nadine

Remote controlled performance

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:06:41 +0000

Push a button and define the interaction between sound, light and the dance during this dance performance.
Mix(ing)redients wants to bring these elements; movement, sound and light to a similar level on stage. Too often one of the elements disappears to the background. The research into this interaction is what drives Maria Karagianni (coordinator, interaction/interface designer), Sjoerd Leijten (coordinator, composer) and Eleni Pierides (dancer).

Sound came from two sources: the main soundtrack came from the speakers and included a sort of movement manual. The other was broadcast through a FM frequency and came from Eleni who had two sound modules linked to radio channels attached to her body. Working on solar cells they could only function when the light on stage was on.

The audience could chose to which of the two they wanted to listen. If they chose Sjoerd’s main soundtrack, Eleni had to obey its instructions, if not, she could move about freely.

The makers conveniently spoke about ‘free time’ and ‘rigid time’. But very naturally the three different elements were fighting for their right to exist. Had every element the chance to show their complexity the way they really should?
They stayed somehow close to ‘rigid time’, offering still a wide range of options in ‘free time’.

This was a thorough research and experiment. We are curious what time and further research will bring as opportunities, to develop some ideas further and steer their fascinating technical processes (see bulk log) in the right direction.

Pictures from TEML final event

tine — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:42:31 +0000

Day 1, 2 & 3 —

All the pictures can be found here: http://teml.nadine.be

Yes it’s true

tine — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:09:26 +0000

Six month’s can come to an end so easily… On the 1st of february we celebrated a new year and a new residency. bolwerK the housekeeper and curator, chose to name the house in the Rue Gallait: The Ever Mass Land.

The Ever Mass Land rested on an open structure with a number of core links:

‘La Réünion’ made particular use of the penthouse where international artists were invited who are part of bolwerK’s network. It provided the time and space to go further into individual and collective interests within the current flux of work movements.

‘Platform 3′, the project that was aimed especially at direct action and radical exploration in the public urban space, developed, among other things, into The Ever Waste Land, a fallow ground behind the community centre De Kriekelaar. It led to various eco-artistic projects in a temporary (or permanent) autonomous zone.

Under the heading ‘Framing the Image,’ the Antwerp-based organisation Logement put the emphasis on the documentation of site-specific work and temporary projects. Their Brussels intervention is structured as a space for their first international production.

‘D’office’ emerged from the idea that a physically divided studio space with a reliable logistical infrastructure promotes the work dynamic.

This weekend we celebrate our Belgian national holiday and The Ever Mass Land. A celebration of art, then, with a jam session, performance, music, library, storytelling, etc. You can find the programm here.

Heatwave cocktail

tine — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:46:45 +0000

We need 5 consecutive days of 25° Celsius of which 3 consecutive days of 30° Celsius to have a heat wave.
Well.., we’re not there yet, but we’re melting already.

To keep The Ever Waste Land fertile and healthy we’ve installed a big water tank in the garden. Projects such as ‘spira-dye‘ by Bartaku, ‘Playground 0:1:1,2‘ by Isabelle Pauwelyn and ‘the Brave Little Forest’ by Bernard Leroy really needed that.

Spira-dye is a plant spiral that contains a selection of plants (mainly berries) with strong color dye used for the production of solar cells.

Playground 0:1:1,2 is an architectural intervention that opens urban space by gardening. The aim is to create meeting places where people can come together in a temporary and ambiguous and ambiguous haven. Where the projects lead to, is not that important. The participants are outside. That’s enough in itself. Here, the people can play in all earnest, and play with the earnestness, if necessary.

The Brave Little Forest wants to nurture 10 000 trees that had accidentally started growing in bad areas (for trees anyhow) such as in gutters or between the cracks in the concrete. In The Ever Waste Land they can find home in a daycare where they can grow bigger and bigger until they will be planted elsewhere.

I propose a toast. Here’s to them!

gRig

tine — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:51:30 +0000

To provoke inspiring & playful situations around us, we need a mixture of different skills from a variety of disciplines: artistic, technological and scientific.

gRig is a group of European cultural organizations that have come together for this purpose. nadine and FoAM are the Brussels partners of this group.

gRig is an ecological guild with a common quest; a guild for:
(1) Those who generate realities: bringing that which can be actually experienced into existence;

(2) Those who integrate realities: combining one world (or state of affairs) with another so that they may become whole. After an unknown time of underground activity, the guild has decided to become more public and formally support its members. gRig found this necessary as the present consensus reality is becoming thinner and grayer, with a pressing need for reality generation and integration in all spheres of human activity, while imagination still exists.

There is a new website online where you can read all about the different activities such as research, workshops, symposia, meetings and gatherings, public presentations, artistic installations and performances, ….

http://grig.info

If these guys don’t survive, you’ll be dead soon.

tine — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:13:24 +0000

Did you know you can have black bees delivered at your doorstep by the Belgian Post?
Sounds like a fantastic way to annoy your postman!
But.. Christina Stadlbauer, who is working in the no-zone of nadine in Schaerbeek, decided she’s going to pick them up her self in Chimey… Too kind.

Within the Rue Gallait 80, currently called: The Ever Mass Land, a new project emerged: The Ever WASTEland. The Wasteland is an open ground open to ecological and social projects. It gives the opportunity to people, bees and ecosystems to actively intervene within.

One of these projects is Christina’s ‘Bzzz – Bees in Urban Space’. She has now installed beehives in 3 different locations in Brussels. The aim is to use the hives and their products as monitors of natural processes in the city.

So, the beehive installation is ready, the bees will be brought by personal taxi and then what? What else has been planned?

The observation can start, but not before we’ve done some good technical research into camera’s, microphones and registration devices. To further stress the sustainable character of the project and to make this whole observation and transmission independent, the installation of photo-voltaic panels for renewable energy supply is intended.

The observation will be put online soon, in the meantime you can check okno’s Open Green’s pages with the honeybee observatory.

By next year we’ll be eating a pot of city honey.
But… if no bees should survive this city life, we can conclude that no human beings shall live here in 20 years either.

Up close and personal

tine — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:40:24 +0000

Cosimo Terlizzi’s latest film is suitably called “Folder“, referring to all of the folders on your computer filled with files. Pictures, movies and Word documents, … Bits and pieces of everyday life. Bits and pieces that most people sort alphabetically or chronologically. Most people, but not Cosimo. Cosimo cuts and edits the film fragments in a splintered way. Not into one single storyline, but into different layers, backgrounds and emotions. The information is ellaborate and creates something much larger then ‘just a story’. It creates a ’storyscape’, an immersion.

Although Cosimo uses a small consumer handcam, this isn’t your typical city-trip-movie enjoyed only by those who were there and boring even the closest of relatives. No, thanks to the editing, the score (masterfully composed by Massimo Carozzi), and the diversity of topics touched on in this movie, it becomes something much more universal. These stories, these anecdotes are so powerful and recognisable that they demánd to be shared with a larger audience.

The anecdote that gripped me the most, was the piece where a friend of Cosimo’s talks about her sister’s suicide and how she was the one who found the body. The power of her story lies in the tiny little observations of that moment. The neighbour that stepped in to help undo the cord around her neck, (one more example) …

Having only seen the first finished half of the film, I can’t wait to see what else Cosimo chooses to share with us.

Use red onions to make your own Solar Cell.

tine — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:34:43 +0000

I’m convinced that the scientist in you always wanted to create juice. High voltage! … My thoughts exactly.

And actually… it turns out to be rather simple.

Let me explain:

- Take a tin coated piece of glass (can also be coated with titanium dioxide) – let it rest for a half hour in the cooking liquid of onion peel - after this half hour, rinse it with water and leave to dry.

While the glass is in the onion peel liquid you can prepare the counter electrode.

This positive electrode is created from a conductive SnO2 coated glass plate - Use a Volt meter to check which side of the glass is conductive (it’s the rough side) – Use a lead pencil to aply a thin graphite layer to this side’s surface.

Take the dried glassplate and put the counter electrode side on top, offset the glass plates so that the edges of each plate are exposed - add one or two drops of iodide electrolyte solution in between these glass plates - use two clips to hold the plates together, the result when mesuring with your volt meter is about 0,4V.

Low voltage indeed, … ah, but highly satisfying to see that you’ve just created your very own solar cell.

Here is a website that gives a nice step by step overview too, but in this case they actually prepare the glass plates them selves too. In the above case we just worked with prepared glass.

Raspberry Solar Cell

These Solar cells were made during a 3 day workshop on Photovoltaics, later this summer nadine will open its doors again for the second part, we’ll keep you posted on content and exact dates.

nadine loves wolfram alpha

tine — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:05:02 +0000

Waw, look at this, WolframAlpha got launched.

Not a search engine, no sir, it’s a “computational knowledge engine”. It generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links. (I stole this from the FAQ on http://www.wolframalpha.com/)

We’ll have to wait and see what the future brings for this tool, at the moment it doesn’t know as many keywords yet. But as up to a first level it’s quite fun already.

Some examples,

If you fill in the name of one city (Brussels f.ex) it gives you concrete data (such as humidity, city population, …) about this one city. If you fill in a second city (Brussels Antwerp) it actually makes comparisons, based on actual and concrete data. Impossible to imagine with a normal search engine. I guess if we’re patient enough to let this engine grow bigger and more intelligent that it will be a indispensable item in our online lives. At the moment, maybe stick to using it for entertaining some friends.

Try these:

Where is Waldo?

Where are my keys?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

or simply typ:

Hello.