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A N N O U N C E M E N T - D A R K D E S I G N S
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Dark Designs
Art, technology & conspiracies
www.dark-designs.net
Symposium - Performances - Exhibition
Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland
14 October 2008
Exhibition - 15 - 24 October 2008
Dark Designs will explore the notion of art, technology and conspiracies in a series of events taking place in venues across Yverdon-les-Bains in Switzerland.
Organised by Maison d'Ailleurs (House of Elsewhere) - the museum of Science Fiction, Utopia and Extraordinary Journeys - and the University of Art and Design in Geneva (HEAD), Dark Designs includes a symposium featuring acclaimed science fiction writer, Norman Spinrad; director of transmediale, Stephen Kovats; philosophers Pierre Lagrange and Daniel Pinkas; scientists Herbert Keppner and Jérôme Charmet and many others. The symposium takes place in the new wing of Maison d'Ailleurs - Espace Jules Verne - which opens ten days before Dark Designs.
Dark Designs also includes an exhibition of digital art by students, located in Yverdon-les-Bains' historic 13th century Savoyard castle, and an evening of extraordinary performances by artists Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand and Gaspard Buma, hosted by the picturesque theatre, L'Echandole, situated in the caves of the castle.
ABOUT
In an age when technology is omnipresent, in a society of flux, transparency and of widespread surveillance and paranoia, the Internet seems to have become the favorite support system for an upsurge in rumours and wild conspiracy theories. New media now give rise to the very same controversies that surround Science Fiction and scientific progress in general.
Dark Designs questions the current relevance of conspiracy theories and their digital avatars. The event takes a thoughtful and incisive look at the concept's ambiguity, history and links to philosophy, research, art and technology.
SCHEDULE
14 October 2008
Symposium
14:00 - 18:30 Pierre Lagrange, Daniel Pinkas, Stephen Kovats, Laurent Schmid, Manuel Schmalstieg, Anne Zeitz, Herbert Keppner, Jérôme Charmet, Evelina Domnitch, Dmitry Gelfand & Norman Spinrad
Exhibition
18:30 Apéritif and opening of exhibition
Performances
20:30-21:15 Gaspard Buma, Partition pour 8 muscles et 1 sampler
21:45-22:30 Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand, 10000 peacock feathers in foaming acid
INFORMATION & BOOKINGS
Maison d'Ailleurs
Place Pestalozzi 14
1400 Yverdon-les-Bains
Telphone: +41 (0)24 425 64 38
Email: [email protected]
SYMPOSIUM
Date/Time: Tuesday 14 Ocbtober 2008, 14:00 - 18:30
Venue: Espace Jules Verne, Maison d'Ailleurs
Place Pestalozzi
1400 Yverdon-les-Bains
Switzerland
Entrance: free
14:00 Welcome
Screening of Iconography of Conspiracy
14:20-16:00 I. History and philosophy of conspiracies
14:20-14:50 Pierre Lagrange, 'Qui ne croit pas aux théories du complot?'
14:50-15:20 Daniel Pinkas, 'Réflexions épistémologiques sur les théories du complot'
15:20-15:40 Stephen Kovats, Dark Space: tracing conspiracy beyond the depths of Jules Verne '20 000 leagues'
15:40-16:00 Laurent Schmid, Manuel Schmalstieg,'Fear, uncertainty and doubt'
Discussion
16:00-16:20 Break
Screening of Iconography of Conspiracy
16:20-18:00 II. Art, technology and plots
16:20-16:50 Anne Zeitz, 'Le Point aveugle de la surveillance'
16:50-17:20 Herbert Keppner, Jérôme Charmet, 'The Lifter project'
17:20-17:40 Evelina Domnitch, Dmitry Gelfand, 'Light Harvesting'
17:40-18:00 Norman Spinrad, 'The Conspiracy: Only Chaos is Real'
Discussion
18:30 Conclusion
Speakers
Pierre Lagrange (F) Sociologist, specialized in the study of science and controversies in "para-sciences". Also an associate researcher at LAHIC-CNRS, Paris.
Daniel Pinkas (CH) Philosopher, professor at Geneva University of Art and Design, co-head of the postgraduate course Immediat, and leader of research projects in the field of new media.
Stephen Kovats (CAN) Architect, media researcher and director of Transmediale, Berlin's festival for art and digital culture, where the 2008 theme was 'Conspire'.
Laurent Schmid (CH) Artist and professor at Geneva University of Art and Design, co-head of postgraduate course Immédiat and Work.Master, leading the research project Coldcenter.
Manuel Schmalstieg (CH) Executive director of the multidisciplinary art collective N3krozoft Ltd, who operate on the border between video, performance and software art.
Anne Zeitz (D) Artist, and researcher (Mouvement-observation-contrôle, Goethe-Institut, 2007), and member of the 'Esthétique des nouveaux médias' laboratory at the University Paris 8.
Herbert Keppner (D) Physician, professor and researcher in the field of microtechnologies (HE-ARC, Le Locle), who works mainly with plasma assisted effects and on industrial plasma applications.
Jérôme Charmet (CH) Engineer in Microtechnologies in the fields of semiconductors and sensors, and since 2004, a researcher in Professor Keppner's group at HE-ARC, Le Locle.
Dmitry Gelfand (RU), Evelina Domnitch (BY) Artists and performers, who create installations and sensory immersion environments that merge physics, chemistry and computer science with uncanny philosophical practices.
Norman Spinrad (USA) Science-fiction writer, author of the acclaimed and controversial books Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream, The Mind Game, amongst many others.
PERFORMANCES
Date/Time: Tuesday 14 October 2008, 20:30
Venue: Théâtre de L'Echandole
Place Pestalozzi
1400 Yverdon-les-Bains
Switzerland http://www.echandole.ch/
Entrance: Entrance: CHF 12 (free for participants of the symposium)
20:30
Gaspard Buma
'Partition pour 8 muscles et 1 sampler'
http://gaspardbuma.org/
Gaspard Buma questions in his works the relation of machines to the body and to intimacy, as in the piece Home (2007), in which movement sensors connected to computers transform into music a group of dancers' movements. "I always wanted to be a strong man, a perfect dancer, a super hero, an amazing lover but I'm only myself (I'm only what I am, with the body I have) So I invented a machine". This performance uses the body as a percussion instrument. A computer plays a music score which is simultaneously transmitted to the muscles through electro-stimulators. Each note, provokes the contraction of a muscle, thus producing and controlling the performer's movements.
21:45
Ten Thousand Peacock Feathers in Foaming Acid (((worth going a long way to see, I reckon)))
Dmitry Gelfand, Evelina Domnitch
http://www.portablepalace.com/
Because there are not yet formulas to describe certain invisible morphologies, scientists rely on soap films as an unsurpassed means of simulation. The artists scan the surfaces of nucleating and dissipating soap bubble clusters with a hyper-focused beam of laser light, generating a live, large-scale projection of invisible ionic streams and other mind-boggling phenomena of non-linear optics. Bubble behaviors viewed in such close proximity evoke the dynamics of living cells. This performed installation also uses the laser to inspect inaudible vibrations, propagating through the reflective media of bubble membranes, and entering the hearing spectrum by means of a light-triggered programming environment.
Artists' Statement
"A vacuum or semi-vacuum encased within a gravity and temperature sensitive elastic skin - the scenario of an early universe, a soap bubble, and later, that of a biological membrane. By researching the behavior of soap bubbles, a vast variety of optical, mathematical, thermodynamic and electrochemical discoveries have been made since the time of the Renaissance.
The first ever computers were soap film calculators (15th century), which tackled geometric equations of minimal surface area. The latest nanoscopic soft drives are being used for blackhole and superstring modeling. Because there are not yet formulas to describe these invisible morphologies, scientists rely on soap films as an unsurpassed means of simulation.
The artists use laser light to scan the surfaces of nucleating and dissipating soap bubble clusters. Unlike ordinary light, the laser's hyper-focused beam is capable of crawling through the micro and nano structures within a bubble's skin. When aimed at specific angles, this penetrating light generates a live, large-scale projection of normally invisible ionic streams as well as mind-boggling phenomena of non-linear optics recently discovered at the Lebedev Physics Institute (Moscow). Without the use of a microscope or any other magnifying devices, the laser itself permits the tremendous leap in scale. Bubble behaviors viewed in such close proximity evoke the dynamics of living cells (whose emergence and survival was made possible through analogous membrane formation).
Technologically, this performed installation is akin to Leon Theremin's eavesdropping device, the "Buran" developed for the KGB in 1945. This microwave scanner was used for the surveillance of acoustic vibrations on the surface of windowpanes and toilet water. Instead of employing a ray of microwaves as the scanning medium, a laser, which was not yet instrumentalized at the time of Theremin's invention, can far more accurately accomplish the same task. As such, a vast variety of inaudible vibrations can be inspected, propagating through all sorts of reflective media - in this case, that of bubble membranes. These inaudible dynamics enter the hearing spectrum by means of a light-triggered programming environment created by Bas van Koolwijk.
In stark contrast to former bubble explorations by scientists, mathematicians, and artists (the likes of which have included Newton, Da Vinci, Gauss, Chardin, Young and Murillo to name a few), here, a warped, 'impossible' space-time is invented: the laser's multi-angle paths through numerous bubble surfaces project a dense layering of diverse scales, speeds and vanishing points. The title of the work stems from the Chinese expression, 'the ten thousand things', signifying the varifold of cosmic phenomena. Though it may become as thin as a single molecule, all 'the ten thousand things' are refracted through the sensitive skin of a soap bubble."
EXHIBITION
Date/Time: Vernissage_ - Tuesday 14 Ocbtober 2008, 18:30
Open: 15 -24 October 2008 (Wednesday - Friday 14:00 - 18:00, Saturday - Sunday 11:00 -18:00)
Venue: Caves du Château
Place Pestalozzi
1400 Yverdon-les-Bains
Switzerland
Entrance: free
Conspiracies, the freely interpreted theme of the event, is the guiding principle for a selection of works either made especially for the occasion or chosen from recent digital art works by students in the postgraduate program Immédiat - arts and medias at the Geneva University of Art and Design, and from the Cycle supérieur de recherche création et innovation of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD - Paris). The works range from computer imagery to programmed on-line works, videos, animations and interactive installations.
Dark designs will thus appear through several recurring questions on the everyday presence of interconnected computers, immersion in digital imagery and computer-generated flux and through projects dealing with the fears, suspicions and controversies that surround the development of technology.
Works from: Benoît Billote, Samuel Dahan, Nicolas Field, Victor Konwicki, Cheong Kwon, Oh Eun Lee, Angela Marzullo/Renaud Marchand, Raphaëlle Mueller, Israel Antonio Ospina, Mark Pasquesi, Thomas Perrodin, Adriana Caso Sarabia, Laura Seguy, Patrick Tschudi, Roman Urodovskikh (HEAD - Genève), with Emilie Brout/Maxime Marion, Dominique Cunin, Mayumi Okura (ENSAD - Paris).
ORGANISATION
Maison d'Ailleurs: http://www.ailleurs.ch/
HEAD (Haute Ecole D'art Et De Design) - Genève: http://head.hesge.ch/
With support from: l'Office fédéral de la culture - Sitemapping, la Ville d'Yverdon-les-Bains et le Théâtre de L'Echandole, Pour-cent culturel Migros
In partnership with: Transmediale (Berlin), Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (Paris)
NB: On 4 October, Maison d'Ailleurs open Espace Jules Verne, a permanent exhibition in a new wing of the museum. Also on that date, the temporary exhibition 'Return to Dinotopia' opens. Both exhibitions will be able to be viewed by visitors to Dark Designs.
CONTACT
Telephone: +41 (0)24 425 64 38
Email: [email protected]
www.dark-designs.net
