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A product of my PhD research is now available on the iPhone App Store (for a small cost!): View in App Store.

This application is motivated by my interests in experiencing an Augmented Perception and of course very much inspired by some of the work here at Goldsmiths. The application of existing approaches in soundspotting/mosaicing to a real-time stream and situated in the real-world allows one to play with their own sonic memories, and certainly requires an open ear for new experiences. Succinctly, the app records segments of sounds in real-time using it’s own listening model, as you walk around in different environment (or sit at your desk). These segments are constantly built up the longer the app is left running to form a database (working memory model) for which to understand new sounds. Incoming sounds are then matched to this database and the closest matching sound is played instead. What you get is a polyphony of sound memories triggered by the incoming feed of audio, and an app which sounds more like your environment the longer it is left to run. A sort of gimmicky feature of this app is the ability to learn a song from your iTunes Library. What this lets you do is experience your sonic world as your favorite hip-hop song or whatever you listen to.

Hope you have a chance to try it out and please forward to anyone of interest.

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Memory @ AVAF 2010 from pkmital on Vimeo.

‘Memory’ is an augmented installation of a neural network by Parag K Mital & Agelos Papadakis.
hand blown glass, galvanized metal chain, projection, cameras; 1.5m x 2.5m x 3m

Ghostly images of faces appear as recorded movie clips within neural-shaped hand-blown glass pieces. As one begins to look at the neurons, they notice the faces as their own, trapped as disparate memories of a neural network.

Filmed and installed for the Athens Video Art Festival in May 2010 in Technopolis, Athens, Greece. The venue is a disused gas factory converted art space.

Also seen at Kinetica Art Fair, Ambika P3, London, UK, 2010; Passing Through Exhibition, James Taylor Gallery, London, UK, 2009; Interact, Lauriston Castle, Edinburgh, UK, 2009.

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May 7-9 saw the 2010 Athens Video Art Festival where with collaborator Agelos Papadakis, Memory saw its latest installation. The venue, a 2,500 square meters disused gas factory called Technopolis, or more commonly referred to as Gazi (Gas), was a brilliant display of warehouse spaces littered by gas pipes and oil still dripping from the cracks.

Over 2,700 submissions were received for a total of 450 presenting artists to see over 13,000 visitors during the weekend. Among the hundreds of video art, animations, and installations, were a number of performances including dance and music.

Both myself and collaborator Agelos Papadakis were interviewed by ERT, or loosely translated as Hellenic Radio and Television (something like the BBC). It is all in Greek, except for my interview.

Video Link to the interview on EPT.

Feel free to check out pictures from the festival and my travels on my flickr page.

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I had the pleasure of exhibiting one of my works, Memory, with glass artist Agelos Papadakis at the Kinetica Art Fair 2010, from February 4-7th, 2010. The work was presented by TINTarts as well as another piece by Dave Murray-Rust, Agelos Papadakis, and Owen Green, called ChaoDependant. The fair was an incredible selection of contemporary artists and historical collections of kinetic and interactive art. I’ll be looking forward to next year.

Also worth checking out is a panorama with some interesting viewing options: www.z360.com/full/kinetica/
If you click to find the ‘Balcony’, you will see both ChaoDependant and Memory off to the side as well as Dave Murray-Rust and Agelos Papadakis in the foreground. 

As well, here is a link to our work on artstream: http://www.artstream.org/artists/view/250

I’ve also uploaded pictures on my flickr account

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TINT’s online exhibition using Add-art has gone live!

Here is what the website has to say about our piece:

Parag K Mital and Agelos Papadakis – Memory
Parag K Mital and Agelos Papadakis have worked together on a number of occasions, their piece Memory, being the most celebrated. In this piece, they explore augmented sculpture in an installation environment, allowing the audience to become an integral part of the sculpture. Creating great tension in the viewer, they have literally chained together brilliant works of glass resembling neurons to create entangling neural networks of 25 face-sized glass pieces together in a 3×3×5 meter industrial warehouse space. Within two of the glass neurons are hidden cameras tracking audience member’s faces and recording them to a computer hidden above. Using a projector and projection mapping onto each neuron, a recorded clip of one of its audience members plays as a neural network of different faces occasionally firing with a mesmerizing display. Through the disarrayed glass, ones face morphs ever so slightly, though those familiar with that face are able to recognize it still. However, the majority of faces may seem unknown to the audience members and serve merely as a memory of the piece representing those that have witnessed it.

And a screen cap of the website with Memory on it:

Nice thanks TINT!

Read more on how to setup Add-art

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As part of the Kinetica Art Fair 2010, Memory is required to fill in a risk assessment form.  This entails listing out all the possibly tragic events that can occur, how many people could potentially die, and a design of the installation as seen from top-down and the side.  Having only seen pictures of the space before, deciding on the design was a bit tricky (let alone figuring out how many people would die).  The piece itself is not very modular and has to make use of the space (take a look at what I mean).  It is basically a web that latches onto whatever it can find in the space.  As such, we really needed a nice model of the space in order to model the installation.

I went through an attempt of photoshopping the few pictures with some ridiculous looking lines.  It didn’t seem to capture the space.  Next attempt was with Illustrator.  Hmm.  Nope not much further.  Maybe just draw the thing?  Nope.  I couldn’t seem to get the scale right or even think about how to lay out the design in a space I wasn’t really sure about.  I just couldn’t visualize the space enough to create a nice enough drawing.

Eventually I remembered seeing my friend using Google SketchUp and thinking, wow.  I gave it a hand thinking it would be terribly difficult and impossible to even begin.  I was dead wrong.  It was incredibly intuitive and even fun to use.  I was able to play with guesses on the size and scale everything reasonably and with the drag of the mouse.  In a short time I had a scale model complete with measurements of the entire design of the piece and even little person inside of it.  I was even able to directly import 3d models from an integrated browser searching 3d models online to resemble pieces of glass that are part of the installation.  It was dead simple.

Here are some pics of my very first sketches done in Google SketchUp:

Now that you’ve seen the design, come and see the real thing at the Kinetica Art Fair 2010, February 4 – 7, London.

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Book your tickets to London now, folks.  Memory is going back to London for the Kinetica Art Fair 2010, Feb 4-7 @ the Kinetica Museum, Spitalfield, London presented by TINTarts.  <3 TINTarts

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If you aren’t using Adblock Plus, you should be.  If you are, you should be using Add-art.  This clever extension will replace all online advertisements with pictures of art.

Now for the real news, TINTarts has selected a number of pieces to be part of an online add-art exhibition starting January 16th and Memory will be one of them.  Get your add-art now and leave a comment if you happen to see Memory while browsing.

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I’ve just uploaded an old pdf of the Memory project:

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