The Thinkbox collective is based in and around Windsor, Ontario – across the river and border from Detroit – with all of its attendent musical history. The Detroit  based www.metrotimes.com predictably places Thinkbox in the context of Techno’s genesis, development and bifurcation as moving the techno/electronic aesthetic betond the club dance floors to the gallery and museum space.

Given the timing however (2003-2008) it would seem more likely that Thinkbox were rather more influenced by the increasingly ubiquity of (largely eurpoean) post glitch ambient electronica of the form popularised by the likes of Christopher Fennesz or the ‘Artic Ambience’ of Biosphere. That claim appears reinforced by the individual releases of Christopher Bissonnette one of the founding members of the collective.A sound and graphic designer, Bissonnette use of the guitar and field recordings recalls both Fennesz and perhaps Oren Ambarchi and fellow Canadian (Vancouver) Loscil. Other members of the collective include Mark Laliberte (http://www.marklaliberte.com/index2.html) - an independent curator , ‘project-based’ artist and experimental poet – who also performs ambient soundscape/design work – his Pillow Scenes Soundworks marked the first and only CD release for the collective. Mark has been heavily involved with the Zine culture and currently produces the design/pictorial magazine Carousel (http://www.carouselmagazine.ca/) while exhibiting a wide range of intermedia and installation works that are united by the kind of countercultural cool that belies their zine-culture influences. Chris McNamara is a Windsor based video artist who teaches new media at the University of Michigan. Chris also works with collaborator Dermot Wilson under the name Machydem Inc. – mostly producing film and digital video projects.  Steve Roy, Rob Theakston – an  electronic music producer working a similar vein to that of Bissonette -with a slightly more dissonant edge- and Bill van Loo –  an electronic music producer who also works with guitar to produce live ambient electronica (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGgsCV7gh88).

In ‘Prediction Pieces’ (1981-1991) Jones she explored ‘the way humans arrange the idea of the future within their minds’

The Darwin Translations (1994-99) explores Darwin’s theory of sexual selection across the animal and human and its relation to notions of sexual play.

Deep Water/Aqua Profunda (2001) is a video and sound installation exploring the nature of sexual intimacy (for the Venice Biennale).

The Avoca Project is a sprawling project that explores themes of immigration, subsistance, climate change, and community in the Victorian country town of Avoca.

The project is has so far included projects such as a water conservation systems, and a heightening of the ‘foreignness’ of the house as it becomes increasingly sustainable. Artworks are proposed that become indicators to measure and  increase awareness of the developing sustainability of the house – the aim is to build a house that signals its own use in ‘ magical’ as well as useful ways.

Some projects with which the lab is associated include:

Nexttext : nexttext.net – A project (based in Processing-Java) that allows the breakdown of text into unit hierarchies (phrases, words, letters) and to apply dynamic behaviours and interactions to those hierarchies.

Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace Project: http://www.abtec.org/

Mr Softie: A typographic text editor, for working with the nexttext framework.

Global Minds Project – Global Mind Project is a unique creative venture combining new media art, neuroscience and computer technology. The project was conceived by Karen Casey and undertaken in partnership with software designer Harry Sokol. Together they have developed a means of generating real time video art from brainwaves.
The Melbourne launch of the Global Mind project represents the first stage of an online artistic forum that will creatively engage people through public interaction and collaboration.

The ACVA’s first exhibition ‘Babelswarm‘ (2008 Nash, Dodds, Clemens), won the Australia Councils inaugural Second Life Artists in Residence aware. (See the project post for more detail on Babel Swarm.)

In 2010 the ACVA will launch ACVALab – an attempt to provide an incubator for emerging practices and practitioner while providing a collective interface for educators, curators and artists to extend and explore the development of virtual art. ACVALab started with a call for artist participants based on the central question; ‘What could a virtual art lab be if it was imagined by artists for artist?’

ACVA also plans to launch a critical journal.

ACVA Labs lists an impressive list of collaborators on the site including;

Coordinators:

Christopher Dodds – Artist and Produce founder of Icon.Inc.

Greg More – Director OOM Creative.

Adam Nash – Artist working in Digital Environments – SIGGRAPH, ISEA, Venic Biennale

Faciltators;

Dr Melinda Rackham – Adjunct Professor RMIT. Founder of – empyre – list/fourm.

Kate Richards – Artist and Lecturer in Convergent Media at UWS.

Guest Presenters:

Dr Justin Clemems: Artist, Lacanian Scholar.

Fee Plumley: ‘Techno Evangelist’ and owner of creative agency ‘the phone book limited‘ – Digital Program manager for the Australia Council for the Arts

Dr Troy Innocent: Senior Lecturer – Department Multimedia and Digital Arts, Monash University Melbourne.

Gillian Raymond:  Online Manager for the National Portrait Gallery (Canberra)

The ACVA and ACVALab projects are funded by the Australia Council for the Arts.

In 2005 he started Generator.x as a curatorial platform for generative art and design which has since resulted in a conference, a blog, a travelling exhibition and concert tour. Watz practices out of New York City and Oslo, where he is a lecturer at the Oslo School of Architecture and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

Innovation and its relationship with experimentation and artists are particular interests.

Their website states

Artists are innovators, if a new piece of technology or a new medium, becomes available; artists want to try it, to experiment with it, to push the boundaries. Some artists take on the role of a scientist in almost a performative way and some scientists equally take on the role of artist. Attitudes to science, medicine and art have changed over the last five hundred years, in that whilst Science has become more formalized, Art has become increasingly less so. By stepping outside the testable hypothesis artists are free to go off at tangents, to get bogged down in aesthetics and be mavericks.