WSOA Digital Arts Soiree this week features - nathaniel stern on interactive video art – what is it? where is it going? nathaniel stern (NYC / Johannesburg) is an internationally exhibited installation artist, net.artist and performance poet. His interactive installations have won awards in New York, South Africa and Australia, including a 2004 Brett Kebble Award for his immersive environment, “step inside”. This lecture, discussion and demo will survey the interactive video landscape in 2005. What kinds of tools are available for potential VJs, artists and musicians who want to produce interactive installations or multimedia performances? How simple and complex are they to use? Who made/is making what, and why (case studies)? During our time together, we’ll also break down, conceptually, how someone might achieve body-tracking, motion tracking or proximity sensing with a simple web cam, and take a quick look at "jitter" (a very popular interactive video development environment for artists), and some projects made with it. DATE: Friday, March 18 TIME: 15:30 VENUE: Seminar Room, Ground Floor, Digital Arts Convent, Wits School of Arts. ALL WELCOME!

It appears that a precious long weekend is not the best time to run a workshop in JHB, no matter how exciting the subject . . . However, several of you on this list have expressed a keen interest in Nathaniel Stern’s workshop on Interactive Video; but couldn’t make this weekend. As a result we have decided to postpone the workshop until later in the year. Look out for an invitation on this site. Take heart, though. Nathaniel will be presenting the Digital Soiree this Friday; so you’ll have a chance to hear this brilliant young artist/technologist giving an illustrated overview of the entire field of Interactive Art. Info in the next mail.

This is an opportunity which should not be missed!  There are 6 places available on this ground-breaking workshop; so put your name down early so that you don’t miss out.
Please also feel free to forward this invitation to anyone else who may be interested in the workshop.
 
Interactive Video workshop at Wits Digital Arts
Dates: 18 – 20 March  (beginning Friday late afternoon, full day Saturday and Sunday)
Course Leader: Nathaniel Stern
Cost:  R650
Who should attend:  visual artists, VJs, performance artists video practitioners and anyone interested in real time interactions between images, sound and performance.
NB> Basic computer literacy and an interest in making things are the only requirements.
 
Venue: The interactive media design lab at WSOA Digital Arts
 
 
Leading New Media artist nathaniel stern ( http://nathanielstern.com ) was a  2004 Kebble award winner with his ground-breaking interactive art installation called “Step Inside”.

Nathaniel, who is a graduate of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, and a lecturer on the Wits School of Arts’ Digital Arts MA programme, will be leading  a  two and a half day hands-on introductory workshop to Interactive Video.

This discipline combines the use of video cameras and computers in  order to  track bodies, motion, proximity, light and color for use in  interactive installation, multimedia performance, and VJing. The  workshop will cover a basic intro to all of the above, as well as real-time video mixing, scrubbing and effects, and the use of sound to generate and/or interfere with video.
 
The workshop will utilize Max/MSP and Jitter as its development environment.  This application uses a simple, graphical interface (which looks very much like a flow chart) to accomplish the artist’s goals.  For more information,  see http://cycling74.com
 
Amongst the various activities, the two and half day workshop will  explore examples of Interactive Video work by contemporary artists, suggest some of  the other possibilities for tracking information from the physical  world through cameras, and also look at other software and hardware available for tracking and manipulating audio and video.
 
For more information, or to sign up, contact  Mrs Natalia Fiandeiro, WSOA Digital Arts, (011) 7174663 or fiandeiron@artworks.wits.ac.za.

The Friday Digital Soiree - Key works from the Digital Film Underground: A selection by Aryan Kaganof

This week we are very proud to welcome back the internationally acclaimed South African underground filmmaker and artist, Aryan Kaganof.

Aryan  will be showing his award winning documentary WESTERN 4.33 at the Friday Digital Soiree this week.  The documentary investigates the German concentration camps in Namibia where the indigenous Herero population were massacred in the early part of the 20th Century.  Soundtrack includes music by Lamonte Young, John Cage, Friedrich Nietzsche, Macy Gray,  Jesus Rodriguez and South Africa’s own extreme noise terror outfit, Virgins.

Kaganof will also be showing his personal selection of short and micro-short films by the most influential film-makers in the digital underground.  The selection will include ANTINOOS by Dionysos Andronis – Greece (1991);  SUBSTITUTION No.4 by Kiki Picasso - France (2002); and POEMS THAT SHOOT by Catherine Henegan - South Africa (2004).

The screenings will take place in the WSOA Convent from 15:00 – 17:00 on Friday 4 March.

Parking is available in front of the Convent.

If you need directions, you can find a map at http://www.wits.ac.za/artworks/contact/map.htm