DATE: May 2011
PARTNERS: Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan & Jaaga.
COMMUNITY: Jaaga Community, Arts Enthusiasts.
A culmination of Jaaga's 3 month residency program with 4 international artists and 3 local artists, creating a habitat in Jaaga’s Living Building that was alive and interactive. The array of techart projects explored the theme 'Enlightened Singularity' included a multi-sensorial modular climbing plant, audio/visual installations, movement art & interactive sculptures.
The gist of this theory is: ‘Enlightened Singularity’ stems from the notion of a continued trajectory from the very first signs of life on this planet to the now, and moving on into the future. It is the nucleus of all thought, desire and creative will. It is aware and insistent in ensuring that all creative and thought trajectories meet.
Jaaga Sound & Lights is an exploration and celebration of interactive sound and light installation art by 8 international and Bangalore artists. Come on over. The exhibition stays open everyday from the 21st to the 29th of May 2011 from 6.30pm to 10 pm.
SPECIAL CREDITS
Eve Sibley – Vertical Garden Design & Maintainance Jaaga Sound & Lights is an exploration and celebration of interactive sound and light installation art by 8 international and Bangalore artists. Come on over. The exhibition stays open everyday from the 21st to the 29th of May 2011 from 6.30pm to 10 pm.
Tech Notes: In preparation for this event, the people at PowerUp Electronics have developed a programmable interactive LED controller board with on-board microphones and proximity sensors which can respond to gestures in the immediate vicinity as well as messages from a central building control system. We also use the Microsoft Kinect 3D scanner for gestural interactions with the building, and a Focusrite firewire audio interface with 10 audio outputs to transmit audio around the building. Through this project we would like to push the envelope on lighting and sound systems and human interactions with light and sound.
ABOUT THE ARTWORKS
Murale | Agnese Mosconi | Italy |
modular climbing plant. When the sensors are triggered the wall responds through movement and sounds. Murale from Latin “muralis “of a wall,” from murus “wall” in italian means both: “climbing plant” and “wall paint”. It is a parasite of the “Living Building” because no system-organism is perfect and “There is no system without parasites” The parasite is a system itself: “The parasite doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop eating or drinking or yelling or burping or making thousands of noises or filling space with its swarming and din. The parasite is an expansion; it runs and grows. It invades and occupies. It overflows, all of a sudden, from these pages. Inundation, swelling waters” – Michel Serres, The Parasite
Gravity / Reflections | Andrew McWilliams | UK
Gravity, an audio/visual installation in the form of a triptych, is a response to the presence of the Jaaga structure; to it’s physicality and textural nature. Reflections, a digital audio work based on extensive interviews, allows the voices of people intimately connected with Jaaga to float freely and share glimpses of their stories. Jaaga’s living building metaphor here is interpreted as the relationship of people inhabiting a space, especially in the context of an imminent relocation.
Sonosphere-1 | Corin Faife | UK To move toward creation, evolution, perfection: this is the tendency of all things. Field recordings made in the Jaaga structure are manipulated, morphed and reborn, unrecognisable. The structure and essence of sound waves dissected and reassembled, computer synthesis realigning microsecs of air pressure transfer. From this laboratory new harmonies emerge into the sonic ecology, their lines of flight a multi-channel surroundscape. The building reads our motions. Stimulation or lack thereof excites or depresses; response manifests through music, further provokes us to (in)/activity. A feedback loop, all things in balance. Symbiosis. With Musical Contributions From: Yosh! – www.dangerousaudio.com Daniel Jenatsch – daniel.jenatsch@googlemail.com
Lasya | Jaaga Juice | Bangalore
This piece, conceived by Freeman Murray, is intended to explore dance and measured movement as meditation and mediation between us and the ‘other’. Using inspiration from Butoh and Tai Chi as free movement forms, this piece communicates with the Jaaga structure through gestural sound & light interactions. It demonstrates the imminent arrival of the Enlightened Singularity by heralding the Living Buildings’ resolutely advancing awareness. ‘Lasya‘ in Hindu mythology is the dance of aesthetic delight that revealed beauty, grace, love and all tender aspects of existence. Lasya is Parvati’s feminine response to the male energy of the cosmic dance of destruction – ‘Tandava,’ performed by Lord Shiva who is part of the Hindu trinity.
Jaagaad | Lisa Kori | USA
words: jaaga, a Hindi word meaning space and, of course, the name of the unique cultural center the piece is housed in. It also refers to ‘jugaad’, which is the idea of improvising with objects, a practice that often stems from making the best of limited resources.
The intention was to create a device that exists in some sort of symbiosis with the unique structure of Jaaga, using cheap, second-hand or found materials. It is installed in Jaaga yet does not take any sort of energy from Jaaga, instead, someone inside the building needs to interact with it in order for it to come to life, where it will add sound to the interior space. Jaaga is also a crossroads for both locals and foreigners, a meeting point to share ideas. All the elements of Jaagaad are techniques I’ve picked up from friends and collaborators during seven months of traveling, which I wish to share with both the Jaaga community and the general community of Bangalore. Supported by the Thomas J. Wilson Foundation
“Cues in the Nest” | Pooja Mallya | Bangalore
installation on the top of the building facade that moves like the breath of the living building, reflecting activity in the building. Its kinetic element plays with light, texture and the visual sense to arouse within those passing by; a curiousity about Jaaga. The breath is the brew The eye is the clue, as an extension of the mind. The virtual machine expands into our central nervous system… the Cambrian explosion revisited… towards Enlightened Singularity… Prime Actant | Sharath Chandra | Bangalore An objective virtual social reality of sonic identities, along with background video art that represents the Living and Transient Building, form a material-semiotic network which is aware of the movements of a participating spectator –‘The Prime Actant’ in this actor network – whose subjective creativity is engaged by the space which invites him to create music and artwork.
Figures | Tobias Rosenberger | Germany
crossroads of media art, visual arts and performance. He claims the space between code and thinking as subjective space, dealing with media as sign systems, whose materiality itself can become significant again. “The action of the multitude — the swarm of singularities — aims at pure living and its dignity. To act means to engage oneself as the subject of this dignity and this life. The dignity of the subject of action does not lie beyond its life as something which transcends this life. The subject is dignified as the subject of its life and this passion to act which brings forth something new, discovers hitherto unknown modalities of the coexistence of singularities.” – Markus Steinweg
ARTIST PROFILES
AGNESE MOSCONI | Italy | Digital Media Designer
Constantly engaging with new challenges Agnese Mosconi comes from a multidisciplinary background, after a diploma in Fine Arts, she took her BA in Industrial Design in Venice gaining great experience in problem solving and shaping her mind to a tridimensional way of thinking. She then took an MA in Digital Media design at the Course of Communication Design of Central Saint Martins developing a strong interest for Interaction Design. As a result of this interest she conceived “Esperanto 2.0”: a musical, 3D interactive world. A representation of a new way of communicating within New Media, a more intuitive and multi-sensorial experience, where the expression and reception of emotions is more important than logic and rationality and where knowledge is reached in a non-linear and more casual way. The interactive, 3D generated, flash movie is connected through “Pure Data”, a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing, to the program for musical production and live performances “Ableton Live”.The production of the final project has been fundamental in gaining various technical skills and cultivating an interest in music and music production as well as an insight into issues surrounding sound design and working in close collaboration with programmers.This experience led therefore to a even more interesting and exciting collaboration with ON101 as a Digital Media Designer for the development of the interactive applications for the Natural History Museum’s Darwin Center.
ANDREW McWILLIAMS | UK | Digital Installation Artist
Andrew is a British installation artist who uses custom software, sound and light as his medium. Over the past three years he has been creating immersive installations which respond, playback, or generate themselves in real-time, or as a response to other stimuli. After first studying Illustration and Information Graphics at Warwickshire College in the UK, Andrew went on to graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Software Engineering from Northampton University in 2004. He worked with a number of interactive media agencies in London, in a technical development role, during which time he built up a strong technical skillset revolving around digital media, the internet and arts. Since 2008, working under his own name, Andrew has created a number of physical installation works using video projection and multi-channel sound, all controlled by custom-designed software. To date he has shown work at the Elevator Gallery, the Goldsmiths Student Union building in Central London, and the Jaaga artspace in Bangalore.
CORIN FAIFE | UK | Composer and Sound Designer
Born in the U.K. to an Indian father and English mother, Corin studied Politics at the University of Nottingham, England, and digital music production at the city’s famous Stone Soup Studios. Corin specialises in interactive music production environments such as Ableton Live, and is particularly interested in using digital software to facilitate spontaneous, organic music creation. Since graduation he has worked in the youth sector, using music technology as a way to engage with young offenders and children excluded from mainstream schools. At various times he has also moonlighted as an outreach worker, events promoter, sandwich maker and political columnist; he is currently based in Bangalore, gaining experience of alternative models of urban space usage before returning to England to pursue a Master’s in urban design
JAAGA JUICE | Bangalore | Interactive Media Arts Collective
Jaaga Juice, interactive arts hacker-maker collective artists Archana Prasad, Kiran Dsouza, Freeman Murray and Sean Blagsvedt worked on this project. They are super interested in hacking cutting-edge consumer and beta technologies to create artworks that are interactive and sentient. The theoretical framework that we have begun to articulate and are constantly developing are Enlightened Singularity and The Living Building.
The Jaaga structure is our work-in-progress which, in collaboration with artists over time, we will develop into a sentient, nomadic, urban art installation. Our first of our evolutionary series titled Internet Chandlier explored. The second of the series of explorations within this framework, Pray, was showcased in January 2011 as part of the 3For project at Jaaga. It was a call to play or pray to invite awareness into the Jaaga structure.
LISA KORI | USA | New Media and Sound Artist
Lisa Kori is a media artist and 2010-2011 Watson Fellow. She was born in Hawaii, grew up in Oregon, and graduated with an independent major in New Media Studies from Oberlin Conservatory. Her work has included a variety of media, including wearable speakers, audio circuits, binaural field recording, and video. She has participated in classes at Harvestworks in New York City, was a founding member of the performing group Women and Art Music led by Julia Christensen, and received a COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) grant to attend the 2009 Summer School in Sound and Music Computing in Porto, Portugal. Most recently, she helped organize the 2nd Sudamerica Experimental Festival in Santiago, Chile, was invited as a collaborator in the 2010 edition of the Interactivos? residency in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and spent time as an artist in residence at Jaaga Creative Common Ground in Bangalore, India. She is currently the recipient of a year-long independent travel and research grant about electronic art that is tentatively located in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. She hopes to gain (and share) an understanding of emerging art practices around the world. The project can be followed at: http://themediumandthemayhem.net
Pooja Mallya | India | Lighting Designer and Architectural Space Planner
Combining her interest in architecture, interiors and lighting, Pooja Mallya works as an independent lighting designer and architectural space planner. She studied Architecture at MIT Manipal, India and pursued further studies in Illumination Design at the University of Sydney, Australia. She recognized the importance of lighting in design when practicing architecture and interior design in Bangalore in early 2001-2002. It developed her thirst for more knowledge in lighting, in order to materialize and add value to architectural and interior design concepts. Drawing from her background in architecture and interiors and her studies in light and lighting, she has been practising specialist lighting design since 2004. She has worked with award winning companies in Syndey and Melbourne like Lighting Design Partnership, Point of View and The Flaming Beacon and is a design member of the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD). Her project experience ranges from high end hospitality, commercial, retail and offices with projects spread over Asia, Korea, USA and Australia. Apart from lighting design, Pooja canalizes her creative energy in travel and nature photography, composing poetry, playing the sitar and experimental installation art. Pooja is currently in India, and is freelancing as a lighting designer and space planner and expanding her project profile.
Sharat Chandra | India | Interactive Virtual Environment Artist
Sharath Chandra’s interests span the applications of human machine interaction in virtual reality, interactive theatre and education. After a Masters in Artificial Intelligence from the Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour (IPAB) at the University of Edinburgh in 2007, he has been extending his academic interests to experimental media arts. While living in Edinburgh ( home to the world’s largest Art festival – Fringe) and he was was involved in an open art hack space – The Forest Cafe. He also assisted in the reknown Tech Art Festival – Robodock 2010 @ NDSM , Amsterdam. He began his career in the field of industrial automation and robotics at Schneider Electric. As a licensed radio broadcaster (VU3HPA), he has been an RJ for Edinburgh’s ‘Fresh Air’, produced radio documentaries for PANOS UK ( @Nepal), trainer for community radio NGOs (VOICES-UNDP), speaker at the International HAM-Radio Convention (Port Blair, 2006) and is a proponent of the free use of airwaves for relief work, education and transmission art. As a film enthusiast and member of Edinburgh Filmhouse Guild, he played an active role as an interviewer at the Edinburgh Film Festival. His hobbies include discography, script writing, singing, noise guitar and quizzing
TOBIAS ROSENBERGER | Germany | Theater, New Media and Installation Artist
Residency supported by Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore. Tobias Rosenberger studied “Applied Theatre Studies” in Giessen / Germany and works at the crossroads of theatre, new media art and installation. Besides various performances (Festival Junger Talente, Frankfurter Positionen, Körber Studio Junge Regie) he realized i.a. installations for the German + French Embassy in Sana’a / Yemen, the Goethe Institut in Barcelona and Franken Architekten. He was three times participant of Luminale Frankfurt (2006, 2008, 2010) and exhibited widely, including Lyon (Les Subsistences), Copenhagen (re-new-DigitalArtsFestival), Liverpool (Moves10), Katowice (Galeria Rondo Sztuki), Mexico-City (solo in Galería A/B del CENART), Osnabrück (European Media Art Festival, Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche), and Esslingen/Neckar (solo in Villa Merkel). Rosenberger has been awarded grants from Goethe Institut and Werkleitz (1. Mexico-scholarship for German New Media artists, Centro Multimedia del Centro Nacional de las Artes), the City of Esslingen (Esslinger Bahnwärter Visual Arts) and Foundation Künstlerdorf Schöppingen. He has held residencies at European Mobile Lab for Interactive Media Art (e- MobiLArt, 2008/2009) and at Pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes, map-extension 2009- 2010 programme (Festival Okuparte, Huesca/Spain).
Jhurail Mohammed Ali – Production Assistant Kiran Dsouza – Production Manager Mandy Hixson – Program Manager Naresh Narasimhan – Advisor Ria Rajan – Poster Design Sean Blagsvedt – Advisor
TECH SUPPORT
Ashwin, V. Ravi Kanth, S. Gopi Krishna, C. Rajesh, Ravi, Joyobrotho Ganguly, D. Phanindra, Ramauji, Ramachandra, Manju Naik, Chandan S. Raj and Abhijeet Tambe
SUPPORTED BY
Max Mueller Bhavan/Goethe-Institut, Bangalore Pecha Kucha, Bangalore Venkataramanan Associates, Bangalore
Comments