WHAT IS LIVE? – Symposium in the framework of Club Transmediale, Berlin :: February 1-2, 2011; 12:00 – 6:30 pm :: HAU 1 (Hebbel am Ufer), Stresemannstr. 29, 10963 Berlin, Germany.

CTM’s this year’s festival theme #LIVE!? puts the spotlight on the practice of media-based audio/visual live performance. Accordingly, the symposium WHAT IS LIVE? opens the door to dialogue between artistic practitioners of the discipline and theorists of sound and image-based arts and cultural and media sciences.

Repeatedly in the history of media, the mass establishment of film, radio and television has sparked fierce debates about perfomativity and medialization, about the live character and the subsequent associated authenticity of content portrayed by media. Continue reading

Upgrade! Boston: Moments of Inertia by R. Luke DuBois, with Todd Reynolds :: February 8, 2011; Doors open @ 6:30 pm. Performance begins @ 7:00 pm :: MIT Media Lab (E14), 6th Floor, Room 633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts (map).

Moments of Inertia is an evening-length performance based on a teleological study of gesture in musical performance and how it relates to gesture in intimate social interaction. The work is written for solo violin with real-time computer accompaniment and video. Moments consists of twelve violin études written by R. Luke DuBois for Todd Reynolds – ranging from 1-10 minutes in length – each of which uses a different violin performance gesture as a control input for manipulating a short piece of high-speed film (300 frames-per-second) – of objects and people in motion. Continue reading

Harry Stendhal Presents: ‘Mapping Maciunas’ and ‘Exercise’ :: February 3-26, 2011 :: Opening Reception: February 3; 6:00 – 9:00 pm :: Stendhal Gallery, 545 W20th, New York, New York.

The exhibitions Mapping Maciunas and Exercise both examine the work of Fluxus artist, George Maciunas, who blended his education in architecture, graphic design and musicology to produce new ways of thinking about the state of contemporary society. Throughout his life, Maciunas prided himself in the creation of ‘learning machines,’ charts and diagrams to find precedents, clarify and advance the experimental art of his time. ‘Mapping Maciunas,’ exhibits various charts and diagrams relating not only to Fluxus and the avant-garde but to history and arts education. Continue reading

Video Vortex 6: TrouwAmsterdam :: March 11-12, 2011 :: Amsterdam.

Two years later, the Video Vortex events come back to Amsterdam. Organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, and in a top cultural venue, Video Vortex 6 offers artist presentations (performances, screenings and talks), hands-on workshops, the launch of the upcoming Video Vortex Reader II, and a 2-day symposium, Speakers Confirmed Thus Far:

Online Video Aesthetics: This theme seeks to explore various insights, explorations and arguments regarding the vast arena of online video aesthetics. Tackling the tenuous relationship between amateur and professional video production particularly with respect to the question of ‘quality’, have amateur and professional video grown closer, or are they still in competition, and what aesthetics, techniques, genres, structures, and so on, exist in the professional realm of online video, compared to the amateur? Continue reading

Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology — Uncovering the insect logic that informs contemporary media technologies and the network society by Jussi Parikka:

Since the early nineteenth century, when entomologists first popularized the unique biological and behavioral characteristics of insects, technological innovators and theorists have proposed insects as templates for a wide range of technologies. In Insect Media, Jussi Parikka analyzes how insect forms of social organization — swarms, hives, webs, and distributed intelligence — have been used to structure modern media technologies and the network society, providing a radical new perspective on the interconnection of biology and technology. Continue reading

[Image: Tomás Saraceno, “Flying Garden,” 2006.*] DLD Conference – Public Panels :: January 24, 2011, 5:00 – 9:00 pm :: Hypo Kulturforum, Kardinal- Faulhaber Strasse 1, 80333 München.

5:00 – 6:00 pm — Iconic Turn: The Digital Wunderkammer: Browsing his latest publication “The Digital Wunderkammer – 10 Chapters on the Iconic Turn” publisher Hubert Burda, in conversation with Yale computer scientist David Gelernter, addresses our changing perception and the altering weight of images and visual information in the Digital Age. How did the traditional concept of meaning of an image change through the ages and what has changed today in view of such an increase of digital images? What function do images have in their respective contexts? Continue reading

[Image: Ho Tzu Nyen, “Earth,” 2009/2010. Single channel projection, 42 min.] Ho Tzu Nyen: Earth :: until February 20, 2011 :: with Live Sound Score Performances by Oren Ambarchi: January 24-25; 7:30 pm :: Artspace, Sydney, 43–51 Cowper Wharf Road, Woolloomooloo, NSW 2011, Sydney, Australia.

Singaporean artist and filmmaker Ho Tzu Nyen creates works that are fields of concrete sensations. In association with Sydney Festival 2011, Artspace presents the first major exhibition of his work in Sydney, including two live sound score performances by Melbourne-based composer and musician Oren Ambarchi accompanying screenings of the title work. Continue reading

Forecast: Communicating Weather and Climate :: January 24, 2011; 7:00 – 9:00 pm :: 2nd Floor Gallerias, Washington State Convention Center, 800 Convention Place, Seattle, WA.

Over the past year, Carrie Bodle worked with Miles Logsdon, UW faculty member in the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences, and was inspired by his use of visualizations in detecting patterns in oceanographic research data. This collaboration resulted in Bodle making eight embroidered Hovmoller plots displaying chlorophyll-a patterns for different regions of the Northeast Pacific Ocean over the time period of December 2002-July 2010. These images are visualizations of data from the NASA SeaWiFs Satellite for an area off the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. A detail image of one of the plots is above. Continue reading

[Image: Thomas Bayrle, “Airplane,” 1982/83. Photo by Karl Martin Hartmann.] Hans Ulrich Obrist and Nikolaus Hirsch: The Frankfurt Conversation with Helke and Thomas Bayrle, Andrea Büttner, William Forsythe, Shahab Fotouhi, Heiner Goebbels, Axel Honneth, Christoph Mäckler, Shane Munro, Tobias Rehberger, Tomás Saraceno and others :: January 30, 2011; 4:00 – 11:00 pm :: Schauspiel Frankfurt, Chagall-Saal, Willy-Brandt-Platz, Frankfurt am Main

The Frankfurt Conversation is an experimental form of a public event that allows a connection between lecture, discussion and performance through its open concept. The hybrid mix of personalities and their modes of presentation let the various contents correlate with each other and open new connections. Continue reading

Closing Keynote: Vernacular Video from Vimeo Festival on Vimeo.