My brother Christopher currently exhibits a series of his photographic work in the Künstlerhaus Salzburg. You are invited to check it out, it’s running until 25. of January in the Café Cult.

“Die gezeigten Fotoarbeiten von Christopher Steinweber verschränken subtil zwei Konzepte der Wirklichkeitsaneignung mittels des Mediums der Fotografie. Steinweber reduziert sowohl die Wahrnehmung von Zeit auf genau definierte Zeitfenster, indem er seine Aufnahmen im Dämmerungslicht des frühen Abends macht, als auch die Wahrnehmung von Raum auf diskrete Orte, wie urbane Zwischenräume, die man gerne als „beschämend unspektakulär“ bezeichnen würde.”
full review (german)

Or view the series on his website: steinweber.ch

An interesting and amazingly aesthetical mash up of fashion, architecture and body art from Lucy McRae and Bart Hess. Don’t miss the pdf.

via swissmiss

There are good things happening in Frankfurt. For example the node Festival, which will take part in April. Lectures, workshops, exhibitions and parties under the topic of digital art. Don’t miss it.

“Over the last 10 years, a community of Artists, Designers, Architects and technically interested people has evolved, thinking and working way beyond common patterns of media applications, looking forward to interpret cutting edge technologies and pushing it to its limits in the contexts of art and commercial projects.

Luminale Logo The hosts of NODE08 have been working in this realm for quite some time now,supporting the keen community with their multi-purpose software tool kit vvvv free of charge. The NODE08 festival provides an event to the ever growing vvvv community, to get to know each other, to present, to exchange and share with a curious and interested audience.”
node08 Website

PS: Casey Reas has just been announced as a speaker.

or: Ben van Berkel meets meso. Portikus/Frankfurt 2007.

ampop during the setup

In the last month I was part of a really nice project here in Frankfurt. Let’s start with some official words:
“Ben van Berkel & the Theatre of Immanence is a combined art and architectural exhibition wherein the different parts in the exhibition are synthesised into a complete whole. The exhibition stages a theatre or space of communication: communication between the visitors and the exhibited works, between the virtual and the real, between the different visitors in the gallery and between the different parts in the exhibition. Throughout its period, the architectural installation will serve as a hub for various events including lectures, art performances, and hosted talks with invited guests, DJ-sessions that are to be broadcast and more.”

Our part was developing a solution for projecting on the piece of architecture, and developing and implementing the interaction. We created a vvvv application which enables us to use the 3dimensional surface for our projections in a very comfortable way, and allows to using more than typical 2d content but also things like volumetric textures and virtual lights. We called it “a case study in augmented architecture”. It is an attempt to create a reactive surface of extraordinary spatial complexity.
The interaction works over the internet - you can try it here (only when the exhibition is opened).
The exhibition ends on January 13th.

Some of my photos made during the setup (that’s why the projections are not fitting perfectly!):

official post at meso.net / official site Portikus / review art-magazin (german) / review transform-magazine (click “interior”)

What a lovely idea:
“The goal of the Urban Curators project is to engage the public in the celebration of the decaying urban environment, recognizing its inherent aesthetic qualities as well as the important role that it plays within our cultural habitat. The project achieves its goal by elevating common, overlooked objects and spaces within the city of Providence, Rhode Island to the level of high art.”
There’s a nice video on the official website
(via de:bug)

I’d like to present you a project I really like, from our friends from strukt:
The TagTool is an instrument for livevisuals, which enables the user to draw on a tablet, and use the so drawn elements for visuals. I saw it at the AViT>C23 in Berlin, and it’s really easy to handle. There’s no visible software interface - just 6 faders which are built in a case with the tablet lovingly. The most current documented use of the TagTool was in Linz, where they projected on huge urban objects. Take a look at the video, and don’t miss the last part with the crane!

Akarium Call is a fascinating light installation in Tokyo, created by Semitransparent Design, 777interactive and Exonemo. The light is controlled by an audio analysis which you can call with your telephone. So you are able to some kind of phone with the whole Omotesando Avenue. A lovely concept in an enormous scope.

via Pixelsumo (one of my favourites!)

I didn’t blog about “volume” yet, not because I don’t like it but because nearly every multimedia blogger did this. I’m changing this now, because I went to London this weekend and visited the installation in the V&A backyard.

Yes, it is as amazing as it looks like!
As you can also see in the official video, there are different themes which are cycled. The one in the image above is the most popular and graphically interesting one, but works more as some kind of screensaver between different, more interactive settings. The one I liked most is the green theme, which is also shown in the video. But I found out that I haven’t seen them all.
What I did not find out is how the motiontracking is done. I haven’t seem cameras, and the ground on which it’s built is wooden and not sensory at all. I guess it’s some kind of a huge Theremin, which is built in each tower, because the distance you have to the lights is not only measured in one axis - it reacts on how you move in the forward semi circle.*
A very impressing fact is that there are different speakers in each LED tower, what makes the audiovisual experience more perfect.

People of all ages seemed to be fascinated. A little child sat in his baby buggy, and more aged people in chairs, watching people walking through and changing the lights and atmosphere. Go there, if you have the opportunity!

* update: another look at the making of pictures showed that it’s done with infrared indeed.

Wow, Thyra Hilden and Pio Diaz create an impressing illusion of burning monuments, by using huge projections. They almost burned down Rome, and are now active in Scandinavia. On their website, they also release some technical information and sketches.

via Todd Vanderlin

Using windows as pixel grids for “mega displays” is not the newest idea at all, but the way LAb[au] and Dexia Art did this in Brussels currently is. They used the dexia tower for their “urban interactive installation“, where users can interact with the shown image at a multi touch screen in front of the building. As you can see at the live stream, it’s a really mighty and eye-catching sight. It can be seen live until the 15th of January.