The Janus Machine

Kyle McDonald is an artist working with code. He is a contributor to open source arts-engineering toolkits like openFrameworks, and builds tools that allow artists to use new algorithms in creative ways. He has a habit of sharing ideas and projects in public before they're completed. He creatively subverts networked communication and computation, explores glitch and systemic bias, and extends these concepts to reversal of everything from identity to relationships. Kyle has been an adjunct professor at NYU's ITP, and a member of F.A.T. Lab, community manager for openFrameworks, and artist in residence at STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon, as well as YCAM in Japan. His work is commissioned by and shown at exhibitions and festivals around the world, including: NTT ICC, Ars Electronica, Sonar/OFFF, Eyebeam, Anyang Public Art Project, Cinekid, CLICK Festival, NODE Festival, and many others. He frequently leads workshops exploring computer vision and interaction.

He has worked at YCAM on the "ProCamToolkit" (2011) as part of the Guest Research Project vol.1 and on the "Reactor for Awareness in Motion (RAM)" (2012-2013), and exhibited Kyle McDonald "I Eat Beats" (2011) , Daito Manabe + Kyle McDonald + Zachary Lieberman + Theodore Watson "The Janus Machine" (2011)

Zachary Lieberman's work uses technology in a playful and enigmatic way to explore the nature of communication and the delicate boundary between the visible and the invisible. He creates performances, installations, and on-line works that investigate gestural input, augmentation of the body, and kinetic response. Working with collaborator Golan Levin, he created a series of installations - "Remark" and "Hidden Worlds" - which presented different interpretations of what the voice might look like if we could see our own speech. These were followed with "Messa Di Voce," a concert performance in which the speech, shouts and songs of two abstract vocalists were radically augmented in real-time by interactive visualization software. The collaborators have toured and exhibited their works widely, much to the delight of their audiences. Lieberman's installation / performance "Drawn", in which live painted forms appear to come to life, rising off the page and reacting to the world around them, recently won awards in the Ars Electronica and CYNETart competitions. Most recently, he presented "Opensourcery," collaboration with Spanish magician Mago Julian, in which open source software is combined with traditional close-magic to create a completely new realm of tricks.

Theodore Watson is an artist, designer and experimenter whose work is born out of the curiosity and excitement of designing experiences that come alive and invite people to play. Watson's work ranges from creating new tools for artistic expression, experimental musical systems, to immersive, interactive environments with full-body interaction. His recent work includes the Graffiti Research Lab's "Laser Tag", laser graffiti system, and Funky Forest, an immersive interactive ecosystem for young children. Watson works together with Zachary Lieberman on openFrameworks, an open source library for writing creative code in C++. Watson's work has been shown at MoMA, Tate Modern, Ars Electronica, Sundance Film Festival, Res Fest, REMF, Cinekid, Montevideo, OFFF, SHIFT, ICHIM, The Creators Series, Deitch Projects, Eyebeam, Pixel Gallery, Museum N8 Amsterdam.