[spectre] Sphæræ lands at Ars Electronica, Sept 5th - 9th

[Annick Bureaud]

Hi Spectrites !

Another good reason to go to Ars Electronica.

Best
Annick


SPHÆRÆ lands at Ars Electronica!
As part of the Studiolab open call, “Synthetically Yours”, 
the ArtScience Interfaculty and Synergetica Lab present a 
series of multi-sensory performances and installations in 
the context of synthetic biology.  Transpiring inside 
Sphæræ, an inflatable multi-dome pavilion created by Cocky 
Eek, these spherically projected artworks evoke the 
transformation of prebiotic conditions into the complex 
behavior and dimensionality of synthesized living cells.

Sphæræ will be in front of the Ars Electronica Center on the 
bank of Danube River, offering a full program of 
performances, talks, and installations during all 5 days of 
the festival, September 5th - 9th.

September 5th, Thursday
17:00 - 19:00  Sphæræ introduction by Arthur I. Miller, 
Synergetica Lab,  ArtScience Interfaculty (The Hague), Royal 
College of Art (London)
19:00 - 19:30  Joost Rekveld "#43.5"

September 6th, Friday
12:00 - 17:00  "Hyper-Rainforest" installation by Francisco 
López
20:30 - 23:00    Sphæræ reopens for performances

      21:00 - 21:30 Mariska de Groot and Dieter Vandoren 
"Shadow Puppet?"
      21:30 - 22:00  Paul Prudence "Hydro-Acoustic Study"
      22:00 - 22:30  Eduard Haiman, Michael Holub, Evgeniy 
Vaschenko, Vadim Smakhtin "Biosphere"
      22:30 - 23:00  Nenad Popov, Erfan Abdi "Polar"

September 7th, Saturday
12:00 - 15:00  "Hyper-Rainforest" installation by Francisco 
López
17:30 - 19:30  Sphæræ reopens for performances
PLEASE, WEAR WHITE CLOTHES FOR THESE PERFORMANCES!

      18:00 - 18:30 Bas van Koolwijk "Runaway AV"
      18:30 - 19:00 Evelina Domnitch, Dmitry Gelfand "10000 
Peacock Feathers in Foaming Acid"
      19:00 - 19:30 Matthijs Munnik "Citadels"

September 8th, Sunday
12:00 - 14:00  "Hyper-Rainforest" installation by Francisco 
López
17:00 - 19:00  Sphæræ reopens for performances

      17:00 - 17:30 Joris Stribos & Yamila Rios Manzanares 
"Covex"
      17:30 - 18:00 Eric Parren "Gut Feeling"
      18:00 - 18:30 Martijn van Boven "On Growth and Data"

19:00  -  23:00  "Hyper-Rainforest" installation by 
Francisco López

September 9th, Monday
12:00 - 17:00  "Hyper-Rainforest" installation by Francisco 
López

PARTICIPANTS

Synergetica Lab
Located in Amsterdam, Synergetica is an art-science 
laboratory, investigating photonics, fluid dynamics, 
acoustics, quantum chemistry and psychophysics. In addition 
to providing a platform for artists working in these 
domains, Synergetica serves as a curatorial and educational 
entity, disseminating interdisciplinary art works and 
art-science research.
ArtScience Interfaculty
The ArtScience Interfaculty is an interdisciplinary bachelor 
and master program that fosters curiosity driven research as 
an approach for the making of art. The program considers art 
and science as a continuum and promotes the development of 
new art forms and artistic languages. The ArtScience 
Interfaculty is embedded in both the Royal Conservatoire and 
The Royal Academy for Fine Arts in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Cocky Eek’s (NL) work has been revolving around lightweight 
spatial compositions and her favorite media are wind and 
air. This resulted in floating or flying experiments or 
large, voluminous pneumatic forms constructed to capture 
air. She creates environments that translate this material 
into a tangible experience of form and volume. Since 2005 
she co-directs FoAM (Amsterdam) whose main focus in the last 
years has been the topic of human-plant inter-relationships.
Arthur I. Miller (UK) is Emeritus Professor of History and 
Philosophy of Science at University College London. He 
received a PhD in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology.  From 1991 to 2005 he was Professor of History 
and Philosophy of Science at University College London, 
where he founded the Department of Science & Technology 
Studies. He is the author of several books, including 
Insights of Genius: Imagery and Creativity in Science and 
Art, Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty that 
Causes Havoc, Empire of the Stars: Friendship, Obsession and 
Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes, and recently 
published, Deciphering the Cosmic Number: The Strange 
Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung, which explores 
how through Jung’s psychoanalysis, Pauli came to understand 
his creative powers while at the same time enabling him to 
cope with his complex life. http://www.arthurimiller.com

PERFORMANCES

43.5 | Joost Rekveld (NL)
Inspired by simulations of how nerve impulses travel through 
tissues like heart muscle and cause oscillations, the 
project has become focused on the more general emergence of 
patterns in time and space out of homogenous starting 
conditions. Going back to the pioneering research Alan 
Turing undertook towards the end of his life, in which he 
was the first to try to understand the differentiation of 
cells in an embryo through computer simulations. Such 
simulations have links to chemical oscillators based on 
reaction-diffusion and similar models have been used to 
explain pattern formation on various levels of scale in biology.

Hyper-Rainforest [space-shifted portable version] | 
Francisco López (NL/SP)
A monumental sound piece, both in duration and in spatial 
terms, created from original environmental recordings done 
between 1990 and 2010 at multiple locations of tropical, 
sub-tropical and cold rainforests in: Argentina, Australia, 
Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Gambia, Mexico, Myanmar 
(Burma), New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Japan, Senegal, South 
Africa, USA, and Venezuela. Because of the vividness and 
presence of all the sounds and their spatiality, 
“Hyper-Rainforest” has the possibility of being perceived as 
a simulation. Beyond that immediate -and natural- reaction 
to this experience lies an entirely different possible 
territory: the realm of the phenomenologically ineffable. 
Sounds are not only indexical or referential (the standard 
view). They have their own life, their own 
‘self-sufficiency’. They are the potential building blocks 
(substance, matter, magma) of a self-sustained sonic 
virtuality not grounded in representation, but rather on the 
emergence of a more free world.

Shadow Puppet? | Dieter Vandoren and Mariska de Groot (NL)
A combination of embodied performance and analog machinery 
gives rise to an engulfing play of light, shadow and raw 
optical sound.

Hydro-Acoustic Study | Paul Prudence (UK)
A cinematic exploration of sonically activated hydrological 
events, specifically evolving waveforms, proto-cellular 
bubbles, and meniscus’s that grow and exhibit behavior in 
direct response to sound.

Biosphere | Eduard Haiman, Michael Holub, Vadim Smakhtin, 
(RU) and Eugene Vaschenko(UA)
Investigating the borders and similarities between 
computer-generated creations and living beings, this 
interactive installation allows participants to interact 
with and control artificial life forms with their smartphones.

Polar | Nenad Popov and Erfan Abdi (NL)
Slime Mold, Physarum Polycephalum, grows over the spherical 
screen, it's shape governed by Belousov-Zhabotinsky-like 
reactions within its giant cell.

Runaway AV | Bas van Koolwijk (NL)
Once set in motion, the performer’s software gradually gains 
independence, while the performer, on the other hand, 
gradually loses control over the processes which he 
initially directed. The result is a runaway process whereby 
the system continues to develop a growing complexity.

10000 Peacock Feathers in Foaming Acid | Evelina Domnitch, 
Dmitry Gelfand (NL)
The original proto-cell, a direct chemical ancestor of lipid 
membranes, soap film comprised the foam of the primordial 
prebiotic soup.  The sensitive skin of a soap bubble is 
capable of swallowing laser light as if it were confined by 
a waveguide antenna.  In this performance, bubble-trapped 
laser beams reveal the biomorphic molecular dynamics inside 
of soap film membranes.

Citadels | Matthijs Munnik (NL)
An observatory of vivid hallucinations is produced within 
the  eye itself, arising due to interference in the signal 
from the eye to the primary visual cortex. These complex 
interference patterns are spherically transformed in 
accordance with the retinotopic map.

Covex | Joris Strijbos, Yamila Rios (NL)
An extended cello performance interplays with a meticulous 
constellation of laser beams shot trough transparent objects.

Gut Feeling | Eric Parren (USA)
E. coli bacteria, the humble organisms with whom we share a 
symbiotic relationship, were genetically modified with iGem 
bio-bricks to express three different kinds of fluorescent 
proteins; red, green, and cyan. The bacteria were captured 
trough time-lapse laser-scanning confocal microscopy while 
undergoing growth and movement experiments. Processes that 
normally occur on the scale of 500 nanometers are suddenly 
visible a hundred thousand times their original size. This 
project was made possible with the support of the 
California NanoSystems Institute and the University of 
California Institute for Research in the Arts.

On Growth and Data | Martijn van Boven (NL)
The simple system of a closed feedback loop is developed, 
transformed, mutated, translated and after each iteration, 
it is mirrored and compared with real life strings of 
biological data available through online databases such as 
Genbank. In its most ideal situation during one performance 
the initial system transforms into a computer generated form 
equivalent to the fingerprint of animals or plants.

supported by  European Commission Seventh Framework 
Programme (FP7), Mondriaan Fund,  The Amsterdam Fund for the 
Arts, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie

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------------------------
Annick Bureaud (abureaud at gmail.com)
tel: 33/(0)1 43 20 92 23
mobile/cell : 33/(0)6 86 77 65 76
Leonardo/Olats : http://www.olats.org
Web : http://www.annickbureaud.net
Collectif Nunc : http://www.nunc.com
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