Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.12.2011, Qupperneq 22

22
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2011
LAb IT UP!
Art | Or technology?
There are no events scheduled in December, but the organisation will keep up its fine
work in the New Year. If you want to attend events, go to http://reykjavikmedialab.is/ to be
updated about its activities. Their events are open to all. Should you have some crazy idea
for an instrument you think might violate the laws of physics, they will happily assist you.
How a group of artists, technicians, computer experts, musicians and sundry
others have created an organisation where everyone helps one another make
their wild ideas come true.
Media labs have been around for
about a quarter-century, the most
famous being the original one at
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. They have yet to fully
enter the mass consciousness, but
media labs have sprouted all over
the world. The basic idea is to bring
together people interested in vari-
ous disciplines—usually some form
of technology or art—and to have
people learn from each other and
bounce ideas back and forth, fig-
uring out new applications for ex-
isting tools or ways to make new
ones. What comes out of the media
lab process can be anything from
highly practical inventions to madly
beautiful art and most everything in
between.
Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir, aestheti-
cian and lecturer at the University of
Iceland and the Iceland Academy of
Arts, organised the first meeting to get
a media lab going in Reykjavík and in
2010, LornaLAB was founded. The lab
now runs monthly workshops at the
Reykjavík Art Museum, which tackle
the theme of musical instrument build-
ing from various perspectives. At the
October session I attended, two violin-
makers, Hans Jóhannson and Jóhann
Gunnarsson, gave short presentations
on their craft and showed the audience
some of their violins.
They work on different principles,
the former using technology to make all
kinds of non-traditional violins, while
the latter works along more traditional
lines (hot tip: if you think violins are
pretty, wander to Óðinsgata street, the
violin repair shop of Jónas R Jónsson
is one of Reykjavík's most beautiful
sights). Then two members of LornaL-
AB, Þráinn Hjálmarsson and Halldór
Úlfarsson, talked about the instruments
they were building and gave demon-
strations.
After the workshop I sat down with
the latter two, and three other LornaL-
AB members, Bjarni Þórisson, Hannes
Högni Vilhjálmsson and Jesper Peder-
sen. The group provided a good over-
view of the type of soul that flocks to
the media lab banner. Halldór is a vi-
sual artist, Bjarni, Þráinn and Jesper are
composers and Hannes is a professor
of computer science at Reykjavík Uni-
versity.
For a group like LornaLAB, it is
important to have a diverse member-
ship. There are few venues that bring
together people on both ends of the
arts and technology spectrum like Lor-
naLAB. As Þráinn puts it: "It is good to
create connections like that. LornaLAB
is primarily a place for conversation. It
is necessary that it exists."
"WHERE EVERyONE THIRSTS FOR
KNOWLEdGE"
One of the main aims of LornaLAB is
to share knowledge, through lectures,
conversations, and perhaps most im-
portantly, letting people play around
with the various technologies and in-
struments that members bring to meet-
ings. Bjarni says: "The first thing that
got me excited was attending a course
where I got hands-on experience with
Arduino."
Arduino is a good example of the
kind of technology that is spread
through an organisation of this nature.
It is a tiny computer that is designed to
make it easier for people to craft their
own electronics. A lot of the members
and workshop regulars got involved
because of their interest in that, as
Halldór puts it: "In a small way we be-
came the shepherds of that flock." Jes-
per had started working with Arduinos
well before LornaLAB was founded. I
asked him if he had been teaching oth-
er members of the media lab. "I have
taught, but I have also been taught by
others. Everyone takes part, teaching
each other. That is what is so wonder-
ful, sharing knowledge. I am not an ex-
pert, but you also learn by teaching."
Hannes adds: "I was at the MIT Me-
dia Lab for eight years, and so in a way
I was raised in an environment where
everything is allowed, where everyone
thirsts for knowledge and ways to apply
it." This organisation has great personal
importance to its members. "I do not
feel like a complete human being with-
out something like it," Hannes says, to
enthusiastic agreement by the others.
"SEEdS WHICH CAN GROW IN ANy
dIRECTION"
For the members of LornaLAB, the or-
ganisation is like a research and devel-
opment centre. Halldór describes how
it functions for him: "If I have an idea
for something that I am unable to figure
out how to make, instead of wandering
around lost in a fog, there is so much
knowledge within the group on the
subject of what I am trying to create,
that I can move straight towards my tar-
get." Bjarni picks up that thread: "May-
“This is an idea
generator. When you
have conversations,
ideas are passed around
and people make use of
them.”