3rd meeting of Upgrade! International: Chain Reaction – a 4 day festival curated by the Upgrade! International community :: September 11 – 14, 2008 :: European University, Skopje; Cultural Center Tocka; Cultural Center CK; Open Graphic Studio – Museum of the City of Skopje, Macedonia :: Call for Participation: Workshops + Lectures – Application Deadline: September 5 :: No experience necessary; free and open to the public.

Workshops:

PURE DATA INITIATION – RYbN [Paris] will educate participants in Pure Data visual programming language, an open source and free software, created by Miller Puckette, basically dedicated to sound processing: September 12, 15:00-18:00 hrs, European University Skopje.

KRIEGSPIEL LAN Party: playing Guy Debord’s Game Of War – Mushon Zer Aviv [New York] led by Mushon Zer Aviv, is a reminiscence of Guy Debord’s game from 1978, released as a new, free online computer game: September 13, 14:00-17:00hrs, Cultural Center “CK”.

Urban Programming 101 – Taeyoon Choi [Seoul] is a public workshop where participants are expected to actively participate in order to understand, interpret and program the urban space: September 11-13, 10:00 – 17:00hrs, European University RM.

The Mobicases – Live Sampling of the City of Skopje – Public Art Lab [Berlin] will train the participants in advanced digital archiving of cultural and art events: September 11-14, 12:00 – 20:00hrs, Cultural Center “CK”.

Accustoming Canadians to Sublimation – Imaginary Border Academy [Montreal] covers different subjects resulting from the current international diplomacy policies and strategies: September 11-13, 15:00 – 18:00hrs.

Shifting Metropolis – Annemie Maes, Shelbatra Jashari, Junior Vandebroeck [Brussels/Ghent] is a three day workshop for artists who are open to collaboration during the creative process: September 11 – 13, 15:00 – 18:00, Open Graphic Studio.

Realtime Animation for Everyone (with Moviesandbox and the Milkscanner) – Friedrich Kirschner [New York] uses 3D data for creation of short 3D to create short live-3D-theater pieces with Moviesandbox (free software also developed by the author): September 14, 14:00 – 19:00 hrs, Cultural Center “CK”.

Lotech_HITECH@DESIGNLAB.com – the Faculty of Art and Design, European University [Skopje] will confront two groups of participants in order to research the methods of creating by using analog and digital technology that affect the cognitive processes of creation: September 11, 14:30 – 17:30, European University RM.

Lectures:

Tao of P.O.O (Post-optimal Objects) – Cezanne Charles & John Marshall [Detroit] focuses on object design and their cultural context: September 13, 17:00 – 18:00hrs, European University RM.

Antidatamining – RYbN [Paris] is based on the recovery and the viewing/visualization of web-extracted data: September 13, 16:00-17:00hrs, European University RM.

The Stone that the Builders Rejected: Computer Art and the Edifice of Art History – Paul Hertz [Chicago] traces genealogies that connect concepts developed by pioneering computer artists to new media practices, the twentieth century avant-garde, art historical issues of knowledge and representation, and contemporary visual culture: September 11, 16:00 – 17:00hrs, European University RM.

The Presence of Displacement: The Surfacing of the Internet Café in Johannesburg’s Inner City – Tegan Bristow [Johannesburg] reveals the development, context and relevance of an emergent form of internet-café usage, practiced in public spaces in South Africa: September 11, 17:00 – 18:00hrs, European University RM.

Object of Desire – Yael Kanarek [New York] generates complex and networked “story spaces” that combine multiple media forms with multiple languages including Hebrew and Arabic: September 12, 17:00 – 18:00hrs, Cultural Center Tocka.

Actions with Film as a Tool of Survey and Integration at Local Society – Krzysztof Żwirblis [Warsaw] presents the process of creation of authors actions with the film as a tool that integrates public dialog and discovering the commentaries of the public about contemporary issues (political, social, existential: September 14, 16:00 – 17:00hrs, Cultural Center Tocka.

Networks and Artistic Spaces of Intervention – Gilbertto Prado [Sao Paolo] is about accomplishments with the new poetics of the dynamic universe of the telematic art, expressed in the contemporary artistic production: September 12, 15:00 – 16:00hrs, Cultural Center Tocka.

Voice in Electronic Art – from Whistle to Speech Recognition – Martha Carrer Cruz Gabriel [Sao Paolo] will present a brief panorama of electronic artworks that have used voice in several forms — from whistles and blows to the state of the art in using speech synthesis and recognition technologies: September 14, 14:00 – 15:00hrs, Cultural Center Tocka.

Digital poetry – A narrow relation between poetic and the codes of the computational logic – Silvia Laurentiz [Sao Paolo] will present artworks that use some mechanisms introduced by cybernetics and the notion of systems of digital poetry that demonstrate the close relationship of poetics and codes of computational logic: September 14, 15:00 – 16:00hrs, Cultural Center Tocka.

About Site Specific Art and Its Preservation – Panche Velkov [Skopje] opens more questions about preservation of art created and connected to a certain physical location. Questioning current preservation theory, the lecture examines the cultural significance and the future of site specific art: September 12, 18:00 – 19:00hrs, Cultural Center Tocka.

CCCK “Soros launched a machine, he launched the process – but he didn’t get this process integrated” – Ingela Johansson & Inga Zimprich [Sofia] focuses on the recent development of art institutions in Ukraine. The project expands the research towards investigating aspects of the previous networks of Soros Centers for Contemporary Arts, including the SCCAs in South-East Europe in 2008: September 14, 17:00 – 18:00hrs, Cultural Center Tocka.

Realtime Animation for Everyone – Friedrich Kirschner [New York] –the audience will have a chance to dive deep in the way of author’s way of creating, and learn how Friedrich has developed his open source scanning tools for real time 3D data collection, using a filled pop-up swimming pool, ink, camera, and computer: September 14, 14:00 – 19:00 hrs, Cultural Center “CK”.

Realities / Consciousnesses / Narratives – Dejan Grba [Belgrade] is an insight into the relations of the various concepts of reality, perception and consciousness as primary means of creativity in media art and critical theory. These relations will be commented on in the context of the (contemporary) art: September 12, 16:00 – 17:00hrs, Cultural Center Tocka.

lotech_HITECH@DESIGNEDUCATION.com: Cognition, Computers, Confusion? – Gordana Vrencoska [Скопје] focuses on recent practices in design education, touching upon questions that concern usage of new technologies in design labs: September 11, 18:00 – 19:00hrs, European University RM.

Also see:

+ Exhibition
+ Public interventions
+ Live a/v performances
+ Performances
+ Screening program

The meeting theme “Chain Reaction” illustrates the network itself, the way it works and functions, correlates and interacts. The Upgrade!International started as a creative spark that gradually grew into an international group of nodes influencing each other continually through permanent communication. The meeting gathers Upgrade! nodes into one core event in Macedonia and will hopefully cause a positive chain reaction. Upgrade! network gathers annually or bi-annually, each time in a different city for a festival by artists who participated in the Upgrade! meetings around the world.

“Chain reaction” was initiated by 5 partner nodes (Upgrade! Belgrade, Upgrade! Berlin – Public Art Lab, Upgrade! Sofia – InterSpace, Upgrade! Istanbul – NOMAD and Upgrade! Skopje – Line Initiative and Movement) that are responsible for the main coordination and communication of the project with other nodes from the network.

The outcome of the meeting is a 4 day festival with various activities that are created by common effort of the Upgrade! International nodes. On this occasion 50 international artists, curators, and arts producers will gather in Skopje to meet, present art projects and further develop the network. The artistic program of this project is rich, diverse and presents the latest developments of the new media scene on international level.