gRIG

Overview

gRig is a group of European artistic and cultural operators gathered around a mutual purpose; to research and create meaningful situations in hybrid (or mixed) reality, where digital media and physical materials, objects and spaces are increasingly intertwined.

Generating inspiring and playful situations in this reality requires skills from a variety of artistic, technological and scientific disciplines. For several years the gRig partners have worked together, exchanging information and resources; in European projects, informal networks and symposia, working towards a sustainable and extendible conceptual, organisational and technological support structure for artistic expression in hybrid realities.

With gRig we will to formalise our collaboration over a longer time-span, strengthening the bonds between the partners through a joint research, production and presentation programme.

Aims

In gRIG, InterMedia will work with research partners on two aspects:

1) online research 'rhetorics' and mediation of mixed reality arts in an interdisciplinary European level project via wiki-based technologies

2) practice-based arts research into mixed reality arts as a domain of digital design and artistic expression and the roles of participants and publics therein.

Concepts

Core concepts concerning mixed reality, its application in artistic installation-like domains and related concepts such as interactivity and generativity will be addressed. Part of the focus will also be on performativity, that is modes and means through and by which participants enact with mixed reality art spaces. At the level of utterance, we are also interested to see how collaborative experiences and reflections may be included in a processural project site that includes views from project members, related partners, critics and participants in the art works themselves.

Methods

Practice-based methods now well-established in the domain of art, design - and especially electronic art - will be applied. As a part of research into digital design that is part of InterMedia, we will refer to participatory and iterative methods in a wider emergent and ecological design process.

Outcomes

The project will produce three mixed reality art works, a process-driven website, mixed modes of academic publishing and formal articles and chapters. The intention is to also collaborate on publications and build knowledge across sub-projects and varying practices and conceptual frames.

Publications & presentations

Morrison, A.  Sem, I. &  Havnør, M. (forthcoming 2007). 'Behind the wallpaper: performativity in mixed reality arts'. In Morrison, A. (Ed.) Inside Multimodal Composition. Hampton Press: Cresskill.
Morrison, A. & Skjulstad, S. (forthcoming 2007). ‘Unreal estate: digital design and mediation in marketing urban residency’. In Wagner I., Stuedahl, D. & Bratteteig, T. (Eds). Explorations in Digital Design. Springer: Vienna.

The collaborative, multi-partner gRiG project website will shortly be launched.
See the related prior project TRG: Trans Reality Generators

Partners

FoAM (Belgium), The Interactive Institute (Sweden), InterMedia (Norway),  KIBLA (Slovenia), Nadine (Belgium), and Time’s Up  (Austria).

Duration

November 2006-October 2009.

Funding

gRIG is funded by the EU Culture 2000 Programme. The project leader is Maja Kuzmanovic of fo.am in Belgium.