ART MACHINES: ReCoding Joost Rekveld
An interview with N2048 about the process behind the installation RE#3 and his transition from engineering to creative coding
There is a long line of media artists working with code and machines within the field of media arts, whose practices still inform and influence the works of digital artists today. Upon this rich history, today, there is a new generation of media artists creating new artworks constantly. In order to bridge between the works of the different generations of media artists, and to explore the creative and artistic possibilities of creative coding tools, Creative Coding Utrecht organizes the community around the ART MACHINES theme. For this purpose, on May 18, 2019, we invited artists, coders, and designers to participate in the workshop ART MACHINES: ReCoding with Joost Rekveld. Around 20 participants joined the initial workshop. During the workshop, the participants deconstructed, recoded and interpreted Joost Rekveld’s film #3 made in 1994.
The outcome prototypes of the participants after the workshop were later presented and reviewed by the jury to be selected for the ART MACHINES evening which took place on December 7, 2019. The selected work from the commission was Mauricio van der Maesen de Sombreff’s RE#3.
The workshop was a demonstration of how new experiences can stimulate new forms of interdisciplinary work. An example of this statement is the work of Mauricio van der Maesen de Sombreff, who started his creative journey as an engineer. He now uses his engineering background to implement different concepts to his artistic works.
The process behind Mauricio’s work started off highly technical. After being inspired by the workshop, he proposed many alternatives to the development of the installation. The process included a lot of experimentation. The final installation RE #3 is presented in a way that allows the audience to see the breaking down of the original film to its data structure. The installation reflects how the original material from an artwork can be transcribed in different ways. RE#3 met with the audience for the first time on the 7th of December for the ART MACHINES evening and club night where we witnessed the limitless creative potentials of using code in our interactions with different tools and machines. As part of my research internship at Creative Coding Utrecht, I interviewed Mauricio (N2048) to learn about the journey behind his artistic work and how he developed the installation from the ART MACHINES workshop onwards.
Can you tell a little bit about your background? What did you study and how studying those fields are informing you now in the works that you make?
M: I graduated as a Telecommunications engineer with a strong emphasis on electronics. My thesis was on image processing. During college worked in electronics, repairing radio communication systems and networking GPS using CDPA modems… previously cool stuff. At the same time, as every frustrated musician, I gain a lot of interest in the technical side of audio, so I became a sound engineer. Lots of fun. After a while, I started working more and more hours doing software development and that became my main bread and butter. I wanted to teach Sound Engineering to give a more serious turn to my own interests, but the income wasn’t enough, so the university made a proposal to get a master’s degree, funded by some research in signal processing for a private company. So, I joined the University, did some research and learned a lot of interesting things. After a couple of years, I went back to software development. That lasted for many years. I tend to get bored quite fast, so I had to go through many different companies and topics. This year I decided to give a new turn to my career and started applying my technical background and my interests to more creative fields.
How did you decide to participate in the ART MACHINES workshop?
M: I enjoy experimenting and inventing things. I discovered that one of the most gratifying facts of making art is that I get to create without the need of making it optimal, precise, fast or useful. The process is so much more gratifying than the result. All the creativity can go to try out ideas, just because they are there. I joined the ART MACHINES Workshop to learn from other artists and to get inspired.
What inspired you from Joost Rekveld’s work and how did you come up with ideas for the installation, for example using a vortex stirrer to reflect the visuals?
M: I found his approach of creating a moving mechanical object to use it as a source model for creating art was very aligned with the kind of things I enjoy doing. Hours of designing, testing, repeating, adapting, improving, retrying… sounds a lot like a very engineered approach to art. So I felt immediately connected to his work.
Your installation is the selected work from the commission. How do you present the work and its development process in order for it to communicate with the audience? What kind of reaction do you expect to receive from the audience?
M: In this case, the installation has 2 main parts. The first one simply tries to recreate the aesthetics from film #3, by modifying every aspect of its generation. For example, I use a controlled water vortex instead of a double pendulum to create chaotic motion. I use several sources of light and a couple of cameras to capture the left and right parts of the scenes. Everything gets mixed and processed to generate the final projection that will hopefully remind of the frames in the original film.
The second part takes the original film directly as a source. The video frame is analyzed and streamed as numerical data into the network. Then, different connected elements will give this data a different interpretation and generate new visuals. I think that the process of breaking something to use it in the creation of something new is not at all a strange concept, but it brings up the idea of amplifying the potential of the more abstract elements. So far I have no idea what reaction to expect from the audience. I had a small part of this installation on display during the last BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer) in Utrecht, and I found that some people were very curious about this thing moving on the floor, and some were playing with the projected shadows. For me, the learning process also includes this spectrum of possible reactions, so hopefully, I’ll be able to anticipate them and use them as part of the work for more interactive pieces.
What did you learn from the workshop and later from the phase of developing the installation?
M: This answer might be biased by the fact that my project was selected, but I learned that I should never fail to try.
How did you make use of various materials and tools? Which parts of this process require the most care and attention?
M: Every part of the installation was transformed and re-defined a million times. The tools I used didn’t change that much. I use Processing, Max8, and VDMX. My hardware choices are Arduino and Raspberry boards, The first version of the installation, as it was originally presented, created the reinterpretation of the data and projected that through the water vortex, to be later captured, filtered and re-projected as the main output. The addition of DMX lights was an interesting choice and allowed me to learn a few more skills. Every step was an inspiration for many new ideas. It was very hard to maintain focus and finish a complete version without first starting with the next. I think I could work on making the parts of the installation a lot more good-looking. Now it’s clearly a DIY garage looking thing, but I believe it has some potential.
How do you approach to coding in your works, what place does it have in the technical process behind the works, do you use it as an artistic tool, what kept you inspired during your work?
M: Of course, I come from a background in software development. I always try to split the ideas into as many small parts as I can (this applies to code and to hardware), so they can be tried out independently. Also, I make an effort to make the code reusable for new projects. I do have some ideas for artistic proposals that involve technical concepts like “microservices”. And there are many tools available that make this very possible and fun to try in a video-art scenario. You can, for example, create small pieces of real-time video sources using Processing or GLSL shaders, and connect them using tools like Syphon. So, the video output of the first “micro-process” can become the texture for a 3D model created on a separate, independent process, that can be later sent to VDMX to apply some filters… The possibilities are endless.
What were the difficulties you faced while developing the installation and how do you tackle those difficulties?
M: The biggest challenge was to stay focused while being so new in this field. Because everything is new, it easily becomes very interesting, so I keep wanting to spend more time in this or that new technology and experiment with every new idea. And of course, the more you learn, the more you become aware of how much more there is out there.
What projects do you have in mind for the future?
M: I’m currently working on a duo project with the choreographer and dancer Evangelos Biscas, trying to combine some machine learning techniques to generate a live performance that generates video in reaction to a live music feed. The generated video output is learned from hours and hours of video recorded from Evangelos’s dance improvisation techniques. I’m also presenting a second duo with Eirini Kalaitzidi, also a choreographer and dancer, in which we’ll be creating choreography for the brain. The idea is to create a script that will trigger different states into the performer’s mind. We’ll then use EEG sensors to track the brainwaves of the performer to control animations, lights, and soundscape. So, in essence, we’ll be creating choreography for brain activity. The performer’s brainwaves will be responsible for controlling all the visual elements.
Mavi Irmak Karademirler is an RMA student in Media, Art and Performance Studies at Utrecht University. As a research intern at Creative Coding Utrecht, she is interested in exploring the intersections of creative coding with other fields in thought and practice; its place within music, performance, art, and design.
