Lieven van Velthoven creates interactive real-time software. Examples of his work include a Smoke Pong, a game that can be played exclusively by smokers, live 3D VJ visuals software and an installation that allows light to ‘grow’ over buildings and even people with exact precision.

Written by Cindy Iseli & Myrthe Velter

The ink on his diploma from Media Technology in Leiden is still fresh, but his works have already been featured at the Mediamatic Arcade Exhibition, Discovery Festival, E-Pulse, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the ZKM | Medienmuseum in Karlsruhe (Germany).

Nominated for CineKid, Platform Beta Techniek and IndiePub awards, Van Velthoven’s Room Racers at STRP, is an installation that allows you to use physical objects to design racetracks for virtual cars. You can race up to four virtual cars around anything you can find at home. Build your very own racetrack on the floor using actual objects: the physical elements create obstacles for the projected vehicles. You can change the track whenever you like. You can create roundabouts, intersections and hairpin turns, and move the finish line at will.

In Combat, you can build an arena to host battles with your friends. Fire away with your headlights, and try to hit as many opponents as possible.

Van Velthoven creates intuitively, but thinks carefully about the technique that has to be implemented to make the idea work. Though his interactive games aren’t too layered, his VJ visuals are spectacularly beautiful. Velthoven redefines the art of gaming.

Lieven van Velthoven can be seen at Discovery Festival in Amsterdam on the 23rd of September, and at STRP Festival. At Discovery Festival he will be presenting his new installation ‘Crowdsourced Video’.

The STRP Festival will be held November 18 – 27, 2011 in the Klokgebouw in Eindhoven (NL). In the upcoming weeks Cindy Iseli and Myrthe Velter from STRP will keep us up-to-date about Art & Technology!

visit the website:
STRP Festival