MEDI[T]ATION | TEXT BY DR. SHINTARO MIYAZAKI
Compared with earlier works by Marc Lee, The Value of the Present Moment is a rather stripped down webcam installation, which can only be accessed through the World Wide Web. It is about the spiritual moment of the present, which can be attained through meditation: real-time and meditation. In meditation, the meditating person enters the moment of the present. He or she becomes, so to speak, one with the world in the spiritual moment of being-in-the-present. This conscious dwelling in the moment of the present as a state of enlightenment and transcendence of space and time refers to the hippie movement, known for its desire to achieve an anti-authoritarian and de-hierarchized world order and system of values, and for its affinity with nature and closeness to spirituality.
Essay by Dr. Shintaro Miyazaki is related to Marc Lee’s The Value of the Present Moment. See Research for full text.
Post published on 23.06.2014.
THE VALUE OF THE PRESENT MOMENT
Marc Lee conducts media research with artistic means, skilfully places societal tendencies in the context of contemporary art and continuously challenges the visitors through the interactive qualities of his works. Here, for the first time, the artist brings together real-time as a media phenomenon with his many years of experience with meditation and the therewith connected investigation of consciousness development, self-knowledge and overcoming spatial limits.
Intervention The Value of the Present Moment by Marc Lee from May 24 till June 30 2014 on www.collective-view.ch.
Post published on 24.5.2014.
Electronic Eyes Never Sleep | Zum Echtzeit-Bild der Netzwerkkamera in der Öffentlichkeit des Internets
Article by Damian Jurt published in Forschungsskizzen – Einblicke in Forschungspraktiken der Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW. Artistic research is a current topic in art education and among practicing artists. Since the introduction of the Bologna reform, research activities have become an important subject of discussion at art universities and, since recently, so-called artistic research in particular. The publication of the Academy of Art and Design Basel FHNW takes up current discourses on this still to be defined research term and, with ten texts and picture spreads, presents the debate with regard to concepts, epistemic practices, urban development, (public) space, performance and the body.
The article is related to Swann Thommen’s Active Landscape on www.collective-view.ch, published by Scheidegger & Spiess.
Post published on 24.11.2013.
SOCIETY IN THE POCKET – EVERYDAY IMAGES ON THE MOBILE PHONE
The cellphone as a real-time medium makes images possible, which reflect our actions and how we perceive ourselves in society. Digital pictures and video films result that can visually reproduce, deconstruct and recombine our society. The process of representing and reproducing is also carried out through apps and text communication. The individual approaches and application forms of the cellphone makes it a potentially identity-forming medium that can also be used for artistic projects.
A round table discussion on 15 November 2013, 7 pm, Stadtgalerie Bern, with Christian Ritter, Manuel Schüpfer and Aline Zeltner.
Post published on 25.10.2013.
WENN SICH DIE SCHLANGE IN DEN SCHWANZ BEISST. „LOOP“ BY ESTHER HUNZIKER | TEXT BY DR. YVONNE VOLKART
“‘One hundred years ago Thoreau wondered: “Even if the telephone company succeeded in connecting people in Maine with people in Tennessee, what would they have to say to each other?” The rest is history.’ I am sitting at the computer monitor and am staring at moving, mutating colour patterns that flow into each other. The movements are jerky, stop-and-flow, flaring up rhythmically like television used to be after the end of broadcasting; well, like webcam images that are transmitted in the web. They oscillate, rave, pull me into something which is not spatial, but only surface, change, dynamics.” …
Article by Dr. Yvonne Volkart is related to Esther Hunziker’s Loop on www.collective-view.ch. See Research for full text.
Post published on 29.10.2013.
FLASHBACKS
Social events are translated into images and information which we can access on the end-user devices of our medial environment immediately after these events have taken place. We have gained an expansive palette of possibilities with which to enter into collective opinion formation through digital communications channels. Making images and viewing, commenting and reading overlap in an unstable simultaneity. The transfer of data is automated and the distant view to a geographically remote situation finds a new normality in real time transmission.
Exhibition at the Stadtgalerie Bern from October 25 2013 till November 30 2013, with Aram Bartholl, Gaël Grivet, Marc Lee, Annina Rüst, !Mediengruppe Bitnik. Curated by Damian Jurt.
Post published on 25.10.2013.
LOOP
With her work Loop Esther Hunziker researches the webcam’s function as a surveillance medium and an instrument for control freaks. To this end she implements a feedback configuration in which the webcam becomes an observer of itself. The webcam, as the symptom of a surveillance deployment which is chronically aligned to turning its gaze outwards, is therewith robbed of its actual function. This reversal provides insights into the hidden world of digital real-time images.
Intervention Loop by Esther Hunziker from October 1 till November 24 2013 on www.collective-view.ch.
Post published on 1.10.2013.
EINE FRAGE DES BLICKS. „IN REALITY“ BY KASIA KLIMPEL | TEXT BY DR. DORIS GASSERT
“Our gaze comes to focuses on an image whose diffuse content pulses to the beat of seconds. We squint, move our heads closer to the screen, and instantly find ourselves drawn into the space of the image. Our gaze glides diagonally through transparent layers of images, whose interwoven motifs move jerkily. Layer by layer we attempt to decipher the different strata of the image-space. An aquarium? A cloud-filled sky? A hilly, mountainous landscape, a meadow, wind. Fine, white lines, which suddenly flash across the image and remain indefinable. Technical interferences perhaps?” …
Article by Dr. Doris Gassert is related to Kasia Klimpel’s in reality on www.collective-view.ch. See Research for full text.
Post published on 30.7.2013.
IN REALITY
Kasia Klimpel shows a picture construct consisting of an overlay of live webcam images. From time to time we can recognize one of the layers, which show us different locations around the world. Nevertheless, the image resists decoding, as the layering brings it close to a diffuse abstraction. Kasia Klimpel presents a montage of real-time images from live webcams that can be accessed via Internet. The images of the different transmissions are transparent, and with this the individual images in the resulting overlay are visible, creating a digital abstraction. By means of an algorithm, the images of this webcam transmission are continuously layered over each other anew, in various combinations.
Intervention in reality by Kasia Klimpel from June 2 till August 18 on www.collective-view.ch.
Post published on 2.6.2013.
The NOTES on we, the public
Here you find the Notes on the first Swiss Artistic Research Network conference We, the Public in Lucerne in 26th/27th of April 2012. In there you find two texts on the workshop www.collective-view.ch – On Real-Time Webcam Images. Workshop held by Damian Jurt, Academy of Art and Design Basel FHNW, Swann Thommen, Geneva University of Art and Design, and Internet-Users. Moderator: Selma Dubach, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste ZHdK.
Presenter NOTES: Damian Jurt / Moderator NOTES: Selma Dubach
Post published on 1.5.2013.
Webcam Images – Lecture
The focus on questions relating to artistic research at the Art Institute of the Academy of Art and Design, Basle (FHNW) is closely connected with the conditions for the accreditation for Master’s programs. Backed on this, the Federal Bureau for Professional Education and Technology (BBT) in June 2010, for the first time, agreed to provide the funding – limited to a period of three years – for the creation of research competences for music, theatre and other arts. The lecture will take place within the framework of the event on the subject of artistic research at the Art Institute.
Lecture by Damian Jurt, Art Institute, Academy of Art and Design Basel FHNW.
Post published on 15.11.2012.
Webcam Images – Article
In June 2010, the Federal Bureau for Professional Education and Technology (BBT) for the first time approved the funding – limited to three years – for the creation of research competences in the departments of music, theatre, and other arts at the Academy of Art and Design. The November edition of UpDATE provides information about, on the one hand, important questions and knowledge gained in relation to the BBT research project, and, on the other hand, it also highlights all further ongoing research undertakings at the Art Institute. In addition to the different research topics, also visions and concepts in relation to research methods and forms of cooperation will be broached, also with regards to sustainability in the areas of research and teaching.
Article by Damian Jurt, in UpDate – Fokus Forschung, Art Institute, Academy of Art and Design Basel FHNW.
Post published on 10.11.2012.
Taktung Festival
From 11th to 13th October 2012, video and music artists will research the connection between moving images and their pacing. The visual realisation of these regularities and rhythms are made accessible to the viewer through audio-visual experiments, and video and light installations. The different activities during the festival steer the rhythm of the exhibition, determine the speed and influence the spaces. A journey within and with a building, which during this time, from one day to the next, will move itself and also our selves.
The project www.collective-view.ch is part of the exhibition and publication Taktung from October 11 till 13 2012
Post published on 11.10.2012.
WHAT ARE ALL THESE LIGHTS DOING? (STROBES)
The work What are all these lights doing? (STROBES) by Laurent Schmid places stroboscopic light – as a scientific achievement that also has psychoactive effects – in the context of contemporary media technology. The image on the website shows the overlap between the digital real-time transmission of the webcam technology and a filmic, fragmented situation that is generated by the strobe light. The shift of roles also creates a field of tension, characterized by irritation and cognition.
Intervention What are all these lights doing? (STROBES) by Laurent Schmid from September 12 till October 14 on www.collective-view.ch. In cooperation with the Stadtgalerie.
Post published on 12.9.2012.
ON REAL-TIME WEBCAM IMAGES
“The negative implications of webcam technology became apparent on 21 March 2007 when Kevin Whitrick committed suicide in a chat room in front of rolling cameras. People present in the chat room commented on the event as it unfolded. Descriptions of what had been seen compe- ted for attention with requests to contact the police, who arrived at the crime scene just two minutes later. However, all help came too late and Kevin Whitrick was pronounced dead at 11:15 p.m. GMT.” …
Article by Damian Jurt, in: Quéloz, Catherine: Actes de Recherche, Edition 2012, CCC Research- Based Master Programme critical curatorial cybermedia, Geneva University or Art and Design, 2012. See Research for more information.
Post published on 1.7.2012.
WE, THE PUBLIC
Analyzing and communicating with artistic means forms the core of artistic research and offers a multitude of methods and competences to public and professional spheres. The majority of artistic research projects impact on public contexts by contributing to both innovative and socially engaged solutions. Artistic research often functions as a bridge between the process of creating artworks and explaining, processing, and positioning them in a public framework.
Workshop with Damian Jurt and Swann Thommen on 26, 27 April 2012 at the Conference We, the Public. Organizer SARN | Swiss Artistic Research Network & Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts | See Research for more information.
Post published on 26.4.2012.
TALK WITH SWANN THOMMEN AND RAFFAEL DÖRIG
In connection with his work Active Landscape – a project which has the lost and subsequently rediscovered scenery of the film The Ten Commandments as its starting point – Swann Thommen has chosen for his talk a bluebox in which he has a conversation with Raffael Dörig.
Talk with Swann Thommen and Raffael Dörig on April 15 2012 as Live Stream on www.collective-view.ch | See Archive to watch stream.
Post published on 15.4.2012.
ACTIVE LANDSCAPE
In 1923, at the end of the production of Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film The Ten Commandments, the film’s scenery was demolished and buried, for financial reasons, at the film location in California. In 1982, the then 30-year-old film graduate Peter Brosnan heard about this and decided to initiate a project with the aim of digging out the buried film set. The temporal and spatial shift of the Egyptian site, as a reproduction for a Hollywood film which, in turn, became a new archaeological site, is the source of Swann Thommen’s intervention for the project www.collective-view.ch. He has built a faithful model of the original location of the excavation as a staged situation for the webcam. With this, Thommen creates a reproduction of an existing reality—the buried rubble—for the Internet.
Intervention Active Landscape by Swann Thommen from March 3 till April 29 on www.collective-view.ch.
Post published on 30.3.2012.
HUMAN SPACE
With his intervention Raphael Bottazzini questions – on the www.collective-view.ch website – how different cultures and groups within our hybrid society relate to each other. He focuses in particular on the tensions generated by the layering of different cultures in the present world order. In his observations, he gives the role of the individual a central position. Bottazzini takes the idea that we are all products of social developments as an occasion to develop a premise that makes the viewers of the exhibition aware of their own role in society.
Intervention Human Space by Raphael Bottazzinni from January 14 till February 28 on www.collective-view.ch. In cooperation with the Schwarzwaldallee Basel.
Post published on 14.1.2012.
BEYOND REALITY – DIE WEBCAM ALS MEDIUM
The Internet represents an intersection that brings together different technologies, contents and actions. Performative practices which are organized through social networks, media devices like the webcam or the smartphone, and the technologies that make all this possible, overlap. It is a connection which we can paraphrase with the term performativity.
Lecture by Damian Jurt at Symposium Inside Out-of-Home-Displays on 16 November 2011 at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Press Release. See Research for more information.
Post published on 16.11.2011.
