Photos by Georgina Tait

Includes:
Ryoji Ikeda
Emdee
Tuba Skinny
Pierre Henry – virtual appearance
David Chesworth Ensemble
The Dresden Dolls
Toshimaru Nakamura
Andrea Centazzo
Gilmour Ensemble
Julianna Barwick
Kellie O’Dempsey
Prince Rama
Amiina
David Watson
Lawrence English / Scott Morrison
Michaela Davies
Nell
Senyawa
Black Jesus Experience
Ed Kuepper & Mark Dawson
Donny Benet

Location: FO Stage at PW1 (Princes Wharf Shed No 1), Castray Esp, Hobart

I spent this past weekend at Ateliér Libušín, located in the small village of Libušín, Czech for this years edition of the TagTool sessions.
Ateliér Libušín is also the home of Francis and Dima, whom I first became aware of from the Wall Of Light video.

On hand for the sessions was the entire OMA international family along with a hand full of musicians. There was lots of cooking and chatting and drinking, and more importantly TagTool.

For the first night Francis suggested we set up in the back yard because it was so nice out and the following evening there was a prediction of rain. On hand were three large plastic panels that were propped up, projectors turned on and off we went with two TagTool stations, one of them plugged in via a Dima invention using VVVV keyed into the other for some dual TagTooling.

Photo: Maki

Improvised musical accompaniment by Seppi and iink.

Photo: Maki

The following evening we all went into the studio and a secret project involving an iPad was introduced into the mix. In the images above and below, left side is TagTool and right side is the ______ running on the iPad.

Photo: Maki

Not shown here at all are the experiments where the ______ on the iPad sent its drawings to the MadMapper using Syphon.

When the geekery concluded we settled into a multi-tagtool session…

Photo: gnu

Photo: gnu

Colors coming out of the nose of the mind.

PLEASE NOTE: The event was supported by funds of a cultural promotion called “Wir sind Nachbarn” (we are neighbors) by “NÖ Landesakademie” (an institute of Lower Austria).

As you can see from the gallery there is quite a bit of Piggy action involved when it comes to Tinet. The Hypno Toad with its underwater friends came about towards the end of the night and is rather telling of what happens to the mind after drawing for about 6 hours straight.

A big thanks to the co-organizers Henri Gylander for his interest in including our talents to grace their party.

You can read a more personal and in depth report about this adventure on Tinet’s blog post.

The Tagtool introductory sessions to comic book artists at SPX went really well. Every artist who tried it gave the ‘cool’ seal of approval, and this despite the 15 minute time limitation. We were provided with a small viewing room and were provided with 15 minute slots in between the various seminars. The organizers were very pleased as well and made informal invitations for the future.

The above session with the piranhas was Yvette Gustafsson. Mostly I ended up taking photos and later some screen shots, not feeling too comfortable yet with the session capture. Some highlights are:

Piggy scooter night ride by Tinet Elmgren

Stef Gaines expresses her feelings about this years SPX.

The Hunt by Ainur Elmgren

I did not have my 7D with me because I already had enough to carry with two laptops, two Tagtool boxes and the projector, half of which we ended up not using. Thanks to Horst Schroeder of EPIX for letting us use his trusty little Lumix, you can see the rest of the photos it its own SPX set on flickr.

You may notice some non Tagtool photos as well such as this one of the EPIX/Elmgren/Katin table. In this photo my Mom’s book, fresh from the book makers is on the left.

The above is wide view and well lit picture of the room where the Tagtool sessions were held. This presentation was by a group of comic book artists in Malmo who published a compilation addressingracism in Sweden. They will be hosting an official release party in Malmo in June and because Tinet was one of the “>contributors we will be going and bringing the Tagtool along with us.

Taggert´s Tagtoolistats- The Tagtool appeared briefly as part of a series of performances – only the second time I have done this (the first being Digital Natives). I was a little apprehensive, wondering whether to go for an illustration (something which requires a little patience from your audience) or something more abstract and in the end I chose both.

Later on many people tried their hand and our portrait painting (where you trace over the features using the projector) was especially popular. I think I have a pretty good feel for it now and am looking forward to my next chance!

SaHal from Groningen is doing live-drawing performances in the Netherlands with his brandnew Tagtool Mini.

This is Version 2 of the TagTool. I’ve replaced the knobs for sliders which makes it much easier to see where the values are.

Used this version publicly on the 20th of April 2010 at Zernikeplein 7, the Hanzehogeschool, Groningen, The Netherlands. We did a mixed performance with De Fenestrated on music and Thij Jansen painting for us traditionally. This was a good experiment and we had a good idea on what to do and what not to when working with a REAL painter. One thing to keep in mind is to see the TagTool doesn’t really over power the painting process.

You can find more photos of his performance on his blog.

‘Nine Trades of Dundee’ is a project initiated by the University of Dundee’s Exhibitions Department. The aim is to bring art activity and creativity to the heart of the workplace. Its curatorial strategies are inspired by ‘The Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee’. This organisation, operating since the 1400s, represents nine trade groups: Baker, Cordiner (Shoemaker), Glover, Tailor, Bonnetmaker, Flesher (butcher), Hammerman, Dyer and Weaver.

Ange Taggart is one of the artists in residence. Having worked for many years in the childcare field, she diversified her practice to include family support, community work, day care management as well as lecturing in further & higher education.

Recently she has built a Tagtool Mini, and is putting it to use in different contexts. To find out more about her work, visit her blog. She writes about her experiences with different people trying out her Tagtool here.

Last Wednesday I set up a ‘taster’ session at the library to introduce the staff team to the Tagtool project. The great thing about the Tagtool is that people with little or no computer experience can feel at home with it immediately. It can be used by anyone who can hold a pen.

She’s currently looking for people in the Dundee area who are interested in Tagtool workshops, or who already use the Tagtool. Read her message here!

We met Portia and Dom during the Illuminating York 2009 festival, where they supported our project in many ways. We were happy to hear that they are continuing to work with the Tagtool in York – Portia writes:

After supporting the great work of OMA International and GaiaNova at the Illuminating York festival 2009, we were inspired to see how we could use Tagtool. A colleague was creating a new piece of music with some schools based on ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ and he asked us to provide some Tagtool action as part of their final performance in the York Late Music series. We had no time and lots of fun. The audience were really delighted to see this new element and we think this is an exciting start to lots more Tagtool adventures.

Here are some screenshots of the Tagtool drawings:

It was the first time we had taken all our equipment to perform at a party and setting it up was quite a performance in itself!

However, in the event the projection worked really well, there were loads of people watching and a lot of interest in the Tagtool. After we showed the video we did some free drawing and animation. This was a lot of fun and went down really well so we didn’t pack up all the equipment until 3am – quite a session!

See all the artworks here

We were trying to create some depth in the picture by drawing transparent layers in b/w all over. Afterwards adding black trees, branches and leaves in the foreground to get some details into the abstract picture and finally adding some inhabitants.