This was the second project I made for urban interface oslo fall 2007.

I collected a library of field recordings I have made over the years. I set up an internet radio station for the project (using Nicecast), and played with different configurations mixing music and the field recordings, but ended up just using my own recordings.
I thought it could be interesting to stream internet radio, a global media, to very specific local areas. I found three locations in Oslo which would serve as the local radio stations. They were somehow connected to a clear visible cue in that location: A huge oak tree, a small sculpture, and a small pound in the roundabout. The range of the local stations would more or less correspond to these visual cues: If you saw them you would be able to pick up the signal from the radio stations. In numbers this would mean a range of 30-100 meters.
My original plan was to use the fm-senders for mp3 players which are mostly meant to be used to listen to the mp3 player through the car radio. This was partly because I was experimenting with solar energy as energy source, and because they were cheap. The range and quality of the signal wasnt good enough though, so I ended up getting the more powerful aareff fm transmitters .
The senders were placed with friendly hosts, letting me use their internet connection to pick up the internet radio stream.

The result was three very local radio stations sending out a continous soundtrack from other locations, so somehow these recorded locations came in dialogue with the physical locations of the radio stations.
The listening involved active participation from the public as you would need to tune in on your own radio to pick up the broadcast.

Soundpockets is a series of projects of intimate sound interventions in public spaces. By using fm radiowaves, soundbeams and miniature speakers to create local pockets of sound, the different projects have different scope and focus: creating private listening rooms, changing soundtracks of a location, displacement of time/or space and a bit of general disruption of everyday life.

I made Soundpocket 1 as part of the exhibition urban interface oslo fall 2007.
From urban interface oslo blog:
“Hauntings? Dimension Doors? Time tunnels?
A boy heard what appeared to be the sound of a sheep coming from the wall of Strykejernet Art School.
A bartender at Blå was concerned when he heard running water like that from a leaking water pipe. The sound disappeared before he was able to locate it.
A seagull can be heard, but is nowhere to be seen.
Soundpocket artist HC Gilje is causing slight disturbances in the urban interfaces.”

Using a directional soundbeam to project a localized sound into a public space, this sound being only heard by the people within the sound beam which can be as narrow as 50 cm in diameter. It is similar to a lightbeam, only being sound instead. When it hits a surface it is reflected.
Soundpocket 1 was installed in a narrow passageway in Oslo, connecting two parts of the city. The soundbeam was mounted on a pan/tilt head making it possible to place the sounds very precisely in the passageway.

By bouncing the sound off surfaces, it seems as if the sound is coming from a window, door, elevator, a poster on the wall or just a more general presence. This made the piece into something which added another layer of sound to the existing soundscape, blending (sometimes disappearing) into the location.
Most of the sounds would appear to belong to the site, although dislocated (like the sound of the chandelier in the wind), the sounds of birds, telephones, babies crying, dogs barking, water running etc.

It was interesting to see how the piece was received. It was obvious for me that it wouldnt work very well as a typical art piece, it has a much more interventionist nature. I wanted it to be slight distortions to the regular soundscape of the passageway, and was pleased to see that the people who used this passageway regularly were noticing these disturbances. This could be described using the first of Barthes´ three listening modes: hearing involves “evaluation of the spatio-temporal situation“ and thus, it is linked to a “notion of territory“. It places the listener on alert when new sounds which dont´t “fit in” are heard.
By adding an extra layer of sound if also made people focus on the sounds which were already there.

The inspiration from this comes from when I studied in Trondheim in the 90ies, and I heard some stories about how a directional speaker had been used to cause a certain distress on a bridge over the local river: A person walking alone across the bridge suddenly hear whispering voices. An out of tune clarinet is projected into a marching band playing on the 17th of may (Norway´s national holiday).
If these stories are true or not, doesnt really matter, it is the idea of having a private experience in a public space which intrigued me.

Soundpockets is a series of projects of intimate sound interventions in public spaces. By using fm radiowaves, soundbeams and miniature speakers to create local pockets of sound, the different projects have different scope and focus: creating private listening rooms, changing soundtracks of a location, displacement of time/or space and a bit of general disruption of everyday life.

“In the suggestive medieval spaces of the Magazzini del Sale (In Palazzo Publico, Siena),
some of the most interesting international video artists and film
makers measure themselves with the idea of wandering, a very ancient theme shared by
a variety of traditions and literature, the paradigm par excellence of the human
condition.

The exhibited works were created during the last decade; they are real “journeys”, or
wanderings of the mind, dealing with the search for an identity, dislocation and
estrangement. These random or planned meanderings set up a relentless “private”
dialogue with the natural landscapes and the architectural or urban spaces.
The artists deal with the subject of wandering according to different inflections; some
relate it to a “loss” and to a dynamic quest (Shirin Neshat, Martijn Veldhoen); some
associate it to the concept of “still dislocation” (Hans Op de Beeck, Kimsooja); some to a
wandering of the mind or memory (Matthias Müller, Jonas Dahlberg) that can also be
accompanied by physical wandering (Seouhgho Cho, Pipilotti Rist, Jonathan
Glazer/UNKLE); some artists thrust the wanderer into the metropolitan contradictory
environment (Jordi Colomer, HC Gilje). The exhibition also hosts the last work of
Michelangelo Antonioni, a concise and intense video showing the artist in a wandering,
poetic and sensuous dialogue with Michelangelo’s Moses.

In the bilingual (Italian/English) exhibition catalogue, published by Silvana Editoriale, the
theme of wandering is further investigated in essays by the curators and artists’
contributions, as well as in an extensive anthology of poems. In a meandering path from
Schiller to Verlaine, from Borges to Luzi, this selection of verses narrates the wanderer’s
poetic modulations from the romantic Wanderer to the 19th century flâneur, until the
contemporary drift.

EXHIBITED WORKS: Michelangelo Antonioni, Lo sguardo di Michelangelo, 2004 - Seoungho Cho, Orange
Factory, 2002 - Jordi Colomer, Anarchitekton: Barcelona - Bucarest - Brasilia - Osaka, 2002-04 - Jonas
Dahlberg, Untitled (Horizontal Sliding), 1999 e Untitled (Vertical Sliding), 2000 – HC Gilje, h.k.mark1,
1998 - Jonathan Glazer / UNKLE, Rabbit in Your Headlights, 1998 – Kimsooja, A Needle Woman - Mexico
City, Cairo, Lagos, London, 2000-01 - Matthias Müller, Album, 2004 - Shirin Neshat, Soliloquy, 1999 -
Hans Op de Beeck, Determination (4), 1998 - Pipilotti Rist, Aujourd’hui, 1999 - Martijn Veldhoen,
Momentum, 2003. “

Marius Watz recently held a two week workshop as part of Club Transmediale this year: Generator 2.0 X Beyond the Screen.

“Digital fabrication (also known as “fabbing”) represents the next step in the digital revolution. After years of virtualization, with machines and atoms being replaced by bits and software, we are coming full circle. Digital technologies like rapid prototyping, laser cutting and CNC milling now produce atoms from bits, eliminating many of the limitations of industrial production processes. Once prohibitively expensive, such technologies are becoming increasingly accessible, pointing to a future where mass customization and manufacturing-on-demand may be real alternatives to mass production.”

The invited artists had some prior experience with fabbing, and from looking at the images from the workshop I wish I could have seen the resulting exhibition at [DAM] Berlin.

..and as usual a more in-depth article at WMMA.

Related:

When I visited f0am in Brussels in october they were busy constructing a reprap, a DIY rapid prototyping printer, and their ultimate goal is to use it to make food.

I made a quick trip to Berlin last week to catch the exhibition at Martin Gropius Bau before it closed, it´s too bad they couldn´t keep it open until Transmediale opens end of january. The exhibition is curated by Richard Castelli and includes several large scale installations by Ulf Langheinrich (former Granular Synthesis) and Jeffrey Shaw (Place and EVE) as well as some very beautiful small-scale work by dumbtype founder Shiro Takatani, to mention just a few of the works.
I found it interesting, especially after having just read Mark Hansen´s “New Philosophy for New Media” which uses Shaw´s work extensively to support his theory.
Regine at We make money not art has written two posts from the exhibition which I recommend:
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2007/12/i-finally-got-t.php
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2007/12/from-spark-to-p.php

augmentedsculpture by pablo valbuena, originally uploaded by hc gilje.

I found the title of this post in one of Michael Naimarks essays, I guess it also could have been called augmented reality, projection of a virtual object onto a physical object, projecting a virtual layer ontop of a physical geometry, masking of projections, etc.

I have been researching different ways of projecting on other things than flat surfaces: projections that project on objects, follow the shape of the room, and projections of virtual 3D shapes onto physical 3D shapes.

In my own work I have used projections as advanced light sources, masking as a way to fit flat projections on objects and surfaces, but also to create the illusion of multiple screens from a single source. Some examples here.

My goal has been to create tools which make it easy to start working with a physical space immediately, being able to make changes in realtime. I have mainly done this by using multiple opengl videoplane layers in max/msp jitter, with one of the layers having a drawing mode so you are able to draw the shape of a particular object after you have placed a opengl layer over it. I made a crude 3 layer tool for the workshop I did at KHIO this summer to enable the participants to immediately start relating to the physical space.
The master of multiple opengl videoplanes in Norway is Piotr Pajchel in his work with Verdensteatret.

I have done some experiments with projecting a 3D shape onto physical objects, but still have a long way to go in terms of having a simple setup for this.
Obviously I have been looking at what other people have been doing, but none of systems I have found seems to be available to the public, and few of them seem to have been used beyond the developing-period of the system, which might be a sign of them not being as flexible as wanted, and maybe also quite timeconsuming to prepare.

Most systems uses a method to track the shape/space they want to project onto in combination with custommade software, to be able to map the projected image correctly onto the physical object, which is related to the lens specifications of the projector, the placement of the projector in relation to the objects to be projected on, etc.

The LightTwist system developed at the University of Montreal (not much seems to have happened after 2004) use “a panoramic (catadioptric) camera to get correspondances between each projector pixel with the camera pixel. This camera represents the viewpoint of our futur observers. Then, from what the observer should see, we can build the projector images from their respective mapping.”

The videobjects from Whitevoid design in Germany is a software for realtime distortion of video to fit physical objects, but using predistorted video, and you calibrate it either with a helpgrid or by importing a model of the realworld setup. So you would need to first create the 3D shapes to project onto, and then decide how the video will map onto the 3D objects, and finally doing the calibration to match up the virtual objects with the physical ones.

I think the most spectacular callibration solution so far is the “automatic projector calibration with embedded light sensors” (pdf), a collaboration between people from Carnegie-Mellon, Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab and Stanford. They use fiberoptics and light sensors built into the objects/surfaces to be projected on, and by projecting a series of grey coded binary patterns, a custom-made software is able to adjust the image in less than a second to perfectly fit the projectionsurface, with a much higher resolution than a camerabased solution. Take a look at the impressive video:

The pdf and video seems to be from 2004, but I found some more information here. They are hoping to make the system fast enough for live tracking of moving objects, and also to make the calibration pattern invisible using infrared light.

If you have a big budget you could always invite Circus of Now to do the video for you (”We build skyscrapers of light”).

At Ars Electronica this year I had the pleasure to see Palbo Valbuena´s Augmented Sculpture (image at top of this post) which consists of a physical structure in the corner of the room, with the exact same virtual shape projected onto it using one projector. By then animating the color and lighting of this virtual shape, some very interesting light/shadowplays happen. Valbuena collaborates with some game developers in Spain who constructed the virtual model and animation in a standard 3D software.
This work shows the potential in augmented reality using videoprojection, and I hope to see more of his work soon (He has a big outdoor installation in Madrid at the moment, hopefully there will be some documentation soon.)

update feb 5th 2008: Valbuena has updated his website with documentation of several projects: different versions of the augmented sculpture and the public square installation in Madrid.

I was introduced to Martin Andersen last week, the artist behind the mirror project in Rjukan. Rjukan is in a valley where the sun disappears behind the mountains 5 months a year. Martin wants to construct a heliostat mirror (it follows the position of the sun) to get sunlight to the town square of Rjukan. This is actually an old idea from 1913 supported by Sam Eyde, the director of Norsk Hydro (which basically founded Rjukan for industrial purposes).

Unlike a similar project in Viganella in Italy which uses brushed steel as the reflection surface, the mirror project will use mirrors which focus the sun only to the town square (about 100m2).

This year´s piksel festival is over, with focus on circuit bending and open hardware solutions. I could only stay the first day, but have been following part of the festival through the quite impressive streams archive from the festival.

I got to see the wonderful loud objects live, which I have written about before.

Last night I watched David Cuartielles from the Arduino team give an interesting talk about the beginning of the arduino project, the current status of the arduino development and challenges ahead. They have sold over 20000 boards, and it has become the standard tool for electronics prototyping. As a result of this position there are now clones being made all over the world, for instance a dual core arduino (!!) made by some people in South-Korea.

He talked about how everything with arduino is open, they only reserve the use of the name arduino. There is quite a big difference between open software and open hardware, as hardware needs to be manufactured so you need some initial investment. They have an interesting strategy for funding new development by letting corporations and institutions paying them to work on the arduino project, so for instance Samsung agreed to let Cuartielles make a lot of board designs which will be available for free soon, without Samsung having any rights to the designs. Some of these boards looked very interesting, like a 32 channel output board (which can be daisychained) with transistors to control lights, motors etc, a 64 channel input board, relay boards etc.

The arduino project is being restructured into a foundation, and some money will each year be used to support people and projects who have problems with access to hardware.

Here is a direct link to his talk (ogg stream).

mikro performance, originally uploaded by hc gilje.

Mikro is a series of improvised performances using the immediate surroundings as raw material: A microscope captures everyday objects and surfaces like wallpaper, coins, clothing, furniture, newspapers and transforms it into an explosive universe of textures. Contact microphones and electromagnetic sniffers pick up unhearable sounds to create the live soundtrack.
Mikro is a collaboration between HC Gilje (video) and Justin Bennett (sound).
Performances so far:
Paradiso (Amsterdam), IMAL (Brussels), TAG (den Haag), DNK (Amsterdam), Bergen Kunsthall Landmark (Bergen), Laznia (Gdansk)

Louder_k11, originally uploaded by hc gilje.

This weekend I got the chance to see the two installations “Fortellerorkesteret” and “Louder” by Verdensteatret at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo. Both come out of two theater performances by Verdensteatret. I had the opportunity to be a little bit involved in the production of Fortellerorkesteret so it was nice to see it in this huge beautiful space.

The installations are a mix of sculpture,sound,video,kinetic objects,light and shadows, and are inspiring examples of compositions in space. Fortellerorkesteret has a more theater structure, resemblant of old mechanical puppet theater, while Louder is more of a spatial experience dominated by the huge mechanical spider and the numerous speakers.

more images of louder and fortellerorkesteret