, film: Marille Hahne, coordination, stage design, documentation / Andrew Quinn, Interactive Graphics / Vanessa Barrera Giraldo, Sound Interaction Design / Victor Giers, Interactive sound customization / Olav Lervik, Electronic Music / Scene 5 by Daniel Fernandes / Daniel Bisig, Wearable shoes.

Communication: Lucie Bader Promotion

Description text by Jill:

IDEA OF ESKIN at HeK (In English) 

Eskin is a performative tribute to nature and to the re-wilding or re-design of our local environments. It is based on a technical platform that encourages local empowerment for those who want to be included in the cultural debate on climate change and speak out about pollution and energy use.  Eskin in Basel is the second collaboration with visually impaired persons that gives them a chance to be included in this debate. Alongside choreographers, scientific consultants, and artists, these participants work in this project, one that was initiated by Swiss Australian media artist Jill Scott.  The participants will perform five interlinked scenes on a unique stage with customized sound objects, interactive graphics, dancers, computer interaction, and wearable technologies. The aim is to educate the audience and encourage them to be proactive about climate change.

 

THE 5 SCENES OF ESKIN 

Scene 1. Homeland and the Farm

This scene is based on the healthy memories we have from childhood about the farmland around us. The sound of cows and other animals and the land itself as well as the tastes from local food that grows on it. These tactile pleasures and sound sensations from our own childhood memories of the Swiss landscape illustrate how our changes in temperature are shifting these memories.

Scene 2. Our energy use and the City

This scene maps the energy use in our cities as seen from an aerial perspective. It uses satellite data from Basel to create an impression of how the distribution of our energy from industries and pollution from our activities such as commuting and industrial production will affect our physical health.

Scene 3. River and Pollution

This scene compares the beauty of abundant Swiss river water with the effect on water quality of our own waste and agricultural and glacial run-off. Also, micro-plastic waste is featured here as an analogy and its effect on life under the water and our drinking water.

Scene 4. Forest and Extinction

This scene shows the relation between climate change and the effects on biodiversity. It features the affects of higher temperature levels and how predator-prey relationships are already changing and may shift again in the future.

Scene 5. Mitigation and Adaptation

This scene is a call to the audience to get up, demonstrate, and be engaged in the improvement of local conditions. It features action based on teamwork as a necessary element to look at the problems of adaptation and encourage mitigation. Mitigation (in German:  containing climate change) is the acceptance of climate change with the need for our action to lessen the future climatic effects of it.

 

Additional posters in the theater space: We plan to exhibit five relevant posters featuring related solutions in the space.

http://www.pinadolce.com/projekte/

Three works on the theme “Artificial Intelligence”, virtual humanoids and associated misunderstandings, presented in a spatial installation with a desk situation.

Recipients read a brochure about the work results at the desk (Link to the text). Meanwhile, their faces were automatically photographed and projected onto canvases around them. A visual “echo chamber” was created by the surroundings of their own face.
“Forgetting” was not allowed; the faces remained on the canvases until they were overwritten by new faces, leaving one’s own face behind when leaving the scene.

The reactions to the capturing and displaying of one’s own face varied from anger over “surveillance” and non-compliance with data protection regulations to joy over the possibility of taking selfies or the feeling of improving the reading situation by being able to view one’s own face.

Gerkzeuk was also there.

Next to it, a puppet as a parody of the over-interpretation of “artificial intelligence” capabilities.
Two servomotors, built into a black box, move a marionette at unpredictable, temporal intervals. Stickers are affixed to the black box, representing the hype around the topic “AI”: quotes from “The Matrix”, a Terminator and an Elon Musk head, Hal 9000, etc. Some recipients imitated the puppet’s movements and were pleased with the learning effect they experienced, while others were creeped out.

Further scenes

“Silent Speech Interfaces, Mind Uploading, High-Performance Prosthetics, and Immortality Genes – the possibilities of optimizing mind and body, communication and work environment are today as radical as never before. While some dream of the Übermensch, others fear the downfall of humanity. Are we really facing a new stage of evolution? How much possibility or absurdity lies in the relationship between humans and technology? A theater project about the dream of perfection and the longing for immortality.”

Concept / Text collage: Nina Schopka, Gregor Wickert, Grigory Shklyar
Acting / Text collage: Nina Schopka, Kathrin Flüs, Nicolas Marchand, Elodie Brochier, Elfie Elsner, Markus Müller
Design / Equipment: Gregor Wickert
Visuals: Grigory Shklyar

The scenic implementation was developed in a collective process.

In cooperation with Victor Giers and xm:lab./HBKsaar
Co-producer Compagnie TGNM/Forbach

Lighting design: Krischan Kriesten
Sound: Marco Tiziano Alleata, Tobias Paulus

Assistant direction: Sue Franz
Set assistant: Isabella Dahm
Dramaturgical advice: Nicola Käppeler

Technical production management: Christian Held
Press and public relations: Stephanie Thielebörger
Social media support: Monika Swatkowska
Ticketing support: Aysel Kahraman
Internship: Teresa Esser, Mirka Borchardt
Finance: Josephine Kretschmer
Graphics: Ilka Fugmann

The premiere took place on December 2, 2017, at the Garelly House Saarbrücken.
Invited to the 41st Perspectives Festival.

At the invitation of the German Newspaper Museum, a student working group from the University of Fine Arts began in spring 2016 to deal with the magazine “Schacht und Heim”, the work newspaper of Saarbergwerke.

In a 270° screen chamber in the exhibition “Schacht und Heim”, the virtual “shaft ride”, the 3D renderings from our studio, were presented.

Cooperation of the German Newspaper Museum with the University of Fine Arts Saar.

https://www.schachtundheim.de/information
https://www.schachtundheim.de/schacht-heim-projekt-ansehen/schachtfahrt

In the performance “Learning”, the action potentials of real and artificial intelligence are compared by having an actor and a 3D character (spatially visualized through Pepper’s Ghost effect) act in equivalent spaces in parallel.
Both are initially unable to stand and try to learn this during the performance. The actors repeatedly fall to the ground and try to learn from their mistakes.
The digital character is equipped with a genetic algorithm, a programmed intelligence, while the real character has an organic brain.
The avatar learns to stand faster than the human but simultaneously appears ridiculous in its uncoordinated actions, revealing the distance of digital technology to the real human.
In contrast, the human evokes emotional empathy in the viewer through their physical pain and desperate attempts to stand.

Andreas Bayer

Video of the working process, how the AI learned to stand:

Together with my mother Pe, I am responsible for the estate of Walter Giers.
Telekom Electronic Beats reported.

An interactive dance floor, realized with projectors in a media theater room, Kinects on the ceiling, Processing & OpenCV.

Participants were encouraged to dance through rhythmic music and graphics. The dancers could follow predefined movements through floor projection, playfully and dancing to co-create and change the generative music & graphics.