Unboxing was an Artistic Residence exploring new approaches to puppetry, combining puppetry manipulation in particular camera based manipulation, with real-time generation and mixing of visuals, lights and sound.

This artistic residence took place in May 2022 in Alma d’Arame with Âmandio Anastácio and Luís Grifu.

A tounchdesigner interface was created to manipulate the visuals and mix the performance.

Music: As Salamu Alaykum by Echo

Participation in a colective Art Exchibition at Fórum da Maia de 4 from 17th March till 17th April 2022.

An adaptation of the interactive installation Ditador which was developed to the “Abílio-José Santos. Revelação: Concretos e Visuais” exhibition.

This installation was developed by Grifu, Luís Aly and Marco Jerónimo using eMotion, Qlab, Kinect.

Installation perspective from the entrance
Installation using a Kinect to track the participant’s body

4 de março a 17 de abril
(Terça a domingo, das 10h00 às 22h00)
Inauguração: 4 de março às 19h00
Fórum da Maia
“No vasto universo das imagens”
Arte Contemporânea na Coleção da Câmara Municipal da Maia

Inserida no objetivo da promoção e valorização do património histórico e cultural, a Câmara Municipal da Maia apresenta, através do seu Pelouro da Cultura, a exposição “No vasto universo das imagens” – Arte Contemporânea na Coleção da Câmara Municipal da Maia.
Com curadoria de José Maia, “No vasto universo das imagens” advém de uma seleção de obras do núcleo de Arte Contemporânea cujo coletivo, adquirido no âmbito das inúmeras exposições promovidas pelo Município, resulta, essencialmente, da sua política cultural, assente na promoção e incentivo de jovens talentos, evidenciando, sempre que possível, os autóctones.
Organizada por núcleos distintos – Arte Contemporânea, Arte Naïf, Arte Pública e Intervenções Urbanas – a coleção de Arte da Câmara Municipal da Maia reúne obras de diversos criadores, de períodos diferentes, realizadas em áreas como a pintura, a escultura, a instalação, o vídeo, a fotografia, o grafiti ou tapeçaria.
Figurativas ou abstratas, simbólicas ou metafóricas, as criações refletem uma heterogeneidade de temáticas, entre as quais: a história e a memória, a cidadania e ambiente, a arte, o sistema e o papel dos agentes artísticos.
A exposição compreende um percurso entre o Fórum da Maia, os espaços circundantes, o edifício da Câmara Municipal e Parque Central.

ARTISTAS
Abílio-José Santos, Álvaro Siza Vieira, Ana Rainha, Ana Vidigal, Carlos Vidal, Felícia Teixeira e João Brojo, Francisco Tropa, Gil Madeira, Isaque Pinheiro, João Campolargo Teixeira, João Jacinto, Luís Aly, Luís Grifu, Marco Jerónimo, Marta Wengorovius, Miguel Leal, Miguel Palma, Moradavaga, Paulo Scavullo, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Pedro Ruiz, Robert Schad, Rui Serra, Rui Toscano, Sara Rodrigues e Rodrigo Camacho, Sérgio Leitão, Sobral Centeno, Zulmiro de Carvalho, entre outros.

PROGRAMAÇÃO
A Exposição
“No vasto universo das imagens”
Arte Contemporânea na Coleção da Câmara Municipal da Maia

No início do mês de março de 2022, as portas do Fórum da Maia irão abrir para dar a conhecer “No vasto universo das imagens”.
“Uma exposição que se torna única pelos distintos elementos que conjuga num agora. Parte do núcleo de obras concebidas pelo artista Pedro Ruiz, aqui expostas no Fórum da Maia juntamente com a coleção de Arte Contemporânea, permitem um alinhamento no tempo com a sua carreira, construída paralelamente com a produção artística e curadoria do próprio Fórum. José Maia assina a curadoria sensível de uma exposição num lugar que tão bem conhece (Bienal da Maia 2015 e 2021), e cria uma narrativa que ativa o olhar de todos, através de ligações metafóricas, que vão buscar obras que já cá estão e nos pertencem, ao mesmo tempo que provoca um novo olhar a obras de arte integradas na coleção, nem sempre acessíveis aos seus visitantes.
Esta é uma história da cidade da Maia, dos seus habitantes, e dos artistas que por cá passaram entre 1997 e 2021, entre exposições coletivas e individuais, que se expande ao exterior, incluindo a arte pública e intervenções urbanas, num diálogo de simbiose do qual raramente temos oportunidade de fazer parte. Vamos todos.”
Joana Mendonça

In the international day of the marionette Alma d’Arame promoted a round table to discuss about puppetry and the essence of the marionette.

The discussion panel was constituted by researchers, artists and by the Regional Director of Cultural of Alentejo.

Christine Zurbach was the moderador (PhD in Literatura Comparada / Estudos de Tradução). The guests were: Ana Paula Amendoeira (Regional Director of Cultural of Alentejo), Amândio Anastácio (Mestre em Teatro, Art Director of Alma d’Arame), Paulo Simões Rodrigues (Professor Auxiliar na Universidade de Évora e Presidente do CHAIA), Luís Grifu (Director of the Multimedia Departamento and Director of the Master Degree in Interactive Media at ESMAD)

Interview to the “Ler o Mundo em Português” magazine directed by Carlos Fragateiro about the new technologies and the invention of the future. Perspectives on how to make things in the future.

The interview can be accessed directly through this page!

Instalação Voa ave voo fez parte da exposição “Abílio-José Santos. Revelação: Concretos e Visuais” aberta ao público de 4 de julho a 8 de setembro de 2019 no Fórum Maia.

The interactive installation Voa ave voo was at the  “Abílio-José Santos. Revelação: Concretos e Visuais” exhibition from July to September 2019.

This installation was developed by Grifu, Luís Aly and Marco Jerónimo using Unity3D, FMOD and LeapMotion.

Ave

Raw video without sound.

Artistic residence in Montemor-o-Novo with Amândio in alma d’Arame.

Exploring interactive media with body manipulation and puppetry.

Sound, visuals, lights and video. Working with Kinect, Webcams, Leapmotion and video mapping using Touchdesigner, Ableton Live and Mad Mapper.

Solitaria

Poster for the Solitária performance

Solitária is a performance-play that explores the human Loneliness in the solitary confinement imagining the behavior of a prisoner through is mind and body. Our body is the only connection to the physical world, the only sensor capable to recognize the physical space. However, our sensorial capabilities begin to misbehave and soon we became disorientated.

Debut’s on 9th November 2017 – 21h30 – Blackbox d’O Espaço do Tempo.
Other performances in 10th and 11th November at 21h30 – Blackbox d’O Espaço do Tempo.

 

Solitária follows the performance-play approaches which characterizes the work developed by Alma d’arame from its beginning. Each work starts inside a delimited space, inside it’s own confinement. In one hand, the space of narrative, theater, puppet, being and object and, on the other, the space of programming, kinetics, multimedia. Starting from the solitary and creative space of each one, we saw the common space of creation born. We all have and need that time with ourselves. It is in this time that we find the space of each one, which is ours alone, and where we can relive memories, hide, think, feel, register. Here we will reach own states. That is what this performative act is all about.
It is in this laboratory space that this solitary confrontation between man and machine, between real and virtual, unfolds, and it is this confrontation that will lead us to experimentation and the search for new narratives.
The kinetic movement of the body and how it occupies the empty space will build this visual and sound narrative.

Art team
Direcção artística | Amândio Anastácio;
Interpretação | Susana Nunes;
Multimédia | Luís Grifu;
Música | João Bastos;
Marioneta | Raul Constante Pereira;
Desenho de luz e Espaço cénico | Amândio Anastácio;
Desenho de luz e montagem | António Costa;
Direcção de Produção | Isabel Pinto Coelho;
Assistente de Produção | Alexandra Anastácio;
Fotografia | Inês Samina;
Vídeo | Pedro Grenha;

Production | Alma d’Arame

Apoio | Câmara Municipal de Montemor-o-Novo .
Parceria | Espaço do Tempo .
Estrutura Financiada por | Dgartes e Governo de Portugal

Common Spaces performance at Maus Hábitos

Common Spaces performance on ELO (Electronic Literature Organization) Conference in the 18th of July in Maus Hábitos – Porto.

Common Spaces rehearsal

After Gato Vadio in Porto, Salão Brasil in Coimbra, Conde Duque in Madrid, we return to Porto for a new performance.

Common Spaces was performed by members of the Retroescavadora: Rui Torres, Luís Aly, Luís Leite (Grifu), Nuno M.

Common Spaces is an experimental performance that translates spatial poetry into a multidisciplinary collaborative environment that gathers the physical and the virtual spaces. This performance mixes in realtime distinct types of media in a sort of multi-modal orchestrate. A multi-sensorial performance based on our hand gestures (Leap Motion), vision (camera) and voice (microphone).
The common-space derives from the notion of common ground as the medium and the process of communication. It can be understood as a mutual understanding among interactors – as the iterative process of conversation for exchanging evidences between communicators – as an interface.

ELO17

Electronic Literature Organization brought to Porto the state of the art of the field. The Conference was hosted by University Fernando Pessoa, and the Festival and Exhibits were held in the center of the historic city.

 

video

[vimeo 227289001 w=580&h=326]

This week I have attended to the EICS 2017 in Lisbon, were I have met many wonderful people such as Paul Dourish that published a new book called “The Stuff of Bits”, or Gilbert Cockton the Editor-in-Chief of ACM Interactions.

Demo and poster of Mani-Pull-Action at EICS

Demo and poster of Mani-Pull-Action at EICS

The 9th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems was full of interesting interactive surprises. A great place to get to know new trends, and innovative approaches about interactive systems.

I had the privilege to present a full paper entitled “Mani-Pull-Aciton: Hand-based Digital Puppetry” and to provide a live demonstration to all the participants. A great opportunity to get feedback about this work.

The new version of Stringless for Unity supports Zeroconf networking through Bonjour for auto discovery as well RemoteUI.

stringless

Just press play on Unity, and all the parameters that you have chosen for remote control will automatically appear in RemoteUI on another computer, on a IOS or Android Device.
You do not need to manually setup the OSC addresses anymore, just drag a Receiver on a Gameobject and define the value range that RemoteUI will automatically recognize and show you a slider for you to manipulate. These sliders can also be mapped to MIDI devices or other HUD controllers in a similar manner as the MIDI learn feature. Just press the name of the parameter on RemoteUI until it starts to blink, and move a slider on your MIDI controller or a joystick on a gamepad. The mapping will be saved for future sessions. You can also define distinct devices for the same mapping allowing device interchange.

[vimeo 219604247 w=580&h=326]

 

Stringless support for RemoteUI is just a prototype and still in a developing phase.
Soon, it will be available for download.

Music: bensound.com
May.2017