(revised to match ‘green’ paper calendar in TML -xw)

Monday March 31 - April 3

Clean up lab, prep for return of gear

Tuesday April 1
4 to 5 campfire, rehearsal
8 documentation of Touch2

Thursday April 3
5 to 7 Roundtable (discussion begins at 6)

Friday April 4
RT Crew Party @ NFB (see google calendar for details)

Sat, Sun,
Independant Strike Organized by subgroups. Lab Clean-up complete.

Monday April 7
General Strike complete and equipment return.

Now through April 1
Clean-up the lab. Please take away real garbage, and personal stuff to make space around areas in which you’ve been working. We’ll re-zone the lab for fresh work through the next seasons.

Wednesday April 1, 5-7 PM:
(Proposed)Roundtable discussion for peer artists and researchers

Thursday April 3, 8 PM:
Second performance / video shoot of Touch, audience by invitation-only

Friday April 4 – Last Day of Show
One projector comes down; strike Cells; Jitter / Sound finale
We’ll celebrate at shows by Desh @ NFB, and JS+Jerome.

April 5-6, 8 PM:
Strike sound (Saturday) and video gear.

Monday April 7, 8 PM:
Return equipment.

Just a few links about the vernissage/exhibition of RT… for historical purposes. Please add any other links that you come across, especially those who will be created during and after the exhibit.

The Concordia Journal 

The Concordian

Concordia News

Elektra Blog

Montreal Mirror (this links will die)

The Suburban

Rats Deville

Canadian Art News (this link will die)

Concordia Art History Calendar

CIAM

Voir

Hexagram

CREDITS arranged by creative work
March 6, 2008 xw
March 16, 2008 jc
March 16, 2008 xw
March 17, 2008 ts
——————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Main Gallery

Cell Sculpture
Patrick Harrop; Gregory Rubin, JC Nesci, Candace Fempel, Evan Marnoch, Dirk Blouw, Jean-Sebastien Rousseau; Flower Lunn
Welded PVC plastic, mono-filament, fabric, water, plants.
Description: A net of transparent cells fills the airspace at diverse heights.

Calligraphic Video Projection
Jean-Sebastien Rousseau (Michael Fortin)
Max / Jitter, OpenGL, projectors, Mac G5 computers, cameras
Description: Multiple streams of camera input transmute to responsive video projected onto the surfaces of the Gallery, providing weather.

Sound Field
Timothy Sutton
Max / MSP, Logic, microphones, Mac G5 computer, hardware sound
processors, speakers
Description: Ten channels of synthesized and transmuted sound form a
palpable dynamical field.

Dynamic Light Field
Harry Smoak
Lighting instruments, DMX dimmers, LAN interface, Max, Macintosh computer
Description: 1. A row of luminous pattern at the base of the south wall refracts activity from the sidewalk. 2. An array of lights build and respond to conditions in the gallery.

Electrified Flight Sensate Weaving
Marguerite Bromley (XS Labs); Elliot Sinyor, Doug van Nort + IDMIL McGill; WYSIWYG group TML
20′ wide, 4′ high Jacquard-woven fabric, conductive thread, custom electronics, Arduino micro-processor, speaker, Mac Mini computer
Description: A 20′ wide weaving diverts flow around a corner of the gallery. It sounds as a visitor approaches or touches a pattern.

Black Box

Suitcase
Elena Frantova, Timothy Sutton (Lenka Novak, JS Rousseau)
Suitcase, plaster sculpture, electronics, sound.
Description: An old suitcase contains a doll-sized TML, with plaster figures illuminated by dynamic lights. Multi-channel, algorithmic sound playback system.

Cone Sculpture
Lenka Novak
Mono-filament, cast glass, projected video.
Description: Seven glass disks are suspended from cones of monofilament. A projection of a river textures on to the monofilament.

Plant Systems
Flower Lunn
Plants, moss, soil, wood, string, aquaria, water, pumps, gro-lights, timers
Description: Arranged moss clusters at the base of the vitrine. Water plants float in the cell sculpture. Soil-based plants climb trellis made of string and plastic tubing.

Vitrine Corridor
Louis-Andre Fortin, Flower Lunn, Nadia Frantova, Elena Frantova, Timothy Sutton
Cut and printed paper, found objects, plasma display, subwoofer, microphone, sound processing system.
Description: A line of stills from the official TML documentation videos forms a vector from Mackay Street end through 3 sections of the vitrine. The actual, messy history lies on the floor as found objects and images from the lab. Microphones and moss cluster at the air gaps between the vitrine’s glass plates, absorbing air, sound, moisture. Low sounds permeate the space.

Sebald Cabinet
Mark Sussman, Ayesha Hameed
Wooden cabinet, television set, speakers
Description: This cabinet, augmented by recorded sound and video, references a series of table-top theater pieces by Mark Sussman and colleagues in Great Small Works based on the writing of W.G. Sebald.

Documentation Pedastal
David Jhave Johnston
Cabinet, PC computer, Display monitor

Events

Remedios Terrarium Event
Sha Xin Wei, Morgan Sutherland, Emmanuele Thivierge (Yon Visell)
Max / C, Mac G5 computer
Description: The Gallery’s weather constantly evolves according to pre-composed tendencies as well as activities inside and outside the space.

Vernissage March 20
Lynn Beavis, JA Drolet
Thursday March 20, 18h00 - 20h00

Touch2 March 20, Dusk (19h06)
Choreographer: Soo-yeon Cho
Dancers: Soo-yeon Cho, Kiani dal Valle
Edited video: Desh Fernando
Video & Projection: Jae-Ok Lee
Real time video design : Jean-Sébastien Rousseau
Set design & Construction : Josée-Anne Drolet, Pascal Simard, Jae-Ok Lee
Costume design : Josée-Anne Drolet, Jae-Ok Lee
Touch1 video : Touch creators, filmed by Desh Fernando
Touch1 sound design : Timothy Sutton
Touch2 sound editing : Soo-yeon Cho
Touch2 sound sources : Timothy Sutton, Freida Abtan, Akumu
Lighting : Harry Smoak
Coordination : Josée-Anne Drolet
Technical consultation : Harry Smoak, Jean-Sébastien Rousseau

Description: A 6 minute version of the Touch1 dance video of two dancers will be projected onto west wall. At dusk, Soo bursts from a paper structure on the west wall. She and Kiani dance among the suspended cells and the Tapestry, leaving visual traces on the wall.

hi devs,

i’m now sending out values from the ‘breather’ i’ve built. it sends this message:

/rt/state/breather/m n, where

m is the intensity of the breath, and n is the volume of air contained. the latter is to communicate whether the last breath was a breath in or out, but it could be later made to be a characteristic of the breath, ie. short breaths yield less volume.

you can control the behaviour via OSC:

/rt/state/breather/weakness n

and /rt/state/breather/adrenaline n

weakness makes the breath less calm and fluid, adrenaline makes breath faster and shorter.

it relies on msp for some of its parameters, so it’s maybe best run on my machine, but it can be moved to others, since all the IO is via OSC. it’s incorporated into my master pro/rt/snd patch as a subpatch, but if anyone wants to extend it i can make it available as a module in the general repository.

again, my machine is 10.0.0.10, and you’ll have to add yourselves to the udpsends in the [network] subpatch on my machine. also a reminder that my mic intensities are always sending out if you want to experiment.

I’ve simplified the event topology to a bare minimum that still has a chance of flow in two dimensions, and has a beginning, muddle, end. Let’s call it the VISIT4 topology, since it’s got only 4 states: NIGHT, DAY(=DAYDREAM=DESERT), GLASS, FIRESTORM.

We media folks met and talked about the experiential aspect of these states last week. Basically, the room leaves its NIGHT activity as the clock shows it’s Gallery business hours (9 - 19h?).

NIGHT is time for the Gallery to dance (danse macabre, sibelius’ valse triste, hiphop, etc. according to the season) as you like. It would be interesting to suggest autonomous life, autonomous intentionality, locked behind glass.

DAY is when the clock shows Gallery is open for business and there’s a minimal activity in the room. (We can set the threshhold just below one-body’s-worth of activity by calibration under the Gallery’s conditions, or we can use the surveillance camera trained on the receptionist desk to see when someone is near the receptionist area.) It could be interesting to characterize DAY state as when no visitor is there in the Gallery, but it’s open, and showing its dreams. What those “dreams” are is up to the creators to interpret. We did speak about playing back processed, previously recorded material.

As visitors infuse the Gallery, the room gets “wetter” (derives more energy from visitors). As it gets wetter, more weather happens: i.e. the state tends away from DAY and toward the mixture between GLASS - FIRESTORM .

GLASS is viscuous, liquid, continuous. In this state, horizon is distinct from sky: the projections on walls are distinct from projection on the ceiling. The visitor may be able to “write” on the surfaces — only one attractor (that associated with the biggest blob?), permits writing, e.g using a scattering of dust.

FIRESTORM is violent; sparky, atoms in void. Maybe nervous in the sense that the dynamics are quite sensitive to perturbations from sensors. Eg. motion from camera input drives the particles very hard, bc the particles’ masses are low, or attractors’ gravitational masses are high.

In terms of physical configuration, what distinguishes GLASS from FIRESTORM could be how people are positioned and / or moving near the sculptural elements in the room: the Cells, the Sensate Tapestry, possibly the Suitcase in the other, hidden room.

I don’t know what activity should tend to correlate with GLASS & FIRESTORM in the most tangible or compelling way. My first cut guess would be to sense whether people (a person) are gathered close to a (any) sculptural element. For example, people “touching” (within threshhod of our sensors) any part of the Cell structure or Tapestry could send the system into FIRESTORM.

This we’ll have to work out in situ, in vivo, of course.

Here’s a thought about transitions between instruments like

water - ice - … - waterfall

One question is how to make a 2 (or more) dimensional transition between states that is more interesting than a cross fade between two (sets of ) instruments.

For example, as we approach waterfall, maybe the NUMBER of particles can increase as DAY —> 0. While the SPEED or LIFETIME can increase as FIRESTORM —> 1.

Also the responsivity of the particles to human movement as seen by the Motion patch, should increase in FIRESTORM. We could decrease the mass of the particles, or multiply the strength of the attractors associated with the movement density distribution.

As GLASS –> 1 (and FIRESTORM and DAY necessarily –> 0), the particles (if that’s what they are) could increase in mass until they are relatively insensitive to the movement of the human visitors.

Another point: as the event goes to its terminal DESERT = DAY state, the particles perhaps should return to their original constellations.

Ever since Meteor Shower, I’ve asked for being able to set the initial positions of the stars according to simply the (x,y) coordinates of the brightest N pixels in the input video (could be a static bitmap). Michael Fortin may have provided this as an external to Max, but surely this can be done, simply enough, in native Jitter.

It would also help if the instruments near the boundaries of neighborhoods of the fundamental states look the same. In other words, it would be helpful if the FIRESTORM instrument(s) look like GLASS instrument(s) for some choice of parameters. So we can make multi-dimensional transitions.

For times series that suggest “intentionality,” I suggest
1. Mapping the game controller joystick via Max to a DMX instrument
2. Parametrize an instrument
3. Use Tim’s sensor data recording tool (a very important research instrument !!!) to record the INPUT (not cooked) sensor data while manipulating the DMX instrument.

You can re-use the sensor data

Alternatively just record people’s signatures on a tablet,
Use the x,y,t data mainly for the temporal dynamics,
Map the dynamics to all sorts of temporal processes, e.g. speed (or acceleration) along a trajectory, like the moving beam trajectory, whose (x,y) path is independently determined.

This may yield effect of “intention” …

On 7-Mar-08, at 12:54 AM, gregory rubin wrote:

Dear Xin Wei and JC,

I hope this note finds you both well.

Following today’s conversations with both Josee-Anne and JC, and then meeting with the team here in Winnipeg, I am providing you with an overview of our schedule for Montreal, as well as a list of items and requests regarding space and equipment.

Firstly, Xin Wei, thank you for arranging and offering accommodation. I have asked Candace and Evan to contact you directly. And I will get in touch with Tim and Morgan.

Our arrivals and departure itineraries are as follows:

Gregory: Arrive Saturday, March 8, 12:38 pm, Air Canada 8564. Depart Tuesday, March 18, 8:20 pm, Air Canada 8569
mobile: 4 1 6 5 8 7 8 2 4 0

Evan & Candace: Arrive Sunday, March 9, 12:38 pm, Air Canada 8564. Depart Tuesday, March 18, 1:55 pm, Air Canada 8567

Evan mobile: 2 0 4 2 9 6 3 8 2 7

Candace mobile: 2 0 4 5 1 0 1 6 1 0

Also, these past few days we have been making some cell prototypes, experimenting with water in the cells, as well as preparing pieces for the structure & cell templates. We’ll get photos of the work on the blog in the next day for you to see the progress. We’ll be producing some more prototypes in the next couple of days, and bring the work with us to Montreal.

Work Schedule:

Monday 10

Shopping for supplies - tapes, vinyls, fabric, tubes, etc…
Setting-up the work space and cell presses
Making cell prototypes

Tuesday 11

Producing cells in time for campfire.

Wednesday 12

Mass Producing cells

Thursday 13

Producing cells
Work in Gallery: hanging lines (morning)

Friday 14

Work in Gallery: making PVC tube structure, hanging cells (morning and afternoon)
project review (afternoon/evening)

Saturday 15

Cabane a Sucre!

Sunday 16

Refining the cell

(Producing more cells?)

Monday 17

Refining, (Producing more cells, hanging in the gallery?)

Tuesday 18

Refining, (producing more cells, hanging in the gallery?)

We are bringing to Montreal:

-nichrome wire (and related electronic equipment)
-Teflon tape
-some vinyl
-samples of PVC tubes
-samples of materials (meshes, fabrics, screens for the projections)
-sample cell templates

The bulk quantities of materials (inc. vinyl and PVC tubes) will be purchased in Montreal, after we have arrived. We can do this on Monday the 10th in the morning before we get access to the workshop and start setting up the press stations.

Space and Equipment

JC has confirmed that there is space available in the TML.

-We would like there to be an open space about 10 X 12 feet for laying out the cells, testing configurations. The work stations could be set up around this area.
-Can we get a couple more tables into the lab so that there are a total of three work stations?
-Equipment: drill, jigsaw, a few power bars, extension cords.
-If this amount of space is not available in the TML, would there be an alternative space to work in? It’s best if the work stations and laying-out-area are all in one room.
-JC: please go ahead and cut out the materials for building the cell presses. I can come in either Saturday or Sunday and help with the setup in the TML.

Gallery

I understand that hanging equipment will be available both Thursday and Friday mornings.

-Can we get access to the Gallery throughout Friday to hang cells and the cell structures (we won’t need the hanging equipment for this)?

-Can we get access to the gallery before Thursday to check out the space?

That’s it for now. If there is anything I have missed, or you have any questions, please let me know.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to meeting you all in Montreal!

Gregory

CC: Josee-Anne, Patrick