On the occasion of the publication of the Coded Cultures book, we decided to publish the full dialogue between Verina Gfader and us.

Go on, read it in it’s entire glory. You know you want to.

50 plus 3 questions for BCL aka The BCL meets … Nullnummer

50 plus 3 questions for BCL is a dialogue between BCL and Verina Gfader conducted via a shared online document in June 2010. Discussing the underlying codes and strategies of the work Common Flowers / Flower Commons, 2008-, the dialogue forms the base for the essay Imaginary Agents — Flowers and the Common (in Russegger, G., Tarasiewicz, M. and Wlodkowski, M. (eds) Coded Cultures. New Creative Practices out of Diversity. Springer Wien/New York Edition Angewandte 2011). As a parallel investigation to the theoretical elaboration, this more informal exchange of thoughts pushes the artists’ ideas further into an improvised process of gathering data about their activities and everyday. Subjects of 50 plus 3 questions for BCL include issues of bio-hacking, the common, DIY flowers, tactical practices, societal plants, instructions for actions and Tokyo sites.

And that’s what Amazon has to say about the book:

International Authors from Europe and Asia explain the impact of codes and cultures on society

Through the establishment of new creative cultures, enabled by digital media and global communication networks, new practices and ability profiles of artistic delineations and explorations are gaining new grounds. Furthermore, economic models are eager to create synergies with symbolic values of cultural and artistic programs to deal with the potentials of »creativity«. At the present day it is difficult to predict which catalysts and draft programs can be put into effect for these creative innovation processes. In this book a detailed review from international artists, theorists, researchers and curators will be given on new vectors of creative and artistic coded and cultures departed from digital media related art projects and observation models on the intersection of disciplines like Art, Science, Technology and Design.

Here’s the japanese flyer of to the Koryuanten 2011 exhibtion. It runs from January 29th until 5th of February.

The opening is on Saturday, 29th, starting from 15h, at 16h there will be a live performance by I.S.O.

We will show a couple of new works, especially commissioned for the space. On Sunday, we’ll make an bio-art introduction workshop, showing how to do make a basic clean-room and show how to start a Plant Tissue Culture. We also brought some blue carnation.

芳流庵展2011
http://mhrs.jp/ho-ryu-ann-ten/

[会期]
2011年1月29日(土) – 2月5日(土)　12:00 ~ 18:00　＊29日のみ15:00~　＊期間中無休

[入場料]
展示無料(関連イベントのみ有料、詳細は下)

[会場]
芳流庵 (日本家屋, 〒753-0815 山口市維新公園6-3-25)

[アクセス]
JR山口線矢原駅／大歳駅から徒歩25分、湯田温泉駅からタクシーで15分(湯田温泉駅のみ常駐)

[関連イベント]

1. オープニングパフォーマンス

日時：1月29日 15:00開場 16:00開演
出演：I.S.O.(大友良英、SachikoM, 一楽儀光), オシロスコッティ、石井栄一、他
料金：￥1200 (お汁粉＆香物付)

＊晴天の場合、庭園を会場に使います。暖かい服装でお越し下さい。

2. バイオワークショップ

日時：1月30日　13:00~15:00
定員：10名程(対象10歳～)
講師：BCL(ゲオルグトレメル、福原志保)
料金：￥500
内容：山口未紹介のバイオアートワークショップ
　　　専門的な知識は要らず、小学生高学年～大人まで楽しめる
　　　バイオアート実践と導入の為のお気楽ワークショップ

[展示アーティスト / 作品]

大友良英＋三原聡一郎 / without record hyper

2008年に山口情報芸術センターで開催された、ENSEMBLES展作品 without recordの hyperバージョンである本作は、
音楽家大友良英と、造形作家三原聡一郎により、2010年、京都での改訂展示を経て、今回、二度目のバージョンアップが行われた。
レコードプレーヤの根幹である、ターンテーブルとアームを解体、そして再構築し、
聴覚と視覚または音響と造形の関係性の限界に挑む本作の最新の姿を、雰囲気のある日本家屋の中でゆったりとお楽しみ下さい。

BCL / 新作展示
http://bcl.biopresence.com/

BCLは福原志保とゲオルク・トレメルによる科学、アート、デザインの領域を超えたアーティスティック・リサーチ・フレームワーク。
バイオテクノロジーの発展や水問題などをテーマに、
私達の意識が、自然・社会・文化それぞれの環境においていかに映し出されているのかを探索している。
また「共同ハッキング」などのプロジェクトを通じて「閉じられた」テクノロジーや独占市場に介入し、
それらを人々に開いていくことをミッションとする。

飯沢未央 / mechanical tumor

http://i-mi.org/

1981年生。時間と生命についての、哲学・科学・美学的リサーチと考察を背景として、
電子デバイス、映像作品、空間インスタレーションなど、多彩な作品を制作している。

[ゲストパフォーマー]

I.S.O.
http://www.japanimprov.com/iso/isoj/index.html

想い出波止場などで活躍していた西日本屈指のドラマーでもあり、
現在はドラムによるVJとも言える「ドラびでお」などで知られる個性的なドラマー一楽儀光、
自らサンプラーのメモリーを放棄しサインウェイヴのみに焦点を当てた演奏で音楽のオルタナティヴな可能性を追及するSachiko M、
自身のバンド「グラウンド・ゼロ」解散直後の大友良英によって1997年に結成。
1998年、アメリカ・ヨーロッパでの数十ヶ所にわたるツアーを機に、
これまでの演奏性に重点をおいた即興とは根本的な発想を異にする音響的な即興ユニットへと大きく変貌。
このときの演奏が、その後の欧米における即興演奏の概念を大きく変えるきっかけにもなった。
演奏現場の音そのものを生かした従来のPAシステムを使わない独特の演奏方法は、
2002年山口市常栄寺の雪舟庭での野外ライブ演奏を収めたライブCDなどに収められている。

オシロスコッティ
http://www.myspace.com/oscilloscottie

2000 年ころより自作電子楽器を使った演奏活動を開始。
ぬいぐるみや空き缶等に回路を無理やり押し込んだ強引さが最大の特徴。
電子工作だけに飽き足らず、フォーミュラカー製作にも携わりレースに参加。
鈍行列車好き。ケチャップ好き

石井栄一
http://eiichiishii.syakuhati.com/

1994年山口県生まれ。ノイズミュージックに興味があり、2005年頃からサーキットベンディング（Circuit bending)に着手。
電子楽器や音玩具の改造により生まれるノイズをもとに、新たな音楽表現を提示している。

[主催]
芳流庵展実行委員会

[助成]
山口市文化振興財団

[協力]
山口情報芸術センター [YCAM]

The Catalogue/Book to the Coded Cultures Exhibition(s) is coming along nicely. Here’s a sneak preview of the cover.

And yes, the image is the right way up.

After our Residency at the National Unversity of Singapore for ISEA 2008, this is our second appearance at the International Symposium for Electonic Arts. As with all conferences, the core events of ISEA are the paper presentation, as with all conferences, they are massive-parallel. It’s advisable to make a Fahrplan for the road ahead.

This is a selection of presentation I am trying to visit, in the case of parallel presentations I’ll make my choice based on my mood, the Dortmund weather and the state of the daily Curry Wurst mit Pom Fritz.

Saturday, 21st

10:00–12:00h
P1 Enunciations of Nonhuman Performativity
Amongst others, with Jens Hauser
 

Monday, 23rd

10:00–15:00h
Hackteria Workshop, VHS G 132a
DIY Open Bio with Andy Gracie, Yasha Shatty & Marc Dusseiller Also on Tuesday and Wednesday from 10:00-16:30h

10:00-12:00h
P4 Heavy Matter, OZ (not really related to the same-titled ‘Heavy Matter’ Exhibition)
Panel with Monika Wagner, Martha de Menezes and Christian Slater

11:15h
P3 Appropriating Social Media, domicil
Sabine Himmelsbach: Art and Politics. The Edith Russ Site for Media Art. A Space for Presentation and Production of Media Art

13:00-14:30h
P9 Future of the Lab, VHS L 102b
“Please note: this session is aimed at people who work in, for or with labs.” With Kitchen Budapest, fo.am, BALTAN.

Tuesday, 24th

10:00-12:00h
P14 The Digital Aesthetics of Climate Crisis, VHS L 103
With The People Speak at 10.50h

13:00–14:30h
P16 Artistsinlabs: Networking in the Margins of Eco-Activism, OZ

15:00–16:30h

P23 Coded Cultures and Japan Media Arts Festival Panel Session, VHS L 102
With Georg Russeger, Asami Hosokawa, Matthias Tarasiewicz, Michal Wlodkowski and yours truly.

17:00h-19:00h
Keynote Peter Weibel Introduction by Jens Hauser, OZ
The Tongue That Sees. Neuroaesthetics, Molecular Aesthetics and Media Aesthetics

Wednesday, 25th

Returning to Japan for Friday Morning’s Panel Session at the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) with Watanabe Maiko, Akihiro Kubota, Emiko Inoue and Oron Catts.

Verina Gfader interviewed us for her essay on our work Common Flowers / White Out in the upcoming book CODED CULTURES – Creative Practices out of Diversity (Ed. Georg Russegger, Springer Verlag – Wien / New York – Edition Angewandte.

Here’s an excerpt of some of her questions and our answers. Can’t wait to get my hand on the book.

Sissu Tarka: Q1. What is the ‘common’?
BCL: General, free, open, public. Belonging to all, the opposite of special. Shared by all or many. There are two connotations to it, the first one is exemplified in the reversal of the project name from ‘Common Flowers’ to ‘Flower Commons’, specified that shared places and spaces where the flowers might grow. Translated to German, ‘Common’ becomes ‘gemein’, which again has two distinct meanings. One the one hand the obvious one such as ‘Gemeinde’ (Community, Village) or “ever-present, ordinary”, especially in often-occurring plants and animals. (The original latin would be ‘vulgaris’). The other nuance is that ‘gemein’ also means ‘mean’. Whether genetically-modified flowers really are mean, is not for us to decide.

ST: Q2. Why flowers? Roses?
BCL: Flowers – and especially Suntory Flowers’ ranges of genetically modified blue carnations and roses – because they represent the first genetically modified consumer products, which are neither human food or animal feed, but serve a purely aesthetic purpose. That’s why they are special, that’s why they have to become common.

ST: Q7 What does (bio-)hacking mean, imply? In particular to YOUR practice?
BCL: Hacking has to be effortlessly elegant. A small gesture with a big outcome. With Bio-hacking in particular we mean the attempt to regain the power about our shared biological destiny. We need to get involved, we need to understand, we need to learn. Not only we as artists, but we as a society.

ST: Q7.1 Can one hack everything? Any system?
BCL: In principle it should be possible to hack any system that can be sufficiently well described. The ‘hacking’ in this project is evident on two of levels. On the bio-technical, tissue-culture level: we are trying to understand the system ‘blue flower’ and change it’s appearance. On the media-communication level: we are trying our DIY flowers as a counter-model to the commercially available ones, with the explicit plan of provoking responses.

ST: Q9 How do you work as a team, dialogical processes in your practice?
BCL: Yes, exactly. Dialogical processes, polylogical textures.

ST: Q11 Did you look into colour theory?
BCL: Have to admit, not very much. We are aware that blue stands for something unobtainable, and the blue rose especially seems to have a romantic connotation of unreachable love. What other meanings from colour theory would apply to flowers which were white, then became blue, and then became white again? Schizophrenic?

ST: Q20 Do you think the ‘hacked’ flower is already embedded in the ‘former’ or ‘first’ flower?
BCL: Basically Suntory ‘hacked’ the flower, we are only showing ways of re-taking ownership of it.

ST: Q25 What is your preferred day/night time of working?
BCL: After 24.30h, but before 27.30h. Yes, one should really be in bed by 27.30h.

ST: Q47 Your preferred code/coding?
BCL: It’s fun to decipher code, may they be technological, cultural or technical. Coding is active participation.