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Tom Bugs inhabits the fertile border between arts and science. Driven by a strong DIY ethic, the world of bugs flourishes in diverse directions, taking in hand-built electronic audio devices, ever-mutating musical progressions and the creative decorations of photographic and etched artwork.

Coming from a background of music, Tom has been working with electronics for the last few years, beginning with circuit bending and simple guitar stomp boxes and gradually sinking deep into the circuitry for work on handmade noise systems and large scale modular synths. Tom’s work tries to mix the worlds of art and science by opening up technological ideas to new controls and areas of chance or controlled chaos. His recent work is almost entirely with analogue electronics, with his ideas often taking existing designs, twisting them a bit and then combining and presenting them in new ways. Alongside his solo music and design projects, Tom builds devices for musicians, setting installations and collaborating in technical arts and musical projects.

What Tom would like to achieve from NIP

There are two areas that I envisage focusing on during NIP.

Analogue Control
Understanding the workings of sensors and how to effectively harness their response in creative ways is key to analogue control (for example in a modular synthesis system), but also forms the front-end of many digital control solutions. I really believe that interface is a key part of turning an electronic box into a responsive and inspiring instrument. I have worked with a range of ideas before for example, lo-fi touch control on the Weevil devices with further developments used on my previous project, Touch-to-MIDI Sonic Post (2006). I am also working with sensor and controls on a currently dance collaboration. My main work for this has been the design of sound generating and processing circuitry that can be mounted on the dancer and played together with movement. During NIP I would be interested in exploring this is more depth.

Atmel Microprocessors
While my work is predominantly analogue, interfacing and control with digital microprocessors is an area I would like to investigate further, with particular emphasis on generating MIDI control messages. MIDI is still the most widely used means of control in both musical and visual fields. There exist a number of off-the-shelf solutions for generating MIDI but greater understanding and potential would be realised through custom micro-control. I have had some past experience with PIC microcontrollers. Microprocessors would also have great potential to open up new avenues in the control of audio devices.

These two areas of investigation would feed together into the creation of custom MIDI control devices potentially for collaborative use with other participants in NIP. The NIP framework would provide an inspiring schedule and drive such work. In my locality there are few people working in these ways and it can sometimes be hard to really share ideas with other practitioners it would, therefore, be really inspiring to work and share time with artists such as Michel Waisvisz, in particular, as his history and projects, seems to cross over with my own work.

For further information about N.I.P. or for any press releases and images, contact:

teresa [dot] dillon [at] polarproduce [dot] org

NIP (New Interfaces for Performance) is a practical, artists led, workshop and touring event, which examines techniques for creating mixed media and interactive work for live, interactive contexts - for the most this refers to live performance (music, theatre, dance, sound) and interactive, real-time installation.

How did N.I.P. begin?
The project was set up by Teresa Dillon, an artist/researcher/director, who has been working in the field of mixed media for some years. Teresa runs and facilitates the project, taking an informal, open approach and participates in the workshops, presentations and events. One of the key reasons in establishing the project was to create a network or community of interdisciplinary artists, interested in sharing practice and co-developing ideas as well as presenting their work in new locations. Key to the project was making institutional links to organisations and individuals already working in the field.

The first year of the project (2007), involved working with various partner institutions to select nine artists drawn from across the UK, The Netherlands and Portugal. One of the initial partners in the project, has been STEIM (NL), who alongside the Watershed (UK) and Restart (PT), have supported and hosted the project in 2007. Other institutions who supported the project in 2007, included Lisboa20 and Bomba Suicida (PT). Over 2008, we continue to work with these institutions and organisations, alongside new partners such as ‘O Espaço do Tempo’ (PT), developing the project and bringing it into the next phase.

Over 2007, the ‘N.I.P.’ crew, have developed together and grown to include other artists and practitioners who we have picked up along our journey. Together we now consider this project to be a ‘research collective’, a group a practitioners who are developing projects, which use various tools or technologies to create interactive experiences.

The N.I.P. approach
For N.I.P., the idea behind the work, comes first but this is closely tied with the tools and materials that we shape and to make the work. We generally consider ‘new interfaces’ to be the creation of artistic work (music, visuals, sound, graphics, theatre), which uses or repurposes existing or emerging digital devices, tools and infrastructures. Each one of us, within the project, make and play, in different ways and the form our work takes, explores different types of relations - eg audience-performers, performer-performer and/or performer-instrument relations. Consequently as an interdisciplinary group our work also takes different forms cutting across the fields of visual art, sound art, performance, theatre, installation, fine art and software art.

Current focus
The theme for the 2007-2009 N.I.P. series is on gesture and movement within live performance. This refers to interfaces, which use movement - human gestures, touch, environmental forces etc - as the means through which to interact and experience the work.

So far….
Over 2007 three core NIP events will took place in Bristol, UK, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Lisbon, Portugal. At each location a lead artist has been selected to facilitate a three-day workshop, which will be attend by artists invited from the UK, The Netherlands and Portugal. As part of the tour, at each location, lead and participating artists will give public performances and talks.

In December 2007, we also returned to STEIM, for a one-week residency, where we discussed the 2007 programme and our plans for 2008/09.

Robert van Heumen is the managing director of STEIM and along with Michel Waisvisz and the STEIM team has helped to coordinate the Dutch side of NIP. An established artist in his own right, Robert is a composer and musician, making electronic music in the studio and on stage. Recent compositions include music for the choreography ‘Drink Me’ by Anouk van Dijk, and the audio-visual composition ‘Solitude’ (with multi-media artist Arnoud Noordegraaf) based on a book by Paul Auster. As a musician he uses STEIM’s live sampling software LiSa with all kinds of controllers and devices. He is active as a member of the electro-acoustic sextet OfficeR, electronic audio-visual trio SKIF++ and part of the N Collective, and has shared the stage with Michel Waisvisz,Oguz Buyukberber, Anne LaBerge, Guy Harries, Daniel Schorno, Roddy Schrock, Nate Wooley and Jeff Carey.

In both his composed and live music he uses a mixture of environmental sounds, toys, voices, sounds from kitchen appliances, and in general all kinds of ‘found sounds’. In a previous life he was a mathematician, trumpet player and software programmer.

Damian is a musician and artist who works with sound, light, software, and electronics to create performances and interactive installations exploring relationships between performers and audiences. Originally from New Zealand, and bringing with him an
artistic background in music, a technical background in interactive software programming, and an education ranging from interior architecture to computer science via music, mathematics, art history, and philosophy, Damian draws inspiration from a diverse range of fields.

As a musician working with electronic performance since 2002, Damian has performed alongside Biosphere (NO) and Deadbeat (CA), and in collaboration with Chris Sugrue (US), Emil McAvoy (NZ), and the Variable Geometry Orchestra (PT), among others. He was a founding member of While_you_were_Sleeping, an A/V collective in Wellington, NZ and has a deep interest in connections between audio and visuals. A long time audience member to free jazz/free improv concerts, Damian aims to bring to his work the sense of immediacy and communication you feel when a really great percussionist and a skilled free guitar player perform an improvised musical duel in front of your eyes. To this end he develops his own software instruments with PureData, using a constantly evolving performance style where gestures and movements over an electronic instrument become directly connected to sounds being produced, forging a strong empathic bond with the audience and allowing rich collaborative/improvised performance with other musicians.

More recently Damian has begun developing interactive installations. His piece Sounds Like Light, Lights Like Sound, which won the Best Visual Arts prize in the Wellington Fringe Festival 2007, uses interactive sound and light to transform a space into a kind of musical instrument. It allows the audience/visitor to perform this instrument through their movements, by building intuitive connections between the motion of their bodies and the sounds and lights they are seeing and hearing. It augments their consciousness of the space they inhabit with a layer of playful magic, and allows them to experiment with and perform that magic in whatever way they see fit.

Damian’s N.I.P. interests:

New ideas, new techniques; new friends, like-minded folks; good times, unique experiences; opportunities for collaboration and collective projects; professional development, artistic critique, and a deeper understanding of my artform and my work, and where it stands in relation to the work of others.

Technologies I’ve used:

Hardware: Arduino/ href='http://www.wiring.org.co/'>Wiring, video cameras, electronics, MIDI
Software: C/C++, PureData, href='http://www.openframeworks.cc/'>openFrameworks, Java/Processing,
DIY software using computer vision, 3d graphics, sound, …

Vitor Joaquim started performing improvised music in 1982. For some years he studied cinema and produced sound for cinema, and video, while also working as a video director. He first started composing for dance in 1989 at the Lisbon Dance Company (CDL) with Mark Haim and would later take his work to the Coogan Dancers from Munich. Since then, he has been composing for dance, theater, cinema, video, installations and multimedia, having worked with such collectives and creators as: Andreas Stocklein, Mónica Calle, Mark Haim and several others.

Vitor has released various solo works solo works such ‘Tales from Chaos’, La Strada is On Fire and We Are All Naked, ‘A Rose is a Rose’ and Flow. He has collaborated nationally and internationally with some of the most renowned contemporary sound and visuals artists and musicians and has performed live and toured at various festivals such as Atlantic Waves 2003, 2005 (London), Ultrasound (Huddersfield), Lem (Barcelona), La Revolution des Oreilles (Instants Chavirés), IFI (Pontevedra), Screen Saver (Porto), Festival X (Lisboa), Camp05 (Stuttgart), SonicScope (Lisboa) etc.

Vitor is considered as one of Portugal’s most prolific and pioneering contemporary musicians. He is teaching and coordinating audiovisuals at Restart, School of Creativity and New Technology in Lisbon.

Vitor will be joining the NIP participants for the Portuguese workshop.

Ivan Franco is an electronic musician and digital artist, whose work focuses on the development of new interfaces with machines. He presented performances and installations in the main electronic arts venues of Barcelona (CCB, Metronom, Phonos, Art Futura), developing common projects and collaborations, both as musician and interactive systems designer, with people like Konic Thtr, Su-studio, Bert Bongers, Carlos Zingaro, Rui Horta, Marija Stamenkovic, Marko Brajovic and Pedro Carneiro. He also works for YDreams, as the R&D Director of Interactive and Ubiquitous computing.

Ivan will be joining the NIP participants for the STEIM workshop.

Tom’s work is about the communication and non-communication between electronic devices and humans, focusing particularly on his relationship with such devices.

Drawing on his fine art background, his work explores the relationships between, human touch, memory and everyday electronic objects. For example his work “Moederkoek”, which literally translated is mother-cake but refers in English to the placebo, Tom performs with his mother and she bakes a cake, like she used to when he was a young boy. In the contemporary version, in a self-assembled kitchen, Tom performers with his mother, sampling her baking and the sounds its produces in real-time. These sounds are arranged and manipulated on the fly and form an ongoing, improvised composition. The performance ends, with the cake going into the oven and the smell of baking filling the room. Once it is baked, the cake is served to the audience.

Tom’s latest invention is the Crackle-Canvas. Using STEIM crackle box hardware, Tom has created paintings that produce sound. Each painting can produce sound by itself but when connected with other paintings forms a ‘painting orchestra’. By connecting cables between the paintings, the sound changes, while the cables length, colour and form, form a drawing on the wall or in the space the paintings are hanging.

In the live version of the ‘Crackle-Canvas’, Tom connects the painting with 200 meters of cable. Showing the public one of the thousand compositions that can be made in space and sound, after that the public are invited to try make their own compositions. Currently Tom is touring The Netherlands and internationally with ‘Moederkoek’ and ‘Crackle-Canvas’.

N.I.P. interests

During the N.I.P. 2007 workshops I hope to explore other software and ways of building interfaces. I have over the years, learnt to build my own interfaces. However although my knowledge is always improving, it is still a slow and everlasting process. Through the N.I.P. workshops, I hope to develop new technics in building software and interfaces that can help me refine this process.

André Sier has a mixed disciplinary background, which marries philosophy, painting, sculpture, biochemistry, music and performance arts. André is an audio-visual artist-programmer, whose work seeks to unravel connections between sound and image. Since 1997 he has been producing objects, which began life as speakers and light projectors but now run supported by the latest versions of trillions of code lines compiled by millions of programmers in machines scattered all over the world. His works have been exhibited at Meiac, Badajoz, at Biennale Vila Nova de Cerveir and at festivals such as M�sica Viva, Hertzosc�pio, Escrita na Paisagem, Arco Art Fair , Madrid and at the Sketch Gallery.

Alongside his individual projects, André has collaborated and created audio-visual works with various artists from music, plastics and performing arts. Highlights from his work include the series Struct, 747, c. ( ), Ankh; the �Parque� collaboration led by Ricardo Jacinto (2005-), UR with Nuno Mor�o (2003-); Noite directed by Am�lia Bentes (2003-); and the series ‘To a World Free From…� with the composer Pedro Rocha, Soror with choreographers, Ana Mira and Sofia Borges, and various collaborations in concerts such as Ernesto Rodrigues, Ant�nio Chaparreiro, Vitor Joaquim, Ivan Franco.

André N.I.P. interests

I’d like to develop during the workshop a new installation based mostly on camera tracking technologies and perhaps develop in more depth 747.3 types of navigation with multiple interfacing.

Rudolfo Quintas is based in Porto, Portugal, where he runs the Swap Project , a contemporary art research and development project, which focuses on transdiciplinary arts, software development, body interactive environments, augmented reality and graphics.

Rudolfo initially studied visual arts and philosophy, later combing this with computer music and software engineering for virtual/augmented environments. This background informs his work, which focuses on the exploration of new concepts and vocabularies in transdiciplinary media arts practice.

From this perspective he has been developing customised software, which utilises gesture and movement for visual and musical, dance and movement based performances. Creating interactive systems, he is interested in rendering participants subjectivity and intimacy in deep feedback loops, which explore notions of growth, ’self’ and ‘other’.

Rudolfo work has been realised in many forms namely, dance, interactive visual arts, performance art and installation, animation and music.

Rudolfo N.I.P. interests

Currently I am developing eDGe, a Dance-Visual-Musical performance piece that will premiere in May 2007. One of eDGe’s software modules is a ‘visual-musical/gesture-movement’ computer vision implicit behaviour analyses software. It’s concept is to blur/link the performed gestural action with the content created. Visually, it draws in 2D the main gesture and the air, augmenting it as 3D tubes that are animated in the depth according to the initial curve path of the main gesture analysis. Musically it uses the curve paths and form of the gesture input parameters of sound syntheses whose composition is motivated by the number of objects generated.

My interest in developing an implicit gesture analyses is because I want the visual and musical content to be as unique as possible and map each person gesture and movement. It’s also a way to develop an intuitive interface that helps the user to focus on the meaning and content rather then interface or technology. By using the body intuition it might reveal internal paths about self-discovering and self-knowledge.

The ‘interface/instrument’ is currently in the middle stages of development, were the computer-vision and particles system structure is almost completed. For the first NIP workshop a functional prototype will be ready and I hope to improve and learn with the workshop leaders and participants, subjects and understandings that hopefully will increase the quality of my work.

From Zachary Lieberman and STEIM I am interested to learn how musical sound synthesis in C/ C++ because in the first prototype I will use MAX/MSP to render the sound synthesis and I would like to learn and work with a C source coding to encapsulate it in my software. Also I’d like to learn and discuss theoretical concepts about the work with all lead artists and participants.

As an artist, filmmaker and live performer, Torsten Lauschmann celebrates glitches and out-takes, bits in between and images that might be easy to ignore. Based in Glasgow, Scotland over the past decade Torsten’s work has evolved beyond straight photography and film works to investigate the mechanics of digital processes, software creation, experimental editing, approaches to performance and the sculptural potential of video installation. He creates new software for mixing AV freely available to all, holds workshops and screenings on video art practices, and produces sites specifically for other new media practices.

Torsten’s project on their previous show World Jump Day is considered one of the most successful viral jam projects in 2005 as it encouraged scientists and bloggers to discuss the implications of everyone jumping at the same time and potentially shifting the earth’s orbit and reversing global warming. Other projects such as Cold Water Quartet (2003) an audio-visual quarter founded by Torsten and three cold-water fish. ‘Single Fish’ on Bass, ‘Special Fish’ on Piano, ‘Animal’ on drums, with additional sounds and beats by Torsten and Slender Whiteman (2002) a one-man trans-European busking tour, with a solar powered dub system, highlight Torsten’s playful approach to the use and misuse of digital technology in his practice.

Since the mid-1990s Torsten has been exhibiting and performing his artwork/videos/music/software in the UK and internationally, including regular music/DJ collaborative projects (e.g Idealhome, Vene Hammerschlag and the online magazine Egoburger). His work has been shown at the Venice Biennale (2003, 2005) and he received a BAFTA nomination (2000) for his video work ‘Remember things before they happen’.

Torsten N.I.P. interests

In participating in NIP, I hope to be able to share and develop skills and try new or different hardwares and softwares, which could support my current projects and ideas. I am very interested in the stripped down human aspects in Zach Lieberman’s practice. The balance and problem of entertainment and a more functional side of new media (Nesta Project). I am also interested in hearing about processing, which would be helpful for the use of my arduino projects. He also looks like a nice chap.

Michel Waisvisz take on musical interfaces and software, I am especially interested, particularly the software Lick machine, which I think will be very useful for my current project (in development) a orchestral (Hoover and Drill) performance. I also hope I can have a go on a fantastic crackle box.

Christina Kubish’s use of magnetic induction audio works in relation to mobile phone interferences. Also Christina use of light and sound and how that can relate or be used with real-time video. I like the combination of strong physical presence of materials with sound and the use of other energy sources, such as solar power, which is something I have used in a previous project (Slender White Man).

With a background in visual art and music, Kathy Hinde creates work which combines audio and visual elements. Over the last few years much of her work has been collaborative, working with performers from various disciplines (eg musicians, dancers, theatre performers, live artists).

Kathy has experimented with methods of mixing images live, projected onto different surfaces (including large scale out-door projections) using multiple images, live camera feeds, attaching wireless cameras to performers and sampling and manipulating video from live cameras. She is interested in how the lo-tech can be combined with the hi-tech and has used super8 projections, old slide projectors, hand wound music boxes and toy pianos, alongside digitally manipulated images and sound.

Kathy’s solo and collaborative work has been shown across the UK, Europe, China and South America and she has collaborated with leading contemporary musicians and composers within the UK, such as Joanna MacGregor and Stephen Montague, the international choregrapher Jin Xing and currently is touring with Agrare.

Kathy’s N.I.P. interests

The main ideas that I would like to explore during N.I.P. are approaches to intuitive image mixing and generating systems to improvise with image - similar to how you would jam with a musical instrument in conjunction with sound and live performance.

Conceptually I am interested continuing to develop my work on site-specific performances, where the performer maybe ‘absent’ or remote. Other concepts, which I am exploring in my work include memory, confusion of past/present/future, revealing the invisible, mediated communication, audience involvement / interaction. In attending the N.I.P. 2007 workshops, I would like to learning more about the systems that the lead artists have used and how similar ideas such as ‘invisibility’ in Zach LIberman’s work or memory in Christina Kubish’s work and mediated communication in Michel Waisvisz work has been articulated and expressed.

My practice already involves collaborating with performers. N.I.P. would help me expand my current methods of working with image and sound in a live performance context. I would like to develop a more in depth knowledge of how I can use new technology in my work.

Having the opportunity to develop something over a long period of time with regular practical input would give me the rare opportunity to research current ideas and techniques in more depth.

As an artist I enjoy collaborating and value the experience of creating with other artists. N.I.P. provides the opportunity to work alongside a group of like-minded creative practitioners and gain critical feedback and support from distinguished lead artists. NIP opens up possibilities of new collaborations and exhibiting / showcasing opportunities.

Since the late 1990s, André Gonçalves has been working in several artistic fields such as painting, music, video, installation and performance. In 2002, André began developing ‘do-it-yourself’ electronics, experimenting with sensor interfaces, soldering and programming to create personalized inter-media works. Recently projects have included collecting and recycling found electronic hardware and hacking them to create analog devices, which act like bots and have specific functions such as printing, drawing. The bot’s actions are orchestrated by PIC micro-controllers, which are small computer processors than can be programmable for controlling multiple devices, from motor sensors to heavy-duty 220v gear. Using such methods the functions and mechanisms the bots are developed to self-create TV-like graphics and sound.

André N.I.P. interests

Resonant Objects
This project explores the acoustic resonance phenomenon, bringing together sound and space through sympathetic vibrations, in which sound is used as a medium to excite space to be heard, in order to render audible it’s natural resonances. The version I hope to work on during N.I.P., will make use of several diferent hollow glass objects, each one attached to a separate system containing one solenid, a circuit board, a microphone, a speaker, an infrared sensor and one electrical lamp, these system nodes will be connected to one microprocessor board that will make them work in a network as one single interface for resonance triggering and control.

Teresa’s artistic practice and research explores the interface between real and virtual environments in a variety of settings. Her background as a researcher in educational psychology, technology and design and live arts informs her multidisciplinary perspective. Having worked in academia (1999-2003) she left to persue more applied research, working at Futurelab, Bristol as their Innovations Researcher (2003-6). Teresa has presented her work nationally and internationally and has published on collaborative creativity, music technology, innovation and design.

Since the late 1990s Teresa has also worked as a producer/director and performer. In 1996, when she was a student she formed Polar Produce, a media and performance group working across various disciplines. Between 1996-9 the company produced a variety of one of events in clubs and community centres. In 2005, Teresa resurrected the company and since then worked has worked as its artistic lead. Alongside Polar Produce, Teresa has worked as a freelance performer for various companies and partnerships including Pearson/Brookes et al and Paul and Paula.

Teresa’s live art and performance-based work is often durational, site-specific and participatory. The notion of chance, play and emergence are key themes in her performance, research and design work. She is particularly interested in creating work, which peels back the architecture of a place or space (building, outdoor space) to examine how people navigate and use it, revealing the visible or explicit and invisible or implicit histories, discourses and knowledge that it contains. This kind of work is best illustrated in her recent collaborative projects as part of the collective Polar Produce, namely Measc (2005), a three-hour performance, which took place in a 18th century museum/chapel and explored our responses to consumerism and production. The piece used tag technologies as a means for performers and audience members to interact (eg by using the tags to navigate the space and trigger content - music, graphics, film, sound). Similarly Taking Ground (2006), also worked physically with the architecture and layout of the site. A completely lo-fi piece, it extended the idea of journeys and navigation through space as the audience were lead on a ‘tour’ by six performers on a section of Bristol’s Harbor side, where facts and fictions about the place were recounted and revealed.

Currently Polar Produce is commissioned by the BBC to work on the pervasive computing project, Participate. Aside from working on developing NIP, Teresa is also leading on developing OFFLOAD, media arts festival on nature, sustainability and ecology, 13th-16th Sept, Bristol.

Isaac’s background is in visual art and communication, he has worked across film, theatre and sculpture creating set designs, customs and kinetic sculptures. Isaac’s interest in interdisciplinary practice and kinetic sculpture began in the late 1990s, when he participated in the Musica viva festival in Lisbon, Portugal. Building on this he worked as an assistant designer and technician for the theater group ‘O OLHO’ for their Expo98 show in Lisbon. He has also worked as a production assistant on various dance films including, ‘To A Woman’s Heart’, by choreographer Karin Post and director Bob Bentley and ‘One ride Pony’, by Alex Vermeulen.

In 2002 Isaac was commissioned by theater Group ZT HOLLADIA to create the set design, costume and visual concept for the music theatre piece ‘SPINOZA’, directed by Paul Koek in partnership with De Singel, International Art Center, Antwerp. Later works such as Falling Angels(2002) and ‘Whitening’ (2006) extended Isaac’s interest in creating dramatic, visual and interactive or kinetic sculptures. For example, in his work “Falling Angels” a collaboration with visual artist Osnat Weiss, as hanging cubes of ice melt, their sounds are picked up by motion detectors and microphones and amplified.

Currently Isaac is on a six month residency at Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart. Prior to this he held a study grant (1998-1999) at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. Isaac’s work has been shown internationally across Europe, South Africa and the US.

Isaac N.I.P. interests

What I would like to develop during the workshop series is a controller focusing on contemplation. A general concern in the work is haw to translate movement, sound and color so that it can be experienced intuitively with some sense of collective understanding added to it. The idea is to create an interface in which two or more performers can alter the physical space or objects in that same performing space by means of subtly moving in the space.With this I am interested in controlling or manipulating a 3D, physical space or objects, as part of one single living organism in whish performers by moving can create fragmentize narratives of their own.In attending NIP, I am interested in finding out more about Zachary Lieberman’s ‘playful and enigmatic’ ideas and methods of exploring the nature of communication and the boundary between the visible and the invisible. Michel Waisvisz virtuosism as a performer and instrument maker, particularly his experience in using sensors and touch as a means for creating music and electronic sounds. Christina Kubisch redefinition of relationships between material and form. Lotta’s work on how live-electronic sounds trigged by the movement of dancers can deepen and allow for new ways of interaction between dance and other art forms. Overall I have found relevant aspects from each lead artists work that I believe will add and challenge my artistic practice.

As a media artist and architect, Sonia is fascinated by how human beings experience space and how humans, as perceivers, reconstruct the internal and external world by means of our sensory system. Taking a subjective and personalized notion of space and body, Sonia’s work includes the creation of sensory and perceptual mechanisms in immersive and augmented environments. Her work examines how consciousness, perception and identity emerge in such settings.

Over the last few years, Sonia has been specifically interested in a field of research concerning the ‘Body as Interface’, developing what she refers to as a ‘Performance Space Expression’ in which the personal experience of space is an illusion, and in which gesture, visuals and sound play an important part.

This investigation deals with how we reveal our existence to others. Working with the ‘Body as Interface’, Sonia takes the idea of people as attractors or containers of interconnected-events. Interactivity is experienced through the body and used to explore the possibility of distance from and within ones personal environment, how certain freedoms can provoke experiences of extension and how from our lonely subjective position we can gain access to undiscovered, imaginative, shared phenomena.

Sonia N.I.P. interests

During the NIP workshop series I would like to investigate technological devices to further develop a prototype, which I’m currently working on a performance between myself and an android character. Building on my previous work, this project will continue my investigations into how we experience digital and physical space and how people’s perceptions of their environment can influence their social interaction within that environment (e.g., intimate, personal, social and public space).

Rigging my body with sensors, I am interested in exploring how ’sense’ can be mapped through: eye tracking, speech recognition, environmental audio recording, electric field sensing, muscle sensors, camera based motion capture, wearable and environmental sensors, gestural input, kinetic responses, real-time video/audio out outs, networked communication etc. Through these devises I pick up environmental information, which will be translated onto screens and acoustic coordinates in space, which are mapped on to an android character. I am particularly interested in examining how our ’sense’ of intimacy and emotion can be mapped on to the android character. To achieve this project, I will need to collaborate with others working within interaction engineering, interactive systems design, network and communication technology, musicians/composers and programmers, as it would be inspiring to work together with dancers, choreographers etc.

Since 1995, Lotta Melin has been internationally established (in USA, Asia and Europe) and considered one of the most unique dance improvisers (’instant choreographer’) in the field. Her choreography and visceral, visual performance pieces are frequently created in collaboration with visual or sound artists. Melin is particularly interested in how live-electronic sounds trigged by the movement of dancers can deepen and allow for new ways of interaction between dance and other art forms.

Over the years as a choreographer and dancer Melin has worked for the German ensemble Die Audiogruppe,Sonic Youth, Jaap Blonk, Mats Gustafsson, Barry Guy, Michael Zerang, and Leif Elggren. Currently Melin develops and tours work with the performance group Agrare, who use music and motion to co-create strong, absurd and highly originally works. Agrare’s recent European tour played at the Bath Music Festival 2006 to critical acclaim. Melin is also working on a new show Behind Beyond, which premieres in Stockholm in February 2007.

Christina Kubisch belongs to the first generation of sound artists. Trained as a composer, she studied painting, music (flute and composition) and electronics in Hamburg, Graz, Zürich and Milano, where she graduated. Her work can be described as the “synthesis of arts” - the discovery of acoustic space and the dimension of time in the visual arts on the one hand, and a redefinition of relationships between material and form on the other. Kubisch is best known for artistically and innovatively using techniques such as magnetic induction and ultraviolet light to create and realise her work.Since the 1970’s Kubisch has been experimenting with electromagnetic induction and was one of the first to use this method for creating sound installations. Some of her most well know works include the Electrical Walks series, where audience wear magnetic headphones, specially designed by Kubisch, with built-in coils that respond to electrical fields in the environment. Tapping into the electrical fields that result from light systems, anti-theft security devices, surveillance cameras, cell phones, computers, antennae, automated teller machines and other electric devices, she uses these visible sources to create unique and new sensory environmental experiences.

In the mid-1980s, Kubisch began to incorporate light as a compositional tool in many works, for example in the installation “Skylines” at the documenta 8, Kassel; the installation “Klang Raum Licht Zeit” and more recently Licht Himmel a permanent light sound installation at Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany. Since 2003 Kubisch has begun to work again as a performer and collaborates with various musicians and dancers, one of whom is Lotta Melin, with whom she will be co-facilitating the Lisbon workshop. An internationally recognised artist, Kubisch has shown work at major international exhibitions and festivals (Venice Benniale, documenta 8, Kassel, Ars Electronica, Linz, Sydney Benniale, Sonar, Barcelona and Sonic Boom, London) performing around the world she has received numerous grants and awards and her music has been realised on various labels such as Cramps Records and Edition RZ. Kubisch has been visiting professor in Maastricht, Paris and Berlin and since 1994, is currently the professor for sound art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Saarbrücken, Germany.

Michel Waisvisz is a pioneering composer, performer and instrument maker who for the last thirty years has been developing new ways to achieve physical touch with electronic music instruments.

Recognised as one of the first to develop and perform using gestural controllers and synthesizers on stage, over the years he has collaborated with amongst others: Laurie Anderson, DJ Spooky, Truus de Goort, Shelly Hirsch, Maarten Altena, Moniek Toebosch, Richard Teitelbaum, Steve Lacy, Frans Zwartjes, Misha Mengelberg, and many others.

An internationally renowned performer, Waisvisz has played in major international concert halls and arts spaces (e.g., Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Louvre, Paris and The Kitchen, New York) at various festivals (Mutek, Montreal; Berlin Philmarmonika, Exploratorium, San Francisco) and in clubs and smaller venues across Europe. Over the years he has received commissions for compositions by The San Francisco Symphony, IRCAM, Paris, and WDR studio for electronic music in Köln and so forth.

Besides his work as composer Waisvisz has created series of instrumental inventions, the most renowned being The Crackle Box, The Hands, and The Lick Machine, all which have explored the use of sensors and touch as a means for creating music and electronic sounds. Many of these instruments were considered breakthroughs at the time when electronic music was still considered merely a studio-art.

Other initiatives Waisvisz has been involved with include the Lisa Software, which he co-developed with Frank Bald and which is now used by many sound artists. While Image/ine the software he co-developed with together with Tom Demeyer and Steina Vasulk has become a forerunner of VJ software’s such as Arkaos, Jitter and Isadora.

As an organiser Waisvisz has contributed to, or founded, many of the new music festivals and electric art manifestations in the Netherlands, such as Claxon Sound Festival, Pandora’s Music Box and Rumori Festival. Since its initiation in the early eighties he has directed/lead the STEIM foundation, which is now recognised as a major international research and development centre for new instruments for live electronic music and also the visual arts, and an international meeting place for those who work in electronic performance and new media culture.

Zachary Lieberman’s work uses technology in a playful and enigmatic way to explore the nature of communication and the delicate boundary between the visible and the invisible. He creates performances, installations, and on-line works that investigate gestural input, augmentation of the body, and kinetic response.

Working with collaborator Golan Levin, he created a series of installations Remark and Hidden Worlds, which presented different interpretations of what the voice might look like if we could see our own speech. These were followed with Messa Di Voce a concert performance in which the speech, shouts and songs of two abstract vocalists were radically augmented in real-time by interactive visualization software. The collaborators were recently nominated for Wired magazine’s artist of the year award and have toured and exhibited their works widely, much to the delight of their audiences.

Lieberman has held artist residencies at Ars Electronica Futurelab Ars Electronica Futurelab, Eyebeam, and most recently at Dance Theatre Workshop, where he investigated how technology might be used to aid the choreographic process.

He is currently touring a concert-performance, Drawn in which live painted forms appear to come to life, rising off the page and reacting to the world around them. Lieberman also recently developed with NESTA a suite of software for disabled students that transforms their movement into an audio-visual response as a means for performance and self-expression.

Workshop 3

Location: Restart, Lisbon
Media, training and performance centre.
Dates: 19th-21st September 2007
Lead artists: Christina Kubisch (DE), sound artist and composer and Professor for Sound Art, Saarbrücken, Germany and Lotta Melin (SWE), sound artist + dancer. Both artists collaborate together and work across theatre, dance and installation, using a variety of sound sources (magnetic fields, solar power, sensors etc) to create work interactive and live performance works.
Participating artists: Tom Bugs (UK), Isaac Carlos (NL), Sonia Cillari (NL), Teresa Dillon (IRL/UK), André Gonçalves (PT), Kathy Hinde (UK), Vitor Joaquim (PT), Torsten Lauschmann (UK), Rudolfo Quintas (PT), André Sier (PT), Tom Verbruggen (NL).

For full details of the integrated Lisbon programme go to:

NIP+Sonic Scope+Upgrade!Lisbon: Special Edition

Workshop 2

Location: STEIM, Amsterdam
Center for Research and Development of instruments and tools for performers in the electronic performance arts.
Date: 19th - 21st June 2007
Lead artist: Michel Waisvisz (NL), Composer, performer and instrument maker and the director of STEIM. Working in the area of hand held interfaces/instruments for live performance in a variety of contexts.
Participating artists: Tom Bugs (UK), Sonia Cillari (NL), Isaac Carlos (NL), Teresa Dillon (IRL/UK), Ivan Franco (PT), André Gonçalves (PT), Kathy Hinde (UK), Torsten Lauschmann (UK), Rudolfo Quintas (PT), Tom Verbruggen (NL), André Sier (PT).

Public Performance Schedule

NIP @ STEIM, AMSTERDAM
Live Performances: Wednesday 20th June 2007
Time: 20.00
Venue: STEIM, Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam
Admission: £5
Reservations and more information: knock@steim.nl or 020-6228690

For the live performances at STEIM, Amsterdam the NIP artists will be joined by STEIM director Michel Waisviz. Together the group will create an evening of short compositions and performances using existing and emerging techniques for live and gesture-based performance interaction.

Performance Schedule

BOP UK
BOP are Teresa Dillon and Kathy Hinde. Together they draw on contemporary audio-visual and live art techniques to create playful and brutal real-time compositions

Feltro, PT
Delicate and resonant computer music compositions by Portuguese multimedia artist André Gonçalves

Michel Waisviz, NL
Composer, musician, instrument maker and director of STEIM, Michel Waisviz will create a short The Hands improvisation with visuals from André Gonçalves

Ivan Franco, Air Stick, PT
Ivan Franco will play his self-made ‘Airstick’ a Theremin style, physical instrument for gesture based musical performances

Tom Bugs, UK, and Hilary Jeffery, NL
NIP participant Tom Bugs teams up with local Amsterdam artist and musician Hilary Jeffery. Over the last year Bugs and Jeffery have been performing together creating droned out sounds on trombone and tromboscillator.

TokTek, NL
Visual artist and sound maker, TokTek ‘plays’ his rocked out, joystick live set.

We have now completed the first workshop for NIP, in Bristol. The workshop and public performances were a great success and thanks to all the people who supported the event and travelled from varying parts of the world (Finland, Germany, Australia, Ireland) and the UK to join us. Documentation of the workshop will be available via the artists blog and under the resource page of this website.

Workshop 1

Location: Bristol, UK
Dates: 30th March - 1st April 2007
Lead artist: Zach Lieberman (US), Visual artist working with sound and image using gestural interfaces for performance and public interaction.
Participating artists: Tom Bugs (UK), Sonia Cillari (NL), Isaac Carlos (NL), Teresa Dillon (IRL/UK), André Gonçalves (PT), Kathy Hinde (UK), Torsten Lauschmann (UK), Rudolfo Quintas (PT), André Sier (PT), Tom Verbruggen (NL).

Public Talks and Performance Schedule

Friday 30th March 2007
13.00-21.00: Watershed (Admission free)

New Interfaces for Performance (NIP) Artists’ Presentations
Gesture based Interfaces for Live Performance
Tickets: All sessions take place in Waterside 3 and are ticketed individually. All sessions are free, please collect a ticket from Watershed Box Office on the day. Session Three ticket includes access into Random Function.

Session One ‘The Body as the Interface’
1300hrs - 1500hrs
Presenting artists: Teresa Dillon (UK), Rudolfo Quintas (PL), and Sonia Cillari (NL)

Session Two ‘Material Worlds - Objects, Site and Sound as the primary source’
1530hrs - 1800hrs
Presenting artists: Kathy Hinde (UK), Isaac Carlos (NL), Tom Bugs (UK), André Gonçalves, (PL)

Session Three ‘Emergent and Sensory Connectivity’ plus Random Function
1830hrs - 2100hrs (NIP artists Presentations)
2100hrs - 2230hrs (Random Function performance event)
Session Three links up with Bristol’s regular experimental sound and improvisation event Random Function.
Following NIP artists’ presentations by André Sier (PL), Tom Verbruggan (NL), Torsten Lauschmann (UK), and Zachary Lieberman (US), Random Function will continue the evening with its open and eclectic mix of electronic music and sonic arts.

Saturday 31th March 2007
20.00-22.30: Arnolfini, Dark Studio (Admission £3)
Live performances by Zachary Lieberman (US), Torsten Lauschmann (UK), André Sier (PT) and Tom Verbruggen (NL).

Sunday 1st April 2007
20.00-23.00: Cube Cinema (Admission £2)
Live performances by local artists working in the field of new interfaces, including Tom Bugs (UK), Matt Olden+Jungulator (UK), special performance from Tom Verbruggen (NL) with tunes provided by DJ Placid (UK).

The resource page will be updated once the workshops begin.

Resources will include footage from the workshops, artists presentations and other related media.

Overview

At each host location (Bristol, Amsterdam, Lisbon) a lead artist will facilitate a three-day workshop. The workshops are only open to participating artists invited from the UK, The Netherlands and Portugal. The workshop will focus on the lead artist’s practice, what informs the work they produce, the processes they engage in when developing work and the hardware or software they use. The general format for each workshop will be:

• Day 1: Introduction to lead artist and participating artists’ work; ideas etc
• Day 2: Introduction to processes and software/hardware and a practical introduction how to use a particular software or hardware
• Day 3: Continued practical session and discussions/work on developing ideas and how the software could support idea development

As the workshops develop, between each event, participating artists will be expected to work on their ideas and present the outcomes of their developments. Documentation of artist’s progress will be presented online and at subsequent workshops.

N.I.P. is a distributed, mixed media research, touring and network space.

As an artist lead initiative, N.I.P. was established to explore and create new contexts for developing mixed media practices across the performing arts, engineering, visual art, music, computer science, sound art, installation and fine art.

The current focus is on the concept of gesture and movement based interfaces and interactions, within live performance and installation.

N.I.P. has been developed by the artist-researcher-director, Teresa Dillon of Polar Produce, Bristol, UK.

The N.I.P. programme: 2007-2009

Envisaged as a three-year project, the 2007 programme involved a series of workshops and presentations in the UK, The Netherlands and Portugal. Guest workshop leaders included: Zachary Lieberman (US) – computer vision; Michel Waisvisz (NL) – improvisation, sensors and physical computing; Christina Kubisch (DE) and Lotta Melin (SWE) - electromagnetic walks and instant choreography.

The 2008 and 2009 will focus on production, new individual and collective N.I.P. works, research dissemination, residencies, workshops, artist presentations, exhibitions, concerts and other public works.