ARTISTTALK » computer animations

Paweł Janicki (PL)

neja — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 07:42:34 +0000

All of the exhibited projects are based on text, starts with text and develops into different visual forms. The work Endless Blue (2012), based on a poem written by Captain Cur, a 17th century sailor, is originally created as an application for mobile devices and an attempt to transfer a poetic form onto modern technology. With Garden Mechanique (2011)he created on the basis of this poem, written by Tytus Czyżewski (1922) an interactive installation, that contains a movement tracking system that makes it possible to animate such forms including introducing elements of computer games to this work. World Net Instrument is a large-scale interactive installation using language structures as a base for the musical and visual compositions. The fourth project Net Eater (2009) goes forward. It is a series of interactive, generative environments based on data captured from communication traffic and transforms it into a variety of audiovisual forms.For the work dan Synth (2012) is a software written which generates visualizations based on the genetic code of different creatures. This early version of the written software encodes for example the DNA structure into sequences of 4 letters.

Digital, linguistic analysis of a spoken language leads to different, interesting conclusions.

Niklas Roy

neja — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:46:43 +0000

Niklas Roy (b. 1974) uses art in order to explore technology. The outcome of his research are mechanical sculptures, electric machines, interactive performances and electronic devices. Before concentrating on making art, he worked as director, as 3D animator and as visual effect supervisor for several international film productions. His works were shown at La Gaîté Lyrique (Paris), Disseny Hub (Barcelona), Siggraph (USA), Ars Electronica (Austria), Microwave (Hongkong), Transmediale (Germany), VIPER (Switzerland), Emergences (France), LABoral (Spain), WRO Media Art Biennale (Poland) and at many other festivals
and museums. He received several awards (Processing award – VIPER Basel /// Gold award – Philafilm, Philadelphia /// Special prize of the Jury – Fantastic Film Festival, Brussels) and in 2012 he was the first recipient of artist’s residency scholarship funded jointly by the Goethe Institute in Cracow and the WRO Art Center. Niklas Roy holds a degree in visual communications from the University of the Arts in Berlin, he is founder of Royrobotiks and he is a founding member of the “Gruppe für Servicekunst und Dekorationsgestaltung”. He lives and works in Berlin.

Niklas Roy (DE)

neja — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:37:09 +0000

In the second part of the presentation, Niklas Roy focuses on the WIA <> WIA (Water in Africa <> Water in Austria), a subversive installation and performance project, commissioned by Ars Electronica Center for the European Capital of Culture Linz 2009 exhibition 80+1 – A Journey around the World. Niklas developed an artwork which was supposed to be made by a fictional African artist, called Melissa Fatoumata Touré. The installation consisted of a public toilet in the exhibition space, that appeared to be hooked up via Internet to an African village’s well. Data of the amount of water that is pumped at this particular well was supposed to be sent to the exhibition space, where it would feed the water flush of the toilet with the same amount of water, rising awareness of the different values of water in different areas of the world.
Both, the artist and the entire project were fictions invented by Niklas, weeks after the exhibition opening and more than half a year after he first contacted Ars Electronica as Melissa Fatoumata Touré, doubts about the real character of the artwork raised on the side of the organizers and eventually, Ars Electronica’s investigations revealed the true background of the work…

It was some email exchanging (...) when they desperately wanted to find out who Melissa really is, where she comes from and I from my side tried to explain that everything is cool (...)

Niklas Roy (DE)

neja — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:35:36 +0000

During the talk summarizing his residency at the WRO Art Center, Niklas Roy presents his newest site-specific installation Perpetual Energy Waisting Machine created in Wrocław, as well as some of his older works, that are connected with Wrocław: a kinetic vintage object Grafikdemo that was shown at WRO 05 Biennale and the interactive installation International Dance Party he built together with Adad Hannah, a Canadian artist whom he met at WRO 05,

Perpetual Energy Wasting Machine is a rope and pulley mechanism, installed in the staircase of the WRO Art Center. The mechanism connects the sliding doors of the elevator in one floor with the elevator call button on another floor. Operating in two directions on the first and on the second floor, the contraption automatically moves the elevator cabin in an infinite loop between those two levels. The installation moves the elevator in recurring cycles. As this is an hydraulic elevator, and as the cabin´s mass is not equalized by a counterweight, only the movement up consumes electricity. Estimating that the empty elevator cabin has a mass of 350 Kilograms, the wasted energy is about 11.8 Kilojoules per cycle. A modified printing calculator inside the elevator cabin keeps track of the wasted energy, automatically adding up 5.9 Kilojoules for each half cycle. The results of this symbolic calculation – which does neither regard energy loss by friction, nor a heavier cabin due to possible passengers – go straight to a waste bin, located beneath the printing calculator.

In general I like mechanisms and machines. (...) I was really scanning everything of Wrocław for potential places to make something interesting (...) and I said this is also interesting, this elevator...