La Fabrique 00/01/10/11

A project by fabric | ch
in partnership with Canal+

with the support of Bit Management

In 1999, fabric | ch created La Fabrique, a digital gallery built for "the 2nd World" of Canal+ (Le 2ème Monde in French), a predecessor of 2nd Life, but in a digital and realistic copy of Paris. We designed La Fabrique to question this very banal and functional approach of 3d MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games). During three years, it hosted several exhibitions, which speculative topics were relevant in our work around the end of 20th century:

• La Fabrique 00 - Digital Prosthesis (1999), featured artists and designers interested in net art like Andy Best, Cristiano Bianchi, Jacques Perconte, Maurice Clifford, Steve Guynup, Victoria Vesna & Craig Brown
• La Fabrique 01 - Recombinant Interiors (2000), featured students of ETHZ (CAAD), directed by Prof. Maia Engeli, Prof. Andrew Vande Moere
• La Fabrique 10 - Algorithmic Manipulations (2001), featured students of ECAL (MID), directed by Prof. Patrick Keller
• La Fabrique 11 - Diffused Energies (unreleased), should have featured contemporary artists, writers and architects like Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, Berdaguer & Péjus, Maurice Dantec or LAB[AU] in 2001, but has not been completed up to now.

A restrospective exhibit is organized at Siggraph 2010 in Los Angeles by one of the digital artists who took part to the first release of La Fabrique: Steve Guynup. Web3D technology has evolved since 1999 and plug-ins used at that time are not available anymore. So, for this event, a video of the 3d space and screenshots of the works have been released to give a hint to current visitors.

Watch the video

Browse the screenshots

Texts about 00/01/10/11

These texts were written between 1999 and 2001 by fabric | ch to present La Fabrique to the artists and to describe the exhibitions program to the users of the 2nd World.

La Fabrique is an electronic gallery / file system built for the binary years. It proposes to explore the digital territories through a series of online exhibitions and to experiment new kind of interactions with space, with artworks, with distant visitors, in 3d.

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During the '90, because of the wide intrusion of information technology in everyday life, the relations we entertain with the outside world, with other people, with machines or other kind of things has been modified. We could describe this as a new layer, a layer of information, that evolves continuously, surronding the existing layers of our environment: the geosphere and the biosphere. For us, altered landscapes, distributed spaces and networked territories emerges. In this context, which kind of architecture can be designed to create a digital exhibition space, that would not represent paintings or sculptures in 3D like in a literal transcription of a pre-existing reality, like Le Louvre or other museums? Which form, which structure, in which location can be conceived to question this radically new environment we inhabit from now on?

A certain conception of the network is present in La Fabrique: the networks, the electromagnetic waves and the digital spaces represent the emergence of a mutating reality. We consider this reality as a deformed expression, an accelerated evolution of our society and our physical environment: a combination into a single equation of different elements: human-nature-machine-information. This world that becomes more and more complex could be defined as a recombinant reality.

The notion of energy as well as exchange of information between our physical environment and the world of the machines (in our case, computers) interest us to describe this new ecosystem, in particular the reflexions of Joel de Rosnay in L'homme symbiotique (Seuil, Paris, 1995) and Le macroscope (Seuil, Paris, 1992). This project is also influenced by the information theory of Claude Shannon and the writings of Norbert Wiener about cybernetics. These theories describe physical and energetic relations between nature and machine, man and machine and in particular, man and computer. They consider everything as information/entropy, even man.

These scientific and philosophical essays serves as theoretical background to the elaboration of La Fabrique.

The expression "recombinant reality" commits us to look at the binary worlds as a digitally deformed reality, recombined, mixed and manipulated. A kind of electronic extension of our reality with which there are information exchanges: the 2nd World of Canal+ could be already considered as a "mutant", a recombinant Paris, even if in this case, the type of exchange between Paris and Virtual Paris were limited.

"Recombinant reality" let us think also that an evolution is going on which will bring us to an unknown place. In this process, the matter interests us as much as the process in itself. In fact, matters are composing the process: light transportation, screen emissions, comsumed energy, electromagnetic waves, all what is necessary to the life of the global information system, are the materials used in the architecture of La Fabrique.

We are interested as well in the amount of information that the system consumes and gives back. This physical side of La Fabrique roots it in a strong manner to our sensitive world.

Note: recombinant is a biological term, it describes a genetically modified organism or cell.

The gallery / file system La Fabrique is made out of two different and distinct spaces/file systems. In principle, one of them does not evolve. The second one, dedicated to temporary exhibitions, mutates for each show according to the thematics.

To fulfill the requirements of Canal+, these two distinct spaces / file systems are dedicated to the following functionnalities:

• an access street-hall to distbute the different "rooms" of the gallery,
• a gallery for temporary exhibitions (modified for each exhibit).

A disc space of 250 Kb is allocated to each artist (including 3d environment, work, textures, sounds, etc.). Each artist gets also his own file/room/world to produce his work. This part is a fragment of the whole gallery / file system and/or a copy/paste of another file. The way to go from one artist's room to another is managed via doors/boxes/switches and switch nodes.

5-8 artists exhibit their works simultaneously in La Fabrique.
The duration of each online exhibition is 3 months.

Fragments of the gallery / file system ("cut" parts of the gallery) are provided to the artists. Artists are then free to create their work in it/with it/against it. At the end of the process of creation, fabric | ch collects all the works/files and "pastes" them back into the structure to produce the final file.

Some points of connexion between the different parts of the gallery / file system cannot move or be renamed because they assure passageways from one file to an other.

Each part of the gallery / file system received by the artists can be made of geometries, sounds, textures, links, lights, texts, etc... These data, their hierarchies real and virtual, the way they appear on the hard disk, their relation to the complete gallery / file system, constitute the context of intervention.

fabric | ch, 1999 (edited in 2001)

00

Digital Prosthesis, 1999

Access to La Fabrique 00

[Web3D plug-in for Windows]

For the first exhibition in La Fabrique, seven artists used to work with web3D or VRML technologies are invited: Andy Best, Cristiano Bianchi, Maurice Clifford, Steve Guynup, Patrick Keller & Christian Babski, Jacques Perconte, Victoria Vesna & Craig Brown.

The topic proposed to the participants by fabric | ch is Digital Prosthesis.

Digital Prosthesis

Browse the screenshots of 00

Body today seems to reach its limit. We notice several attempts to try to improve it, to extend it or to duplicate it. From the couple doctor/sportsman to the man genetically modified, from the augmented body to the machine man, everything lead us to think that a mutation is close to us.

Digital Prosthesis evokes the notion of extension/reduction of the reality in the electronic universe, the wish to extend the functionnalities of ones body understood as a mix of man and machine in the binary universe. New space and body prosthesis.

Keywords:

Avatars, mutation, exoskeleton, mixed-media spaces, compunetic and genetic manipulations, information manipulation and manipulated reality, man-machine interfaces, implants, softbots, datasuits, I.A., robots and prosthesis.

Books:

La révolution biolithique, Hervé Kempf, Albin Michel, 1998
Babylon Babies, Maurice G. Dantec, Gallimard, 1999
Les particules élémentaires, Michel Houellebecq, Flammarion, 1998

01

Recombinant Interiors, 2000

Access to La Fabrique 01

[Web3D plug-in for Windows]

Recombinant Interiors is the topic of the second exhibition set up in La Fabrique. Works are made by architecture students and professors of Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ -CAAD): Bence Szerdahelyi & Oliver Schwartz, Natalie Strohmaier, Lucas Elmiger & Maike Schneider, Sigrun Gudjonsdottir, Ben Hendriksen, Jan Gloeckner & Nick Thanasis, Dimitri Kaden, Adrienne Fonys & Giovanni Mammone.

The students are directed by Prof. Maia Engeli, Prof. Andrew Vande Moere, Patrick Keller and Christian Babski (fabric | ch).

Recombinant interiors

Browse the screenshots of 01

Information reality or electronic reality infiltrates the pre-existing and physical reality and vice versa. An information process is going on. A change seems to happen in our everyday life. The interior(s) find(s) its/their expansion(s) and extension(s) on the networks as well as in the real time virtual spaces/files systems.

On data side, these places can be considered as electronic prosthesis of our built environment. Or maybe physical environment can be considered as a prosthesis to the electronic world... They can as well be seen as 'augmented architecture' or as interfaces between oneself and the digital networked world.

The informed extensions and the displacement of spaces into virtual/informed environments leads us to new/altered type of contexts and situations. Intricated/deformed spaces, mixed environments, augmented realities and informed architecture: the space (inside, outside) is getting more complex and is certainly sometimes totally paradoxical (collapse of situations, distances, time, ...). As a result, these electronic extensions/prosthesis inform back the physical world: it might be an information process that moves in circle.

Keywords:

Teleworking, shared work or creation, 3d collaborative space, digital communities, metaverse, chat, private rooms, online sex and e-commerce, 'voyeur' cams and live cams, telepresence, distant learning, etc.

Links:

http://www.google.com/search?q=information+theory
http://www.google.com/search?q=information+architecture
http://www.google.com/search?q=augmented+architecture
http://www.google.com/search?q=digital+cities
http://www.google.com/search?q=live+cams
http://www.fabric.ch/papers/matieres.html
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/index.html
http://www.web3d.org/
http://www.blaxxun.com/
http://www.cplus.fr/lab/

10

Algorithmic Manipulations, 2001

Access to La Fabrique 10

[Web3D plug-in for Windows]

After architecture students, La Fabrique is opened to media & interaction design students at University of Arts and Design in Lausanne (ECAL): Emilie Renault, Stéphane Perroud, Jérôme Rigaud, Franz Hoffmann, Thomas Eberwein, Laurent Emmenegger. The topic is linked to the digitalization of the sign: Algorithmic Manipulations.

The students are directed by Prof. Patrick Keller, Prof. Christophe Guignard and Prof. Angelo Benedetto

Algorithmic manipulations

Browse the screenshots of 10

[…] In contrast, the computer media revolution affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulation, storage, and distribution; it also affects all types of media -- texts, still images, moving images, sound and spatial constructions. How shall we begin to map out the effects of this fundamental shift? What are the ways in which the use of computers to record, store, create, and distribute media makes it "new"?

Lev Manovitch, The Language of New Media, MIT Press, 2001, p. 19-20.

In what is perhaps a revolution in the words of Lev Manovich, four topics seem to play a fundamental role: computers, digitalization, programming and algorithms.

The digitalization of the sign has pushed it from a physical status (written or printed on paper, sculpted on stone, frozen on a physical media) to a digital status (described by numbers - 0 and 1) and therefore open to manipulation by reorganization and permutation of these numbers.

The sign can be described mathematically, programmed and manipulated by a particular set of operating rules specific to a calculation [algorithm]. This can be done over a period of time or immediately, in real time. The sign has become literally evolutionary.

In the digital universe of La Fabrique and its "virtual exhibition", we suggest to experiment and to expose this manipulation, to carry it a step further: to mutate 2d to 3d, the real to the virtual, the physical to the binary.

Around this issue of algorithmic manipulations, students have to investigate one of the "rooms" of La Fabrique. The basic environment provided by this 3D virtual space will then be read, analyzed and modified by students' projects.

Links:

http://www.google.ch/search?q=digital+information
http://www.google.ch/search?q=manipulation+algorithm
http://www.google.ch/search?q=mcluhan+galaxie+gutenberg
http://www.manovich.net/
http://www.manovich.net/LNM/index.html

11

Diffused Energies, unreleased

The fourth and last exhibition in La Fabrique should have featured contemporary artists, writers and architects such as Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, Berdaguer & Péjus, Maurice Dantec or LAB[AU], but it was not completed.

Different causes led to this unreleased version of La Fabrique. Most important Canal+ decided to reduce its web team and to close the 2nd World in 2001 for budget reasons, mainly because of the explosion of the dot-com bubble.

La Fabrique remains therefore unfinished, as a potential, but we do not exclude to release La Fabrique 11 to complete the series in the future.