TOOLKIT FESTIVAL 2014

Who:	Martìn Romeo, Luca Pozzi and Andrea Santini
Location:	Officina delle Zattere
Where:	Fondamenta Nani, Dorsoduro 947 , Venice, Italy
From:	26 Sep 2014 09:00
To:	28 Sep 2014 16:00

TOOLKIT FESTIVAL 2014 - COMPOSITIONAL PHASES WORKSHOP 26-27-28 SEPTEMBER - Venice

Toolkit Festival presents an educational program: 3 workshops will take place on the 26, 27 and 28 of september 2014. The workshops will focus on multimedia practise and new technologies used in contemporary art. The 3-days courses will take place simoultaneously in Venice, they will last 3 days and they will allow to investigate both theoretical and practical paths. They will be held by tutors with a strong experience in the respective fields of research: interactive and digital scenogaphy (Martin Romeo), multidisciplnary connections between art and science and augmented reality (Luca Pozzi), sound-design (Andrea Santini).

The three workshops focus on three different fields of research, but they have a common purpose, which is to get the participants to learn specific tools in order to be able to create a personal artistic project. On the final day there will be a collective moment, opened to public, in which the concrete results of the courses will be shown, in order to open critical and dynamic discussion about digital and interactive art, and to stimolate the exchange of experience among the differents facets in the multimedia research.

WORKSHOP 1 : Realizing images

CONCEPT The workshop provides the tools needed to build a project based on the use of multimedia (interactive sceneries, audiovisual performances, projection mapping, body tracking, etc..). It will deal with the phases and the problems of the construction of the process, from production to staging, to be able to create your own artistic work. The workshop examines both the theoretical and the practical aspects of the realisation of an interactice dance show, theatre piece or artistic installation. The aim of the course is to get to undertsand the main differences among these different artistic practices, that’s to say: the methodology and the timing used to combine differents elements involved in the performance (body, music, image).

PROGRAM Presentation of the software VVVV, learning of its functions and of the basic characterictics which will be used during the lessons. Participants will learn how to programme in real time, starting from the connection of several webcams, in order to map and modify the environment with the movements of the body, to make the space interactive. Referring to the personal experience of each participant, we will find out situations for the projects, to learn a concrete strategy for the realization of a personal interactive project. We will learn how to use the Kinect device camera, to connect the virtual to the real, identification of the human skeleton, identification of its movements in the space, use of the infrared. Participants will be given all the notions in order to understand the operation to create a connection with the image. The image follows, reacts and re-enacts the movements of the body, depending on its own changement, and also on the parameters that the artist-director have set in the software.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwFgpCNC_8Y

SOFTWARE AND TOOLS VVVV

REQUIREMENTS You have to bring your own computer with Mac or Windows system; you have to download the VVVV software (from the website Downloads)

TUTOR Martìn Romeo

MARTIN ROMEO _ BIO: Martin Romeo is a multimedia artist whose research is directed to interactive art, ranging from video installations and dance performances. Born in Carrara in 1986, he grew up in Buenos Aires and returned to Italy in 1999. He participates in numerous international festivals such as the Festival of Youth Experimental Art Projects in Belarus and the 29th International Sarajevo Winter Festival in Bosnia-Herzegovina. His works have been exhibited at the Inside-Out Art Museum in Beijing, in Slovenia in Maribor (European Cultural Capital 2012), and various biannual events such as the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice, the Italian pavilion Porto Vecchio Trieste, and the 15th Biennial of Mediterranean in Thessaloniki, Greece. He has created several interactive art projects, and since the 2011 he has been the artistic director and of the Toolkit Festival in Venice. http://www.martinromeo.com

Martin Romeo, Label (2011), interactive dance (photography by Emanuele Girotti)

WORKSHOP 2 : The messages of gravity . Fascinations about the meaning of the term network between art, theoretical physics and new technologies

CONCEPT Primarily designed as an overview of very little explored themes in “visual fields” such as Quantum Gravity Electrodynamics, Entanglement, Tunneling Effect, String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity, the workshop will provide the imaginative basis which can help overcome the stereotypes linked to a Euclidean conception of the universe. We will deal with dimensionally augmented reality, which is contradictory, because actions occur simultaneously in several places and time, rather than proceeding linearly, performs unsettling jumps.

PROGRAM Step 1: Overview Theoretical Physics (The Elegant Universe DVD - The Fabric of the Cosmos) + conversation about E.Abbott ‘s “Flatland: A Romance of Many dimensions” in a contemporary way. Step 2: Exploring the visual arts (Example research: Luca Pozzi). Step 3: Museum visit in Venice (and Biennale of architecture) to apply augmented reality exercises in front of the works of the past. Collective conversation based on images collected with smart phones and other devices.

SOFTWARE AND TOOLS Laptop, Smartphone, Tablet, audio recorder

REQUIREMENTS Transversal vision, with particular curiosity for interdisciplinary scientific field. Language: english (intermediate).

TUTOR Luca Pozzi

LUCA POZZI _ BIO: Luca Pozzi (1983) is a visual artist based in Milan. The space-time is an all-encompassing container, where everything is next to each other in an holistic sense. There is a strange feeling of frozen time. Past, present and future are indistinguishable. A series of multidisciplinary correspondences are converging into a beautiful network of pure and basic information beyond geographical, political and linguistic borders. The importance of the less intuitive aspects of our reality: quantum gravity, teleportation, entanglement, augmented reality, time travel, cosmology and biodiversity. The result of an unusual correlation between theoretical physics, informatics and contemporary art. Amoung the most recent solo exhibitions are W.O.G.U. Pennsylvania-Italy 1983/2009 in 2009 and U-DRAWINGS in 2010 (at Galleria Federico Luger, Milan); A.E.W.O.M. Le Strabisme du Dragon in 2010 (at Museo Marino Marini, Florence) http://www.lucapozzi.com

Luca Pozzi, Làputa Pyramid (2010), electromagnetic levitation field, caucciù, green marble, wood pedestals, 100x43x42 cm

WORKSHOP 3 : Reinventing the sound. Introduction to audio programming in Pure Data

CONCEPT This introductory workshop is intended to provide the basis for the programming of tools, systems and applications for audio and interactive sound design, using the software Pure Data. Musicians, sound designers, DJs and performers can invent original ways to generate and control the sound of their productions and live performances, for example using body movements, objects, or sensors that become integral part of their music performance. With the integration of theoretical and practical knowledge, at the end of the workshop, the participants will be able to design and develop simple ‘music’ systems by using a range of hardware and software solutions , even low cost. The workshop will stimulate the participants to use the resources available in the web in a critical, creative and innovative way . It will take into account both the artistic and aesthetic-expressive functions and the different contexts and types of participants to the project.

PROGRAM Step 1: General Introduction to the programming environment Pure Data and analysis of some examples followed by group discussion. Steps 2 and 3: Design and development of a simple sound system in Pure Data accompanied by critical reflection about usability and creative-expressive validity of the project.

SOFTWARE AND TOOLS PureData

REQUIREMENTS Good knowledge of Windows or Mac operating systems and familiarity in production or musical performance with the computer. Participants will use their own computer (operating system Mac or Windows), and it is advisable to pre-install the latest version of Pure Data available free at the site (http://puredata.info/). Other specific requirements concerning hardware and software will be discussed during the workshop, depending on the projects to be developed.

TUTOR Andrea Santini

ANDREA SANTINI _ BIO: A strong supporter of multidisciplinary approaches, Andrea operates chiefly as a creative artist, lecturer and researcher in the fields of electroacoustic music, live electronics, sound art, new media, theatre and audiovisual interaction. In 2012 he has completed a DELfunded PhD project on spatial audio and live- ectronics at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Queen’s University, Belfast) focusing on the spatial music of Venetian composer Luigi Nono. Since 2011 he has been working as a lecturer and Campus Academic Coordinator for SAE Institute (in Ljubljana and London). Andrea is co-founder and technical director of creative research group UBIKteatro (Venice area). His audiovisual work has been presented at several galleries and festivals : Kernel Festival (Milan, IT, July 2011), Nem Summit (Turin, IT 2011), Toolkit Festival, (Venice, IT 2012), Sonorities, Festival of Contemporary Music (Belfast, UK 2012), Salone del Mobile (Milan, IT 2013), Tokyo Experimental Festival (Tokyo, JP, 2013), Earzoom Festival (Ljubljana, SI, 2013), Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK, 2014). http://www.ubikteatro.com