MJ Lourens – En Route/Highveld II
Recently at Artspace Gallery in Rosebank, a serious engagment with the tradition of South African landscape painting by MJ Lourens. Here, in an acrylic on board painting, the monumental cloud architecture of Hendrik Pierneef is melded with a brooding industrial foreground that is entirely contemporary.
Mileta Postic from Wits Digital Arts with Jurgen Meekel and Ann-Marie Tully form Wits Film and TV and three other collaborators produced an RSA animate type presentation of the new plan for 2030. by National Planning Commission, presented by Minister Trevor Manuel. The two clips can be seen on you tube and they were aired on 3 different channels in SA.
The Robotic Orchestra, a creative collaboration between Interactive Media students from Wits Digital Arts, Music students from Wits Music, and a student from the Wits School of Electrical Engineering, had its first public performance in the Wits Amphitheatre on the evening of 17 November.
In front of a capacity audience, the Orchestra performed a recital of three pieces composed by Wits Music students.
Each of the instruments was "played" by a solenoid and the output collected by a microphone. One of the challenges of the work was the limited functionality of the solenoids which were not able to play different dynamics.
Interactive Media Masters students, Jans de Jager and Pauline Theart, explain the system to the external examiners.
The screen of the iMac, running MAX MSP, which was at the heart of the system. The Interactive Media students translated the Music students' compositions through MAX MSP. The data was fed into Arduino boards which, in turn, powered the solenoids operating the mechanical side of the system.
Interactive Media Masters student, Pauline Theart, operating the computer system.
The vibraphone, with five notes operated by solenoids. The limited musical range and tonal pallette of the orchestra was a compositional challenge for the Music students in the project.
The creative student team behind the successful premier of the Wits Robotic Orchestra.
Maia Grotepass is the first research MA by Dissertation student at the Digital Arts Division of the Wits School of Arts. Most of our MA candidates take the coursework program. Grotepass came into the research from an Engineering Degree from Stellenbosch University and a Bachelor of Arts from UNISA in 2010. Grotepass's research paper address the difference between engineers as coders and artists as coders. The difference in conception, implementation, testing and delivery shows interesting differences in convention and rule making and breaking. Grotepass's research centers on how the two approaches can inform and assist each other towards better development practice and ultimately better art making.
The exhibition nullPointerException is made up of four interactive pieces developed in Open Frameworks. Grotepass has used a Microsoft XBox Kinect sensor for each of the four individual pieces. The pieces explore the relationship between code, developer and audience, expanding on what is seen externally and what is developed artistically internally in the code. Each piece speaks to process and engagement, the titles indicating the area of exploration: comment_compile, interface_instead, commit_often and init_before. Full descriptions and photo's can be found on her nullPointerException site.
The exhibition opening in Stellenbosch was a massive success and the pieces run effortlessly with live interaction. I highly recommend a visit if you are in the Western Cape.
