David Rokeby's workshop @ iMAL, Brussels : 12-14 Dec 2003, Constructing Experiences in Interactive Installations

[Yves Bernard]

iMAL is organising its 3rd and final workshop for 2003:

Constructing Experiences in Interactive Installations
a 3 days workshop by David Rokeby (Canada)
date : 12-14 december 2003
place : iMAL @ Centre Dansaert, 7 rue d'Alost, Brussels
language : english
max 15 participants
participation fee : 80 EUR

Introduction
David Rokeby has been creating interactive sound and video
installations since 1982. His work directly engages the human body or
involves artificial perception systems (i.e. video analysis). In a
good interaction system (as opposed to a good interface for practical
control), each action on the part of the user is as much a question
as a statement. Each action is an experiment and is the next stage in
an unfolding dialogue which neither the user nor the system is in
complete control of the course of things.

Content
Interaction design for full body engagements, complex systemic
dialogues between group of machines and users, designing controls
from coercive to inexact, interfaces and man-machine systems as
experiences, motion tracking with live video analysis, feedback loops.

Participant Profile
This workshop is designed for artists and designers who want to
explore the design of artistic interactive environments. The workshop
gives to each participant a unique opportunity to discuss his/her
personal project with David Rokeby, a recognised artist and adviser
in the field.
Participants should have good knowledge of digital production
techniques with basic skills in interactive design.

Registration
Participants have to register by filling the form on
http://www.imal.org/drokeby/

Classroom
The workshop classroom is fully equipped with 10 Apple computers, AV
devices (videocamera, videoprojectors), LAN and Internet access,...
Participants with personal laptops and AV digital toys are encouraged
to bring them.

Public Event : Theatre Marcelis, XL, 14 DEC 03, 20:00
The workshop will be closed with a public event on sunday 14, 20:00
at Theatre Marcelis, Ixelles. David Rokeby will do a conference, and
in agreement with the participants will present key ideas from the
workshop.

softVNS presentation and users' meeting: 11 DEC 03, 16h00-18h30,
Centre Dansaert
softVNS is David Rokeby's realtime video processing software, the
toolbox he developed on top of MAX/MSP and that he uses for most of
his installations. softVNS is available to other artists and
developers, and all interested persons will be able to discuss with
David Rokeby about it.

About the Speaker : David Rokeby
The Canadian artist David Rokeby (1960) has been creating interactive
sound and video installations since 1982. His work directly engages
the human body or involves artificial perception systems and intends
to explore time, perception, issues of digital surveillance and the
relationships between humans and interactive machines. In 1982 Rokeby
started developing Very Nervous System, a real time motion tracking
system, which monitors the user's action via video camera, analyses
the data in the computer and responds to the interactor's input. On
the basis of this system - which is also used in music therapy
applications and as an activity enabler for victims of Parkinson's
Disease - Rokeby created several interactive installations with
real-time feedback loops using video cameras, image processors,
computers, synthesizers, and sound systems.
David Rokeby is a technological philosopher In his work he is keenly
aware of the ambiguous and irresolvable nature of humanity and its
relationship to the absolutely arbitrary space of binary information.
He is interested in the way humans and machines mutually influence
each other.
His recent works engage in a critical examination of the differences
between human and artificial intelligence. The Giver of Names (1991-)
and n-cha(n)t (2001) are artificial subjective entities, provoked by
objects or spoken words in their immediate environment to formulate
sentences and speak them aloud.
David Rokeby is widely acknowledged as a pioneer in interactive art
and an innovator in interactive technologies. He has achieved
international recognition as an artist and seen the technologies
which he develops for his own work given unique applications by a
broad range of arts practitioners and medical scientists.
Rokeby's best known work, Very Nervous System (1986-90) premiered at
the Venice Biennale in 1996, won the first Petro-Canada Award for
Media Arts (1988). Watched and Measured (2000) was awarded the first
BAFTA award for interactive art from the British Academy of Film and
Television Arts. Guardian Angel (2001) received the award for best
installation at the Images Festival (Toronto) in 2001.
Rokeby has three times been honoured with Austria's Prix Ars
Electronica Award of Distinction (1991, 1997 and 2002, Golden Nica).
Rokeby recently received a Governor General's Award in Visual and
Media Arts from the Canadian Government.


Links:
David Rokeby on http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/home.html
iMAL : http://www.imal.org
Workshop registration form : http://www.imal.org/drokeby/


This workshop is made possible thanks to the support of the Vlaams
Audiovisueel Fonds (http://www.vaf.be). iMAL is supported by the
Communauté française de Belgique (http://www.cfwb.be) and the City of
Brussels.


--
Yves Bernard    yb at imal.org
asbl iMAL vzw
rue d'Alost straat 7
1000 Bruxelles/Brussel
tel 32 2 213 37 10

http://www.imal.org
http://www.imal.org/martini
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