For a few months now Colorcalm, the folks who produce those ambient video DVDs, have been running a contest to solicit submissions for their next DVD compilation (MoCo Loco is a contest media partner). To date they’ve received several submissions from video artists around the world. We recently asked them to show us a sampling of those videos and then called Colorcalm producer Robert Norton to ask a few questions. The videos and the answers to those questions are in the podcast you can download below.

+ MP4 Quicktime Stream
+ moco_loco_ambient_video.mp4 (13.87Mb video iPod file, right click and "Save link as")

If you’re interested in submitting your own video art for the contest, you can do so here. Colorcalm has also recently teamed up with Atmos Pictures to distribute their ambient video through new digital distribution platforms. Watch out for 'atmospheric entertainment' on iTunes, Google Video and as ringtones later this year.

The Blushing Light designed by Nadine Jarvis and Jayne Potter "blushes" in response to the emotional pitch of a mobile phone. Through conversation, the lamp is activated by the Electromagnetic field (EMF) emitted from a mobile phone and continues blushing for 5 minutes after the call has ended; prolonging the memory of the otherwise transient conversation. The designers are interested in humanizing technology and how they can record emotion in everyday objects. They have certainly got me interested... JGB

+ nadinejarvis.com
+ jaynepotter.com

Blushing lamp in context.

Blushing lamp.

Blushing lamp- "blushing".

Shirley Shor's new media installations are all about space and the movement within. Shor’s real-time animations are constantly changing landscapes of colour in motion. Landslide and Terra Infirma are software installations that consist of visuals generated by software code onto sand, or a sculpted base, in a sandbox. The combination of lines and colours meld with the sand to create the topography of the installations, different all the time, as the code does not repeat. These pieces, or videos really, function as maps, simulating real life where borders are always changing. The sandbox is not a random choice either: Shor’s belief is that conflict often begins in such a venue while children are at play. SM

The Moti Hasson Gallery in New York is showing new media works by Shirley Shor until May 27th.

Landslide - installation

Landslide - installation

Terra Infirma

Terra Infirma

Terra Infirma

Dark Days, White Nights is a new video installation by Gabriel Winer for Bar Veloce in New York. Patrons travel back in time to Italy of the 1960’s along with a mix of the films of Michaelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti. A new film is created each night, as the installation re-edits and re-mixes footage from the collection. Dark Days, White Nights can be seen at either of the two Bar Veloce locations. SM

Based in Tokyo, Yoshio Machida specializes in ‘photobatik’ using photographic paper as the medium. No camera is involved in Machida’s work. Instead he coaxes pattern out of the development of the paper by immersing it in acetic acid, then developer. The surface begins to develop unevenly, based on how and where the two liquids combine. When Machida is pleased with the result, the photo paper meets the fixer and the pattern is made permanent before the final stages of washing and drying. Photobatik is all about whole exposure and partial development, and Machida will also combine pieces of photo paper to create collages of soft colour. SM

Based in France, but unleashed all over the internet, Plastic TV is all about aesthetic video art, groovy moving paintings for our TV screens. The focus is less on traditional video, but more towards visual arts adapted to the screen, and usually accompanied by an original soundtrack. Plastic TV offers video art by a wide variety of artists, so there's something for everyone. And on a smaller scale, screensavers are also available. The above piece is an extract from work by Videoshapes (Patrice Manillier), an ambient soundscape called People. SM

Session 001 by VJ Milosh (Milosz Luczynski)

Jour de Rêve by Yuki Kawamura, who specializes in dreamy images.

Ombre de Libre Arbitre, a video painting by Gérard Pairé

Cantus Campus, one of a series by Jean-Luc Oyama-Jusseau

Simon Millgate's Flash painting generators are randomly generated animated paintings that change every few seconds. The variation in composition is slow enough that the viewer has time to digest each step of the way and freeze frame any favorite moments. Other pieces by Millgate include mask-like pigmented inkjet prints derived from digital compositions based on a variety of flora and some fauna, like lichen, bark and oysters. Other digital pieces include still lifes incorporating relief. SM

Joshua Davis is another New York digital artist who presents an interesting selection of video work (among other media) on his website. His studio has developed software that re-compiles video by using whatever vectors are provided, as demonstrated by this series of baby close-ups. Other interesting broadcast projects include a two-minute video that incorporates the Brazilian flag and map as shapes used in its composition and a series of video clips produced for World Aids Day. SM

NEC will present their KotoHana (the talking flower) at CeBit this year. KOTOHANA is two flower-shaped communication terminals. The terminal reads emotions from the voices of the users and changes into signals sent to each other so you can share your feelings with that special someone around the globe. The emotions read by the terminal are expressed by the changing color of the LED flower. Via Engadget. JGB

+nec.co.jp

Digital artist Peter Stanick has a terrific interactive website that allows the user to move through a digital landscape peopled by bikini-clad models and housewives, angry taxi drivers, numerous creative types and a cigar-chomping wheeler-dealer. Stanick’s illustrations are consistently colourful and witty, but one never knows what to expect at the next click of the mouse. Stanick is currently exhibiting some of his work at the Museum Works Galleries in New York until April 15th. SM

Philadelphia-based art publisher Bit Editions, maker of video art installation displays, recently announced an easy to use service that lets artists feature their own animation on their LED displays. The artist simply sends their animation to Bit Editions as a sequence of 1984 bitmap images (they provide custom animation software for free). Then the animation is programmed into the LED display and the display is shipped to the artist. The displays are 12 by 14 inches in size and contain one LED per square inch. Each LED can show eight levels of brightness. That's John Flear's Fireflies below, see the movie here.

Digital artist and architect Margot Krasojevic explores our perception of space, both physical and virtual. Decodeine is her web site that employs animations and simulations to take a look at time sequence, memory, order and an instinctive response to space. Krasojevics premise is that since we are able to change our perception of reality, why not have more than one environment? Her projects involve time-space theory by way of Quantum mechanics and relativity in order to give more weight to a floating reality where time has no given sequence. The above is a detail from the digitization of the Swimming Pool Projected Realities segment of Krasojevic's project on pathological space.

Swimmng Pool.

Swimmng Pool.

Glass House.

Private House Event.
SM