Reviewing

ZOOM IN: OLAP

Claudia Schmitz, Nicola L. Hein

Featuring Katherine Liberovskaya, Carol Parkinson

Our collaboration with Experimental Intermedia continues with our tenth ZOOM IN: OLAP (Online Live Art Performance) community discussion forum. For this event we have invited  time based media artist Claudia Schmitz and sound artist Nicola L. Hein to talk about their work UnStumm | Augmented Voyage one of their projects as UnStumm.

Date: Sunday February 27, 2022

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm New York Time (EST) (21:00 – 23:00 Central Europe)

Location: online on Zoom. Free.  (for the Zoom link check back a few minutes before 3pm on Sunday February 27th). 

Following the presentation and a Q & A, the forum will be open to anyone attending who would like to discuss any online live art performance ideas or projects as well as any technical or conceptual concerns.

The discussion forum will be led by media artist and curator  Katherine Liberovskaya of Experimental Intermedia and Harvestworks Director Carol Parkinson.

UnStumm Augmented Aether 6 recorded in Dresden copyright_UnStumm


UnStumm | Augmented Voyage is the UnStumm telematic Augmented Reality platform and a smartphone app. It aims to develop a new vision of a real time collaborative use of AR/VR technologies in telematic performances. It creates a new approach to VR technology, which is not yet used for telematic live performances with video and sound art.

UnStumm is now increasingly focusing on productions in VR and AR space. This enables an international project development and performance without physical travel. Claudia Schmitz and Nicola L. Hein will invite different artists to form audio-visual groups to perform in telematic virtual reality settings. 

In collaboration with programmer and media artist Sven Hahne, UnStumm is developing a platform for telematic augmented reality performances, which enables the projection of video and sound into a virtual space and thus opens up a virtual space for telematic communication between musicians and video artists from all over the world.

The audience can access and move through and around these telematic augmented reality performances via a webbased app on their own smartphone. The download of UnStumm’s smartphone app enables the audience to particpate in 3-dimensional live performances as well as the retrospective visit of past performances. Our Augmented Reality project transfers the stage space into the virtual space and integrates the real space in which the audience or the concrete user of the app is present at that moment, here using their own smartphone as 3D glasses.

In the last two years, UnStumm has realized several international performance series in augmented reality (inviting more than 30 different artists to participate), the extension of their project including dance in augmented reality (UnStumm – Augmented Movements) and augmented reality performance with artificial intelligence artists (UnStumm – Artificial Liveness). 

More information: https://unstumm.com/

UnStumm Augmented Aether Copyright UnStumm

BIOS

Nicola Hein Photo byPeter Gannushkin

Nicola L. Hein is a sound artist, guitarist, creative technologist, composer and researcher in music and aesthetics. His work is driven by the interaction of sound and space, light, movement, thought and the becoming of embodied and intermedial intelligence in aesthetic systems, community and technology. In his artistic work he uses physical and electronic extension of the electric guitar, sound installations, cybernetic human-machine interaction with A.I. interactive music systems, Augmented Reality, telematic real-time art, ambisonic sound projection, instrument building, conceptual compositions. Inter-media works with video art, dance, literature and other art forms constitute another focus of his practice. With the support of the Goethe Institute and many other institutions, his artworks have been realized in more than 30 countries worldwide. He worked with many of the world’s most established artists in the field of sound art and improvised music.

Claudia Schmitz @ youndongman and VGBild-Kunst

Claudia Schmitz – time based media artist           http://www.cces-claudiaschmitz.de/

“My work starts where the media intersect. I am not interested in the modernity of technology as such but in its capacities for creating new imaginary dimensions.”

As an international timebased media artist, Claudia Schmitz explores boundaries: Limits of perception, real and imagined barriers, liquid processes, body discourses. She explores paradigms of media translation – as a solo artist and in collaborative projects. She uses sculpture, multidimensional drawing, moving image, gestural transcription and food – in real space, virtual and augmented reality to explore new forms of sound, space and experience. Exploring socio-urban fabrics, challenging hegemonial perception, sustainability, synaesthesia, identity in virtual and real space, re- vs. interactivity, inter- and transmediality, machine learning, artificial intelligence are main topics of her current artistic research. 

By passing through temporary stages, by discarding and re-inventing themselves, her pieces explore oscillating stages of being and non-being, of existence inside and outside the image. Relying on the spectators to trigger them, many of her pieces discuss the extent and possibilities of participation. 

She is an internationally active artist and educator who has won numerous awards and nominations and has works in international public and private collections. 

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UnStumm  GbR is a contemporary cultural institution without a permanent space – led by Nicola L. Hein and Claudia Schmitz. The institution UnStumm GbR organizes and curates intermedia projects worldwide. The diverse location of the institution reflects both its internationality and interdisciplinarity as well as the project-immanent conception of barrier-free art mediation.

About ZOOM IN: OLAP

ZOOM IN: OLAP, a collaborative initiative by Harvestworks and Experimental Intermedia, was conceived by Katherine Liberovskaya and Carol Parkinson in the winter of 2021 in response to all the proliferating on-line artistic initiatives brought on by the pandemic. Its objective continues to be to reflect on the aesthetic and technical dimensions of live streaming and to share knowledge among the participants. The meetings feature guest practitioners from different artistic fields (music, live visuals, performance, dance, theater) who speak about their approaches and experiments with online performance (sound, video, conferencing, streaming software, aesthetic and organizational approaches), followed by Q&A. The forum is also open to hearing about new ideas and projects that are in development as well as technical and/or conceptual concerns from the participants. 

As the ever-increasing online live streaming events are starting to seem more and more all the same and are holding our attention less and less, we feel that it is crucial to unpack and re-think the online presentation of live online art practices and to imagine new approaches that are far better suited for the virtual performance stage that we experience on such a variety of platforms (computers, laptops, pads, phones) that have nothing to do with the in-person venues where they would usually take place. 

Moderated by Katherine Liberovskaya of Experimental Intermedia and Harvestworks Director Carol Parkinson

Claudia Schmitz

  “My work starts where the media intersect. I am not interested in the modernity of technology as such but in its capacities for creating new imaginary dimensions. My arrangements constantly assume temporary states, reject and re-invent themselves, exploring the space-time continuum, rendering visible and questioning its borders. They investigate the limitations of media arrangements and modes of participation.“

As an international timebased media artist, Claudia Schmitz explores boundaries: Limits of perception, real and imagined barriers, liquid processes, body discourses. She explores paradigms of media translation – as a solo artist and in collaborative projects. She uses sculpture, multidimensional drawing, moving image, gestural transcription and food – in real space, virtual and augmented reality to explore new forms of sound, space and experience. Exploring socio-urban fabrics, challenging hegemonial perception, sustainability, synaesthesia, identity in virtual and real space, re- vs. interactivity, inter- and transmediality, machine learning, artificial intelligence are main topics of her current artistic research.

Nicola L. Hein

Nicola L. Hein is a sound artist, guitarist, composer, researcher in the field of music aesthetics and cybernetics. He is also a professor of digital creation and artistic director of the studio for electronic music at the University of Music Lübeck. His work is determined by the interaction of sound, space, light, movement and the emergent dynamics of aesthetic systems. In his artistic work he uses physical and electronic extensions of synthesizers and electric guitar, sound installations with motors/video projections/light, cybernetic human-machine interaction with interactive A.I. music systems, augmented reality, telematic real-time art, ambisonic sound projection, instrument making, conceptual compositions. Intermedia works with video art, dance, literature and other art forms. The interdisciplinary collaboration with many different artists* from music and also from video art, dance, theater, literature, painting and many more play a central role in his artistic work. With the support of the Goethe-Institut and many other institutions, his works have been realized in more than 30 countries in North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. His artistic work is documented on over 30 CD, tape and vinyl publications on international labels such as Clean Feed. He has been awarded many different prizes and grants for his work. In the field of sound art and improvised music he has collaborated with many internationally renowned artists: Max Eastly, Evan Parker, Miya Masaoka, Axel Dörner, Ute Wassermann and many more. Presentations of his work have taken place at MaerzMusik Festival (Berlin), Ars Electronica (Linz), Moers Festival, A L’ARME! FESTIVAL (Berlin), Super Deluxe (Tokyo), Sonica Festival (Glasgow), Experimental Intermedia (New York) and many more.

Katherine Liberovskaya

Katherine Liberovskaya is an intermedia artist based in New York City
and Montreal, Canada. Involved in experimental video since the 80s, she has produced
many single-channel videos, video installation works and video and music
performances which have been presented at a wide variety of events and venues around
the world. Among these: MOMA PS1 PrintShop NYC; The Duolun Museum and The Aurora
Museum, Shanghai, China; The Museum of Arts and Design, NYC; The Bitola Museum,
Macedonia (FYROM); The Tito Museum, Belgrade, Serbia; The Kyoto University Museum,
Japan; The Serralves Contemporary Art Museum, Porto, Portugal; The Roskilde Museum
of Contemporary Art, Denmark; The National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow,
Russia; The Beirut Art Center, Lebanon; The Contemporary Art Center Bunkier Sztuki,
Krakow, Poland. Since 2001 her work predominantly focuses on the intersection of
image and sound, in solo video-audio installation/environments and often in
collaborations with composers and sound artists notably in live video+sound
performance. Frequent collaborators include Phill Niblock, Al Margolis/If,Bwana,
Keiko Uenishi, David Watson, Shelley Hirsch, Guy de Bievre… among many others.
Since 2003 she has been exploring improvised video in live video+sound performance
situations where her live visuals seek to create improvisatory “music” for the eyes.
Over the years she has performed in concert with numerous artists including: Monique
Buzzarte, Anne Wellmer, Tom Hamilton, Margarida Garcia, Manuel Mota, Anthony
Coleman, Barry Weisblat, Mazen Kerbaj, murmer, Andre Gonçalves, Giuseppe Ielasi,
Alessandro Bossetti, Andre Eric Letourneau, Jason Khan, Jim Bell, David Grollman,
Doug Van Nort, among many others. Recent projects have involved: Anna Homler, Leslie
Ross, Chantal Dumas, Richard Garet, Mia Zabelka, Dorit Chrysler, Emilie Mouchous,
Erin Sexton, Corinne Rene and Philippe Lauzier, Magali Babin. Recent solo projects
include: the audiovisual installations “Mise-en-Abyme Cu29” (2016), “Rake”
(2015-16), “sonimaginations tissulaires” (2014-16), “NoizeBreeze” (2014), “Air-Play”
(2013), “Amplifontana” (2012-16) and “Shines” (2008-16) and the intermedia
installation “Muidebrugge Wave (Matisse/Haacke Blues)” (2015). Since the late 1980s
she has received over 30 grants and arts awards in Canada, U.S.A. and France.
Concurrently she curates and organizes the Screen Compositions evenings at
Experimental Intermedia, NYC, since 2005 and, since 2006, the OptoSonic Tea salons
with Ursula Scherrer at Diapason, NYC, and in various nomadic locations, in New
York, North America and Europe, with OptoSonic Tea On the Road. In 2014 she
completed a PhD in art practice entitled “Improvisatory Live Visuals: Playing Images
Like a Musical Instrument” at the Universite du Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).