Below are stills from the online collaborative triptych performance last night |||stationary æmotion||| by æther9 group (simply because these things tend to vanish more often than not without any documentation). Each set of three images appeared on screen simultaneously - images run from top to bottom with the bottom being the end (fin) of the performance.

Very last minute but very relevant to the event I am curating next month is the performance |||stationary æmotion||| tonight (26/10/07) by the æther9 group:

4 remote performers from 4 different locations reunited in a real-time broadcasting…

In the vein of such precedents in ‘teleperformances’ as ‘Hole in Space’ (1980), Videodrome (1983), planetary network (1986 @ Venice Biennale), Piazza Virtuale (1992 @ Dokumenta 9), tonight’s participants worked
together locally and with their delocalised partners on the theme of streaming; exploring the tensions between traveling/communicating through virtual and physical space.

The performance will include remote participants:
Manuel Schmalstieg (Geneva, CH), Nathalie Fougeras (Brussels, BE), Paula Vélez (Medellin, Colombia)
and local participants:
Nicola Unger & audrey Samson

(alothough I’m not convinced remote and local exist as sensible terms in a networked performance such as this)

To watch online point your browser to: http://1904.cc/aether/live/
Or to attend at the venue, WORM, go to:
Achterhaven 148 - R’dam - http://www.wormweb.nl/

Performance time: 22:00 Central European Time (UTC+2 - Bravo Time Zone)
Performance duration: 15:00 min.
Check your local time here: http://tinyurl.com/2knqmc

Recently I’ve found my way into a few small mailing lists from individual artists or groups which makes finding interesting and relevant work easier for me as I have to hunt a little less for it. One of these lists is from the collective Scenocosme (and on youtube), Grégory Lasserre and Anaïs met den Ancxt, who create interactive, digital and collaborative art.

Métamorphose éphémère (image above, video below) and Firmament éphémère (Ephemeral firmament) (video bottom) are two performance works which seem to derive from similar material with different outcomes. They are essentially different compositions.

And since I’ve been looking at biking and wireless networks here’s another work/performance along similar lines.

Warbike, a work by David McCallum currently featuring in Sound Cycles and Mobile City at Interaccess, Electronic Media Arts Centre in Toronto, is a mobile reception unit for wireless networks which transforms the:

wireless network activity into sound. As you cycle the streets, you’ll hear the activity of this invisible communications layer that permeates our public spaces.

David’s thesis about the Warbike (which includes some interesting references to works I have not seen before) on his website is worth a look.

Originally seen on the Sonic Arts Network mailing list, Sanlist.

Some more about Ubermatic and their use of video and networks. This follows on from this post which focused on their use of webcams to create two very different art works. Here I will look at three works which are largely opportunistic and parasitic in nature by their interception / sourcing of wireless video. These works particularly question the boundaries of networks (that is, being more problematic to restrict / define / limit / monitor as physical boundaries are) and the implications of this (merging of public and private spheres etc.).

2.4_interference_interaction (image above, video extract below) is a live performance event which took place in Toronto, Canada. Wireless cameras, bicycles used as mobile broadcast units, and monitors installed in various commercial public locations such as stores, banks and cafes were employed.

The movement and flow of an urban environment is captured and transmitted by wireless cameras connected to moving bicycles. The interaction and interference of flow when travelling through the city is visualized and broadcasted [sic] from television sets at local businesses, blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces.

The cameras transmit wirelessly on the same frequency and interfere with each other. This collision of radio waves translates into distorted and volatile real-time editing of video and audio viewable on a monitor within range. Interaction is defined by interference.

Either entering as a cyclist or non-cyclist, the public becomes engaged with a network where negotiations between people and hardware, cross signals culminates in a continuous spatial-temporal state of change.

Friluftskino (images below) is a work which sources the wireless video signals within private urban environments and then transforms the surrounding public urban environments (in this particular case Oslo) into a form of open-air ambient cinema.

Using a powerful video beamer and video scanner, live surveillance intercepted from wireless CCTV cameras is captured and then rebroadcasted upon the city walls. The live transmission ideally lasts as long as a feature length film and also takes it’s title from a cinematic source, according to the scene created by the surveillance camera.

Pedestrians passing the location of Friluftskino become both a spectator, part of an audience, and a voyeur viewing what are largely surveillance videos of banal everyday environments, their occupiers and occurances.

Spatial boundary conventions of private and public, inside and outside are challenged by the reality of the radio transmission which moves beyond walls and onto the street. By accessing these images one is also offered a view into how the public depicts and represents itself through surveillance and a glimpse into the ways the city itself is defined and structured.

Exploration #5 (images above) explores the hidden environments and daily activities of office buildings.

The work takes the form of a series of live and pre-recorded video transmissions related to person and space that are distributed throughout the building. A visitor to the site is given special equipment to wear which allows this person to intercept and view wireless video transmissions.

By wearing this equipment, the visitor assumes the performative role of ‘The Explorer’, entering into an exploratory journey of the strange corners of urban environs and encounters with the people that occupy these spaces.