Patrick Keller, Christian Babski, Christophe Guignard, Stéphane Carion, Manuel Abendroth, Jérôme Decock, Alexandre Plennevaux, Grégoire Verhaegen: fabric | ch vs lab[au] //in electroscape//

  • ©,

Artist Statement:


    The idea behind the project fabric | ch vs lab[au] //in electroscape// is to generate a digital content installation and exhibition within an electroscape virtual environment. The process should be finished by the end of the week in San Antonio. Electroscape is a digital experimentation and exhibition structure previously known under the name La_Fabrique (www.fabric.ch/La_Fabrique). As so, it can also be considered as an anticipative design structure where radical design questions can be asked.

    Two teams of electronic and information architects (fabric | ch and lab[au]) will produce a collaborative and/or antagonist design and thinking around the generic theme of electroscape: digital and mutated landscape, mixed or enhanced reality, information architecture, electrosmog and electromagnetic territories, etc. What are the new memes? The new schemes? What are the new possibilities? And how can technology modify our daily environment? The purpose of this project is to investigate those questions while transforming a pre-existing structure that will be developed as a base for the week in San Antonio: www.electroscape.org will become an open source of ideas, designs and technologies.

Technical Information:


    Christian Babski and Patrick Keller from fabric | ch will both be in San Antonio to produce Electroscape_B. While the work will be partially prepared in advance, the main idea is to fully produce the project within a week thanks to the long-distance collaboration of fabric | ch (in San Antonio), fabric | ch (in Lausanne) and Lab[au] (in Brussels). A Web site will also display Web cam images of the three locations/ teams as well as the program, day by day, of what will take place in San Antonio.

    The different time zones between the three locations will allow the group to have a 16-hour work day! People in Europe will work in their morning and beginning of afternoon, while the group in San Antonio will take over in their morning, perform online tests and have discussions with people in Europe about the night designs, and then work on their own.

    The fact that the final application environment will be a multi-user world will make us try some crash tests of the work in progress and use those crash-test sessions as online meetings between the three teams as well. This will be part of the animation in San Antonio. People can witness the creation and setting up of a real exhibition,
    including the creation of the content. The difference is that it will be 100 percent digital and distributed.

Other Information:


    PROJECT PROPOSAL

    Electroscape is a multi-user 3D environment built with VRML and forthcoming X3D language. In San Antonio, we will work with three laptops. Two of them will be reserved for the project, while a third will serve to catch and display Web cam images of our team working. This third machine will also display the Web site dedicated to the work in progress. A switch will let us choose which of the three screens will be displayed on the large one behind us.

    The Electroscape_B project will utilize both 3D design and programmation design. Both approaches will serve the same project, Electroscape_B, which includes a 3D real-time world, programmation for this 3D world, as well as programmation and modifications of our Rhizoreality.mu server. In this sense, Electroscape_B will also demonstrate live the collaboration between designers and programmers in order to produce a piece of cultural and technological content based on electronic media.