Category Archives: Petervan’s Artwork

Brand new performance “The New New Babylon”

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I am super-excited to announce the general availability of my brand new performance “The New New Babylon”. Here is the trailer:

The New New Babylon performance is an immersive experience, divided into six chapters—Awakening, Stepping, Flying, Gliding, Folding, and Vertigo. Each chapter explores different facets of the New New Babylon concept, blending art and interaction. Audience members are invited to actively participate, engaging with interactive elements that promote a sense of community and shared creativity. To create a multisensory journey, the performance integrates rich soundscapes, video projections, visual art, poetry, masks, VR, and stage props. It’s a brand new format to deliver content, quite different from more traditional keynotes and talks.

This artistic performance has a poetic, gentle, and profoundly human touch, evoking a dreamy, Magritte-like surrealism. The atmosphere is calm and harmonious, steering away from Sci-Fi or dystopian themes toward a vision that is non-aggressive, understated, and subtly utopian.

Designed for corporate and institutional clients, art galleries, and museums, the performance’s content, materials, and timing can be adapted to suit specific needs. The performance can also be organized as an online or in-situ workshop format.

VR-Frame from ACT3 – Flying

The performance is now available for both online and on-stage presentations, with options for bespoke adaptations or commissions. If you’re interested, feel free to reach out!

The next step is to create a fully immersive VR headset performance with live interactions with AI voices. Already available are six Unity VR packages, each designed for distinct VR spaces in the performance, including specific controller actions that control both on-stage and in-VR lighting, and different camera angles. These packages are tailored to support the various acts of the performance. These Unity packages are developed by NUMENA, a renowned interdisciplinary creative studio from Germany, specializing in award-winning spatial design and programming.

We are also developing an API-supported LLM infrastructure to enable live interactions with AI Agents. Our goal is to facilitate real-time exploration of historical New Babylon research resources during on-stage and online sessions. This infrastructure is currently being developed by Thomas McLeish, Adjunct Lecturer – Berkeley Master of Design, and master creator of the 2018 replica of the Colloquy of Mobiles.

VR-Frame from ACT4 – Gliding

And here is an extract from ACT4 of Petervan’s New New Babylon Performance.

VR-Scene from ACT4 – Gliding

And as the cherry on top: alongside a talented young cinematographer from Flanders, I’ll be applying for one of just twelve coveted spots in the 9th edition of the Venice Biennale College Cinema – Immersive program (BCC-I).

The performance is one of the deliverables of my more ambitious transdisciplinary Artistic Research Project, where I am imagining and scaffolding a City of Play through different formats. These formats can be analog and digital artwork and productions, digital overlays, sketches, performance lectures, writings, poems, blogs, installations, soundscapes, recordings, documentaries, spaces, time capsules, curations, events, group experiences, immersions, expeditions, and exhibitions.

Performance “Claim Your Cybernetic Word”

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A new Petervan performance lecture “Claim Your Cybernetic Word” is in the making, to be delivered 100% remotely during the 60th anniversary of the American Society for Cybernetics in mid-June 2024.

Extract from Petervan Performance “Claim Your Cyberbetic Word”

Below is the official abstract of that session:

An engaging conversational workshop crafted to elicit compelling language that embodies the human elements within cybernetics. Attendees will be encouraged to participate actively by offering cybernetic terminology, which will be visually depicted in an immersive cloud-like interactive video installation accompanied by a bespoke soundscape. The session opens with an artistic cinematic cybernetic dream sequence. Through facilitated brainstorming sessions with the audience, participants will have the ability to fine-tune word generation. They will discuss the Paskian Knobs required to steer randomness and the style of the outcome. The session closes with a cinematic cybernetic song outro. The total duration is between 45-60 minutes. This session will be delivered remotely with remote interactions with the audience. An experience room is available for on-site participants, allowing them to engage collectively in this conversational setting.  Please access the session 10 minutes before the starting hour, as the performance already starts during the virtual walk-in of the audience when visual and auditory segments set the stage for the experience.

Some friends who have seen an early dry-run version describe it as an “immersion” or “a trip”.

Petervan Studios – April 2024 update

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Here is the latest update on Petervan Studios. The previous update was in December 2023. A lot has happened since then. A lot did not happen. Here is an overview.

Winter and Spring

Open skies at sea – Middelkerke – 19 Jan 2024 – Frame from Petervan video

Early blossoms in the garden – 20 Mar 2024 – Picture by Petervan

Family

Joy: Astrid now has a driver’s license: on the one hand, this means I don’t have a car anymore, on the other hand no more taxi service and that is a great luxury. And she took up again her dream of becoming a doctor or a veterinarian. For that, she studies daily to pass the entry exam at Ghent University beginning July 2024. And of course, horses forever 😉 Happy times.

Grief: my mother in law is not well. Mieke and I are trying to help where possible. Difficult times.

The Art Studio

Only a little happens in the Art Studio. Some paintings and sketches. And some soundscape experiments, playing around with the latest Ableton Live and Apple Logic Pro versions.

Also found a good AI service for song generation, called Suno AI. Below is a song generated by prompting Suno AI, based on a rap poem by Dr. Paul Pangaro in a cybernetic manuscript for a 1989 book proposal that never got published. Mind you, the title of the book was “New Order From Old: The Rise of Second-Order Cybernetics and Its Implications for Machine Intelligence”

Magritte Synaptic Gap – Image prompted by Petervan in DALL-E


You can find most of them via the “Artworks” tab on my website.

Petervan Artworks ©2024 – Lollipops – Acryl on canvas – 100×80 cm

I participated in The Stability.AI residency at the HUG Innovation Laboratory between 8 Jan and 18 Feb 2024. Did not get out of it what I expected. And Stability AI is getting quite “unstable” since the fall down of its CEO.

Petervan Artworks ©2024 – Prompt Woman in Arena – Stability AI

I am also playing around in Numena’s Space Elevator VR App, and start imagining what sort of VR performances would be possible. Here is an example that is in the VR elevator wall of the project that feels like a Magritte VR experience. For transport, I used the fly mode of the application.

There is also some progress in the “Claim Your Word” project, A collaborative art project to curate words that never make it into a McKinsey presentation. In essence, all words that make us human. In March 2024, I added a whole set of additional words, resulting in the following updated word cloud:

If you want to suggest additional non-McKinsey words, go to the form on the project webpage above. 

Still in the planning is a personal solo art exhibition in VR and maybe IRL. Some installation concepts will be tried first in VR, and maybe later in IRL.

The performance lecture “City of Play”, about the New New Babylon (and the power of imagination) is on hold. 

However, a new one is in the making “Cybernetic Magritte”, where I share the story of my novice Cybernetic discoveries and learnings, and only use my artwork as visuals, my compositions as soundscapes, and my poetry. Target date: June 2024 and subject to closing the last funding gap.

Cybernetic Virgin

Somewhere in January 2024, I got infected by the cybernetic virus. Here is the video that got me down the rabbit hole

Here is Dr. Paul Pangaro (President of the American Society for Cybernetics), who talks about the remake of Gordon Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles, an installation illustrating his Conversation Theory based on cybernetic principles.

For somebody active in many innovation initiatives during my career, it is remarkable that I never got exposed to cybernetics. In that sense, I am a “Cybernetic Virgin”, looking with open eyes at the great cybernetic minds of the 50ies and 60ies. 

Since January, I have devoured massive amounts of cybernetic originals and absorbed as much as I can. This has an impact on my previous plans, whether art-related or intervention-related.

In the meantime, I had a couple of conversations with Dr. Paul Pangoro, and I would not be surprised if one or more projects will follow.

Summer of Protocols

The Summer of Protocols (SoP) is an ongoing research and evangelism effort that aims to catalyze broad interest in the study of protocols as a first-class concept for thinking about the world. It is led by Venkatesh Rao and funded by the Ethereum Foundation.

The results of the first (2023) SoP are now published on their brand-new site. The research and delivery format are all very well done.

This is about protocols in the widest sense: from communication protocols to protocols for washing hands, or protocols for artificial memory or addressable spaces.

Have a look at one of Venkat’s great talks about this project

Together with some friends, we submitted a SoP24 Protocol Improvement Grant proposal for Conversation Protocols for Humans and Machines. Let’s cross our fingers!

Delicacies

Delicacies are back! Check out the Jan, Feb, and March 2024 editions

Writings

Loads of notes, draft blogs, reflections, etc in the pipeline. When I look at some of the material, it feels like I am in a different reality.

The next ones are probably about conversation protocols, cybernetic virgins, and VR experience with eyes in your hands.

No idea what I will publish and when. It’s probably going to come in bursts.

Books

Highlights:

The Cybernetic Brain: by Andrew Pickering

Private I: by Jill Fain Lehman, Paul Pangaro, Ashlei E Watson

Other books I am reading: see my GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/goodreadscompetervan

Exhibitions

Since Jan 2024

Mudel Deinze – Antoon De Clerck – 10 Jan 2024

KMSKB – Imagine 100 Years of Surrealism – 15 Mar 2024

BOZAR – Histoire de ne pas rire – 15 Mar 2024

Hyper-realism – Along the E5 Highway – Antoon De Clerck – Picture by Petervan

Detail “Les Grand Voyages” – Rene Magritte – Oil on Canvas – Picture by Petervan

Social Media

Somewhere in the beginning of February 2024, I deleted all my social media accounts: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon, etc – ALL of them. I only kept my Instagram to sporadically share some images. 

I felt there was so much noise, that it was not worth my time anymore to daily scan all the new streams for something interesting. I am now subscribed to only a very limited number of newsletters on Medium and Substack. 

I also found conversations got much more interesting when I scheduled some quality time in catchup calls.

The best way to contact me is now via email or WhatsApp.

What’s next?

I don’t know. Focus areas are:

The Summer of Protocols

The Cybernetic Performance

The New New Babylon project

So, that’s it for this edition. 

If there is something worth reporting, the next update is for July 2024. 

Warmest, 

Petervan Studios – Update Dec 2023

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As we close the year, here is the latest update on Petervan Studios.

The previous update was in March 2023. In a sense, this update is an update on the whole year. A lot has happened since then. A lot did not happen. An overview.

Quick catch-up

I studied architecture (art school), never practiced (dropped out), and stumbled into a nice corporate career. In 2017 I took a sabbatical and never went back. I left the corporate world. I am now officially “retired”

Family

On 18 Dec 2023, Astrid became 18 years, officially “of age”, driving our car (good driver, final exam in Feb 2024), and started higher studies (a four years bachelor nursery), and horses, of course. And in May, we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary. Time flies. Happy times.

Cosy Birthday Breakfast for Astrid

The Art Studio

The Art Studio is nicely rippling along. I did not have the feeling that I accomplished much, but with hindsight, it’s not too bad, and there are a lot of good foundations for the year to come.

Some of the new projects include:

Hexagrams

Claim your word

Something has dissipated

New paintings

New digital artworks

New soundscapes

Experimenting with interfaces for IRL and VR installations

You can find most of them via the “Artworks” tab on my website. 

© Petervan Artworks 2023 – Pears – Acryl on Canvas

The “Something has Dissipated” project got some traction. There are now about 20 spoken language versions by real humans, including Mongolian and Chinese. But also some synthetic non-human avatar versions like this one:

I registered for the Stability.AI residency by the HUG Innovation Laboratory, participating online between 8 Jan and 18 Feb 2024.

In the planning is a personal solo art exhibition in VR coming and maybe IRL. Some installation concepts will try-out first in VR, and maybe later IRL.

A new performance lecture “City of Play” is in the making, about the New New Babylon (and the power of imagination). No specific target date. I have time, and it has to be right.

New New Babylon – City of Play

I am kind of obsessed with the New Babylon project of artist Constant Nieuwenhuys, who co-founded the avant-garde COBRA art movement in the 1950s. 

For 25 years he worked on New Babylon, an imagined city for the playful and creative human being. The oeuvre consists of hundreds of drawings, sketches, and maquettes. His work was inspired by the book Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga.

The NEW New Babylon is an artistic research project where we use 2023 technologies.

At the time of writing, we are trying to set up a team/consortium to overlay an existing city (district) with a VR environment for A/B Testing of the urbanistic, economic, and governance aspects of the city.

It probably will involve expertise from worlding experts, interactive fiction, procedural games, autonomous worlds, protocol language patterns, etc

More high-level info here: https://petervanstudios.com/new-new-babylon-city-of-play/ .

I have more details, so if you are really interested in putting skin in this game, DM me.

Performance

The script is more or less done now. Starting to make the first soundscapes for this. 

This trailer of Hilma af Klint’s “The Temple” experience keeps haunting me. 

As well as this painting by Léon Spilliaert from 1908 called “De Duizeling” aka “The Dizziness/Vertigo”

At this moment I am exploring a whole slew of tools: videosync, BEAM, BAM, Procreate Dreams, Capture for scene design, and spending lots of time on learning/trying to understand Blender, Unity, Unreal Engine, new Ableton packs, the new version of Apple Logic Pro X, and hopefully soon Apple Vision Pro.

Timing slips. No problem, I have time. And it has to be right. And not sloppy.

Delicacies

Delicacies are back! This time on Substack

Writings

Loads of notes, draft blogs, reflections, etc in the pipeline. When I look at some of the material, it feels like I am in a different reality.

The next one is probably about wormholes.

No idea when and if I will publish what when.

It’s probably going to come in bursts.

Books

Highlights:

Making Meaning with Machines: Somatic Strategies, Choreographic Technologies, and Notational Abstractions through a Laban/Bartenieff Lens

The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are

Other books I am reading: See my GoodReads:

https://www.goodreads.com/goodreadscompetervan

Exhibitions

Since March 2023, I visited many art exhibitions and galleries. If I had to pick one or two highlights, it would be Jan De Vlieger at Mudel and the Inspired By Love expo at Belfius Art Gallery. Picture below is work by Emilie Terlinden.

Detail Jan De Vlieger’s San Marco People – picture by Petervan

Detail of Emilie Verlinden’s The Farm 2023 – Picture by Petervan

Also, the works of David Claerbout and his practice are a continuous inspiration for my own work. Here is a great talk by David at Schaulager Basel as part of the Out of the Box exhibition.

David Claerbout discusses a range of artworks, among them Nightscape Lightboxes (2002-2003), Wildfire (meditation on fire) (2001), and Backwards Growing Tree and Birdcage (both from 2023), the latter two on show at the Gallerie Greta Meert in Brussels till 3 Feb 2024.

What’s next?

I don’t know. Focus areas are:

The New New Babylon project

The upcoming solo exhibition in VR

The Performance

But some promising smoldering sparks deep in the campfire may suddenly light up. Life is full of surprises. Only the fool don’t change their mind.

So, that’s it for this edition. 

Happy New Year to all of you!

If there is something worth reporting, the next update is for April 2024. 

Warmest, 

Something has dissipated

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A soundscape-poetry collaborative experiment.

Inspired by Audrey Carmes’ album “Quelque chose s’est dissipé”, this project will invite people from all genders, races, religions, and countries to voice over the poem “Be Free, like Birds in the Sky” in different languages over a soundscape composed by Petervan.

I could do this with computer-generated translations and text-to-voice apps. Here are some examples

In French:

In (Brazilian) Portuguese:

In German:

However, these computer-assisted approaches miss the rhythm, pauses, and slowness of the poem. It also limits me in what I can do with it in Ableton/Logic Pro or combine it with custom-made soundscapes.

An example of an “in the mix” experiment:

Therefore, I would like to invite real humans to translate the original poem with Google Translate, correct it as needed to keep the poem’s spirit, record the poem with their smartphone, and send me the MP3. I will take care of the rest.

If interested, contact me via the contact tab of this website.