Complexities of Public Sphere Engagement

inSite and Creative Time are pleased to present The Situational Drive: Complexities of Public Sphere Engagement, a two-day multidisciplinary sequence of panel discussions, conversations, and art projects rethinking the challenges of artistic, curatorial, architectural and theoretical engagement in urban and other public spheres :: May 12 – 13, 2007 [May 12, 10am – 7pm; May 13, 10:45am – 6:15pm] :: Cooper Union, The Great Hall, 7th Street, btw 3rd and 4th Ave, NYC :: Organized by Joshua Decter.

In the network society everyone puts together their own city. Naturally this touches on the essence of the concept of public domainÂ…Public domain experiences occur at the boundary between friction and freedom. –Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp, In Search of New Public Domain

What is at stake today in terms of public domain experiences? How do we know the impact of cultural projects upon the imaginations of citizens? Do we believe in the possibility of transforming publics? What is the nature of our situational drive? Continue reading

Conference

The Aesthetic Interface :: 9-13 May 2007 :: Aarhus University, Denmark.

The interface is the primary cultural form of the digital age. Here the invisible technological dimensions of the computer are given form in order to meet human perception and agency. This encounter is enacted through aesthetic forms stemming not only from the functional domains and tools, but increasingly also from aesthetic traditions, the old media and from the new media aesthetics. This interplay takes place both in software interfaces, where aesthetic and cultural perspectives are gaining ground, in the digital arts and in our general technological culture – keywords range from experience oriented design and creative software to software studies, software art, new media, digital arts, techno culture and digital activism.

This conference will focus on how the encounter of the functional and the representational in the interface shapes contemporary art, aesthetics and culture. What are the dimensions of the aesthetic interface, what are the potentials, clashes and breakdowns? Which kinds of criticism, aesthetic praxes and forms of action are possible and necessary? Continue reading

How do you measure fear?

Right now, kanarinka is running the entire evacuation route system in Boston and measuring its distance in breaths. The project is an attempt to measure our post-9/11 collective fear in the individual breaths that it takes to traverse these new geographies of insecurity.

It takes 154,000 breaths to evacuate Boston consists of a series of running performances in public space (2007), a web podcast of breaths (2007), and a gallery installation of the archive of breaths (2008).

It takes 154,000 breaths to evacuate Boston is presented by iKatun for the 2007 Boston Cyberarts Festival. The project will be on view at the Cyberarts Gala on Fri, May 4, 2007, 6:30pm at the Hotel @ MIT, Cambridge, MA. If you want to attend a running performance, email kanarinka AT ikatun DOT com for upcoming dates & locations or just subscribe to the podcast. Continue reading

Open Call

In 2007, ctrl_alt_del will be realized by NOMAD in corporation with Istanbul Technical University – MIAM and Kadir Has University. The base of the project will be Kadir Has University which is located on Golden Horn. This year ctrl_alt_del will include Opening Concert, Performance Series (live), Workshops, Panels, Presentations, Open Call, Field Studies/Workshops, Exhibition, Radio Programmes, Publication and CD release. The theme of ctrl_alt_del in 2007 will be “remote orienteering”. As the first dedicated sound art festival in Turkey, ctrl_alt_del enjoyed a great deal of international publicity in 2003 and 2005. For the third ctrl_alt_del to be held in September 2007, we are now looking for interesting, provocative, subversive, experimental and sophisticated works. 5 pieces will be selected by the jury and will be presented during ctrl_alt_del. Continue reading

SLIDE MOVIE – DIAFILMPROJEKTOR, a new installation by Gebhard Sengmueller, will be presented at the European Media Art Festival Osnabrueck :: April 25 – May 20, 2007. Continue reading

Art for Technovernacular and Non-Traditional Environments

A-WAL Public Art Project: | Edition: Quarter 2, 2007 | Vers des lendemains qui chantent. | Curated by Tirdad Zolghadr | Artists featured in this edition: Cassius Al Madhloum, Fia Backstr̦m, Cabaret Voltaire (featuring a dotmaster piece), the Parking Gallery Рa project by Amirali Ghassemi, and Richard Rhys.

The A-WAL Public Art Project is an experimental initiative that situates art in the vernacular through the commissioning of curators and artists for special projects in technovernacular and non-traditional environments. This project is at once central and extracurricular to A-WAL email, the email where cyber expression is commandeered through use of art and personal images as backgrounds. A-WAL has been featured as extension of exhibition at Satellite Project Shanghai Biennial, Observatori Contemporary (Valencia, Spain), Spring / Wooster graffiti project (New York), and will be present at the Venice Biennale in various unorthodox locales including a cave. A-WAL challenges traditional and technical modes of communications channels, redefines the relationship of public/private, and attacks the bourgeoisie notion and privileged role associated with collecting. Continue reading

Seeking Submissions

The 11th Annual MadCat Women’s International Film Festival is seeking submissions! MadCat seeks provocative and visionary films and videos directed or co-directed by women. Films can be of any length or genre and produced ANY year. MadCat is committed to showcasing work that challenges the use of sound and image and explores notions of visual story telling. All subjects / topics will be considered. Submission Fee: $10-30 sliding scale. Pay what you can afford. International entrants may disregard the fee. For more details go to www.madcatfilmfestival.org or call 415 436-9523. Preview Formats: VHS or DVD. Exhibition Formats: 35mm, 16mm, Super8, Beta SP, Mini DV, VHS, DVD. All entries must include a self addressed stamped envelope for return of materials. Previews will not be returned without a self addressed stamped envelope. Late Deadline: May 21, 2007. Continue reading

Body-Process Arts

a-m-b-e_r is an Istanbul based initiative that aims to explore artistic forms of expression at the conjunction of the body and the digital process. It was founded in 2007 as an association by a team of researchers and artists from disciplines such as dance, performance, design, social sciences and engineering. The founders of amber came together in order to create a local discussion and production platform in a Globalized World itself transformed by new technologies.

a-m-b-e_r defines its area of interest through the wording of its subtitle. Body-process arts points to artistic forms that incorporate and exploit the interaction of human bodies and technological processes. a-m-b-e_r’s objective is to establish a permanent center in Istanbul, which would focus on research, production and education in the field of body-process arts. Simultaneously, a-m-b-e_r seeks to create an international network of artists, researchers and technicians with whom it would continue to work and cooperate. It thus aims to participate in universal art from its local and regional perspective.

From this year on, a-m-b-e_r will be regularly organizing a-m-b-e_r body-process arts festivals as part of its activities. a-m-b-e_r’07 body-process arts festival will take place in between 9-17 November, 2007 in Istanbul. The theme of a-m-b-e_r’07 is “voice and survival”. Continue reading

Jesse Aaron Cohen

On the last Friday of every month, archivist Jesse Aaron Cohen ‘opens’ a new email exhibition. The shows are delivered to subscribers’ inboxes, in the form of thematized collections of digital images. (Below is the root directory for these images.) Cohen is based in New York and many of the shows in his series revolve around immigrants to the city and diaspora Jewish culture. The current one, number 28, is called ‘Dr. Z’s’ and features scans of ads for ‘health, beauty, and wellness products and practitioners as they appeared in programs from various Yiddish theaters in New York between 1890 and 1928.’ The title is inspired by dermatologist Dr. Zizmor’s (Dr. Z’s) ubiquitous subway ads, as traced in the supplementary links included in the email. Each of the exhibitions features such extra info and is contextualized by a brief curatorial statement. Continue reading

Present ShiftSpace Today

Mushon Zer-Aviv and Dan Phiffer will present their thesis ShiftSpace – an open-source layer above any website – at ITP today. Dan’s presentation is at 4:00 pm, Mushon’s is at 7:00 pm :: 721 Broadway at Waverly Place, 4th Floor, South Elevators, New York, NY 10003. If you can’t make it you can follow it online.

While the Internet’s design is widely understood to be open and distributed, control over how users interact online has given us largely centralized and closed systems. The web is undergoing a transformation whose promise is user empowerment—but who controls the terms of this new read/write web? The web has followed the physical movement of the city’s social center from the (public) town square to the (private) mall. ShiftSpace attempts to subvert this trend by providing a new public space on the web. Continue reading