On a hot, hot day in Eindhoven, BALTAN Laboratories and workshop leaders Wendy Van Wynsberghe and Peter Westenberg (Constant, Brussels, BE), with Julien Ottavi (APO33, Nantes, FR), hosted Angela de Weijer, Olga Mink, Danielle Roberts, Jan van den Dobbelsteen, Mini Smulders, Sarie Hermens, Sarah Matot, Niels Bergmans and Lucas van der Velden for a one-day Electro-Magnetic Field (EMF) Orchestra Workshop.
After a morning and good part of the afternoon spent building and designing and winding and soldering their own EMF antennae (and a number of trips to the electronics store to remedy a slight technical difficulty with the amplifiers), participants took to the city for a collective intervention on a walk between Strijp-S and the centre of Eindhoven.
The E-CULTURE FAIR 2010 will be showcasing innovative projects in the cross-over fields of creative industry, research, education and media art from August 23 – 25 on the second floor of the Dortmunder U – Centre for Art and Creativity. It is the first step of the envisaged long-term cooperation between the three partners, namely Virtueel Platform of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, BAM of Ghent, Flanders, Belgium, and medienwerk.nrw of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, organised by Hartware MedienKunstVerein (Dortmund, DE). In line with previous events held in the Netherlands since 2000, the E-CULTURE FAIR is being presented for the first time in Germany as a partner event and cooperation project of ISEA2010 RUHR, 16th International Symposium on Electronic Art. Read the rest of this entry »
On August 23, from 13:00-14:30 at ISEA2010 in Dortmund, BALTAN Laboratories hosts a discussion around the roles and forms of the laboratory (or media lab) as a follow up to the international expert meeting The Future of the Lab held in Eindhoven in 2009. How can we build on the experiences and challenges shared during the first meeting? What future strategies are needed for the laboratory to thrive? How can we create a framework for collaboration within a network of labs?
“You are 4.3 billion kilometres away from the nearest human, what would you like to do?”
Naked on Pluto is a text-based multiplayer game on Facebook. You are stranded on the planet Pluto, naked, alone. Your world is empty except for fragments of data, objects relating to your past life on social networks – but seen through the distorted lens of the game world. You can explore this world, at first alone and later in the game you’ll be able to invite and interact with friends. You can add and manipulate objects you encounter, interact with others and bots. Once you enter deeper into this world and web of data, you become aware of increasing complexity, characters appear you may recognise – are they friends or animated bits of data? Information is substituted and modified in subtle ways. Is it possible to remember what was ever real in the first place?
The game explores the limits and nature of social networks from within, slowly pushing the boundaries of what is tolerated by the companies that own them, carefully documenting this process as we go. Story and play are combined with an investigation on how exposed we are on social networks, and how our data are being used.
The project will be developed during a shared residency at NIMk, BALTAN Laboratories and Piksel, between June and November 2010, by Dave Griffiths, Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk. They will be in residence at BALTAN Laboratories in October 2010. The project is licensed Copyleft. The research and development process will be documented and can be followed at http://pluto.kuri.mu
On June 30th from 18:00-20:00, we will take a look at the results of the EMF Orchestra workshop taking place during the day, with workshop leaders Wendy Van Wynsberghe and Peter Westenberg from Constant in Brussels, as well as participants from the workshop. Julien Ottavi, from APO33 in Nantes, will also join us to reflect on this workshop in relation to his electromagnetic spectrum research, as well as participate in a discussion around copyleft practices with Wendy and Peter.
From December 3-5, 2009, BALTAN participated in Organized Networks, a Training Programme for Cultural Network Management in Riga, Latvia.
Artists Wendy Ann Mansilla and Jordi Puig presented their new work Flick Flock, developed in residency at BALTAN Laboratories, at Galleri 3,14 in Bergen, Norway, in the Piksel09 exhibition from November 20, 2009 – January 10, 2010. It was also shown at Campus Party Brazil in Sao Paulo in January 2010.
Angela Plohman from BALTAN participated as a respondent in V2_’s Test_Lab: Summer Sessions in Rotterdam on Thursday, September 17th.
BALTAN participated in the second New Media meeting in Utrecht, organised by Impakt, z25 and NetNiet.org on Wednesday, July 15th. For more information, see: http://www.medialabutrecht.nl
BALTAN Laboratories participated as a good practice example of creation and technology at the 6th Euro-American Campus for Cultural Cooperation held in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 24-27 March 2009.
On March 11 & 12, 2009, BALTAN Laboratories visited a number of artists and organisations in Gent and Brussels working in the field of art and technology as part of BAM’s Visitors Programme. BAM is the Flemish institute for visual, audiovisual and media art based in Gent, Belgium.
From February 25 to March 1, PNEK (Norwegian Production Network for Electronic Art) hosted and supported a visit of BALTAN Laboratories to a number of Norwegian media art organisations in Oslo, Kvinesdal and Bergen, Norway. Results of this visit have included participation of 3 Norwegian artists in BALTAN goes NATLAB sessions in Eindhoven as well as a collaboration in progress with Piksel in Bergen and visits to Eindhoven by Per Platou (coordinator of PNEK) and Gisle Froysland and Elisabeth Nesheim (Piksel).
