king talk

Besides the workshops and lectures NODE10 hosts two exhibitions. One at the »Frankfurter Kunstverein« titled »abstrakt Abstrakt – The Systemized World«, which seeks to help understand the nature and effects of abstraction systems. The second exhibition called »NODE Deluxe« consists of 9 selected works, one of which is Quasar Interactive. This exhibition balances art and play as well as digital and analogue.

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NODE10 has opened its gates! From now till saturday there will be lots of interesting sorkshops, lectures and exhibits from various genres of generative and interactive arts.

As part of the exhibition at the MA* our Quasar Interactive and some other amazing installations are awaiting you to come play with them.

The main focus of NODE10 are Workshops. They range from tinkering with Fritzing to physics-based animation and projection mapping. Of course most of it based on the graphical programming environment vvvv, which makes it real easy to generate amazing media environments. So if you are in the area, make sure to drop by and enjoy some workshops.

Tomorrow I’ll go into more detail about what is shown here…
But for now I’m off to enjoy the opening event.

The last (and interactive) project I want to point out in my little series about Ars Electronica 2010 is called “plant” by Akira Nakayasu.
The artwork itself seems very simple. It just looks like a small bed of tiny plants. But the power of it really lies under the surface. The plants are actually robotic and every single one of them is controlled by small motors which enables them to perform very subtile movements. If one moves his hand over them, they react to it with a movement that seems like they are moved by wind. The thing I liked most in that artwork is the allready mentioned subtile movement and the simplicity in the work itself (not talking about the technical part here.. only about the thing people see).

During the days at Ars Electronica 2010 I saw so many highly sophisticated and technophile works that in some way just seemed like the artwork was mostly made just for the technics and not the other way round. This one really uses some very sophisticated engeneering and still shows none of it. It just speaks with the beauty of the moving plants. (A point on which I could go on for ours when it comes to interactive installations nowadays.)

Another artwork I would like to share with you from Ars Electronica is also about sound. The Cycloid-E from Michel Décosterd. This one is a huge kinetic sound scultpure which I found highly aesthetic and totally hypnotizing. It consists of connected tubes which perform a rotary movement that seems like a dance to the sounds that are created. The simple and mechanic design together with the sound and the expressive motion creates a really unique artwork.
For further information and a video be sure to visit the project website.

The first project I would like to mention from Ars Electronica 2010 is “The Braun Tube Jazz Band” by Ei Wada. The artist uses his body as an antenna for electromagnetic waves conducted by old televisions. As different images on the screen create different electromagnetic fields, it can therefore be used to influence sound. Having experienced it in person at the festival, I can only say: amazing. But I will let moving pictures speak for me (unfortunately there isn’t any real good footage online at the moment)