Intersections – The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry Celebrates its 30th Anniversary

In October CAN headed to Pittsburgh to toast the 30th Anniversary of The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. The event was accompanied by “Intersections,” a dynamic group exhibition showcasing many of the anti-disiciplinary works produced within the labs. Here, we review the show and share details about various included works.

08/11/2019

Events / Members

Artengine Digital Economies Lab – Call for Participants

Ottawa-based Artengine is looking for Canadian and U.S. artists, designers, and cultural producers to take part in its Digital Economies Lab (DEL), a “year-long exploration of the wonders and anguish of making art and culture in the 21st century.”

05/09/2019

Events / Members

Fusing Theory and Practice at MUTEK’s Twentieth

HOLO curates a series of critical conversations and hands-on exercises as part of the 20th Edition of MUTEK Monreal, Aug 20-25.

05/08/2019

CAN Events

BIAN’s 4th Edition – Contemplating (Post-Digital) Corporeality

A review, photos, and selection of highlights from the abundant offerings of the 4th edition of the International Digital Art Biennial (BIAN) in Montreal.

03/08/2018

Events / Members / Review

Artificial Imagination – Opening ‘the Black Box’ of Inscrutable AI Through Dialogue

Artificial Imagination was a symposium organized by Ottawa’s Artengine this past winter that invited a group of artists to discuss the state of AI in the arts and culture. CAN was on hand to take in the proceedings, and given the emergence of documentation, we share videos and a brief report.

01/05/2018

Members / Theory

Interactive Architectural Projection Mapping – Call for Proposals

Quartier des spectacles has posted a call for innovative interactive projection mapping projects and their ponying up up to $10,000 (CAD) funding, expert tutelage to support selected projects’ development, and the opportunity to present finished works near the bustling Saint-Laurent metro station.

02/02/2018

Members / News

Secret Rhythms – Artificiel’s Three Pieces with Titles

“Three Pieces with Titles” is the latest audiovisual performance by Montreal’s artificiel. In it Alexandre Burton and Julien Roy manipulate an eclectic collection of objects within the field of view of a computer vision system to generate real-time video and abstract sonic collage.

24/11/2017

Members / openFrameworks

Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design – An Excavation of Digital Form

“Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design” is an exhibition that excavates the foundation of computer-aided design and manufacturing and weaves together several ‘origin stories’ for contemporary consideration. The show recently closed after a seven-week run at the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and CAN was fortunate enough to get a guided tour with curator Daniel Cardoso Llach as it was winding down.

21/11/2017

Review

Sight + Sound 2017 – A Spectrum of Non-Compliant Futures

The 2017 edition of Eastern Bloc’s Sight + Sound festival put ‘capital I’ innovation in its cross-hairs and pulled the trigger. We journeyed to Montreal to its flagship exhibition and assess its spectrum of ‘non-compliant futures.’

01/11/2017

Members / Review

Radiance – A database of artistic VR experiences

Radiance is a recently-launched online research platform for artistic VR experiences. Essentially a database, it contains info, screencaps, and video on artist-created VR projects and looks poised to become a useful resource for curators.

17/10/2017

Members / News

Music of the Spheres – A Conversation with Dan Tapper

Dan Tapper is a British artist based in Toronto that combines his interest in code and celestial form and his recent research project “Turbulent Forms” visualizes and sonifies various cosmic phenomena. To mark the recent exhibition of this work (and related collaborations with several composers) we present this extended conversation with the artist about cosmology and data aesthetics.

13/10/2017

Members / Processing / Sound

Anatomy of a Screen – Jeremy Rotsztain’s House of Shadow Silence

House of Shadow Silence is a VR experience by Portland-based software artist Jeremy Rotzstain. In it, the artist recreates Austrian architect Frederick Kiesler’s 1929 movie theatre the Film Guild Cinema and uses it to ‘build a world’ of light, geometry, and motion.

04/10/2017

Members / openFrameworks

Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility – An Yves Klein inspired cryptocurrency

Mitchell F Chan’s “Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility” updates the contract at the heart of an influential 1958 work by Yves Klein for the age of cyrptocurrency, the blockchain, and smart contracts.

05/09/2017

Members / News

Dread Bass – AUDINT’s alternate timelines reverberate with fear and death

AUDINT is a European artist collective working across animation, installation, and publishing. Drawing on excerpts from an extended conversation with the group, we unpack their vision of the dystopian future-present and the nether zones that can be conjured through sound and vibration.

16/08/2017

Environment / Members / Sound / Theory

What Algorithms Want – Reflecting on (Human) Agency in an Age of Automation

‘How much should we let algorithms shape our lives?’ is the question at the heart of Ed Finn’s recent book “What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing”. Scanning Silicon Valley, computer science, and the cultural sphere alike it offers a smart and accessible reading of our current moment.

10/08/2017

Members / Review

Inside the Artist’s Headset – Sterling Crispin’s Cyber Paint

Created by California-based artist Sterling Crispin, Cyber Paint is a freshly-released VR painting app for Google’s Daydream platform. Not so much a painting simulator, its creator describes it as a “laboratory for algorithmic mark-making.”

24/07/2017

Members / Unity

Disobedient Electronics: Protest – the revolution will run on a microcontroller

A follow-up to the influential 2012 booklet series “Critical Making,” “Disobedient Electronics: Protest” is a new zine by Vancouver-based theorist and educator Garnet Hertz that uses dissent as a lens to survey electronics-based projects and practices.

13/07/2017

Members / Review

(Un)natural Phenomena – Daria Jelonek’s Technological Nature

‘Technological Nature’ is a recent short film by media artist and designer Daria Jelonek exploring the emulation of natural phenomena with technology. Auroras, rainbows, and glaring sunlight, are all recreated with everyday materials in an eerily empty domestic environment.

03/07/2017

Environment / Houdini / Members

Poetry in Motion – St Marie φ Walker’s Reflective Sculptures

“Reflective Sculptures: A Critique of Binary Beliefs” is a pair of kinetic sculptures by the Ontario-based artists St Marie φ Walker. Produced as part of their MFA show, the motorized devices sit halfway between poems and machines.

14/06/2017

Environment / Members / Objects

Queer Game Studies – an Alternative Lens for Reading Videogames

“Queer Games Studies” is a recent collection of thematic essays published by the University of Minnesota Press that schematizes LGBTQ approachs to thinking about – and making – videogames.

06/06/2017

Members / Review / Theory

Figure and Ground – exonemo’s HEAVY BODY PAINT

HEAVY BODY PAINT is a new installment in an ongoing series of works by the NYC-based artist duo exonomeo that fuses paint and pixel in dry self-referentiality.

26/04/2017

Members / Objects

Do Not Try This at Home – Josiah Zayner hacks his stomach

One of the most recognized faces in biohacking, Josiah Zayner is the focus of the most recent edition of the New York Times’ Op-Docs series. “Gut Hack” chronicles his quest to alleviate his lifelong abdominal problems by killing the bacteria in his stomach and replacing it with microorganisms gleaned from an ‘ideal’ donor.

14/04/2017

Members / News

Delineation & Decay – Laleh Mehran’s Entropic System

Entropic System is a drawing machine that inscribes ornate geometric patterns into a bed of ‘black beauty’ sand. Made by the Denver-based media artist Laleh Mehran the device has instability built-in to it, and creates a feedback loop where approaching it affects its output.

11/04/2017

Arduino / Members / Processing

Enjoy the Silence – Doug Wheeler’s PSAD Synthetic Desert III

PSAD Synthetic Desert III is a (semi) anechoic chamber that endeavors to emulate the silence and emptiness of the Northern Arizona desert. Initially conceived by the American artist Doug Wheeler in 1968, the project was finally realized at NYC’s Guggenheim last week as part of the Panza Collection Initiative.

30/03/2017

Environment / Members / Sound

Myths, Rumours, Legends – Machine Art in the Twentieth Century

Machine Art in the Twentieth Century is a recent MIT Press-published book by Andreas Broeckmann exploring ‘machinic’ art-making. CAN weighs in with a review of this survey of moments, movements, and key figures spanning futurism to the present day.

28/03/2017

Members / Review

Unhanded – A symposium about ‘making’ under the influence of digitalism

Unhanded was a symposium about ‘making under the influence of digitalism’ that took place in Ottawa last September. CAN was on hand to facilitate one of the discussions, and to mark the publication of the videos online we offer some highlights and thoughts on the proceedings.

22/03/2017

CAN Events / Theory

Bruce Sterling on several histories that haven’t happened yet

In his annual SXSW wrapup, science fiction author and design theorist Bruce Sterling laid a smackdown on Silicon Valley re: AI and automation.

20/03/2017

Members / News

Seaquence – Growin’ groove in a Petri dish

What if tweaking rhythm and melodic loops was like editing DNA? This is the question at the heart of Seaquence, a new iOS app by Okaynokay where you populate a Petri dish with ‘creatures’ that visually represent their sonic properties. A bold step away from conventional interface paradigms, it blends notions of tool, instrument, and game into something new and distinct.

14/03/2017

Cinder / iOS / Members

GPU Performance 101

Game developer and 3D technical lead Keith O’Conor of Romero games recently wrote a ‘GPU Performance for Game Artists 101’ that breaks down the GPU pipeline from input assembly through to final render.

10/03/2017

Members / News

Design I/O’s Mimic – Putting emotional machines within arm’s reach

A project by Design I/O for TIFF Kids International Film Festival’s interactive playground digiPlaySpace, Mimic brings a UR5 robotic arm to life and imbues it with personality. Playfully craning its neck to get a better look, arcing back when it is startled – it responds to each child that enters its field of view.

07/03/2017

Members / openFrameworks / Robotics