31
08/11
19:39
Pure Data convention 2011
Three weeks ago I attended the 4th Pure Data (PD) convention. This time it was organised in Weimar and Berlin. The convention lasted one week and included conferences, workshops, concerts, and installations. The frame for the convention was Weimar, which has a name in art history: Goethe, Schiller, Bach, and the Bauhaus were there.
The conferences were technical oriented. The topics included the implementations, the developing of tools for PD, extensions to PD, and sound projects using PD. The workshops happened in the afternoon and there were for beginners and for experienced users. I took part in the beginners workshop, especially in the visual ones as GEM for beginners, GLSL, and Understanding the PD Data Structures. The concerts were scheduled in the evening; they were amusing, exciting, and inspiring. Although I enjoyed most of them I got impressed by the works of Chikasi Miyama, Hsin-jen Wang, Jinyao Lin, Oscar Martin (Noish), Cyrille Henry and Nicolas Montgermont, Dan Wilcox, and Onyx Ashanti. From my point of view, these were the most aesthetically refined works. They depict too a wide range of expressions to be found in contemporary digital/electronic art. An impression of each concert could be got at the convention website. Finally, from the installations I would like to highlight Tafel by Alexandre Castonguay, Cymatic Imprints by Donna Legault, and Concerto para Lanhouse by Giuliano Obici. They all graciously combined machinic poetry and ingeniousness which made me wonder if I weren’t in a Gibsonian reality.
A small bite of what happened in Weimar could be listen to below.
Chikashi Miyama.Black Box. Record of a live performance in the 4th PD Convention 2011. Weimar, Germany. Duration: 7:17
[audio:http://www.pktweb.com/drnn1076/sound_works/black_box_(Chikashi Miyama)_PDcon_weimar_2011.mp3]
Tad Bisaha
September 8, 2011
12:13 am
Hi
Mister Miyama,You said:”The frame for the convention was Weimar, which has a name in art history: Goethe, Schiller, Bach, and the Bauhaus were there.”
Not only art,
You forget Büchenwald… and Nietzsche!
Weimar is Weimar.
You said too: “From my point of view, these were the most aesthetically refined works.”
Can you be more precise.
What do you mean by this words:”refined”?
Did you meet the artworks of Donnaruma?
I can’t ask you about Rock-Art2noise, public conditions were very poor. The public used our artwork as an exhibition while it was a concert(communication, thank you!)…We received the sound system 2 hours before the “concert” while we had asked for a correspondent room during 2 days before our public performance,(organization,thank you!) so much our artwork is delicate and particular.
No more comment, be carefull about blabla about artwork.
But do you speak about artwork or sound-design?
I think the question of art was the big absentee of this convention. But It is the common in Europe, isn’t it? Art, Spirit, Sens, Policy, Human condition make fright. Let us avoid them, it is so much nicer to speak about industrial application. And so much more comfortable….And more profitable.
Au plaisir,
Tad
Tad Bisaha
September 8, 2011
12:22 am
So funny,
I hope, you had correct me.
My first comment was for the author(s) and not Miyama.
But who is the author, in reality?
Au plaisir
Tad
admin
September 8, 2011
10:25 am
Actually I was one of the few people who stayed from the beginning till the end of Rock-Art2noise concert, if not the only one who listen to the entire concert. This duo performance was indeed treated during the convention as an exhibition when it was a concert, it was a shame. I missed it in my post because initially I didn’t find it under the exhibition category at the pd-con web-site. This only shows how weak are my searching-for-info skills.
During the convention I never got to know the title of Rock-Art2noise; it wasn’t on the printed schedule. I have to acknowledge that this piece keep me thinking about it, in particular the gestures of the painter and the wilderness and roughness of the visual result.
I talked about artwork and not sound design, and with refined I referred to the complex and detailed elaboration to form the piece out of the combination of several different elements, not certainly to achieve balance but the opposite. The aesthetics of all art-pieces in the convention strongly stressed the nature of our current condition, a machinic one. I celebrated some of them, as an artist do, picking and presenting a few from a given large number of possibilities.
I think the question of art was present in the convention, I agree with you it was overshadow by the presence of commercial and industrial interests, sadly especially in the final talk. This is the challenge that digital and electronic media poses to art, it is also in that opposition where media art gets its raw material.
Note: I’m not European.
Tad Bisaha
September 9, 2011
6:10 pm
Hi, the brother of the Kogis!
“…/… if not the only one who listen to the entire concert. ” Exact and with this info, I can identify you, I remember you. Therefore we were three. Sitan, a Kogi and me. You are so lucky, a concert at the Pd Convention just for you!.. 😉 If you like the surprises, give me your mail, I have a small thing which could interest you, I think. Afterwards, thanks for your precision.
“I think the question of art was present in the convention,” Yes, by the artworks and some workshop but not in the conference. About the final talk, it was a crazy joke for me, I therefore made off to join my laptop and concentrate me on Berlin. I agree with your conclusion, one of the challenge…
I take well into account that you are not European. Is it for this reason (between other one) that you remain a curious mind?
Thank you for all, and use my mail to inform me about your researches and artworks. Mysteriously, I am European and curious.
Au plaisir
Tad