artintact 1 and 2
Artist´s interactive CDROMagazine
ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
Concept: Jeffrey Shaw
Editor: Astrid Sommer
CD-ROM-adaptation:
Volker Kuchelmeister,
in cooperation with the artists
Assisted by: Sylvia Molina Muro Programming: Volker Kuchelmeister
Interface Design: Molger Jost, Volker Kuchelmeister, Sylvia Molina Muro Graphic-Design: Molger Jost
Production: The artists and ZKM
The idea of a CD-ROM-Magazine:
Early 1994 a multimedia lab was established at the ZKM which amongst other activities is being used for the production of CD-ROMs. One of its first Projects is the interactive magazine artintact, produced in cooperation with the publishing company Cantz. Guest artists from the ZKM/Institute for Visual Media have been invited to create works for this magazine of interactive art. The accompanying book contains essays by renowned media critics. In this way multimedia art and a conceptual discourse is being offered to a large public. The combination of CD-ROM/book makes it possible for the first time not only to issue an art documentation but also the interactive art works themselves. Interactive media art has developed rapidly in the last few years. Thus the problem of a commensurate presentation is a constanly relevant aspect both for the organisers and the museums. The works of art usually enable only one or, at best, a limited number of visitors to become "users" through interaction - a certain intimacy not afforded in a public space is requisite. With artintact the ZKM endeavours to present interactive works of art in a totally new framework. Released on the potential mass media CD-ROM, distributed via the book trade, each purchaser can communicate at his leisure by means of his home computer.
artintact 1
Jean-Louis Boissier (F) :
Flora petrinsularis (1993/94)
"Jean-Louis Roissier allows us to flick through two books by Jean-Jacques Rousseau which both originated during Rousseau's exile on the island Saint-Pierre on the lake of Bienne: The erotic experiences of his confessions stand in contrast to the plants placed in his herbarium, the intimate language encounters the silent vegetation. Roissier combines these two books by Rousseau to form a virtual book whose short video sequences were partially filmed on location at the original site of Saint-Pierre. The illustration, bridging the centuries from the origination of the text to the origination of the virtual book, points out that each printed and bound book is ultimatly an "interactive medium" which discloses itself to the observer as he leafs through it." (Dieter Daniels, "Ars ex machina", in: artintact 1)
Eric Lanz (CM/D)
Manuskript (1994)
"Eric Lanz develops a cryptic notation out of tools, whose individual elements can be reorganized only when they are actually in use. With a certain amount of irony we can recall Wittgenstein's dictum that the meaning of language lies in its use. In the same way as Wittgenstein employs many examples from the field of simple acts and tools, Lanz sticks to presentation of the factual without deriving a general theory. What appears to be a cryptic sign language consists ultimately of just images and examples."
(Dieter Daniels, "Ars ex nachina", in. artintact 1)
Bill Seaman (USA/AUS)
The Exquisite Mechanism of Shivers
(1991/94)
"Bill Seaman achieves a complex, reciprocal ordering of words and images which transforms the observer into a composer of new image/word/sound seguences, and carries the idea of an 'open work of art' to a fusion of poetry, music and video."
(Dieter Daniels, "Ars ex machina", in. artintact 1)
artintact 2
Luc Courchesne (Can)
Portrait One (1990/95)
Portrait Dne affords an intimate - on screen - discussion between the (real) oshserver and a "slyly amicable girl' (Chr. Blase). Courchesne's interaction dialogue is fictional, as well possibilities (questions, answers, topics, viewpoints) have been specified by the artist. The limits of interaction are defined by the pre-determined connection between the various possible discussion modes that can he selected by the viewer.
Miroslav Regale (PL/DSA)
Lovers Leap (1994/95)
cooperation with Ludger Hovestadt (12-D Design Environment)/Ford Oxeal (Mind's-eye-view perspective and software)
The location - "Lovers Leap" - on the route from Chicago to Jamaica, with a military radar station at the very spot of tragic love provided the incentive for the project. Photographs of a husy street crossing in Chicago were processed with a specially developed software to create a totally novel perspective. The CD-ROM version of the interactive installation enables a continuous 360 degree navigation in all directions within Chicago's alien cityscape. Various speeds of "travelling' are possible. On stopping, a random video sequence of Jamaica appears. Movement in perspective is a mental structure that reflects leaps and free associations in the cogitory process. Lovers Leap affords new experiences on both levels.
Tamas Waliczky (H/D)
The Forest (1993/95)
The work takes the viewer on a journey through the black and white foggy forest that stretches endlessly along x,y and z axis. Meandering within the forest is left to the discretion of the viewer - he will never find a way out. There is no starting point and no destination. There is no sky, no ground, no horizon. No facility exists, no sign, to find an orientation. Duly the same trees, again and again - the "visual expression of an impasse."