ITOM PERFORMANCE - GHENT IPEM - UNIVERSITY CENTRAL LIBRARY
1. General information
Students within the course "introduction to multimedia" performed at the grand new year reception with 2 interactive performances. These are based on visualisation of the sound, and expressiveness of the body movements respectively. We can situate this as art within a socio-cultural context.
The location is one of the historical modernist and interbellum buildings in Ghent and is known as the "boekentoren". The whole building was designed and constructed by Henry Van de Velde, and conceived as a new kind of library where science and arts could meet. It is located next to the original theatre space, and remarkably, probably one of the few libraries have a performance space in Europe. The room is a large space with square pillars and large windows over the whole length.
The students were divided in 2 groups and as such 2 realtime audiovisual performances where collaboratively produced. The have theatre elements, concert and performance characteristics and were for the occasion related to the annual reception for new year, offered at the faculty for all employees, from scientific to technical staff.
2. Aim
The course mentioned above, aims at dealing with the newer forms of media art, and has apart from a theoretical perspective a very productive purpose, to create a performance using new media. Students are free to chose the nature of the performance, but have to work together to produce it. We tend to relate the methodology to the mega project, and certainly use the tools developed within mega (eyesweb and pd patches).
3. Concept
An overview of the 2 performances is at http://ipem.rug.ac.be/cursussen/multimedia/2001-2002/index.html
Student-participants contacts: d_i_n_@hotmail.com, dphyfferoen@africamuseum.be, joeribuysse@hotmail.com, Jonas.Slaats@rug.ac.be, lihenbing@belgacom.net, marijn.clarie@rug.ac.be, stefanietimperman@hotmail.com, wiescallens@hotmail.com
4. Relation with MEGA
Within MEGA we tend to think about testing and evaluating research and development.
Within a combination of learning and creating the form of the workshop seems appropriate,
ending with a preformance in a real environment. This should yield different results
than reduced lab situations, and will be fruitfull in the long run for disseminating
the end results. As a testcase we chose some of our own students, and related
this to a not so common situation for a performance. Again this relates the work
within mega to a socio-cultural context where people can function as artists and
producers af art and entertainment, as well as there are other people that function
as a real audience and criticize what is happening. Finally it puts development
in an user-oriented perspective.
Specific use was made of the ear~ objects and blocks, and the motion tracking
blocks. We tried to visualize the expressive features of either movement and live
music, and work this out in a complex though easily understandable way. More specifically
2 relationships were explored: sound - visualisation and sound - movement. And
this within a multicultural prespective. See: http://ipem.rug.ac.be/itom
5. Technical description
5.1. Hardware and software set-up
http://ipem.rug.ac.be/cursussen/multimedia/2001-2002/index.html
5.2. Description of the employed patches
http://ipem.rug.ac.be/cursussen/multimedia/2001-2002/index.html
6. Performance evaluation
Within the context of student activity, the outcome was surprisingly professional
and shows the strength of:
- a more situated learning approach with artistic software
- working with young and creative people (non-professionals!)
- technology aimed at stimulating expressive moments
- audivisual related art within a wider audience context
From the point of view of the participants, there was an enthousiastic involvement,
most of them working for the first time at performing with technology. At least
four of them were returning to other activities and workshops that were organised
by IPEM.
7. media
- http://ipem.rug.ac.be/cursussen/multimedia/2001-2002/index.html
- patches within pd + eyesweb
- dvd video tapes of the preparations and performances
- quicktime movies for website + cd