News
After a year being based at Fabrika in Leicester, the Interact Gallery is on the move. The people behind the Fabrika space have decided to relocate to a new premises on Belgrave Gate and will no longer have the space to host a dedicated digital gallery.
While this is a little sad, it's not a disaster. Interact will continue as a curatorial organisation, and the new Fabrika (name tbc) will now just be one of many venues in Leicester that we will use for live events and exhibitions.
This news of the move has led us to change a few of our plans for the autumn but, as you find out shortly, Interact will still be helping to bring a great set of interactive and digital arts events and exhibitions to Leicester for the final quarter of 2012.
The Interact "pop up" gallery at Summer Sundae this weekend seemed to go down very well. The centrepiece was an interactive installation by Genetic Moo in which you got to "swim" with weird and wonderful creatures composed of human body parts! Depending on the perspective of the viewer, there were many cries of "cool" and "wow", as well as "urgh" and "disgusting". Pictures from the installation can be found at http://flic.kr/s/aHsjBvGP6S and there is a short video at http://youtu.be/2ZHYLGjVaoQ.
Thanks to those who played, contributed and came to the Interact event at Fabrika last night. The event was part of the annual Leicester Fringe Thursday, which raises money for local charity LOROS. We don't know who much was raised yet but I think the whole Fringe Festival did pretty well this year. See my pictures from our event here, as well as a video of Muted Fnord playing here.
On Saturday Fabrika and the Interact Gallery hosted Leicester's first BYOB (Bring your Own Beamer) on Saturday. The event was put together by local VJ Tony Coleman and friends and collaborators and featured projections from local artists and VJs, as well as work form people further afield. I was really impressed with the range of work on display - in fact I think it was one of the best looking events we have done at Fabrika.
Two pieces will remain in the gallery for the next few weeks - an interactive picture by Mogli and a projection mapping piece by Oli Sorenson. On the 16th August they will be joined by more work as part of our Leicester Fringe digital art and electronic music event.
If you missed this BYOB then watch out for the next one in 6 months or so. See pictures from the event here and a video walkhrough here.
The "Letters and Bridges" telematic performance took place at the Interact Gallery yesterday. Vocalists in Leicester and Mexico City performed a number of pieces together over a distance of 5,400 miles via a high-quality internet audio link.
There was one hick-up when the connection dropped, but on the whole the link worked very well and the audience was treated to an interesting, experimental, and very personal performance.
It was the result of a number of workshops and rehearsals led by Ximena Alarcón as part of her Networked Migrations project. Pictures and video from the project can be found on the Interact Gallery website at networkedmigrations.html.
We ran another technical session today testing the audio link to Mexico as part of the Networked Migrations project. The project is running a bit later than planned due to connectivity issues in Mexico, but we have now managed to establish a high quality audio session with them using the SoundJack programme.
There will now be a workshop during the week and then next Saturday (5th May) we will be running the first joint performance. See here for some pictures of the recent link-up.
Simon Faithfull's exhibition at Interact was officially opened today. We plan to run the show a little longer than originally planned, so you will be able to view the work right up until the end of May now. See this Flickr page for the current images on display.
We also ran an Interact Live event with music from Muted Fnord and visuals by Sean Clark. It was a really good set. See this Flickr page for pictures.
We were setting up our next exhibition at Interact today. The Simon Faithfull exhibition will open next week at both Interact and Phoenix Square. See our project page for details.
The Interact Gallery held its first event as part of the Network Migrations project today in the form of a Jacktrip training session with the group in Mexico. As part of a three-way Skype connection between ourselves in Leicester, partners in Mexico and the Jacktrip tutor in Chile we learnt how the Jacktrip software works.
During the workshop we successfully used the software to make an audio connection with Columbia and are feeling quite confident that it will deliver what we need in the future. The plan is to use Jacktrip to create a high quality audio session between Leicester and Mexico for the Networked Migrations performance later in the month.
The Interact Gallery will be hosting a new telematic performance project by Ximena Alarcón called "Networked Migrations". In Ximena's words:
This project aims to develop a telematic performance strategy to create an in-between sonic space for migrants, exploring soundscape, voice as a nomadic sound, and deep listening practice. Telematic performance is seen here as an interdependent art form that can allow the creation of imagined in-between sonic spaces that help migrants to heal feelings of unsettledness.
The project will see musicians at Interact performing live with musicians in Mexico. See the project page for more information.
