A small report from Pixelvärk ’08

With a little bit of a delay we’re presenting this report about what happened at the rest of Pixelvärk. On saturday the 18th Pixelvärk held their main party at the copper tents in Hagaparken (Stockholm). This year’s focus was put on installations. The theme was described as participatory culture, orientalism, dreams and mirages.
Söderbyggd’s performance was a chemistry lesson as art. Maybe higschool science, but that didn’t make it less good. In their little chemistry lab Sönderbyggd had directed their modified speakers towards their lab table where different substances were reacting to the frequencies of their homemade music compositions. The chemical reaction was filmed and blown up on a video screen. The act was performed twice and in between the performances they had a pair of small installations running. One of the installations was a buzzing pile of dirt. Check out Sönderbyggd’s MySpace page for some video clips.

Joyce Ip was showing an analog skeleton animation.

Interacting Arts had made a beduin tent in a Arabian Nights theme where a film was shown and they were offering water pipe and oriental snacks.
The natural but unofficial after party was held at the club Piggly Wiggly (Nordic Light) where Startsladd was VJing and DJ Jethro was spinning. All VJ-material had been produced earlier that day. As a part of the act they were showing a slideshow of images of the club’s guests that had been shot by the entrance.

On the finishing sunday there were lectures at Mejan Labs. Natalie Aubret from the started with a presentation of the live animation program Animata that has been awarded Pixelache Software of the Year. Following was a lecture on participatory culture by Interacting Arts. I must say that I had a negative attitude from the beginning but warmed up during the lecture and the finishing discussion.
Interacting Arts has written the book “Participatory Culture” where they try to define what participatory culture is and is not. To sum it up they claim that most within art that claims to be interactive is only communicating one way. The viewers can often only interact with the art piece in a way that the artist has pre defined and in that way it is not true participation because the viewers can’t or aren’t allowed to alter the piece the way they want.