The BENT 2006 Festival is produced in partnership with Harvestworks' Benders and Coders Series and presented in part by Periscope Entertainment. Periscope Entertainment is a Los Angeles based film and television company that prides itself on supporting independent thought and innovative creation.

BENT 2006 is presented at 15 Nassau, a venue of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Space donated by Silverstein Properties.

INSTALLATIONS

This year's festival will feature many fantastic installations. While the schedule is still being completed, these artists are so far confirmed:

Galaga RemiX2
Andrew Bucksbarg
Introduced in 1981, the Galaga arcade game became a classic for the company Namco.  Galaga RemiX2 uses a recent game pack to create an installation that allows two participants to play with hacked versions of the classic Galaga video game.  By manipulating a simple interface, audio-visual artifacts are created over a continuous drone.

videoZpainter + caja d" defectos
arcangel constantini


The Whisper Opera
Caitlin Berrigan
I am interested in the electronic and the organic finding each other to create interfaces where human audiences relate to the cyborg in themselves through tactile, technological experiences that are neither utilitarian nor commercial. For the Bent Festival 2006, I will be working on an interactive piece, the "Whisper Opera." The opera will consist of small silicone body parts equipped with sensors and speakers that, when removed from their cozy display boxes and held in the palm of the hand, will whisper and sing to their holders- separately or in unison.

"The origin of imagination", 3 DVD 3'min.16''sec. 2004. Soundtrack "styltriady" by Mokamed.
Chiara Passa
“The origin of imagination” is a video installation which develops itself on two walls and the floor. The three screenings in the corner, of the three cartesian axis, reconstructs one central perspective. In this illusory dimension, infinite lines generating emptiness and distances, are "attracted" and skim one with the others, fading, they become essential structures that draw an incomplete ‘original project’. I identify this space perception with the origin of the imagination; the origin of visions. The artwork represents a virtual extension of a space that describes both “our being by ourselves” and “our being surrounded by the everything”. It’s like if the place was broken and this takes you towards freedom. A “virtual opening” never averred, because of its constant transormation and therefore it doesn’t characterize any specific place. In this “extension” all directions the spectator images to take are equvalent. “The origin of imagination”: space is the pure shape of intuition.

Dream Blankets II
Jacqueline Gordon
a giant blanket instillation that plays circuit bent sounds for you to cozy up to.

The Pelican Tree
Maggie Ens and Marc Sloan
The Pelicans Tree symbolizes the imagistic language of the alchemists, the Philosophers Stone, transforming base metals into precious metals, healing and rejuvenating. The Pelican Tree will incorporate a wide variety of reusable materials, including wood, books, bent toys and lights, as well as other found objects

CT_BT_GRAFFITI | Mausoleum_3  Bluetooth interactive installation
Petko Dourmana
The interactive work proposes to virtually rebuild the lost physical space of the Mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov, that used to be the most remarkable public symbol during the Communistic period in Bulgaria, inside the visual and physical space of the entrance at 15 Nassau, New York. Using Bluetooth technology embedded in many mobile communication devices, visitors who have this functionality on their mobile phones are automatically invited to activate it and will receive a series of visual and audio fragments which recreate the space of the former Mausoleum. This newly common-used technology is highly open for communication and in this sense it can be likened to graffiti.As graffiti in public space confronts passers-by with intentional messages, this work addresses notions of presentation space vs. private space and representations of time and space visually and virtually.

Patch Work
Phillip Stearns
Vintage TI99/4a computers have been modified to create and respond to sonic and visual stimuli from the environment and from themselves. Pixelform will be performing original compositions using the modified computers as both instruments and collaborators. The modified computers will also be set up as an interactive installation free for hand-on exploration.

CABINET MUSIC:IN AND OUTSIGHT
Sarah Bogner & Aylin Langreuter
A light-controlled instrument-installation, using bent circuits with photo-sensitive cells in casings.

The Uneven Symphony
WATFIV aka Christopher Sorg
The Uneven Symphony is a large toy orchestra with a single, central control interface. The symphony is configured as a surround-sound installation. Computer-based interpretive processes using various data sources manipulate the orchestra in realtime.