MobLab - Japanese German Mobile Lab..On A Bus
MobLab
Japanese-German media camp 2005
15th October - 6th November 2005
A cooperation of transmediale and Germany in Japan 2005/2006
A live art & communication project with young artists from Japan and
Germany (MobNauts),
who develop creative ideas with mobile technology while traveling
Japan in a bus.
Welcome to the mobile laboratory!
daily updates at: http://www.moblab.org
One achievement of digital and telecommunication technologies is the progressing interrelation of disciplines such as media art, sound, imagery, design or architecture. This phenomenon serves as a prerequisite for the formation of a new global culture, shaped by young artists that keenly engage in genre-crossing collaborations, and the creation of original media. As a result, new forms of expression beyond existing values are materializing autonomously, suggesting to interpret such pairs as global/local, real/virtual, creator/user or work/leisure time as contiguous matters rather than opposite qualities.
MobLab ("Mobile" + "Laboratory", also "mob" = crowd, community, etc.) is the sum of projects proposed and developed by Japanese and German artists from various fields (=MobNauts) in a bus that, equipped with an array of mobile devices, functions as an information base. The time the MobNauts spend on the road will naturally lead to various creative collaborations. The bus travels a number of host institutions throughout Japan, each of which hosts events that incorporate the bus and its passengers. At the same time, the MobNauts have the opportunity to exchange with local artists and other people. The flexibly set route allows for the spontaneous staging of events, which will be announced on the MobLab Website.
The bus is at once an intimate space in which the MobNauts spend time together, and a public space for transmitting global information. By traveling around, the MobNauts will create occasions for individuals to meet, on both real and virtual levels, and connect to different local realities each time they stop and get out of the bus. MobLab aims to be a platform for practical experimentation on publicness born out of a revolutionarily "on-the-spot" form of meeting of individuals and media, and investigation into the possibilities this public nature implies. The concept of dynamic information that interactively transforms through exchange between a variety of people has just begun to surface as a new layer of reality.