MAY 28	Art Performance: 'Still Evidence of Water'
Location	Parking Garage Complex, Dan Panorama Hotel, Tel Aviv, ISRAEL
Timeframe	0:00-1:30 AM [1h 30min] | 2:15 min. Video Runtime
Preparation	MAY 28. sound recordings, composing, sensor calibrations, software adjustments
Guest Nomad	Mangara aka Matthias Cermak

Deserts, dry landscapes, signs of water, but rarely evidence, no proof. Access to water in the Middle East, a sensitive and critical issue. Catalyzing the peace process or inhibiting it. Screaming out loud - water - drinking - no heartbeat. Images looming beyond the horizon. Silence - drought - blood - alive?

In a nightly action a hotel parking garage turns into an imaginary water hole. A performance work in the frame of 'Factory' invited by MoBY (Museums of Bat Yam).

Technology: A microphone as an acoustic sensor hanging down from the roof. Screaming provokes crossfading from ECG monitor sounds to slurping noises. Silence brings the heartbeat back.

MAY 25-27	Art Performance: 'Evidence of Water'
Location	Hangar, Industrial Area (Factory Exhibition), Bat Yam, ISRAEL
Timeframe	3x 7:00-11:00 PM [4h] | 5:34 min. Video Runtime
Preparation	MAY 14-25. sound recordings, composing, sensor calibrations, assembling, hardware/software development/adjustments
Challenges	Light sensor calibrations, Platform Transition
Guest Nomad	Mangara aka Matthias Cermak

Nearly 20,000 known species of bees. Millions have simply vanished recently, lost their sense of orientation, no way back to their hives. An Israeli bee virus is strongly tied to the samples taken from keepers who reported the collapse disorder. The definition of colony collapse disorder - a soft one, made by people who define the syndrome, somewhat like chronic fatigue syndrome in people.
In parallel, Israel's history, fundamentals of land and sense of home. In contrast an ever growing population with voids remaining all over the world. Strong cohesion and ties to the land of milk and honey. Climate and water ressources: essential.
Deserts, dry landscapes, signs of water, but rarely evidence, no proof. Silence, introversive.
'If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left.'

An abandoned factory hall, buzz, sprinklers, slurping noises. Emergency Room Tel Aviv after a delayed bee sting allergic reaction. Within 30 seconds of exposure to a chemical agent, a colony of bees will change the sound it produces. All the frequencies shift and change. And so does this performance work in the frame of 'Factory' invited by MoBY (Museums of Bat Yam).

Technology: Glowing water/ing cans as instruments, metaphorical watering of sounds that trickle away, triggers, frequency shifts and delay rhythms. Ventilators as time signatures. Doorways of the hangar connected. Powered by light/distance/pressure sensors.

DAY 8-11: May 21-24. Technical development, artistic process, props, assembling, artists/MoBY gatherings - things come together.
DAY 12-14: May 25-27. Opening and Factory Performances in this major three day event at the Industrial Area of Bat Yam. 2 takes of the SOUND NOMADS live performance 'Evidence of Water' at the hangar each night. In parallel, SOUND NOMADS video works as part of the MoBY Factory exhibition in the Bat Yam Museum of Contemporary Art as projections and installations May 25 - Sep 26 2009.
DAY 15: May 28. Post production. Last night: A different secret performance took place in Tel Aviv around midnight. 'Evidence of Water II'.

See some Tel Aviv and Bat Yam impressions in the pictures. Detailed blog entries for performance actions will follow.

Late May/Early June Participations:
SOUND NOMADS work Black Ballons screened as part of the Berlin Shorts Program at Street Fest 09 in London on May 24.
In Istanbul video works are part of several Performance Screening Programs at the Kurye International Video Festival Jun 2-12 2009.
In Bochum a SOUND NOMADS installation will be part of this year's 19th edition of the International Videofestival Bochum Jun 18-20.

May 21: My Talk at the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv had to be canceled as i was suffering from a delayed allergic reaction to a bee sting during sound huntings of hives in Israel days before.

The talk would have been in the framework of the Factory exhibition. Artistic production and its relation to other forms of production.

Site-specific Intimacy: What can it mean to work site-specific and to be able to implement artistic reflections immediately locally - to turn every single thought into something? When the change of location becomes a direct source of inspiration and the actual process of making substantial and very apparent. How to reflect and express emotions of the very moment; spontaneously, poetically, unobtrusively or provocatively? Why to create own forms of artistic expression and ephemeral interactive playgrounds based on technical complexity and interdisciplinarity? Some personal thoughts about intimacy in media arts and my own works, in particular SOUND NOMADS.

May 18-19: 2 days with a car out of Tel Aviv. On the move. Once again, as last time: Cows don't moo. Desert, Valleys, small villages. Sound huntings at bee hives, stung. Late allergic reactions. Barely sleep on car seats. Storms. Totally self-constraint to work on. The Dead Sea. Doctor experience in Jericho. Jerusalem. 1050m of height difference. Huge swollen head, sting reactions getting worse every minute. Sound Huntings at the market. Via Dolorosa. Muezzins rooftops recordings. Google Maps route coming soon. Intense impressions, artistic reflections to follow.

DAY 1: May 14 2009. Surprise, surprise. Stolen photo equipment. Half-empty Peli case at the airport of Tel Aviv.
DAY 2: Camera (Rental) Hunting vs. Sound Hunting. Tel Aviv gallery walk, MoBY Factory artists meeting. Sabbath. Nightly city/beach walk for leadoff field recordings.
DAY 3: Sound editings, software preparations, drafts
DAY 4: Successful equipment rental, MoBY meetings, Sound Huntings in the industrial area of Bat Yam.
DAY 5-6: Sound Huntings across Israel. See separate blog entry for details.
DAY 7: Emergency Room (Sourasky Ichilov Medical Center), Recordings, Editings, Concept, Development

Several other important participations this month: A special video art presentation took place in the Historic Centre of Kalamata in an open space between Agii Apostoli and Amfeia's square in the frame of the "Art Walks" exhibition on May 2nd.

New site-specific SOUND NOMADS works will arise for MoBY's Factory (by an invitation of the Museums of Bat Yam) in Israel May 14-29. First time Guest Nomad: Mangara aka Matthias Cermak from Vienna/A. Various Blog entries will accompany the process. Stay tuned.

A SOUND NOMADS installation is also part of this year's festival edition of Re-New in Copenhagen/DK. Re-New 2009 presents during May 18-22 in Copenhagen a wide selection of the newest ground-breaking works in digital music, video, installations, performative and distributed/ collaborative art.
Works in all genres and categories in multimedia related art forms are included, where digital technologies are an unseparable part: those works that challenge or expand the current vocabulary and practice of digital creation, performance, and consumption.

The Takeaway Festival tries to identify the changing interfaces between technology and practice. It celebrates a D-I-Y praxis that is infusing the creative landscape and challenging the status quo of top down software and proprietary licensing. The platform wants to encourage artists who are ground breaking and original, who find interesting solutions for old problems and demonstrate new relationships between technology and other media. SOUND NOMADS is part of the exhibition at the Dana Centre, Science Museum, London. May 19-30.

A Canadian screening of Lantern Dogs is scheduled for this year's Dérapage 9 at the Centre de Design de l'UQAM on Thu, Apr 23 2009. Dérapage Teaser on Vimeo

The SOUND NOMADS project will be part of this first-of-its-kind event in Las Vegas, USA. Two weeks of Performances and Video Art of a total of 19 artists/artist groups at multiple locations. SOUND NOMADS works are on view at the Contemporary Arts Center Las Vegas in an exhibition in conjunction with works from artist Tony Schwenson April 12-17. The whole 'Off the Strip' event will run from April 2-17 in the context of a city culturally symbolic and conceptually loaded on so many levels.

This Thursday, March 12 at 9PM, 'Black Balloons' will be presented at the European Video Art Highlight Screening Night at the Lagari in Berlin.

Another screening is taking place at the AB Project Galleries/HOF 06 in Berlin on Wed, March 18 at 7PM next week. 'What the Fuck' as part of the Wednesday's Child Screening Video Kills.

The Transfera Video Art # 30, that will broadcast this Friday 30 and Wednesday 4 at 21:00 PM from Madrid by Canal Autor (Orange TV, Euskaltel), offers a program on Video Reenactments, with the works of GER GER, JUANJO FERNANDEZ, FELECIA CARLISLE, SIRO. Transfera is an independent television program produced by Transfera Media Arts under the artistic direction of Iury Lech.

And on February 14, the exhibition 'Unauthorized - Art Without Permission' will open its doors until March 7 2009 at the Gallery RFD, USA. The SOUND NOMADS piece 'What the Fuck' has been honored the Best of Show award.

JAN 07	Art Performance: 'French Fries'
Location	Frozen Lake, Tiergarten, Berlin, GERMANY
Timeframe	1:00-4:00 PM [4h] | 3:57 min. Video Runtime
Preparation	JAN 5-7. sound recordings in the curator's kitchen, composings, sensor callibrations, software development/adjustments
Challenges	impact of low temperatures on the equipment, software issues
Guest Nomad	LAN Hungh | Assistent Dominik Erdmann

The work is on display at the Gallery-33 in Berlin from Jan 10-31.

A metaphorical and fragmentary examination of the relationship 'artist and curator'. On the one hand the feeding of the curator through the artist with demanded works providing the best fair market value. On the other hand the lactation/infiltration of the artist through the curator with black, tainted milk of the art market. A frozen lake, two freezing figures, a curator, who is cooking french fries in his kitchen while singing and giggling. A comparison with the meal, which appeals to the masses, the curator himself detests and even so deals with it just because of the success

The performance produced for the 'T.A.O.M.A.C. vol.2' exhibition not only involves the curator in respect of content but also as means and as a performance actor/guest nomad. The art of manipulating a curator. The working method of SOUND NOMADS with spontaneous, site-specific forms of expression was maintained.

Technology: Sounds get triggered by multiple light sensors attached to the baby bottle and the lips. In addition, the sum of all sensor states influences the continuous soundscape of the playground.

This mashup is part of the open research section on gerger.com. It collects international art calls and opportunities all automatically to offer a daily updated overview and resource pool. If you are an artist, check it out and let me know what you think. One page, two view modes.

Next screenings: Nov 30 2008 -> Detour, Third International Video Festival, Cairo/Egypt. Dec 10 2008 -> Alternative Film/Video 2008, International festival for video art, Belgrade/Serbia. Update: SN works will be also part of the exhibition 'Soundscapes of Memory' in the Big gallery of SCCC, curated by Aleksandra Sekulic.

Hardware: Two thumbs up
Cameras, phones, music players ... gadgets merge all the time, mostly with quantity valued over quality. But this new photography and video convergence is for real, and from my own point of view as an artist working in this wide range of media and techniques the revolution can't arrive soon enough. I'm waiting for this for years. Many upcoming digital SLRs will have outstanding video capabilities and the line between the still cameras an their video counterpart was first blurred with the September announcement of the EOS 5D Mark II which is capable of capturing 1080p-quality clips. RED is supposed to announce its first DSLR on November 13 as well, although the company is more well-known for its high-quality digital cinema cameras.

Software: Two thumbs down
While it looks promising for the merge of DSLR, HD, and film cameras, DAM (Digital Asset Management) software is falling behind. There is no comprehensive solution available with extensive support for not only photography, but also video, audio, graphics, fonts and other types of digital media or documents. Combining a good cataloging/archival strategy with a production/post production workflow for photography, video and audio is a pain in the ass. Full Metadata support, tagging, stacks, and version management for any filetype should actually be built right into the operating system, but will this ever happen? Adobe Bridge lacks a database, Lightroom and Aperture both have a very limited support of filetypes (no video at all), Expression Media's future is uncertain, iMatch is good for images but lacks preview/metadata support for other media types and doesn't offer workspaces or RAW workflows. The list goes on.

Web: New developments arise
With HTML 5 replacing both HTML 4 and XHTML, audio and video tags allow to directly embed a video or sound file in a webpage. This makes embedding of video and audio finally(!) equal to images.
Xiph.Org therefore has announced Theora full public release 1.0 on November 3. Theora is a free and open video compression format which can be used to distribute film and video online and on disc without the licensing and royalty fees or vendor lock-in associated with other formats. As a platform for rich internet applications, HTML 5 and AJAX compete with Adobe Flash, Flex, and Silverlight. Hopefully, video on the Web will finally follow open standards.

Flash for accurate color representation
Interestingly enough, Adobe Flash Player 10 now employs color management to deliver web applications with the most accurate color possible. Support for color management in Web browsers is rare (only Safari supports it by default, and the IE team is apparently missing in action). Images display differently in different browsers. Flash Player, on the other hand, is consistent, reliable, and now offers basic color management support. "stage.colorCorrection = ColorCorrection.ON;" in the Script window will do the job. Using this ActionScript enables an sRGB --> monitor color transform in the Flash Player. You should convert image files to the sRGB color space in Photoshop before publishing to Flash.

Various SN video works were selected for participating in the following festivals this October: Streaming Festival, The Hague/NL, 'HollyWould', 11th Festival of New Media Arts, Los Angeles/USA, and CologneOFF IV, Museum of Contemporary Art (MACZUL), Maracaibo/Venezuela.

After 12 years of this web presence's existence it's about time for this Redesign #5 - there you go! Over the next months the content and design will be further refined and some new features added. The relaunch is again based on the self-developed o0oo CMS which is released in version 5 at the same time - newly structured and for the most part completely rewritten over the last 12 months.