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time:
7:30pm Thursday
30 November 2006

place:
RxGallery
132 Eddy @ Mason
San Francisco, CA

FREE ADMISSION but donations most welcome!

CASH BAR 21+ Feel free to bring snacks to share!

Live VIDEOCAST again by Monkeybrains.net
Thanks Monkeybrains!




rxGallery

blasthaus and dorkbotSF present DEVICE ART FORUM

Featuring 10 artists and curators from Croatia, Serbia, Herzegovina, and Slovenia. Presentations by all and special sneak preview of this exciting exhibition of projects at the intersection of art, science, and technology.

Device_art was first initiated by the Croatian independent organization KONTEJNER | bureau of contemporary art praxis in Zagreb in 2004 in the form of a group exhibition, bringing together artists from Croatia and the region (Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro). This year KONTEJNER started to collaborate with Multimedia Institute from Zagreb which is for some years now investigating art and skills in that field. American partner blasthaus Gallery from San Francisco is also oriented to technology based art, and the goal of this collaboration is to present device art from the region where it is in development most.

Also, Sergio Vujicic will be making perfumes from peoples' bodily fluids during the event!

presenters:

Silvio Vujicic - Perfume 2006

Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, objects, and living spaces a pleasant smell. The amount and type of solvent mix with the fragrance oil dictates whether a perfume is considered a perfume extract, Eau de parfum, Eau de toilette, or Eau de Cologne. I'm transforming the upstairs gallery space into a laboratory where, using the lab equipment, I'll produce perfumes from human excretions. Visitors can 'leave' any of their excretions and the perfume will be made from them. They receive one specimen, while the other is retained in my perfume repository.

The time it takes to produce a perfume is ± 60 minutes. The flask filling takes place in the gallery. The perfume is named after the donor and the type of excretion it was made from. The product can be used.

notes:

  • gallery as laboratory - 'art' becomes functional, both approachable and inapproachable - because art might smell badly
  • sweat, sperm, urine, feces, menstrual blood, milk - as basis for perfume derivation, a transformation of excretions into something else in an unnatural way
  • perfume as social and cultural value
  • invisibility and strange sensuality, a potent substance
  • flux - importance of flow (. Deleuze)
  • subjective impression of smell (we like our smell no matter how it smells)

Marcell Mars - Multimeida Institute

Multimedia Institute, or [mi2] for short is an NGO established in 1999 in Zagreb, as a spin-off of the Soros internet program (similar to Ljudmila in Slovenia, but a few years later in the process). In 2000 [mi2] opened its public space, net.culture center "mama"(mama.mi2.hr), which instantly became a meeting spot in Zagreb, attracting people with its cheap internet access, lounge space with DJs constantly performing, presentation and screening space and media-book library. Serving no liquor, having no corporate beverage policies, open from 12h to 24h and often much later through the night, it has created a unique environment for meeting with hackers, philosophers, artists, DJs and activists who have time to spare for chilling out in "mama." mi2 is very actively involved in the free software revolution.

curatorial team: Suncica Ostoic, Olga Majcen, Ivana Bago, Tomislav Pokrajcic - Kontejner

To be and to act in a critical-investigative manner within reality through art, is a sphere of interest for Kontejner / bureau of contemporary art practice. Research art practice covers a broad artistic sphere in both media and content including intermedia and interdisciplinary projects located at the junction of science, technology and art, characterized by a hybrid and innovative use of media. Content-wise, these projects refer to relevant phenomena of contemporary society and culture, dealing with civilizational taboos and ethic systems which create them, particularly stressing the field of trauma produced by the transgression and violation of norms. This is an art concerned with a society of the future, the post-human and his obsolete body affected by cybernetics, nonotechnology, biotechnology...

Sandra Sajovic - Kapelica Gallery

Changing direction in 1995, the gallery now runs a programme that has summoned an entirely new audience to the chapel (Kapelica), and to what used to be a liturgical place of the Apprentice Hostel. Kapelica Gallery is the space of virtual interactions among artists, the audience and ideas, and one of the central platforms of contemporary art research in Slovenia. It enables people from different artistic environments to experiment with new paradigms and borders in contemporary art. The gallery programme is based on presentation of art production that is scarce or completely absent in other Slovene galleries. The points of interest are space installations, performances, artistic actions, sound events and artistic presentations with educational potential. A common denominator of various genres in the gallery is the characteristics of Contemporary Investigative Arts. The stress is on research, exploration and experimentation of frontiers of artistic discourses and urban poetics. The gallery's programme is divided in four main thematic groups: installations and ad hoc projects, technology through art, science through art and corporeality through art. Kapelica Gallery has established links with numerous galleries and initiatives abroad (Live Art Development Agency from UK) working with many guest curators, artists and theoreticians of contemporary artistic practices. The gallery programme has been presented at various symposia and conferences round the world, in the framework of numerous international festivals (International Festival of Computer Arts (IFCA), Sarajevo Winter, Salon of Young Artists in Zagreb) and Biennials (Venice Biennale 2003, International Association for the Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean) and the gallery team is also a consulting body for international selectors.

Magdalena Pederin - Supertele 2006

Super-tele deals with the issue of communication. It consists of a monitor with a video link with me speaking live with the audience and several interactive teddy bears scattered around the room. Each teddy bear has its own 'character' and contains a module with a sound recording which consists of fragments of typical, everyday conversations, activated when the visitor comes closer to it. In a separate room a teddy bear is placed with a mobile camera whose motion around the room can be followed on the monitor. In the moment when the visitor steps onto the marked line in front of the teddy bear, the camera focuses on his face and the teddy bear asks three questions: who are you, what do you do and what's your phone number. This conversation is recorded.

Ivan Marusic Klif - Undimmed Quivering (via D.B.Indo.) 2006

Preliminary notes for an audio-visual mechanism: The installation functions as a more or less closed circuit. I set a defined group of initial parameters and a set of rules. Once the installation is activated, it is impossible to know the exact outcome because the system is too chaotic to be predictable. Four overhead projectors are placed inside the room. Each contains a pool of water which quivers when the system of electric motors and mechanisms is activated.

    Two-way feed-back loop:
  • sound creates animation
  • light creates sound image
The overhead projection image is created mechanically - electric motors and the quivering systems animate the liquid in the pools. The output image resolution is unlimited. Photosensitive sensors react to the changes in light and shade and induce transformations of the synthesized sound. Microphones amplify the noise of the electric motors.

If you would like to speak at a future dorkbotSF contact Karen Marcelo (dorkbotsf [@] dorkbot [.] org)

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