Category Archives: photos

PDcon09 in Sao Paulo

PD Convention was organized by Alexander Porres, Paloma Oliveira and Palmieri Ricardo in collaboration with SESC Sao Paulo, Museum of Image and Sound (MIS) and PU between 19th and 26th of July 2009.  On Sunday 19th July opening night started the whole scope of activities: from workshops to presentations, concerts, performances, interactive installations and most importantly PARTYs!

PDcon09 opening

PDcon09 opening

Wilson Sukorski performing with Alexander Porres

Wilson Sukorski performing with Alexander Porres

More on the PDcon program find here >>
PDcon09 photolog here >>

PDcon09 people

PDcon09 people

LNT / GentleJunk performances

Ricardo Palmieri and Kruno JoÅ¡t were together with Daniel Turing in LNT / GentleJunk performance at Liwoli festival, Linz Austria and LNT performance “I Love Noise” at Mala scena CZK in ÄŒakovec, Croatia.

Liwoli performance photolog >>

I Love Noise from GentleJunk on Vimeo.

Download video from ÄŒakovec performance:
OGG >>
CINEPAK >>

MIMOSA action

On sunny day of 24th of April MIMOSA installation was taken to the streets of Linz in search of everyday people that will use it as a free media and say whatever is on their minds without usual filters of commercial media. Our small group had lots of fun with trying to attract passers by to come and share their thoughts with us.

Many of them arrived and gave us their opinions on city of Liz, on independent culture, about ongoing Linz Culture Capital 09,  free radio work in Linz etc.

Some of the passers by were students that have been demonstrating that day in Linz due to schools reforms affecting them. Estimated 12 000 students gathered that day at Hauptplatz, main square of Linz.


Thanx to the whole MIMOSA crew, audio interwievs will be published soon.

CR 2.0 at SESC SJC

CultureRobot 2.0 installation is open for viewers at SESC Sao Jose dos Campos during month of February. Installation depicts 7 points that have been represented by edited video and sound of this locations. Points have been chosen out of many  that were depicted by workshop participants to present an overview of SJC urban, cultural and everyday social structure and landscape. Audio and video material was collected by participants, Ricardo Palmieri and Kruno Jost and final editing was done by Kruno Jost.


View Larger Map

SJC map with 7 chosen locations

CR 2.0 had updates in software and hardware applications in both interactivity and in creation of robots. WII controller was hacked for position tracking of the robots. PD patches were updated to incorporate audio visual representations of the locations and new design in robots was introduced to create less chance for them to entangle into each other.


WII controller and its positioning next to the projector on the ceiling of the installation space.



New bettleboot design with recycled material, upper and bottom side and from inside.

New map inhabitants were also robots made by young people attending robot making workshops. Both robots and maps were intriguing  younger and older audience.

Installation needed calibrating and it went trough couple of stages of production to fit place and its surrounding in best possible way.

Final installation:

CultureRobot preparations

Culture exchange program has made it possible for Kruno Jošt and Ricardo Palmieri to present installation CultureRobot at festival HAIP 08.

CultureRobot is participatory interactive installation that raises awareness of social and political sphere that is affecting autonomous cultural sphere in Ljubljana.
“The HAIP Festival puts on display multimedia art forms resulting from creative use of open technologies and the freedom of artistic expressions in open-source media. It presents works of the young, promising artists and creative engineers on international level, who specialize in top-notch, open-standards-supported arts and multimedia art practices. The festival features individuals and groups with a critical approach towards the technologies that surround us and shape our everyday environment.” (from http://www.haip.cc/)

From 27th to 31th of October final preparations of the installation has been made. Steps were:

1. Making of the Robots (recycled material for small robots)
2. Tracking the Robots (Open CV with hacked webcam for infrared detection)
3. Filtering the Robots data (positioning in PD)
4. Image of the Map (interactive)
This are the tools and recycled material used to make a robot
robot parts
First we had to test electronical circuit that will power electro motors.

This is how the elements are supposed to be glued on the body of the robot – the old DVD.

To help stabilizing the wheels we used old metal plates. We glued wheels on metal plates. Wheels are made with rubber material found in pipe repair store.


Everything was glued on the top of the CD and circuit was connected based on the scheme.

Robot antenas that will on contact shut down one of the motors thus making robot turn in one direction were glued (later soldered) to electronic switches.

We fitted caps made from plastic bottles trying to prevent robots to hook each other with antennas.

This is the movie of robot movement

To help us work we visited local TV and radio repair shop and collected old remote controls that were disassembled and led diodes were taken out.

Led diodes are glued on the top of each robot.

Old web cam was hacked by inserting found developed slide film. This will filter out all unwanted infrared light and show only led diode light on the back of our robots.


Pure Data (open source software for multimedia interactivity) patch for detecting robot movements looks like this.

Collaborative map was developed during past months with artist and cultural workers from Ljubljana. Map is representing cultural points in center of Ljubljana. This map will continue to aggregate data on suggestions of the HAIP festival visitors.

This is PD patch that calibrates specific location on the map with the coordinates of the robot. It will detect when robot is on the coordinate thus creating visuals on the projected screen.

Activities of the robots are seen on the map by changing colors.

Deconstructing in heart of Rio

During opening session of Dorkbot Rio a team of deconstructionalists have performed once again. This time a ‘Fusca’ (popular Beetle or Volkswagen) produced in 1968 was carved down on 24th May 2008, 40 years after it was produced and 40 years after counterculture and those revolutionary days which are so much evoked in the Brazilian media today, due to older rich people remembering them as the ‘days when they were driving Beetles with the flowers in their hair’.
cutting it down

Dorkbot Rio was hosted by Circo Voador, famous club in the heart of Rio da Janeiro. Production unit were: Bruno Tarin, Bruno Vianna, Giuliano Bonorandi and Kruno Jost. Thousands of thanx to many others that helped and worked with us making video or photographic documentation we can all enjoy now. Thanx again to all people that came for the event and joined in at the end in the manner that I have encountered only with people from Brasil.
dja kicking it in

To see event photolog go here >>


Dorkbot-RJ Zero from bruno tarin on Vimeo.

Free culture events @ Circo Voador, RJ

logo Circo Voador is a cultural space in the middle of the Rio da Janeiro neighborhood called Lapa.It started almost 30 years ago under a circus structure, and it was the place where most of the best known brazilian rock bands had their first gigs. At one point it was closed by city mayer. The story goes that he visiting Circo Voador while celebrating for being elected where he was booed by the people there. He exercised his power by simply closing the space down.

circo voador relax area

study groupNow run by the NGO with great financial help of municipal government, modern Circo Voador is transformed into club for culture with commercial programs, mainly samba, hip-hop and rock concerts, supported by companies like TIM (mobile phone operator popular among young people), Pepsi and such.

At the same time, under project Pontos de cultura, there are construction works happening under the concert stage where new spaces for workshops in open source tools for audio and video production will take place. One of the events that is not part of commercial program, but rather a place for research, knowledge exchange and collaborative work is study group GEMA Carioca that is happening every Thursday.

GEMA Carioca’s current project is creating video mixer with recycled material and using Arduino, an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, Bruno Tarin teaches cinelerra to studentseasy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. DIY videomixer can be used for mixing live inputs such as cameras, but also to control various software such as Pure Data for VJing and so on.

Cinelerra (open source software for video editing) workshops are held too at the production space of the CV area. At the same space there is a video production facilities where materials filmed at the concerts are edited for the archives.

arduino with mixer

Sao Paulo metro

small screens inside SP metroCity of Sao Pulo recently introduced the law of ‘visual pollution’ banning billboards from the streets. It was discussed that every billboard can distract driver for 15 meters, causing great risks in traffic.

So, what is other place where lots of people travel and have enough time to consume commercials? Well, its metro. Metro cars have small screens with non stop video commercials.

Here you can also here an audio drive-trough one of the stations of LINHA VERDE (green line) at Sao Paulo metro.

Map of SP metro

Mais uma rádio em Karlovac – Um festival que decepcionou um pouco

Após a semana de estudos em eletrônica e circuit bending, fomos participar do festival chamado Nepokoreni Grad, que quer dizer cidade não conquistada. Eles pretendem fazer um festival paralelo e alternativo ao da cerveja Karlovacko que realiza tipo um Skol Beats que fica lotado da plaibozada croata (eles estão em todo lugar) com atrações populares. Bem ficamos em um prédio que é cheio de ONGs, e a ONG que organiza esse festival é uma delas. A cena de diversos festivais que acontecem na Croácia patrocinados pela Ministério da Cultura de lá, e que no primeiro momento é bem empolgante, revelou poder ser bem artificial. Como dito, é impressionante a quantidade de festivais que conseguem grana por lá, para coisas não populares, tipo música experimental onde o público são os próprios organizadores (e isso é legal, porque na verdade é grana pra fazer festa) . Mas para eles era mais importante que estivéssemos no catálogo e que recebecemos a ajuda de custo para constar na prestaçao de contas do que a nossa participação efetiva. E isso rendeu alguns momentos de estresse, pois no final da semana de estudos em eletrônica que você pode ver no pouste abaixo, rolou uma tensão por apresentar um produto nesse festival, apresentar alguma coisa “consistente”. E isso estragou o final da semana que estava produtiva e divertida. E no final, nem valeu, porque os caras cagaram pra gente, e valia mais a pena ter continuado a pesquisa lá, como um laboratório aberto. Mas isso também levantou questões de como o onguismo (que teve um boom após a queda do comunismo por lá) e a busca por financiamentos governamentais e suas justificativas (os produtos artísticos) podem esvaziar processos e burocratizar relações em uma produção que pode ser coletiva. O perigo de cair nas teias da burocracia e ficar refém de financiamentos e planilhas eletrônicas, e deixar pra trás aquilo que a gente quer fazer realmente, integrar processos, produzir novas relações, destrinchar pensamentos. Em conversa com o Kruno depois, discutimos muito isso, porque ele percebeu bem nesse festival esse sistema funcionando. E ele faz parte disso. Mas identifica isso, e é um passo inicial pra ser crítico e criativo com essa situação. Questionamento válido pra Descentro e outras ONGs e Associações aonde tem galera que tá correndo atrás de fazer projetos por aí.

Mas emfim, em Karlovac, apesar de ter sido decepcionante nesse sentido, foi legal, pois montamos mais uma rádio no telhado, e fizemos uma festa para celebrar a morte do Toninho Malvadeza. Aquela coisa nossa com direito a muanba e hino ao reverso, troca de Cds Piratas. Tudo no pouste acima.

No final, também rolou uma reunião do Stanica MIR, a rede de web rádios de lá, eles estavam debatendo como melhor esquematizar o estrimingue deles (que tem só um ponto de montagem, que é usado por várias pessoas de diferentes cidades) com um softiuere chamado CampCaster. Vale uma estudada por aqui, pode ser interessante pra rede de rádios livres, pra trocar conteúdo.

Lá também, fizemos boas entrevistas com organizadores desse festival, e pessoas da Stanica MIR e de outras ONGs presentes.