Three shipping containers will host workshops and artworks made by various members of Bricolabs: A ‘brico-archive’ corner assembled by Gabriele ‘asbesto’ Zaverio (Freaknet / Poetry Bricolabs), including diverse documentation on processes, including “how-to’s”, video works, texts and brico-objects; A nearby graffiti wall will provide an evolving open canvas for demonstration and exchange of concepts, ideas and views; An interactive installation – Vjing Nature - created by Ivan Henriques & Kasia Molga and Erik Overmeire will invite us to address inter-connections between sensor technology, data vis and microbiology; In addition, the Sensorium project from Salvador de Bahia will be presented on video. Collaborative curation; visual design: Kruno Jost.
Bricolabs Exhibition
Where: Suvilahti (outside Eesti maja, Sörnäisten rantatie 22), free entrance!
Opening: Thursday 16.5. at 19.00
Exhibition dates: 17-26.5., from Wednesday to Sunday 13.00 - 18.00
Three shipping containers will host workshops and artworks made by various members of Bricolabs: A 'brico-archive' corner assembled by Gabriele Asbesto, including diverse documentation on processes, including “how-to's”, video works, texts and brico-objects; A nearby graffiti wall will provide an evolving open canvas for demonstration and exchange of concepts, ideas and views; An interactive installation – Vjing Nature - created by Ivan Henriques & Kasia Molga and Erik Overmeire will invite us to address inter-connections between sensor technology, data vis and microbiology; In addition, the Sensorium project from Salvador de Bahia will be presented on video. Collaborative curation; visual design: Kruno Jost.
Exhibited Artworks
# 'Mobile Art Lab Research' by Kruno Jost (Croatia)
Mobile Art Lab Research is a WIKI page where collaborative ideas of mobile structure for artist work and research has been investigated. It is represented as it was worked on – as a WIKI page, with all the details of preparation and all the gathered material. It is at first an assemblage of many materials, but when looked at carefully one finds a thread of thoughts and possible outcomes in a fashion of Bricolabs thinking.
“Artist working in new media art, transdisciplinary and/or in performance, multimedia, or with themes connected with social, group, collective, collaborative issues, even with anything slightly different than traditional/classic aesthetics, they all have complains about cultural institutional structures that are slow to reply on issues of networking between artists, organizations and events. Also they are inadequate in recognizing needs of productions and presentation, especially in connection to technology and open source. There are no space for presentation, no adequate technological help, no infrastructure to host artist in residency programs, no art labs, etc. All this reflects to local art production and presentation, with much bigger consequences than just helping artist to solve their individual frustrations.
Mobile Art Lab can offer artist, cultural agents and alike a space to share ideas, work on concepts, create tech, workshops, communicate, present concepts or art works, network with others. MAL can be an artwork in itself, but can also be a tool for artwork.”
Kruno Jošt studied painting at Art Academy Zagreb, Free Direction at Gerrit Rietveld Kunstakademie in Amsterdam and holds an MFA in new media arts at Transart Institute. Using trandisciplinary discourses while researching connections between art, culture, new/old technologies, humanities and consciousness he works in media of sound, video, performance, installation, on-line archives (blog, video and photo archives) and interactive works. Jošt is interested in culture jamming, artivism, detournament, social interventions, media hacks, dialogic art and relational aesthetics. Themes he elaborates are in the milieu of control, protocols, manipulation, freedom, authonomy and systems. He works in all applicable media to create a "social sculpture" where emphasis is on non-conventional when embracing and initiating creative group efforts.
# 'Satelística' by Luis Bustamante (Colombia)
Using a set of marvelous, open-source tools Satelistica is finding out where Sats (like the International Space Station, the ones that transmit stuff and spy on China etc... ) are flying from and to. Featured in the video are: Realtime tracking of Satellite passes over a given city, projection (deployment if you want) of satellite orbits in time, geocoding of desired locations, exploration of different satellite (TLES) lists and their behaviors. To do this a satellite-observatory crafted at home with basic knowledge and friend's aid was used, brought to life in an astronomy context, continued as DIY net project.
Luis Bustamante is a Colombian survivor – Artist living in Berlin. He studied in Bogotá and Lübeck.
# 'Bamboo Antenna' by Bruno Vianna (Brasil)
It's a yagi directional antenna, built for tuning to the satélite bolinha frequencies. It's a very simple and efficient design, and we enjoy the bamboo look.
Bruno Vianna is active in the satelliteless movement – a social movement dedicated to technological sovereignity and personal autonomy.
# 'Seed Bombs' (2012) by Maja Kohek (Croatia)
The aim of guerrilla gardening is a forestation, gardening in apartments and skyscrapers in order to convert asphalt and concrete areas in natural, green spaces. It's a method that activists use to point out our influence on nature and to tackle the excessive environmental pollution, that is the result of humans consumerist-industrialistic way of life. The seed bombs are made of hemp seeds, clay and humus. The plant cleans the polluted soil while it grows. The roots of hemp can be 140 cm long and regenerates the soil by absorbing toxic elements from it.
Maja Kohek in her work uses transdisciplinary strategies and collaborative practices in order to examine relations of contemporary society in the context of aesthetics, politics, ecology, spirituality and holism.
# 'New psychotronic generators' (2011+), by Jonathan Kemp
'New psychotronic generators' is a project that explicitly acknowledges aleatory contingencies for its resolution as it attempts the creation of what can be inexactly termed a new “anthropocenic crystallography”. Crushed computer ICs and processors and entrained with powdered minerals derived from computers, including copper, iron, lead, magnesium, magnetite, silver, gold, and silicon, and mixed with locally collected earth, sand, or silt, are mundanely harnessed by colossal electrostatic discharges to create custom fulgurites - when lightning strikes a sandy soil or a beach, the lightning bolt's path into the earth can sometimes transform any silica based minerals into glass like tubes, called fulgurites. The conceit of this project is that other minerals can be entrained in the molten silica as the strike hits the substrate, thus creating new crystal geology. These new crystals are then available for further investigation and use (for example, as psychotronic generators visualized through Kirlian photography).
Jonathan Kemp has a long history of speculative and situational life coding events elaborated as active makings-in-the-world. Project collaborations include material processing performances, environmental installations, speculative symposia, and social software events executed throughout Europe and the US. Current projects and performances are informed by an interest in aleatory and code-brut reconfigurations of computations material substrates.
# 'Illnatured' by Alejo Duque and Camila Botero (Colombia)
Submarines developed by Colombian drug traffickers among other images.
Alejandro (Alejo) Duque (Colombia-Switzerland) is a PhD candidate at the European Graduate School; his research is entitled: Gifted Malice, Kinship Through the Wires and the Waves. Alejo dedicates time and interests on experiencing all possible ways for collaborative/participatory arts that celebrate cultural agitation across the networks while focusing on a South hemispheric reach. His current interests deal with HAM radio, streaming media and satellite listening/spotting. Working under the GNU/Linux and having I.R.C (Internet Relay Chat) as a fundamental part of his ethos.. He has worked on setting up communitary network projects and non-localized hacklabs via the dorkbot-medellin network called [k.0_lab] while being an active member of networks such as Bricolabs, dorkbot-k.0_lab, Co.Operaciones and labSurlab.org of which he is one of the initiators. He is a member of the Locus Sonus Laboratory (sound and the networks) where he has had the chance to lead workshops for artists under the title “Into the electromagnetic spectrum”, Invisible Landscapes and TRUeQUE. He is easy to find on the IRC freenode network @dspstv — https://n-1.cc/pg/profile/alejo
# 'Metasubcibertrans' by Fabiane Borges & Tininha Llanos
Metasubcibertrans is a contemporary person assimilated with recycled materials and organic electronic waste. It is interviewed by Victoria Sinclair, long term Brico supporter and member.
Fabiane Borges is a psychologist and artist. Tininha Llanos is an artist and communicator.
# 'On Google Earth – north/south ferry' by Hernani Dimantas (BR)
'On Google Earth' is a occupancy project of the information spaces. The satellite images to undress countries, cities, streets, places. It decreases the distance among ourselves and invite us to travel through space/ time of our emotional memories.
Cities are built on cities. Become straight corners, in parks or underground holes. The houses of our childhood cannot exist any more. Maybe it is a building instead or a shopping center or even Chinese restaurant. It can be buried under a cold and paved avenue.
To revisit such places, interfere with them, build our brand on them is a liberating exercise and poetic.
Interventions are embedded in the context of digital culture. This is to broaden the debate on property. Use the 'Google Earth' as substrate intervention is not an agreement. 'Do not be evil' is the Google slogan. They will never be evil because they know that the information spaces would not exist without the people. The paradigm is about people's participation, collaboration and impermanence.
Occupy the information spaces is to expand this dialogue. No need to ask permission to publish. The images generated by 'Google Earth' are captured, remixed with other images, processed by software and are returned as an expression of art. This expression becomes performatic. The upload of interventions are available; may appear in different information spaces.
Since 1997 Hernani Dimantas is dedicated to study, the discussion and elaboration of networked collaborative projects. Like the Projeto Metáfora (2001-2002), the first Brazilian project over a wiki platform and MetaReciclagem (2003 – 2013), a free open replication methodology based on technology appropriation to promote social transformation. Hernani Dimantas is the author of several books, magazines and newspapers articles about the Internet as an open environment to collaborative production, ideas sharing and collective intelligence.
# 2006-2013/Bricolabs Haiku' by Bricolabs
Automatically generated haikus from the Bricolabs mailing list messages translated by a software.
# '2006-2013/Bricolabs Archive' by Gabriele Asbesto (IT)
The Bricolabs mailing list archive written on an old magnetic tape set from an ancient computer (1980). The artwork has been created in the Museo dell'Informatica Funzionante Computer Museum.
# 'Essay about the Oil: Santos, Brazil' (2013) by Maira Begalli, Vanessa Ferreira, Teia Camargo (BR)
The documentary shows the discovery of oil in the Santos Basin and development expectations created because of it. Reports the impacts caused by the oil industry in the world. Documents an experimental activity (made in 2012) in the continental area of Santos, involving the critical appropriation of technology as a possibility for the empowerment of the local population about the unsustainable process established.
Direction: Maira Begalli, Vanessa Ferreira, Teia Camargo
Images: Felipe Cabral
Subtitle / Translation: Rafael Tavares
Edition: Teia Camargo e Vanessa Ferreira
more
Maira Begalli Works with technological and ecological collaborative processes. Developing methodologies for free appropriation of environmental technologies - involving free software and free operational systems. "How using experimental technologies can influence the Ecological Knowledge, Science and Technology?". Free researcher at MetaReciclagem. Integrates the core collaborative editorial mutirão da Gambiarra. Master in Ecology @ UNISANTA - University of Santa Cecilia in Santos, in 2013.
# Vjing Nature by Kasia Molga (PL/UK), Erik Overmeire (NL), and Ivan Henriques (Brasil)
What if we can listen and see what plants and microorganisms from our environment talk about? What if we can pick up signals generated as their response to us and make them visual? By using a combination of analog and digital sensory technologies, we will explore what local flora and fauna have to tell us and through visuals generated from real time data of their reactions we will create a collective live-organic-cinema-machine. It will allow us to look deeper into invisible whisper of nature and through the projected visuals generated from real time data streams we will attempt to translate that whisper into something which we can interpret, understand and hopefully to which we can respond.
The Vjing Nature project can be transported and transplanted to many places all over the world and to many different species.
As part of Bricolabs groups through Vjing Nature we advocate using open source software and hardware and we aim to make our findings available to anyone. By providing a workshop on how to tap in into a real time environmental and living data we want to bring people together to discover alternative application of technologies we will use and to encourage people to experiment on their own and to make up their own mind about our place and role within our immediate (and not only) natural environment.
Kasia Molga is a media artist whose practice is concerned with changes in our perception and relationship with the planet in the increasingly technologically mediated world. She deals with real time environment (and not only) data visualization - where the data becomes a pretext, motor and platform behind the work.
She look at the various aspects of real time data manifestation and representation, so that first of all it can be represented not as just an info-graphic, but as a mean of communication of the entities it is taken from, thus giving a beginning to a dialogue between viewer and that entity. She does that by making interactive, participatory art installations, where a viewer is responsible for his/her own experience and thus the experience of others, while the existence of the art installation depends on the real time data feeds and signals, and real time data forms the behavior of the viewer.
In her work she reaches out to networked, Geo-locative and sensory technologies in order to explore diverse aspects of transmitting, visualizing and sharing real time data whilst striving to promote the appropriation of new technologies within the disciplines of art and science.
She has exhibited among others: Ars Electronica 2012 (honorary mention) (Linz, Austria), TRANSNATURAL (NL), Meta.Morf (NO), ISEA (Istanbul, Turkey), Translife Media Arts Triennial (Beijing, China), MIS (Sao Paulo, BR), Dutch Design Week (NL), MOMA (NY).
Kasia is a funding member of Protei Collective, holds MA in Interdisciplinary Design Studies (Central Saint Martin College of Arts and Design), previously studying Art and Animation (Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland). She guest lectures, present at conferences and publish papers regularly.
Ivan Henriques is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher working in multimedia installations examining different perceptions of time, memory and environment. He explores in his works hybrids of nature and (technological) culture creating new forms of communication between humans and other living organisms, considering nature as inspiration and a necessary factor in the development of the technological world.
He won several prizes for his works among them for Jurema Action Plant and EME>> (Estúdio Móvel Experimental) - Experimental Mobile Studio from 2008 until 2010, a project selected and funded by the Secretaria de Cultura do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (BR) and Conexões Artes Visuais, (BR). Henriques has been working in parallel with Kuarasy O berab: musical group playing with electronics, creating ambient-dub-native- beats improvisation; and collaborating with the Technological University in Rio de Janeiro CEFET-RJ (BR).
He launched EME>> (Estúdio Móvel Experimental) - Experimental Mobile Studio in 2008/2009, a mobile residency program project funded by Secretaria de Cultura do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, financed by Conexões Artes Visuais - Funarte having four more residencies in 2010 and in 2012 financed by Mondriaan Fonds. Lately he exhibited his works internationally, participating in festivals, residencies, talks and exhibitions. In 2012 he presented his project in the Genomics Awards in Amsterdam, Salone Internazionale de Milano (IT), 2011 nominated for Prix Ars Electronica and invited to exhibitions such as Artbots in Gent (BE), Leiden University Medical Center Gallery (NL), and at ISEA RHUR 2010 in Dortmund (GE); screened the video ReLandscaping at FILE- SP 2010 in São Paulo (BR). He participated in residency programs such as V2_ in Rotterdam NL (summer 2010), 4Territórios – Funarte – 2008, BR and Beacon Project, Oslo, NO in 2007. Ivan Henriques holds an MA in ArtScience Interfaculty at the Royal Academy of Arts and Royal Conservatoire of Music, The Hague /NL (2011), represented by Verbeke Gallery and also member of TRANSNATURAL.
Erik Overmeire is a media artist working with robotics and virtual intelligence that expand into the physical realm, machine-human-interaction. He connects his screen-based work with his work in physical world, so that the line between virtual and physical reality disappears.
He explore the area of the machine as an extension of a human - a space and no-space between man and machine - and as a separate conscious being and the tensions between the two. He places this blurred space between human and machine in context and perspective and thus question an expansion of human perception and relation with the machine, and machine with a human. He often writes and apply code for generative visuals and sound, vision systems, feedback loop interaction and that way he plays with the concept of primitive form of consciousness and self-consciousness.
In his work he utilises and hacks tools such as openCV, wide arrays of electronics (arduinos, environmental sensors), Kinect camera which then he innovatively applies into his artworks.