Joburg

null Pointer Exception Visit

tegan — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:54:15 +0000

Maia Grotepass is the first research by Dissertation student at the Digital Arts Division of the Wits School of Arts. Most of our MA candidates take the coursework program. Grotepass came into the research from an Engineering Degree from Stellenbosch University and a Bachelor of Arts from UNISA in 2010. Grotepass’s research paper address the difference between engineers as coders and artists as coders. The difference in conception, implementation, testing and delivery shows interesting differences in convention and rule making and breaking. Grotepass’s research centers on how the two approaches can inform and assist each other towards better development practice and ultimately better art making.

The exhibition nullPointerException is made up of four interactive pieces developed in Open Frameworks. Grotepass has used a Microsoft XBox Kinect sensor for each of the four individual pieces. The pieces explore the relationship between code, developer and audience, expanding on what is seen externally and what is developed artistically internally in the code. Each piece speaks to process and engagement, the titles indicating the area of exploration: comment_compile, interface_instead, commit_often and init_before. Full descriptions and photo’s can be found on the nullPointerException site.

The exhibition opening was a massive success and the pieces run effortlessly with live interaction. I highly recommend a visit if you are in the Western Cape.

AVLAB JOZI: Electronic Music

tegan — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:17:33 +0000

All welcome, please join us at the Digital Arts Division next week.

Workshop with Fancisco Lopez, James Webb, Joao Orrechia, Lucas Ligeti
Digital Arts Seminar Room, Wits School of the Arts
Thursday 11th August 2011
10:00 - 16:00
Facebook Invite

Concert: Fancisco Lopez and James Webb
Alexander Theater, Braamfontien
Friday 12th August
19:00

Diva Talk / Digital Soiree

tegan — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:20:32 +0000

Nathaniel Stern, returns to the Digital Arts Division, where he used to teach in 2004/5 and is still a regular contributor and collaborator with the Division. Nathaniel will be speaking about is artwork and practice around the exhibition opening at Art on Paper Gallery titled: Giverny of the Midwest.

For more information please contact me (Tegan) at the Digital Arts Division or visit Nathaniel’s Website nathanielstern.com

Remote Lecture No 5: Haythem Zakaria

tegan — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:42:50 +0000

Remote Lecture No. 5 - The first of our Artists from Africa series as a collaboration with African Digital Art for 2011 and 2012.

In this Remote Lecture:
DATA IS BEAUTY - Haythem Zakaria a 27-year-old
Tunisian artist, living in France for two years. Predominately inspired
by Sufi, Zakaria moved recently towards real time experiments with
generative devices. Operating the intermediality of his discipline, he
offers unique visuals creations and interactive installations. Zakaria will be speaking about his work and practice. Interactive
installation with real time sensor sensory / / single screen / / audio
stereo:

Wednesday 8th June at 18:30 at the Digital Arts Division at Wits University.
For more information on this and other Remote Lectures - as well as the live streaming for the night.
Visit: www.digitalarts.wits.ac.za/remote

by Haythem Zakaria

Remote Lecture No 4: Tamiko Thiel

tegan — Tue, 10 May 2011 12:47:22 +0000

Finally! Remote Lecture No. 4 - the first Remote Lecture for 2011 hosted at the Digital Arts Division of the Wits School of the Arts. Thiel is an internationally renowned media artist working with dynamic and interactive 3D virtual worlds.

In this Remote Lecture:
Tamiko Thiel’s interactive 3D installations are 3D virtual worlds in which users’ own movements and decisions trigger the dramatic structure of the experience. Using examples from these works, Thiel will talk about what she considers to be the unique dramatic characteristics of this medium.

Tuesday 17th at 18:00 at the Digital Arts Division at Wits University.
For more information on this and other Remote Lectures - as well as the live streaming for the night.
Visit: www.digitalarts.wits.ac.za/remote

Still from “Beyond Manzanar” Tamiko Thiel

Light Workshop for Interactive Video

tegan — Thu, 05 May 2011 14:58:10 +0000

During the second week of the Easter Break, Vaughn Sadie a South African artist who’s medium is predominately light gave a 4 day workshop on light theory and lighting design to the Interactive Media MA class at the Digital Art Division at the Wits School of Arts.

The outcome of the workshop was for each student to develop a proof of concept for an installation that used interactive video or computer vision techniques. This was the first time that students put to use some of their recent programming and lighting skills to solving computer vision problems - everything from edge detection, color tracking, motion detection and face detection. The workshop and following project were very very successful and we look forward to having Vaughn here again.

(all pictures: Tegan Bristow)

Vaughn setting up for workshop.

Vaughn on color light theory.

Playing and performing with light.

Jess Foli’s exploration of light in performance.

* And some (please note not all 7 projects are represented) of the project outcomes from the workshop:

1 & 2 of Alexander Jone’s Interactive Running application.

Lisa van Vliet’s Digitally Augmented Shadow Puppetry.

Jess Foli getting ready to show us how her interactive Hop Scotch works.

Hackinect Wednesdays

tegan — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:53:07 +0000

I’m re-blogging this from Andrew’s blog soundplusdesign - the “Motor-Bike Man Post”.

We are having alot fun, even though it is slow fun. We now meet once a week and Joao has joined us too! For the time being we are very gratefully using what the Open FrameWorks community is sharing and slowly getting a sense of what it is we need to make for our own project.

Along side manifesting this project for ourselves as a way to learn more about the Kinect. Maia is in process of finding ways to use the Kinect in her installations and I’m comfortable enough (and excited) to include Kinect in this years MA course work program.

So watch this space!

Hackinect Wednesdays are an off-shot of the Hacksaws Art and Technology group supported by the Digital Arts Division at Wits School of Art and Upgrade! Joburg. Please contact us if you are interested in joining in.

OUT OF THE BODY

tegan — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:29:15 +0000

Interactive Media’s collaboration with Music’s Electronic Composition students is now on YouTube.

Enjoy!

Round-Up of Images for Remote Lectures

tegan — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:19:29 +0000

We have just very successfully had our last remote lecture for 2010, and looking forward to a great line-up of people beaming in from all over the world in 2011.

2011 will have a special focus on the African continent, because of our partnership with African Digital Art. This will give us the opportunity to perform the important task of introducing Digital Artists from the continent to each other as well inspiring new creative practice. For more on the artists and lectures below and for future lecture notifications visit the Remote Lecture Series blog.

From Remote Lecture No. 1 by Marcellino Stuhmer. photo Christo Doherty

Emeka Ogboh speaking at Remote Lecture No. 2 - Lagos Soundscapes. photo Christo Doherty

Screen image from Remote Lecture 2: Lagos Soundscapes. photo Christo Doherty

From Remote Lecture No.3 with Peter Traub. photo Christo Doherty

Peter Traub at Remote Lecture No. 3. photo Christo Doherty

Getting the sound right at Remote Lecture No. 3. photo Christo Doherty

Peter Traub again at Remote Lecture No. 3. photo Christo Doherty

Free Max/Msp Introductory Workshop

tegan — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:43:00 +0000

Andrew Spitz will be running a free introductory Max/MSP workshop on Saturday the 6th of November. No prior programming knowledge is required. All welcome

Thinking of starting at 10.30am and going on until 5.30pm (with time to play on your own little projects). Space is limited to 20, to save your spot click here.

What is Max/MSP?

Max/MSP is a graphical programming environment, making it very easy to code quickly. All you have to do is connect little boxes together and you have yourself a programme. It’s a great for artists!

With Max/MSP you can get your computer to do pretty much anything you want. You can create music instruments, software to remind you to email your mom, or build an interactive video effects processor triggered by movement. If you are into physical computing (using microcontrollers such as an Arduino) you can bring in external sensory data into your computer, process it, and spit it back out as something else, allowing you to turn this data into pretty much anything you can dream of.

Objectives

We will go from the absolute basics of creating a patch to building your own little programmes.

Topics

Max - it is the environment you use to create your patches - it’s the brains behind your programme and is the key to MSP and Jitter. It really helps to learn this first, so most of our time will be spent learning Max.

MSP - It’s a set of objects that deal with audio signal processing. We will touch the very basics of MSP

Jitter - It’s a set of objects that deals with video and matrix data processing. We will also just skim over it.

what should you bring?

- Laptop if you have (let us know if you need as we have 14 computers available)
- If you’re bringing your own laptop, have Max/MSP/Jitter installed (30 day demo available from http://cycling74.com)
- Headphones

Hope to see you there!

Andrew~

blog: {sound + design}
Q&A site: Social Sound Design