Join us at the official Tagtool Convention! It’s happening as part of Ars Electronica Festival 2018, from September 6th to 10th in Linz, Austria.
For more than a decade buildings and stages have lit up with spontaneous projections made with Tagtool. The worldwide user community shares an alternative vision of digital art, where creation and presentation happen simultaneously in front of a live audience.
Since 1979, the annual Ars Electronica festival has built a substantial global reputation as a gathering of artists, scientists and technologists, intended as a setting for experimentation, evaluation and reinvention. The Tagtool Convention will be integrated into the festival, making it possible to join the Tagtool community, as well as experiencing the cutting edge of the international media art scene.
Tagtool creators OMAi will host a large Tagtool Community area located in the industrial PostCity hall. This multifunctional projection space will be used for presentations, workshops and casual creative exchange. Tagtoolers of all ages and backgrounds are invited to become part of the action. Stay tuned for the schedule, which will include live performances and outdoor projections!
In the meantime, let us know here in the forum if you have any questions. You can also contact us at hello@omai.at.
We’re excited to get confirmations by artists and ensembles who will join us at the Tagtool Convention! The first one we can announce is Yaguar, born and raised in the Colombian jungle, and currently residing in Saragossa.
From a background in Street Art, Yaguar entered the world of digital visuals. Inspired by Land Art, he loves to work in natural spaces with the shamanic power of light.
Yaguar has already joined us at Ars Electronica Festival in 2017, contributing stunning art as well as hands-on support on many levels. We are very delighted to have him around again this year. Life is better when you have a jaguar by your side!
Hi guys, it is a pleasure to participate in this ARS ELECTRONICA 2018, together with TAGTOOL CREW, 2017 was a great experience, many lumens and color, a hug and see you soon!!
Our next artists to be confirmed at the Tagtool Convention are community veterans. Frances Sander from Scotland and Dima Berzon from Russia met and married in London. Now they live in an otherwise idyllic village in the forests close to Prague, where they set up a one-of-a-kind art studio called Atelier Libusin.
Frances, as a classically trained painter and printmaker, uses Tagtool for large scale improvisatory drawing performances, often together with musicians. Dima, working mostly with time based media and lighting design, combines Frances’ Tagtool art with other styles and technologies.
Searching for digital live painting tools they visited our very first Tagtool Convention in Austria back in 2009. We became friends and partners in crime, and have teamed up for numerous Tagtool sessions and all sorts of (mis)adventures. Please don’t ask what happened to Dima’s jacket in Geneva!
WOW, I wish I could be a part of this. This is a retired hobby for me but if I was starting my career now this is what I would do. I will look forward to seeing what you all do so please post all the videos online afterwards. Most jealous. Ann
During the Convention we’ll set up a few interactive installations at the Tagtool Community space, in order to demonstrate different ways of using Tagtool. Like last year, we’ll have a “micro mapping” station. Visitors can build their own three-dimensional canvas with white building blocks. This time we’ll be using special eco-friendly bricks called Bioblo. These are incredibly fun to play with - you can do most amazing constructions!
We had great fun at a test session together with Frances Sander - check out the images below. At the Convention we will have a bigger space and more bricks - can’t wait to create more strange and wonderful worlds!
Also joining us at the convention will be Lora Shopova and Ivan Shopov all the way from Bulgaria. They caught the Tagtool bug during one of our workshops in Plovdiv, which is one of the oldest cities in Europe. It was one of those encounters where you feel that you will meet again. And here they are!
Lora is a new media artist and Ivan a versatile musician and fine artist. Together they perform under the name Folkwires. The duo is combining their passion for technology and Bulgarian folklore in a wild audiovisual exploration of their native culture. Live painting of sacred and mystical geometries is mixed with visual programming and exquisite sound design.
We’re very happy to welcome another extraordinary group of artists and performers to the Tagtool Convention: Theatre of Animation Art, or TAM in short, is a multidisciplinary ensemble all the way from Kiev, Ukraine. As an association of young theatre makers, they explore the field of animation in theatre by mixing puppetry, experimental music and visual art. Since 2016 they havre created several different theatre projects, such as street performances with huge puppets.
We stumbled upon their work online years ago and immediately fell in love with it. They use Tagtool to create beautiful, improvisational sceneries that fluently interact with the actor’s and musician’s performance.
At the convention they will show the performance „The Cat that Walked by Himself“, based on the fairytale by Rudyard Kipling. The story brings us back to when the world stopped being wild. Only the cat refuses to be domesticated: “I am not a friend and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself and all places are alike to me.” In this piece they combine puppets, shadows and masks, inspired by the Indonesian puppetry tradition.
We are delighted to present our friend, the extraordinary artist Dieter Puntigam at the Tagtool Convention! Dieter got hooked on Tagtool at the very beginning of the project. For over a decade he has perfected his performative style in different settings. His artistic skillset draws on his education at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig.
At the convention, he will show a performance with the dancer Bea von Schrader. The duo is working together since 2008, presenting performances with Tagtool and dance around Europe. Moreover, Dieter will will bring his project Cell City to our Tagtool community space! It’s a set of white paper structures that can be arranged in various shapes and forms to form a geometric cityscape, offering lots of fun possibilities for projection.
