[spectre] illumine exercise 02: Syncop_tic Structure

[nat muller]

illumine exercise 02: Syncop_tic Structure
a public experiment for apprentice sky-watchers, universe-makers and
star-gazers

Location: FoAM lab Koopliedenstraat/Rue des Commerçants 60-62, 1000 Brussels
Opening: Sunday, 21st September, 18.30 - 22.30
Opened to the public: Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd of Sepember
Opening hours: 14.00-22.00
free entrance
contact: info at fo.am

Karmen Franinovic (architect and interaction designer) presently artist in
residence in FoAM's illumine programme was joined by Yon Visell  (physicist
and whittler of digital signals) and Lina Kusaite (material designer) in an
ambitious task of constructing a prototype for a ' Syncoptic' public space.
A space constructed as an urban gap, with its own will, cut up, unstable, on
the verge of collapsing into nothingness, demanding that its temporary
inhabitants adapt their movements, slow down and allow themselves to play
with sound, light and architecture.

Several approaches to syncopation of continuous experience have been
deployed: building an inflatable transit tube, that undulates based on the
movement around it; allowing blind navigation to generate subjective
light-maps of the physical space; experimenting with concepts for making
receptive, deceptive and antagonistic spaces; gazing at stars, imagining
what it must feel like to drift through the emptiness in between them;
cracking several glow-sticks to understand the interactive potential of
chemical luminescence. The publicly accessible experiment is a mixture of  a
documentation and outcomes of these exercises that will attempt to transfer
some of the ideas into hands-on/feet-on experiences of syncop_tic spaces and
media.

For three days, the FoAM lab will function as a shell for an experimental
pocket-universe, where the space is punctured with chasms and openings,
allowing the curious passers-by to step into its skies and experience the
infinity of a blackout. Once their eyes get accustomed to the darkness, they
will be immersed in an innocent game where skill and chance are no longer
distinguishable - the city-walkers can lose themselves in the darkness of
its black holes, dipping their feet into uncertainty; or reveal the hidden
dynamics of its luminescent constellations by joining forces and invoking
their light-patterns,  bringing them to life.


Syncoptic artists: Karmen Franinovic (Interaction Design Institute Ivrea),
Yon Visell
Textile Artist: Lina Kusaite

supported by:
Flemish Ministry of Culture
GAI, Associazione per il Circuito dei Giovani Artisti Italiani, Movin'up
program
IDII Interaction design Institute Ivrea

thanks to the Inflatable group IDII (Walter Aprile, Massimo Banzi, Dario
Buzzini, Eyal Fried, Daniele Mancini and Stefano Mirti) and especially to
Massimo Banzi, Eduardo Brambilla and Gert Aertsen


'Illumine. Excercises in Colloquial Luminescence': http://fo.am/illumine/


Artist in residence biography:

Karmen Franinovic received her Bachelor of Architecture degree from at
Institute of Architecture of Venice. She worked as Design Director on
architectural projects with AltenArchitekten, ArchA, Studio Sottass, Isozaki
and Ove Arup. In 2000 Karmen co-founded NU_zero lab, which designed several
award winning projects, including Amnio(p)tic surface and MutePlateau. Her
theoretical research on hospitality, city, sacred, exile, borders, eversion,
body-action, home, anarchy and order in collective events and interaction is
formalized in digital projects, theatre plays, videos and
installation/events and was published in various books/reviews 'Defining
Digital Architecture', New York; 'Gommora_territori e culture della
metropoli' Roma; 'Possible Futures', Miami etc. Through interactive
electronic objects and immersive media environments Karmen is bringing the
concepts of slow technology into urban gaps and studying emergent social
behaviors in public spaces. She is currently doing !
 her Master at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.

FoAM collaborators:

Yon Visell works with concrete and abstract signals, their physics and
geometry, especially computer sound; responsive and sensory systems;
inhabitable and virtual computational or non-computational geometries and
quantization. He has worked with FoAM in Brussels and elsewhere, formerly
led DSP development at Ableton AG in Berlin, worked in engineering research
at Loquendo Inc, and, before all that, immersed himself in the physics and
noncommutative geometry of superstrings at the University of Texas at
Austin.

Evelina Kusaite, M.A is a designer who combines art, movement and technology
with her exploration of the potential of conceptual illustration. In
addition to illustration she is working on the techno-textile research is
aimed at the production of new fabrics, and one of her aims will be to give
to the clothes that she is creating a real sense of moving as the body
moves. The aim is for the clothing to come alive, inspired by biological and
chemical processes in nature. She studied illustration and fashion design at
the Vilnius Academy of Arts and at the Utrecht Arts Academy; she completed
her European Masters of Fashion and Textile design in Utrecht and Paris at
the Institute Francs de la Mode, Paris, France. Evelina's has worked
extensively with several dance groups and choreographers, as well as
photographers, film makers, architects, hardware and software engineers,
applying her knowledge in creating and manipulating fabrics, colours and
shapes in various contexts.