Barcelona is home town of many amazing audiovisual artists. It is not a coincidence our magazine has been founded there.

The city and its surroundings have always been very active since the early stages of the audiovisual culture.

Mapping World Lab features a 360° experimental approach to projection mapping.

During 10 years of activity, they have experimented with very different formats such as façade projections, indoor immersive shows, interactive installations, dance mapping and beyond.

MWL is active internationally both in the corporate and artistic world. Their main artistic mission is to transform venues and public spaces into immersive aesthetic environment through audiovisual content.

Vertical Dance Mapping

Very intriguing experiment where acrobatic vertical-dancers from SACUDE performed onto a façade projected upon by Mapping World Lab.

In order to deliver this complex show, the audiovisual artists have utilized motion graphics, VFX, 3D animations and a bespoke motion tracking tool to achieve precise synchronization with the dance’s movement.

An ambitious, gravity-defying mixed media show that didn’t fail in inspiring awe and wonder in the audience through the interaction among body, music and projection.

Interactive Projection Mapping

Based on the classic SIMON SAYS game, Mapping World Lab have developed this playful interactive audiovisual installations.

The audiovisual game has been projected onto the façade of the Sabadell council building, near Barcelona.

It consists of four large pushbuttons (green, yellow, red and blue) placed on the ground, so the player can interact with them.

The game sets a colour sequence, adding one extra colour at every turn. The player needs to repeat the exact pattern in the correct order.

The result? An highly engaging installation that connects strongly with the younger audience, by encouraging them to carry out a creative physical activity while the rest of the viewers enjoy the live show.

Body Mapping

Building facades have been utilized widely by projection mappers worldwide. What about using our own body as a live painting?

Mapping World Lab has been experimenting together with several performers to offer live audiovisual shows where the body in movement is the main expressive medium.

An alluring sensorial experience that captivates the audience and triggers an interesting dialogue between audiovisual artists and body performers.

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Maotik has produced a wide variety of audiovisual projects during his long lasting career. He is highly interested in the relationship among science, art and technology.

His aesthetic is refined, well paced and alluring. Pixel by pixel, beat by beat, Maotik builds up immersive environments where the audience gradually and seamlessly slips in.

By developing his own algorithms he is able to design unique artistic experiences where the sounds and images are intrinsically connected. Nevertheless he doesn’t seek full control over the audiovisual outcome.

Across his very different projects there is one interesting component that links them all: the inclusion of outside inputs, such as data feeds or audience interaction which are not totally under his control.

By incorporating these external inputs Maotik enriches the audiovisual experience. His polished aesthetic structure is shaken by the random elements from the outside world, making each show different from the previous one.

A mesmerizing contrast between his precise geometry-based audiovisual aesthetic and the chaos born from the random elements, that are manipulated live by the performer or by the audience.

Maotik has presented his work in various festivals around the world, such as Mutek Festival, Live Cinema in Rio, Signal Festival in Prague, the British Film Institute in London and ARS Electronica in Linz.

Maotik recently moved to Berlin where he continues his artistic research by taking part in the art residency organized between Sonar+D and Factory Berlin.

He also joined the CODE university where he works as a professor giving lectures about interactive design, generative design and AR/VR environments.

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The overwhelming beauty of data visualization. Our world evolves at staggering speed. With it the gathering and processing of the new world currency: the data.

The importance of the audiovisual data visualization resides in the sensorial connection with the audience.

Ouchhh are absolute master of the data-visualization technique. They create awe-inspiring aesthetic representation of data through audiovisual technologies.

Their installations and data sculptures draw the complexity of big data closer to the audience, by converting it into mesmerizing audiovisual experiences.

Reading through data only provides us with a two-dimensional hint of the information landscape we live in. Through the work of the audiovisual artists, the data is turned into a meaningful immersive environment.

By experiencing this environment, we can just about grasp the scale of the information that rig our hybrid world. And we let ourselves go into the shockingly beautiful universe of data.

Ouchhh always manages to balance the big data complex analysis with the delivery of a stunning audiovisual experience to the audience.

The studio integrates art, science, and technology in every work they create. A multidisciplinary creative hub focused on new media platforms, offering direction and art direction and also producing video mapping projections.

Skilled in animation, design, illustration, 3D, 2D, interactivity, interaction, and live-action -and seamlessly combining some or all of these- OUCHHH considers each project as a challenge and takes a fresh and unique approach to each other.

They have an office in Istanbul, and partnerships in L.A., Vienna, Barcelona, Paris, and Berlin.

Ouchhh has created the “POETIC AI” Solo Exhibition at Atelier des Lumières, the largest AI exhibition using 50K pixels and 136 projectors. One million people visited the exhibition!

The studio worked with many brands such as Google, Cern, Nike, Wired, their collaborators transcend all industries and all continents.

Their works have received multiple accolades and awards in the international arena. Ouchhh has been featured at Ars Electronica 4 times and will be attending for the 5th time this year.

They became Istanbul’s first new media agency to win Reddot design awards, German Design Award, 10th Annual IDA Awards (The International Design Awards) and ADC Awards ( The Art Directors Club), in addition to an Honorable Mention from the City University of Hong Kong.

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At Audiovisual City, we are always interested to know more about audiovisual artists balancing their career, between sales-driven corporate events and artistic experimentation.

INTUS approach to audiovisual is wide open. They are constantly on the lookout for new tools and experiments. Nevertheless their forte is definitely the creation of immersive and interactive environments.

We asked a few questions to dig deeper into their background, techniques and what’s cooking up in the near future.

1. Can you tell us about the history and concept behind the foundation of the audiovisual studio INTUS?

INTUS means “intuition” in Latin, inner search and it is related to thought as self-knowledge. Since its inception INTUS has been interested in the positive development of intuition and self-knowledge through new technologies.

We need to seek in art and technology the way to bring ourselves back to our inner cosmos, utilizing technology for the positive development of human values. 

2. INTUS is internationally renowned for its immersive and interactive audiovisual experiences. Can you give us some insights about your creative process when approaching a client’s brief?

Hey thank you very much. Generally the first thing we do is ask a lot of questions, most of the time the client himself does not know what he wants as a final outcome and it is important to discover it through questions. 

We carry out a process similar to Socrates mayeutica, both towards ourselves and the client in order to arrive at an idea that we intuit will be successful.

For us, the creative process must be linked to intuition and feeling. Brainstorming should always take us to a pleasant place. 

When we find a place where the client and us feel good, that is where we carry out a process of architecture of the experience.

We tried from the beginning to incorporate real-time tools for prototypes and pre-visualization to have software architectures that will work for us in the final installation.

3. During the years, INTUS has built an impressive portfolio of both artistic and corporate projects. In your opinion, which are the main differences in the approach and realization between corporate and artistic projects? 

Thanks so much, we appreciate your feedback a lot.  Creatively there are many differences. Commercial projects will always be tied to the same discourse that is to sell, but in terms of selling the projects or executing them I think they are quite similar.

I think it helps a lot to have knowledge of commercial projects to be able to sell and better execute your artistic works.

4. In addition to the audiovisual installation work, you have developed innovative softwares for Natural User Interfaces. Can you tell us a bit more about this type of work and what you have achieved so far?

We develop our own systems for immersive or interactive installations. For example we have developed our own multi-gpu system for immersive projections, calibration systems for Lidars, laser mapping calibration systems and many other custom projects we have for private clients.

5. Your works feature a high complexity and impeccable technical development. What are your preferred tools to work with and why?

Thank you very much. Our main tools in the studio are TouchDesigner for systems development, Notch for real-time visuals development, Unreal for virtual and augmented reality application and Unity for game development. 

6. What do you consider is the biggest achievement in your career? What are you most proud of?

Good question, I had not thought of it.  Perhaps it is the experience we have acquired through the years. I think that our experience combined with our mistakes is what brought us where we are today, by teaching us to constantly improve ourselves. 

7. What shall we expect from your future projects? Are you currently working on something you would like to share?

We are adding a new service to our portfolio that we are calling InSpace. InSpace is a multidisciplinary space dedicated to audiovisual communication.

It specializes in multimedia installations and interactive spaces for hybrid encounters with comprehensive support in production, programming and design. Here more info.

Also we released a new platform for workshops where we are offering teaching activities related to the industry.

Despite the current situation, we consider ourselves lucky as we have more projects coming up on our radar, but we cannot talk much about them.

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We are following closely the experiments of the Russian design studio, who recently created a new interactive AV software called Kusmos Live.

The software has been mainly used within the electronic music environment, enhancing the triangular relationship among DJ, AV artist and audience.

Kuflex Lab has now developed Recursion where dance artist Julia Arsen performed following the music composed by Leksha Yankov, in the unworldly digital space designed by Alexander Polhov.

This complex array of creatives working on Recursion has been outstandingly orchestrated by Kuflex Lab. The performance has been presented at GUM – Red Line Gallery in Moscow for the EverArt Weekend 2020.

The dance performer was captured by depth cameras allowing the coexistence with her digital doppelganger into the virtual Kusmos scene.

The audience in the art gallery was watching the live dance and the virtual show on the screens.

Online viewers on Twitch watched the virtual performance and could release the audiovisual objects into the space, by putting numbers in the chat window. The performer could then interact with those objects.

As a result, the performance turned into a synthetic show in mixed reality. We have asked a few questions to the dance performer and stage designer to dig deeper into this cutting-edge multidisciplinary performance.

DANCE ARTIST: Julia Arsen

1. Can you describe the body experience while performing in the physical space and interacting with your digital avatar within the 3D universe?

Actually our idea was to separate us in a way that my analog body would not interact with its digital avatar body.

The only effect that my avatar triggers on my real body is the moments of meeting with sound objects. They exist only on the digital stage, so crashing in digital produces the sound which works both in digital and in real and that is what we both have in common, what we share.

So it was more the audience task to experience the two types of body presence, the digital and the actual one (for the audience in the gallery) and maybe to reflect upon what is more attractive for them: real human emotional journey or beautiful avatar transitions.

2. In your opinion, what kind of innovative creative outcomes can be achieved through VR and augmented reality from a dancer perspective?

The pandemic shows us that we need to find new ways to keep on creating and sharing the outcome with others.

Dance as a performative kind of art is very tricky in this way – when you watch dance or theatre via online platforms we have to compete with film or other video art products.

Performative arts need to share space and time with the audience. In the current situations it is impossible to do shows in theatres.

Contemporary dance (post dance especially) is very open to inter-disciplinary collaborations with other art practitioners to enrich art experiences and creative processes.

Therefore I feel that collaborating with digital artists can transport both sides to a new place.

This collaboration can change the understanding of “sharing time and space”. It gives us the opportunity to research a new form of sensuality, which we are already experiencing but we still need to fully understand it.

STAGE DESIGNER: Alexander Polhov

1. Can you tell us about the concept behind the 3D scenario and objects triggered by the users in the “Recursion” piece?

We have chosen to use geometric shapes made by many repetitions of other geometric shapes.

Geometric shapes are, in my opinion, the most human-readable explanation of many mathematical principles. And of course, they are very interesting and beautiful in themselves, so it was very pleasant to work with them.

2. What kind of inspirations did you have in mind when building the universes for the dancer to interact with?

The idea was to create mini-scenes. We then duplicated them entirely or partially using snippets. This process was based on some simple mathematical laws. Images that are not achievable in the real world.

We wanted to mix real and digital universe, hinting at a near future where people will struggle to distinguish the two universes.

We are all very close in spirit to the idea of numerous parallel universes, and in a virtual environment we can imagine them, interact with them, influence them, change or be in several universes simultaneously.

What’s next on Kuflex Lab mind? We will wait and see. One thing is for sure: we will be there to cover it!

KUFLEX LAB

KUSMOS LIVE

JULIA ARSEN

ALEXANDER POLHOV

LEKSHA YANKOV

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The studio creates immersive multidisciplinary AV shows, especially focusing on the fusion between projection mapping and dance performance.

We asked Paco a few questions about his background and creative career and also about the new projects he has been cooking up during the quarantine period.

1. When did you start working on the interaction between audiovisual and dance performance, and how did you get involved? What are the aspects that are more appealing to you about working in this interdisciplinary field?

It all begun in 2009. After quitting my job as an engineer I moved to Madrid to study a Master in Motion Graphics while making my first experiences in the world of video art. 

In 2010 I started up several collaborations with art organizations in Madrid and they proposed to me to shoot a dance performance by the choreographer Iratche Ansa.

The performance was going to be held at the Matadero in Madrid. From that recording I put together my first video dance “Comunicación Interpretación Automática” which had a very good reception.

I had discovered the potential of dance from an audiovisual perspective and the inner revelation of what I wanted to do in the next few years.

A few months later I made my first dance pieces with live visuals with choreographer Barbara Fritsche.

Thanks to those projects I was able to work on the musical “Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar” in 2013. In 2014 I directed my first proper theatre show: “Girasomnis”.

2. You are the creator of “Girasomnis”, an itinerant project that has been traveling around the world. Can you tell us about the creative process behind the inception of this innovative project?

I try to “connect” the visuals with the dancers. Sometimes I encourage the dancers to “connect” or follow my visuals.

In this project I also composed the music. This is very useful as I have better control of the creative process. With this project I tried to evoke feelings in the audience without words: just images, dance and instrumental music.

3. Paco Gramaje Studio recently launched the “Dance Mapping Virtual Tour 2020” which it’s fundraising on Gumroad. This is in preparation for a new cutting-edge AV dance project in 2021 involving a 360 immersive environment . Can you give us some insights about the whole project?

This quarantine caused an abrupt stop in my job, but also gave me time to start imagining something new.

The idea was born during the first week of confinement. At the start, It was simple: I just wanted to publish some of our best projects and make them public. But I also felt a need for a change.

The last 3 years I was quite disconnected from my artistic side due to working mostly on commercial projects. 

I was just focusing on making money to pay my bills and trying to have a stable team for audiovisual production. The outbreak of the Covid-19  has been an absolute shift in our work. We started questioning the possibility of doing our shows as we did before.

Therefore I needed to devise another type of format for the new normal awaiting us: a fully immersive virtual Dance Mapping Show.

As my previous theatre production, without the pressure of a client and using the Girasomnis music.

So, in April I started to visualize and write a synopsis of this new project. I then decided to publish “Dance Mapping Virtual Tour 2020” as a memorandum of all these years of physical shows. 

Now it’s time to go further. I want to gather all the knowledge I gained during the last 10 years and apply it to a virtual reality show, where I can break the limits and make an immersive 360º visual performance with dancers.

This new production is planned to be released in VR and physical 360 projection format in late 2021.

4. When working on a project how do you pick your collaborators? What are the main roles you look for in your team? 

When I have the budget I can work with some powerful audiovisual freelancers from my network of collaborators. Failing that I work alone.

I also work with very talented dancers/choreographers from Barcelona. During the years they started to understand my ideas and transform them in beautiful choreographies. 

5. Can you describe your general creative approach when starting on a new project?

I have mostly 2 ways of work. I compose a music draft and then I work on the visuals and choreography or vice versa: I make a draft of visual content with a draft choreography and I try to match the sounds and music.

Sometimes I give leeway to the dancer, so they can create their own choreography and then I create the visual content following their movements.

In the last few years I also worked with some talented musicians for a faster audiovisual production.

6. In 2015, Paco Gramaje Studio won an award at the International Mapping Festival in Girona for the Micro-mapping category. Could you share with us your thoughts about the concept of “Micro-mapping”? 

This was a concept from Roman Torre. In 2015 I shared a space with him and we collaborated together on a video mapping of a rotating stone. It was a nice project called Liquid Series.

In the video mapping area I also tried to develop innovative concepts, differing from the typical big projection on a building facade. 2 Years ago I started to develop the concept of “Holomapping”. I am planning to finish it next year as well.

7. We are aware you regularly teach courses and masterclasses of video mapping applied to performing arts, in Spain and Latin America.


What specific training would you recommend for digital artists who have just started their career and why? Which are the countries with more opportunities for audiovisual arts, in your opinion?

Nowadays, it is possible to learn a lot following digital online courses, but it is always better if somebody guides you. As with everything in life the best way to learn is practice, making mistakes and improving. 

Spain is not the best country for arts, I would say. As far as I know French artists or from other European countries have more grants and support from their governments, but everything is possible if you are passionate about your work.

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We are constantly scanning our map for new opportunities for audiovisual artists, especially outside the European network.

It is quite hard to map out the Asian audiovisual scene, mostly due to language barriers and different social media landscape.

Therefore we are very pleased to present you with this art contest for the Tokyo based media arts festival.

The Japan Media Arts Contest is a long-lasting institution reaching its 24th edition this year. The call is open to all audiovisual artists worldwide and encompasses the following categories:

Art Division | Entertainment Division | Animation Division | Manga Division

For each division the elected jury will award the following prizes, based on the artistic value and creativity of the artwork:

Grand Prize (1.000.000 JPY), Excellence Awards (500.000 JPY), Social Impact Award (500.000 JPY), New Face Awards (300.000 JPY), U-18 Award (certificate, trophy), Special Achievement Award (certificate).

It is interesting to notice the wide range of categories not necessarily related to the new media arts world. The inclusion of animation and manga highlights their wide recognition in the Japanese scene as special forms of art.

The Japan Media Arts Contest offers opportunities for young and emerging artists as well as recognized professionals making the audiovisual event a turning point every year for artistic innovation and excellency.

The Japan Media Arts Festival has been awarding prizes to outstanding artistic works since its establishment in 1997.

It is supported by The Agency of Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan to develop and promote the creation of Japanese and international media arts.

Through the annual Exhibition of Award-winning Works, the festival has offered the opportunity to the audience of directly appreciating these celebrated works.

The attendants are also invited to participate to the side events such as symposia, screenings and artists’ showcases.

WEBSITE

APPLY TO THE OPEN CALL

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During these tough and uncertain times it has been inspiring to see so many audiovisual artists and events coming up with ideas to overcome the social distancing restrictions.

A few weeks back the guys from Kuflex Lab reached out to showcase their latest tool that stands out among all the virtual/hybrid solutions we have seen so far.

Kusmos Live allows to turn online concerts into interactive digital shows. Pretty neat uh?

Let’s dive in and explore how it works. Down to the nitty-nerdy-gritty Kusmos is a custom VJ software written on openFrameworks + VDMX5 + Syphon.

In spring 2020 Kuflex studio began an experimental project Kusmos Live. The purpose of the experiment was to upgrade the Kusmos system in order to create a interactive online home shows.

In 2018-2019 the Russian audiovisual studio experimented with the innovative tool together with SILA SVETA studio on the Therr Maitz concert, Caprices Festival 2018, Nina Kraviz experimental performance at Coachella 2019.

OK, really cool but how exactly does interactivity work? We gave some feedback to Kuflex lab with a few tricky questions to better understand the whole potential of this new audiovisual tool.

KUFLEX: The Tracker program receives depth-sensor data, calibrates a point cloud as we need it (we can rotate the cloud, cut off everything you don’t need keeping only the data of the artist oneself and merge point clouds from two sensors) and sends it to the renderer (UE4 scene).

Scene functions build a 3D model using the data provided by the Tracker and then we can layer all kinds of features with effects on the model and also transform and distort it according to the artistic concept.

We also captured video from the laptop’s webcam and sometimes showed its picture. 3D scene acting as the artist surrounding, a set of virtual cameras for capturing from different viewpoints and visual effects were set up in advance in the Unreal Engine.

Then the OBS program captures the video of the launched scene and sends it to the video streaming server.

During our second live experiment we tested some new features for the viewers interactive communication with the stream.

While Leksha (Smolensk, Russia) was playing his ambient-set, a VJ (Moscow, Russia) was controlling visual effects with the use of commands via YouTube chat in real-time mode. Our team has implemented this function between the concerts and decided not to tell the viewers about it.

During the stream, noticing weird messages in the chat, some of the viewers started to realize that they could not only send a message to the chat but to even affect visualization.

In the end the concert has turned into a digital quest. Some viewers picked up effect control by sending particular commands to the chat. We have yet to comprehend how to develop this function in the future.

 AVC: We think it’s a really interesting and innovative project responding to the challenges of the pandemic. In terms of appeal for VJs there is the risk of potentially being extremely limited for the audiovisual artists creativity, and the aesthetic I guess would always be the same.

It would be key for the tool to have a wider range of possibilities of customization for the artists otherwise they might get tired soon. I guess they all want to leave their unique mark in the scene.

KUFLEX: Kusmos is a universal software tool, with the possibility of variability of visual and interactive solutions. As a rule, our team creates a virtual stage specifically for the performance of the musician.

Of course, we want to upgrade the program creating a database with different scenes, effects. In this case, the user will be able to construct the scene himself and combine the effects for his live/stream. 

AVC: It’s a bit unusual to keep promoting the idea of “God is DJ”. Is the DJ persona so relevant the viewer wants to watch during the entire show in a virtual environment?

KUFLEX: Regarding Kusmos Live project, the Kuflex team is collaborating with various musicians. We wanted to support the performers.

So this approach determined the emphasis on the figure of the musician on the virtual stage, under whose musical personality, sound we come up with a visual solution. We do not just shoot a video with a musician, as is often done in broadcasts, but create a digital avatar that changes depending on the script, music and VJ control.

At the same time, Kusmos Live is primarily a show, a kind of mix of live performance, a computer game and fantastic movie.

The virtual camera can fly through digital space, we can switch to different visual elements of the scene and include additional visual effects to the music.

We try to achieve the effect of real interaction with the viewer as well. Our team is developing a function of interaction through chat – viewers’ comments fall into the scene, they can affect the content through certain chat commands. But Kusmos can be used by artists of other genres.

In the near future we want to try to create a dance performance. Now we are discussing this idea with one Russian choreographer.

We will explore the topic of distances – where physical space ends, digital begins, the relationship of body and sound. Both dance and music will take place in live format.

Technically, the performer will find himself in different areas of camera scanning, on the screen we will observe how his digital avatar changes. Again, it will all be like shooting a movie in one shot and in real time!

AVC: We truly appreciate the viewers becoming active, participating and communicating with the stream. That creates a collective experience. 

Could people really tell if this was a live performance or not? It feels like the interaction should be more meaningful somehow, with a bigger impact to the overall audiovisual artwork.

KUFLEX: Our team worked on a concert from different cities. We thought about how best to organise remote control of virtual cameras and effects.

And suddenly our creative director had an idea to manage content through Youtube chat. During the broadcast, he wrote commands like cam1 (switching camera 1), stars ( the star effect was launched).

We intentionally did not talk about this function in advance to get the quest. As a result, some viewers guessed and began to help in managing the scene. We explore different possibilities about other ways of interaction.

In the future we want to create a client application for connecting to the broadcast via a mobile phone, desktop PC screen or VR. We intend to develop Kusmos as an art tool.

Our team believes in a power of collective interaction. We want to give a palette of visual solutions, effects. Let’s all together create beauty here and now! This idea is a sincere inspiration for us. 

AVC:  We would like to know more about how the collaboration you have done with Leksha where the viewers were controlling visual effects with the use of commands via YouTube chat in real-time mode.”

How does the input of data modify the visuals? is it like a live coding or common human language and how it is related to the VR software?

KUFLEX: Usually in an offline format, we work like this: musicians play music, and VJ manages visual content live using MIDI controllers.

Some effects are linked to the amplitude of the sound. But in a situation where we did not have the opportunity to be onsite will all team, we decided to make control through chat commands.

We wrote a special function for our software that receives data from chat on YouTube using the Google API. We came up with several commands, for example: cam1, cam2, skin1, skin2, electric noise, lasers and the like. And when someone in the chat wrote one of these words, then a certain visual effect or a corresponding camera was included in our program.

In general, we have an idea to expand the number of commands and their appearance, so that it looks more like live coding. For example, add numerical arguments to the commands, which will additionally specify the parameters of a particular visual effect.

As for virtual reality, we have plans to create our own application for viewers who can watch live broadcasts using VR devices, thus more deeply immersing themselves in the atmosphere of the digital scene and additionally receive personal effects. 

 AVC: Fascinating this idea of “universal tool” for content in real time and interactive show. We think it’s important now to dig more into the idea of how it can involve more people in the creative process.

It opens new ways of investigation on how to make every audiovisual experience unique, not only in terms of the aesthetics of the piece but also regarding the narrative.

KUFLEX: Yes, this is the main object of research for us. Usually, a limited number of people can come to the offline exhibition. So we want to overcome any space frames. With Kusmos we don’t have any restrictions online! We can find ourselves in amazing digital worlds that are impossible in the physical world.

Now that Kuflex Lab and its creation Kusmos entered our radar we will most definitely keep following their progression, as always supporting innovation and creativity in the audiovisual art world.

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Sometimes even artists that we should already know, but that we discover late, like Memo Akten.

I stumbled upon Memo’s work in my investigations and learnings of the well-known VJ software, VDMX (which is to put it quite lightly – VDMX is a very powerful visual creation tool).

Memo Akten describes himself as:

“an artist and researcher from Istanbul, Turkey. He works with emerging technologies as both a medium and subject matter, investigating their impact on society and culture – with a specific interest in the collisions between nature, science, technology, ethics, ritual and religion.”

http://www.memo.tv/

Artificial Intelligence

His work goes much further your average visual artist, as he specialises in Artificial Intelligence, works with algorithms and large-scale responsive installations with image, sound and light.

In AV culture’s layman terms he’s an audiovisual jack-of-all-trades and a true techy, oh and he’s studying for a PhD in AI as if that wasn’t enough. Here you can see a selection of his work in the very accurately named video, ‘Selection of work in 3 minutes’ (2017).

Audiovisual awards and prizes

Akten received the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica – the most prestigious award in Media Art – for his work ‘Forms’ in 2013.

He has exhibited and performed internationally at exhibitions including The Grand Palais’s “Artistes & Robots” in 2018 (Paris FR), The Barbican’s “More than human” in 2017 (London UK) and the Victoria & Albert Museum’s landmark “Decode” exhibition in 2009 (London UK).

He has shown work at venues such as the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Moscow RU), Shanghai Ming Contemporary Art Museum (Shanghai CN), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo JP), Royal Opera House (London UK), Lisbon Architecture Triennale (Lisbon PT), Itaú Cultural (Sao Paulo BR) and many others.

Creative Collaborations

He has collaborated with celebrities such as Lenny Kravitz, U2, Depeche Mode and Professor Richard Dawkins, and brands including Google, Twitter, Deutsche Bank, Coca Cola and Sony PlayStation. A

kten’s work is in numerous public and private collections around the world.

Alongside his practice, Akten is currently working towards a PhD at Goldsmiths University of London in artificial intelligence and expressive human-machine interaction.

He is deepening collaborative creativity between humans and machines and augment human creative expression.

Fascinated by trying to understand the world and human nature, he draws inspiration from fields such as physics, molecular & evolutionary biology, ecology, abiogenesis, neuroscience, anthropology, sociology and philosophy.

Marshmallow Laser Feast

Memo hasn’t just emerged on the scene by any means. In 2007 Akten founded The Mega Super Awesome Visuals Company (MSA Visuals), an art and tech creative studio.

For some of those who have been following audiovisual culture since before even Audiovisual City was born, then they’ll recognise the name Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) – the evolution of MSA Visuals in 2011.

In more recent years and a lot of success, Akten is now focusing on his own work and research, though his contribution to audiovisual culture and performance, must not go unmentioned.

I strongly recommend that you explore his exceptionally wide and varied body of artwork and scientific investigations, as it takes you on a socia cultural journey that goes beyond audiovisual art.

Contact

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They explore the newest ways of using video, sound, light, tracking technology and generative graphics to allow viewers to dive into that digital space. And feel it to the fullest!

Kuflex large-scale interactive installations dismantle stereotypes of sensory perception.

Immersive effect switches off rational evaluative perception and provokes spontaneous emotions of inner child.

A small team creates magic installations and art projects, exploring mechanisms of interaction and inter-influence of inter-subjective reality and its digital projection.

Interacting with constantly changing projection, the viewer enters meditative state, turns from a passive observer into a co-creator.

Thus, in “Symbiosis” installation the viewer literally merges with the alien creature, becoming a digital avatar that can be controlled by him or her. 

Installations by Kuflex have been featured in many Russian and foreign exhibitions, festivals, museums, science and education centers in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Tyumen, Abrau-Dyurso, Netanya (Israel), Antalya (Turkey), Athens (Greece, ADAF), Las-Vegas (USA, CES), Beijing (China,China Science and Technology Museum), Manila (Philippines) and others.

Since 2018 the studio has been working on Kusmos software system for interactive visual content of online home concerts.

In April 2020 they started  developing Kusmos live version thus turning any stream from home into a fantastic 3D show.

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