We’re really looking forward to hosting Harmen Liemburg for a few days in September. Aside from his public talk he’ll also be working closely with the students in COMS374 Intermedia II.

Tagny (COMS274 Intermedia I, COMS474 Intermedia III), Matt (COMS374 Intermedia II) and Dayna (COMS570 Diploma Intermedia) are busy finishing up their course prep for the new school year, and the labs will soon be ready to go (thanks to our fearless technicians Victor and Scott). We’re also making some improvements to this shared website. See you all soon!

Curious to see what Intermedia students have been up to over the last year? Then don’t miss the end of the semester Intermedia exhibition events programmed as part of Prodfest 2010.

Intermedia 3 will be showing work with Video 3. April 24, 8pm. 5333 Casgrain, Suite 601.

Intermedia 2 will be showing work with Sound 2 as part of Synaesthetics. April 28th, 7:30pm. 179 Jean-Talon West

View Interactive Map

The launch of Google Earth Street View showcasing panoramic images of streets around the world has created many concerns for citizens. What if you are captured on camera and then put on Google Earth for all the world to see, and you don’t even know it? What exactly is being represented in this form of image mapping, and for whom? Should the capture of such images be considered as an infringement on citizen’s privacy rights?

This semester students in Intermedia 1 took a look at the digital representations of Montreal via the panoramic image found in Street View. Students were asked to consider the potential and limitations of the way streets are mapped on Google Earth. How is memory, movement, history, and the culture of a location captured or perhaps omitted from such representations? How might we insert new memories of old histories, or speak to personal and collective experiences embedded the streets of Montreal?

Students selected a location to research and then traveled to that same location to take their own photographs. Some students decided to use found photographs that depicted events that occurred in their site many years ago. Using Illustrator, students used the photograph as the template for creating a vector graphic image to geotag on Google Earth. The results can be seen as graffiti, a way of tagging the digital wall of Google Earth. The images are intended to present another way of viewing the streets of Montreal from the history of riots on Crescent Street to a performance by students that challenge the collection of images by the Google Earth van.

We are now in the process of making a print and ezine featuring articles about each geotagged image. This will be posted soon!

Thanks to Tim Sinnott and GreenInfo Network for technical support.

Students in Intermedia I were given 6 minutes to present a live remix of digital images collected and created over the semester. Not an easy task! Presentations ranged from locative media projects, live VJ remixing of prerecorded images and illustrations, Flash animation projected onto the walls of the lecture hall, to low tech Fluxus performances combined with remixed video images found from the Prelinger Archives (see below). The live events were inspired by the intermedia based projects from the FNC lab at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema, discussions around digital sampling, copyright and mash-up culture, and lectures throughout the semester.

Here is a video component for a live performance entitled “Fear Culture” created by Gabrielle Gagne-Cyr, Kelly Malfara, Sarah Moore and Katrina Riccio.

Students wrote excellent articles about the intermedia-based projects exhibited at this year’s FNC lab at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema. The vector illustrations are well worth a look.  After flipping through this zine you would never guess that most of the students have not used Photoshop or Illustrator before. The 30 page full colour print zine is now available for order through Katosoho Design (514-961-5238). Thanks to Susanna Jones and Alexander Famili who worked hard to design the layout and organize the printing.

For digital version of zine articles click here.
These works are licensed by Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

We are almost finished with the fall Intermedia 274 class. (The last class is next week). Students in the class produced some stunning designs for a print and ezine assignment. It’s hard to believe that many of the students had no experience with Photoshop and Illustrator when they began in September. For this zine project, students choose an event from this years’ Festival du Nouveau Cinéma to research and develop into an illustrated design and article about Intermedia art practices.

Here are some examples. (The print zine and electronic version will be available in the next week on the website so stay tuned).

Top image: Jessica Deer and Jessica DiPaolo, Middle: Natasha Aquin and Phil Fortin,Bottom: Waleed Bachnak, Ekaterina Kouzmenko and Robin Resseguier

[ ] SCAPE is an outstanding zine all about cultural life in Montreal, entirely produced by three students in this year’s COMS374 Intermedia II class (Myriam Descormiers, Guillaume Dubois, and Gabrielle Savoie). Full pdf available here.

Last semester, the students in Intermedia II created some remarkable database narrative films using the Korsakow System. This is a piece of software that allows the user to assemble non-linear, often interactive, stories in any genre. The class met with Florian Thalhofer, the Berlin-based creator of Korsakow, and then worked in teams to develop ‘K-Films’ on a wide range of themes: documentaries on religious beliefs, personal foibles, bad dreams, and a profile of an influential high-school teacher; and, experimental narratives on metaphors in everyday life, and surreal encounters in time, space and the city. The overall quality of work was fantastic.

When we began working with the Korsakow software it was in serious need of an upgrade, meaning that, for some people, K-Films don’t run very well online. For now, then, here are the title cards for each film, along with a short description. All this year’s K-Films were on display at the final vernissage.

Fragments By Amy Ball, Myriam Descormiers, Saulo Madrid, and Saba Shahsiah. An absorbing and poetic fictional narrative, featuring an unnamed couple and a disembodied narrator who may or may not be a reliable witness. Update: On April 3, 2009, at the Faculty of Arts & Science Undergraduate Research Day, Amy, Myriam, Saulo and Saba received the Research-Creation Award for Fragments. Congratulations!

Believe By Emma Dartois, Adriana Kockel, Amit Kehar, Elisabeth Roy. A visually striking exploration of religious beliefs, foregrounding the views and experiences of the team as well as individuals active in various denominations.

Nightmares By Elena Blanco Moleon, Christine Fournier, Gabrielle Savoie, Corinna Strano Howard. Explores the sheer variety of visceral nocturnal fears that make us human – and the ways we attempt to rationalize them. Food for Freudians!

Poggi By Guillaume Dubois, Max Rosenstein, Nadja Settel and Amy Smith. How to convey the complexities of a beloved and influential highschool teacher? Poggi does it charmingly without being too distant or sentimental.

Pun Intended By Cherine Benjelloun, Caroline Orban de Xivry, Brian Tassillo, and Nick von Roretz. A good-humoured romp through some of the hardest-working, everyday English metaphors. All conveyed through wild and wacky animations.

Quirk By Sabrina Guerrieri, Milosz Jurkiewicz, Kale Reum, and Talia Smith. Many points of view, oh so many quirks. Do you talk to your cat? Or have a strange affection for (phantom) notetaking? Are you perhaps a little too tidy? Quirk leads us through some amazingly candid personal confessions.

*Currently, K-Films run fine on computers, but poorly on some servers (and not at all on others). To address this issue, Florian is working with Matt Soar, the instructor for this course, to completely overhaul Korsakow. The new version will be released in Spring 2009, and aims to be much more stable on- and off-line, open source, and free.

This year’s Intermedia I students were tasked with telling a story in four frames – using a public photobooth. A great way to think about framing, composition, performance, pacing, economical storytelling – and residual media. Lots more here and here.