We did a presentation at the Amsterdam Dance Event for Music and Bits hosted by Vincent Lindeboom. We had the pleasure of meeting Brian Whitman (Echo Nest), Dave Haynes (SoundCloud, Api’s) and Filip Visnjic (CreativeApplications.net) and at night we attended a couple of good parties all over the city.

The Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) is the leading electronic music conference and the biggest club festival for electronic music. ADE’s conference has become the most important of its kind, providing the international electronic music industry an extensive platform to do business, to exchange knowledge and keep up to date on the latest developments and trends.

With 2.500 professionals from 52 different countries attending, it’s the gateway into electronic music.

Dan doing some last minute coding…

Pretty wild parties at night…

We were invited to do a presentation at Playgrounds 2010 in Tilburg in the Netherlands. The venue was packed and there was a nice atmosphere. Leon the organiser was fantastic and we had a great time with all the other speakers.

We managed to put together a small interactive experiment in which the audience could participate. Via their mobile phones they were able to log into a sever and create the graphics behind us. Fortunately the people were very polite as there wasn’t any swearing.

Check out the amazing opening titles from Fons Schiedon with his awesome interpretation of minivegas on motionographer.

Playgrounds Audiovisual Arts Festival is a festival for innovative and creative digital art. During the two-day festival in Tilburg, Playgrounds presents an impression of the latest developments in technology as well as creativity. The festival programme offers an inspiring mix of inventive films, documentaries, animation, graphic design, artist talks, character design and performances.

VEGAS is delighted to present ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, a group project curated by Anny Baranova, which brings together eight artists. Exploring notions of woman’s mysterious allure, her seductive charms and irresistibility, her skill to hypnotize and manipulate; the exhibition introduces a compilation of works, directed at indicating various aspects of female power and woman’s dark, dangerous side.

For the past couple of centuries the essence of a femme fatale has been occupying numerous works of literature and visual art. Initially, notions of femme fatale character have frequently appeared in Greek mythology as a monstrous Medusa, enchanting Circe and revengeful Medea. Moreover, ‘scarlet women’ Delilah and Jezebel of the Old Testament have depicted sexually alluring and irresistible tradition of femme fatale as well as their shamelessness and immorality. Naturally, the power of seduction and temptation can be traced back to the first woman created by God, Eve.

Femme fatales are beautiful and charming as well as cunning and manipulative, risky and dangerous. Having her captivating power is no hard trick for a woman who knows how to play ‘mind games’ brilliantly. Possible display of warm genuine feelings or confirmation of affection toward a man of her attention is not in the femme fatale’s ‘rule list’ and consequently leads to asymmetrical nature of romantic relationship and ultimately leave their initially enchanted victims obsessed, disillusioned, emotionally and physically ‘drained’. Femme fatale’s mysterious nature is double-faced, beyond doubt, and element of daylight’s sweet innocence, enticing, yet naïve behavior and, genuine gaze can be the perfect façade, changing those lovely ladies into intimidating, ‘vampiresque’, thrilling beauties, with eyes of deadly gaze.

Simon Bedwell will be showing his new mixed-media work, made especially for the exhibition. In his new work, Bedwell explores the relationship between holes - represented and actual, using both the wall image of a woman revealing her sex and the actual gallery space, referencing Michael Asher’s famous gesture of the 70’s. Simon Bedwell (Courtesy of MOT International, London) completed his studies in St. Martins School of Art, London and Goldsmiths. Artist’s exhibitions include Studio Voltaire, london, Colony Gallery, Birmingham, 1000000mph, London , Saatchi Gallery, London, ICA, London and CCA, Glasgow.

Philip Jones will be presenting a brand new, large scale painting created in artist’s traditional style, fusing eccentric characteristics, mythological and almost fairy tale-like symbolism and playful extravagance. Philip Jones studied at Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design, London and the Royal College of Art, London, graduating in 1996. He has been awarded The British School at Rome’s Rome Scholarship in Painting 1997. Jones’ exhibitions include New Contemporaries Tate Liverpool (touring) , Cornerhouse, Manchester, Southampton City Art Gallery, and FRED, London.

Elke Krystufek will be showing one of her infamous portraits, illustrating and referencing a renowned poet, Sir John Suckling. Elke Krystufek’s (courtesy of Akinci Amsterdam) institutional exhibitions include GEM – Museum für Aktuelle Kunst, Den Haag, ARC Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, Georges Pompidou in Paris, and MoMA Contemporary Art Center in New York. Moreover, Krystufek was one of the four selected artist representing Austria at the Venice Biennale in the Austrian pavilion in 2009.

Jemima Stehli will be exhibiting several photographs from a well-known series ‘Strip’, in which the artist reveals her naked body in front of male curators, dealers, writers and critics. Jemima Stehli emerged onto the International art scene during the first wave of ‘Brit Art’ in the 1990’s and her solo institutional credits include Palais Thurm and Taxis in Bregenz, Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver and Chisenhale Gallery in London.

Furthermore, the show includes paintings and works on paper by Andrea Lehmann, portraying fusion of feminine dark side and melancholic, mysterious side. Andrea Lehmann (Courtesy Anna Klinkhammer gallery, Duseldorf) completed her MA studies at Art Academy of Düsseldorf. Lehmann’s selected exhibitions include Saatchi gallery , London, Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr, Rubell Family Collection, Miami , Museum Ratingen, Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf and Museum of Glass, Tacoma/Washington.

Dawn Mellor’s portraits of female celebrities add elements of irony and pastiche to the exhibition, presenting the viewer with altered visual representation of recognized characters. Dawn Mellor has graduated from Royal College of Art in 1996 where she completed her MA studies. The artist lives and works in London and had exhibitions in Galerie Gabriel Rolt in Amsterdam, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, Spacex, Exeter in UK, Yvon Lambert Gallery in New York, and Tate Liverpool in UK. Moreover in 2009, Mellor had a Solo presentation at Frieze Art Fair in London.

Claire Pestaille’s collages, selected for the show explore notions of female elegance and fragility combined with dominance and control, evident in woman’s pose and gaze. Claire Pestaille completed her MA studies in Painting at Royal College of Art, London. Pestaille’s selected group exhibitions include Passage de Retx, Paris , Petah Tikva Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel, Chelsea Futurespace, Jerwood Contemporary Painters, touring exhibition and Hiscox projects, London.

Finally, Chantal Joffe will be presenting a work visually overflowing with intensity, echoed in essence of a woman, her feminine power and complexity. Chantal Joffe (Courtesy Victoria Miro, London) has graduated from Royal College of Art in 1994. Joffe’s exhibitions have been taking place at Bloomberg Space, London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, Tate Gallery, London, Neuberger Museum of Art, MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Le Musee de Marrakech, Marrakech, Morocco, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and Bergamot Museum, Modena, Italy.

All started off when we were experimenting with this Behringer Audio Controller.
Due to reasons that probably should remain nameless it broke down - and that’s where we experienced this strong magnetic force it produced. We even could control it properly. So we quickly set up a piece of software to extract image data from an IDN magazine cover which eventually would not only control the buildup of our sculpture, but also the LEDs in the parts to color it.

It’s pretty crazy that you have to pay for everything on a plane these days. Especially when you end up spending a fortune on your ticket, as you didn’t book it long enough in advance… Here’s a little tip that will get you at least some FREE peanuts, beers and films to make the journey a little bit more comfortable.

The airlines don’t do credit card authentication in mid air. They store the details from the passengers that purchased stuff during the flight and do it in one bulk when they land. This creates some opportunities if you happen to have some expired or discontinued cards in your wallet.

Enjoy your flight ;)

VEGAS is delighted to present ‘GIVEITANAME’, a group show, bringing together two UK practicing artists and an artistic duo from the Netherlands. Exploring notions of unpredictable, organic processes of movement alongside the spontaneous, chaotic expansions of composition and shapes, the exhibition introduces a compilation of abstract works that are directed into symbolizing fragments or flow, transformation and change.

Paintings by British artist, Gemma Nelson blend features of apparent clumsiness and roundness of shapes in a somewhat obsessive motion that suggest the artist’s predilection for patterns and sequences. Her works bring the spectator back to the 60’s, the epoch of radical fashion, lifestyle trends and psychedelic patterns. Though decorative and feminine, they portray biological processes in cellular structures of spores and viruses.

The baroque excessiveness of Nelson’s works is echoed in the abstract sculptures of Dutch artistic duo, Heringa /Van Kalsbeek. In their spontaneous approach to the creation of their works they draw inspiration from the unpredictability of nature and allow their piecess to resemble the organic process of growth. Heringa/Van Kalsbeek are fascinated in capturing snapshots of impulsive and chaotic movement and exploring elements of life that are past their peak. Their extravagant way of portraying hybridity and dislocation of natural processes is also prevalent in the paintings of Korean artist, Eemyun Kang, who raises questions of ‘becoming’, the transformation of objects through the journey of creation and a painting itself taking on new form as a result. By her use of material and mediation between form and colour, Kang symbolizes subjects of metamorphosis and evolution in her works.

Since graduating Slade school of Art in 2007 Gemma Nelson has exhibited in a range of high profile group shows including; Bloomberg Contemporary 2008 and Saatchi Gallery’s Four New Sensations. In 2007 she was a Finalist for the Nationwide Mercury Art Prize.

Eemyun Kang graduated Slade in 2006 and completed her post graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Art in 2009. In the last year Kang has shown her work in a run of established galleries and institutions including Emerging Korean Artists, U.B.S in Seoul, The Kukje Gallery at Frieze 2009 and Withspace in Beijing. ‘Dozing River’ is Eemyun Kangs current solo show at Tina Kim gallery New York.

Heringa/Van Kalsbeek have shown extensively in both solo and group exhibitions. Their solo institutional shows include Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo; Stedelijk Museum CS, Amsterdam; Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam; Haags Gemeentemuseum The Hague and The Museum of Modern Art Arnhem. The have fulfilled a range of commissions for art in public spaces participated in over thirty group exhibitions including those at Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Ceramic Biennale Korea and Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn.

-Text by Anny Baranova

We talked about Realtime Interactivity for Music, Broadcast and Art at the annual FMX Festival in Stuttgart. The event was amazing and we even got to see a lot of very interesting talks ourselves. Big thanks to all of you for having us!

FMX is an event by Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg, organized by the Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Postproduction, hosting the Animation Production Day 2010 (APD), a joint venture with the Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart (ITFS). It is an event in cooperation with VES Visual Effects Society, AIAS Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, ACM Siggraph, 5D Conference and Stuttgart Media University. FMX is funded by the Ministry of State and the Ministry of Economics Baden-Wuerttemberg, MFG Film Funding, the MFG Innovation Agency for ICT and Media and the FFA German Federal Film Board.

Cowboys on set… (picture by James Allen from Time Based Arts)