ARTe MEDIA: Feb 12, 2006

Beautiful Losers

La Triennale di Milano presenta la mostra Beautiful Losers, co-curata da Aaron Rose e Christian Strike con Rene' de Guzman, Thom Collins e Matt Distel, che esplora il recente lavoro di un gruppo diversificato di artisti provenienti dal mondo dello skate, della graffiti art, delle sottoculture punk e hip-hop.
Il progetto coinvolge pittura, scultura, design, fotografia, film, video e performance con opere di oltre trenta artisti, che si sono distinti negli ultimi dieci anni, alcuni di essi gia' consacrati nel mondo dell'arte, la maggior parte alla prima occasione espositiva.

La mostra e' organizzata in cinque sezioni, fra cui Roots & Influences che indaga il lavoro di artisti e creativi che hanno esercitato diretta influenza sullo stile della generazione che li ha seguiti. Questa sezione ospita al suo interno esempi di progetti di collaborazione, come quello di Jean-Michel Basquiat e Andy Warhol, dipinti, disegni e fotografie di Henry Chalfant, Larry Clark, R. Crumb, Glen E. Friedman, Futura, Keith Haring, Ari Marcopoulos, Raymond Pettibon, Pushead e Craig Stecyk.

Il cuore dell'esposizione mette in mostra i recenti lavori artistici multimediali di Thomas Campbell, Cynthia Connolly, Brian Donnelly (Kaws), Cheryl Dunn, Shepard Fairey, Phil Frost, Mark Gonzales, Evan Hecox, Jo Jackson, Todd James, James Jarvis, Andy Jenkins, Chris Johanson, Spike Jonze, Margaret Kilgallen, Harmony Korine, Geoff McFetridge, Barry McGee, Ryan McGinley, Ryan McGinness, Mike Mills, Steve Powers, Terry Richardson, Clare Rojas, Ed Templeton, Romon Yang e Tobin Yelland.

L'esposizione e' arricchita da un -ambiente sonoro" creato da Tommy Guerrero, il cui percorso artistico attraversa le relazioni e gli intrecci tra le sottoculture underground che fanno da sfondo a Beautiful Losers.

La mostra comprende anche una vasta selezione di Ephemera creati dagli artisti esposti e da altre figure di questo contesto artistico. Questa sezione ospita copertine album, scarpe, stampe, skateboards, giocattoli e fanzine.
Inoltre sara' proiettata una rassegna tematica di film e videocontemporanei e storici.

Prima tappa di Beautiful Losers e' stata il Contemporary Arts Center di Cincinnati nel marzo 2004, a cui hanno fatto seguito: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts di San Francisco nel luglio 2004, Orange County Museum of Art e The Contemporary di Baltimora nel 2005. Dopo l'Europa nel 2006, la mostra si spostera' in Asia e Australia nel 2007.

Beautiful Losers e' organizzata dal Yerba Buena Center for the Arts di San Francisco e dal Contemporary Arts Center di Cincinnati.

La mostra e' realizzata in collaborazione con Nike (partner di tutto il tour europeo), Slam Jam e SINV e con il contributo di Stussy, Carhartt, Work in Progress, Damiani.

Prodotta da Sartoria Comunicazione.

Iconoclast
Iconoclast e' stata fondata da Christian Strike e Aaron Rose nel 2002. Da allora, Iconoclast ha prodotto numerose mostre, pubblicazioni, edizioni e altri progetti, inclusa l'esposizione itinerante Beautiful Losers, che ha riscosso successi a livello internazionale.

http://www.beautifullosers.it/

AV Festival 06 is the UK’s newest, and largest, international festivalof digital arts, music, electronic art, games, film and new media

2-12 March 2006 Newcastle - Gateshead Sunderland Middlesbrough www.avfest.co.uk

The AV Festival is the UK’s newest and largest, international festival of digital arts and music, electronic art, games, film and new media. AV Festival 06 is about vibrant audio and visual experiences, experiences that will entertain you, maybe frighten you and certainly make you question the way the modern world is turning out to be.
The theme of AV Festival 06 is life — though it’s life not quite as we know it. You will see the very stuff of our existence portrayed, remixed and even made from scratch by some of finest international artists in the world and by some of the talented artists that we have right here in the North East of England. We have art happening in galleries, clubs, concert halls, cinemas, schools and even on the outside of buildings across the region.
Why is the festival exploring life? Because advances in genetic engineering, bioscience and nanotechnology that not long ago seemed purely the stuff of science fiction are now real. On top of that we are all already increasingly swapping our ‘real’ lives for artificial realities, lived virtually in online communities and games. And a great deal of this is happening right here on our doorstep. A hundred years ago the North East of England was the crucible of technical innovation in the industrial revolution. Today, we are at the international leading edge of the biotechnical revolution, with pioneering work happening here.
Many of the world’s leading artists are already grappling with this science and it has implications for us all.
LifeLike – AV Festival 06 will remind us all that life is so much more than just breathing in and out!

------------Celestial Radio by Neil Bromwich & Zoe Walker

Broadcasting from the glittering mirror tiled boat, the Celeste, Celestial Radio is on a voyage around the coast of Britain in search of the answers to life’s big questions. Arriving from the Essex marshes to anchor on the Tyne the AV Festival are proud to host the second ever broadcast from this unique vessel. This small yacht is covered in 50,000 mirror tiles, enabling it to broadcast light as well as sound waves. A Chameleon vessel the Celeste’s appearance will shift with the weather, at times appearing as a disco mirror ball at others a miniature stealth boat. You will be thoroughly engaged by the station’s equally unpredictable programme shifting from science, spirituality, music and chat.
Celestial Radio is brought to you by internationally acclaimed artists Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich, who live in Berwick upon Tweed.
The broadcast will be on FM and www.avfest.co.uk.
Watch out for the release of the radio frequency online and in the local media.

artists website http://www.users.waitrose.com/~neilbromwich/
more on http://www.coastart.org

----------------- Spine by Gina Czarnecki (World Premiere)

This is Gina Czarnecki’s first ever outdoor artwork and is so bewitching that when watching it you may lose all sense of space, time and purpose. More than 1000 images of naked dancers falling through space will run the length of Newcastle Civic Centre’s famous tower. Gina’s past work is directly influenced by her own harrowing experiences in an isolation unit, suspected of having contracted the deadly Ebola virus. Spine is part-biology, part-technology, and asks, what happens when the human genetic mix is corrupted? The dancers in the film are only just recognisable as human forms as she tinkers with real time: stretching, smearing and distorting it until the dancers’ bodies gradually become intertwined, turbulent and mutated fragments. Individual forms merge, creating a super organism. Fleeting impressions are left which look like mutant animals or spectres. Gina equates them to most like smoke, “leaving a trail of movement behind them”. The result is beautiful and disturbing at the same time. Prepare to be bewitched by it.
Spine is produced by Forma and commissioned by AV Festival 06, co-produced with Australian Dance Theatre and supported by Arts Council England.

Developed in collaboration with biotechnologists, computer programmers, dancers and sound artists, Gina Czarnecki’s recent works confront issues surrounding the convergence of biology and technology and the possible corruption of the human genetic mix.

other works nascent , infected

--------------- Wonderland by Claire Davies (World Premiere)

Nanotechnology is the creation of an unimaginably small technology — imagine micro robots — that will enter the most complex systems — say the human brain and beaver away mending things, or more seriously perhaps saving someone from cancer. Durham-based artist Claire Davies has worked with scientists at Northumbria University’s Advanced Materials Research Institute, where nanotechnology is being developed, on a new work which uses this technology.
Wonderland is the resulting work, which is likely to be the closest you will get to being able to see in ‘nano-vision’. It is created from observing the surface of a plant petal through an atomic force microscope, and this unique instrument has a probe like a record player stylus to map the surface of objects. The detailed lines it produces are 100 nanometres wide (bear in mind a human hair is 50,000 nanometres wide).
Claire has abstracted and animated this line, scaled it up and created a beautiful and unique evocation of the secret life of plants. In Wonderland these organic living lines will appear to draw themselves on the façade of Sunderland’s landmark National Glass Centre layer by layer and extend across the river through surface reflections.
The title is inspired by Lewis Carroll’s concept of animated and talking flowers. Claire says: “I was inspired by the beauty of what no human is able to see without the aid of technology and wanted to make that visible.”

---------------- System C by Marius Watz (UK premiere)

System C by Marius Watz is part of a projection programme called mima offsite: Animated Drawings, which is put together by the Middlesbrough Institute for Modern Art. The programme also features animated drawings by artists from the past and present.
Marius Watz’s work is borne from his experiences creating graphics for the international techno scene in the early 90s. He has written some unique software which creates ever changing designs, which appear to grow and change organically. He refers to his software as ‘drawing machines’, and sees the designs they make as drawings. Projected onto the side of Middlesbrough’s BHS building, curves will grow, twist and branch, forming tangled webs that resemble neuron pathways. The neon-like colours turn the shapes into explosions of light, before dissolving back into nothing.

artist site http://www.unlekker.net/
SISTEM C site http://systemc.unlekker.net/

------------------Data Matrix (working title) & C4i by Ryoji Ikeda (World premiere)

Ryoji Ikeda is one of the most radical and innovative composers in the world. His elegant and hypnotic audiovisual work is unparalleled. At AV, not only can you see his acclaimed work C4I,but you can also be the first in the world to see his brand new work data.matrix (working title) which AV has co-commissioned. These two large scale performance works explore the relationship between data and nature. Stunning video images of landscapes are gradually abstracted into pure data. The essence of nature is glorified by being reduced to pure mathematics, DNA data, and economics. Facts, figures and diagrams collide with nature to dazzling graphic impact.
Projected onto a huge screen with Ikeda playing live in the acoustic perfection of The Sage Gateshead’s Hall One. This is one not-to-be-missed.
data.matrix (working title only) is produced by forma, co-commissioned by AV and ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge and ISEA2006, and supported by Arts Council England. C41 is produced by forma, commissioned by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM), Japan, 2004 and supported by Arts Council England.

artist official website http://www.ryojiikeda.com/
data-matric.mp3
c4i website

------------------ Who Am I? by UMAMi, Preamptive, Retina Glitch & Grainy Collective(World Premiere)

Without the inspiration and drive of Newcastle creative Jeff Cleverley there would have been no AV Festival in 2003 and so it’s fitting that UMAMi, his new collective of audio visual artists, take centre stage (literally) at the gala and transform the mighty concourse spaces of Norman Foster’s The Sage Gateshead. The pure whiteness of the space will be transformed into living, breathing, technicolour happenings with cutting edge projection technology from Projected Image Digital. VJ’s Preamptive, and Retina Glitch and a unique soundtrack score by Grainy Collective will take you on a fully immersive audio and visual journey.

------------------ First Friday featuring Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai)

The Sage Gateshead’s regular club night First Friday follows hot on the heels of Ikeda and UMAMi and is given an AV spin with an exclusive live performance by, alva noto (Carsten Nicolai). This Berlin-based sound artist and producer is one of the most innovative, experimental electronic musicians working today. Carsten’s label, Raster-Noton, and his own albums; Infinity (1997), Telefunken (2000), and his recent critically acclaimed Transall series (2004) are a study in cool precise rhythmic structures with electronic glitches and clicks as essential elements of his music. These pared-down electronic sounds are mixed with hip-hop and R&B, combining scientific experiment with artistic enquiry and the dancefloor. First Friday will also include stunning film work, animations and graphics from Warp VJs and musicians such as, Flat E, Ultre, Tim Exile, Freeform, and Matt Pyke.
The touring work of alva noto is managed and produced by forma (http://www.forma.org.uk/)

artist website http://www.alvanoto.com/

---------------------- RoboticMusic by Suguru Goto
(UK premiere)
This is your chance to see and hear robots playing their own music. Yes, read it again if you don’t believe us — robots playing their own music. Suguru Goto is a composer and multi-media artist and he is gradually constructing an orchestra of virtual robotic instrumentalists whose performances have to be seen to be believed. His work has been seen at the Inter Communication Centre in Tokyo and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, but never before in the North East.
In RoboticMusic you will experience an ensemble of five percussion robots: a gong, bass drum, tom-toms, snare drum with cymbal and a pipe. Suguru explains “Music we have never heard can be played by robots. Robots can play very complex rhythms at the same time and perform at differenttempos, beyond the capability of humans. Without the constraints of biology, robots can also play without rest around 30 times faster than humans”.
Most intriguing of all, despite their appearance, the robots’ motion and interplay is lifelike, uncannily mimicking the gestures of a human musician. RoboticMusic poses intriguing questions. In our technologised world, can we reproduce the complicated performance act, which is so based on the extensive training of the musician? Can we even exceed the capabilities of a human player? Suguru Goto will be in attendance throughout and will give a number of short presentations at times to be advertised at The Sage Gateshead on the day.
This project is a collaboration with Fuminori Yamazaki at iXs Research Corp.

artist website http://suguru.goto.free.fr/

----------------- Ryoji Ikeda & Alvo Noto (Carsten Nicolai)

If you saw them last night at The Sage Gateshead, or even if you didn’t, take this rare chance to hear two highly influential electronic composers and artists discuss their work. Internationally renowned for their musical and visual arts practices, Ikeda and Nicolai have pioneered ultra minimalist approaches to electronic composition. Sharing a fascination with the minutiae of sonic design, the characteristics of sound itself and its relationship with architectural space and human perception they work together on the project cyclo, which creates a new hybrid of visual art and music through real-time analysis of sound signals. In this informal talk, they discuss this project and their artistic practices, along with examples of their work.
The touring work of alva noto and Ryoji Ikeda is managed and produced by forma [www.forma.org.uk]

----------------- What I Know About Stem Cells Dir. Richard Fenwick(UK 2005. Cert 15. )(World premiere)

AV are proud to present the world premiere of a newly commissioned film by Richard Fenwick (Newcastle, UK). Beyond the soundbite culture that chews up and spits out complex science on a regular basis, what is really being said about Stem Cell Research? Do the general public know what all thefuss is about? Embryonic stem cell research raises passions, hopes, fears and fascinations. On the cutting edge of science and ethics, it offers the promise of treatments for many degenerative diseases, but prompts anxieties about the status of the embryo and the prospect of reproductive cloning. Richard Fenwick has been working with the Centre for Stem Cell Biology and Developmental Genetics at the University of Newcastle on the production of a unique short film work, which will explore the issues, motivations and science behind embryonic stem cell research. The film unearths the facts, introduces the debate, frames the information and presents it to the general public.
Fenwick will be part of a panel discussion on Stem Cell research, with invited experts and commentators, which will take place after the film is premiered. Tickets include the premiere, the panel discussion, and free glass of wine.
What I Know About Stem Cells by Richard Fenwick is commissioned by AV. Supported by The Wellcome Trust.

------------- Marching Plague by The Critical Art Ensemble (USA 2006. Cert 15)(World premiere)

steve kurz

AV are thrilled to be able to present this world premiere and to bring its creator to the North East, not least because Steve Kurtz, the founder of Critical Art Ensemble finds himself currently at the centre of one of the most controversial court cases thrown up by George Bush’s Patriot Act.
In 2004 when his wife Hope died naturally of heart failure at their home, Kurtz called the authorities. The Police, finding science equipment and art materials for Critical Art Ensemble’s ongoing investigation into genetically modified plants, called in the FBI and Kurtz was illegally detained and investigated for bio-terrorism. He was later charged with mail fraud and wire fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison and the US Justice Department are still seeking charges relating to biological weapons.
Commissioned by by The Arts Catalyst, The film Marching Plague is Critical Art Ensemble’s newest work and a powerful critique of UK-US bio-weapons research — last century and this. During the Cold War, Britain secretly undertook biological warfare trials, releasing biological agents, including bubonic plague, at sea off the coast of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and testing the effects of the agents on caged animals. The idea was that germ warfare could be used as a naval weapon for ship-to-ship combat. For New York-based Kurtz, it is where the theatre of the absurd collides with absolute reality. “We wanted to show how crazy these germ warfare programmes are,” he comments.
For Marching Plague, the Critical Art Ensemble recreated one of the experiments, with the same harmless bacterial simulant that was used to test dispersal. “Just like the navy back in 1952, we didn’t manage to hit the target but did get ourselves covered with the simulant,” he says. “The only thing we successfully did was to poison ourselves. Theoretically.”
Marching Plague addresses fundamental political and ethical issues surrounding bioweapons research and also aims to dispel fear of the massively exaggerated threat of bioterrorism. Steve explains that fear is being exploited by governments to re-initiate expensive germ warfare programmes. “First time tragedy, second time farce. That was what we were trying to show. Embodying the experiment was the best way to criticise it.”
The screening will be followed by panel discussion, featuring Steve Kurtz and Steve Barnes of The Critical Art Ensemble. Ticket includes free glass of wine.
Marching Plague is commissioned and produced by The Arts Catalyst, and supported by Arts Council England.

other images of marking plague
http://www.critical-art.net/
Marking plague page

other post on this blog about Critical Art Ensemble

------------ 2020 by NAME

At AV in 2003, 2020 produced by Newcastle VJ duo

o NAME (Andrew Nixon and Nik Barrera), proved to be one of the biggest and most exciting nights in the festival. For AV Festival 06, NAME are commandeering the brand new Dance City building on St James’ Boulevard. 2020 grows directly out of the hugely successful Lumen events NAME run in Newcastle year-round to develop and promote new audio-visual artists in the North East. 2020 platforms many of these local artists alongside some the world’s finest VJs and aims to bring the art of VJing to a wider public audience. It willfeature performances by Name (UK), Laser Finger (Germany), Spark (UK), Rhythm Vision (Switzerland), Little Lumen participants (UK).

WORKSHOP :Sound Art Lab
ISIS Arts and the AV Festival are delighted to present this four day intensive workshop. This is an opportunity for 8 artists from the North East of England to upskill in sound art, electronic sound production and music performance. 8 selected participants will collaborate with three internationally renowned sound artists, including Zoë Irvine (a sound artist and audio producer) and Adinda van ‘t Klooster (a media and installation artist), to produceelectronic sound art. This workshop will be tailored to the individual levels and abilities of the participants. It will include hands on tutoring in Protools,LiSa and other software.
For more details on applying, contact Isis Arts, http://www.isisarts.org.uk.
Deadline for applications is 13 February 2006, women are positively encouraged to apply.
Supported by the European Social Fund and Arts Council England.

----- Presentations By Sound Artists
To mark the beginning of the Sound Art Lab run by Isis Arts and the AV Festival, we will hold presentations by three of the country’s most innovativefemale sound artists, who will discuss their work, techniques and inspiration.
Zoë Irvine is a sound artist and audio producer and a recent CreativeScotland Award winner. Her practice includes the creation of publications, installations, soundwalks and net projects. Her most recent project is Dial a Diva.
Kaffe Matthews is an English live sampling and laptop performer, as well as an accomplished violinist. She specialises in live sound performance and sonic sculpture. Intriguingly for our festival on life, Matthews holds a Zoology degree, as well as a Masters in Music Technology. She is most known for her live performances in real time heard on stage, in galleries, clubs, concert halls, tents, churches, warehouses, or ambient tea rooms.
Adinda van ‘t Klooster has worked with a wide range of media such as video and interactive sound installation, animation and sculpture. Recent commissions include a 16-channel sound installation for the Lincoln City and County Council Museum for Archaeology and Art and a soundpiece about abortion and assisted conception for Leeds.
Supported by the European Social Fund and Arts Council England.

SEMINAR: Café Scientifique: Artifical Life & Virtual Reality Steve Grand
Newcastle’s Café Scientifique is a regular event hosted by the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute. To celebrate the AV Festival, Café Scientifique are holding a very special evening with acclaimed programmer Steve Grand (Cyberlife Research), whose innovative work on the Creaturesgame and Lucy the Robot is described in his books, Creation: Life And How To Make It and Growing up with Lucy.
Can something that happens inside a computer ever be really alive, or really real? What does this imply for our traditional understanding of reality? Steve Grand (OBE) is often credited as Britain’s most intelligent man And has been cited as one of the 18 scientists most likely to revolutionise our lives during the 21st century. He is in conversation with Dr Tom Shakespeare.

WORKSHOP :Build Your Own Computer Game
This is a unique opportunity to upskill in one of the fastest growing areas of new media – game design. This intensive five-day, 30-hour workshop for adults will offer comprehensive coverage of both the creative and technical know-how required to develop a game, using the open-source interactive design package, Blender. The workshop will cover all aspects of game design, such as 3D meshmodelling, animation, texturing, rendering techniques, 3D sound and event management/game logic. All software used in the course is available on any major operating system free of charge. Each student will leave the course with a 3D game that can be played on a Linux, OSX or Windows platform. A free manual will also be available.
This workshop for adults is lead by Julian Oliver , a software developer, educator, composer and media-theorist. Oliver has given numerous workshops and master classes in game-design, artistic game-development, virtual architecture, interface design, and augmented reality worldwide. In 1998 he established the artistic gamedevelopment collective, Select Parks.
Participants on the workshop need not have any prior experience in Blender, modelling, programming or image processing. However you need basic familiarity with computers and some experience with desktop software would be advantageous. Only those with a full six hours a day available for each day of the course should register.

------------- The Autotelematic Spider Bots by Ken Rinaldo & Matt Howard (World premiere)

watch the spider online here

Eminent US artist Ken Rinaldo is bringing his brand new robotic spiders to Sunderland’s Museum & Winter Gardens. Rinaldo is a multi-awardwinning artist and inventor, who has been at the forefront of media art for more than a decade, regularly showing at major institutions across the globe. For AV, he is creating an awe-inspiring artificial life installation — and giving you your chance to come face to face with the Autotelematic Spider Bots. There will be a gaggle of 2ft x 1.5ft Spider Bots, made from plastics and electronics. Ken’s Spider Bots look like spiders, search for food like ants, see like bats and communicate like twittering birds. The robots are programmed to interact and react with you. Don’t be surprised if a Spider Bot wants to investigate what a human is or even try to communicate with you. They even have the power to activate your phone.
Ken says: “My work is related to research of living systems. I am interested in the intertwined symbiosis of all living things at all levels and scales. What is happening in our technological world is a systemic approach which doesn’t take on ecology and communication.”
Ken Rinaldo’s work often blurs the boundaries between the organic and inorganic. Over 20 years he has pioneered interactive robotics, biological art, artificial life, interspecies communication, rapid prototyping and digital imaging.
With Spider Bots, Ken is pioneering a new revolutionary invention. And you get to see and experience it first!
This project is commissioned by AV. Supported by Laser Productions and Parallax inc.

rinaldo website http://accad.osu.edu/~rinaldo/

-----------The Phumox Project: Andy Gracie and Brian Lee Yung Rowe (World premiere)

Welcome to the most unusual garden you will ever experience. Andy Gracie and Brian Lee Yung Rowe are installing a mesmerising water garden into Sunderland’s Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art. However before you start to think Diarmuid Gavin or Charlie Dimmock this is, of course, a garden with a difference as it’s an eco-system manipulated by software — a landscape presided over by an artificially intelligent god.
The “garden” is made up of three pool systems mediated and manipulated by a brand new artificial intelligence programme. One pool houses azolla water ferns, another has an artificial indoor rice paddy, and the third will have culture chambers of blue-green algae, bacteria on the cusp between plant and animal which helps azolla thrive. The three different aquatic environments are all connected up, relating and interacting with each other.
autoinducer PH-1 makes a simple, natural process rich and complex. You can read into this a critique of the “great white hope” we have of genetically modified plants feeding the world and building an agricultural utopia…
Andy Gracie says: “We are interfering with the natural symbiosis by creating a triangular one using artificial intelligence…When you start to manipulate the natural environment you are opening a Pandora’s box and it needs to be addressed.”
autoinducer PH-1 works on many levels. As well as being aesthetically engaging the sheer theatricality of life unfolding and developing before your very eyes inspires a sense of wonder. It is intellectually fascinating and asks serious questions of the mechanical and artificial manipulation of biologicalprocesses. You will be thinking about autoinducer Ph-1 for days.
This project is commissioned by AV.
Supported by The Arts Council of England.

http://www.hostprods.net/phumox.html

--------------- Swell by Anthony McCall (World premiere)

AV are proud to co-commission one of Britain’s most acclaimed visual artists, Anthony McCall. Swell is a fifty-foot horizontal projection inspired by theNorth East coastal landscape. Situated at the meeting-place of sculpture and cinema, this new work draws the visitor into a three-dimensional envelope ofprojected ‘solid light’.
Anthony McCall is an illustrious British artist, perhaps best known for his ‘expanded cinema’ pieces from the 1970’s, such as Line Describinga Cone. He has exhibited worldwide in museums such as Tate Modern, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Museum für ModerneKunst, Frankfurt, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
The inspiration for Swell came after the artist took a stroll on the coast near the Roker Lighthouse while in town visiting the Reg Vardy Gallery. The resulting work focuses on the phenomenological force of projected waves of white light, recalling the rolling waves of an ocean. The air of the gallery is filled with a sea-mist-like haze which reveals the projected beam as a palpably present, three-dimensional form of astonishing beauty. Unlike a conventional film or video, the audience can move around the space, finding their own perspectives as the room-sized membranes of light rise and fall and turn through space, and one another. Visitors may explore Swell for a short time or they may prefer to stay for longer, following the progress of the form as it very gradually unfolds and changes.
This is a unique opportunity to experience a new work of art by an artist of international importance.
This project is co-commissioned by AV. Supported by The Arts Council of England.

New York based Anthony McCall will introduce the themes and concepts which drive his work, concentrating on his new work, Swell.
Anthony McCall was born in 1946 in England. He entered the art and avant-garde film world in 1972 with a series of works including Line Describing a Cone and Four Projected Movements. Having made his mark throughout the 1970’s he withdrew from making art, returning to galleries only four years ago to show work at Shoot, Shoot, Shoot at Tate Modern and Into the Light at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Since then he has produced a series of strong and original works, most recently, Swell at the Reg Vardy Gallery. This is a rare opportunity to meet one of Britain’s most distinguished visual artists. The talk will also include a tour through the work.

http://anthonymccall.com/

------------------- Trip The Light Fantastic by Kate Owens.

Katy Dove, Martin Richman, The Illustrious Company: Martyn Ware & Pip Rhodes
AV are pleased to support the new exhibition at the National Glass Centre. Trip the Light Fantastic explores the theme of light. The ubiquitous yet elusive qualities of light have been a constant fascination to artists; from the dramatic chiaroscuros of early baroque painting to the Impressionists’ obsessive documentation of natural light patterns; to Minimalist neon sculptures, projected lightworks and the experimental Light Shows of the 1960sthat accompanied psychedelic gigs and club events. This new exhibition brings together a group of five British artists and designers who, working withglass, light, sound, mixed media and animation, continue this legacy in their contemporary practice. It is curated by the National Glass Centre, and EmmaUnderhill, UP Projects. Wonderland by Claire Davies (commissioned by AV) is also showing at the National Glass Centre. See Thursday 2 March for details.

------------ Undercurrent by D-Fuse

Undercurrent will be a spectacular close to the exhibition night in Sunderland. D-Fuse are one of the UK’s top VJ collectives and a truly global collective of artists and designers who work across an extraordinary range of creative media, from art and architecture, to live audiovisual performances.
Their new work Undercurrent is a multi-screened live audiovisual extravaganza which will be projected across the walls of the National Glass Centre and spilling onto the River Wear. It explores the changing nature of urban life in China and the UK and it is inspired by Shanghai, Guangzhou, London and Sunderland. D-Fuse follow the rivers as a medium for travel, transport, trade and communication, exploring and documenting the urban spaces they find along the way, in sound, photography and video. D-Fuse, in collaboration with a number of Chinese sound and video artists, have captured the emotions, histories and stories of each city.
This performance of Undercurrent is co-produced with the University of Sunderland’s s/LAB and is supported by Arts Council, England.

http://www.dfuse.com/
http://www.dfuse.com/downloads/

WORKSHOP Tissue Engineering with Oron Catts

This two days intensive workshop, lead by Oron Catts & Dr. Stuart Hodgetts (Symbiotica Lab, Australia) will introduce artists and other interested people to basic principals of animal tissue culture and tissue engineering. The workshop also provides a history of tissue engineering and an outline of different artistic projects which use tissue culture.Tissue culture and tissue engineering represent a new area for artistic engagement. These branches of biomedical research have a major influence on perceptions of body, self and medical thinking. Tissue engineering enables researchers to grow three dimensional living tissues constructs of varying sizes, shapes and tissue types.

SEMINAR:The Creativity Summit

Codeworks Connect is holding its annual Creativity Summit, as part of AV. The summit explores the issues of creativity in digital media and technology. It will examine some of the core themes of the festival and will bring together speakers from the AV programme and leading thinkers in digital technology. Expect debates about the way in which life and creativity have been changed by developments in technology.

WORKSHOP FOR MIDDLESBROUGH TEACHERS: Making The Most Of Open Source Software

“Open Source” software provides free equivalents of expensive licensed software such as Photoshop for image editing, sound editing software, web page design. There are lots of free tools available for communities to use to communicate with each other, build networks and share ideas. Renowned experts in the field Polytechnic, will guide you through a string of exciting opportunities to further your multimedia work in and out of schools with your students.

SEMINAR:GameHorizon: Show Some Emotion
This event celebrates the AV Festival’s dynamic programme of games activity, which is inspired by the way in which the computer game is increasingly becoming a place where life is lived. GameHorizon, the collaborative network for the North East games companies, will host a forum to explore the link between real life and games. With the advent of next generation consoles, real time software, and artificial intelligence, developers are now able to produce games that are closer to real life experiences than ever before. As games more closely mimic life, gamers are increasingly demanding games ave an emotional as well as technical dimension. This seminar and networking event will look into the methods of building emotion into games, creating an immersive experience for gamers.

------------- Sensory Circus by Time’s Up(UK Premiere)

Roll Up! Roll Up! The Sensory Circus is coming to Town! The world’s most creative digital playground is taking us residence in Middlesbrough Town Hall crypt for AV. Time’s Up are one of Europe’s most innovative arts groups and their Sensory Circus has become a star-attraction at festivals across the globe. This is the first time it has come to the UK.
The Sensory Circus is a series of rooms and interactive environments in which you animate the space yourself in conjunction with some cunning games technology. It’s an amazing adventure playground in which you can swing on the Mood Swings triggering projections and sound, playing with forms of machine perception and reaction. Sonic Pong embeds you in a lifesized world of the computer game, Pong. Your body mass controls the paddles as you manipulate samples of old 8bit games. Beatcycles puts you in whirling control of an organically growing beatbox. The adjacent fully licenced bar allows some cooling off after the playground, and a spot of singing with The King on the Cavity Resonator might be just the trick for the Karaoke minded.
Sensory Circus is great fun for all, and you don’t even need to run away from home to join this Circus!

http://www.timesup.org/sc/index.html

SYMPOSIUM: Sustaining Life, Designing Life

Sustaining Life, Designing Life is a major two-day international symposium, organised by The Social Futures Institute at the University of Teesside and the AV Festival. The symposium will be an exploration of life from a social, scientific, technological, artistic and ethical perspective. With artists and scientists alike fabricating new life-forms and ecologies, our understanding of what life is and where it can happen is shifting, evolving and mutating. It will examine the shifting ethical, scientific, philosophical and artistic borders of life. Over two days, the symposium will stage a series of sessions which explore how life can be sustained and designed. On Day 1, we will ask, what is the impact of technology on Sustaining Life? Designers, artists and scientists have made claims about the way people’s lives can be sustained and enhanced through the mediation of natural systems and digital technology. The day will include sessions on Transforming The Body: is the body being transformed from something that people are born and have to live with to a blank canvas for improvement, decoration and celebration? Sustaining Environment And Ecology: what role can artists and designers play in raisingconsciousness about environmental issues and designing sustainable environments? Sustaining Lives And The Geopolitics Of Food Production: what are the impacts of modern methods of food production and consumption on life in the richest and poorest countries of the world?
Speakers include: Gina Czarnecki, Artist (Australia / UK); Professor Robin Bunton, Social Futures Institute, University of Teesside (UK); Amanda Drago, Choreographer, Dancer (UK); Professor Eileen Green, Social Futures Institute, University of Teesside (UK); Heath Bunting & Kayle Brandon, Artists (UK); Kate Rich, Artist (UK); Professor Gerda Roper, School of Arts and Media University of Teesside (UK); Dr Tom Shakespeare, Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre (PEALs) (UK); John Thackera, Doors of Perception, Design of the Times (UK/NL), Lynette Wallworth, Artist (Australia).

On Day 2, we ask what role does science and technology play in Designing Life? Genetic engineering allows for the creation of synthetic biological worlds, which are constructed in the laboratory. Life is increasingly something which we can design and evolve through our interactions with science and technology. Sessions will include: Mimicking Life: if artificial life mechanisms, robotics and cybernetic systems can successfully simulate life, what are the consequences for humanity and society? Life In The Lab: now that biotechnology laboratories are becoming places in which life is sculpted, is it time to relax ethical objections to the limits of scientific interventions?
Speakers include: Oron Catts, Tissue Culture and Art Project (Australia); Andy Gracie, Artist (Spain / UK); Dr Jill Scott, School of Art & Design Zurich (Switzerland); Dr Sally Jane Norman, Director, Culture Lab, University of Newcastle (UK); Kira O’Reilly, Artist (UK); and Kenneth Rinaldo, Inventor and Artist (USA).

------------------- The Primrose Path Dave Allinson & Michelle Tripp

Stockton artists, Dave Allinson & Michelle Tripp have created an art trail, siting new and intriguing artworks in retail spaces, public places, and other unusual locations, around Middlesbrough. In Trans-Plant, the artists transform the BBC’s very own bus, turning it into a ‘conceptual garden’ with film and animated material based on the theme of growth. Simple Mechanisms is an installation in the Thistle Hotel, which features machine ‘robots’ navigating pre-mapped landscapes. Flag-block in the 02 shop window uses material designed to fool security firewalls, to avoid being flagged as junk mail, to explore the fallibility of literal meaning and assumed truth. These evocative works explore the poetic qualities embodied in AV’s themes.

dave allison website http://www.hybridproductions.org/dave/

---------------- State by Helena Swatton
The magnificent and awe-inspiring natural environment is the starting point for this reflective journey of images by by local artist, Helena Swatton. State is a large single screen video installation, filmed on location in Iceland, especially prepared for, and premiered at, AV Festival 06. Representing the transient state of life itself, it reveals an intriguing window of opportunity to dwell on the ‘moment’, to allow the viewer to consider the inherent and incessant passing of time.

http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~as0jhu/condition/hkf.html

--------------- Planesong by James Hutchinson

Planesong is an installation by Newcastle based artist James Hutchinson. It presents the audience with an immersive space consisting of multiple projection screens which show abstract graphic ‘planes’ created using the software ‘Processing’. The title refers to the structured nature of the medievalmusic, ‘plainsong’. Viewers will see animated constructions of architectural planes, which are controlled by algorithms. Separate animations ‘exist’ until the architecture reconfigures itself. The architectural planes are self-generating while a viewer controls their navigation through the space using the hardware of the console game — a game-pad controller. Planesong suggests the construction and deconstruction of the basic building blocks of life, both digital and biological — it questions life, power, control and technology.
Hutchinson himself will also be on hand to demonstrate Planesong. The hardware and programming in Planesong is by Spencer Roberts.”

--------------- The Remains of Disembodied Cuisine by Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr

Disembodies cuisine

AV is delighted to host the UK exhibition debut of the extraordinary team of Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr, who work together as The Tissue Culture & Art Project. Credited as the leading lights in the rapidly developing ‘bioart’ movement, Catts & Zurr raise direct and controversial issues about life. These artists actually grow their own art — literally — in biology labs. Using the techniques of bioscience, the artists grow sculptures using living tissue. For Catts & Zurr, the stuff of life is both the physical substance and the subject of their work.
Fittingly located in one of Middlesbrough’s most popular restaurants, AV are presenting Catts and Zurr’s parody of a fine dining experience, The Remains of Disembodied Cuisine. In a critique of the exploitation of animals for food, the artists’ used their tissue-culture lab to grow “victimless steaks” from frog cells (without hurting any frogs). The resulting “steaks” were consumed in a performance banquet in France. The Remains of Disembodied Cuisine documents the growing of the “steaks”, shows the people who ate them and presents the tissue which remains from the banquet. This is one cafe experience not to be missed!
These artists are also eloquent and powerful speakers, and AV are delighted to present Oron Catts at the AV Symposium, Sustaining Life, Designing Life in iddlesbrough.

complete program http://www.avfest.co.uk/

ARTe MEDIA

create a sculpture

Beautiful Losers

AV Festival '06

DANM Festival