Tactile Video

Following the T.V. lecture series and production intensive workshop,
InterAccess and the Art & Robotics Group, in collaboration with the
Images Festival of Independent Film & Video, are pleased to present nine new interactive video installation works by:

Myfanwy Ashmore
Jim Bell
Slavica Ceperkovic
Istvan Kantor
Tomasz Konart
Jeff Mann
Tim Moody & Nina Czegledy
William Oldacre
Rod Prouse

Continuing through May 1st
In the gallery space at InterAccess
401 Richmond St. West at Spadina
Toronto (416) 599-7206

Special thanks to ATI Technologies Inc., Cycling '74, and
The Canada Council for the Arts

- Jeff Mann, Tactile Video Project Coordinator

stephanie, john and myfanwy- a family photo album intervention.
by Myfanwy Ashmore
"I'd like to put on some night vision glasses and sneak into their house late at night to remove people from their photo album, but I¹m too much of a wuss so I made this interactive video instead." It's not so much a scarring of the picture, it's more of a shadowy disappearance of people that were never really represented by the pictures in the first place.

After the Beep
by Jim Bell
Navigate the perilous border between play and pointlessness with a three inch tall cyber-doofus on a millennial romp through the back alleys and boulevards of the big city. An experiment in telecommunicating with one's inner goof.

threaded white
by Slavica Ceperkovic
threaded white deals with the participatory practice of an art viewer. The audience is aware of their presence in relation to the work as well as their deconstructive process in deducing such a work. In contemplation of their actions the passive participant dictates a passive work and their "progress" is disregarded. Ultimately, their participation is mocked in leaving the work by the physical presence of the artist¹s hand.

CLIPMACHINE
by Istvan Kantor
By employing the mechanical hardware of a file cabinet as user interface, the simple gesture of opening and closing the cabinet drawers becomes a semi-robotic engine that controls images and sounds through the graphic language of MAX. Each drawer is linked to a different short video clip charged with erotic references and ironic statements. The viewer can run through the clips back and forth, increase the speed, stop anywhere and make short hyper-loops. With CLIPMACHINE Istvan Kantor continues to explore his File Cabinet Project that comments on the semi-robotic nature and kinesonic sculptural system of "office furniture machinery".

Still/Motion Pictures
by Tomasz Konart
A friend of mine once told me to close my eyes and try to remember something completely insignificant, a daily routine, something I did without thinking. All that my memory could recover was several static objects and streams of images floating around them, as if trying to find their original location but always missing the target. The "Still/Motion Pictures" piece is, to some extent, a recreation of that experience.

InterFace 1
by Jeff Mann
Hyper-repetition of short video segments creates vibrating moments of fluid time. An intense experience of the minutiae of human expression, the music within the music, the performance within the performance. There's more than meets the eye...

Y2K
by Tim Moody and Nina Czegledy
Millenarian musings. Portents of evil. Apparitions. Hidden forces. Technology out of control. Technology in control. Does the millennium bug you? We had a devil of a time getting this to work. This work is a frivolous and playful look at the apocalypse, the turning of the Age of Aquarius, and your everyday devils and demons.

Untitled
by William Oldacre
This piece is the first in a series that involves the exploration of spaces and their contents. The audience is able to map their movements within a simple area that is analogous to the space within the piece and interact with its occupant, the newspaper reader.

toyboat, toyboat, toyboat
by Rod Prouse
I come from a back ground of visual arts ( painting, printing, sculpture). My piece 'toyboat, toyboat, toyboat' is a playful attempt to combine aspects of the plastic arts with digital expression. 'toyboat................' is also part of my ongoing exploration of how water speaks to us.

InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre
401 Richmond St. West, Suite 444, Toronto, Ontario ph 599-7206

Contact: Project Coordinator/Curator - Jeff Mann jefman@utcc.utoronto.ca
Web Site: www.interaccess.org/arg/tv

Tactile Video

Ephemeral visions - 30 apparitions per second - trying to get in touch... can interactive video cross over from cyberspace into material reality? Spectres of light with animalistic awareness, ubiquitous presence, sensation, impression, embraceable tactility. Would you rather point and click, or dance and kiss?

Today, interaction in a digital realm requires one to enter cyberspace - to don an apparatus which has a primary function to disembody, to amputate sensation and motivation in order to participate in this virtual existence. Yet we are beginning to see digital semblances of intelligence migrating into the environment and physical objects; ones which acknowledge the human physique, the tactility of existence. Can video, as a technology and an art form, exist in real-space, physical-space, meat-space? Can it be empirical and experiential, can it be present? Or is it by a framed, flat, linear nature, forever relegated to the other side of the looking glass?

The Tactile Video project investigates and expands artistic practice in the use of interactive, computer-controlled video and "live" processing techniques using readily available desktop video systems. It emphasizes innovative applications in immersive, performative, and installation environments with responsive human interface alternatives to the standard "point-and-click" computer screen.

In the first phase of the project, now completed, seminar, panel, and videoconference topics included artists talks and historical overview, survey of technologies and interface, non-linear narrative in physical environments, telepresence, and video as performance instrument. Speakers included: Bill Buxton, Paul Garrin, Nancy Paterson, Don Ritter, David Rokeby, "Screen" (Eric Rosenzveig and Willy LeMaitre), Tom Sherman, and Nell Tenhaaf.

In the second phase of the project, InterAccess and the Art & Robotics Group invited a number of artists to participate in a month-long production intensive workshop led by David Rokeby and assisted by Jeff Mann. Weekend workshops focussed on the use of the "Max" interactive programming environment to control playback of full-screen, full-motion video via QuickTime and a video projector. David Rokeby has created "a series of extensions to the 'Max' language to deal with the low level management of QuickTime, allowing the participants to focus on the more interesting questions of the nature of the relationship between video and the audience they would like to construct." Rokeby's "Very Nervous System" and Parallax's "BASIC Stamp" microcontroller are used to sense motion, distance, touch, sound, "live" objects, etc., in order to create a sensation of physical connection and tactile presence - the integration of video imagery with the physical environment and human body.

Tactile Video Personnel and Partners

David Rokeby is an interactive sound- and video-installation artist based in Toronto, Canada. He has been creating interactive installations since 1982. His work has been exhibited in shows across Canada, the United States, Europe, Japan and Korea. He was awarded the first Petro-Canada Award for Media Arts in 1988 and the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for Interactive Art (Austria) in 1991.
http://www.interlog.com/~drokeby

Jeff Mann is founder of Toronto's Art & Robotics Group collective, and producer/coordinator of its "SpaceProbe" and "Tactile Video" projects. A former faculty member of the Ontario College of Art's New Media program, his work in telecommunications art, video, sound, and electronic installation has been exhibited internationally. He is a long-standing board member of InterAccess, and is now employed at Charles Street Video in Toronto.
http://www.interlog.com/~jefman

InterAccess is Canada's premiere Electronic Media Arts Centre, devoted exclusively to the production and exhibition of electronic art. A non-profit, artist-run centre, it consists of a gallery space in downtown Toronto, and an adjoining electronic media production studio. It offers a full public programme of shows, artist talks, performances, workshops, production projects and other events, in addition to artists' access to electronics and multimedia tools. It is currently the home of the Art & Robotics Group artists' collective. Contact: Kathleen Pirrie Adams, Programming Coordinator; Mark Jones, Administrative Director.
http://www.interaccess.org

Tactile Video is presented by InterAccess, and the Art & Robotics Group.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $6.2 million in media arts throughout Canada.

Nous remercions de son soutien le Conseil des Arts du Canada, qui a investi 6,2 millions de dollars l'an dernier dans les arts médiatiques a travers le Canada.

--Jeff Mann, April 16, 1999