KIB Worskhops

Piksel KidZ Lab Messaging with lights in a not internet era!

Messaging with lights in a not internet era!

Saturday November 19th 10:00 to 13:00
Duration: 3 hours.
Age: 8-18 years old.
Place: KUNSTSKOLEN I BERGEN,
Marken 37 i Bergen sentrum, Bergen City

Gratis verksted for barn/unge i alderen 8-18 år for påmelding: piksel22(at)piksel(dot)no

Piksel KidZ Lab is supported by Bergen Kommune and Vestland Fylkeskommune and Fana Sparebank.

What would happen if we no longer had the internet or mobile phones? How would we send messages to each other? Drawing inspiration from insects and ancient forms of signalling using light, we will learn in this workshop how to create our own blinking firefly lanterns for wirelessly transmitting messages.

Sarah Grant (US)

Sarah Grant is an American artist and professor of new media based in Berlin at the Weise7 studio. Her teaching and art practice engages with the electromagnetic spectrum and computer networks as artistic material, social habitat, and political landscape. She holds a Bachelors of Arts in Fine Art from UC Davis and a Masters in Media Arts from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. Since 2015, she has organized the Radical Networks conference in New York and Berlin, a community event and arts festival for critical investigations and creative experiments in telecommunications.

Intro to PdParty

Dan Wilcox

This is an overview workshop PdParty, a free open-source iOS application for running Pure Data patches on Apple mobile devices using libpd. Directly inspired by Chris McCormick’s DroidParty for Android and the original RjDj by Reality Jockey, PdParty takes a step further by supporting OSC (Open Sound Control), MIDI, & MiFi game controller input as well as implementing the native Pd GUI objects for a WYSIWYG patch to mobile device experience. Various scene types are supported including compatibility modes for PdDroidParty & RjDj and both patches and abstraction libraries can be managed via a built-in web server. Unlike the rise of the single-purpose audio application, PdParty is meant to provide a platform for general purpose digital signal processing via Pure Data patches.

Dan Wilcox is an artist, engineer, musician, and performer who combines live musical performance techniques with experimental electronics and software for the exploration of new expression. He grew up in the Rocket City, and has performed in Europe, Asia, and around the US with his one man band cyborg performance project, robotcowboy.

Neural Networks in Pure Data

Alexandros Drymonitis

This workshop aims to demystify some basic concepts that pertain to neural networks, and their potential in artistic practices. Focusing on Pure Data and the brand new neuralnet object, the participants will be introduced to basic use cases of neural networks in audio (and visuals possibly), while the workshop will end with a collective brainstorming session where participants will either try for themselves, or will share their ideas on how they would like to use a neural network for their own work.

Alexandros Drymonitis is a sound and new media artist. He is a PhD candidate at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire doing research on the creation of musical works with the programming language Python. His artistic practice focuses on new techniques utilizing new media such as computer programming, AI, or even older practices, like modular synthesis.

He has collaborated with various artists from different art disciplines, plus several ensembles, either interdisciplinary or music ensembles.

He has taught the guitar at the Music School of Amsterdam and ‘Philippos Nakas’ Conservatory in Athens, and electronic music programming at ‘Musical Praxis’ Conservatory in Athens. He is currently a freelancer in the field of electronic music and multimedia programming, teaching several workshops in various venues and undertaking multimedia programming in various events.

Open Wave-Receiver

Shortwave Collective

Building Open Wave-Receivers enables DIY communications reception, and allows anyone to freely listen to the broad spectrum of radio waves around us. All you need are a few easy-to-procure supplies and, if you want to try it, a neighborhood fence or other receptive antenna proxy.

Why a fence? Antennas are necessary for radios to receive signals, and many things can be antennas. Fences can make great, and very long, antennas! Other materials can work well too; even a tent peg can become a useful part of a radio. Open Wave-Receivers allow us to explore the relationship between different combinations of materials, antennas, and radio waves, creating a new technology literacy, a new medium for artistic expression, and a new way to explore the airwaves in our communities.

We have found making Open Wave-Receivers to be a fun adventure. The ability to use simple scraps to create variety and personalization in each radio makes this a great maker project for anyone wanting to play with radio.

Shortwave Collective is an international, feminist artist group established in May 2020, interested in the creative use of radio. We meet regularly to discuss feminist approaches to amatuer radio and the radio spectrum as artistic material, sharing resources, considering DIY approaches and inclusive structures. Members include Alyssa Moxley, Georgia Muenster, Brigitte Hart, Kate Donovan, Maria Papadomanolaki, Sally Applin, Lisa Hall, Sasha Engelmann, Franchesca Casauay, and Hannah Kemp-Welch

Creative PCB-design Workshop

Creatives, designers, painters welcome! No previous knowledge in electronics or circuit design is needed.

As a creative design / drawing workshop we want to explore how creativity can be use to make unique designs of fuctional electronic circuits. We also will discuss what means Open Hardware and why sharing detailed instructions can lead to a diversity of personal designs and improving the accessibility for DIY electronics workshops.

In this creative drawing workshop, we will learn the most basic introduction to read schematics of electronics circuits, and how to implement it as a functional PCB (Printer Circuit Board) where all the connections are drawn in copper. We will learn what are footprints of components and what are the different “layers” for preparing a PCB design for manufacturing (in China factory of DIY home etching).

This workshop also serves for re-thinking the diy-CAD methodology (do-it-yourself Children Aided Design) and applying it to the fork of the peepsy, based on the Continuity Tester by David Johnson-Davies. The peepsy circuit is based on the ATTINY85 functions as a continuity tester, the famouse “peeps” of every multimeter, that allows you to test if an electric connection is present, testing your aux cables, or debbugging other electronics. And it has a pink LED on it!

What circuit will we do?

The example circuit is based on the peepsy, by Michael Egger (a.n.y.m.a.) and it has even a practical function as a continuity tester, the most useful tool to test if a connection is present, in a cable or on a circuit. It’s the “peep” that is one of the functions of all multimeters, and usually the one we use the most! The circuit is very simple, 1 capacitor, 2 resistors, 1 LED, a buzzer to make the “beep”, a coin battery holder and an µ-controller (the Attiny85). Due to the special software on the attiny, it will “sleep” all the time, and only use a little electricity when testing, so the battery last almost forever!

All the materials will be available on site, pen and paper, colors, footprints.

https://www.hackteria.org/wiki/Diy-CAD#Workshops

Marc R. Dusseiller

Dr. Marc R. Dusseiller is a transdisciplinary scholar, lecturer for micro- and nanotechnology, cultural facilitator and artist. He performs DIY (do-it-yourself) workshops in lo-fi electronics and synths, hardware hacking for citizen science and DIY microscopy. He also loves coconuts. He was co-organizing Dock18, Room for Mediacultures, diy* festival (Zürich, Switzerland), KIBLIX 2011 (Maribor, Slovenia), workshops for artists, schools and children as the former president (2008-12) of the Swiss Mechatronic Art Society, SGMK and co-founder of the new Hackerspace collective Bitwäscherei (2020) in Zürich. He has worked as guest faculty and mentor at various schools, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IN), UCSB (USA) and in Switzerland, FHNW, HEAD, ETHZ. In collaboration with Kapelica Gallery, he has started the BioTehna Lab in Ljubljana (2012 – 2013), an open platform for interdisciplinary and artistic research on life sciences. Currently, he is developing means to perform bio- and nanotechnology research and dissemination, Hackteria | Open Source Biological Art, in a DIY / DIWO fashion in kitchens, ateliers and in the Majority World. He was the co-organizer of the different editions of HackteriaLab 2010 – 2020 Zürich, Romainmotier, Bangalore, Yogyakarta and Klöntal, Okinawa and collaborated on the organisation of the BioFabbing Convergence, 2017, in Geneva and the Gathering for Open Science Hardware, GOSH! 2016, Geneva & 2018, in Shenzhen.

Live collaborative radio with Mezcal

August Black

Mezcal is a web app for collaborative sound and live transmission that I have been prototyping and building in collaboration with https://wavefarm.org and multiple artists (such as Anna Friz https://nicelittlestatic.com/, Betsey Biggs https://www.betseybiggs.org/, and Peter Courtemanche http://absolutevalueofnoise.ca/?now).  In this 1 hour workshop, I give an overview of the software, its design intentions and practical implementations, and then split the group up into sections to create a live experimental radio session on-site. (note: this software is not YET free software, but lives in the web as a free service for free cultural institutions such as radio libre in Medellín, Colombia https://red.radiolibre.cc/ and Sound Camp in the UK https://soundtent.org/, among others)
https://august.black/mezcal/

August Black is a hybrid practitioner of art, design and engineering. He makes experimental spatial and acoustic situations, often by building his own technological artifacts and instruments in hardware and software. His past work focused on live networked audio, mixing FM radio with user input through online software. His current interests span the fields of the philosophy of technology, software studies, techno-politics, peer-to-peer networking and AI/machine learning. In the past, he’s been a member of arts organizations such as the ORF Kunstradio and the Ars Electronica Futurelab, as well as a former member of the engineering team at Cycling ‘74, makers of Max/MSP. He has shown works at festivals and venues such as Ars Electronica Festival, Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Wave Farm, Transmediale, Pixelache, LA Freewaves, Piksel Festival, Polar Circuit and the Tasmanian Museum of Art, among others.He earned a BFA at Syracuse University and was an NSF IGERT Fellow at UC Santa Barbara, where he completed an MS and PhD. He’s taught media and art classes at UC Santa Barbara, University of San Francisco and CU Boulder, where he serves as Assistant Professor of Critical Media Practices.

https://august.black

Sensors and Pd

Kris Kuldkepp

Lecture and workshop on sensors and motion capture in new music and
multimedia performance.

The performer’s body is classically considered secondary in presenting a
musical piece. After all, the composer’s name and the idea of self-contained
artwork are predominantly the reasons for a concert visit rather than particular
performer(s) and their performing modes. Thus, for a classically trained
musician, it presents a conflict of being essentially a practical tool in the
service of a composer rather than a creative agent. However, the research in various music performance studies has resulted in a diverse quest for the importance of musical gestures and performers’ physical movements in transmitting the meaning. Do some movements or gestures of a
performer make the music meaningful? How could one classify musical gestures? How is acousmatic music perceived? How to understand electronic music in which the sound production is decoupled from physical gesture? … These and more are the open questions that circle in musical gesture research.
The focus on the importance of musical gestures has influenced composers and performing musicians to create pieces and improvisations that experiment with motion capture and various sensors to create musical experiences. The lecture introduces the usage of sensors and motor capture systems in new music and multimedia and discusses the philosophical concepts motivating the
research.

The lecture is followed by a practical workshop for absolute beginners in Pure Data (Pd) and programming for movement sensors.It will introduce the first steps for processing the data and the necessary algorithms.

The participants should bring their personal computers and preinstall Pure Data Vanilla (https://puredata.info/downloads/pure-data) as well as external libraries “Cyclone” and “else”.

In order to install the externals, please start up Pure Data and use Pd’s own external download manager:
— go to the “Help” menu
— choose the “find externals” option under the Help menu
— search for “cyclone”.
— Then click on the link to download the “cyclone” to your computer and specify the search path. (By default it should be ~/Documents/Pd/externals).
— Do the same process with the “else” externals.

Now the external libraries are installed in your computer

In order to load the libraries at the startup:
— go to “Preferences” menu in Pd
— choose Startup”,
— then click “New”, type “cyclone” and hit OK.
— Do the same with “else” library.
— Next time you restart Pd, the libraries will be loaded and ready to use.

Also, please download this folder with sound files into your computer. We use these sound files during the workshop as examples.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12znhQbAJnaXWWrMLFPtIS6CZ9h85QhPP

As sensors, we will use our smartphones, and participants should also preinstall an app PdParty (iOS) or
Sensor2OSC (Android) on their phones. A computer mouse can be used to
stimulate the data stream.
During the workshop, we will build examples in Pure Data that introduce the
first essential steps in creating music with sensors and what to do with the raw
data. No previous experience with Pure Data is required.

Kris Kuldkepp

Kris is Hamburg based free improviser performing on double bass, bass guitar, and live-electronics. She is a feminist performer and artist. Kris is currently completing doctoral studies at Hamburg University of Applied Science where she researches spatial sound, free improvised music, and posthumanism. She is an active soloist and ensemble performer and has participated in festivals such as StimmeX, Blurred Edges Festival, and Bruital Furore in Hamburg, LjudOLjud in Stockholm, Tallinn Music Week, St. Petersburg New Music Festival reMusic, Estonian Music Days, she has also been invited to collaborate in various constellations within Europe and throughout South-America.

Kris is also part of the free improvisation quartet ‘double bird’ that recently released an album ‘favourite galaxy’ and is active with the quartet EMN concentrating on performing graphic scores and performative compositions. Kris is a close collaborator of opera director Lisa Pottstock with whom she develops feminist performances focusing on finding new way of dealing with body, materiality, and sound.

Piksel KidZ Lab Ewasteroid by Paul Granjon (UK)

Piksel KidZ Lab: Ewasteroid by Paul Granjon (UK)

November, Friday 18th and Saturday 19th, 10:00 to 13:00 h
Duration: 3 hours.
Age: 10-100 years old.
Place: KUNSTSKOLEN I BERGEN,
Marken 37 i Bergen sentrum, Bergen City

Gratis verksted for barn/unge i alderen 10-100 år for påmelding: piksel22(at)piksel(dot)no
Piksel KidZ Lab is supported by Bergen Kommune and Vestland Fylkeskommune.

Ewasteroid

The beauty and the ugliness of electronic waste fight it off in this workshop for curious people. Starting with a pile of electronic waste items such as printers, pc towers, DVD players the participants will build a spinning asteroid made of out of date components and found timber, mining the old machines for intricate and complex parts. The resulting temporary sculpture is both celebration of human engineering and sinister indicator of an extractivist civilisation gone in overdrive.

Expect improvisation, technological creativity, freestyle wiring, collaboration and low-tech solutions. In line with Granjon’s current methods, the machine will work off-grid, be made of 90% recycled or found components and use open source technology controllers (Arduino).

The Ewasteroid belongs to Granjon’s extensive practice of Wrekshops, participat. The events combine hands-on, fun making with grassroots conversations inspired by the material, its abundance and creative potential.

The participants do not need to have prior knowledge of electronics or programming, start age 7 (under 12 accompanied by an adult). The workshop can run for a few hours or a whole day or 2, with participants coming and going, or booking a slot. Max 7 participants at a time with 1 assistant.

The Ewasteroid will be exhibited as an installation after the workshop, before its parts return to the recycling plant.

The first Ewasteroid was tested during the Deershed Festival in the UK in July 2022, more info at https://www.zprod.org/zwp/ewasteroid/

Paul Granjon (UK)

Paul Granjon is interested in the co-evolution of humans and machines, imagining solutions for alternative futures and sharing his experience of creative technologies. He has been making robots and other machines for exhibitions and performances since 1996. Granjon’s work became known for a trademark combination of humour and serious questions, delivered with absurd machines that made use of recycled components. His Sexed Robots were exhibited in the Welsh Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2005. He performs and exhibits internationally, with recent commissions in Garage Museum Moscow and Azkuna Zentroa Bilbao. He regularly delivers Wrekshops, public events where participants are invited to take apart electronic waste and build temporary new machines from the bits they find. Granjon’s current work is driven by an ecologist and participatory agenda. He teaches Fine-Art in Cardiff School of Art and Design, UK and completed a practice-based PhD in robotic arts in 2022.

Ewasteroid

Paul Granjon

The beauty and the ugliness of electronic waste fight it off in this workshop for curious people. Starting with a pile of electronic waste items such as printers, pc towers, DVD players the participants will build a spinning asteroid made of out of date components and found timber, mining the old machines for intricate and complex parts. The resulting temporary sculpture is both celebration of human engineering and sinister indicator of an extractivist civilisation gone in overdrive.

Expect improvisation, technological creativity, freestyle wiring, collaboration and low-tech solutions. In line with Granjon’s current methods, the machine will work off-grid, be made of 90% recycled or found components and use open source technology controllers (Arduino).

The Ewasteroid belongs to Granjon’s extensive practice of Wrekshops, participat. The events combine hands-on, fun making with grassroots conversations inspired by the material, its abundance and creative potential.

The participants do not need to have prior knowledge of electronics or programming, start age 7 (under 12 accompanied by an adult). The workshop can run for a few hours or a whole day or 2, with participants coming and going, or booking a slot. Max 7 participants at a time with 1 assistant.

The Ewasteroid can be exhibited as an installation after the workshop, before its parts return to the recycling plant.

The first Ewasteroid was tested during the Deershed Festival in the UK in July 2022.

Paul Granjon is interested in the co-evolution of humans and machines, imagining solutions for alternative futures and sharing his experience of creative technologies. He has been making robots and other machines for exhibitions and performances since 1996. Granjon’s work became known for a trademark combination of humour and serious questions, delivered with absurd machines that made use of recycled components. His Sexed Robots were exhibited in the Welsh Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2005. He performs and exhibits internationally, with recent commissions in Garage Museum Moscow and Azkuna Zentroa Bilbao. He regularly delivers Wrekshops, public events where participants are invited to take apart electronic waste and build temporary new machines from the bits they find. Granjon’s current work is driven by an ecologist and participatory agenda. He teaches Fine-Art in Cardiff School of Art and Design, UK and completed a practice-based PhD in robotic arts in 2022.