dietmar offenhuber » Projects by Year

BackTalk

admin — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:17:37 +0000

A new senseable city lab project that i lead is now exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. BackTalk is in many ways a follow up project on Trash | Track, this time focusing on obsolete electronics, disposed as e-waste or shipped as donated as refurbished computers to developing countries. All of these devices still capable of recording their location and surroundings. The initial inspiration was an incident I read about involving a lost camera, scuba diving and a sea turtle. The project focuses on the reasons why obsolete electronics move across the globe and conveys the hybrid strategies how to deal with them.

all images (c) senseable city lab 2011

dust serenade at MIT museum

admin — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 21:22:21 +0000

Our new project in the dust series:

Markus Decker, Dietmar Offenhuber, Orkan Telhan

‘Dust Serenade‘ is a reenactment of an acoustic experiment done by German physicist August Kundt. Inspired by the Chladni’s famous sand figures visualizing sound waves in solid materials, Kundt devised an experiment for visualizing longitudinal sound waves through fine lycopodium dust; a setup that would allow him to measure the speed of sound in different gases.

Kundt was a strong believer in experimental methods over purely theoretical inquiry in a time when the disciplines of theoretical and experimental physics started to diverge.

‘Dust Serenade’ intends to remind us the materiality of sound. Tubes filled with scraps of words and letters–cut-up theory–interact with sound waves and turn into figures of dust. Here, visitors can modulate the frequency of the sound emitted by moving a rod and create different harmonic sound effects. As sound waves figure, refigure, and disfigure the text, we invite visitors to rethink about the tension between their theorical knowlegde and the sensory experience.

Dust Serenade is one of a series of interactive sound projects that enable visitors to experience the physical aspects of sound, presence, and atmosphere. Works in the series have been shown at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Zagreb, Istanbul and São Paulo.

The project was funded by the Council for the Arts at MIT and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK)

FDTD awarded at File Festival Sao Paulo

admin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:35:46 +0000

A short trip to Sao Paulo for a good reason – dust won a honorary mention from the FilePrixLux award, associated with the great File Electronic Language Festival and was exhibited in the Sao Paulo exhibition.

our project page and a related post on WMMNA

Secession Opening Tonight

admin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:26:16 +0000

Norbert Pfaffenbichler and Lotte Schreiber invited me to show “paths of G” in the CINEPLEX exhibition in Secession Vienna. Unfortunately without myself, being in Boston at the time. Connected to the exhibition is also the premiere of our new stadtmusik film boston buzz in the Austrian Filmmuseum on 14.9.2009.

Photo: Pez Hejduk

update: an article in derStandard

LBI Visualization Showcase

admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:39:30 +0000

For Ars Electronica 09, we created a website showcasing our visualization projects of my departement in the unfortunately closing Boltzmann institute. The webconcept was created by Evelyn Münster, design by Mahir Yavuz, and contains visualization contributions from Gerhard Dirmoser, Moritz Stefaner, Jaume Nualart, Evelyn Münster and myself.

Prix Ars Electronica: Mapping the Archive

admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:34:16 +0000

Evelyn Münster, Jaume Nualart, Dietmar Offenhuber, Moritz Stefaner, Gerhard Dirmoser

This project presents the results of an interdisciplinary investigation of the Prix Ars Electronica archive in the form of interactive and static visualizations of information. The archive is examined on three levels: total submissions since 1987 as a quantitative analysis, the jury process as a social network analysis, and the winning projects and their context in accordance with art scholarship.

The project is a collaboration between the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media.Art.Research. and Ars Electronica. More on our visualization showcase website.

News: The project was featured on infosthetics.com, thanks Mahir!

A Timeline of Audiovisual Culture

admin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:25:16 +0000

Related to the See this Sound exhibition, The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute created on an encyclopedia of audiovisual culture during the last three years. As a installation in the exhibition, Stefan Schilcher and I created an interactive visualization showing the structural properties of the different texts, chapters in this encyclopedia.
Credits:
Visual Concept: Dietmar Offenhuber und Stefan Schilcher
Programming: Stefan Schilcher
Content: Sandra Naumann und Mario Röhrle

stadtmusik#7 – boston buzz

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:52:04 +0000

Ausgangspunkt war ein gemeinsamer Besuch auf dem MIT campus in Boston/Cambridge. Das Raumerlebnis wird durch den sich ständig verändernden, aber immer präsenten Sound-teppich verschiedener unzähliger Kühl- und Ventilationsgeräte, innen wie außen, verdichtet und klanglich gefärbt. Die akustischen (radialen) emmisionen dieser Anlagen – stehende Wellen und Resonanzen – verwischen die Raumpunkte im Raumvolumen. Wir diagnostizieren den Raum „fiebrig“.

Die für diese Arbeit entwickelte „Wackel“ – Technik unterstützt diese Verfremdung. Durch die Bewegungsparallaxe entsteht bei längerer Betrachtung ein räumlicher Eindruck, der mit dem stereoskopischen Sehen vergleichbar ist, aber eine andere Qualität besitzt. Der Soundtrack der neun präsentierten Räume geht noch einen Schritt weiter und überlagert ein sich durchziehendes Grundgeräusch – wie im Fiebertraum – mit assoziativen Elementen.

Bei manchen Betrachtern kann der Film durch die dargestellten Bewegungsmuster Schwindel und Übelkeit auslösen.

Credits:
Bild: Dietmar Offenhuber; Ton: Sam Auinger Hannes Strobl
14 min; digital Video HD720p; prod. Frühjahr 2009

Semaspace

admin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:06:52 +0000

SemaSpace is a compact graph editor and browser for the construction and analysis of knowledge networks. The program was specially designed for the fast, interactive manipulation of very large networks.

Original Concept: Dietmar Offenhuber & Gerhard Dirmoser

Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Media Art Research

stadtmusik #6 – innsbruck küche hell

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:17:55 +0000

Innsbruck ist eine touristisch geprägter Stadt, die gleichzeitig den einzigen österreichischen Alpenflughafen besitzt. Die gesamte Altstadt befindet sich in dessen Einflugsschneise. Man ist konfrontiert mit Versuchen einer alpenländisch-heimeligen Gestaltung, die sich aber der Realität dieses Ortes nicht entziehen können.

Der Film wurde eigentlich für eine Videoinstallation als bewegte Fotografie geplant. Gezeigt wird eine innsbrucker Küche. Wie schon bei Mauerpark ist die Szene Resultat von analogen Raummanipulationen durch in-camera effects und digitalem compositing. Die Gegenstände der Küche und erzeugen in Verbindung mit der Klangkulisse der Stadt einen hybriden Raum, aus in dem sich ein teilweise absurdes Eigenleben entwickelt.

Credits:
Bild & Ton: stadtmusik (auinger, offenhuber, strobl)
12 min; digital Video HD720p; Prod. Sommer 2008