November 15-20, 2010
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany

The purpose of the inter-media forum is to facilitate a cross-border exchange between interactive media, digital art and generative design. The ‘NODE – Forum for digital Arts’ emerged in 2008 from an initiative of developers and users of the programming language vvvv, which is mostly used to create artistic and creative software projects. But NODE is more than just a large-scale vvvv user meeting, the NODE – Forum for Digital Arts gathers people working across the disciplines of applied and artistic media in a week-long event.

The focus of this years NODE10 is the investigation of cultural consequences of a post-industrialised, technological society. The exhibition ‘abstrakt Abstrakt’ thus deepens the discourse surrounding technology and society. Participants look into the subjects through workshops and talks combined with subsequent symposiums and live performances.

NODE10 – Official site
NODE10 on Facebook
NODE10 on Twitter

Deadline: 31.08.2010

This year you are definitely invited to participate the NODE Forum for Digital Arts again. So don´t hesitate and send us your work, which could be from screen to wall to everything. Please send us your proposal including the following information:

- detailed contact information
- title of your work
- context of creation (personnal project, schoolwork, professional)
- description of your work
- duration, resolution, sizes, tech rider
- screenshots, photographs

only as pdf to: node@vvvv.org (subject: submission)

For all other materials please send your documents to:

NODE – Forum for Digital Arts
Niddastrasse 84hh, 60329 Frankfurt, Germany

Prime – public art for the new Bybanen light rail system in Bergen, Norway

I just came back from the premiere of my new piece Prime, a light installation for Fageråstunnelen on the Bybanen light rail system in Bergen. Above is a quick preview slideshow of photos shot in the tunnel, more detailed documentation along with video will follow.

Prime is based on a strict grid structure of light elements, with each element switching on and off according to an individual prime number. Due to the use of prime numbers this primitive switching logic gives rise to unpredictable patterns whose logic is not decipherable through observation alone.

The grid is realized in 3 configurations, each of which is repeated two times throughout the tunnel. The two largest installations (using 16 elements) are placed at the tunnel exits, and are clearly visible from outside. The 4 smaller pieces (using 7 and 4 elements respectively) are placed at regular intervals inside the tunnel. This way the work retains its presence throughout the 0.7 km long tunnel, glimpsed as the train moves past.

Unlike most of my other work Prime is not computer-based. Instead I chose to create a programmed logic using simple and stable electric relays. I also wanted to find physical technology that could match the scale and rough nature of the tunnel environment, opting for large LED elements rather than screens or projections. The piece was commissioned to last for a minimum of 5 years, and so technical stability is of the essence. The installations were fabricated by Focus Neon using LED technology normally used for commercial signage systems.

Prime is one of three public artworks installed for the opening of Bybanen, the other two being HC Gilje’s 400 meter light tube “soundwaves” and The White Rabbit by Anita Hillestad and Rachel Dagnall. The artworks were commissioned by Bergen Kommune, with Jørgen Larsson and Jørgen Blitzner as artistic consultants. Additional art for Bybanen will be commissioned through a public competition, the outcome of which will be announced later this year.

The workshop will give an introduction to Processing for artists, and focus on ways of integrating Processing into the participants’ art practice. The course description is as follows:

The rise of digital media tools for artists has led to an increasing understanding of software as a medium in its own right. Going beyond the confines of commercial software, artists are experimenting with code to create new forms of expression in areas like generative art, interactive installations, and information visualization.

This workshop will give an introduction to the idea of computational aesthetics, which understands form as a product of a computational process. We will use the popular Open Source tool Processing to start sketching with code, then move on to more advanced topics like video and vector output. Built on top of the Java language, Processing is simultaneously disarming in its simplicity and impressive in its ultimate potential. The last part of the week you will focus on individual work, during which we can look at how Processing can be applied to different forms of artistic practice.

The workshops take place on the campus of the St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School. Hope to see you there!

Bridge Hypothesis (sketch)

A collection of early sketches for a new piece, titled “Bridge Hypothesis”. It looks at the the bridge as a spatial stereotype, deconstructing it into formal expressions. This video was compiled from Quicktimes I saved as I iteratively experimented with and improved the code. I like that you can see the spontaneous evolution from a primitive wireframe representation, to increasingly stylized forms that reference the bridge as spatial stereotype but clearly have abandoned all regard for gravity.

I am making this piece for “Bright Nights”, an evening of projections on the anchorage of the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO on October 7th. The event is part of a program of events in connection with the Centennial celebration of the bridge.

Bright Nights will feature the works of myself, Burak Arikan, Motomichi Nakamura and Lee Wells. The event is curated by Christina Vassallo. Practical details follow:

• October 7, 2009 / 7pm – 10pm
• Manhattan Bridge Anchorage, Front & Adams Street side in DUMBO, Brooklyn
• The event is free and open to public.

See the Random Number site for more details about the other artists.

I dropped something heavy on it and destroyed the key socket. Life is difficult. The lack of L seriously interrupts my flow. To survive I have written a widget that copies the character L into memory whenever I click on it (that’s why I wrote the floating window hack.) I’m coping better every day. A few days ago I would simply wiggle the little stump that’s left of the key socket in the hope of producing a single character, or keep a spare L in the search field of my browser for easy copying. Now a single click will do, followed by the mental remapping of L to Ctrl-V. There are 33 L’s in this sad little story.

PS. #1. Yes, I know I can just buy an external keyboard. In fact, I’m sure I’ll cave in given a few more days. But I resent the fact that a decent keyboard is more than $100 in Norway, and I wonder how much money I’ve spent on computer mice and keyboards over the years. I seem to recall paying a preposterous amount of money for a Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard at one point. It must have been back when I was still doing consulting work. That kind of thing ruins your sense of perspective, a good consultant can always make the unreasonable seem like a good idea.

PS. #2. Thanks to CopyPasteCharacter.com for inspiring me to write my missing letter widget. Here’s a cheer for all the really difficult characters in Unicode.

Screen capture of hacked front page for Code & Form.

It seems that this blog was hacked earlier today. Someone got access to write a new index.html, which took precedence over the index.php file. It doesn’t look like any data was deleted, I guess they just wanted to waste my time a little.

I don’t whether the site was hacked through FTP or via WordPress. I’ve changed all my passwords and backed up the database and all files related to the blog, hopefully that will help.

ElectroPlastiques: Object #1 / Grid distortion

I have a new exhibition coming up in Akron, Ohio as part of an artist in residence stay at the Myers School of Art. Titled "ElectroPlastiques", it is my first ever solo show. Interesting that it would take a show in the US for that to happen, although not really so surprising given that the European media art scene is geared towards festivals. The exceptions are the few European media artists who have found gallery representation, a process that seems to be going even slower in Europe than in the US.

I’m using this show to highlight some of the existing topics of my work with realtime animation, as well as a new direction dealing with physical output. I will screen a series of my generative animations, such as Neon Organic, ElectroPlastique #1 & #2 and Illuminations A. These pieces explore the plastic qualities of parametric software processes, where a single set of rules gives rise to an infinite sequence of possible configurations. The title of the show is intended to refer to the plasticity of digital media.

As a counter-point, I will be showing manifestations of my work in physical formats, where animation gives way to other qualities. My rapid prototyping pieces Object #1 - #3 and new work like the Grid distortion laser cuts explore the tactile possibilities of digital fabrication, while prints like the Packing series go beyond the limited resolution of the screen to explore issues of graphic detail.

In addition to the exhibition itself, there will be a lecture this Monday as well as three nights of outdoor projections onto the massive walls of EJ Thomas Hall. To top it off, there will be an event next Thursday featuring a moderated conversation between myself and a biologist, followed by a party. Oh, and I’m also giving a Processing workshop. All in all, it should be an interesting event.

You can read the full exhibition blurb below. My thanks to the brothers Nate and Kirk Mueller for setting all this in motion and being excellent hosts during my stay in Akron.

Marius Watz: ElectroPlastiques
03/24/2008 – 04/23/2008

ElectroPlastiques explores software as a material for artistic expression, not just as a production tool but as the very medium from which the work is constructed. In the work of Marius Watz aesthetic decisions are encoded as algorithms, computational recipes for the construction of form. His bold geometrical compositions enlist the computer as collaborator in order to explore the plastic qualities of parametric systems, hinting at an infinite series of possible forms produced from a finite set of rules.

Through structures that range from the architectural to the organic, from the order to the chaotic, Watz presents the viewer with a narrative of synthesis and transformation. Even when presented in the form of still images or physical objects, the work retains the potential for animation, the threat of seamlessly morphing from one formal configuration into another. Thus the theme of the exhibition is the plasticity of form, made possible by its articulation as software.

Boris Müller / Satoru Sugihara / Eno Henze

The Generator.x 2.0: Beyond the Screen workshop and exhibition kicks off in Berlin this Thursday. In addition to the workshop there will be two evenings of presentations open to the general public, intended to bring the topics of the workshop to a larger audience.

The presentations will take place at the Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, which is also the venue for the workshop. If you’re in Berlin I hope to see you there!

Generator.x 2.0: Presentations #1 – Thu 24 Jan, 19:00 – 21:00

• Keynote: Marius Watz [NO]
• Boris Müller [DE]
• Satoru Sugihara – Morphosis [JP/US]
• Eno Henze [DE]

Generator.x 2.0: Presentations #2 – Mon 28 Jan, 19:00 – 21:00

• Aram Bartholl [DE]
• David Dessens [FR/DE]
• Tim Schork – MESNE [DE/AUS]
• Skylar Tibbits – Theverymany [US]

See the Club Transmediale site for a full list of Generator.x 2.0 events. Documentation of the event will be posted on the Generator.x blog and Flickr group as it becomes available.

The opening paragraph strangely proclaims that “Marius Watz is always afraid.” (Marius Watz hat ständig Angst.) That seems to be a slighthly overenthusiastic interpretation of a comment I made about the importance of backup and having access to data while travelling. It also states that I’ve exhibited in Los Angeles, which I haven’t.

The rest of the article seems ok, if a tad superficial. In particular, I think the issue of whether or not generative art can be sold is a bit more resolved than it comes across in the article. The answer is yes, of course it can. The main challenges here are reaching collectors and museums, as well as to make sure the work is collected in a form that can be maintained for posterity.

See the following two articles at Artinfo for some pointers on the subject of selling and collecting media art:

• Code in a Box
• Conserving Pixels, Bits, and Bytes

Thanks to Christina Vassallo for providing me with these links in the first place.

The workshops will cost £50 each and are intended for people with a working understanding of code and creative practices. The two-day format should be perfect for diving a little deeper into the field or learn a new coding platform. The number of workshop participants will be limited, so interested applicants should submit a short description of their practice and why they would like to attend.

More information on the SIAA site.