Polytech.Science.Art 2014

ABOUT
POLYTECH.
SCIENCE.ART
Behaviours
Viewers at the premiere of the interactive
performance created during Emotional Skin
workshop by Sonia Cillari
In March, 2014 Polytechnic Museum
launched Polytech.Science.Art program,
dedicated to one of the most significant
phenomena of contemporary culture —
interdisciplinary collaboration between
artists, scientists and technology
specialists. The program includes
researches, exhibitions and other
experimental projects. Within the series
of workshops and lectures, leading
Russian and international experts
helped to formulate a comprehensive
idea on the synthesis of science, art and
technology as an artistic method by the
example of their own projects.
In 2014, Polytech.Science.Art embraced
such scientific disciplines as information
technology, neurobiology, physics,
psychoacoustics, fibertronics and many
others. The workshops welcomed
practicing media artists as well
as technology experts and young
researchers, who managed to work out
collaborative projects, which were later
displayed to the general audience within
the public presentations throughout
the year and at the final exhibition
at the annual Polytech.Science.Art
Week hosted by Garage Museum of
Contemporary Art. All the workshops
were run free of charge for the participants,
so everyone interested in contemporary
art, new technologies and cutting edge
researches, could apply to attend the
sessions. Thanks to Polytech.Science.Art
program, Polytechnic Museum became
the first Russian institution to be
approved by Leonardo – distinguished
international association for art,
science and technology experts. Now
Museum has a chance to participate in
the Leonardo’s international programs
and cooperate with organizations,
companies, scientists and artists within
collaborative interdisciplinary research,
educational and innovation projects.
In the following years Polytech.Science.
Art program of the Polytechnic Museum
plans to extend cooperation with
research and educational centers
and institutes, industrial productions,
strengthen partnership with regional
and international organizations; fully
present the artworks created within the
program events at festivals, museums
and galleries in Russia and around the
world.
Encouragement of effective cooperation
between science, art and technology
experts at national and international
scale is one of the key objectives of the
program.
CURATOR’S
STATEMENT
Natalia Fuchs
Curator of Polytech.Science.Art program,
Polytechnic Museum
In the 21st century the division between
science and art is being overcome
successfully: artists tend to use cutting
edge technologies in their work, not
merely a dialogue between art and
scientific community is being observed,
but creative collaboration yielding
unexpected, prominent results as well.
Thanks to the great advance of science
and technology, the world has been
changing dramatically, that has had its
effect on the outlook, on the treatment of
the verges of possibility. Methods used
in contemporary art objects creation
and in the field of scientific innovations
intersect and complement each others,
communication
between
artists,
scientists and technology specialists
kick-starts the development of common
space of ideas and discoveries. For the
present moment many science art labs
of leading universities and science and
technology museums are functioning
around the world, specialized camps
are being run, while leading technology
corporations cooperate with artists
and curators of contemporary and
digital arts in search of a breakthrough
research approaches and innovative
technologies.
Polytechnic Museum in Moscow,
Russia, supports the development of
that promising cultural movement too
and creates a platform for innovation
activities,
collaborative
projects,
information exchange between artists
and scientists and technology specialists
of different fields as well.
OTHERNET
workshop by Danja Vasiliev
workshops
March 19-21, 2014
Russian net artist Danja Vasiliev run a
workshop on hacktivism philosophy —
efficient use of internet in art and social
practices. The workshop participants were
invited to create their own local networks.
At the public event of the workshop
participants presented their projects
designed in the past three days. Two
projects — u-tube by Maria Kramar and p2p
by Aleksander Serechenko – were exhibited
within the Polytech.Science.Art Week 2014.
Danja Vasiliev was born in Saint
Petersburg, studied in Institute of Culture,
Faculty of Information and Media Design,
and in Proarte Institute, then lived and
worked in Moscow. In 1999 he was a
winner of Da-Da-Net festival nomination
Contemporary Art in Web for the project
Koala.ru. Danja has started his Eurotrip
from Netherlands, where he headed for
studying, for the present moment he
lives and works in Germany. The project
Newstweek brought Vasiliev an award in
the Cyberart nomination of the oldest and
the most representative new technologies
art contest Ars Electronica.
EMOTIONAL SKIN
workshop by Sonia Cillari
workshops
May 13-17, 2014
Italian media artist Sonia Cillari dedicated
her Moscow workshop to the theory
and practice of interactive performance,
interaction between human and virtual
environment. During five days of the
workshop, the participants studied the
features of perception of virtual reality,
creating the interactive performance
behaviours, which premiered at the 3d
International Media and Performance
Festival at Platforma in Moscow.
Sonia Cillari, based in Venice, studies
the aspects of identification of human
consciousness inside the virtual environment.
She has been a participant of the NIMk
residence, Studio for Electro-Instrumental
Music (STEIM) and The Rijksakademie van
beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. In 2010
she won the VIDA 13.0: Art & Artificial Life
International Competition in Madrid, Spain,
and in 2011 she was noted by the jury of the
Prix Ars Electronica of Linz, Austria in the
nomination Interactive Art.
The workshop EMOTIONAL SKIN has been
specially designed for the Polytechnic
Museum and Polytech.Science.Art program.
ARTVERTISER
workshop by Arturo Castro
workshops
July 9-12, 2014
The workshop by Arturo Castro, artist and
engineer from Berlin, provides insights
on how artists, designers, programmers,
IT experts and urban activists can use
the methods of augmented reality
approaching urban spaces. During the
workshop, the participants walked around
Moscow and created modified virtual
urban spaces embedding art objects with
the Artvertiser application.
Arturo Castro is one of the core developers
of the open source toolkit for artists and
designers open Frameworks, as well as a
co-author of the project Artvertiser — a
software platform which allows to replace
billboards with art objects in real time.
His works has been exhibited in a number
of museums around the world: Maison
d’Ailleurs in Switzerland, the London
Design Museum or Moscow’s Multimedia
Art Museum.
The workshop was a part of the Polytech
at Strelka initiative presented at the Institute
Strelka and supported by MegaFon.
HAPTIC CITY
workshop by Artemis Papageorgiou
workshops
August 5-8, 2014
Artemis Papageorgiou, an artist from
Greece, works in the field of fibertronics —
a study investigating potential use of
digital components in textile. What would
be the purpose for textile with microchips
and sensors embedded, and how could
it be used by the people? An interactive
map of Moscow, made of textile, digital
sensors and LEDs was created within the
workshop and was exhibited within the
Polytech.Science.Art Week 2014.
After receiving her Masters in Computational
Arts at Goldsmiths College, she stayed in
London where she collaborated with Cinimod
Studio and Jason Bruges Studio. Upon arrival
in Athens she founded Athens Plaython, an
annual festival which runs workshops on
design and related technologies, as well as
urban games, quests and parties.
The workshop was a part of the Polytech at
Strelka initiative presented at the Institute
Strelka and supported by MegaFon.
PLAYFUL
MEDIA
workshop by Thorsten S. Wiedemann
workshops
August 27-29, 2014
Workshop by German curator Thorsten S.
Wiedemann was dedicated to gamification
and video game design. The participants
of the three-day workshop formed
interdisciplinary teams, uniting programmers,
researchers and media artists. They
elaborated prototypes of video games, two of
which — thagame by Alexey Larchenkov and
never miss the last Friday of summer by Ilya
Sobol and Ildar Yakubov — were exhibited
within the Polytech.Science.Art Week 2014.
Thorsten S. Wiedemann is the founder
of the digital art festival A MAZE, which
takes place annually in Berlin (Germany)
and Johannesburg (South Africa). It is in
fact an open platform for experiments
and cooperation in the field of computer
technologies and art. In 2012, the award
A MAZE was established to honor the
best games contributed by media
artists. The main object of the festival
is to inspire game-based approaches
in media art. The workshop was a part of
the Polytech at Strelka initiative presented
at the Institute Strelka and supported by
MegaFon.
ART
& NEUROWAVES
workshop by Enzo Varriale
workshops
September 19-21, 2014
Italian media artist Enzo Varriale was one
of the first to use neural wave recordings in
his works, captured with medical devices.
Enzo frequently uses neural interface
Emotiv EPOC in his experimentation.
Capturing brain’s electrical impulses, the
neural interface interprets not only basic
mental commands, but also detects gloomy
faces and smiles. One of the works created
during the workshop — Winged Swing by
Vadim Epstein — was exhibited within the
Polytech.Science.Art Week 2014.
Enzo Varriale performing under alias
Lanvideosource is not only an artist, but
also a VJ. Brain’s impulses recordered via
electroencephalography are converted
into footage to be used in music videos.
Enzo has been a frequent participant of
the electronic music festival Meet in Town
(Rome, Media Façade Festival (Brussels)
on urbanism and new media in city life, and
Play With Fire (New York).
The workshop was organized with a
participation of the MIGZ International
Festival of Contemporary Music and
Media Art.
SONIC
INTERACTION
workshop by Medialogy
workshops
November 11-13, 2014
Workshop by the Aalberg University
research team (Copenhagen, Denmark) is
about using sound as one of the channels
conveying information and meaning in
interactive contexts. Studying the sound is
principal for the artists working with cinema
and multimedia, as well as video game
designers. The workshop participants were
introduced to the latest researches in sound
design, and the sound miniatures created
during the workshop were released online.
Participating Vladimir Derevyanko and
Mikhail Soloshenko created the installation
Randocinemizer which was exhibited
within the Polytech.Science.Art Week 2014.
Medialogy Lab founder — Stefania Serafin,
Aalberg University professor. She received
a PhD degree in computer-based music
theory and acoustics from Stanford
University, in 2004. She has been a visiting
professor at the University of Virginia
(2003), and a visiting scholar at Stanford
University, Cambridge University, and KTH
Stockholm.
special events
June 12, 2014
BEHAVIOURS
interactive performance
Interactive project behaviours emerged
as a result of the five-day Emotional
Skin workshop by Italian artist Sonia
Cillari, which took place within Polytech.
Science.Art program in May, 2014. The
performance premiered on June 12,
2014, at the the 3d International Media
and Performance Festival at Platforma in
Moscow.
Concept: Sonia Cillari (Italy)
Curator: Natalia Fuchs (Russia)
Visuals/sound: Alexey Yepishev,
Sergey Kasich, Yan Kalnberzin (Russia)
Performers: Yulia Chekmas,
Vagan Saroyan (Russia)
Authors: Vera Iguchi, Sergey Tubashov,
Vera Shchelkina, Ilya Trofimov, Denis
Zaporozhan, Marina Levakova, Dmitriy
Guryev, Vera Golovina (Russia)
«Behaviours — is an important event, it is
an approach to the academic level!» —
commented Anna Belayeva, Platforma’s
media curator, on the performance.
special events
August 14, 2014
Maurice Benayoun
CRITICAL FUSION
Lecture by the media art pioneer Maurice
Benayoun (France) was dedicated to the
way fiction and reality can be merged
into a piece of art and create more deep
and critically evaluated sense of reality.
Works of Maurice Benayoun constitute the
golden collection of the world’s media art.
HDTV series Quarxs (1991-1994), where
he first used computer 3D graphics, was
screened at almost all film festivals around
the world, including Cannes. Art project Is
The Devil Curved? (1994, Le Diable Est-il
Courbe?), virtual installation The Tunnel
under the Atlantic (1995, Le Tunnel sous
l’Atlantique), the first immersive space,
created on a base of the SAS Cube
personal computer (2002).
His lecture was a part of the Polytech at
Strelka initiative presented at the Institute
Strelka and supported by MegaFon.
special events
October 12, 2014
IMAGINING
SCIENCE
screening
Imaging Science is a program of video
art and auteur short films created by
multimedia artists and composed of the
best recent works on science research,
technology and innovation. Many of
them participated and got awards from
international festivals (Biofiction, Prix
Ars Electronica, Berlinale). The program
features pieces by movie makers such
as world-famous conceptual artist Adam
Brown (US), Geraldine Cox, who’s holding
a degree in physics (UK), interdisciplinary
artist Joshua Bonnetta (US), linguist
and designer Sonja Bäumel (Austria),
mathematician
and
cinematographer
Alfredo Hubar (France), microbiology
researcher Joe Davis (US) and others —
they all were directors and creators of
their films. Screening sided by discussion
was held within the IV Contemporary
Science Film Festival 360˚ supported by
MediaNovation.
special events
October 19, 2014
MATTERS
OF GRAVITY
Multimedia artists from Mexico attended
the presentation of the Matters of Gravity
presentation. In October, Ale de la Puente,
Arcángel Constantini, Fabiola Torres-Alzaga,
Gilberto Esparza, Iván Puig, Juan José Díaz
Infante, Marcela Armas, Miguel Alcubierre,
Nahum and Tania Candiani participated in a
series of parabolic flights at the Yuri Gagarin
Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia.
During the flights they created artworks —
photographs, videos, installations.
All these artworks will be a part of the
exhibition about artistic interpretations of the
gravitation phenomenon at the Polytechnic
Museum, which will be held within Polytech.
Science.Art program and become a part of
the series of events dedicated to the 125th
anniversary of establishment of diplomatic
relations between Russia and Mexico.
Partners: Laboratorio Arte Alameda
(Mexico), Fundación Telefónica Fundación
(Spain), The Arts Catalyst (UK), Space
Affairs (Austria), Yuri Gagarin Research
Center and Polytechnic Museum (Russia).
POLYTECH.SCIENCE.ART WEEK
special events
December 1–7, 2014
Polytech.Science.Art Week of the Polytechnic
Museum is organized in collaboration with
the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.
The series of events is dedicated to the results
of the first year of the Polytech.Science.Art
program and the interdisciplinary cooperation
between artists, scientific researchers and
technology experts. Polytech.Science.Art
Week became an annual event.
Venue: Educational Center of the Garage
Museum of Contemporary Art
December 1, 2014
15.00 Positive Changes — workshop by
Matt Kenyon (SWAMP, US). Day 1.
The workshop by artist and researcher
Matt Kenyon (SWAMP, US) on positive
changes in human life caused by the
synthesis of science, art and technology.
19.00 Artist, Hacker or Scientist? —
lecture by Matt Kenyon (SWAMP, US)
20.30 Music and Technology — sound
performance by Speck (Russia); video by
VJ Intektra (Russia)
December 2, 2014
10.00 Positive Changes — workshop by
Matt Kenyon (SWAMP, US). Day 2.
December 3, 2014
10.00 Positive Changes — workshop by
Matt Kenyon (SWAMP, US). Day 3.
19.00 Public presentation of projects
created within the workshop by Matt
Kenyon (SWAMP, US).
20.00 Music and Technology — sound
performances by Aleksei Borisov, Dmitry
::vtol:: Morozov; video by VJ Poloka (Russia)
December 4, 2014
20.00 Opening of the exhibition
Hopscotch representing results of
Polytech.Science.Art program in 2014
Authors: Vadim Epstein, Maria Kramar,
Alexander Serechenko, Ildar Yakubov,
Ilya Sobol, Alexei Larchenkov, Vladimir
Derevyanko and others
20.30 Music and Technology — sound
performance by Ilya Artyomov (Russia)
December 5, 2014
16.00 FemTechNet — theoretical
workshop by Lisa Nakamura (US), Irina
Aristarkhova (Russia/US) and Natalia
Fuchs (Russia)
19.30 Development Platforms and Media
Archeology — lecture by Lisa Nakamura
(FemTechNet, US)
21.00 Music and Technology — sound
performances by Brinstaar, Foresteppe
(Russia)
December 6, 2014
16.00 Public panel discussion Trialogue:
Science. Art. Technology featuring
Dmitry Bulatov (NCCA Kaliningrad,
Russia), Lisa Nakamura (FemTechNet,
special events
US), Aristarkh Chernyshev (Rodchenko
Art School / Electromuseum, Russia),
Matt Kenyon (SWAMP, US), Alla
Mitrofanova (Russia), Irina Aristarkhova
(Universiti of Michigan, Detroit, US).
Moderated by Natalia Fuchs (Polytechnic
Museum, Russia).
19.00 Behaviours interactive
performance. Participants: Sonia Cillari
(Italy), Natalia Fuchs, Ian Kalnberzin,
Sergei Kasich, Alexey Yepishev, Julia
Chekmas, Vagan Saroyan, Vera Iguchi,
Sergei Tubashov, Dmitry Guryev, Denis
Zaporozhan, Marina Levakova, Vera
Shchelkina, Ilya Trofimov (Russia)
19.30 Music and Technology — sound
performances by Fizzarum, Ambidextrous,
Sal Solaris (Russia); video by VJ Eva_
KliSH, Oleg Potiy (Russia)
December 7, 2014
18.00 On Future of Contemporary
Art — lecture by Dmitry Bulatov (NCCA
Kaliningrad, Russia)
20.30 Music and Technology — sound
performances by Peter Theremin and
Anton Maskeliade (Russia)
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partners