Brussels' MediaRuimte hosts Paweł Janicki's interactive project as the second stop on its exploration of EU relativity in the cyber world
Paweł Janicki's EU_tracer transforms Internet traffic into a variety of audiovisual forms. Data from assorted institutions of the European Union are translated into elaborate visual and musical structures - forming the building blocks for a work of art. The first installement of the EU-tracer performance tour took place in Mińsk in September at the Y Gallery (ygallery.by). This month it comes to Brussels' MediaRuimte '01t XYZ' centre. MediaRuimte functions as the gallery space for Lab[au] and a platform for digital design and its many forms of expression. It hosts a series of exhibitions, presentations, conferences and workshops from professionals working in the electronic arts.
The specially-designed software scans messages and information on the Internet not for their contents, but for the dynamics of the interrelations among these diverse strands of data. The system then translates this data into graphic meta-structures and musical forms that are presented to a wider audience - essentially transmitting that data back to the users. The site of each performance is a significant aspect of the project as each particular geographic location affects the data flow and availability.
Ultimately, it will create a sort of cyber-cartograpic trail leading through the digital-information universe. The navigator in each case will be a guest musician associated with the particular location, using an acoustic instrument to improvise on the flow of Internet data. The musicians, in addition to acting as collaborators whose inventiveness will shape the work, also serve as a symbolic representative of his or her community in European/global digital communication space.
The EU_tracer project continues Paweł Janicki's exploration of themes that have recurred in his work: the use of the esthetic aspects of information systems and interactive designs based on the intuitive behavior of the viewers/listeners. EU_tracer expands on Janicki's musical network performance Ping Melody (performed at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Gare Du Nord in Basel and the National Museum in Wrocław, among other places), the Web/Net Eater installation and the Mapping Chopin project (featured at the 2010 Warsaw Autumn Contemporary MusicFestival). These projects explore the changes a signal undergoes between source and destination through sound and image. Each time, the effect is different depending on the particular conditions, circumstances and relativity for each transmission.
In the autumn, EU_tracer travels to Paris following the Brussels edition, showing at the Plateforme Galerie.
The project has been curated by Małgorzata Sobolewska, commissioned by the Adam Mickiwicz Institute and carried out by the WRO Art Center.
Paweł Janicki (born in 1974) is an artist whose work is based on interactive audiovisual systems, installations and performances, with a focus on microsound and algorithmic composition. He majored in cultural studies at Wrocław University and today works with the WRO Art Center as a curator and head of R&D, and teaches in the Intermedia Department of the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts. In 2004 his internet musical performance Ping Melody was awarded the netarts.org grand prize by the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts in Tokyo, and was nominated for an award at the Viper International Film, Video and New Media Festival in Basel. Janicki is a co-founder and longtimemember of the Gameboyzz OrchestraProject, a collective exploing "lo-fi" esthetics, using computergaming cosoles to create audiovisual compositions that have been presented at the WRO Media Art Biennale (Wrocław), the Transmediale festival (Berlin) and Ars Electronica (Linz). Janicki is also one of the main artists whose works are featured in WRO's Interactive Playground, a groundbreaking new media exhibition for younger audiences, which has been shown in 10 cities in Poland and seen by more than 150 000 visitors. He is currently working on an installation entitled Oceanus, commissioned for the EU Moving Stories project, in addition to the EU_tracer performance installation.
For more information on the artist and his projects see: paweljanicki.jp
Date: 18th of December, 2011
Venue: MediaRuimte Gallery, Lakensestraat 104 / rue de Laeken, Brussels
Organised by: Adam Mickiewicz Institute, WRO Art Center
Project cofinanced by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
Source: Adam Mickiewicz Institute