Project Description: Dynamic Light is a research-creation program that asks how we can think about lighting design (the deliberate use of light to achieve a practical or aesthetic effect) like we think about music: as a composition of dynamic patterns, rhythms, phrases and gestures that take place over time. The premise of the research stems […]
interdisciplinary research studio-lab
labXmodal is a studio-lab founded by Chris Salter dedicated to the research, development, and creation of performative environments - physical spaces with a focus on dynamic and temporal processes over static objects and representations. We research and develop new hardware and software sensing technologies, apply these tools and techniques in solo + collaborative, internationally disseminated artistic works and critically reflect on these practices through technical and theoretical/historical publications, talks and public presentations.
Xmodal is dedicated to
a deeper exploration of the concept of interaction that goes beyond the traditional, one to one relationship between user and computer and instead towards that of the embodied inhabitant in complex, dynamic media environments. To accomplish this, Xmodal focuses on interdisciplinary research-based practice involving visual and performing artists, designers, engineers and computer scientists, acousticians and audio experts, anthropologists, architects, philosophers and cultural critics.
Xmodal was established in
April 2006. It is affiliated with the Hexagram Institute for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technology and the Department of Design and Computation Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University.
Xmodal is directed by
Dr. Chris Salter and funded through grants from the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Hexagram Institute for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Sciences, the Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Quebec (CALQ), the Office of the Vice President of Research – Concordia University and Faculty Research and Development Funds, Concordia University.
Project Description: How has it come to be that artists, scientists and scholars use this prickly word “performance” to describe a similar interest in material actions and temporal processes despite being situated in radically different cultures of knowledge? Performativity and Technics will aim to answer this question by linking concepts and practices of performance across […]
Project Description: E[MERGE]is a collaborative research/creation project between labs at Concordia and McGill Universities to develop new software tools for artists to better understand and compose with large amounts of real time data generated by many sensing and computation devices spread throughout a physical environment. The innovative artistic project N-Polytope that relies on such distributed, […]
Project Description: The Qualified Self is an exploratory research project between researchers at Concordia and McGill Universities, Philips research laboratories and cultural partners in the Netherlands. The project aims to study the phenomenon of interactional synchrony in a large group of people using biometric/physiological signals such as respiration, heart-rate/heart rate variability (ECG) and skin conductance […]
Project Description: Disequilibrium is an interactive installation that explores the blurring of our senses of vision, touch and sound. Moving through near darkness, a group of 3-6 visitors at a time wears devices that produce touch-like sensations with various levels of pressure across the body. These sense impressions can be shared among visitors by way […]
Project Description: Haptic Fields is an innovative research-creation program that brings together artistic work using new technologies, engineering, music technology and sensory anthropology to explore an overlooked but increasingly important sensory modality in todays audio-visual driven society – the sense of touch. The program of research is guided by three central questions: 1. Can touch […]
Project Description: Mediation of Sensation explores the artistic/scholarly potential of the cross-talk between new media and sensory anthropology. The artistic design, development and ethnographic evaluation of the project was informed by interdisciplinary collaboration between artist/researchers Chris Salter, Concordia anthropologist Dr. David Howes and a team of professional artists/emerging researchers in anthropology, design, food studies and […]
Public forums, a symposium, and commissioned essays/projects examining phenomena that go beyond static representations of the urban environment
Low Cost, Open Source Wireless Sensor Infrastructure for Live Performance and Interactive, Real-Time Environments
Interactive, dynamically changing auditory “scenography” for the stage.
Research Director
Chris Salter, Ph.D.
Chris Salter is an artist, Concordia University Research Chair in New Media, Technology and the Senses, Co-Director of the Hexagram network, Director of the Hexagram Concordia Centre for Research and Creation in Media Art and Technology, Associate Director, Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology and Professor, Computation Arts in the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University, Montreal.
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