Artist residency at Atelier Libusin

On August 19th, the day after the Tagtool Convention, eight artists and the OMAi crew traveled from Austria to the Czech Republic. We arrived at Studio Libušín, situated in the late summer countryside just outside Prague. We were welcomed, true to tradition, with shots of Calvados, made from the apples in the studio’s orchard. Frances Sander and Dima Berzon, long-time Tagtool supporters and true players in art and life, were the hosts of a week-long OMAi artist residency.

The residency had a concrete goal: to develop an interactive art installation for Ars Electronica festival in Linz, which was having its 40th edition shortly after. Having exhibited there in the past years, we know there’d be a lot of visitors from all around the world, and no time for longer interactions. We wanted to showcase some beautiful collaborative Tagtool work in a fun, interactive way.

Soon we had a plan of action. We cut and glued carton until we had a big sphere with an opening at the bottom. We suspended it in the studio and pointed projectors at it, blending and mapping the image so it neatly wrapped halfway around the sphere. The prototype worked well, so we made a second, bigger sphere.

In the evenings, it was multiplayer time. What a joy it was to dive into the flow of these Tagtool sessions, and to watch these skilled and creative minds visually mix and merge on the surface of the large, glowing orb.

While the visualists knocked out one piece after the other, Sergij from TAM was producing the soundtrack on his brand new Octatrack sampler. Dima mounted a little device called an exciter on the sphere, which turned the entire thing into a loudspeaker – very exciting indeed.

The final element was the interactivity. We programmed the installation so that when someone puts their head inside the sphere, a sensor triggers playback of a prerecorded Tagtool piece created during the residency sessions. The person inside the head gets a personal audiovisual show, while to onlookers it seems like they can see inside the mind of that person.

The result was presented at Ars Electronica festival 2019 and was a great success with the audience.

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Contributing Artists:

TAM (UA):
Olena Avdieieva
Sergij Avdieiev
Olga Pinaieva
Katerina Tushder

Sol Carta (ARG)
Sofia Cordoba (UY)
Laurenzo Tabachi (ITA)
Karen Eng (UK)

Photos by Sofia Cordoba, Laurenzo Tabacchi and OMAi

TAM’s participation was made possible by iPortunus