A MOBILE IMMERSIVE ARTS FACILITY

RECOMBINANT MEDIA LABS (RML) was founded to research the qualities and artistic potential of spatial media. It does so by means of Experiential Engineering; exploring processes that expand the aesthetic and technological boundaries of panoramic installations, surround cinema, and multichannel a/v performances. RML acts as producer and presenter of artworks and performances based on Spatial Media Synthesis; intermodal works using image, light, sound and other disseminated media in three-dimensional space.

INTO THE WORLD

After years of working in a fixed location within the central city of San Francisco, a new organization with a focus onto mobile setups has been founded. This was done in order to formulate an answer to the increasing requests for international presentations at museums and festivals. Over the years Recombiant Media Labs has built up a selected resource of artworks and it was time to highlight this body of AV pieces out to the world. Freed from the constraints of a geographically anchored construction, RML’s nomadic approach is also able to offer residencies together with organizations in metropolitan locations. This vanguard hybrid media platform encompasses many presentational options to potential partners, (co)-producers and curators.

THE RML CINECHAMBER

Pivotal to this initiative stands the CineChamber, a large but intimate rectangular surround surface apparatus, capable of scaling its 36' by 24' proportions to fit into the auditoriums, theatre stages and concert halls everywhere on the global circuit.

Although one can walk around the flexibly adjoined screen construction and observe the content externally, the main attraction lies within the spacious panoramic interior, encompassed on all sides by the multi channel audio and image setup in customizable formations. 

THE RML CINECHAMBER: AN INCUBATOR FOR INTERMEDIA DESIGN & DIFFUSION 

The platform offers extensive immersive intermedia production opportunities and can be utilized by engineers and innovators in a variety of ways - from co-active wrap around synesthesia to telegenic performance settings, from realtime installation interactions with live music to programmed exhibition screenings. The RML CineChamber provides international artists the opportunity to take their creative impulse to the furthest frontiers of aural, optical & cinematic language, and propagates them in a comprehensive and rarefied environment. Numerous renowned artists have created modules for the CineChamber

THE RML CINECHAMBER: A PLACE FOR RESIDENCIES

The RML CineChamber has generated worldwide interest as a place for artistic and academic residencies. This advanced accommodation enables artists in residence to fully experiment with the latest audio, visual and interactive technologies. We strongly believe that the process of fabrication and composition is just as important as the subsequent  premiere presentation of the project. Therefore residencies often include work in progress test run demonstrations  or workshops. 

RML PARTNERS

Recombinant Media Labs has developed a partnership with the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA) at University of California at San Diego (UCSD) to bridge the technical expertise of the university's faculty, departments and forum with the artistic substance and cultural potential of the RML CineChamber. RML is a member of ICAS (International Cities of Advanced Sound), a coalition of European, North and South American Festivals.

THE RML CINECHAMBER MODULES

At RML CineChamber we're focussing on different presentation formats varying from one-time performances to scheduled screenings or long period exhibitions. Below follow three examples of different approaches:

MARYANNE AMACHER – Plaything

A CineChamber performance module

At the 2010 edition of the Sonic Acts festival in Amsterdam Recombinant Media Labs presented Maryanne Amacher's composition Plaything. Plaything is a multichannel audio only performance module with a length of 50 minutes. It took place in a dedicate space for the performance: the planetarium.

Plaything was realized over multiple residency periods starting in the 90's. Maryanne Amacher had been piloting a 50 minute laboratory tableau version similar to her live performances but with the ultimate use of the of the RML CineChamber setup.

The Plaything module is an example of experiential archiving and modular representation of live concerts and video cinematic showings by technologically chronicling all aspects of the real time events.

RYOCHI KUROKAWA - Parallel Heads 

A multi channel screening installation for a festival or gallery context

Springing from a primarily diptych (two screen) format used for the majority of his touring appearances, Ryoichi Kurokawa arrived at Recombinant Media Labs in 2007 for his first encounter with the ten panel polyptych possibilities. Opening for a series of Pan Sonic sessions Kurokawa assembled his first surround screenwork which re-purposed his entire set into a distilled "cross-media" classic that RML still shows today as part of its gallery of programs. Over two years later he also re-contextualized his latest traveling AV quadritych package "Parallel Heads" to the 360-degree architecture of the CineChamber. The spatial synaesthetic expressivity of this creation lures the spectators to the epicenter of a waking sensorial dream. The work is a casebook primer on how to actually watch and 'follow' a film that happens all around you. Parallel heads is an example of a work that 'plays' the entire room's stimuli as a synchronized, temporal instrument.

CARSTEN NICOLAI / BLIXA BARGELD - ANBB  

A Cine-Chamber live performance

The majority of most RML artistic visitations have culminated in a performance series where the works can be prepared for immediate public exposure or the launch of a project that can be installed, expanded or enacted elsewhere. In the case of longtime acquaintances Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai) and Blixa Bargeld (Einsturzende Neubauten), we were hosting the incubation of an idea they had of encountering a narrative subtext by playing live together. This residency laid the initial groundwork for what has now emerged as ANBB. By opening the RML studio to the open exploration of the terra incognita between their respective musical worlds, something fresh and outside their crossbreed was generated. The performance was accompanied by a real-time 10 screens visualization of their tonal spectra modulating Werner Meyer's Eppler's illustrations of scientific experimentations.

for further information please contact: mail (at) rml - cinechamber dot org