2023

June 15, 2023 Vernissage SkypeLab: Fragments at the Baden-Württemberg-Stiftung, Stuttgart.

2021

October 22, 2021- SkypeLab: Echoes at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. 20th anniversary of the Baden-Württemberg-STIPENDIUM.

2019/20

November 21, 2019 - 3 January 2020 - SkypeLab: 1000 Pixel at the Baden-Württemberg State Representation in Berlin.

SkypeLab: 1000 Pixel curated by Henning Eichinger, Maggie McCormick, Annie Kurz and Javiera Advis. Pixel will be permanently installed at Baden-Württemberg Stiftung Stuttgart, Reutlingen University, RMIT University, Australian Embassy Berlin.

Hinter den 1000 Pixeln / behind the 1000 pixels…

Opening night 27 November 2019. Speakers: Her Excellency Lynette Wood, Australian Ambassador in Germany, Christoph Dahl, Geschäftsführer Baden-Württemberg-Stiftung, RMIT Adjunct Professor, Dr. Maggie McCormick and Professor Henning Eichinger, Reutlingen University, with a SkypeLab 2012-2019 overview. State Secretary Volker Ratzmann, Baden Württemberg and Professor Dr. Hendrik Brumme, President Reutlingen University were in attendance. 

Cyber Static, an art movie by Fiona Hillary, Zan Griffith and Susan Maco Forrester. Created for the opening of SkypeLab: 1000 Pixel at the State Representation of Baden-Württemberg in Berlin, November 2019.

Beyond SkypeLab

Henning Eichinger & Maggie McCormick

As we move deeper into the 21st Century SkypeLab provides a platform to explore future conversations about the role of art practice in shaping and mapping rapidly changing and increasingly sophisticated digital interfaces with their expanding social networks.  

The concept for SkypeLab began in 2012 within the fractured, fragmented imaging of the then Skype technology. Skype’s creation and expansion took place in the early to mid 2000s and by 2012 it had become a part of everyday consciousness. Knowledge and identity were being challenged by endless photo and text fragments, commented on, re-formed and sent on within this new spatial experience, creating new interfaces between art practice, public space and digital technology.

Rather than pose a specific question, the SkypeLab concept is a laboratory style framework. The framework favours purposeful positioning of dialectics across long time frames and distances – art/technology, hand/digital, here/there, day/night, summer/winter, you/me …. Within such a laboratory artists connected for the first time across screens in drawing sessions that bridged the physical and digital worlds that over time grew to become trans disciplinary street projections and performances, exhibitions in galleries, libraries, universities and public spaces, international presentations and publications over an eight year period, globally networking over 100+ people across Germany, Australia, China, USA, Brazil, Colombia and Spain. Questions arise out of the art practice itself at these points of reflection. Through such questions it is possible to map key issues and thinking within contemporary society. SkypeLab’s final iteration poses 100 Questions and 1000 Pixels to continue shaping this ongoing rhizomatic spatial map that reflects the transience, speed of connection, spatial collapse and cultural collision of contemporary everyday life experience.

Along the way SkypeLab has been supported by Reutlingen University, Germany and RMIT University, Australia as well as universities in Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Barranquilla, Boston, Hobart and Barcelona and their associated artists, curators, administrators and academics and the Goethe-Institut in Shanghai and Melbourne. In 2013 the project was awarded with the lecture prize of the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg. Such recognition plus the confidence in, and support of SkypeLab by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation has been invaluable.

November 27th, 6pm, 1000 Pixel opening in Berlin at the State Representation of Baden-Württemberg. Tiergartenstraße, 15, 10785 Berlin.

2018

November 21-22, 2018 at 22@ Barcelona SkypeLab Sympolab at RMIT Europe, Media-TIC located in the 22@ Innovation District, Barcelona.

A symposium and laboratory dialogue between a multidisciplinary group of academics, artists, PhD candidates and urban thinkers on the impact of digital screen mediation on contemporary identity and spatial knowledge.

Click on links below for further information.

PDF to Sympolab Synopsis, November 21-22, 2018

Sympolab

Program

Participants

CVs participants

Publication 1, 1a, 2

June 2018 - Skypeography: investigating and mapping the public mind space of urbaness by Maggie McCormick in the Journal of Public Space. https://journalpublicspace.org/

Seminar and launch of the journal at RMIT University, School of Art with speakers: Prof. Maggie McCormick and Dr. Luisa Bravo - editor of The Journal of Public Space (City Space Architecture, Italy & UN Habitat).

April - June 2018, Chaos & Order, 120 years of collecting at RMIT. 

Prof. Henning Eichinger's SkypeLab Melbourne Diaries was purchased by RMIT for their collection and exhibited as part of Chaos & Order, 120 years of collecting at RMIT. April-June 2018.

April 1, 2018, launch of the publication "Eagle-Eye on Identities in the Digital World", Evolution and Challenges. 

PDF:  "Eagle-Eye on Identities in the Digital World" Evolution and Challenges. 

Authors: Chaudron, Stephane & Eichinger, Henning
Publisher: Publications Office of the European Union
ISBN: 978-92-79-77690-8 (print), 978-92-79-77689-2 (pdf). ISSN: 1018-5593 (print), 1831-9424 (online)

March 27- April 27, 2018: Skypescape (an overview of SkypeLab 2014-2017 & Skypetrait 2012-2013) at Salamanca Art Centre, Hobart, Tasmania in association with the University of Tasmania. 27 March-27 April 2018.

Curators: Maggie McCormick and Fiona Hillary. Participating artists: RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia: Susan Maco Forrester & Suzannah (Zan) Griffiths. University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia: Jose Vicente Garcia Cesar & Holly Zeinert, with Emma Anna (Colombia), Christopher Bold (Australia), Annie Kurz (Germany) on Skype.

2017

October 20, 2017, Milan, Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologica Leonardo da Vinci, Milan Italy: SkypeLab: Transcontinental Faces, Spaces and Objects Talk by Professor Henning Eichinger at the preparatory workshop for the RESONANCES III Festival on BIG DATA of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

Dr Maggie McCormick chapter - Carto-City Revisited: the city as urbaness in Transformations: Art and the City edited by Elizabeth Grierson, Intellect UK & USA 2017.

August 2017, Rio De Janairo: Presentation of the SkypeLab biophysical results by Maira Froes.

July 2017, Barcelona: Dr Maggie McCormick conference presentation - SkypeLab: the city as urbaness at the IAFOR International Academic Forum CITY2017 conference.

June 5 - 6, 2017, 10am - 4pm, SkypeLab Workshop - open to public at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

July 1 - 2, 2017, Javiera Advis, Workshop on Maps & Emotions, International Cartographic Association (ICA), Washington, D.C.

June 2017, SkypeLab RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia and Universidad de Atlantico, Barranquilla Colombia: Casa Verde Exhibition.

April 11, 2017, Henning Eichinger, open talk at MAPSopentalk, 5 PM, RMIT University Building 50 (Public Art)

March 2017: First SkypeLab meeting between RMIT University, Melbourne and Universidad de Atlantico, Barranquilla, Photo: Fiona Hillary.

2016

November 16, 2016, first SkypeLab group meeting between Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Reutlingen University.

October 28, 2016, Dr Maggie McCormick receives the award of Honorary Professor at Reutlingen University.

The decision was based on her tremendous expertise and her exceptional engagement for #SkypeLab, the joint research project with RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, where Dr. McCormick currently is program Manager for the Master of Arts Course (Art in Public Space). School of Art, College of Design and Social Context.

June 15, 2016, 5pm - 7pm Book Launch, Melbourne Australia. RMIT University, Level 9, Design Hub.

Link to purchase the 2016 SkypeLab publication at KERBER Verlag, Berlin, Germany.

April 10, 2016, 11am - talk with Prof. Henning Eichinger and presentation of the exhibition catalogue at the Staedtische Galerie, Reutlingen, Germany.

Feb. 26, 2016, 7pm - Opening at the Staedtische Galerie, Reutlingen, Germany - Exhibition on view until April 10, 2016.

PAST EVENTS

2015

Aug. 21-22, 2015, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - SkypeLab: Transcontinental Faces & Spaces Workshop MAPPING EPHEMERALITIES / EPHEMERAL CARTOGRAPHIES. The workshop will be led by Dr Maggie McCormick, RMIT University, Australia and Professor Henning Eichinger, Reutlingen University, Germany. Workshop organized by the International Cartographic Association (ICA) Commissions on Maps and Society & Art and Cartography. A Pre-Activities oft he 27th International Cartographic Conference and the 16th General Assembly of International Cartographic Association (ICA) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 23-28 August 2015.

Aug. 5, 2015, Wednesday, RMIT Design Hub, RMIT CAST (Centre for Art, Society and Transformation). SkypeLab is included under Dialogue. Part of the Design for Impact Festival, 23rd July-9th August. The symposium will engage with questions of art and social change through three panels:

DIALOGUES panel members, JILL MORGAN, MAGGIE MCCORMICK, KEVIN MURRAY, KIRSTEN LYTTLE, SOFI BASSEGHI AND NICOLE POLENTAS, responding to intercultural practice both within Australia and internationally.

ENVIRONMENTS panel members, JODI NEWCOMBE, DOMINIC REDFERN,
GUY ABRAHAMS, BEN MORIESON, RENEE UGAZIO AND JEN RAE, responding to questions of art, sustainability and urban infrastructure.

TRANSFORMATIONS panel members, CLARE MCCRACKEN, KEELY MACAROW, YANDELL WALTON, DAMIAN SMITH, RIZA MANALO, PETER BURKE, CERI HANN AND TASSIA JOANNIDES responding to questions of art and community engagement.

May 27, 2015, 8:00 p.m, Boston, US - at John Joseph Moakley US Courthouse: SkypLab: Transcontinental Faces & Spaces at the Baden-Württemberg Universities Evening held on the occasion of NAFSA 2015 in Boston: 'A fascinating multimedia project presented by Prof. Henning Eichinger from Reutlingen University.'

April 12 (Sunday), 2015, 3-5pm, Shanghai China - Artist Talk, 100 Questions. All SkypeLab artist from Australia, China and Germany are present. At Department for Culture and Education of the German Consulate General
101 Cross Tower, 318 Fuzhou Road, Shanghai, China

April 10 (Friday), 2015, 7pm  - Opening, Visuelle Bibliothek
At Department for Culture and Education of the German Consulate General
101 Cross Tower, 318 Fuzhou Road, Shanghai, China
On view until April 24, opening hours: Mon-Fri, 10:30am- 6:00pm

April 1 (Wednesday), 2015, 7pm - SkypeLab: Transcontinental Faces & Spaces. Lecture by Prof. Henning Eichinger within the framework of the Cultural Round Table Event/Runder Tisch Kultur, Reutlingen. Reutlingen University, Building 6 (Lecture Hall/Aula). Reutlingen University, Alteburgstr. 150, D-72762 Reutlingen.

2014

 Aug. 2014 - Shanghai SkypeLab workshop.

2013

Dec. 4, 2013 - "Lehrpreis des Landes Baden-Württemberg" award for innovative educational approaches.

April 19,  2013 - SWR Landesshau, Skypetrait: Transcontinental Faces on German TV.

Exhibition Reutlingen City Hall in Germany. Skypetrait art residencies at RMIT University and at Reutlingen University.

RMIT Design Hub, the Drawing Out Conference.

Skypetrait exhibitions and public screenings at City Library and Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia.

Exhibitions at RMIT Project Space in Melbourne, Australia.

Jan. 2013 - first publication out: PDF- McCormick, M and Eichinger, H 2013, Skypetrait: Transcontinental Faces 2012/13, Stadt Reutlingen, Reutlingen, Germany.

Works published on-line at ARTE Creative TV (France/Germany).

2012

Projections at Gertrude Street Projection Festival in Melbourne, Australia.