On April 11–13th MUTEK Montréal presents the 4th edition of MUTEK_IMG, their offshoot festival focused on digital creation. CAN/HOLO was invited to curate five panels within this year’s program, that bring together leading artists and thinkers to consider pressing aesthetic and sociopolitical questions.

Created by Witaya Junma. ‘Spirotrope’ is a device developed from the hypothesis that an interactive artwork can be created from unrelated objects in a way such that each object is still visible in its essence, whether in its form or its function. The criteria is that the viewer must experience this by interacting with the artwork directly.

This weekend, February 3rd to 4th, we will join 230 TouchDesigner users at Derivative’s second ever TouchDesigner Summit in Berlin for an 48-hour marathon of workshops, masterclasses, and presentations.

As 2017 comes to a close, we take a moment to look back at the outstanding work done this year. From spectacular peformances, large scale installations, devices and tools to the new virtual spaces for artistic exploration – so many great projects are being added to the CAN archive! Here are a just few, 25 in total, that we and you enjoyed the most this year.

Created by Elise Migraine at ECAL, “Twin Objects” is a collection of devices (Tits Me, Pianoze, and Dual Drums) designed to act as a ‘hotline’ in attempt to nurture intimacy and telepresence that long-distance relationships need.

“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.

About a year ago HOLO 2 came rolling off the press and we’ve spent the last twelve months shipping it and presenting it all over the world. We compiled a pretty massive report that collates all the crucial facts, figures, and feedback we’ve received. Thanks to our readers, partners, and contributors alike for your support—HOLO is a tribute to the amazing communities it chronicles.

“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.

Created by Schnellebuntebilder, four installs now on display at the ZCOM Zuse Computer Museum in Hoyerswerda, Germany, capture and celebrate the pioneering work of Konrad Zuse, famed German engineer and inventor whose biggest achievement, the 1941 Turing-complete programmable computer Z3, is regarded to be the world’s first of its kind.

Created by Berlin based onformative, true/false is a kinetic sculpture comprised of arrays of circular black metal segments set in mechanical columns. Interlocking and rotating around fluorescent light tubes, the cylinders cover or expose the light to display an endless number of patterns.

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.

Created by David Colombini, The Weather Followers is a commentary on ‘smart’ applications and predictive, comfortable digital routines. Instead of relying on ‘accurate’ data, intangible algorithms and hidden lines of code-driven lifestyles, this device brings serendipity to your digital life, using constantly evolving weather data recorded by four weather instruments.

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.

Created by James Paterson, Norman is an open-source WebVR tool to create frame-by-frame animations in 3D. Drawing inspiration and building on the work from Rhonda (2004/05), James turned to WebVR to build the tool in Javascript that runs in a web browser and lets him animate naturally in 3D using VR controllers.

Hatched at the Human Computer Interaction Lab at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) in Potsdam, Germany, “Ad Infinitum” is a “parasitical” machine that, quite literally, lives off of human-generated energy.

CreativeApplications.Net is currently running an experimental mode for non-logged in users/non-members to explore alternative to ad-driven revenue by trading visitors’ CPU for an ad-free environment. Using the service Coinhive, and inspired by Mario’s tweet, we have incorporated a JavaScript miner for the Monero Blockchain that is embed in our website when the users are logged-out. You, the…

Created by NY based art and architecture collective Softlab, ‘Volume’ is an interactive cube of responsive mirrors that redirect light and sound to spatialize and reflect the excitement of surrounding festival goers.

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.

‘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.

This summer, visitors to Sao Paulo’s Itau Cultural Gallery find themselves face-to-face with a host of artificial life forms. Amongst them is a new version of artist Ruairi Glynn’s interactive installation ‘Fearful Symmetry’, which was first shown at the Tate Modern, London, in 2012.

Created by Manuel Jiménez Garcia and Gilles Retsin, ‘Voxel Chair’ is a first prototype designed using a new design software specifically developed for robotic 3D-Printing which rather than using pre-defined forms and then “slicing” these it into toolpaths or triangular patterns, allows to design and control thousands of line-fragments.

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.

A-B-Z-TXT is back as the ‘school for 21st century typography’—and it is looking for international applicants. Apply to join Zach Lieberman, Mindy Seu, Ali S. Qadeer, and others in Toronto Aug 17-20 for four days of masterclasses, workshops, and lectures.

Created by London-based musical duo the Network Ensemble, Selected Network Studies is a series of audiovisual pieces created using network data collected from a number of locations across London, Berlin and Rome. It is released as limited edition UV-printed, vacuum-sealed mylar package containing a 2GB SD Card with one hour of video material and 45 minutes of sound material.

“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.

Created by the R&D team at the creative technology agency DT, Anti AI AI is a wearable  neural network prototype designed to notify the wearer when a synthetic voice is detected in the environment.

Created by the ECAL’s Bachelor Media & Interaction Design students at ÉCAL, and led by Niklas Roy, Bouquet is a synaesthetic olfactory device which allows the user to perceive color through fragrances.

Created by the students of Media Design Master at HEAD Genève, BloodBank and DarkLight are two games that explore the notion of physically distributed ambient storytelling and coerce users into playful and shared forms of interaction.

On display at the recent Armory Show in New York was the work of Amsterdam based Studio Drift featuring ‘Drifter’, a free floating concrete monolith together with ‘Concrete Storm’, a Holo Lens experience comprised of mixed reality art object.

Created by Mária Júdová and Andrej Boleslavský, ‘DUST’ explores new ways of interaction and experience of contemporary dance through the use of immersive virtual reality experience and online media.