Master Touch

source: highlike

Work: Interactive Performance Installation by Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat. Master Touch invites the audience to engage with historical portraits of the Old Masters in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Master Touch is an innovative way to open up data from the digital museum collection and to present and visualize these for an audience. ‘Your face as a tangible interface’ Audience invitation: In ‘Master Touch’ you make your face visible on a big screen by touching your face. By caressing your own face you ‘paint’ your face on a large electronic screen. On the screen your face appears and merges slowly with portraits of the Rijksmuseum collection. Merge your face with master pieces from the Rijksmuseum collection, for example a portrait of Rembrandt or van Gogh. Together with the Old Masters you compose a new portrait here and now. In an a sensitive, playful and innovative way you open up the collection – and make it personal. The artists: “In musea with a digital collection such as the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the reflective audience perception of a painting seems to change. Often a painting becomes a mere physical confirmation of what has been studied digitally: “Here it is for real!” Many nowadays visitors relate to a portrait of Rembrandt or Van Gogh by making a picture with their smart phone’s camera, to confirm their presence with the Old Master’s portrait. This changes a museum in a media event: “I was here!”. ‘Social technologies for a reflective experience’ In this context and to engage the audience in the museum, we researched perception theories from Laura U. Marks on ‘Haptical an Optical Visualisation’. Mark’s ‘Optical Visualisation’ is a controlling form of watching, measuring and defining the image on a distance. In her vision ‘Haptical Visualisation’ is a more embodied, intimate and dwelling way of watching, like ‘caressing with your eyes’; generating an emerging image in time and space, to be never completely defined. 
In ‘Master Touch’ we play with these two ways of watching. With your face as an interface, we connect face-recognition-technologies to the intimate, emotional act of face-caressing.” Master Touch Ritual: 1. START the camera to make a portrait of your face. 2. CARESS YOUR FACE AND and ‘paint’ it this way on the big screen. Caress slowly as if you caress your lovers’ face. 3. SAVE to merge your face with the Old Masters’ portrait. WATCHING IS TOUCHING ON A DISTANCE How does it feel to become visible on the screen by touching your face? What is the difference between watching from a distance, and ‘watching through touching’in Master Touch? Can you watch through the act of touching?

Performance & Installation @ Rijks Museum Amsterdam Credits: In collaboration with and thanks to Shailoh Phillips and Amber van der Chijs, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. With kind support of: Mondriaan Fonds, MediaFonds, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, MediaFonds@ Sandberg, Festival a/d Werf Utrecht, KTH Stockholm, EIC ICT Presence Research group, Technical University of Delft. Technical support: Sylvain Vriens, Tim Olden, Mart van Bree, Matthijs ten Berge.
Photographer: Hermen Maat
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source: lancelmaatnl

‘Master Touch:’ an innovative way to open up digital museum collection data; to present and visualize these for an audience.

Your face as a tangible interface
Audience invitation:
In ‘Master Touch’ you make your face visible on a big screen by touching your face. By caressing your own face you ‘paint’ your face on a large electronic screen. On the screen your face appears and merges slowly with portraits of the Rijksmuseum collection.
Merge your face with master pieces from the Rijksmuseum collection, for example a portrait of Rembrandt or van Gogh. Together with the Old Masters you compose a new portrait here and now. In an a sensitive, playful and innovative way you open up the collection and make it personal.

The artists: “In musea with a digital collection such as the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the reflective audience perception of a painting seems to change. A painting becomes a mere physical confirmation of what has been studied digitally: “Here it is for real!” Many nowadays visitors relate to a portrait of Rembrandt or Van Gogh by making a picture with their smart phone’s camera, to confirm their presence with the Old Master’s portrait. This changes a museum in a media event: “I was here!”.

Social technologies for a reflective experience.
In this context we researched perception theories from Laura U. Marks on ‘Haptical an Optical Visualisation’. Mark’s ‘Optical Visualisation’ is a controlling form of watching, measuring and defining the image on a distance. In her vision ‘Haptical Visualisation’ is a more embodied, intimate and dwelling way of watching, like ‘caressing with your eyes’; generating an emerging image in time and space, to be never completely defined. 
In ‘Master Touch’ we play with these two ways of watching. With
your face as an interface, we connect face-recognition-technologies
to the intimate, emotional act of face-caressing.”

Master Touch Ritual:
(1) START the camera to make a portrait of your face.
(2) CARESS YOUR FACE AND and ‘paint’ it this way on the big screen. Caress slowly, take your time, as if you caress your lovers’ face.
(3) SAVE to merge your face with the Old Masters’ portrait.

WATCHING IS TOUCHING ON A DISTANCE
How does it feel to become visible on the screen by touching your face?
What is the difference between watching a painting on a distance, and ‘watching through touching’ in Master Touch?
Can you watch through the act of touching?
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source: lancelmaatnl

‘Master Touch’ is een innovatieve manier om data uit de digitale museum collectie te ontsluiten; en te presenteren en visualiseren voor het publiek.

Je gezicht als een aanraakbare interface
In ‘Master Touch’ wordt je zichtbaar op een groot scherm door je gezicht aan te raken. Door je gezicht te strelen, ‘schilder’ je als het ware je gezicht op het scherm; en versmelt je portret langzaam met portretten uit de collectie van het Rijksmuseum. Versmelt je gezicht met meesterwerken uit de Rijksmuseum collectie – bijvoorbeeld met een portret van Rembrandt of van Gogh.
Samen met de oude meesters componeer je een nieuw portret, dat het verleden met het heden verbindt. Op een poëtische, speelse en innovatieve manier open je de collectie – en maak je die voor jou persoonlijk.

Hiervoor onderzochten de kunstenaars waarnemings-thorieën van onder andere Laura U. Marks over ‘Haptical an Optical Visualisation’. Met je gezicht als interface, verbindt het gezichtsherkennings-technologieën met de intieme, emotionele handeling van strelen.

Kijken is aanraken op afstand
Hoe voelt het om zichtbaar te worden op het scherm door je gezicht aan te raken? Wat is voor jou het verschil tussen een schilderij op afstand zien, en kijken door aanraken in ‘Master Touch’? Kun je kijken door aanraken?

Master Touch Ritueel: 1. START en laat de camera een portret maken van je gezicht. – 2. STREEL JE GEZICHT en ‘schilder’ zo je gezicht op het grote scherm. Streel langzaam, neem de tijd, alsof je het gezicht streelt van je geliefde. – 3. SAVE om te versmelten met het portret van de Oude Meester.
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source: lancelmaatnl

‘I am part of the networks and the networks are part of me…I link, therefore I am.’ William J. Mitchell, ME++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City.

Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat design objects, projections and digital networks to create ‘meeting places’ in city public spaces. These ‘meeting places’ are designed as seductive, visual performances and installations. Each ‘meeting place’ or social sculpture functions as an artistic ‘social lab’ in which the artists invite their audience as co-researchers. The audience is invited to experiment and play with social technologies; and to reflect on their perception of the city, and their experience of body, presence, identity and community. Through their artworks Lancel and Maat research contemporary social systems in a mediated society; in smart cities and augmented / immersive spaces. For every ‘meeting place’ they deconstruct existing communication technologies and strategies; and design a new innovative, integrated montage and process of embodied and virtual interaction. The ‘meeting places’ are shown internationally in dynamic urban public spaces such as museums, squares, theatre halls, trains stations; among others in the cities of Seoul, New York, Melbourne, Shanghai, Istanbul, Paris, London, Amsterdam. Through audience interaction Lancel and Maat show social portraits of urban mediated life.

Shows (selection) Ars Electronica Linz, Austria // ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany // Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL // Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, NL // Transmediale Berlin, Germany // Eyebeam, New York, USA // Artfair Artforum Berlin, Germany // Urban Screens 08, Melbourne, AUS // ISEA 04 Helsinki, Finland // Biennale Villette Numerique, Paris, France // Art Center Nabi, Seoul, South-Korea // Smart Project Space Amsterdam, NL // Chinese European Art Center-CEAC, Xiamen // De Appel Amsterdam, NL // DCC Shanghai – World Expo 2010, China // Technical University of Delft // V2_LAB for Unstable Media Rotterdam, NL // Urban Screens 05 Amsterdam, NL // Dutch Institute for Media Art Amsterdam (NIMK), NL // ISEA Istanbul 2011 Turkey // Banff New media Institute Canada // Second New Media Art Exhibition at Millennium Art Museum Beijing, China // Shanghai International Science and Art Expo, China // The Second Art @ Science International Exhibition/Symposium, Tsing Hua University Beijing, China //
Lancel is currently artistic PhD candidate at Technical University of Delft: ‘Participatory Systems Initiative’ (prof dr Frances Brazier, dr Caroline Nevejan). She was member of the Amsterdam School of the Arts (AHK) research group ‘ARTI’ (Artistic research, Theory & Interpretation) of Professors Marijke Hoogenboom and Henk Borgdorff 2008-2011. Maat teaches media art at the Minerva Art Academy Groningen, and is part of the Minerva Academy research group on ‘Image in Context’ of dr. Anke Coumans. Lancel headed the interactive media art department (IME) at MFA Frank Mohr Institute Groningen (core lecturer) 2005-2008.

Entering The Paranoid Panopticum you will run across your own fixation on control. While you will be able to control the visual by mirror and video- projection, a shift in the perception of reality takes place. Controlling changes into fear of being controlled, maximizing control becomes its own threat. In the Paranoid Panopticum you are haunted by your own mirrored projections. You can play with your own projection in a paradox based on the myth of Echo, Narcissus and his mirrored image. At the moment where Narcissus commits suicide, the mirrored image of the visitor is ‘suicided’. At this point the story starts over again.

The text in the installation is based on an Echo play (1923) by Alfred Kreijmborg. The lines of the characters in the play are spoken by Viviane de Muynck and Hermen Maat. The visual appearances of Echo and Narcissus are alternately played by the mirrored projections of the visitor and actress Viviane de Muynck.

In the installation the visitor is haunted by his own, mirrored projections. These projections start a dialogue with the pre-recorded images and texts of an actress and a male voice. This dialogue reflects on ones self-image and is based on the story of Echo and Narcissus. The multiplication of this image through the visual control possibilities of the mirror, live and semi-live video projection alienates the visitor from his own self(image). When the (projected) visitor meets the (projected) actress, he is confronted with his own fixation on control: Who am I? Who do I meet? How am I manipulated? With what image outside myself can I identify? These thoughts become part of the projected video image. At the same time the work shows the surprised the visitor a painterly video-portrait, in which the image of himself meets the image of the actress. The installation consists of a non-transparent privalite-glass, 1 meter high 3 meter long, which can change into a mirror. Opposite this wall there is a projection-screen. The spectator walks in-between the projectionscreen and the mirror. The mirror is permeable from behind so a video camera can record the spectator. This recorded image is projected on the screen opposite the mirror. As a consequence you see yourself looking over your own shoulder in the mirror. On the projection-screen the recorded images of the visitor are played back.

These images are digitally ‘live’ added in a story played by Viviane de Muynck and the Visitor.
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source: lancelmaatnl

Karen Lancel en Hermen Maat ontwerpen ‘ontmoetingsplekken’ voor de publieke ruimte. Deze ‘ontmoetingsplekken’ zijn performances en installaties, die zij ontwerpen als verleidelijke, visuele omgevingen. Elke ‘ontmoetingsplek’ of sociaal sculptuur functioneert als een ‘artistiek sociaal lab’ waarin het publiek deelneemt als ‘co-researcher’. Hier nodigen de kunstenaars het publiek uit om te experimenteren en spelen met sociale technologieën; om zo te reflecteren op hun eigen perceptie van en de stedelijke omgeving, lichaam, identiteit, presence, community. Lancel en Maat onderzoeken sociale systemen in een gemediatiseerde samenleving; in smart cities en augmented / immersive spaces. Voor elke ‘ontmoetingsplek’ deconstrueren zij bestaande communicatie technologieën en strategieën; en ontwerpen een nieuwe, innovative montage en proces van fysieke en virtuele interactie. De ‘ontmoetingsplekken’ tonen sociale portretten van leven in een gemediatiseerde, stedelijke omgeving. De ‘ontmoetingsplekken’ vinden internationaal plaats in dynamische urbane ruimtes zoals museums, pleinen, theater halls, treins stations; van onder andere Seoul, New York, Melbourne, London, Istanbul, Parijs, Amsterdam, Shanghai.
De bezoeker wordt in de installatie achtervolgd door zijn eigen, gespiegelde projecties, die binnen de geprojecteerde ruimte een dialoog aangaan met vooraf opgenomen beelden en tekst van een actrice. Deze dialoog gaat over het zelfbeeld en is gebaseerd op de mythe van Echo en Narcissus. De verdubbeling en veelvoud van het zelfbeeld middels visuele controlemogelijkheden van spiegel, live en semi-live videoprojectie vervreemden de bezoeker van het eigen zelfbeeld. Wanneer de (geprojecteerde) bezoeker een ontmoeting aangaat met de geprojecteerde actrice, confronteert dit met de eigen fixatie op controle: Wie ben ik? En wie ontmoet wie? Wordt ik gemanipuleerd? Met welk beeld buiten mijzelf ik me kan identificeren? Deze gedachten worden onderdeel van het geprojecteerde videobeeld.Tegelijkertijd toon ik aan de gedesoriënteerde en verwonderde blik de schoonheid van een schilderachtig videoportret, waarin het beeld van de kijker en de actrice elkaar ontmoeten.