2-DAY "OPEN FIELDS" CONFERENCE, 6 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS, 80 PRESENTATIONS, 3 EXHIBITIONS, PERFORMANCES, AND JUST 140 AVAILABLE SEATS
Moderator: Rasa SMITE
Lily DIAZ. Interactive Diorama, Case Study Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of 1632 by Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
In my paper I will present and develop the notion of Interactive Diorama from the technical as well as artistic and design perspectives. The approach used will be trans-disciplinary, touching on media archeology devices (such as the diorama concept developed in 1825 by Louis Mandé Daguerre) and combining existing knowledge from different fields including art history, computer-mediated communications, design, human computer interaction, new media and philosophy.
Throughout the essay I will focus on investigating and analysing the relationship between virtual simulations in comparison to tangible counterparts that might exist, with the objective of better understanding the nature of digital matter.
A case study based on a virtual reality installation of Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson will be presented. From this perspective, the diorama should not be seen as a representation of static forms but rather dynamic and performance-oriented space. This quality of ‘aliveness’ is even true in dioramas such as those found in natural history museums.
Biography. Lily Díaz is professor and leader of the Systems of Representation research group in the Aalto University, Media Lab. Her research work includes projects in areas such as information visualization, design and implementation of digital archives and interface design. She has also designed tools such as Image ImaNote (Image and Map Annotation Notebook) and SOL (Soft Ontology Layer). As an educator, she has developed and implemented curricula in new media and visualisation.
More information: http://sysrep.aalto.fi
Andrea MANCIANTI. Preliminary directions for a performative approach to VR
Virtual Reality (VR) as an immersive technology is promising to be ubiquitous in the near future in a variety of fields, as for the first time there is a global effort into making this technology potentially available and accessible for a much broader audience than ever before. Its relatively new history offers an exciting opportunity for media artists to confront with a genre where very few conventions are already solidified, if not to be written from scratch. At the same time, though, walking side to side with this potential, there are also risks and challenges. In the first place there is a persistent ideological fog in the mainstream rhetoric around VR, that, concentrating on concepts such as novelty, immersion and empathy, risks to overlook, downplay or ignore other important issues at stake. For this, I consider extremely important to develop a critical approach towards VR, in order to help put this tool into perspective and gain a more sober point of view in the discussion. In particular, in this presentation, I attempt to illustrate a few elements, both of theoretical and technical nature, I encountered during the initial phase of my journey as an artist researching such tools. I will discuss, in the first place, some more or less implicit aspects that, I feel, need to be brought into view. These include its commodified, “gadgety” nature, its eminently solitary, passive approach, as well as the proprietarity of most of its technology. Then, I will present some specific possibilities VR can offer in my personal artistic perspective. My approach towards this technology focuses on developing experimental artistic strategies to create “live” audiovisual performances, engaging more than one participant in shared multimodal experiences. The project is based on three key artistic ideas, acting as some guiding hypotheses: a blurred distinction between performer and spectator, the centrality of the body as a two-way sensory interface to access the experience, in-between passive reception and active agency, and the head-mounted-display (HMD) as a way to alter vision in favour of sound and touch.
Biography. Andrea Mancianti is a composer and performer mostly devoted to mixed music. He studied composition with Rosario Mirigliano and electronic music with Marco Ligabue in the conservatory of Florence. He also studied with Pierluigi Billone, George Aperghis, Tristan Murail, Beat Furrer and Yan Maresz, among others, and he participated to the IRCAM’s Cursus 1 in Paris (2013-2014). His background is otherwise rooted in progressive and psychedelic rock, free improvisation and IDM electronic music and he has been part of several bands as guitarist, electronic musician or composer/arranger, where he developed a strong need for collective, participated creative practices.
In his work he am interested in exploring the social and aesthetic boundaries between popular and contemporary music, questioning the roles of composer, performer and public. His latest projects investigate compositional and performative aspects of hybrid acoustic-electronics instruments extended through complex feedback networks and real-time sound analysis.
He is also part of the Helsinki Sound Electronic (HelSE) hack-lab, to approach instrument building from a DIY and DIT perspective and he is a strong supporter of open culture and copyleft.
His works have been written preferably together with specific players, through long-lasting collaborations and have been performed in Europe and USA, for institutions such as Ircam (Paris), Biennale Musica (Venice), Impuls and KUG (Graz) Nuova Consonanza (Roma), Sibelius Academy (Helsinki) and others. My latest pieces include Autophagy, written for ensemble A.S.K., No Heroics, please, for electric guitar and accordion, written for Promenade Sauvage, Apophenia, for actor/percussionist, bass clarinet, double bass and electronics and Epäjärjestelmällisyydestaköhän, for viola, electronics and low-fi devices.
https://www.andreamancianti.com/
Daniel LANDAU. Time-Body Study
Time-Body Study is a performative experiment exploring the impact re-embodiment in virtual reality has on the boundaries of body, identity and self. In the experiment participants, wearing a virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD), are re-embodied in the body of a 7, 40 and 80 year old person.
Inspired by the classic Rubber Hand Illusion (Botvinick & Cohen 1998) and the work of Prof. Mel Slater (Barcelona University), The Time-Body Study creates the re-embodiment illusion by having a participant see his virtual hands being touched in the virtual space while, simultaneously and in perfect sync, his real hands are being touched, by a live performer. Both Botvinick and Slater’s experiments used this mechanism to demonstrate how easy it is to manipulate our body representation so that a subject can experience a rubber or virtual hand as his own. In Time-Body Study Daniel Landau adds narrative layers to the re-embodiment experience in an attempt to explore this cognitive mechanism on an emotional level. The audience get to see both the participant’s view of the virtual body (projected onto a large screen) and the live performer’s interactions. This gives the audience a unique view of the experiment demonstrating how the human body is effectively an evolving medium subjected to its technological environment.
Biography. Daniel Landau is a media artist, researcher and a lecturer. He completed his second degree in music-technology at the Royal Conservatory in The Netherlands where he lived and worked for close to a decade. Daniel’s work resides in the intersection of Art, Technology, and Science – exploring the complex relationship between body and technology. Core to his work is the attempt to trace techno-political processes and their impact on social and private spaces. His work has been presented in major venues, museums and festivals worldwide including Jerusalem, New-York, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Tokyo, Paris Hungary and Mexico City. Between 2012-16 Daniel led Media Studies department at the Midrasha Faculty of the Arts, Beit Berl Academic College and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya. Daniel is the Co-founder and Director of Oh-Man, Oh-Machine – an art, science, and technology platform that includes an international conference, workshops, and a research lab.