No subject

[marjolein at v2.nl]

During the International Film Festival Rotterdam V2_ presents two events:

1. "The City is You and Me"
Presentation/lecture
Date: Sunday 26 January 2003
Time: 18:00   21:00 hours
Admission: free
Location: 'kleine zaal', Rotterdam Schouwburg

2. "Tracing the Decay of Fiction" by Pat O'Neill (USA)
Interactive installation
Open: 12:00  18:00 hours
Admission: free
Location: V2_, Eendrachtsstraat 10, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
(see all the way below for more information)

1. "The City is You and Me"
The modern city can be described as a complicated web of individuals and 
social/cultural groups, plus a technical infrastructure of buildings and 
machines where economical, political and technological forces interact. 
Over the past hundred years this technical infrastructure  electricity 
grid, telephone lines, cable tv, Internet, transport  has been a deciding 
influence on how the city has developed and it has caused rapid social and 
cultural change. The city has been lifted beyond its geographical 
limitations and has recently been connected in real time to all corners of 
the world through glass fiber cables and satellites. The city as a 
physical, site specific place now coincides with the city as a part of a 
virtual network of global connectivity and economic and political forces. 
Cities have become nodes in a global network.

In this Sunday matinee, V2_ will present three artist's projects where 
telling a personal story about the city and the artist's personal 
surroundings becomes a means to reflect and participate but also to pass on 
and exchange social and cultural experiences. All three artists make use of 
interactive media, turning the listener into an active participant who, in 
a dialogue with the other participants, constructs a personal story. Each 
of these projects does so in its own distinctive way, by placing a 
different accent, a different focus and by deploying different strategies 
for visualizing the dynamics, complexity and diversity of the city so it 
can be experienced by the participants.

Presentations by:
"Face Your World"  Jeanne van Heeswijk (NL)
"Can You See Me Now?"  Matt Adams, one of the memers of the theatre and 
media group Blast Theory (UK). This project will be executed during DEAF03.
"Stadtwirklichkei"t  Sascha Kempe and/or Michael Wolf (BRD)


"Face Your World"
This project is especially developed for kids from six to twelve years old, 
in three neighborhoods in Columbus, Ohio. It contains four different 
aspects: a multi user computer game which the kids can use to recreate 
their own surroundings, a bus with six work spaces for the children, three 
bus stops on which the children's creations are exposed, and a website 
showing the worlds.

With digital-photo cameras, the kids take pictures of their own 
neighborhoods. These photos are uploaded to the Face Your World-system in 
the bus. After logging in, the kids can recreate their environment in a 3D 
space, using their own pictures as well as those that are already in the 
database.

The program consists of a 3D-navigation mode and the 2D-edit mode. In the 
navigation mode the user can place new objects in the 3D world by choosing 
a flat object or a 3D box, and an image from the database (a building or a 
car for example) to 'stick on' the flat object or 3D box. All objects can 
be moved, rotated, lifted, scaled, deformed and deleted. It is also 
possible to modify an object in the 2D-edit mode. On this 2D drawing board 
the kids can cut, draw, paint, type, mirror and erase. While navigating and 
building their world, the children can take screen shots, which will be 
displayed on the bus stops and website.

In the 3D world avatars represent the users, so the kids can see each other 
navigate through the world. The world is a shared place in which every 
child also has its own exclusive area, where no one else is allowed to 
build, unless they ask for permission. The kids can then negotiate in a 
chat environment, which can also be used to just send each other messages, 
making communication and cooperation a vital part of constructing a world.

The project has been developed in collaboration with the V2_Lab in Rotterdam.
More information on: http://lab.v2.nl/projects/face_your_world.html


"Can You See Me Now?"
With the project "Can You See Me Now?" the British theatre and media group 
Blast Theory introduces a modern variation of the board game Scotland Yard, 
and takes it live to the streets of Rotterdam at DEAF03. The game 
incorporates the latest communication technologies and is played 
simultaneously on line and in the streets. Players, while sitting at their 
computers, are being chased by living 'hunters' at the Kop van Zuid: the 
actors of Blast Theory.

"Can You See Me Now?" is a remarkable mixture of avatars in a virtual play 
environment and people in the real world. As soon as participants log in at 
the website their virtual counterpart will appear somewhere on the city 
grid. In the street the on-line players' positions are relayed via 
satellite to the Global Positioning System (GPS) scanners carried by the 
Blast Theory members. They are represented by yellow pawns that now start 
chasing the white on-line players. As soon as someone is surrounded 
virtually, the location is photographed and the player has been 
intercepted. The photographs are stored in the website's game archive, 
together with a blueprint of the chase.

The on-line players can exchange tactics between them and also send 
messages to the Blast Theory members and eavesdrop on their walkie-talkie 
conversations. The search for the on-line players can be followed live and 
an experience of mixing realities is created: the physical environment 
coincides with the virtual one and they condense into a living archive.

"Can You See Me Now?" will be performed live at DEAF03 (25 February  9 
March, 2003).
More information on: http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/work_cysmn.html


"Stadtwirklichkeit"
"Stadtwirklichkeit" is a platform for the construction of artificial 
worlds. Borrowing the metaphor from Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" the 
application invites users to imagine their own 'invisible city'.

Whilst the visitor of the website meanders through abstract 3D spaces, five 
of Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" are described by voice and 
interactive sound installations. If the visitor is attracted to a certain 
city, he or she may decide to move in. At this stage the user will be asked 
to imagine his own 'urban reality'. To do so the user describes his or her 
idea using his or her own words and chooses an image to go with it. Thus 
the visitor becomes an architect; his or her model becomes a virtual 
'building' of the city. Represented by an abstract form, this creation can 
be visited by others.

The artists believe that reality is constituted through a shared process, 
is built by agreement and concession. Therefor all visitors of 
"Stadtwirklichkeit" take part in the decision making process of how 
developed the individual models may become. Whilst just recently uploaded 
statements are translucent and almost invisible, others which have won more 
votes turn out more opaque and solid. This process can also be reversed by 
"negative votes". In this case the models become pale, are less and less 
visible and finally don't exist anymore.

This project received the Digital-Sparks 2001 prize.
More information on: http://wolf.formlos.com/stadt_wirklichkeit/


For more information: www.v2.nl/2002
Concept: V2_
Productie: V2_ and International Film Festival Rotterdam

"The City is You and Me" is supported by: Cultural Affairs, City of 
Rotterdam, Ministry of Culture and Luna Internet.



2. "Tracing the Decay of Fiction" by Pat O'Neill (USA)
This interactive installation is based on O'Neills "The Decay of Fiction". 
Visitors to the installation, that is on show in V2_, can roam through the 
historic Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles that is about to be demolished. 
The building served as location for many films (noir), J. Edgar Hoover was 
a regular guest and the Cocoanut Grove Bar was the starting point for many 
Hollywood careers: Joan Crawford was discovered there during a dance 
contest and Marilyn Monroe won a beauty contest in swimming suit.

The hotel rooms will be shown on three large screens. Sometimes they are 
the same spaces, sometimes they differ. Visitors can use three mice to 
influence the storylines: they can decide whether the rooms are empty or 
inhabited by ghostlike figures and mysterious voices. It's also possible to 
navigate through countless archive shots of the hotel and its surroundings, 
narrated by historians. The combined navigation of the visitors, along with 
the sound effects in the background, evoke an intriguing and seductive web 
of fiction, documentary and urban myths.

Production: Marsha Kinder, The Labyrinth Project
Scenario: Pat O'Neill
Camera: Pat O'Neill
Editing: Pat O'Neill
Interface DVDROM: Rosemary Comella, Kristy H.A. Kang
Sound: George Lockwood, Adam King
Print: Marsha Kinder

More information can be found on: http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com
Concept: International Film Festival Rotterdam
Production: V2_ and International Film Festival Rotterdam