LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón, Spain

LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial

http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org

ABOUT LABORAL:

LABoral is a multidisciplinary institution which produces, disseminates and fosters access to new forms of culture rooted in the creative use of information and communication technologies (ICT). LABoral has been working in crossovers between arts, science and technology since its creation in 2007. The hybrid nature of the institution is seen through its focus on production, a practice that involves an intense knowledge exchange amongst professionals from different disciplines with a common objective. In this context, the collaboration with all these professionals has always been a new challenge, due to the differences and similarities between practices. Thus, this experience is to be shared, agreed and formalized, with similar hybrid institutions through the production of various research projects and related activities. 

PLATAFORMA CERO. PRODUCTION CENTRE

Plataforma Cero is LABoral’s production centre for contemporary artworks and other cultural projects. Offering technical support, advice, resources and infrastructures to creators, working groups and educators, it facilitates the development of projects in the fields of arts and design.

Plataforma Cero drives forward the production of new work and artistic research. It also facilitates technical assistance to creators and runs artist-in-residence programmes.

ABOUT THE RESIDENCY AT LABORAL:

Resources

fabLAB

A Fab lab (short for fabrication laboratory) is a production space of physical objects with computer-controlled machines.
It is an initiative by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which opens the way to personal fabrication and the individualization of production with machinery normally beyond the reach of private finance.
Fab labs work as people networks which share knowledge and processes.

Available equipment:
Roland Modela MDX-40A CNC milling machine with rotatory axis (3D): This benchtop milling machine can mill pieces of up to 300x300x100mm (on a benchtop) and up to 270x300x68mm in a rotatory axis (this latter is used for producing solids of revolution). One can obtain any kind of surface finishes depending on the cutting tool used and mill from soft materials, such as wax or foam, to nonferric metals such as aluminium or others such as wood, plastic, etc.

Epson Stylus Pro 9800 plotter: The 40” Epson Stylus Pro 9800 is a wide-format printer capable of handling almost any media type, in roll or cut sheet, and utilizing high quality 8-colour ink. Furthermore, this printer features 180 nozzles and can achieve resolution levels of up to 2880 x 1440 dpi.

Laser Cutting Machine (100x80cm, 100W): This CO2 laser cutting device of 100W with adjustable flatbed (1000x800mm). This laser machine can cut materials such as paper, cardboard, fabric, wood or plastics up to 1cm thickness. You can work from vectorial designs imported from plt, dxf, etc.

Makerbot Thing-o-Matic 3D printer for ABS plastic extrusion: This 3D printer can be used for the extrusion of ABS or PLA plastics (ecologic plastic using corn in its makeup) producing pieces of up to 100x100x100mm. This printer is an open- source project, meaning that all the pieces designed with the printer are available for their modification or improvement.

Proxxon vertical drill machine: Bench drill machine TBM 220. Machined worktop of high-quality, ribbed die-cast aluminium (220 x 120 mm) with parallel supports set and scale. Solid column, accessories, tool sets, milling drills / bench drills
Electric screwdrivers, saws, drills, heat gun, resin gun, and a wide variety of hand tools.

Laboratory of experimental electronics and software

This laboratory offers a space equipped for the development of electronic and software prototypes, and a comprehensive advisory service. The objective is to make electronic tools available for artistic production and promoting research, encouraging interdisciplinary creative development.

Audiovisual Production Platform

Experimentation and research on artistic actions and new audiovisual forms, with equipment for recording, editing and the production and postproduction of digital and audio video.

Available equipment:

  • Plat0
  • Area: 319.70 m2. Consult floor plan.
  • Soundproofed ceiling. Consult reverberation report. Height: 5.95m – 7.95m
  • TRUSS: self-supporting truss structure
  • Power supply
  • Suspension gear.
  • Consult here the structure plan and table of loads. Connectivity/Live
  • Optical fibre connection
  • 10MB symmetrical bandwidth

Communication:

  • MacBook (Core 2 Duo) for live-streaming purposes UStream account and player at LABTV. ExperimentalTV channel
  • Linux station for streaming via Icecast + TSS Linux station for Telepresencia via Scenic

Live:

  • MacPro equipped with Live, Modul8, Max/Msp/Jitter, Soundforge Video mixers: Edirol v-8, Neokinok
  • Video projectors:
  • Audio devices
  • Lights, Truss, Chroma

Video

  • Camera Panasonic AG-HPX171E Camera Panasonic AG-HVX201AE Aditional card P2 32GB Panasonic Tripod Libec
  • Tripod Secceed
  • Camera Canon miniDV
  • Handycam Sony with tripod
  • Rack microphones EW 100-ENG-G3 Sennheiser Microphone EW 135-P-G3 Sennheiser
  • Ambient microphone MKH 416-P48U3 Sennheiser Micro-pole system Sennheiser ME-66
  • Camera microphones Rode NTG-1
  • Hand microphones Shure
  • Recorder Tascam DR-680 Fig Rig kit
  • Spotlights Fresnel 650W Fluorescent screens (Kinoflo) Video-mixer V-8
  • Torch Prolux PLX-A130
  • Wide angle adapter Convex POR Series HD 0.6X

Photography

  • Reflex camera EOS 5D MKII
  • Tripod Manfrotto
  • Digital camera
  • Studio lighting unit Ellimchron Dlite 4 Edition
  • Editing station: Mac Pro, 4 nucleos 3.4 GHz, 6 GB RAM, 1 TB HD, equipped with all necessary software (Final Cut, After Effects, etc.)
  • DV and miniDV capture adapter Capture DV and mini DV HD Capture MXO2 Matrox

Sound Laboratory

The Sound Laboratory aims to promote and provide technical and creative support to all contemporary artistic practices related to sound through three main lines of action: production, research and education.
Research and production residencies, concerts, workshops and exhibitions in which sound is the key element will take place in this space.

The space has an archive area with documentation on the productions and their creative and technological research process.

Available equipment:

  • 1 x Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 soundcad 2 x Novation Launchpad S controller
  • 1 x Rode NTG-8 microphone
  • 1 x Rode K2 microphone
  • 1 x Ableton push controller
  • 2 x Tascam DR-40 handy recorder 1 x Presonus APC-88
  • 8 x Genelec 8030BPM speakers
  • 2 x Genelec 7070APM subs

Objetives

  • provide technical infrastructure, to aid teachers and students learn about the technologies needed to carry out artistic projects.
  • meet the external need for services that include diverse-scale project production, advice and consultancy or project design.
  • facilitate meetings between artists, scientists and technicians.
  • give visibility to the transversaility and interdisciplinarity proper to art and contemporary creation.
  • achieve a structure in which research as well as production are permeable to the participation of visitors.
  • meet research, development and production needs and to round out education wherever LABoral has an influence.

Areas of action

Production

The production centre gives access to tools and know-how to support artists and creators in the development of ambitious projects in art and industrial creation environments.
LABoral host artistic residences to produce specific projects that are then showed to the public through exhibitions, workshops or presentations. The residency offers the artists the possibility of research and experiment with the resources in a highly creative environment where he also has contact with other artists, developers, creators and technical staff.

Research

Looking for new ways of production, fabrication techniques and alternatives uses for technology, at Platform zero collaborates with artists, designers, producers and educators to develop hybrid projects combining technical solutions with artistic and industrial application.

Education

The production centre also disseminates and fosters access to new forms of culture emerging from the creative use of ICTs by different programmes for work groups, individual creators and educators operating in the intersections between science, art, technology, creative industries and society.

Laboral image 1