Artists

Artekton (NL), Bas van Beek (NL), Cactus (ZW), Robbie Cornelissen (NL) Mark Essen (USA), Eteam (VS), Wannes Goetschalckx en Ruben Kinderkamp (BE), Hooliganship(USA), Frank ter Horst (NL), Keith Lam(HK), Walter Langelaar (NL), Peter Luining (NL), Mumbleboy (NL), Leonard van Munster (NL), Jan van Nuenen (NL), Ton van Rijswijk (NL), Petri Purho (FI), Gordon Savicic (AT), Axel Stockburger (GB/AT), Boris Tellegen(NL), Danja Vasiliev (RU), Daniël van der Veer (NL), WISE (DE), Michiel van der Zanden (NL), Andreas Zecher (ZW, Bas Zoontjens (NL/DE)


Artekton (Konstantinos Koutsospyros - GR) www.artekton.nl

Konstantinos Koutsospyros uses computer and other technical parts as model making materials. He proposes something different than a certain architecture, not the ideal city plan like architects usually present with model making. His intention is to question as well as to celebrate our collective responsibility in shaping the environments in which we live. During AveCom Koutsospyros will present the installation ‘Supercity’ which consists of a networked connection of parts that form a complex city structure. The ‘Supercity’, was at first presented in a scale model installation, while later became his photographic subject. So far he has made several versions as well as short movie parts.
Konstantinos Koutsospyros studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Graphic & Media Design, London College Of Communication.

Bas van Beek (NL) www.basvanbeek.com

‘Exercises in Virtual Space 1′ is a work based on 97 paintings of Mondriaan’s abstract period. A grid was laid over the scanned images of the paintings and each tile extruded according to the colour used: clear white was extruded to 3 meters and black remained at 0 meters. All colours were given a specific height and extruded accordingly. The final model was extruded 25 cm (based on the standard concrete slab) which resulted in an architectural space. An object that was not designed but which was generated through a designed process.

As an anti-designer Bas van Beek criticizes branding and intelligent marketing mechanisms, poor conceptualism and uncritical designer-cults. His work explores the connection between politics and design. His Rip-off-vases copied famous Dutch Design icons by casting the originals. Often he works with found materials, exploiting the aesthetics of the random and of chance.



Robbie Cornelissen (NL) www.robbiecornelissen.nl

Robbie Cornelissen draws complex architecture, baroque portraits and almost abstract representations.
In all ‘genres’ the artist’s passion is striking: without exception the representations are highly detailed
and drawn with great intensity.

Often the drawings are of enormous dimensions (up to 240 x 380 cm). Because of the large size and the unprecedented amount of detail theobserver is lured into the picture and then taken by surprise with all
sorts of bizarre details, giving the image a new, unexpected meaning. Characteristic is that Robbie Cornelissen always integrates thefamiliar and the bizarre into something completely matter of course.
(tekst Galerie Maurits van de Laar)

Cactus (Jonatan Söderström – SW) www.cactus-soft.co.nr

Jonatan Söderström, better known by his pseudonym Cactus, is a video game developer of ‘Cactus Soft’ and ‘Lo-Fi Minds’. Since 2004 he has been working on a broad variety of small freeware games. Söderström says that much of his work consists of “small experiments dressed up as games”. He borrows elements from titles he admires and builds on their mechanics adding an original, polished visual style. In 2008 he was awarded at the ‘Independent Games Festival’ in San Francisco in ‘Excellence in Visual Arts’ and ‘Excellence in Audio’ awards.



Mark Essen (USA) www.messhof.com

“I want to use the format of the 2d video games I grew up with and subvert aspects of them to make games that you don’t play to beat or have fun, but to put you into an altered state, whether it be through ‘flow’ or aggressively anti-flow, minimalistic graphics or epilepsy-inducing colour overload. There are also possibilities for manipulating player-to-player interactions, and I think ‘Cowboyan’ has been my best experiment with that.
‘Cowboyana’ takes inspiration from films like ‘The Good, The Bad, And the Ugly’ and with a combination of cooperative, competitive, and role-playing elements creates a tenuous relationship between the two players that mirrors those of characters in western pulp classics. The relationship of the players going into the game dictates how the narrative unfolds, but the game always forces violent confrontation.” (Mark Essen)

Eteam (Franziska Lamprecht & Hajoe Moderegger – USA/DE) www.meineigenheim.org

In Second Life each avatar has a trash folder. Items, that get deleted end up in that folder by default. The trash folder has to get emptied as often as possible, otherwise the avatars performance might diminish. But, where do deleted things end up? What are those things?
The Eteam bought commercial land in Second Life, and started and maintains a public dumpster for the duration of one year. They are interested to explore the following questions:
- What kind of waste will be disposed (objects, viruses, messages, behaviours, avatars, programs, etc.), and how will this effect the appearance and “inner life” of our land and the dumpster?
- Will the disposal site be a heap that builds up and grows bigger, or will it transform into compost, where “matter” decomposes and turns into new material? Will we have to program “worms” to initiate this process? And, what will we do with the new substances?
- Will we be able to create an aesthetically filthy area that sticks out from its artificially clean surroundings?
- What kind of reactions will the dumpster provoke in avatars that own land adjacent to our land?
- How will we be able to get rid of the land and the trash on it after the duration of one year?
“Second Life Dumpster” is a continuation of their interest in the value of property, possibilities of land use, (web) site specifity, ownership and investment.

Wannes Goetschalckx & Ruben Kindermans (BE) wannes.goetschalckx@hisk.edu

Ruben Kindermans and Wannes Goetschalckx met at the HISK in Antwerp and have been working together at various site-specific projects. They try to mould the location where they present their work, make it their own and transform the space into an installation. These installations have the qualities of autonomous sculptures, and are the stage for their performances. The performances can easily last for several hours, gradually the audience will understand the operative rules. Is there a development, does the performance repeat itself, is there a climax, do both the performers undergo a change in role or are they firm in their movements and character. Will the performers merge into the art-piece, or will they remain two different identities, each with their own right to exist

Hooliganship (Peter Burr and Christopher Doulgeris - USA) www.hooliganship.com
Hooliganship is a dance animation performance duo from Portland, comprised of Christopher Doulgeris and Peter Burr. Dance moves, live music, Animation and costume changes unite to revel in a hypnotic abundance of digital information. Adventure is the video accompaniment to a narrative performance, where band practice is cut short by a surprise adventure that takes you deep into the minds of a pizza parter and a homeless prince.

Frank ter Horst (NL) yuyu@planet.nl

“I have never searched for something like ‘inspiration’ or wondered where this notion ever came from but its middle class origin is evident. Inspiration isn’t real and doesn’t exist really.
What is real is a matter of noticing and recognizing possibilities as part of a working process.
No need for conceptual surgery to dig up unexpected material.
An unsuspected suggestion of content in which aspects of virtual 3D are not unalienable to the direct language of drawing. Noise algorithms, variable grayscales contain the core for a simulation of reality in virtual 3D spaces.
Their suggestive power for depth and volume whilst not necessarily affecting the underlying surface - thus being actually 2D - made me realize their full potential and artificial similarity with traditional methods of making art in 2D.
Drawing as an assumption of volume, as a generator of tonality not in a direct relation to form but analogous to just texture values in a 3D environment, not affecting the underlying density. This content proved a solid base for a series of animations and drawings about the typology of faces towards the edge of recognition.” (Frank ter Horst)

Kloonigames (Petri Purho - FI) www.kloonigames.com

Petri Purho is student aan de Helsinki Polytechnic, computerwetenschap, waar hij zich
bezig houdt met game ontwikkeling. Petri Purho’s interesse stopt niet bij de traditionele
video-game, hij gebruikt pen & papier en werkt aan rollenspellen, strategische games,
bordspellen, etc.
Tijdens AveCom toont hij ‘Crayon Physics Deluxe’, een 2D game, waarmee je kunt experi-
menteren en waarin tekeningen op magische wijze transformeren tot fysieke objecten.
Je kunt de puzzels oplossen door gebruik te maken van creatief inzicht maar waarbij je
vooral ook speels de regels van de zwaartekracht moet inzetten. ‘Crayon Physics Deluxe’ won
de ‘Game of the Year Award’ tijdens het ‘Independent Games Festival 2008’

Keith Lam (HK) www.the-demos.com

Over the years, the development of video games has been trying its best to make the virtual reality experience getting closer to reality. By changing the interface, from Atari’s joystick to Analog Vibration of PS2 joystick, then the Gun Shape controller for shooting games, and Dance Mania’s floor controller to Wii wiimote, video game design is creating more and more “physical experience” for the players. Players now can actual smash and swing to play the game, but we are still playing the games in a 2D virtual environment: manipulating the character in an unlimited virtual space in a fixed static limited real world.
‘Moving Mario’ is definitely not reproducing Super Mario Bros in another way. By grabbing partial concept and some of the key elements behind the TV game development, ‘Moving Mario’ is trying to challenge some of the traditional game elements. Throughout the gaming process, players can rethink the relationship between the player and the game.
On the Prix Ars Electronica 2008 in Linz, Austria, ‘Moving Mario’ was rewarded with an ‘Honorary Mention’.

Walter Langelaar (NL) www.lowstandart.net

His working interests include open source game-engines, bot AI and neural networks, and ‘strange loops’ through virtual and physical realities. He works with a wide variety of media - including computer games, hacked electronic devices, software, video, sculpture and performance, and is a recent graduate from the Media Design MA course at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam.
His nOtbOt is an automated game-player which is controlled and deranged by reactions to it’s own virtual environment, caught in a vicious force-feedback loop…
The installation consists of a hacked up human-computer interface in which the feedback system, originally intended to provide tangible interaction for a human player, is now used as input data to control a ‘first-person’ videogame. Human interaction with the game/controller becomes obsolete, resulting in a completely erratic form of [art]ificial intelligence. The observer of the installation, however, can literally try to ‘get a grip’ on taking control of the system…

Peter Luining (NL) http://ctrlaltdel.org

Peter Luining studied philosophy at the University of Groningen. He lives and works in Amsterdam as an artist, curator and theoretic and is credited as one the Dutch pioneers of internet art. After his study he became active in the Amsterdam VJ-scene. He started fiddling with computers, and made 3D animations in commercial jobs. He also directed video- clips. Unsatisfied with commercial jobs and his role of only doing images and video with music made by others he started to combine video with his own music. In 1995 the character of his work changes dramatically when he discovers the net and the relative easy way interactivity could be achieved by using webpages. His early computer- and internet work was strongly about minimal image and sound interaction. In recent years his work has expanded to the periphery of the internet and beyond: software, computer waste and the relationship between human and computer.

Leonard van Munster (NL) www.leonardvanmunster.com

Leonard van Munster is an artist who works across a range of different media. He produces art installations, objects, sound / video works and combines electronic and traditional media. He is a master in playing with virtual and real stuff. With games and reality. Playing a game on one level in a building, can cause actual physical consequences on another level. Plants can be controlled by mobile phones, and a beautiful Katamari really manifested in a suburb of Utrecht. His recent art projects are more site-specific, taking the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. Most of these works are installations in the public domain.

Mumbleboy (Kina Hanada / USA) www.mumbleboy.com

Most known for his Flash animations such as the ones he made for Beck, Bettie Serveert, O.Lamm, Digiki, Momus and others, Mumbleboy has been working in various media; fabric, computer graphics, paint and video, doing both commercial projects as well as fine art. He works mostly outside of the regular fine art boundaries, but is well known to those who are acquainted with internet culture. Kinya has now focused his attention back to his roots to make artwork by hand, in the city of Portland

Jan van Nuenen (NL) www.janvannuenen.com

Jan van Nuenen works mostly on short experimental animations and video installations. His video’s are collages, built out of existing photographs and video-images found on the internet, in books and on DVD’s. The material is cut up and cultivated in a matter that it looses the original meaning and it forms a new universe. His films are characterized by a complex composition of loops, repetition and rhythm, in which sound plays a major role.
His work deals with the relations between humans, technology and nature. De video’s do not merely criticise social and technological developments, but are a reflection of Van Nuenen’s fascination for these processes.
The artist is guided by the content of the images without a fixed plot. The film originates in an impulsive matter during the working process. Often the concept for the movie is quite simple, but developed intensively and put together in the computer in a very inventive fashion.

Ton van Rijswijk www.happyeyeball.nl

After his studie in Eindhoven at the School for Multimedia Design, he retrieved his master of arts at the university of Utrecht, animation department. As a freelance animator he loves to experiment with the possibilities of image/animation, sound, and projections, combined with constantly new ways of laying out the narratives. He wants to amuse, but even more he wants to stagger them. In his ongoing search for new techniques in animation, design, video and interactivity he is often amazed himself.
In his ‘Pixelman’ there is a circuit consisting of beams, planks, tubes and other objects. Through projection, an animated man plays in this circuit. Naturally he encounters all kinds of problems, obstacles and unexpected happenings. The man is a combination of old fashioned and digital drawing.

Gordan Savicic (AT) http://insertcoin.biz

Gordan Savicic was born in Austria/Vienna and grew up there, though he spent some time in Bosnia and Hercegovina where his roots are. His participation in collaborative projects and performances have spun him through mental confusion and several countries, such as Austria, Croatia, Germany, Serbia, Switzerland, France and the U.K.

His ‘Chakramat’ is an arcade machine where you can transmit digital pictures via your body by touching the two buzzers. The output will show some glitches when you move your hand during transmit progress or getting wet fingertips. You can also join others and build up human networks for transmitting digital data.


Axel Stockburger (UK/AT) www.stockburger.co.uk

Axel Stockburger is an artist and theorist who lives and works in London and Vienna. He studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna with Peter Weibel and holds a PhD from the University of the Arts, London. His films and installations are shown internationally. During AveCom the video’s ‘Boys in the Hood’ and ‘Brilliant city’ will be shown
‘Boys in the Hood’ consists of a series of interviews with gamers of the very controversial game ‘Grand Theft Auto‘. De gamers report in detail about the locations, the actions they undertook, how many cops they’ve killed and other events that happened during the game. These subjective reports, without having a clue what they are talking about in the first place, lead to a big confusion between real and virtual. Nowadays, it all could have happened in real life…

Boris Tellegen (NL) www.deltainc.nl

Boris Tellegen is een jonge beeldend kunstenaar die oorspronkelijk uit het graffiti-circuit
komt. Deze achtergrond maakt dat hij de traditionele wijze van het presenteren van
beeldende kunst,alsook het genre van graffiti aanzienlijk verandert.
Met zijn grafische / architectonisch geïnspireerde en visueel spectaculaire werk, experimen-
teert hij vaardig met een verscheidenheid aan media bij het scheppen van zijn schilderijen,
prenten, 3D-beelden en installaties.
Hij introduceert een vreemde en idiosyncratische esthetiek in graffiti die ontsnapt aan het
overbekende logo-fenomeen: je herkent het, maar tegelijkertijd ook niet. Met zijn abstracte
en zeer architectonische manier van schilderen, letterlijk ruimtelijk zelfs, maakt hij zeer
eigenzinnige werken en stelt het vaak illegale kader van graffiti aan de kaak.

Danja Vasiliev (RU) http://k0a1a.net

‘Master/slave’ proposes an experience of taking control of another person by physically connecting to his/her immaterial image. The image represents a person who interacted with the installation before and by doing so left snapshots in the system. By pulling the strings you can play a ‘puppet’ of your predecessor and see how your own moves are ‘influenced’ by your on-screen opponent. The process is a continuous progression and over/inter -layering of mutual intercourse (intercommunication), after all - among the real people.
By using ropes attendee’s body gets connected to a set of sensors. Each ’sensor’ is a modified computer mouse (HID) made to track the direction, strength and velocity of the movements. All of them work independently, continuously feeding 5-dimensional array of data-streams into a PC hidden under the stage.

Daniël van der Veer (NL) www.danielvanderveer.nl

Starting with found and existing objects, Daniël der Veer commences his search for a new existence. He sketches his utopia, with a longing for change and new patterns and connections. His ideal spot is not a finish, but a starting point for again something new. Like something that evolves dynamically, something that grows, what develops itself organically along the way.
In these newly created places you can sense the passing nomad that moved on again. Places he has visited get a new meaning by the time he was present. The transition from the old to the new right to exist does not happen by travelling but through a transformation of the existing elements. The found and existing objects he uses are being transformed into something completely new, give them a different meaning, another identity.
In doing so he creates new landscapes, bodies, architectural models and complete cities. In his installation ‘Kingdom of past fiction’ this transformation also takes place. The accumulation of transparent objects, with a architectural radiance will be the subject of strategically placed spots, leaving a colourful shadow on the walls and glass windowsill. An immaterial skyline appears on the walls and in the evening, the front of the building transforms into a monitor.

WISE (Marc Frohn and Sascha Glasl DE/USA/NL) www.w-i-s-e.net

WISE conducts research on and develops spaces and tools in real and virtual educational environments (WISe Environments), whereby the linking the two environments is the central aspect of their work. In how far do these two require one another? Which specific consequences result for both out of the alliance?
During AveCom WISE will lead workshops and will present the project ‘SecondReiff’. ‘SecondReiff’ is the virtual extension of the RWTH Aachen University’s architecture campus.
Marc Frohn is co-founder and concept development and design principal of FAR frohn&rojas www.f-a-r.net an architectural office networked between Cologne, Santiago de Chile and Mexico City and currently is professor at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles.
Sascha Glasl is working freelance for One Architecture, Amsterdam.
Besides he works on several architectural projects such as www.eindeutscherpavillon.de

Michiel van der Zanden (NL) www.michielvanderzanden.nl

Mass-media and other nowadays low culture phenomena are very inspirational to him; Bob Ross, Southpark and modelling but also video games and YouTube. He literally incorporates these digital images into his physical paintings. His collages, made from manipulated screenshots, form the base for his paintings. The graphics from the computer games are an ideal starting-point because they are often already a kind of perspective cut-and-paste environments.
As a kind of reporter or tourist he travels through the game-worlds, taking his snapshots. In his collages he not only tries to create a new image, but also tries to question or redefine the original intents of the game. To really make his statement he uses divers painting techniques, depending on the specific part of the painting, all well bordered by pieces of tape. Oil and acrylics, expressionistic or very realistic to emphasize a certain kitsch. Sometimes you can put the finger precisely on the sore spot. But often the friction is very subtle, more spherically

Andreas Zecher (DE) www.pixelate.de

Andreas Zecher studeerde Communications & Design aan de University of Applied
Sciences Potsdam en de Universiteit of Design and Art in Zurich, Switserland.
Op dit moment werkt hij als web ontwikkelaar en onafhankelijk game ontwikkelaar
in Zürich.
Tijdens AveCom is ‘Understanding Games’ te spelen. ‘Understanding games’ is een directe
introductie in de wereld van de computer games door het tonen van de essentiële grond
beginselen in vier episodes. Twee personages, de sympathieke Bub en Bob, leiden de
speler op een vermakelijke en begrijpelijke wijze door de game, onder begeleiding van
inventieve 8-bit muziek van Martin Snuggles.

Bas Zoontjens (NL/DE) http://artnews.org/baszoontjens

At first glance the paintings of Bas Zoontjens look comfortable and easy; ‘landscapes’ you think. But what they really depict is not so clear. The painted objects are too indistinct, the scale unimaginable. You don’t know what is ‘inside’ of ‘outside’. You even don’t know what is up or down.
Bas Zoontjens paints like a sculptor, discovering his ‘image in paint’ along the way. In some of his older works the steel carcasses of what could have been transportation media hover. In their desolate surroundings they seem to represent the last remains of a certain evolution, of a structured world that lost its natural properties. Organic features are absorbed into architectural structures, where animal and artificial qualities either coincide or submerge.
He gives us attractive virtual spaces; sometimes microscopically close, sometimes at a great distance, but almost always with a dark and slightly worrying undertone. It can be caused by a bizarre combination of images or colliding colours. No matter what, the results are incorrigible seductive.