an old ritual, going in (under ground), coming out (over ground), cleaning off the soot and dust of the time below.
today mining is a forgotten art form, except in places where the exploitation of cheap labor is practiced still.

the lab team has met four times for brain storm sessions:

June 30 - arrival on site

July 1 - opening up the mine, getting acquainted with the space, setting up the Atelier/Studios in the Kaue

July 2 -exploratory journey across the entire industrial facility, inspecting traces and residues

discussion on sustainable past, forgettable technology, why interact, and how, with the local community, what do we bring here, how does this specific industrial and architectural environment affect our psyche, our bodies and minds, physicality, our imagination, what do we want to build, perform, record, mediate?

workshop with Jim Ruxton on sensors worn on the body

July 3 working in the studios and found spaces, no brainstorm session, Alan Smith presents first video action series from his interactions with the landscape

Marija Stamenkovic Herranz, Jim, Julia Baur and Johannes explore the roof level of the Eindicker 4 dome

July 4: workshop with Paulo Chagas on interactive sound-space, spectral and virtual space movement, polyphony, synaesthesia, Raum-Interfaces

brainstorm on "interactivity" and interface design, how to involve an audience, game plans,

and the use of the specific architecture in which we are living now

Marion Traenkle proposes to consider the symmetrical architecture of the Kaue (with its 13 "cells" for the washing/dressing) as our main operation room for "hosting" the audience and inviting them to try out some of our interactive media, open-connected side by side over the length of 70 meters, with doors leading to each "cell"

Arjen Keesmaat, prototype interactive text projection

July 5 workshop with Alan Smith and Kelli Dipple

Alan introduces his poetic work with/within the landscape (the leadmines in Northern England), the myth of Jason & and Argonauts hunting for minerals (gold), and Agricola's book on mining. He shows several performance videos which have become part of the construction of his installations. From the first day of his participation in Göttelborn, Alan has done site-specific actions in the landscape and filmed them, and he shows us several filmic sections of this processed which are already edited. One recurring motif in his actions is the poetic adaptation of themes which are alluded to by the left-over signage in the Mine (e.g. safety regulations and admonitions to the workers)

Kelli discusses telecommunications and networked performance/distributed performance, pointing to her collaboration with Company in Space (Australia) and her recent curatorial work in Manchester and London, and most recently, her residency at montevideo for the new "M.a.p.p." software development (Amsterdam). She shows three short films she has made in the Mine, pointing to her interest in disappearance and distance, in the question of how to negotiate distance (in the real site and the telematic performance with remote sites)

The session concludse with a brainstorm on strategies for installations of _works-in-progress_, parallel installations and flows of music, nonlinear narratatives and particles, technical infrastructures. The group also looks into the creation of an "off-site" (linked space) at the K4 in Saarbrücken (July 8-14).

July 6 workshop with Lynn Lukkas, Mark Henrickson, Paul Smith & Marion Traenkle

Lynn and Paul present their current collaboration on an interface (bio-radio) which Lynn suggested, between monitoring heart-rhythms and sending the electrical-polarity signal to a Director's program patch written by Paul. Marija Stamenkovic volunteers to do an improvisational dance with the bioradio, with Paul providing the Director program displaying an image of the trees from the Mine after last Tuesday's thunderstorm.

Marion introduces her recent work with interactive room installations, such as "Weather Box" and "Enigmatic Opera Company", showing films of the interfaces and discussing her interest in transformative/transformed environments. In the case of the "Enigmatic" she had created a series of animations of opera decors (the "settings" and environments" of a fictional performance) which can be affected by the movement and behavior of the audience that enters the room. She also mentions her active role as a "host" in her installations, cajoling and inviting individuals and audiences to explore the space, move around and activate the various interface options. In her aesthetics, she is concerned with the" human behavior of the images."

In a discussion afterwards, Paulo raises the question about the relationship between gesture (control) or energy of movement (with the bioapparatus) and image that is projected and manipulated. What is the relation, the logic and purpose of a relation, why this particular image? A longer debate follows, during which Paul suggests that he likes to think of the Director program as a visual instrument for the "performer," and Lynn suggests that today's choice of the tree image was only for testing, that no dramaturgy for the precise interactive relationships had been developed yet. Alan urges us to think of the poetry in these relations, and not just the technical capabilities. Johannes mentions the "instructions" that often accompany interactive digital installations, suggesting to visitors the "functionality" of interface, or telling them what they can do, whereas Orm Finnendahl notes that in his last interactive installation ("East by West," with Sher Doruff and Johannes) he was surprised about "user" behavior since it seemed unpredictable and in any case, the rooms of the installations were too dark for reading instructions. Alan jokes that the "instructions" remind him of missionaries who teach a new religion to the indigenous population.

We agree that we are more interested in leaving the "room" and its interface design to the explorative imagination of visitors, especially since there are social scenarios that evolve, since often someone steps forward and dares to play and be creative and spontaneous, and others watch, observe, and then want to follow in their own manner....

July 7 workshop on microcontrollers and "connected spaces"/telepresence with Jeff Mann; Keyworx workshop with Arjen Keesmaat

Jeff Mann presents excerpts from his recent telepresence collaboration (Toronto's Interaccess Gallery and Waag Society in Amsterdam), the "Live Form project," which consists of live art explorations (in social settings, such as dinner table parties) using telecommunications technology to connect distant places. He shows examples of earlier work with telerobotics, "Space Probes" (collaborative laboratory for exchange of knowledge), interactive kinetic sculptures and TV FreeNet, and offers a basic demo of working with microcontrollers that he builds himself to drive various interactive devices. It is a session on Basic Stamp, and he shows us how to assemble a circuit board that will receive (sensor) input and send midi signals to a computer.

Arjen then demonstrates the Keyworx platform, a multiuser real-time multimedia processing software that is used to create networked performances and communications among users who can be at remote locations (yet are linked via the internet). He shows us how to use the Patcher and Realizer and bring in media inputs (live sources such as video, audio, webcam, midi or library files) which can then be "rendered" and manipulated and affected in real time by any or all of the shares-space users.

After this workshop the lab team begins to draw a sketchbook of the group- works and various team works-in-progress which we plan to install and present to the public on the weekend of July 12-13, both during the guided tours and the late night performance. A plan of the projected installations and interactive performance modules will be published tomorrow, and a technical and logistical master plan for the infratsructures will need to be constructed.

July 8 workshop on spatialized interactive sound with Orm Finnendahl

Composer Orm Finnedahl presents his PD patch which he has prepared for an interactive "Klangerzeugungsraum" - sound-generative room - in the Schwarz-Weiss Kaue, the washing/dressing room area. Rather than talking about his recent work, Orm focusses on the arrangement in the space for real time processing of sound that is created by the lab members and visitors through direct tactile interaction with objects in the room, with the hanging baskets, with tools that we found and placed there, with their own voices, etc. High-quality microphones will record the sounds that are made and feed them into the PD patch that drives the samples that are now mixed and manipulated in real time through the program and the various controllers on a Doepfer fader box. The inputs will include data that are received from various sensors that Jim Ruxton will place amongst the found objects and kinetic sculptures in the old washing/dressing room. The sound is projected into the space via an 8-channel sound system, so that the sound space/architecture in the 70 meter long/30 meter tall room can be moved and altered, creating landscapes, fields, and layers of sound.

After the workshop the group discusses the master plan for the weekend, and Johannes introduces the main areas for interactive installations, and all members of the group briefly introduce their ideas for the installations and performances they are working on. A joint technical plan and sketches of the various interactive architectures are being created. These installations will be "in session" all day Saturday and Sunday.

There is a film shoot on the roof top of the Eindicker, with Koala Yip performing the four sequences of a dance of the "Oracle."

Afterwards the lab members have an interface with visitors of the artists collective which created a project called "The Virtual Mine" two years ago at the mine "Gegenort" in Neunkirchen.

Near midnight Jeff Mann succeeds in establishing network connection between the Tower (Schacht 4) and the lab via wireless transmission from laptop to laptop (airport).

July 9 site visit by 8m2 class from the Quierschied High School, Johannes and lab members take the young students on a tour of the laboratory and introduce some of the work stations and the projects that are being developed. SR1 television station is present and films the interface with the local students. The students stay for two hours, and use their own cameras to make some recordings; we spent some time in the "Klangerzeigungsraum" to let them get a feeling for the interface with the sensors that Jim has prepared.