In the coming years a research program will be developed to study basic questions related to the mapping of the domain ArtScience. The questions will vary from general questions about defining basic concepts, methodologies and formal aspects of the creative and performing arts to specific questions relating to individual works, contextual aspects playing a role in their realization, the place of an artwork in an artist’s oeuvre, personal motives and aims, and the collaborative characteristics of works carried out by artists working in teams with other artists, scientists, engineers and co-creators, representing institutions of all kinds. There are five research groups in the 2006-2007 course year:
Pattern, Visualization, Sonification and Composition
by Joost Rekveld and Joel Ryan
October 24, 25, 27, 31, November 1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22, 24 2005
The generation of patterns is used as a case study to introduce a number of approaches to visualization, sonification and composition. Spatial imagination has always been a fundamental source of innovation in science. Computer graphics have greatly widened access to geometry for non-specialists. Visualization in science is a two way street. It is both a way of analyzing and of composing forms.
What are the differences and similarities between attempts to ‘uncover’ order by means of scientific visualization and the way artists use constraints, rules and systems to structure their work? For this module we will take as an example the idea of a population of ‘agents’, virtual individuals with certain properties which cause emerging patterns from the interactions they have. We will investigate practically how these kinds of ‘population models’ can be broadened towards one’s own ideas of image, sound, and further.
Credits: 5 EC
Objective: learning how to use formal rules in visualization, sonification and composition
Competencies: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7
Location: KC CAM.10, CAM.20, CAM.30
Number of Classes: 15 classes of 8 hours each
Examination: small research assignments, attendance
Interactive Sonic Spaces
by Edwin van der Heide, Robert Pravda and Joel Ryan
To what extent can auditory display of information be integrated in a musical approach to sonic spaces? Traditionally, concert halls have been used to present music performed in front of an audience. The architecture of concert halls is designed to serve musical performances in the best way. During the last decades composers have started to explore new ways to present music by distributing musicians and/or loudspeakers in special configurations throughout the space in order to create determined musical effects related to the architectural performance space.
However, what happens when we change our thinking from focusing on sounds in space towards thinking about sounding space? What happens when visitors can co-determine the characteristics of such sonic spaces? Is it possible to make a space sound meaningfully different when one person or a group of people enters the same space? What about different groups entering the space? Is it possible to address people in a general way and, simultaneously, in an individual way? In what way is it possible to detect the behavior of the visitors? How may an image of the particular way a visitor moves through the space and the sounds he or she produces be interpreted and translated to determine the characteristics of the sounding space?
The research will focus on the question of how musical structures can be applied and extended to create a sonic architectural space that interacts with the information created by the interaction of individual and group behavior in an environment which is especially designed for such a purpose.
Credits: 5 EC
Objective: how can musical structures be generated by audience movements in architectural spaces
Competencies: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7
Location: KC CAM.10, CAM.20, CAM.30
Number of Classes: 15 classes of 8 hours each
Examination: small research assignments, attendance
Generative Art
by Crit Cremers, Jan Peter van der Wenden and Joel Ryan
The sheer availability of data on the Internet forces us to wonder about new ways to think about it. “Ontology” has been recalled from philosophical obscurity to name a new science of automated tagging and taxonomy. The dominance of text encodings attracts linguists and grammarians of artificial languages. The scale of on-line data suggests statistical approaches. The hyper-connectivity of the web draws approaches from multi-dimensional visualizations to the new world of social software. All these signals create opportunity. We will try on several models from linguistics, statistics and social software to see what they hold for applications in the arts.
Databases are designed to store large amounts of data in a systematic way in order to locate and retrieve specific information. But what happens when databases are used according to artistic rules in order to generate new meanings, contexts or processes? Is it possible to create new forms of art in this way?
Credits: 5 EC
Objective: in what ways databases can be used to create generative and interactive works of art?
Competencies: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7
Location: KC CAM.10, CAM.20, CAM.30
Number of Classes: 15 classes of 8 hours each
Examination: small research assignments, attendance
Robotics Theater-He Who Saw All
by Robin Deirkauf, Kasper van der Horst and Wim van Eck
This research group takes the form of a pilot study for developing a robotics/human theater play based on the epic Gilgamesh He Who Saw All. The subject is introduced by surveying the oldest animal-, human-, and divinity-automata, the proto-automata and ritual puppets from among others Malta, Egypt, Greece and Rome, the robots used in industry, engineering and the world of health and medicine, as well as some automated theater experiments in art: Kurt Schmidt's Das Mechanische Ballett, László Moholy-Nagy's Die Mechanische Exzentrik and other examples of Die Mechanische Bauhausbühne.
Two central questions will be studied: 1) what are the possible relations and confrontations between performer, robot and audience? and 2) what emotional meaning and interpretation of body language do we give to archetypal, elementary rotations and fixations of torso and limbs.
The 3D animation-program Cinema 4D will be used as a sketching method for the preparation of the simulations. The study's image-concept is the Geoman Matrix Constellation and the related Colorcode Matrix Script. Both are constructed on the basis of primary colors and elementary geometry. The aim of the pilot study is to map possibilities of designed, pre-programmed choreographies and compare them to artificial intelligence simulations of evolutionary learning processes in order to arouse theatrical dynamics.
Credits: 5 EC
Objective: learning to create 3D models for presentation purposes
Competencies: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7
Location: KABK PB.301, BB.201 (LabLand)
Number of Classes: 15 classes of 8 hours each
Examination: small research assignments, attendance
Genius Loci
by Horst Rickels and Robert Pravda
Particular places in nature have inspired people to create works of art or to react to them spiritually in rituals with characteristics related to the spirit of the place, the so-called genius loci. In the course of time art became independent of these places, with special buildings like theaters, churches, concert halls and museums built to execute the rituals of art. Following this, the relationship between the artwork and the place where it is made was further weakened by the technological possibilities of reproduction and mass dissemination.
The present, virtual environment as a product of digital media has lost any connection to the spatial environment, resulting in products that only react to each other. In this way the virtual environment creates its own context, a process that is underscored by the fact that the traditional stages and museum environments have not been able to transform themselves into venues where technological art forms can find a place.
What criteria should be developed for spaces designed to attract audiences for these art forms? To achieve this, the concept of environment will have to be further developed outside of the walls of the museum and into the public space. Artists can help to reconstruct these spaces for this aim by creating temporary or permanent studios and laboratories where the work in progress can find a place.
Credits: 5 EC
Objective: how to use the characteristics of a space in the creation of works of art?
Competencies: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7
Location: t.b.a.
Number of Classes: 15 classes of 8 hours each
Examination: small research assignments, attendance
Alter Ego
by Sanne van Rijn and Taco Stolk
One tends to think that artists grow in their work by developing their personal taste. This is a romantic misconception: personal taste blurs the objective view of the artistic qualities of a work. Instead, artists develop their creative skills much more efficiently by learning to master the principles of communication and composition.
In this research group students learn to anticipate choices that benefit artistic control rather than relying on their art as a means to express personality. To achieve this, they analyze each other's style and inspiration from the viewpoint of their conceptual and structural base.
Students participating in this research group should prepare a short speech (5-10 mins.) in which the artistic points of view underlying his or her own work are presented.
Credits: 5 EC
Objective: learning to read the artistic principles underling one's work from a more communicative and
compository point of view.
Competencies: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7
Location: KABK PB.301
Number of Classes: 15 classes of 8 hours each
Examination: small research assignments, attendance
