A chronological overview of experiments fished out the Constant Galaxy that mix performance with software.
The Walk-In Clinic offered free hands-on observations to software curious people of all kinds. A wide range of professional and amateur practitioners provided Software-as-a-Critique-as-a-Service on the spot. Available services ranged from immediate interface critique, collaborative code inspection, data dowsing, various forms of network analyses, unusability testing, identification of unknown viruses, risk assessment, opening of black-boxes and more.
http://constantvzw.org/site/The-Techno-Galactic-Walk-in-Clinic.html
Techno-galactic Guide for Software Observation, based on scripts from the clinic:
http://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/tgso
Up Pen Down is a research thread developed by OSP, based on the encounter between digital typography and choreography. By transforming the code into physical movement the project traces the borders between the practice of choreography and programming.
http://osp.kitchen/live/up-pen-down/
Various physical exercises that provide situations to experience algorithms:
A Battle of The Ultimate Appelmoes recipe, using command-line communication tools (2010)
http://samedi.collectifs.net/spip.php?article89
“Following our research thread into the relations between machines and bodies, we turned toward objects and tools of everyday life, unravelling the complex relationship between the bodily, the spatial and the social as it emerges in the repetitive contact / touch between bodies, objects and (other) bodies.”
Developed with Laurence Rassel in the context of apt, Antwerp (currently a.apass, Brussels) in 2008.
http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/mutual/?article377
"The Piksels and Lines Orchestra is an experimental performance system for graphic design. The image industry populates our visual culture, yet it exists in a world with an inner life that is invisible to most people. The orchestra shifts the focus from the end results to the actions and decisions that take place during the creative process. By turning the tools of graphic design, the software applications, into instruments, the active labour and the operational gestures of designers are converted to sound. Actions like painting, cutting, setting text, adding layers, drawing shapes etc. are reflected by sonic events within a score. At the same time, the system brings the audience visually into the everyday work environment of the designer by exposing the application interfaces as they are used. In order to make the necessary software modifications, the applications used in this project are all free and open source software. (Jon Nordby, Brendan Howell)
(2009-2012) Software for improvised physical performance. Developed by Simon Yuill in collaboration with Constant and Mangrove-Tentactile in Brussels.
!Co LAPse KoDe was a research trajectory (2010-2012) around the F/LOSS motion tracking software objscrs, led by Mangrove-Tentactile and Constant.
Players: Simon Yuill, Kirsty Stansfield, An Mertens, Pierre Marchand, Matthias Koole, Lot Jansen, Dorothé Depeauw.
http://www.adashboard.org/colapsekode
Kaleidoscope was a performance during VJ12 (2009) using the F/LOSS motion tracking software objscrs.
Players: Dorothé Depeauw, Lot Jansen, Matthias Koole, Rebecca Lenaerts, An Mertens, Thomas Olbrechts, Laïa Sadurní, Kirsty Stansfield, Simon Yuill
Costums: Roberta Miss & Barbara Decloux
Lights: Michael Janssens
http://www.adashboard.org/kaleidoscope/?p=391
For the first trimester of 2008, Constant was invited to participate to the programme and to contribute to the content of the APT postgraduate (part of the Posthogeschool voor Podiumkunsten which is based at Singel in Antwerp).
In the light of this programme we invited Kirsty Stansfield and Simon Yuill to explore the relationship between software and performance notation.
The workshop was based around a piece of software that tracks movements via video camera. This translates movement into a form of
notation that can be used to construct audio scores, or, which can feedback into the performance and notation system itself (i.e. creating
commands for other performers).
http://constantvzw.org/site/Advanced-Performance-training.html
“The Print parties that we organize now and then in a vacant café, a bookstore or a classroom are irregular public appearances whenever we feel the need to report on what we discovered and where we’ve been; as anti-heroes of our own adventures we keep contact with our fellow designers who are interested in our journey into the exotic territory of BoF, Version Control and GPL3. We make a point of presenting each time a new experiment, of producing something printed and also something edible on site; it is the tension between parallel processes that defines those infectious events.”
See: Awkward Gestures (2008) http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/awkward_gestures.pdf
Print Party reports on the OSP blog: http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/blog/?s=print+party
Epicpedia is a web script that renders Wikipedia articles and their revision/editing history as a theater script, taking inspiration from Bertolt Brecht’s estrangement effect that he used in his idea of Epic Theatre. Developed by Annemieke van der Hoek (2008) and was performed at Verbindingen/Jonctions 12: By Data We Mean.
http://constantvzw.org/vj12/spip.php?article38
http://www.epicpedia.org/
Participants perform parts in a human-only powered computer, capable of addition and counting. Core concepts like binary representation, logic gates, and timing will be discussed and enacted. An exercise in bringing the “digital” back into the hand. Performed at Verbinding/Jonctions 12: By Data We Mean (2009)
http://constantvzw.org/vj12/spip.php?article13
http://video.constantvzw.org/vj12/HumancalcFULLsize.ogv