Johannes Birringer - Mixed Reality: The Creation of Moveable Worlds

Friday 22 October

6-7pm
Garwood Lecture Theatre
Univeristy College London

This film-lecture grounds its inquiry into augmented reality on an artistic research/production developed by DAP-Lab (Center for Contemporary and Digital Performance, Brunel University) during 2008-2010.

The mixed reality installation UKIYO, created with partners in Tokyo and deriving inspiration from Japanese drawings (ukiyo-e) and anime, presents scenographic practices that connect physical space to virtual worlds and explore how performers can move between material and immaterial spaces. The spatial design for UKIYO is inspired by Japanese hanamichi and western fashion runways, emphasizing the production company's cross-over experimentation with different movement languages, retro-futurist wearable design for interactive performance, acoustic and electronic sound processing and digital image objects that have a plastic as well as an immaterial/virtual dimension. The work integrates various forms of making art in order to
visualize things that are not in themselves visual, or which connect visual and kinaesthetic/tactile/auditory experiences, while expanding current collaborative convergences between arts and science/engineering. The “Moveable Worlds” of UKIYO are also reflections of the narrative spaces, subtexts and auditory relationships in the mutating matrix of an installation-space inviting the audience to move around and follow their sensorial experiences,
drawn near to the bodies of performers and to their avatars.

Bio
Johannes Birringer is a choreographer and media artist. As artistic director of the Houston-based AlienNation Co., he has created numerous dance-theatre works, video installations and digital projects in collaboration with artists in Europe, the Americas, China, Japan and Australia. His recent production, the digital oratorio Corpo, Carne e Espírito, premiered in Brasil at the FIT Theatre Festival in 2008, and the interactive dancework Suna no Onna was featured at festivals in London. His new mixed reality installation UKIYO went on European tour in June 2010. He is founder of Interaktionslabor Göttelborn in Germany (http://interaktionslabor.de) and director of DAP-Lab at Brunel University, West London, where he is a Professor of Performance Technologies in the School of Arts. His new book, Performance, Technology and Science, was released by PAJ Publications in 2009.

Getting to UCL:

The nearest Tube stations are Euston Square and Warren Street. For full details, see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/about-ucl/location/public-transport

How to find the Garwood Lecture Theatre:

Once you enter the main gate of UCL in Gower Street, you will face the Portico in the UCL quadrangle courtyard. Please take the right hand side diagonal and walk to the right corner of the building. You will see the brass tablet indicating South Wing. Enter the second entrance door at the South Wing, and you will find the Garwood Lecture Theatre on the first floor. There will be signs from the entrance that will help you to find the exact location easily.

You may also consult the UCL maps at:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/about-ucl/location/maps

Entrance is free, all welcome

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Pattern Completion, an audio-visual installation at UCL

We are delighted to invite you to the second showing of Pattern Completion, an audio-visual installation exploring ways in which networks of brain cells recall memories.

Wilkins North Observatory, University College London

Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

Thursday 23 September - Friday 1 October 2010

Monday - Friday 4.00-8.00pm | Saturday 12noon-6.00pm

Private View Wednesday 22 September 6.00-8.00pm

We look forward to seeing you there.

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CHANGE VENUE FOR TODAY'S TESLA TALK!

Please note that today's Tesla Talk will NOT be in the Garwood LT but in Pearson LT instead. It is the first entrance on the left hand side once you enter the Gower Street main gate, or ask the receptionists to assist.

location picture:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/efd/roombooking/building-location/?id=003

Sincere apologies!!

Gordana

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Artist Michaela Nettell, scientist Dr Hugo Spiers and sound designer Tom Simmons: Pattern Completion

Monday, 17 May, 18:00 – 19:00

University College London

Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT

Garwood Lecture Theatre, South Wing

(Details how to get there at the bottom of the page)

Pattern Completion

Pattern Completion is an installation created by an artist, a sound designer and a neuroscientist exploring ways in which networks of brain cells recall memories.

When a memory is created activity patterns in the neurons become inscribed in their connections, leaving a trace known as an engram. It is thought that during recall this trace is restored and the original activity pattern re-established. This process is known as 'pattern completion' and is believed to occur in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. During the pattern completion process the initial activity of the cells is incoherent, but via repeated reactivation the activity pattern is pieced together until the original pattern is complete. Sometimes it fails, leaving us unable to bring elements of the past to mind.

Our installation echoes this process using sound recordings and photographic sequences captured in forests. The sequences are fragmented, shuffled and projected into constellations of suspended glass spheres. The forest scenes, based on pathways, clearings and walking are purposefully empty of people and objects. The images and sounds provide cues for viewers to complete, or interpret, these landscapes with recollections of their own.

The complex nature of memory, the ambiguities between remembered and imaged places, the ephemeral quality of our memories and the ways we use our memories to define ourselves are themes that underpin our installation and which we will discuss in our presentation.

www.pattern-completion.net

Michaela Nettell combines video and film projections with glass, water and mirrors to create short films and sculptural installations that describe fleeting experiences of memory and perception. Her work has been exhibited in galleries throughout Europe and is regularly screened at international festivals and events.

www.michaela-nettell.com

Tom Simmons collaborates with artists, musicians and scientists to create films, installations, performances and texts that explore ways in which we perceive and experience sounds and animated moving images. He is a Senior Lecturer and Research Coordinator at Norwich University College of the Arts.

www.tom-simmons.net

Dr Hugo Spiers is a neuroscientist at University College London. His research explores how we navigate space and remember the past. Currently his research group are examining how small constellations of brain cells contribute to mapping space and guiding behaviour.

http://www.psychol.ucl.ac.uk/hugo.spiers/

This talk coincides with the Pattern Completion exhibition:

Gimpel Fils Gallery, 30 Davies Street, WC1K 4NB, Thursday 20 – Saturday 22 May.

Private view: Wednesday 19 May 6pm – 8pm

Artist, scientist and Poet in conversation followed by food and drink on Saturday 22 May, 4pm – 6pm

Details about the project: http://www.pattern-completion.net/index.html

Getting to UCL:

The nearest Tube stations are Euston Square and Warren Street. For full details, seehttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/about-ucl/location/public-transport

How to find the Garwood Lecture Theatre:

Once you enter the main gate of UCL in Gower Street, you will face the Portico in the UCL quadrangle courtyard. Please take the right hand side diagonal and walk to the right corner of the building. You will see the brass tablet indicating South Wing. Enter the second entrance door at the South Wing, and you will find the Garwood Lecture Theatre on the first floor. There will be signs from the entrance that will help you to find the exact location easily.

You may also consult the UCL maps at:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/about-ucl/location/maps

Entrance is free, all welcome.

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Dr Brigitta Zics, artist, media philosopher and interaction designer: How to think about Art and Design in the Age of Consciousness

Thursday, 29 April, 18:00 – 19:00

University College London

Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT

Garwood Lecture Theatre, South Wing

(Details how to get there at the bottom of the page)

Abstract

This presentation provides an overview
of the critical thinking in some creative practices through the study of consciousness. It argues that technology has brought such qualities and capacities to aesthetical production and meaning creation which might only be extractable through the understanding of the human factor in these experiences. The presentation proceeds from the assumption that philosophical accounts of consciousness and recent multidisciplinary approaches to cognition have provided valuable perspectives in the understanding of human aspects in the man-computer interrelationship and will develop this position in order to understand consciousness research as an aesthetic inquiry.

To illustrate this, the model of Transparent Act will be introduced as a paradigm that detaches itself from previous aesthetic models and argues for a novel philosophical conceptualisation of technology mediated creation. A consequence of such an approach is to bring design and artistic strategies to the same platform and, as it is will be argued, introduces a radical approach to creative production. As a practical example the presentation will introduce a discussion of the large scale interactive installation of Mind Cupola which aims to apply the approaches represent in Transparent Act and suggest new ways of meaning production through biofeedback interface.

Biography

Brigitta Zics is an award winning artist, media philosopher and interaction designer with particular interest in emerging technologies and their impact on creative practices. She is Senior Lecturer in Design and programme leader in the MA Design by Practice course at the School of Art, Media and Design, University of Wales Newport. She is also Visiting Fellow at the Trasntechnology Research, University of Plymouth and regularly presents her research and artistic work on international conferences and festivals. She is also panel member for the Leonardo Reviews and working on post-doctoral methodologies, supervising research students and developing a major creative project entitled the Mind Cupola for international exhibitions.

She is focusing on emerging technologies of interaction and their aesthetics capacities through the human cognition. In her recently finished interdisciplinary thesis Transparency, Cognition and Interactivity: Toward a New Aesthetic for Media Art (2008) she introduced a new philosophical model of the Transparent Act which proposes a radical re-evaluation of how interaction can be understand in disciplines of art and design. Her latest art work the Mind Cupola applies a modality of passive interaction which is an affective environment in which the user's experience initiates a cognitive feedback loop with a potential for spiritual-like states in their consciousness. Besides this major focus her innovative interest is to look at the potentialities of cognitive-based interface design for enterprise and business applications. One of recent examination is how the Mind Cupola might be implemented by ageing people as a tool for improvement of well being.

Website:

http://www.zics.eu, http://www.trans-techresearch.net/?page_id=26

Getting to UCL:

The nearest Tube stations are Euston Square and Warren Street. For full details, see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/about-ucl/location/public-transport

How to find the Garwood Lecture Theatre:

Once you enter the main gate of UCL in Gower Street, you will face the Portico in the UCL quadrangle courtyard. Please take the right hand side diagonal and walk to the right corner of the building. You will see the brass tablet indicating South Wing. Enter the second entrance door at the South Wing, and you will find the Garwood Lecture Theatre on the first floor. There will be signs from the entrance that will help you to find the exact location easily.

You may also consult the UCL maps at:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/about-ucl/location/maps

Entrance is free, all welcome.

Read More......