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May 31, 2007

ARTIST in RESIDENCE [AiR] 2007

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

[Image: Usman Haque & Rob Davis – Evolving Sonic Environment, Artists in Residence from April – June, 2007] DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 1, 2007 :: Residency Period: 3 months :: Dates from September 2007 :: Location Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The Netherlands Media Art Institute is pleased to annouce an open call for the fall 2007 round of its Artist in Residence (AiR) program. The AiR programme at the Netherlands Media Art Institute aims to support the exploration and development of new work in digital / interactive / network media and technology based arts practice. The residency provides time and resources to artists in a supportive environment to facilitate the creation of new work that is produced from an open source perspective. We encourage a cross disciplinary and experimental approach. This is a practice based residency designed to enable the development and completion of a new work.

Our focus for this open call is on open source interactive installation art, in which the following occurs:

* interaction between tools and/or software
* interaction between tools and artwork
* interaction between audience and artwork

The Netherlands Media Art Institute offers an open environment with technical assistance and an active advisory board which will give feedback and support in technical, conceptual and presentation issues. There is access to studio and exhibition equipment, technical support from the Institute's staff and production help from interns. The technical staff is specialized and has good contacts with programmers of the following software, a.o.: PD/PDP, Blender, Dynebolic, Linux. We expect the artist to have knowledge and insight in the technical realization of the concept.

It is integral to the mission of the AiR program that artists participate in presenting their work in a public form appropriate to their project. This can include gallery installations, demonstrations of research in progress, panel discussions, on-line projects, or multimedia performances, in addition to open studio events and workshops. For this reason we ask that artists include in their proposal possible examples of how they might like to present their work publicly.

At this moment the Netherlands Media Art Institute provides in travel costs. It doesnt provide accommodation for artists living outside of Amsterdam. However, we are willing to help the search but cannot guarantee a place for living.

The application form can be send to:

Netherlands Media Art Institute
Artist in Residence
c/o Annet Dekker
Keizersgracht 264
1016 EV Amsterdam
the Netherlands

Posted by jo at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)

May 30, 2007

Park View Hotel

Hotels 'Bleed' into the Neighborhood

Park View Hotel-- by Ashok Sukumaran--stretches between the Cesar Chavez plaza in downtown San Jose and the neighbouring Fairmont Hotel. Using specially-built pointing devices, audiences in the park can access interior hotel spaces, by "pinging" them optically. Once found and hit (two different modes on the scope) the interiors release their properties into a wireless network... the color of the interior propagates stochastically, leaking out of the building skin, jumping across the street, and entering some street-lights in the park below. In this way, the park enjoys a certain neighbourly access to the hotel, inverting the usual character of the relationship.

This project was the result of a residency at Sun Microsystems Labs, where the artist was (according the residency brief) working with SunSPOTs, small "programmable object technologies" which are a simple-to-use prototyping platform for embedded technologies, or the so-called "Internet of Things". [via]

Posted by jo at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

Douglas Davis

Douglas Davis is primary known for his pioneering video works from the late 60’s through to the 80’s which entailed live, collaborative performances combining newly invented video equipment and satellite broadcasts. The following is an overview of some of Douglas Davis art work.

The Last Nine Minutes (video extract above) was a live performance for international satellite telecast created for Documenta 6.

This performance, presented for German TV’s first live satellite transmission marking the opening of the Documenta VI in Kassel on 24 June 1977, is a continuation of Douglas Davis’ works on telecommunication. His exhortations of the viewers to establish contact with him via the TV screen are made all the more pointed by the physical distance between two continents.

My first discovery of Davis was via his later (and too few) net.art works, particularly The World’s First Collaborative Sentence (image below), where he transfered ideas he had already been thinking about for almost two decades.

The World’s First Collaborative Sentence,without a doubt Davis’ most known net.art work:

commissioned in 1994 by the Lehman College Art Gallery, was purchased early in 1995 by Mr. and Mrs. Eugene M. Schwartz, then donated to the Whitney Museum of American Art, which now maintains its ever-evolving content.

Metabody a later net.art work from Davis is the worlds first collaborative visions of the beautiful, an attempt to form a collection of images which define the beautiful as interpreted by visitors to the website who upload images of what they think is beautiful.

Davis seems to be interested in weblogs these days (see his profile on blogger.com and his list of weblogs) but not sure whether these are art works in progress or research towards something. This is an interesting Interview of Davis for those who want to know more about his early work. [blogged by Garrett on Network Research]

Posted by jo at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)

Jonathan Monk

Five Ballerinas in Manhattan

Five Ballerinas in Manhattan :: May 30, 9-10pm: TIMES SQUARE beginning near 42nd Street and 7th Avenue :: May 31, 1-4pm: SOHO beginning at 420 West Broadway :: June 1, 2-3pm: CENTRAL PARK beginning near Rockefeller Center :: June 2, 12-2pm: WALL STREET beginning near Greenwich and Fulton Street. Download brochure.

Jonathan Monk will restage Daniel Buren’s key performance work, Seven Ballets in Manhattan, on its 32nd anniversary. Re-titling the work, Five Ballerinas in Manhattan, five performers, dressed in dance rehearsal clothes, will attempt to perform Buren’s choreography at the identical locations on the same days and times of the original performances. In 1975, the dancers carried placards featuring the striped work of Buren; for this rendition, Monk will have the dancers distribute an adaptation of Buren’s brochure featuring illustrations of the choreography for each site.

This enigmatic work in its original presentation prompted questions regarding the status of art in the public realm and how such confrontations are defined in its initial presentation. For example, audiences in SoHo, then the center of the commercial gallery scene in New York, accepted the work as art, but audiences on Wall Street interpreted the parade of placards as a potential unidentifiable threat. By re-phrasing and re-presenting works from the Modernist Canon of the 1960s and 1970s, Monk aims to test their continued strength and validity, in part through demystifying the process. Part homage, part parody, the work suggests alternative outcomes, differing audience responses and new-routes for the cultural producer and artist of today.

This is conceptual artist Jonathan Monk’s first non-gallery based work in New York. Born in Britain in 1969, and now based in Berlin, Monk works in a wide range of media including installations, photography, film, sculpture and performance. His tongue-in-cheek methods often recall procedural approaches typical of 1960’s Conceptualism, but without sharing their utopian ideals and notions of artistic genius. Monk, like Daniel Buren, is a key practitioner in the “art into life” debate.

Posted by jo at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)

FEEDBACK

Responsive Art

FEEDBACK focuses on art responsive to instructions, input, or its environment and creates one possible narrative of the multi-faceted histories of art that uses digital technologies as a medium. FEEDBACK interweaves two themes relating to responsive art. One theme traces the concept of feedback from art based on instructions—be they natural language or code—to art that sets up open systems reacting to input from its immediate environment or the Internet. A second theme explores the concept of light and the moving object and image from Kinetic Art and Op Art to responsive notions of television and cinema. FEEDBACK links these themes in order to illuminate how different artistic practices developed over the past 50 years are interconnected and have informed each other. The exhibition is not a historical survey but features a selection of pieces that underscore how related ideas have been expressed at different points in time. Artworks are not presented in chronological order but in thematic groups or pairs that branch and connect.

Manfred Mohr, Vera Molnar, Charles Csuri, Sol LeWitt, Casey Reas, Roman Verostko, 5voltcore, Harold Cohen, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Hans Haacke, Edward Inhatowicz, David Rokeby, Lygia Clark, Hachiya Kazuhiko, Robert Rauschenberg, Eddo Stern, Mary Flanagan, Paul Sermon, Victoria Vesna, Boj & Diaz, Antoni Muntadas, Marcel Duchamp, László Moholy-Nagy, Alejandro & Moira Sina, Herwing Weiser, Takis, James Seawright, Jean Tinguely, Chico MacMurtrie/Amorphic Robot Works, Nam June Paik, Cory Arcangel, JODI, Wolfgang Staehle, Thomson & Craighead, Jennifer & Kevin McCoy, Marie Sester, Jenny Marketou, Char Davies.

TELEMATICS AND GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

Artists have used devices ranging from faxes and phones to satellite TVs in works that involve remote locations. In a 1978 report to the French president Giscard d’Estaing, Simon Nora and Alain Minc coined the term telematics for the combination of computers and telecommunications. Using ‘new technology’ such as video and satellites, artists in the 1970s began to experiment with ‘live performances’ and networks that anticipated the interactions currently taking place on the Internet. Digital technologies and the Internet have allowed for unprecedented possibilities of ‘being present’ in various locations at the same time.

CYBERNETICS, OPEN SYSTEMS AND INSTRUCTION-BASED ART CYBERNETICS AND OPEN SYSTEMS

In the 1940s, Norbert Wiener coined the term ‘cybernetics’—from the Greek term ‘kybernetes’ meaning ‘governor’ or ‘steersman’—to specify the important role that feedback plays in a communication system. In Cybernetics: or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948), Wiener defined three central concepts crucial to any organism or system: communication, control, and feedback. During the 1960s artists increasingly started to think about technological systems, the systems of the social world and aesthetic systems. In connection with movements such as Fluxus and Conceptualism, artists explored generative and ‘open systems’ for the creation of culturally and politically responsive art.

INSTRUCTION-BASED ART ::

A set of instructions is the basis for many art works. Art created by the Dada movement in the early 20th century was often based upon formal instructions. In the 1960s, the Fluxus movement and conceptual art, such as Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings, emphasised variations of formal instructions and focused on concept, event, and audience participation as opposed to art as a unified object. Since the 1960s instruction-based artistic practice has been making use of computational procedures connected to output displays, from early plotter printers to digital screens and projections.

KINETICS / OPTICS

In scientific terms, kinetic energy is the energy possessed by a body by virtue of its motion, and kinetic art, which peaked from the middle 1960s to the middle 1970s, produces movement, often through machines activated by the viewer. Kinetic Art overlaps with the optical art or Op Art of the 1960s, in which artists such as Victor Vasarely, Julio Le Parc, and Nicolas Schöffer used patterns to create optical illusions of movement, vibration and warping. The term first appeared in print in Time magazine in October 1964, but works falling into the Op Art category were produced much earlier. The influence of the Kinetic and Op Art experiments with ‘machines’ that produced light and movement can be traced in many digital installations today.

CINEMATICS

Aspects of Kinetics and Op Art find their continuation in responsive forms of television and digital cinema that have been developed since the late 1960s. Artists have constructed moving images based on responses generated from the apparatus itself—such as TV sets or projectors driven by motion and vision tracking; through to the software-driven selection and manipulation of data; or navigation systems that allow the viewers’ bodies to drive and respond to the imagery.

ESSAYS:

CHRISTIANE PAUL FEEDBACK: FROM OBJECT TO PROCESS AND SYSTEM
Download PDF

JEMIMA RELLIE FEEDBACK/FEEDFORWARD
Download PDF

CHARLIE GERE ART AS FEEDBACK
Download PDF

Posted by jo at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)

Touchgraph Amazon Browser

An interactive network visualization that aims to reveal the intricate network structure within purchase pattern recommendations. users can explore related books or albums, see how similar items form clusters around common subjects, & discover how the clusters themselves are connected within the information space. It seems the visual information design & interactive features have been dramatically enhanced since their first google browser version about 2 years ago. [link: touchgraph.com] [via information aesthetics]

Posted by jo at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! Skopje

Iliadahomero: Language as Code

Upgrade! Skopje: Iliadahomero [ performance ] :: The Iliad of Homer, book 1 :: Translated by Odorico Mendes (Brasil, 1799-1864) :: directed by: Octavio Camargo :: performed by: Claudete Pereira Jorge :: Monday, 04 June 2007 :: start: 21:00 sharp :: Length of the performance: 50 min :: Cultural Center Tocka, Skopje :: free entrance.

Line I+M proudly presents the Iliadahomero performance, which is part of the European tour of the Iliadahomero Theatre Company in May - June 2007 with Claudete Pereira Jorge, directed by Octavio Camargo. The performance will be in portugese. Here, Homer is used as a media, a vehicle for interaction in different platforms of languages projecting different translations to different idioms and also sharing the code, (seeing language as code) of the literary matrixes of occidental thinking bringing this ancient formulation to a more comtemporary transposition. This brazilian group begins their tour from Thessalonikа (for the first Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art ), and then travels to Skopje, Istanbul, Sofia, München, Lisbon, Porto... This event is established as a collaboration between Upgrade! International nodes, emerging network of new media artists and curators.

Interview with the actress as well as some parts of the perfomance can be seen here.

Upgrade! Skopje is a monthly gathering of new media artists and curators. Upgrade! Skopje will organize presentations, exhibitions, workshops, discussions, sound performances, dj and/or vj gigs, video presentations... with general aim for promotion and development of new media art practices, through various kinds of exhibiting and performing. Meetings can take place on various locations in Skopje like: clubs, cafes, galleries or studios. We think that is very important to find different space, appropriate for each kind of event, building different type of audience, establishing collaboration with various scenes, building stronger scene, community and networking. Upgrade! Skopje is opened for every artist that is travelling this way to present their work here, get promoted and become introduced with the local scene with aim to develop collaboration/communication. Upgrade! Skopje is organized by Line - initiative and movement.

Posted by jo at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)

May 29, 2007

Reconfigurable Costume

A Platform for Interactive Performance

Leah Buechley's reconfigurable costume consists of a torso piece and an assortment of sensing appendages that can be snapped to the torso. Sensors in the appendages include muscle flex sensors, accelerometers, bend sensors and touch sensors. Sensor data is relayed to a computer, via a bluetooth module embedded in the torso, where it can be used to control or generate music, video and other multimedia content.

The costume, built using her version 2.0 e-textile construction kit, is form-fitting and stretchy. The electronic modules are kept as small as possible so they do not interfere with the dancer. The costume was used in an improvisational performance in May, 2007 to control a player piano. This performance was a collaboration with Michael Theodore, a professor in the music department, and Nicole Predki, a graduate student in the dance department. Click here for a movie (150MB).

Posted by jo at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)

Valerie Bugmann

Secret Under My Skin

Secret Under My Skin, by Valerie Bugmann, is a performance that allows us to reflect on our natural necessity/desire to express our emotions, to share our innermost thoughts and to see them extended in the world.

The performance takes place in the room of secrets where a skin-to-skin communication network* is employed. Here, the performer and the space await the opportunity to become alive through the interaction with the participant who comes to intimately confess/convey a secret by touch. A lighted keyboard floating in the darkness invites the participant to type a secret into its glowing keys. Once typed out, by simply touching the keyboard the secret is reintroduced into the participant’s body in the form of its new physicality – an electric wave. The secret, now flowing from the keyboard into the participant’s body is ready to be further transmitted/confessed to the performer by touch.

Once skin-to-skin contact is established with the performer, the participant will be able to see his/her secret revealed on a wearable display on the performer’s body; the participant is then confronted with a very intimate part of him/herself. Despite the secret being displayed on the performer, it remains unread by anyone expect the participant, or has the performer – this almost inert object of inscription, desire and redemption - actually become aware of the secret through the transmission?

Skin-to-skin communication, as a suitable technology to express intimate thoughts, generates an intense effect as we recognize ourselves as part of the other through touch. Secret under my skin brings together different notions and implications of touch in this confession-like context, exploring new behaviors and novel parameters of social interaction that can develop out of this contact.

*a network in which touch permits the transmission of information from one person to the other using the physical conductive characteristics of the body. More >>. Also see Digital Communication with a Human Touch [In-gesture].

Valerie Bugmann finalized her studies in Art and New Media at the University of Los Andes in Bogota in the year of 2002. From 2002 till 2005 she realized a Master in Art and Technology in Goeteborg, Sweden. Since then she has concentrated in the application and analysis of new technologies of communication in her artwork. She is interested in the impact these have in the way we relate to ourselves and to the world. through performative and interactive art she has invited the spectators and participants to take part in a communication structure in which each person has a decisive role. She is currently doing her doctoral studies for a University of Plymouth PhD at the Planetary Collegium's Z-Node, based in the HGKZ (School of Art and Design in Zurich), Switzerland. Keywords: wearable computing, cognition, theater, interaction design.

Posted by jo at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)

Interactive Futures: The New Screen

CALL FOR PAPERS, PANELS, PERFORMANCES, & SCREENINGS

Interactive Futures: The New Screen :: Nov. 15-19, 2007 - Victoria, British Columbia, Canada :: CALL FOR PAPERS, PANELS, PERFORMANCES, & SCREENINGS :: DEADLINE: Monday June 18, 2007 :: Part of the Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival (VIFVF) :: Co-sponsored by Open Space Artist-Run Centre .

INTERACTIVE FUTURES is a forum for showing recent tendencies in new media as well as a conference for exploring issues related to technology. The theme of this year's event is The New Screen. IF07 will explore new forms of screen-based media from a diverse body of artists, theorists, writers, filmmakers, developers, and educators. Interactive visual environments, screen-based performances (with or without sound), new forms of narrative experiences, web-based environments, and innovative educational models will all be explored in The New Screen.

The development of tools and strategies for the presentation of screen-based environments has radically accelerated in the past few years. Artists and writers are exploring new ways of controlling narrative flow, formal structures, and ways of viewing. Immersive tools for experiencing visual environments have allowed artists to provide radically subjective experiences of visual surroundings and forms. With the introduction of interactivity, multi-screen environments, and media-rich web-based applications, a new era of performed, live, streaming and/or improvised media art is contributing to the creation of new modes for the screen that are distinct from older forms such as print, film or video art.

The New Screen will include installations, screenings and performances by visual artists, writers and performers. These practitioners are critiquing usual modes of visual interface, such as rectangular screens and determined techniques of interactivity. Interventionist strategies, public participation, experimental projection methods, and destabilizing interactive interfaces are some of the approaches that are used in their work. For IF07, leading Canadian and international artists, researchers, and educators working with screen-based media have been invited to present their work and to participate in the installation, performance, and panel events.

IF07 is seeking further papers, artists' presentations, performances and screenings related to the theme described above. Screenings may include demonstrations and/or documentation of screen-based, interactive and installation projects. Successful submissions will be selected for their critical, innovative and aesthetic tendencies. Here is a link to a Word doc with the full Interactive Futures 2007 call for papers and contact emails: http://cfisrv.finearts.uvic.ca/interactivefutures/IF07_Call_final.doc

Posted by jo at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)

The Netherlands at the Venice Biennale 2007

Citizens and Subjects

Dutch Pavilion :: The Netherlands at the Venice Biennale 2007: Citizens and Subjects :: 10 June–21 November 2007 :: Commissioned by: Mondriaan Foundation :: Concept, Curator: Maria Hlavajova :: Artist in the Dutch Pavilion: Aernout Mik

Citizens and Subjects is a three-part project conceived as the Dutch contribution to the 52nd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The project reflects on the notion of the nation-state in the present day circumstances of the so-called West and asks how we can negotiate its prospects vis-à-vis the challenges posed by the enduring state of anxiety stemming from various threats, real or imagined. This contemporary condition is co-defined by immigration, an issue of major political and moral consequence, which we seem to have been incapable of resolving. Instead, fear, ‘security’ and violence have increasingly become tools for maintaining the status quo. The project proposes this situation as the paradigm of our contemporaneity and prompts us to think through art about other possible ways that a new kind of political reality could be constructed.

Critical Reader edited by: Rosi Braidotti, Charles Esche, Maria Hlavajova :: ‘Extension’ of the Pavilion (The Netherlands, autumn 2007): a collaboration among BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht University, Treaty of Utrecht, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Witte de With, Rotterdam :: Organized by: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht.

Citizens and Subjects: Aernout Mik

In Citizens and Subjects, Aernout Mik presents a multichannel video installation consisting of three new works – Training Ground, 2007, Convergencies, 2007 and Mock Up, 2007 – embedded in an architectural intervention in the Dutch Pavilion. Training Ground and Mock Up are fictional works (two- and four-channel video installations, respectively), in which Mik starts from the idea of a ‘training’ or ‘exercise’, asking how we prepare teams of first responders (policemen, fire brigades, medical teams, etc.) – and ourselves – to deal with potential future crises or threats to national security and handle issues such as (illegal) immigration. Convergencies (two-channel video installation), by contrast, employs both documentary footage of such trainings and footage from real situations in which the acquired techniques and strategies are applied. Through repetition, re-enactment, mimicry, inertia, building irrational excess by means of staging scenes or editing existing film material and by over-saturating the work with unexpected play and empowering invention, Mik questions the simplified distinction between citizens (as those with the rights and full privileges of belonging to a state or nation) and subjects (as those under rule or authority) today. On one hand he asks, aren’t we all actually subjected in the same way to this rather disquieting reality? Concurrently, he clarifies the notion of the ‘subject’ as one who is capable of acting in order to overcome the distinction between subjection and possible liberation, metaphorically suggesting that perhaps it is from here that new opportunities might emerge.

Citizens and Subjects: The Netherlands, for example

Instead of a traditional catalogue to accompany the exhibition in the Dutch Pavilion, a critical reader is published, in which ideas and questions that Mik introduces in his project are debated and analysed by a number of scholars and artists based in the Netherlands. The reader takes the state of the Netherlands as an ‘example’ of the contemporary western condition and considers how our society fails to negotiate the challenges posed by economic globalization, human migration and cross-cultural influence. It asks how art and artists can react to these changes and what possibilities they can create to see things differently.

Contributors: BAVO (Gideon Boie & Matthias Pauwels), Sarah Bracke, Esther Captain & Guno Jones, Marlene Dumas, Halleh Ghorashi, Suchan Kinoshita, Sven Lütticken, Aernout Mik, Melvin Moti, Sohelia Najand, Henk Oosterling, Pages (Nasrin Tabatabai & Babak Afrassiabi), Baukje Prins, Willem de Rooij, Iris van der Tuin and Lawrence Weiner.

Edited by Rosi Braidotti, Charles Esche and Maria Hlavajova. Language: English. Number of pages: 336. Published by: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst and JRP|Ringier. Designed by: Kummer and Herrman. ISBN: 978-3-905770-73-5.

Citizens and Subjects: Practices and Debates

The ‘extension’ of the Dutch Pavilion to the Netherlands in autumn 2007 is envisioned as a platform for contributing to the general public debate about a variety of key issues, including changing national identities and the anxieties brought about by such changes. These and other ideas related to the project Citizens and Subjects are debated through art and other disciplines by means of discussion groups, research residencies, teaching modules, lectures and conversations. The programme takes place in Utrecht through a collaboration between BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht University and Treaty of Utrecht, as well as at Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven in conjunction with the project Be[com]ing Dutch and at Witte de With in Rotterdam in connection with the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. These respective projects have grown out of a similar analysis of current cultural, artistic, social and political conditions, and the possible role cultural institution s can play in their development.

Project Partners

Utrecht University; Treaty of Utrecht; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Witte de With, Rotterdam

Financial Partners

The project Citizens and Subjects has been commissioned and funded by the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam. The Municipality of Utrecht kindly supported Citizens and Subjects: Practices and Debates. This part of the project has been realized with additional contributions from Utrecht University and Treaty of Utrecht. carlier | gebauer, Berlin has generously provided financial and production assistance. Further financial or in-kind support has been provided by: Forbo Flooring, the Netherlands; Rabo Art Collection, the Netherlands; Independent Television News, London; Associated Press, London.

International press
Beate Barner
t: +49 30 398009609
m: +49 173 6076643
info[at]citizensandsubjects.nl

Dutch press
Hanna Sohier
t: +31 30 2316125
f: +31 30 2300591
info[at]citizensandsubjects.nl

Posted by jo at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! Lisbon

Ivan Franco

Upgrade! Lisbon: Ivan Franco :: May 30, 2007 19:00 :: @ Lisboa20 Arte Contemporâneam, Rua Tenente Ferreira Durão 18B (Campo de Ourique).

Ivan Franco was born in Lisbon in 1974. In 1993 started studying engineering and in 1995 he joined the research group GASA, one of the most advanced in the fields of computing experiments and owner of the first Virtual Reality Lab in Portugal. During this time, Franco also developed an interest in music, having played in several rock bands.

Departing from these two interests (computers and music) he started exploring the possiblities of computer music. Frustrated by the lack of physical performativity in electronic music, he looked for ways of recovering both that physicality and the man-machine interaction. In 199 he started a Master program in Barcelona where he developed his own instruments, presented in some of the most important festivals of that city.

In this presentation Ivan Franco will show his work in the area of the man-machine interaction, with special attention to his artistic creations. He will also show his most recent musical instrument, the Airstick, precently presented at NIME (New Interfaces for Musica Expression).

Posted by jo at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)

SHELTER 07

Freedom of Public Art in the Cover of Urban Space

Catharinakapel presents: SHELTER 07: The Freedom of Public Art in the Cover of Urban Space :: Harderwijk, The Netherlands :: June 2 – August 31 :: Artistic Interventions by Lara Almarcegui, Tiong Ang, Ginette Blom, Gijs Frieling, Jeanne van Heeswijk (in collaboration wih Boris van Berkum), Job Koelewijn, Irene Kopelman and Mieke Van de Voort. Curator: Henk Slager

The objective of the Shelter 07 project is to draw attention to the history of the Dutch city of Harderwijk. To achieve this goal, the genealogical significance of the name Harder-Wijk, "an elevated place offering a safe shelter to refugees in troublesome times", serves as the point of departure for the exhibition in public space. That genealogical significance causes notions such as safety and freedom to appear inextricably bound to Harderwijk's history. But how did that connection arise? Is it still linked to a spatial, site-specific concept with phenomenological connotations of physicality? Or does a medial, discursive relationship transform the current concept of "place" into a textual issue, i.e., a notion of place as a platform of knowledge and intellectual exchange?

To investigate these questions further, eight artists have been invited to produce artistic research projects related to a number of significant locations chosen in collaboration with the historical society Herderewich. The artists were asked to develop specific proposals underscoring the above problematics in an artistic form. Interestingly, in their projects, a number of related issues and topics emerged.

In order to understand a location’s specificity, Lara Almarcegui employs an archeological method eliciting that precedes space, i.e., the granting of room. On the Blokhuisplein, a historical location renowned for its straightness and power, she will create a fallow field presenting a temporary autonomous zone as a dysfunctional, undefined, and unfounded space escaping the grid of geography. At the same time, the autonomous zone is able to shelter the experience of a total freedom of interpretation.

As a location for his intervention, Tiong Ang chose the former lodge of the duty officer of the colonial yard depot, the building where volunteers for the Dutch East Indies were recruited. The lodge is situated next to a monumental gate that, thanks to the house of ill repute once situated just outside, seamlessly connects two former literary worlds of bourgeois escapism: the reality of Keetje Tippel, a famous woman of easy virtue, recorded by Neel Doff; and the contours of colonial reality, sketched by Multatuli in Max Havelaar.

Ginette Blom's intervention brings us back to a medieval conception of freedom incorporated to some extent in the double function of the 13th-century Vispoort (Fish Gate). As a crucial element in the fortress structure, this building served initially as a defensive post and lighthouse. However, at the gate’s sea-facing side, there was also a quay where fishermen could freely sell part of their catch. By means of a nighttime light projection on this historical location, a filmic memory of this pre-capitalist free trade site is evoked.

Gijs Frieling rewrites the history of the port as a freewheeling place of leisure in the form of an allegoric mural near the pier. Until the early 20th century, Harderwijk's economic independence relied to a certain extent on the presence of the (fishing) port. With the arrival of the Zuiderzeewerken - turning the greater part of the South Sea into a polder - Harderwijk's economy seemed to run aground. However, the sudden arrival of a group of dolphins at the dock entrance turned out to be the beginning of a new period of economic vigor.

Jeanne van Heeswijk (in collaboration with Boris van Berkum) developed a series of wallpapers placed on the bricked-up windows of old houses around the church square, retelling last century's lingering tales: about the symbolic poet Rimbaud, who lost his identity as a poet during his stay in Harderwijk and vanished in the grand myth of the foreign legion; about the first big stream of (Belgian) refugees who found temporary shelter during World War I in camp Harderwijk; and about the circulating rumors of missing passports popping up during the transformation of the AZC (Refugee Center) Jan van Nassaukazerne into luxury condominiums, as proof of the search for shelter in a new, safe identity for its former inhabitants.

At the spot where, till the late 1970s, the strictly Protestant “church school” (Vismarktschool) was situated, the city of Harderwijk has recently constructed a natural water reservoir. Job Koelewijn considered this an ideal place for his intervention. He put the stream of rising water and all its connotations of Flood, chastening, and eternal return into the liberating perspective of some hundreds of Great Books.

In the City Museum, Irene Kopelman investigates the 18th-century position of the University of Harderwijk as refuge for thought through an artistic interpretation of Linnaeus' botanical classification system. Just because this university did not choose for a dogmatic movement of thought but rather was open to a variety of epistemological perspectives, it was a safe haven for unorthodox intellectuals from all over Europe.

In the context of Shelter 07, Mieke Van de Voort stays temporarily in Harderwijk in the Zeebuurt area, where she develops a new work in a typical 1950s row house, icon of radical mediocrity. Here freedom seems to be entirely reduced to a one-dimensional concept. Yet, inevitably the question arises: could something cooked up in an anonymous row house ultimately prove meaningful for the balance between freedom and safety?

Parallel to the Shelter 07 presentations in urban public space, the Catharinakapel (Klooster 1) will serve as the source of Shelter 07 information during the summer of 2007, supplying information about the participating artists, the artistic research projects, the work processes and the historicity of the chosen locations.

Posted by jo at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)

Source Code: A 10-year retrospective of programming

Eyebeam style

Source Code: A 10-year retrospective of programming, Eyebeam style :: Opens Thursday, May 31, 6-8:00 PM :: On view May 31 – August 10, 2007 :: at Eyebeam.

Since 1998, artists, programmers, hackers, activists, technologists, kids and adults have come to Eyebeam to share ideas, find collaborators, experiment with new tools and create new work. The projects in Source Code – the first of three exhibitions presenting the very best of creative exploration at Eyebeam – frame technologies, generate new processes and offer the audience a platform to contemplate the impact of technology on everyday life. This group show will feature works by: Cory Arcangel, Carrie Dashow, eteam, Steve Lambert, Nina Katchadourian, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, MediaShed, neuroTransmitter, Alex Galloway and Carnivore clients Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Golan Levin, MTAA and Mark Napier.

The exhibition's opening reception will be catered to, in part, by Steve Lambert's Co-op Bar (2007), which offers a low-level investment and community space in the form of a co-operatively owned bar.

Posted by jo at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)

For any reason or no reason

on virtual (extra-)territoriality

"Second Life is an exciting development of the virtual world. A country that wishes to show that it at least has the ambition to be at the forefront of development of course has to be in it." [1] Swedish minister of foreign affairs, Carl Bildt

The 30th of May, Sweden will be the first country in the world to open an official Embassy within Second Life, the online 3D multi user environment owned by Linden Lab. The project is initiated by the Swedish Institute [2] (a culture and marketing department of the Swedish ministry of foreign affairs, and according to the official blog even Sweden's "road warrior for peace" the minister of foreign affairs as well as former head of state, Carl Bildt, himself will attend the opening [3]. But what happens when a specific mode of representation is transferred to a new context? In this case a building for bilateral governmental representation is transferred to a private corporation.

I'll use the Embassy in Second Life as a case study of mediation between global web-based corporations and the notion of participation in a time where privatized service platforms are becoming a standard that most people (in this case even states!) uncritically are subscribing to.

My starting point will be an examination of the embassy and its representation, from an architectural perspective in relation to the Swedish Government's Politics of Architecture on state representation as well as from the point of view of the conflict between conventions of diplomatic missions and the terms of use regulating the virtual world.

P o l i t i c s o n r e p r e s e n t a t i o n

According to the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Missions from 1961 embassies are established on mutual consent [4]. The function of an embassy is to represent one state in another state by negotiation between governments and protecting the interests of the sending state and its inhabitants within the receiving state [5]. This is achieved through reporting on the conditions and the development of the receiving State to the sending State and by creating friendly relations and developing the two States economic, cultural and scientific relations [6].

In 1998 the Swedish government adopted a new policy on architecture politics [7]. The Proposition was the first initiative to establish a politics of architecture with an integrated plan and law on architecture, crafts and design. The changes touched on a variety of levels from the establishment of infrastructure, to city planning and individual buildings.Basically this meant the addition of strings such as 'aesthetically shaped' and 'should be aimed' into the existing laws [8]. One chapter, though concerned the representation of the public sphere and the state, "Public Sphere as Exemplary - the State as Exemplary" [9], focusing on the importance of confirming the role of the State through its representation. This also concerned embassies, which are representations of the State in other States. The new architecture politics added a new aspect to the embassy. It was not enough to be an institution with the main function to represent the State, now the institution itself (including its own representation) had to be representative of the State - the representation of the representation became representative. In this way a Swedish Embassy would have to architecturally express what Sweden stands for [10]- or at least what Sweden would like itself to stand for.

A H o u s e o f S w e d e n

The virtual embassy in Second Life will be a copy [11] of a real world embassy: The House of Sweden, situated in central Washington DC next to a big park and a river. The embassy was developed as a consequence of the new politics on architecture. A competition was announced by the Swedish National Property Board (SVF) in 2002 and the winning proposal, designed by Gert Wingårdh and Thomas Hansen opened 2006 [12].

House of Sweden is a concept developed in collaboration between the Swedish National Property Board and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs [13]. The house is a conglomerate that besides the actual embassy consists of corporate apartments for the business industry and an event center with conference rooms and exhibition space.

The building stands as a postmodern paraphrase of Scandinavian modernism. It is a wooden glasshouse. Its facades consist of backlit opaque glass with printed patterns of pressed wood and the interior a romantic/nostalgic choice of materials associated with Swedish nature and traditional Swedish craft like wood, granite and water [14]. The reception desk is made of glass and a massive wooden door is opened whenever the embassy is open for visitors [15]. Also it is possible for 'anyone' [16] to rent the exhibition center and the conference rooms of the house for events. As House of Sweden describes themselves in a pamphlet with information about the building: "Some have said that this type of open embassy is what the Americans themselves should build, but cannot. [...] modern American embassies are instead usually large, closed-off buildings located a safe distance from everything else. Despite its openness, the House of Sweden has the same level of security as other Swedish embassies, neither lower nor higher." [17] - Open and relaxed, though under control. This is the House of Sweden, the building as well as the concept marks itself in opposition to the traditional embassy with openness, relaxation space and an interweaving of the arts and the business world. Although it is obvious the art is but a layer of the design branding the concept of Sweden and the business environment. As a matter of fact even the diplomatic mission itself seems to be there, in order to brand the corporate apartments which take up most of the space in the whole building [18], with apartments at the size of 70-250 m2 and a rent of 40-60 USD/m2. The renters include Volvo group, Saab and Lars Thunell, the vice president of World Bank [19]. A Swedish embassy's original function was to take care of governmental negotiations, official representation and the protection of Swedish people and their interests within the USA. House of Sweden mirrors a shift in the role of diplomatic missions, where the new embassy is rather an official high end 'tourist bureau'. It serves the function of an exclusive promotion platform - a show room for the darlings of the Swedish business industry.

A S e c o n d H o u s e o f S w e d e n

The original embassy is designed for the human scale in relation to the use of the building, the surroundings, the economical framework and the politics of cultural representation. The final layout of the floor plans and the materiality of the house reflect these conditions [20]: office spaces are situated along glass facades in order for people to enjoy the view of the park and the river, interior stairs are covered with sound absorbent maple [21], elevators are integrated for disabled people and things to move unhindered between the floors, and the exhibition space is especially designed so that big vehicles are able to enter when setting up a new exhibition [22]. In this way the entire building may be seen as a narrative product of human scale and experience interweaved with the above mentioned factors.

By shifting the medium or context from the real world to a 3d simulated environment presented on a computer screen the elements are changing. Even though the user is represented by a (if she wishes humanlike) figure - the avatar, any navigation within the environment is reduced to the four arrow-keys on the computer's keyboard and the world is experienced through the screen with the image of one's avatar's neck in the foreground [23]. One perceives the environment in layers of resolution according to the graphic card and the capacity of the processor of the computer that is being used. Patterns of movements are radically different. The avatar itself doesn't get exhausted, it is rather like a goal-less torpedo in constant pace as long as the arrow-key is pressed down, it is only when the user behind the screen gets tired that it stops and 'falls a sleep'. This makes the planning of experience within the virtual embassy rather different than from its real-world model. In the real House of Sweden, breaks and pauses are implemented in the house according to the function. An example is the sculpture of running water greeting you as you exit the conference space [24], placed there in order to somehow refresh your mind. In Second Life it is not the avatar who would be tired or need a break after a long seminar, but rather the user behind the screen and keyboard. An equivalent break could therefore be an interruption, letting the screen go black and thereby forcing the user to shift perspective from second to first life.

Compared to traditional closed off and mono functional embassies the "real" Swedish embassy in Washington DC surprises at a first glance by its openness allowing new activities to unfold within the house and by being a glass house [25]. The glass house has a strong tradition in modernism. It is an almost supposedly invisible trespass between the outside and the inside. On the one hand it is a monument of building technology's victory over nature's forces and modernism's reaction against Victorian style, but on the other hand it is also implementing an openness that paradoxically signifies control and surveillance. The glass house offers the insider visual access and to a certain degree the illusion of being part of the outside while at the same time being protected from it. It gives the outsider visual access to the inside, stating: "there is nothing to hide here". Using the representation of glass in a virtual world though, is merely pointless. In a virtual world there is no difference between interior and exterior. One needs no protection from any weather situation or nature forces and intrusion is not about closing the access by building a wall or a window, but rather to alter and implement the security into the code behind the representation. As a matter of fact this is very easy in Second Life: Different security options are incorporated into the 'land'. The land owner is able to decide which level of security is active on her property,for instance making it possible for the avatars to 'die', denying other users to build or move objects on the property, or denying any access to the property without permission. So if the owner i.e. wishes to give other users only visual access to at part of her property she doesn't need to build any transparent simulation of glass, but can implement this in the code. A glass building in a 3d world is rather clumsy and annoying: when trying to navigate through it and accessing visible things, you constantly bump into the transparent walls.

One aspect of the original House of Sweden which might have a chance to be more successful in a 3D online environment is concept of making the embassy a platform for different events and activities. This might be a case where the virtual world has an advantage since it overcomes the difference of time-space in information technology by allowing users who are spatially separated to experience the same environment together in real-time. In Second Life most places give an impression of being empty, but by establishing in-world events this is exactly what the Swedish institute wants to avoid [26]. It is worth noting though that the emptiness in Second Life is not only due to a lack of visitors, but rather is connected to the scale of the 3d environment and its relation to the capacity of the servers. Due to server restrictions it is only possible to be 40 people at a time on each island [27]. House of Sweden in Washington DC is 7500 m2 large. The rooftop terrace alone is built to host 200 people at a time - just for a cocktail party [28]. The diplomatic activities takes up 30% of the spatial area of the house which has 50 people are working there daily[29]. But considering the fact that only 40 people is capable of accessing the whole island at a time, all of the employees wouldn't even be able to meet in the virtual embassy. No wonder why SL feels like suburbia - it is suburbia. The low density is exactly the same problem that suburbs are struggling with. Considering the scale of the building, no matter how many events they make the embassy will always feel empty until a solution is found for increasing the capacity of the servers and thereby making it possible for more people to access it at the same time.

T h e D i p l o m a t i c B a g m a y n o t b e o p e n e d

"The premises of the mission" are, according to article 1 of the conventions of Diplomatic Missions" the buildings or parts of buildings and the land ancillary thereto, irrespective of ownership, used for the purposes of the mission including the residence of the head of the mission" [30]. The actual premises of the Swedish mission in Second Life will be a chunk of data stored on Linden Lab's servers. The servers are computers physically placed in the state of California, USA [31]. Visitors of the embassy will be able to access the premises of the Swedish mission, the data on the servers via a viewer (also called the client). This is a piece of software that the users download and install on their own computers enabling them to access data on Linden Lab's servers real time together with other users, and thereby accessing the virtual diplomatic mission and the rest of Second Life. But in order to access any aspect of Linden Lab's Second Life the user has to agree with the terms of service [32] - a virtual layer to the virtual world.

Second Life's Terms of Service consists of a 7000 words document presented to the users as a click and agree contract after having downloaded and installed the viewer and just before accessing the service for the first time. The contract is un-negotiable. If you disagree with parts of the terms you'll have to disagree with all by clicking disagree at the end of the document. This in return means that you are not allowed to enter the service at all. The code behind the world is generating the environment, setting the parameters for it and thus being the world. While the Terms of Service rather is a regulative framework defining what-could-be or what-shouldn't-be, thus governing the company in order not to be able to hold it responsible for anything that might occur within its framework and giving it absolute control of in-world decisions [33]. This is not necessarily to be understood as a police state which wants to keep the control by controlling anybody anytime. The control is rather latent 'in-case-of' control, where the company in case something unexpected happens can wash its hands saying "Oh, no! This is not our responsibility" or "This was not our intention." The Terms of Service text is dense, the document would take an average reader about 35 minutes to read [34], which makes most people skip reading and just agree in order to access the service immediately. General Director of the Swedish Institute, Olle Wästberg describes his idea of establishing the embassy in Second Life as the following: "I got myself a user account, this avatar as it is called and logged in and it seemed to be a good marked place for us. In collaboration with the ministry of foreign affairs we have now decided to open an embassy" [35]. In the process of logging in Olle Wästberg properly skipped reading the terms of service, because if he would have read them he would have been aware that agreeing with the terms of service is to violate the Vienna Conventions of Diplomatic Missions and thus making it impossible to establish any embassy whatsoever in Second Life.

There are three aspects of the Conventions for Diplomatic Missions which are violated by Second Life's Terms of Service: (i) the first regards the inviolability of the Diplomatic Mission itself, (ii) the second is the inviolability of the premises of the Mission including its property, furniture, archives and documents and (iii) the last concerns the inviolability of Diplomatic Agents.

(i) A Diplomatic Mission is inviolable [36]. It means that the receiving state is not allowed to enter the embassy without permission. The receiving state is even obliged to protect the embassy as best as it can. But in Second Life any kind of data stored on Linden Lab's servers (for instance the embassy itself, accumulated items like Linden dollars, content, scripts, objects, account history or account names) are subject to deletion or alteration at any time for any reason or even without a reason in the sole discretion of Linden Lab [37].

(ii) Premises of a Mission are "immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution" [38]. But in Second Life the user must authorize Linden Lab to disclose any kind of information the corporation finds "appropriate to investigate"[39] to "private entities, law enforcement agencies or government officials"[40] Furthermore Linden Lab has the right to follow, track and record any of the user's activities within the service [41] this includes activities taking place within the premises of the virtual embassy.

(iii) "The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving State shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person, freedom or dignity[42]." In Second Life the user is represented by an account name. It is the name of the character that represents the user and whereas the character itself can be changed and remodeled immensely the account name is static. The account name is equivalent to the representation of a diplomatic agent, and "Linden Lab reserves the right to delete or change any Account Name for any reason or no reason." [43]

By being located within the Linden Lab Corporation the Swedish embassy in Second Life is subordinate to the terms of service conducted by Linden Lab and thus breaking with the conventions related to diplomatic missions. This is recursive since any future visitor of the embassy will be forced to do the same[44]. In this way the notion of participation in this kind of virtual world is uncritically accepted and without getting acquainted with the conditions that the users are agreeing with in order to be allowed to participate. There is no consular service provided at the embassy in Second Life, instead it will link to 'real' web-sites where you can get info about how to obtain visa etc. But why do the users need to access second life and subscribe to the terms of service in order to exit Second Life to get the information that the virtual embassy provides?!

F o r a n y r e a s o n o r n o r e a s o n ?

In order "to make sure it [edit: the virtual Swedish Embassy] exudes "Swedishness" [45] the Swedish Institute has hired the design bureau Söderberg A/S to manage the layout of the virtual copy of House of Sweden and its surroundings in Second Life. But is it really possible for a design bureau "to manage the overall look and feel of the sim (or "island")" [46] for it to signify Swedishness? According to the architecture politics the answer seems to be yes, and the initiators are obviously thinking of the look of the Swedish nature. But is Swedishness only a semiotic layer wrapping up the structures by making a realistic simulation of the Swedish landscape? Doesn't the representation go beyond the aesthetical layer and isn't it rather a matter of inscription into context? Let me give an example: In the official announcement the Swedish Institute is motivating the set-up of the virtual embassy by the following:"Reaching out internationally, to an increasingly selective crowd, calls for an inventive and progressive way of working with communication. It is of great importance that we find our target groups where they are most likely to be open to our information, in their own context." [47] But it is certainly difficult to imagine the Swedish government approving any kind of set-up of an embassy within a real world private corporation - a Disney-like amusement park, no matter how well any designers would have managed to give it an overall look and feel of "Swedishness", or no matter how good a market any Disney world whatsoever would be for targeting progressive individuals where they are most likely to be open for Sweden's promotion.

It is obvious that the Swedish Institute is not familiar with the structures they are inserting the virtual embassy into. At the official announcement at their web-page the description of Second Life says: "Second Life is a 3-D virtual world and is built and owned by its residents." [48] It is an exact copy of how Linden Lab describes themselves in "What is Second Life?" [49] on their webpage. But as we have already seen Second Life is not owned by its inhabitants. It is a private space owned by the corporation Linden Lab. The users are able to create content with reserved intellectual property rights within the environment, but any content stored on Linden Labs servers (which every part of the users environment are) are according to the terms of service owned by Linden Lab and subject to deletion. The empty phrase is adopted by the Swedish Institute without reflection. The establishing of a diplomatic mission in Second Life is a continuation of the pattern that the House of Sweden already is a part of - an embassy as a show case for the Swedish brand, the nation state in competition with global corporations. So far Second Life has been the arena of big global corporations as MTV, NIKE, Reuters, but now the state is trying to compete with the corporations as if it itself was a corporation - a brand. From August 2006 to January 2007 the media coverage related to Second Life had increased by "nearly 150%" [50] and when the Swedish Institute in the end of January announced their intentions of opening the virtual embassy they immediately got worldwide media coverage everywhere, from BBC News to India news [51]. But the Swedish Embassy in Second Life is a media stunt with very little critical reflection behind it. Eventually the Swedish Institute is surfing waves of a media attention, which finally most of all is branding Second Life itself.

A kind of excuse for this argument is be found on the blog of Second House of Sweden where Stefan Greens writes: "Ironically, once concern we had was that the decision to go ahead with the project amid the hype might make it look like we were taken in by the hype, when in fact we were going in despite the hype, because we felt we really wanted to figure out now how to use virtual worlds as a place to tell people about Sweden." [52] Virtual worlds have been around for more than 15 years. Already 7 years ago the environment Online Traveler had sound [53], an aspect which Linden Lab is just now trying to develop. If the Swedish Institute was interested in using virtual worlds and had decided to take a political stand point with an awareness of the user's position within these worlds, a non-profit open source version as for instance Croquet [54] would have been an obvious choice. Of course there would not be so many users or so much hype around it, but maybe Sweden could have started a discussion related to the public sphere of information technology. However there is no reason for establishing embassies in an open source network.

A b r i d g e d s o f a r

Second Life is a centralized structure. It is a closed network of servers all under the domain of Linden Lab, much like a state. Second Life and Sweden are separated entities. The usual way for a state to establish relations with another state is for the sending state to create a representation of itself within the otherness of the receiving state - the embassy. But in an open source structure where the servers are connected in a distributed network it would not be necessary for Sweden to enter this otherness and establish a representation there, rather it could create its own server, with its own set of rules interlinked with the other servers - much as a country, but not as an embassy.

Now is a time where standards are introduced, people are inhabiting the net. This should be done not by establishing embassies, but through critical discussion and reflection on and understanding of the public sphere which is possible within the information structures. A sphere which is being hi-jacked by private corporations without anybody noticing. The Sweden which eventually will be represented in Second Life is a state where all critical reflection is put aside on the behalf of elevating Sweden's profile - and no matter how well designed it might be, it is but a brand lacking any content - - since the representation is not representing any thing but the representation itself.

Linda Hilfling - MA Media Design Student Piet Zwart Institute , Rotterdam, May 2007

R e f e r e n c e s:

[1] From Carl Bildt's personal blog from the 30th of January 2007. The blog entry was Bildt's response after for the first time acquiring the news about the Swedish embassy in Second Life via a BBC-news article. The entry is called 'Heja Olle Wästberg" and is aimed at the director of the Swedish institute Olle Wästberg: http://carlbildt.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/heja-olle-wastberg/ [my translation from Swedish]
[2] Official announcement by the Swedish Institute, Jan 2007:
http://www.si.se/templates/CommonPage____3052.aspx
[3]
http://secondhouseofsweden.com/2007/05/20/may-30-is-launch-day-for-the-second-house-of-sweden/
[4] Article 2, Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Missions, 1961: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
[5] Article 3.1a; 3.1b; 3.1c - Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Missions,
1961: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
[6] Article 3.1d; 3.1e, Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Missions, 1961: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
[7] Handlingsprogram för arkitektur, formgivning och design: http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c4/25/65/e36cce6d.pdf
[8] Suggestions to alterations of existing laws Framtidsformer - Handlingsprogram för arkitektur, formgivning och design, pp 5-9 http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c4/25/65/e36cce6d.pdf
[9] "Offentligt som förebild - Staten som förebild" Framtidsformer - Handlingsprogram för arkitektur, formgivning och design, pp 25-3 - http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c4/25/65/e36cce6d.pdf
[10] "New expectations for future embassies" - Background material - House of Sweden, page 2 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[11] Official announcement by the Swedish Institute: http://www.si.se/templates/CommonPage____3052.aspx
[12] "The architecture competition" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 3 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[13] "A new concept is born" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 2 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[14] See photo of facades: http://www.sfv.se/cms/showimage/images/aktuella_projekt/washington_dc/foton_30_maj_06/hos_fasad_mot_flaggstanger_och_grasmatta_.jpeg?mime-type=image/jpeg - more photos from interior to be found at:
http://www.wingardhs.se/php/flash.html | under projects - 2006
[15] "The various parts of the building - a tour" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 4 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[16]
[17] "The various parts of the building - a tour" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 6 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[18] All together the house consists of five floors of which 1½ floors belongs to the embassy, 1½ floor belong to the event center and 2 floors makes space for 19 corporate apartments. This means that 70% of the building is reserved for activities related to business and events, and only 30% of the space of the whole house is related to traditional diplomatic activities.
[19] "The various parts of the building - a tour" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 6 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[20] Floor plans: http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/aktuella_projekt/washington_dc/infor_overlamnandet_till_ud/hos_wdc_8_ritningar_maj_06.pdf
[21] "The various parts of the building - a tour" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 5 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[22] "The various parts of the building - a tour" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 4 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[23] If not 'mouse look' is enabled, which is an alternative navigation mode where the mouse is used for all navigation and the user have first perspective view, but this mode is rather difficult to control with a mouse and is probably better suited for a joystick.
[24] "The various parts of the building - a tour" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 5 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[25] Compare for instance with the photos of different American embassies published at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_diplomatic_missions
[26] Stefan Geens at:
http://secondhouseofsweden.com/2007/04/04/division-of-labor/
[27] Alvar C.H Freude: "Warum Second Life kein Web 3.0 ist" p.24 - a power point presentation
http://alvar.a-blast.org/vortraege/webmontag/second-life/second-life-vortrag.pdf
[28] "The various parts of the building - a tour" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 7 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[29] "The various parts of the building - a tour" - Background material - House of Sweden, p 5 http://www.sfv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/sfv/engelska/house_of_sweden/background_material_the_building_the_artwork_etc_.pdf
[30]Article 1, Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Missions, 1961: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
[31] General Provisions - Terms of Service: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
[32] First paragraph - Terms of Service: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
[33] The string "no liability" appears 3 times, "any reason or no reason" appears six times and "sole discretion" appearing 17 times in the Terms of Service.
[34] According to http://mindbluff.com/askread.htm#5
[35] Olle Wästberg as quoted by in Alexandra Hernadi in Svenska dagbladet - http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/inrikes/did_14523659.asp [my translation from Swedish]
[36] Article 22.1 and 22.2 - Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Missions, 1961: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
[37] 5.3 Terms of Service. See also similar statements in 1.4; 1.6; 2.6 and
3.2b: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
[38] Article 22.3 and 24 - Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Missions, 1961: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
[39] 6.1 Terms of Service: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
[40] 6.1 Terms of Service: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
[41] 6.2 Terms of Service: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
[42] Article 29 (see also 30.2) - Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Missions, 1961: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
[43] 2.3 Terms of Service: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
[44] Second Life's Terms of Use, first paragraph: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php as of 29th of April 2007 [45] Stefan Geens at http://secondhouseofsweden.com/faqs/
[46] Stefan Geens at http://secondhouseofsweden.com/faqs/
[47] Olle Wästberg quoted at the webpage of the Swedish Institute - http://www.si.se/templates/CommonPage____3052.aspx
[48] http://www.si.se/templates/CommonPage____3052.aspx
[49] http://secondlife.com/whatis/
[50] Factiva: Percentage increase comparisons of media coverage about Second Life between months of August 2006 and January 2007 as quoted by Joel Cere: http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/ampersand/articles/7359.aspx#footnote1
[51] BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6310915.stm ; India News: http://www.indiaenews.com/europe/20070130/37547.htm
[52] Stefan Geens at: http://secondhouseofsweden.com/2007/03/20/more-faqs-were-in-it-for-the-long-haul/
[53] We used Online Traveler in 2000 as a platform for online access to the electrohype2000 conference in Malmö, Sweden: http://www.electrohype.org/electrohype2000/rapport/rapport.pdf
[54] In croquet both server and client are open source in opposition to Second Life which only has opened the source code to the client - the viewer, but not to the servers: http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/Main_Page

p d f - f o r m a t:
- ------------------------- http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/documentation/for_any_reason_or_no_reason_hilfling.pdf

# distributed via

Posted by jo at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)

[iDC] reflections on Personal Democracy Forum 2007

by Joshua Levy

Although it took place a little over a week ago, my impressions of the 2007 Personal Democracy Forum conference, which I attended on May 18th and helped to organize, are fresh in my mind.

First, a disclaimer: I'm Associate Editor for the PdF website and for a group blog called TechPresident, which both cover the way technology is changing politics. The former is an online companion to the conference and a blog in its own right; the latter is a more-focused group blog covering how the web is being used in the 2008 U.S. president campaign, both by supporters and the candidates themselves. Though it's an offshoot of the PdF site, it's become arguably more popular and influential, landing publisher Andrew Rasiej and editor Micah Sifry, and to a much lesser extent me, in the media spotlight.

The conference and the sites are devoted to covering the way that online technology -- blogs, video, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, Twitter, mashups of all sorts, and so on -- are helping citizens get more involved in the political process and self-organize outside of traditional campaign structures. For example, we're interested in the how MySpace, despite the problems of proprietary ownership and immaterial labor that Trebor and others of discussed here, also provides a platform for citizens to organize around issues like the genocide in Darfur and to get the word out to potentially hundreds of thousands of supporters, or how politicians are using YouTube to connect to supporters and, ideally, inject a new kind of transparency and authenticity into the electoral process.

I try not to be a utopian but I'm constantly impressed at how much potential there is for activism in today's mainstream online culture -- witness Facebook's new Platform that let's developers hook into their API and create apps that could take advantage of the viral nature of Facebook and could get a message out to thousands of friends in a single instant. Consider the fact that 80% of college students use Facebook; make it easy for them to get political or social messages out to their friends and you could seed a thousand campaigns.

This year's conference was the biggest in numbers since it began in 2004. Almost 700 people showed up to hear Larry Lessig, Yochai Benkler, Tom Friedman, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, danah boyd, and others (those are just a few of the folks from the morning sessions) talk about the influence of technology on politics. The afternoon held more traditional panels, a series of demos, and a roundtable with techies working on current presidential campaigns.

While Lessig, Benkler, boyd, and others wowed the crowd (as Benkler spoke you could almost hear the sound of a hundred people clasping their hands to their heads in overloaded delight), less enthusiasm greeted a conversation between Friedman and Schmidt; they contentedly spoke about how this new Internet thing was really, really great and how it was bringing so much more information to so many more people.

The words "China" or "Tiananmen Square" were conspicuously and disappointingly absent (maybe they were censored by the Google higher-ups).

Then Friedman spoke for an hour, reading from an update to his book The World Is Flat and giving his take on the wonders of the web. It was a conference attended by experienced politicos and technologists from both sides of the aisle, and some attendees were upset that so much time was given over to the CEO of one of the largest corporations in the world that is open about wanting to own all information, everywhere, and a columnist for the New York Times who is notorious for his support for the Iraq war. They wanted participation, provocation, etc -- the kind of openness you'd find at a BarCamp -- and we gave it to them at an "unconference" the next day, where the attendees were also presenters. Those that came to the unconference were generally happier with the structure, since if they had a session in mind they simply had to propose it and it would happen. You can read everyone's reactions here.

So what did we actually talk about? Session titles ranged from "Embracing Voter-Generated Content" to "Web 2.0: Cult of the Amateur?" (moderated by me and featuring Andrew Keen, Clay Shirky, Craig Newmark, and Robert Scoble -- that was fun) "Political Money Online: Getting It and Spending It More Effectively" and "E-Lessons from Overseas: Europe, Latin America and Australia."

The discussion on this list tends toward the theoretical, but although we never engaged in, say, a discussion of Habermas and the public sphere, we did look at how notions of distributed creativity or Benkler's wealth of networks actually affect politics on the ground. Meeting Farouk Olu Aregbe, the man who created the "One Million Strong for Barack" campaign on Facebook, or meeting campaign staffers finding interesting ways to use Twitter, was helped me see how people are using this idea of participatory online culture for political purposes. Although I tend to be uncomfortable supporting mainstream political campaigns and ideas, there is a ton to learn by watching how any groups are using social media and technology. And it's fun to be around politicos who, at heart, are geeks like me.

Was the conference a success? From my vantage point it's hard to tell. Although there were complaints about Schmidt and Friedman, they also helped to draw in the sponsorship that helped pay for the conference in the first place, and to get more media attention. It could also be argued that bringing them into the fold spurred a necessary critique of their corporate-utopianism and wide-eyed wonder of the web.

More than anything else, my experience co-organizing the unconference reminded me of how fun and important the BarCamp-style conferences can be. Their very structure is an exercise in applying our love of the wiki to something offline, and it largely works.

I know some of you on this list were at the conference and even spoke there; I hope to see some of you next year too, and to hear your opinions about taking this discussion to what some would consider the belly of the beast.

-Josh Levy
www.personaldemocracy.com
www.techpresident.com
www.levjoy.com

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LightHive

Renders Transparent What Was Once Concealed

LightHive, an installation by artist/architect Alex Haw :: Architectural Association :: until Saturday June 2, 2007.

LightHive occupies the entire main block - 5 addresses, 5 storeys and 160 rooms - of the institution's home in Bedford Square. A vast distributed network composed of various types of camera, infrared and wireless sensors relay back to a central exhibition space, where the communal activity of the school illuminates a scale model of its own light sources. Each light source is custom scripted and generated from the spatial and luminous parameters of its original source, and activated in real time by occupancy, contributing to an immersive form of spatial, 3-D surveillance. The installation renders transparent what was once concealed, compensating for the optical restrictions of the very object of the school's study: architecture.

Appearing as a spatial extension of the existing Front Members' Room's magnificent listed chandelier, its greater aim is as a self-documenting, self-recording architecture that is animated by people, resulting in a form of spatial video. It has several operational modes: predominantly realtime (which obediently varies between dynamic liveliness and patient placidity, with only intermittent signs of life), it is punctuated every half an hour by timelapse playback from its sensor database, followed by a series of fictional playbacks.

http://www.artshub.co.uk/view/ahrd.asp?Id=158989&ref=admin
http://www.kultureflash.net/current/#event4500

Posted by jo at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)

Logging On:

Culture, participation and the web

Logging On: Culture, participation and the web - John Holden: In the brief history of the internet, the cultural sector has followed two related paths: on the one hand, the digitisation of content and provision of information and, on the other, interactivity and opportunities for expression. Some have seen these as in binary opposition. The truth is that they are inexorably merging. But the big question is where do we go next? How can policy intervention best meet with technology to achieve the aim of bringing about a more democratic culture? What will be the role, opportunities and limitations of online culture in a rapidly changing world?

A moment of reflection is provided by the coming to an end, in March 2007, of the Culture Online initiative funded by the Department for Culture,Media and Sport. Culture Online provides both an interesting case study, bringing together lessons learnt about how to organise online engagement, and a point of departure for asking questions about future directions. [via iDC]

Posted by jo at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)

Virtual Systems and Multimedia 2007: Call for Participation

The 13th International Conference Virtual Systems and Multimedia 2007 :: September 23 – 26, 2007 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia :: Theme: Exchange and Experience in Space and Place :: Papers - Long and Short Papers: June 17, 2007 :: Notification July 15 - Camera-ready August 10 :: Posters due July 15, 2007 :: Notification August 10 - Camera-ready due September 15 :: Long Papers will be published by Springer in their LCNS. Others will be published locally.

Keynotes currently include: Dr Mark Billinghurst, Director, Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand, based at Canterbury University; Professor Mark Burry, Professor of Innovation (Spatial Information Architecture), at RMIT University; Dr Jonathan Fulcher, Head of Native Title Practice, Minter Ellison; Aden Ridgeway, Executive Chairman, Indigenous Tourism Australia (ITA); Ms Minja Yang, Director and UNESCO Representative to Bhutan, India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. The conference is endorsed by the Australian National Commission for UNESCO.

Bursaries for postgraduate students

Five student bursaries of USD$250 each will be offered. To be considered you must be a full-time postgraduate student and have a letter endorsing your full-time enrolment status from your supervisor and which also states that you do not hold an academic staff position. Full details are shown on the web site.

Brisbane information

Brisbane is an alive and bustling city of 1.6million people with all the requisite offerings of the nation’s fastest growing capital and remarkable recreational experiences. Go to http://www.brisbanemarketing.com.au/aboutbrisbane/.

You will be just a short plane trip from Sydney with its stunning Harbour and world-famous Opera House, or you can visit the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park and Uluru in the Northern Territory. Attending VSMM 2007 and also visiting some of Australia’s truly great places is highly recommended!

Theme - Exchange And Experience In Space And Place including:

- Virtual Heritage and Virtual Cultures for details see http://australia.vsmm.org/cfp-theme1.htm
- Virtual Environments and Virtual Experiences for details see http://australia.vsmm.org/cfp-theme2.htm
- Applied technologies and systems for details see http://australia.vsmm.org/cfp-theme3.htm

In addition to traditional conference paper and workshop proposals, VSMM07 encourages innovative submissions including movies, interactive or immersive designs and simulations, theatre, and installations. Non-academic submissions are very welcome.

Multimedia and Virtual Environment technologies are increasingly appearing in an array of applications that foster deeper understandings of the environments around us. In the spirit of international exchange, cooperation and development, the focus of VSMM in 2007 will be on the application of these technologies in ‘Bridging Space and Place through digital exchange and experience’.

Detailed conference themes include, but are not restricted to:

Virtual Heritage and Virtual Cultures:

Addressing the Digital Divide
Applied Cultural Theory
Applied Virtual Heritage
Cultural heritage legislation in a digital domain
Cultural Heritage Management
Cyber anthropology
Ethics of the design and use of VR
Experience Design
Finance and Legal
Funding for cultural heritage projects
Guidelines and International Charters
Heritage legislation, IP and digital rights management
Historical perspectives
Indigenous Knowledge & Knowledge Systems
Indigenous Knowledge and Virtual Environments
Legal issues, challenges and solutions
Narratives and Knowledge
Policy development and the role of technology
Professional Guidelines and Ethics
Social dimensions of Virtual Heritage
Space and place
Theoretical Virtual Heritage
Virtual Heritage and Museum Environments
Virtual property
Virtual Reality in Archaeology and Historical Research

Virtual Environments and Virtual Experiences:

Application of Serious Gaming technologies
Artificial life and dynamic worlds
Digital Arts and Politics
Digital performance
Digital storytelling
Engagement research
Generative VR
Human-Centred design issues
Immersion and emotion
Immersion research
Immersive Audio for presence and immersion
Media Arts & Creative Expression
Mobile Futures and devices and their application
Playfulness and experience design
Presence Research
Simulation and engagement
Spatial narratives
Virtual systems and real worlds
Visualisation and perception

Applied technologies and systems:

3D GIS: modelling and interpretation
3D scanner and remote sensing devices and their application
Augmented VR
Capture Technologies and Delivery Platforms
Convergent devices
Delivery and Distribution
Immersive Systems
Installations
Mobile Devices and their application
Modelling and rendering
On-site Delivery
Participatory 3D GIS
Projection Spaces
Standards and metadata
Stereoscopy and Panoramas

Important Dates:

Long and Short Papers: June 17, 2007
Notification: July 15, 2007
Camera-ready: August 10, 2007

Posters due – July 15, 2007
Notification – August 10, 2007
Camera-ready due – September 15, 2007

Long papers: 12 pages (approx 3000-4000 words)
Short papers: 5 pages (approx 1200-1800 words)
Posters: single A2 (or other format by negotiation)

Earlybird Registration: August 10, 2007

Five student bursaries of USD$250 each will be offered (see official website for details).

Contact us: Any queries, email aus_reviewers[at]vsmm.org or phone +61 7 3337 7821.

Note: VSMM07 SYDNEY WORKSHOP 21ST SEPTEMBER 2007 - In addition to the conference, VSMM invites all participants to attend a one day seminar on the 21st September 2007 in Sydney that focuses attention on new virtual heritage and electronic art research applied to the Advanced Visualisation Interactive Environment (AVIE), at the iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, University of New South Wales http://australia.vsmm.org/sydworkshop/seminar.pdf.

Posted by jo at 08:14 AM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2007

NET ART V1+2.0. GENESIS, FIGURES, SITUATIONS

CIAC's Electronic Magazine No 27

"A more "expressivist" form of communication is apparent today in a range of media - in the flourishing growth of the means for self-production and the production of the self in the form of personal web sites, blogs and their attendant technology (syndication, tags, podcasting, videoblogging, etc.) and the networks for communication among Internet users and their associated practices (fansubbing, fan films, etc.). Since the late 1990s, net art has been guiding and prefiguring these "mass" technologies and practices by multiplying the ambivalence of our relationship with the Internet, which is both intimate and dreadfully solitary. As new dialogue interfaces grow and expand, we withdraw from the real world, which is both more collective and community-minded. Today, the term net art refers to interactive works of art designed by, for and with the Internet, as distinct from more traditional forms of art which have simply been transferred onto the web sites of art galleries and other virtual museums. In the art world, the originality of the Internet lies in the fact that it is simultaneously a medium, a tool and a creative environment.

By medium I mean a vector of transmission, in the sense that the Internet is its own broadcaster; by tool, the way it is used as a means of production, giving rise to different usages and generating new artistic products; and by environment the fact that it is a space both inhabitable and inhabited. In this context, artists seek at least as much to design interactive devices1 as they do to create settings for communication. Using all the means at its disposal-the Web (HTML FTP, peer to peer) but also e-mail and chat-net art encourages the production of works whose relational and collaborative aspects have turned the relations between art and society upside down. Internet sites, home pages, blogs, mailing lists and discussion forums have become the new forms of sociability. Net art, by associating itself with this dynamic, can take the shape of specific forms of interactivity but also of the production of on-line lifestyles and communication strategies. The Internet has become both an on-line artist's studio and a gallery space: a space for artistic creation and for communicating and receiving artistic practices." Continue reading NET ART V1+2.0. GENESIS, FIGURES, SITUATIONS by Jean-Paul Fourmentraux (Translated from French by Timothy Barnard), CIAC's Electronic Magazine No 27, Printemps 2007 / Spring 2007, 10th Anniversary Special.

Posted by jo at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)

New Media Art Mythologies

COOL MEDIA HOT TALK SHOW

COOL MEDIA HOT TALK SHOW: D.I.Y. talk show on art & media :: TOPIC: New Media Art Mythologies :: SPEAKERS: Geert Lovink and Armin Medosch :: QUESTIONS: ask-it-yourself now and during the show here :: June 5, 20.30 CET :: Video stream and interface for online participation :: Location: De Balie, Amsterdam (bring your laptops and mobiles)

New Media Art Mythologies...to be questioned... :: Recent discussions about (new) media art concerned a wide range of issues: starting from the validity of the term itself and ending with questioning the very premises of the modes of distinction through which the (new) media art field constitutes itself as a form of art, cultural practice, social context, institutional domain, and discourse. The feeling of a certain Rubicon, provoking self-introspective reflections, was expressed by many.

The coming edition of Cool Media Hot Talk Show on the topic "New Media Art Mythologies" will welcome persistent critical voices of the media art scene - Geert Lovink and Armin Medosch. They will present their judgements and arguments regarding the current critical stage in the development of new media art. The debates will address socio-cultural position of new media art in a historical perspective, which both speakers are discussing extensively in their writings. Preliminary suggested focal points are:

- The marginalised position of new media art within the broader cultural context.
- New media art vis-`-vis changing trends of cultural policies.
- Discursive troubles: in search for mediatory theories and media art criticism.
- New media between aesthetics and politics.

It seems that the media art community has got itself into a trap by creating a rather contradictory mythology, which very much concerns the idea of being open to disciplinary and discursive confluxes and at the same time being immune to the biases of the criticised cultures. Geert Lovink pinpoints a range of critical issues which mark the contradictory relationships of (new) media art with the broader socio-cultural context, more specifically: art institutions, "hard science", media industries, and cultural policy mediators. He sees the contradictions between current cultural-political trends under an increasingly conservative agenda, and internal intentionalities of media art, which lead to decrease of funding and institutional support as a result.(1) Armin Medosch stipulates that the critical agenda of media art in relation to mainstream media politics is its distinctive value, and should be put forward as a driving force behind artistic practices. He promotes the idea of "Open Source Culture" as an integral socio-cultural movement in which artists can and do participate actively in order to develop and exercise alternative models of engagement into creative production.(2)

The question of media seems to be crucial for the identity of (new) media art, which in itself has a lot to do with the values and socio-historical conditions of art as such. How does the issue of media affect self-determination, or identity, of (new) media art communities in relation to the broader cultural context, and what exactly renders the relationships between (new) media art practitioners and this context? It is not just a matter of being conscious and critical about the politics of media in a broader sense. It is also very much about redefining the context and agenda of art as such through exploiting this distinctive media consciousness, which has always been an intention at least. Here a dilemma occurs: to comply with its own propositions based on a disengagement from promoting ideas and values of dominant cultures (whether it is the art market, media industries, popular culture, popular politics), the media art community in all its variety, groups and individuals, should find its own sustainable platform for existence. On which ground can it be established? Should it be done under a common, umbrella and agenda? Or are centrifugal survival strategies on the basis of tactical alliances, whether with science, media industries, other art domains, cultural and social movements, more productive and likely options? Armin Medosch calls for dissociation of techno-determinist art, which rather fascinates itself with technology, from art which explores social dimension of technology through engaging with activist, Do-It-Yourself, Open Source and other critical socio-cultural movements adopting "hacker ethics", while crossing and blurring the borders in between. Geert Lovink outlines four possible "models to deal with the current stagnation" together with their down-sides: a semi-autonomous existence on the basis of interdisciplinary collaborations; transcendence of (new) media art into the existing institutional art practices; withdrawal from the art domain altogether; merging with the creative industries.

Both Armin Medosch and Geert Lovink indicate the absence of a strong theoretical back-up for (new) media art practice as a crucial set back. Indeed fascination with interdisciplinarity, resulting in discursive mash-ups, makes it confusing: neo-marxist critique of industrial cultural production and mass media goes in hand with inventive post-structuralist ideas about producer-consumer relations, borrowings from scientific discourses, communication theories, etc, while high-brow pessimism and techno-snobism is accompanied by ommunitarian euphoria and advocacy of openness and all-inclusivity. Add to it the desperate attempts to provide audiences with explanatory thresholds through mapping of key concepts next to exhibits, and the absence of strong media art criticism, and the public gets totally confused. It is not that there is a need for discursive unity, of course. At the end (new) media art is an extremely young art, and the search for self-articulation is an important process. Although even at this point two essential things are already missing: a healthy, preferably external, mediatory art criticism, and strong theoretical methodologies which would help to demystify existing obscurities.

The important issue which lacks serious critical attention is the political dimension of media art practice. Implications of both political causes and effects of artistic messages are somewhat overshadowed by the general motto "be critical". A more politically aware approach in discussions of media art, beyond declarative generalities, is definitely needed. Geert Lovink pinpoints a range of political aspects of media art practice and its discourse to be addressed, such as post-colonial issues, the weakness of links with contemporary social movements, while Armin Medosch advocates structural creative resistance of Open Source Culture to the capitalist society of control on the basis of awareness about its modus operandi.

The historical conditions of media art are changing. So does the attitude to it. The question is what the media art community is going to do with it?

1. All references to Geert Lovink: "New Media Arts: In Search of the Cool Obscure. Explorations beyond the Official Discourse" to be published in "Zero Comments", Routledge New York, August 2007; texts published online: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0308/10-fragments.php
http://www.networkcultures.org/geert/neue-medienkunst-das-coole-obskure/
http://www.cargoweb.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=479&sid=893f3ca5fe11b1c143f7810d6fdef6db

2. All references to Armin Medosch: the statement for http://www.coolmediahottalk.net; texts published online:
http://theoriebild.ung.at/view http://theoriebild.ung.at/view/Main/TheNextLayerDraft
http://theoriebild.ung.at/view/Main/RootsCulture
http://theoriebild.ung.at/view/Main/TechnologicalDeterminismInMediaArt

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Geert Lovink (NL/AU) is a media theorist, critic, currently holds the position of senior researcher/associated professor at Amsterdam University. He is the organiser of conferences, festivals and (online) publications and the founder of numerous Internet projects, such as www.nettime.org and www.fibreculture.org. More info: http://www.networkcultures.org/geert/ and http://www.laudanum.net/geert.

Armin Medosch (AT/UK) is a writer, artist and curator specialized in media theory, media art and network culture. His recent work includes the exhibition WAVES, the new live event format PLENUM with Kingdom of Piracy, and the research project The Next Layer, an investigation into the culture of open sources. More info: http://theoriebild.ung.at, http://armin.manme.org.uk/blog/.

EXTRA: music performance of Remus (humanworkshop records) http://www.humanworkshop.com

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS & COMMENTS! VOTE FOR THE PROPOSALS OF OTHERS! JOIN THE DISCUSSION! here & now.

SPECIAL: ASK THE BEST QUESTION & win the COOL MEDIA PRIZE. The winner will be selected through direct and open voting

Tickets: 5 euro
Reservations by telephone: +31.20. 55 35 100 (during opening hours of the ticket office) Or via the Balie website: http://www.debalie.nl/agenda

De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics,
Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10
Amsterdam
http://www.debalie.nl

Posted by jo at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2007

Upgrade! São Paulo

Lucia Leão

Upgrade! São Paulo: lucia leão: Networked bodies: art, culture, environment and sustainment in cyberculture :: jun 14.2007 :: 7:30 pm @ i-People: Av Vergueiro 727, next to the Vergueiro Subway Station.

The relationships between art and nature have always been present in the human history. Since pre-historic times, draws of animals in caves reveal the aspiration to represent and/or control nature. Enigmatic pre-historic monuments and planetary observatories are also amazing samples of man interventions in order to understand the surrounding environment and its movements. From the Egyptian frescos, passing through moments of the Renaissance and 18th century art, the landscape becomes the environment for building narratives and, often, it takes an ornamental or symbolic character. The landscape paintings, not by chance, are very frequent and popular in the colonialist expansion periods and show very clear relationships between the territorial conquest and the aspiration of representation.

In the 20th century, starting in the 60's, a radical transformation happens: the art stop seeing the nature only like an object for representation and the artists start interacting directly in natural spaces. In that period, artworks emerge pointing to several readings of the environment, among them: nature and space problems (Richard Serra); light transformations, time effect and visitor's interaction (Robert Morris and Nancy Holt); environment and consumption (Christo); actions and incisions in the environment (Michael Heizer and Alberto Burri), among others.

In the cyberculture age, when we think about environment problems, we face two opposite scenarios. From one point of view, the technological apparatuses figure as degrading elements of the environment, they are responsible for a huge amount of garbage production and are related to the pollution emission in several moments. On the other hand, the Internet communication and content production potential have stimulated either a larger awareness and comprehension about environmental problems as much as the creation and development of collective and multi-author projects. Therefore, we could wonder: how can the technology act in the role of preserving ecosystems? How can the environmental thinking and consciousness get associated with the fashion and art creation (while life style, modus vivendi)?

In this talk, it will be presented creative projects that evoke and stimulate communitarian actions. They are works that make use of cybrid spaces and question the modus vivendi through dressing and other nomadic practices. The networked body statute, in all its complexity, requires sensible perception, acts and new visions of the word. In this sense, we will see works that state the inter-relationships between aesthetics, ethics and politics. With activistic propositions, thought and designed by multidisciplinary teams, the contemporary environmental art proposes disturbances in habits and systems. Without mattering with embarrassing or even enormous difficulties, the environmental poetics make it clear that their objectives are stimulating the body perception in network; sowing a systemic consciousness and generating reformulations in the everyday acts.

Lucia Leão is interdisciplinar artist, PHD in comunication and semiotics from PUC-SP and post-PHD in arts from UNICAMP. Author of several articles about art and new media and of the books "The Labyrinth of Hipermedia: architecture and navigation in cyberspace" (1999) and "The Aesthetics of the Labyrinth" (2002). She organized the Interlab collections, with international papers: Labyrinths of the Contemporary Thinking (2002), with nomination for the Jabuti Award; Cybercultura 2.0 (2003); e Derivas: cartography of the cyberspace (2004). Lucia is professor at PUC-SP and SENAC. As artist, she has exhibited, among other places, at ISEA 200, Paris; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Campinas (MACC); XV Biennial of Sao Paulo; II International Biennial of Buenos Aires; ArtMedia, Paris; FILE -SP (2002); Arte Digital Rosario 2003; Cinético Digital, Itaú Cultural (2005); Mostra SESC de Artes (2005) e FILE Rio 2006.

Posted by jo at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

New Work on New Climates

Curated by Shane Brennan

New Work on New Climates: 800 Steps Apart (2007) by Brooke Singer and Brian Rigney Hubbard: 800 Steps Apart questions the response (and responsibility) of government agencies in environmental crises. The administration of toxin-cleanup after 9/11, the video shows, was not uniformly thorough or competent, leaving some victims to suffer the consequences of their contaminated environments. With this terrifying revelation, we are led to question how our government will manage future ecological and environmental disasters that lie on the horizon as a result of climate change. Indeed, 800 Steps Apart challenges the local/global opposition. By uniting a highly localized issue—contamination in Lower Manhattan—and questions of national environmental leadership, the video simultaneously addresses a narrow and broad audience. The way such disasters are handled—even at the level of neighborhoods, blocks and apartments—is relevant to us all; it speaks to our ability and preparedness to deal with environmental emergencies on the global scale—a response that will certainly be tested in decades to come.

Methane (2007) by Michael Alstad: Have we overlooked one of the largest factors in global climate change? Methane is an eye-opening and devastating portrait of the livestock industry as a main producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Our contribution to a destabilizing climate does not stop at the toxins being dispensed into the water and air, but includes the animal products we farm and consume. Alstad emphasizes a circuit between the unnatural living environments of stockyards, ensuing environmental damage, and the Arctic ecosystems that are impacted. Though the footage is shocking, the real cause for alarm—and motivation for immediate action—lies in the causal relationship that is exposed. Why has this link been so often ignored or concealed? What other aspects of the debate have been deliberately left in the dark?

National Agenda (2007) by Gail Wight: National Agenda is part political activism and part Theater of the Absurd. Wight expresses dissatisfaction with our government’s response to global climate change with an intentionally preposterous and violent spectacle. Is this how our political leaders understand (or fail to understand) the changes occurring on our planet—as simply a blunt matter of “things getting hotter”? Coming into harsh contrast with the slick, effects-heavy computer renderings of Earth’s ecological future used in television reports on climate change, National Agenda’s humorous foregrounding of artifice asks us to question the depth of our own understanding of and commitment to the issue. What is the national agenda for climate change?

Rising North (2007) by Jane D. Marsching: As a rendering of scientific data and media reports on climate change in the Arctic, Rising North gestures towards our incapacity to truly absorb and process the magnitude of this information. Rather than recapitulating words or numbers, the video offers emotive fields of experience (both in the visual and auditory spectra) through which we might derive a new, if strikingly incomplete, understanding of “our farthest north.” Rising North, through its ambiguous color modulations and operatic voice that hovers at the limits of intelligibility, may propose that our comprehension of the Arctic is already necessarily partial—it is a region most of us will never encounter first-hand—even as it becomes a heated locus in the climate change discussion. By selecting opera to be the vehicle of conveyance, Marsching also suggests that the Arctic has become a stage upon which the media spectacle of “global warming” is being enacted; we will listen intently to the dramatic tale of its transformation, thawing and steady climb into the frightening upper registers.

And much more >>

Posted by jo at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)

Lisboa 20 Arte Contemporanea: LX 2.0 Project

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries

Lisboa 20 Arte Contemporanea launches next Thursday, May 24, LX 2.0 Project's new commission: Manhã dos Mongolóides (Morning of the Mongoloids) by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries.

For LX 2.0, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries created the Portuguese version of Morning of the Mongoloids, the laughable, yet tragic (and extremely ironic) story of a white men that wakes up after a night of “drunken partying” to find himself no longer who he used to be. Without any motive or underlying logic, the man wakes up and gradually realizes he is Korean. He looks Korean, he speaks Korean and he lives in Seoul, when just the night before he was a white man living in a western country. The piece is a delightful insight on the prejudiced views towards Asian cultures and specially, Korean culture. Not only are we faced with the main character’s stereotypes of Asian people, as he gradually comes to terms with the improbable change, we, westerners, are confronted with our own biased views of the rest of the world. It is us, not “china men” who are being ironically portrayed. It is a mirror-like device and it is returning us our own prejudiced image of ourselves.

Posted by jo at 09:28 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2007

Lucy and Jorge Orta

Antarctic Village

From February-March 2007, Antarctic Village - No Borders, was installed in Antarctica by the artists. They travelled from Buenos Aires aboard the Hercules KC130 flight on an incredible journey lasting several weeks. Taking place during the Austral summer, the ephemeral installation coincided with the last of the scientific expeditions before the winter months, before the ice mass becomes too thick to traverse. Aided by the logisitical crew and scientists stationed at the Marambio Antarctic Base situated on the Seymour-Marambio Island, (64°14’S 56°37’W), Jorge Orta scouted Antarctica by helicopter, searching for different locations for the temporary encampment of their 50 dome-shaped dwellings.

Antarctic Village is a symbol of the plight of those struggling to transverse borders and to gain the freedom of movement necessary to escape political and social conflict. Dotted along the ice, the tents formed a settlement reminiscent of the images of refugee camps we see so often reported about on our television screens and newspapers (official figures estimate that 141 foreigners have died trying to reach Spain in 2004, Human Rights claim the death toll was 289. 58 Chinese people discovered dead through dehydration by customs officers in the back of an articulated lorry in Dover UK in June 2000, etc., etc.)

Physically the installation Antarctic Village in Antarctica is emblematic of Ortas’ body of work, composed of what could be termed modular architecture and reflecting qualities of nomadic shelters and campsites. The dwellings themselves are hand stitched together by a traditional tent maker with sections of flags from countries around the world, along with extensions of clothes and gloves, symbolising the multiplicity and diversity of people. Here the arm of face-less whitecollar worker’s shirt hangs, there the sleeve of a children’s sweater. Together the flags and dissected clothes emblazened with silkscreen motifs referencing the UN Declartion for Human Rights, make for a physical embodiment of a 'Global Village'.

Antarctic Village - Metisse Flag: By way of calling the Orta Antarctic expedition to an end, the artists staged the first in a series of symbolic football games, ‘Heads or Tails, Tails or Heads’. Meteorologists, paleontologists and geologists from the Marambio Antarctic Base joined the Orta team to play a symbolic ‘All Nation’ match. The Metisse Flag and the Antarctic football shirts, created by the artists make it difficult to identify the adversary. The front and back of the players' shirts are stitched together with different countries’ football team colours. The match mirrors human behaviour. Appearances are often deceiving. Someone we think is a friend may actually be playing against us, while a total stranger can surprise us with an act of solidarity. It is not appearances that count, but rather decisive actions in critical moments.

Also see:

Antarctic Village - No Borders, Expedition Tarpaulin
Antarctic Village - Dome Dwelling 5005 and more.

Posted by jo at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)

Poetry in Paris: 2 Reviews

ePoetry and E. Kac

"...This May, Paris was *the* place to be for digital, experimental, new media poetry, and because there was 2 major events, the "critical mass" was reached and made more obvious that this field is truly challenging.

The first event is epoetry. Everybody (or almost) that counts in digital and new media poetry was there, from all over the world : the pioneers, the big names, the about-to-become-big-names, the new emerging generation. Too many names to list ! Epoetry is first an academic conference that I could not attend, but the proceedings will be online. It is also a series of events that took place in several locations in Paris and the near suburbs. All of them were very well attended and the programme was brilliant. I could not see everything and again, links to the artists web sites are on the epoetry web site, so please go and have a look. I just want to point some works and artists that I saw and that were absolutely brilliant:

- Jörg Piringer, that does generative work in real time, where the text is "animated" by his voice. It is what you would call "P-Jing" for poetry-jing. This seems to be a new very interesting tendency : to mix live texts
- Aya Karpinska, in the same vein, showed live "poetry fights"
- Patricia Rydzock performed digital haikus associating images and texts
- The Montreal-based Agence Topo presented and performed the web-based piece "Astres / Stars / Goleuadau" created by Childe Roland that is in English, French and Gaelic
- Eugenio Tisselli presented his "Degenerative" project, a text that destroys itself when the viewers come and see it online. He also showed a new project that is an algorithm to create automatically blogs and also comments. This is smart and fun.

Again, it would be too long to even describe the (small) portion of what I have seen, so check it on e-poetry web site. The two things I want to point out are:

- Digital poetry is more and more associating texts, images and sound in a kind of combination of sound poetry, visual poetry, hypermedia poetry and generative poetry in new ways and forms. It is online, off line, in performances, etc. and uses all possible media and forms.

The Second event is the Biennale Internationale des Poètes en Val de Marne (Poetry Biennal), under the direction of Jean-Pierre Balpe, a key figure worldwide for generative poetry. It takes place in various places in Paris and the Parisian Area (Ile de France). It is until June 2nd. It deals with all kind of poetry, digital, non-digital, experimental, new media, etc. No conference here but many exhibitions, lectures, performances, etc. Yesterday night, in this framework, I saw an exhibition of Eduardo Kac's poetry that includes 2 holopoems, a videopoem, a 3D interactive poem and a new work that is a bio poem. You can go to E.Kac's web site to read the description that would be too long in that email. I just want to say that a "living poem-picture" is something that may look simple and that is actually incredibly moving and challenging the art form. I will try to write a short article about it..."

Annick Bureaud (via Yasmin)

Review by Simon Biggs:

Multimedia, multiculturalism, language and the avantgarde
Notes and observations from ePoetry 2007
May 20-23, Universitaire Paris 8

ePoetry is a series of international colloquiums and artist¹s presentations held biennially at various locations around the world. Previous events have been held at the State University of New York, Buffalo (2001), the University of West Virginia, Morgantown (2003) and Birkbeck College, University of London (2005). It proclaims itself the most important of international festivals of digital poetry. Given that it is the only such regular event dedicated to digital poetry this claim is indisputable.

The event takes the form of an academic conference strand during the day, involving a mix of peer reviewed academic presentations and artists' round table discussions, complemented by evening performances, presentations and mini-installations. As with all such events the range of works and perspectives on practice and theory presented was diverse and not necessarily coherent. It is not surprising that artists and academics in this field come from diverse countries and cultures. Whilst there was a large presence from France and a good number from the US and other English speaking countries there was also a refreshing number of practitioners and theorists from South America, southern and Eastern Europe. The lack of any representation from Asia or Africa suggests that either the international reach of this event is not complete or that this area of practice and research exists in those cultures where there are the necessary precursor artistic traditions in place; practices such as concrete and visual poetry, performance poetry, interactive media arts and networked arts.

Paris is incredibly multicultural but the dominant culture of France remains founded in the high (Western) traditions of the arts. Paris's colourful and ethnically diverse street culture rarely seems to connect with this official culture, especially in the visual and literary arts (music is a different story, Paris being the World's world music capital). France is torn between its constitutional commitment to a unified French identity and the actuality of its contemporary multiculturalism. Nevertheless, it is still a likely site for any reconciliation between Western Liberalism and other cultural traditions. Whether recent political events in France, dominated by debate on immigration and French identity, will accelerate any process towards reconciliation or lead to worsening conflict is yet to be seen. The consensus on the left is that things will get worse before they get better but as has been seen elsewhere (e.g.: Northern Ireland) it can be the case that it is when the most extreme of positions are brought together that significant reconciliation becomes possible.

This larger political and social context, within which ePoetry 2007 was held, was reflected in much of the events content, both explicitly and implicitly as well as through absence (e.g. the already noted absence of Asian and African perspectives). Chasms of cultural conflict were also played out amongst mainstream players. American feminists were outraged by a performance work involving a female artist stripping under the video gaze of her male partner. When the Americans' later asked the artists "would you consider reversing roles" the male performance artist replied "if I had a sexy body then I might be willing to reveal it". There was no evident irony in his reply and he clearly failed to comprehend the American (and general) amazement that 30 years of feminist discourse had clearly had little effect in this context.

The conference strand was, not surprisingly, a babel of languages reflecting the diversity of its participants and its multicultural context. Much was lost in translation. One comment on torture at Abu Ghraib was translated as torture in China. That there were no Chinese present meant insult was avoided. As already observed, conflicts can emerge where they need not and meanings can be radically misplaced. To the writer and artist such accidents can be serendipitous, but in a world ultra-sensitised to difference such errors can prove explosive. In a less dangerous but nevertheless highly pertinent example, poetry and poetics were regularly conflated as the same, failing to recognise that poetry is a practice involving language (and thus is poetic) whilst poetics is a more fundamental concept concerning the relations between things. Poetics is not concerned with practice but with the (dis-)ordering of things.

Much of the initial discussion in the conference focused on the relation between the avantgarde and digital poetics. The premise was that digital poetics represents a new avantgarde and that from this it follows that digital poetics is a good thing. That the avantgarde can only exist in relation to a largely homogenous society is overlooked in this argument. Contemporary heterogeneous social environments do not offer the easy target of a mainstream or bourgeoisie against which an avantgarde can differentiate itself. As we have seen on the streets, Paris is a truly multicultural environment. There is no mainstream. It is only within the bubble occupied by a certain cultural elite that the notion of the avantgarde seems to be sustainable. That it is an historical rather than contemporary paradigm did not seem to have revealed itself to many of those involved in this debate and thus the resulting discussion seemed disconnected from current artistic and social realities.

In a society of a thousand heads there is no place for the avantgarde to differentiate itself from its social body. This body, which was once an obese mainstream presence, has withered to a skeletal foetus, sucked dry of its life by a thousand hungry heads, each concerned with its own existence. In France we see this change played out between street level culture and the social and political elite, distanced from the noisy and messy reality "outside". Post modernist relativism, the historic intellectual response to this shift from mono to multicultural social formation, has dispensed with the grand themes of the avantgarde. Without a return to a narrow definition of society the social body the avantgarde needs to feed off will remain desiccated and unable to offer nourishment to what was always the obverse of that which it sought, and failed, to transcend.

In the same way that cultural diversity is framing the context of contemporary social discourses it also informs the underlying hermeneutics that inform knowledge/language and its relationship to power. Tectonic social changes are breaking down previously homogeneous structures leading to a steady erosion of the culturally specific signifier as the means to power. Specifically, and of particular relevance to ePoetry, text is under threat from the multicultural visual pidgin we are now all familiar with from television, advertising, airports and environments where diverse peoples come together. This is a pidgin that is largely pictographic and iso-semiotic in its sign structure. A new hermeneutics thus arises where this pictographic pidgin supplants text, evolving towards a reductive, isomorphic, non-abstract and semiotically debilitated language field.

This process could be seen to be determined by technological change, as a function of digital media convergence. However, it now becomes clear that the underlying factor in all this is likely not to be technological but cultural change ­ the cultural force majeur of international migration and the global movement of human populations. That this dynamic and unsettling process of global social change is only going to accelerate, perhaps driven by environmental change, will likely lead to the further debilitation of the word in favour of a visual hermeneutics that allows for more diverse sources of authority in signification, reflecting and facilitating a multicultural world premised on multi-polar cultural origins. That a side product of this process is likely to be further conflict between a currently dominant Western Liberalism and other emerging cultural paradigms cannot be ignored, although such issues were not articulated at ePoetry 2007.

Putting aside the context of ePoetry 2007 and the discourses that might spin out from that, there were a number of very interesting contributions by both theorists and practitioners. Convened by Phillipe Bootz and Patrick Burgaud (University Paris 8), the key presenters included Philippe Castellin, Jean Clement, Tibor Papp (France), Jay Bolter, Loss Glazier, Charles Baldwin, Alan Sondheim, Chris Funkhouser, Eduardo Kac, Jim Andrews, Stephanie Strickland, Talan Memmott (USA), Friedrich Block (Germany), Marcus Bastos (Brazil), Janez Strehovec (Slovenia), Annie Abrahams (Holland) and Ambroise Barras (Switzerland).

Much of the work performed over the three live evening events remained rooted within the performance poetry tradition. Flash animations illustrating word play rarely manages to add anything significant to the oeuvre and certainly such works do not propose any significant shift in how a digital poetics practice might evolve. Many works presented thus failed to transcend being illustrated poems. To my mind there seems a similarity here to the dead hand that Powerpoint passes over academic presentations, with Flash functioning to banalise what might be potentially interesting textual projects and performances.

Lucio Agra and Paolo Hartmann performed a witty, playful and visually engaging VJ set. Language definitely played second fiddle in this work, with the visual and aural to the fore, but at least these two instruments were played in tune. A typically anarchic and visually rich Brazilian mix was projected around and over the audience whilst the performing duo sat more or less motionless on stage. The potential readings available in this work remained, for this observer, obscure. However, the visual invention involved never failed to engage and thus it was, at the very least, an enjoyable distraction.

Jeorg Piringer's performance involving voice activated textual visual elements in a large scale digital projection was similarly engaging in a straight forward manner. Simple in presentation and concept, this performance relied on the capabilities of the performer and the cleverness of the code used to create the work. However, this work was not as technically innovative or as artistically ambitious as Messa di Voce (by Golan Levin, Zach Lieberman, Jaap Blonk and Joan La Barbara) and for anybody familiar with this prior piece Piringer¹s efforts were thus diminished in effect, even though his work could be regarded as more pure in its intent and concern with language.

Jim Rosenberg, an icon of literary experimentalism and a pioneer of digital poetry, gave a thoughtful and well judged presentation of his new software authoring interface, "The Inframergence". Complex in structure but visually minimalist and strikingly elegant in realisation, this is a very serious work that offers not only a sophisticated engagement with how language can come to signify but also poses important questions about the nature of writing, interpretation and semantics. That a number of theorists immediately engaged with this work during the conference strand was not surprising. Such work will attract theoreticians like bees to honey.

However Rosenberg's impressive contribution was immediately left in the shade by two young authors who performed on the same programme. I am sure that Rosenberg was heartened by thie evidence that digital poetics is not only a practice involving middle aged white men. Aya Kapinska (Poland/USA) performed a textual Playstation hack as a techno club dance come computer game performance (in the style of Wii). The rhythms and alliterations were given immediate effect and the spoken word came again to life as we saw texts flying around in an abstracted psychadelic 3D world, paced to a dub beat. This work relied as much on the competence of the performer (Kapinska) as on the technical and conceptual strength of the audio-visual component.

Eugenio Tisselli (Mexico/Spain) presented his works "Degenerative Page" and "Regenerative Page". These two works offer a perspective on a kind of practice that was surprisingly not more visible at ePoetry 2007. These are the practices we are familiar with from Net.Art, from the work of JoDi and Kosic and their anarchic and playful reverse engineering of the means of production and dissemination. Tisselli's works developed this theme further than many precursors in novel ways and his plans for world domination through a multi-lingual practice suggest new directions for net based art at a time when many commentators (not least the first generation of Net.Artists) have declared net art dead. Noting the overarching themes, articulated at the outset of this text, Tisselli's work engaged with mutliculturalism and the pursuant limits of written language and its technological infrastructure in an explicit manner whilst remaining at all times subtle and problematic.

Ever-young John Cayley's "Imposition", based on a text by Walter Benjamin (On language as such and the languages of man), was a visually engaging work which was, by his standards, relatively minimalist. This is a work that brings language to life, a language composed of multiple languages, colliding and creating a frisson between themselves. In a sense this multilingual play could be seen as a metaphor for the entire conference, a playful cacophony of voices in distinct yet merging languages, discursively engaging one another rather than articulating in parallel. In Cayley's work members of the audience login to a common remote server and interact with a generative multilingual language machine, this in turn creating a visually simple but conceptually complex display projected on a large scale in the conference auditorium. As well as the imagery there was also a vocal soundtrack; a female voice articulating in song the phonetics involved in the textual constructions. An abstract soundscape, being essentially non-semantic, it gained great complexity and interest as more and more people logged on and their dispersed computers began to replicate, out of phase and with differing timbres, the vocalisations around the auditorium space. The result was a complex and dynamic spatialised sound sculpture composed of the human voice, evoking a sense of the multiplicity of the voice, language and the pre-linguistic.

Roberto Simanowski presented a close reading of the work "Listening Post" by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin. His analysis read the work as being at the juncture of and as a function of a tension between the visual (image, installation) and language (writing, voice). This work is well known but seeing good quality documentation and listening to Simanowski's detailed analysis brought it to life and opened up new interpretations in a piece that could be regarded as a slick technologically determined artwork, the sort of thing that wins Golden Nica's. Simanowski's final observations appropriately reflected on how technology will inevitably come to cannibalise language.

This gave this observer reason to consider the implications of Stanislaw Lem's "The Futurological Congress", a novel set within the context of an academic conference, not unlike ePoetry 2007, where the main protagonist awakes in a future world to find that the relationship between people and their language has been inverted and the instruments of writing have come to master the writer. Leaving Paris I wondered whether the revolution Lem described, where both society and its technologies are torn apart and reconfigured, might not only come to pass but be in process right now.

ePoetry 2007 has established its post-conference website, which will continue to be updated with material. It is expected to include the complete peer reviewed set of academic papers (bi-lingual where possible) as well as documentation of artists work. Its url is www.epoetry2007.net

Simon Biggs
Paris/Edinburgh, May 2007
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
Research Professor in Art, Edinburgh College of Art

Posted on iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity

Posted by jo at 06:28 PM | Comments (0)

Platform 2 presents

The Commons on The Common

Platform 2: The Commons on The Common :: Friday, June 1, 5:30 – 7:30PM :: Meet in front of the State House on Boston Common at the 20-foot picnic blanket :: Food & drink on hand, but please bring something of your own to share ::

A picnic on the Boston Common where we will discuss “the Commons” in relation to the work of invited guests, including Iain Kerr/spurse and David Bollier of onthecommons.org. Excerpts from Lewis Hyde’s upcoming book on the commons will be read.

What is the Commons? “The commons is an emerging new paradigm for understanding how groups of people can create and preserve value in more sustainable ways. Unlike the conventional market paradigm, the commons consists of a diverse set of models rooted in social norms and ecological principles. A growing number of scholars, activists and policymakers is beginning to recognize the power of the commons matrix and its importance in creating and managing resources.” — from www.onthecommons.org

Featuring

spurse is an international collective composed of individuals with experience in a wide variety of fields. spurse has no (fixed) content or members – rather it is a viral multiplicity that is continuously reforming itself as it becomes new projects and new events. In this, it is open to change, contradiction, multiplicity, tangents, infection, and betrayal. We are interested in considering the public as that which must be continually constructed as a part of the invention of public space. In this we are interested in emergent forms of individuality – swarms, crowds, the person, groups, ecosystems…

David Bollier is an activist, author and Editor of OntheCommons.org, the website and blog of the Tomales Bay Institute that explores the commons as a new paradigm of politics, economics and culture. He is the co-founder of Public Knowledge, a Washington public-interest advocacy group that fights reckless extensions of copyright law, and the author of /Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth/ (2002), /Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture /(2005), and seven other books. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Posted by jo at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)

New Network Theory

Conference

New Network Theory: International Conference :: Dates: 28-30 June 2007 :: Location: University of Amsterdam :: Organized by: Institute of Network Cultures (Interactive Media, Amsterdam Polytechnic, HvA), Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, and Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis.

The object of study has shifted from the virtual community and the space of flows to the smart mob. When the object of study changes, so may the distinctions that dominate, particularly the schism between place-based space and place-less space, both organised and given life by networks. We would like to exploit the potential of writing contemporary network theory that suits and reflects the changes to the objects of study that come to define our understandings of network culture – a post-Castellsian network theory, if you will, that takes technical media seriously.

It is time to look for elements that can make up a network theory outside of post-modern cultural studies (which marvelled at the place-less place) and ethnographic social sciences (which reminded us of the ground). What network culture studies needs is a ‘language of new media,’ perhaps even signage, to speak in terms of Lev Manovich; what it currently has is a science-centered ‘unified network theory,’ to paraphrase the language of Albert-László Barabási.

Whilst it may come as no surprise to critical Internet scholars, the notion that networks are not random but have underlying structures remains the key insight for network scientists. Instead of posing new questions, the work that follows from that insight often seeks to confirm that structure and its accompanying patterns, across more and more network-like objects. The question remains which specific contribution critical Internet scholars and practitioners can make to opening up network thought. Such is the purpose of the network theory conference. How must we rethink network culture with a renewed emphasis on technical media and social software?

Speakers:

Siva Vaidhyanathan: The Googlization of Everything: How One Company is Shaking Up Culture, Commerce and Community

Tiziana Terranova: Everything is everything: network science, neo-liberalism and security

Wendy Chun: Imagined Networks

Alan Liu: Just Networking: Can Network Knowledge Be Better Than "Good Enough" Knowledge?

Anna Munster: The Image in the Network

Martin Kearns: Network-centric advocacy and rapid response

Warren Sack: From Networked Publics to Object-Oriented Democracies

Olia Lialina: The Work of Users in Times of Perfect Templates

Nosh Contractor: MTML meets Web 2.0: Theorizing social processes in multidimensional networks

Valdis Krebs: Al-Qaeda networks

Katy Börner: Towards Scholarly Marketplaces

Tincuta Parv: Fibers, links and networks – a parallel between textiles, data communication systems and social interaction

Marianne van den Boomen: E-sociability metaphors: From virtual community to social network and beyond

Leslie Kavanaugh: The Philosophical Foundation of Network Theory: the Reticulum

Verena Kuni: Subversive Stitches and Revolutionary Knitting Circles. Between art and activism, DIY and prosumer cultures: Weaving new networks in times of Web 2.0

Mirko Tobias Schaefer: From Network to Foam. Extending the dispositif of user interactions

Iina Hellsten: Bird Flu as a Public Hype: Networks of Communication on the Web

Astrid Mager: Mapping, practicing and thinking "the Internet". Challenging network thought in the context of online health information

Clifford Tatum & Kirsten Foot: From ad-hoc to infrastructure: The lifecycle of hyperlink networks and its implications for social, cultural, and political activity

Charli Carpenter: Assessing Virtual Networks: Human Rights Advocacy in Real- and Cyberspace

Leah A. Lievrouw & Lilly Nguyen: Linking and the Network Imaginary

Adrian MacKenzie: Wirelessness and radical network empiricism

Claire Roberge: The Sedimentation of the Passage: Conceptualizing the Locality Today

Nancy Nisbet: Stories, Roadmaps and RFID. Exchange; a performance releasing location, memory and identity

Sophia Drakopoulou: Toothing and Bluetoothing; network–fantasy-reality

Bernhard Rieder: Rethinking Structure and Causation in Network Theory

Michael Goddard: Post-Rekombinant Networks or the Transition from the Cognitariat to the Precariat

Konstantinos Vassiliou: Subjects that matter: Subjectivity in Network Reality

Franz Beitzinger, Natascha Zowislo and Jürgen Schulz: Saying 'No': On the rejection of consensus-oriented communication on the Internet

Ulises Ali Mejias: Hyperlocality and the tyranny of nodes

Yukari Seko: Acting Out Network: Self-destructive Murmurs in the Blogosphere.

Kristoffer Gansing: Community (New) Media - Public access in the age of networked social media.

Alice Verheij: Re-thinking network theory and analysis concerning social care networks in the Internet age. A case description.

Kimberly de Vries: Desire, Dissent and Differentiation: Sustaining Growth in Virtual Networks.

Kenneth Werbin: The List Serves: Bare Life in Cybernetic Order.

Olga Kisseleva: LANDSTREAM

Wayne Clements: Infernal Thunder

Jacob Lillemose: Heath Bunting from physical space to the net and back again

Katja Mayer: Imag(in)ing Networks

Olga Goriunova: Internet platforms: cultural production in late capitalism

Thomas Berker: Suffering in Networks. An exploration into conceptions of marginality, conflict and exploitation in network theories

Adolfo Estalella: Blogs as Traps: Imputing Interests through Statistics Systems

Marijk de Valck: The Festival Network Revisited

Betina Szkudlarek: Actor-Network Theory - ontologizing realities.

Michael Dieter: Open Cartographies, On Assembling Things Through Locative Media

David Garcia: Faith in Exposure

Paolo Gerbaudo: A network of events: leafleting and mobility in the “Stop the War” campaign

Megan Boler: The Politics of ‘Truthiness:’ Digital Dissent and Satire as Networks of Activism

John Duda: Bodies and Swarms: Networks, Multitude, and Biology

Ramesh Srinivasan: Conceptualizing Semantics and Ontologies in a New Network Era

Jana Nikuljska: Communicative Societies in a Networked World

Ali Mohammad Javadi: Study of the rate, types and behavioral model of internet's users in Mashhad city in Iran

Deborah Wheeler: The Political Importance of Internet Cafes in Jordan and Egypt

Greg Elmer: Robots.txt: The Politics of Search Engine Exclusion

Jussi Parikka: Bad Bits: Software and Incorporeal Events

John Johnston: Viral Evolution and the New Software Ecology

Tony Sampson: On Anomalous Objects of Digitality. An introduction

Claudia Padovani & Elena Pavan: Between Issue and Social Network. Insights from an ongoing research on mobilization on Communication Rights in Italy

Giorgia Nesti & Matteo Cernison: Advocacy networks and policy networks in the European Union: the case of media pluralism

Stefania Milan: Networks of radical tech collectives: Social logic and technological dimensions of emancipatory practices in the field of digital communication

Francesca Forno: Consumption Styles and Digital Networks in Italy

Claudius Wageman & Manuela Caiani: The extreme right, networks, and the internet: a comparison of the multi-organizational field of the extreme right in Italy and Germany

Marga van Mechelen: Glocalisation as a curatorial and artistic mission

Jean-Paul Fourmentraux: Innovative Artists. Transformations of Work and Arts organizations with ICT

Desiree Hoving, Gertjan de Werk, Danny Soetanto, Dirk-Jan Peet & Heleen Vreugdenhil: Building Successful innovative networks, insights from multidisciplinary research perspectives

Robert van Boeschoten: The executive language: Coding the future

Noortje Marres: The special effect of issue-affectedness. On being sensitive to the normative charges of networks

Matthew Fuller: Requests, Recommendations and Standards: RFC10 and reflexive engineering

Posted by jo at 08:57 AM | Comments (0)

Electronic Lens

Annotating for Civic Engagement

The Electronic Lens explores and creates new paradigms of civic ubiquitous networking with mobile technologies. We think of Electronic Lens as something of a viewfinder. Using a motion that is already familiar (think point and shoot camera phones), the citizen can use the eLens to gather information about physical objects and places.

The eLens matches electronic information with the physical environment in an innovative way. For example, eLens users can post lasting messages in physical locations, tag buildings and places, or create social networks based on interest and social affinities. eLens interactions combine the physical environment with formal and institutional information and the annotations from users’ personal experiences.

Ultimately the eLens enhances the value of the city for its citizens by making their environments more accessible, more culturally vibrant, more socially just. The eLens fosters communication among people and between institutions; as a result citizens are now better able to navigate the social, institutional and physical urban space.

Posted by jo at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2007

Synthetic Performances

Second Life Re-enactments

While virtual environments like Second Life offer artists a new platform for the creation of original works, it's always interesting to see the past being reinterpreted. I'm pretty sure it was Marshall McLuhan who said all new media consumes its predecessor's content before settling on a new form, and we have witnessed his observations unfolding with the Radio > Television > YouTube evolution.

Eva and Franco Mattes (of 0100101110101101 fame) have taken this ethos of appropriation to heart in their ongoing Synthetic Performances. Seminal performance works from the 1960’s–80’s have been re-staged in Second Life and exhibited in-world and on their web site. Re-performances to date include Joseph Beuys' 7000 Oaks, Valie Export's Tapp und Tastkino, Vito Acconci's Seedbed (he was a bad boy) and Chris Burden's Shoot.

More images after the jump, or you can skip right to their site. If you have an SL account, click here to visit the 7000 Oaks performance in Second Life. More images >> [Posted by christo on selectparks]

Posted by jo at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)

Machine Therapy by Kelly Dobson

Human-Machine Resonance

Machine Therapy by Kelly Dobson (2002-present): I began singing with large machines in public spaces, discovering that I could come to be in resonance with the sounds of their motors. The motor sound was experienced then as inseparable from my own voice, as like when singing in resonance with another person. I experienced a connection with these machines as if body extensions. Sometimes I felt that I was controlling the motors of these giagantic machines with my voice; sometimes I felt that they were pulling me along. They brought me through expressions physical and vocal that I would have found no other way. This experimental balancing act and communication with the machines facilitated personal exploration, discovery, and development.

I am working to bring this form of experience directly to other people. I host Machine Therapy sessions with machines I have made or found. Small-size movie (5.4MB QuickTime). Related: Blendie.

Thesis Abstract: In this thesis I describe a new body of work called Machine Therapy, a methodology for revealing the vital relevance of subconscious elements of human-machine interactions that works within art, design, psychodynamics, and engineering. This practice highlights what machines actually do and mean, in contrast to what their designers consciously intended. Machine Therapy is a cyclical process that alternates between discussion of and sessions for empathic relationships with domestic appliances, personal extension and connection via wearable and prosthetic apparatuses, and the design of evocative visceral robots that interact with people's understandings of themselves and each other. Combining research and practice in digital signal processing and machine learning, mechanical engineering, and textile sensor design, I have been able to create new objects and relationships that are unique in some aspects while maintaining quotidian familiarity in other aspects. This is illustrated through the documented construction of several projects including re-appropriated domestic devices, wearable apparatuses, and machines that act in relation with users’ autonomic signals. These Machine Therapy devices are evaluated in studies of participants' interactive engagements with the machines as well as participants' affective responses to the machines. The Machine Therapy projects facilitate unusual explorations of the parapraxis of machine design and use: these usually unconscious elements of our interactions with machines critically affect our sense of self, agency in the social and political world, and shared emotional, cultural, and perceptual development. [via architectradure]

Posted by jo at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)

Walking City: Pneumatic Dress

By Ying Gao, part of “Indice de l’indiférence: Walking City” at Galerie Diagonale, 5455, de Gaspé street, space 203 :: May 29 to June 9.

Posted by jo at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)

The Latency of the Moving Image in New Media

Curated by Eduardo Navas

The Latency of the Moving Image in New Media :: May 25 - June 9, 2007 :: Curated by Eduardo Navas :: Telic Arts Exchange, 975 Chung King Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90012 :: (213) 344 - 6137 :: info[at]telic.info :: The Chilean Collective TROYANO will present their recent bilingual publication, Art and Digital Culture :: Thursday May 24, from 7:30 - 10pm

“The Latency of the Moving Image in New Media” purposefully overlaps the presentation by TROYANO collective on Art and Digital Culture, to take place on May 24. The exhibit in combination with the talk are meant to provide a space for critical reflection on the ongoing development of media culture.

What separates new media from previous media is in part waiting periods that define public and private experience; whether the download of a file from the Internet is taking longer than expected, an e-mail message has not been sent from one server to another for some unknown reason, or a large file is being rendered in video software like Final Cut Pro for output as a viewable movie, new media is largely dependent on constant moments of waiting, often referenced as latency. “The Latency of the Moving Image in New Media” presents artists who make the most of latency as a crucial element in their works.

Some of the works included in the exhibition are to be experienced online while others are to be seen as projections in an actual space, and others are downloadable interactive projects developed as freeware. The works will be available for viewing at TELIC in a way that is sensitive to their original contexts. A website will also be available for viewers outside of Los Angeles to experience the online projects, and to give information about those that are only viewable in the art space.

Artists participating in the exhibition include:

Art blogs:

Corey Eiseman (Miami, Florida, US)
Gustavo Romano (Buenos Aires, AR)

Online art:

Arcangel Constantini (Mexico City, MX)
Yann Le Guennec (Lorient, FR)

Videos:

Jorge Castro (Cordoba, AR)
Antonio Mendoza (Los Angeles, CA, US)
Katherine Sweetman (Los Angeles, CA, US)

Audiovisual interfaces:

Fuss! Members include
Rey Juan Carlos and Guillermo López, (Madrid, ES) and Timo Daum, (Berlin,
DE)
Brian Mackern (Montevideo, UY)
Julia Masvernat (Buenos Aires, AR)

Posted by jo at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)

Chyphertext Performance

Networked Writing Performance

Chyphertext Performance by Bjxrn Magnhildxen/noemata :: TIME: May 23, around 22h - 23h (CEST) :: OFFLINE: Le Cube, Paris :: ONLINE: http://noemata.anart.no/cp/.

This is an networked writing performance that consists of a hybrid of human / machinated real-time writing and reading. The writing is performed by (1) plain computer keyboard writing, (2) server-based machinated, algorithmic writing, (3) interactions from from readers online, (4) text feeds from the processes surrounding the writing (like system monitoring, net connection monitoring, ftp logging, website hit statistics logs, etc), (5) data transformation - the writing is transcribed into streaming music as midi-event, and the images are transcribed as text/code and then into music.

All this semi real-time, the lag can be some seconds from input to output. The format of the writing is plaintext, ciphertext / code, and hypertext. For convenience the performance is streamed over the web in a regular browser. The piece is made especially for the e-Poetry 2007 festival.

Both these chyphertext- and plaintext performance pieces are parts of a project called 'protocol performance' that i will be doing from remote through 2007. Protocol performance and then Chyphertext Performance is supported by the Norwegian Cultural Council, Art and Digital Technology. Also thanks to Atelier Nord for hosting noemata and the event on the server.

References

* @ E-poetry 2007: http://www.epoetry2007.net/artists/oeuvres/bjorn/bjorn.html
* CV: http://noemata.anart.no/puh/cv.html
* Plaintext performance: October, 2006. Plaintext Performance. @ Tate Modern, London, e and eye - art and poetry between the electronic and the visual. Organised by Penny Florence and Tim Mathews, with John Cayley. Curated by Charles Baldwin and Alan Sondheim: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/talksdiscussions/6703.htm; http://web.mac.com/shadoof/iWeb/eandeye/; http://noemata.anart.no/pp/transcript/eandeye/. A transcript of the Plaintext Performance at Tate Modern is available at: http://noemata.anart.no/pp/transcript/eandeye/Plaintext%20Performance%20-%20Bj%F8rn.Magnhild%F8en-noemata.html

* September, 2006. Plaintext Performance. @ BIOS symposium, West Virginia University. Hosted by the Center for Literary Computing and the Division of Art at West Virginia University. Part of the E-Poetry Symposia and Festivals. Co-organized with the Electronic Poetry Center and Digital Media Studies Program (SUNY-Buffalo). Curated by Charles Baldwin and Alan Sondheim.
http://www.clc.wvu.edu; http://clc.as.wvu.edu:8080/clc//bios_flyer; http://noemata.anart.no/pp/transcript/BIOS/.

CEST = central european summer time = UTC/GMT +2 hours. In other timezones the performance will be:
England: 21:00 - 22:00 (UTC +1)
US Westcoast: 13:00 - 14:00 (UTC -7)
US Eastcoast: 16:00 - 17:00 (UTC -4)
Australia: 06:00 - 07:00 (UTC +10)
(see eg. http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/)

Posted by jo at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)

Haptic Telexistence

at SIGGRAPH 2007

Haptic Telexistence (SIGGRAPH 2007) provides highly realistic haptic interaction among humans and objects located in remote places. Human interaction will be dramatically improved by this concept, which perceives us as the properties of an object.

Enhanced Life: With conventional systems, we can only perceive the stiffness of an object. But with Haptic Telexistence, we can also perceive the exact shape of an object, and more natural and dexterous object manipulations become possible. This simplifies complex tasks such as telesurgery and 3D modeling.

Because this system can present properties such as texture and temperature, it will support dramatic improvements in human life. For example, not only will we be able to shake hands with people at remote locations but we will also be able to feel the warmth of their hands. While shopping on the web, we will be able to check the texture of an article before purchase.

Goals: Our ultimate goal is to present all the haptic sensations through a master-slave system. Using current telepresence systems, we can interact with humans or objects even if they are located in remote places or in virtual environments. We can watch, listen, touch, and move objects. However, the properties of an object are not present in these systems, and that reduces realism and interactivity. Haptic Telexistence aims to provide highly realistic haptic interaction among human and objects in remote places.

Innovations: The system consists of four innovative devices: a dexterous slave hand, q finger-shaped haptic sensor for the slave hand, an encounter-type master hand, and an electro-tactile display. Each of these devices has more advantages than the corresponding conventional ones. In addition, integrating them to realize Haptic Telexistence is also a technical innovation.

Vision: Because haptic and robotic technologies continue to improve rapidly, we believe that this technology will be fully realized with 10 years.

Contact
Katsunari Sato
The University of Tokyo
Katsunari_Sato (at) ipc.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Contributors
Kouta Minamizawa
Naoki Kawakami
Susumu Tachi
The University of Tokyo

Posted by jo at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)

May 21, 2007

Transitive Materials Ubicomp 2007 Workshop

Call for Papers

Transitive Materials: Towards an Integrated Approach to Material Technology - Ubicomp 2007 Workshop: Call for Papers :: Submission deadline: June 15, 2007 :: Workshop date: September 16, 2007 :: transitive[at]media.mit.edu

The worlds of architecture, fashion and ubiquitous computing are rapidly converging. Shape-changing polymers, parametric design, e-textiles, sensor networks, and intelligent interfaces are now positioned to provide the underpinnings of truly ubiquitous interactivity. Seamless and effective integration will determine our ability to create more cohesive computational systems that extend invisibly from on-body to indoor environment to urban-scale structures, and can more meaningfully respond to our personal and social actvities.

This workshop will focus on the use of responsive materials as the physical and computational bridge between form and function, body and environment, structures and membranes. Rather than overlaying computation using add-on patches or gadgets, we seek to define and emphasize the integration of novel “transitive materials” that blur the gap between computation and structure, and between disciplines that have traditionally stood apart.

We hope to foster an open discussion between researchers and practitioners from the design (architecture, fashion, textiles) and scientific disciplines (ubicomp, wearables, computation, materials), in order to shed light on the possibilities and limitations brought forth by new material technologies. We also hope to explore how such transitive materials can function as the binding matter in the design of objects, garments and spaces that realize truly omnipresent interactivity.

Workshop Format and Submission Instructions

We invite researchers and practitioners from the design (architecture, fashion, textiles) and scientific disciplines (ubicomp, wearables, computation, materials) to submit their work. Full submission details are available at the workshop website.

Organizers

Marcelo Coelho MIT Media Lab), Sajid Sadi (MIT Media Lab), Pattie Maes (MIT Media Lab), Joanna Berzowska (XS Labs, Concordia University), and Neri Oxman (MIT Department of Architecture).

Program Committee

Michelle Addington (Yale School of Achitecture), Mette Ramsgard Thomsen (The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, CITA) and Jennifer Leonard (IDEO)

Posted by jo at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at La Biennale di Venezia

Pulse Room

Pulse Room, one hundred incandescent light bulbs controlled by the heartbeat of the public :: Mexican Pavilion at the 52nd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia :: Press Preview: 7-9 June, 10 AM-8 PM :: Receptions: 7, 8 and 9 June, 8-10 PM :: Exhibition: 10 June–21 November, 2007 :: Palazzo Van Axel, beside the Chiesa dei Miracoli, Cannaregio 6099, Venice 30121 Italy :: +39-041-520-4807 .

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer represents Mexico at the 52nd Biennale di Venezia with the exhibition “Some Things Happen More Often Than All of the Time”, curated by Príamo Lozada and Bárbara Perea, a show which will mark Mexico’s first official participation in the Biennale. The exhibition will consist of 6 large-scale installations covering 1,000 square metres of the Palazzo Van Axel, a 15th-century gothic landmark bordering the Chiesa Santa Maria dei Miracoli, in the vicinity of the Rialto bridge.

Lozano-Hemmer (Mexico City, 1967) develops large-scale interactive installations combining the languages of architecture and performance art. His work uses technologies such as robotics, surveillance and telematic networks to create platforms for audience participation, creating "anti-monuments for alien agency". His large-scale light and shadow installations are inspired by animatronics, carnivals and phantasmagoria, situating the spectator as a fundamental component to “complete” the work.

“His work succeeds in giving the unchoreographed the power of a full orchestra..."-- CK Kuebel, NY Arts Magazine

Lozano-Hemmer’s work in kinetic sculpture, installation, video and photography has been shown in over thirty countries, including the Biennials of Sydney (Australia), Shanghai (China), Liverpool (United Kingdom), Istanbul (Turkey) and Havana (Cuba). His work is part of important private and public art collections such as those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, La Colección Jumex in Mexico City, Fundación Cisneros Fontanals in Miami, the Daros Latin America Collection in Zürich and the Tate Collection in London.

The official participation of Mexico in Venice is the result of joint efforts by Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Consejo de Promoción Turística and the generous support of the Fundación/Colección Jumex and the Fundación BBVA Bancomer. The non-profit Patronato de Arte Contemporáneo, which has also contributed funding and resources, is in charge of the administration of the project. The receptions, starring DJ sets by Sonido Changorama, will feature sponsored drinks by Jumex, Tequila Cuervo and Cerveza Sol.

A bilingual catalogue will be published by Turner Libros, featuring essays by Manuel de Landa, José Luis Barrios, Barbara London, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Victor Stoichita and curators Príamo Lozada and Bárbara Perea.

Coinciding with the 52nd Biennale di Venezia, Lozano-Hemmer’s work will also be exhibited at Art Basel Unlimited, at the Luminato Festival in Toronto and in the exhibition “Automatic Update” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Contact information:

Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes:
Plácido Pérez Cué, Director General de Comunicación Social
Tel. +52 555 662 1907
Fax +52 555 662 4314
pperzcue[at]correo.conaculta.gob.mx

Contact for Rafael Lozano-Hemmer:
Natalie Bouchard
Tel +1 514 597 0917
Fax +1 514 597 2092
natalie[at]antimodular.com
http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/

Contact for the curators:
Proyectos Hélix
Príamo Lozada and Bárbara Perea
+ 39 340 755 9584 in Venice
+ 52 555 207 6411 in Mexico
helix.curatorial[at]gmail.com

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is represented by Galería OMR (Mexico City), bitforms gallery (New York) and Galerie Guy Bärtschi (Geneva).

Posted by jo at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)

Furtherfield May 21, 2007

New Reviews / Articles / Interviews

Charlotte Frost Interviews David Rokeby- Twisting Fistfuls of Time (Part 1) :: An Interview with David Rokeby, in conjunction with his first UK retrospective ‘Silicon Remembers Carbon’, FACT, Liverpool, (20th April – 10th June). David Rokeby has won acclaim in both artistic and technical fields for his new media artworks. A pioneer in interactive art and an acknowledged innovator in interactive technologies, Rokeby has achieved international recognition as an artist and seen the technologies which he develops for his work given unique applications by a broad range of arts practitioners and medical scientists. Part 2 of the interview.

Review on TRANSreveLATION by Natasha Chuk :: TRANSreveLATION was a one-night showcase of live performance, dance, real-time processing, and a reverie of previously recorded audio compositions. Performed on April 26, 2007 in the basement auditorium of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of New York in midtown Manhattan, fifty guests gathered to engage in and aurally witness a unique collection of sound art and movement. Nature and technology remarkably mix as a means of exploring the concept of ekphrasis, the basis for this concert, developed and curated by Melissa Grey and Jim Briggs III.

Put simply, ekphrasis is imagery dramatically translated by poetry, but it pertains to any form of media. Pulling us deep into the trail of inspiration, ekphrasis can provide an artist the opportunity to delightfully bury the tracks of artistic motivation in an interpretative web of rhetoric, freely describing one form with another. That tactic is clearly demonstrated in this program.

Review on html_butoh by Alexandra Boutros -lost in…metamorphosis: ursula endlicher’s html_butoh :: Butoh is enigmatic. Sometimes characterized as dance, sometimes as theatre, sometimes as meditation on what it means to be human, butoh seems to resist definition and easy categorization. Undeniably, however, butoh is about movement. Butoh emerged in post world-war II Japan, in part rising out of dissatisfaction with the prevalence of Western dance movements and influences in that country. Some have suggested that the goal of butoh is for the dancer to cease being him/herself, to stop being human, and to become instead another entity altogether. If butoh drives the human out of the dancer through movement, Ursula Endlicher’s html_butoh—a web-driven performance piece—raises questions about humanness in the realm of the internet.

Review by Wylie Schwartz: Kollabor8 - Toegristle Studios :: Kollabor8 is a ‘perceptual canvas blog,’ where any given chain of images has infinite potential for change as each artist manipulates the previous image, and so forth. Functioning as an artists’ hub, members are invited to transform works of digital collage by adding original images, digital photos, reproductions and scans, or by starting a new chain. To encourage collaboration, members are not permitted to upload a direct mutation to their own image. To encourage growth of chains a system of credits is in place. Two credits buy a new chain, and one is earned for every five images uploaded to a pre-existing chain. The art in this case is a virtual archive of the process of creating a work of art.

Other Reviews:
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreviews.php

About Furtherfield Reviewers:
http://www.furtherfield.org/reviewersbio.php

If you want to be a reviewer or wish for a project to be reviewed on Furtherfield, contact - marc.garrett[at]furtherfield.org

Posted by jo at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)

Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City

Urban Experience through the lens of Bombay Cinema

Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City; The urban experience in India through the lens of popular Bombay cinema by Ranjani Mazumdar.

Cinema is not only a major industry in India, it is a powerful cultural force. But until now, no one has undertaken a major examination of the ways in which films made in Bombay mediate the urban experience in India. In Bombay Cinema, Ranjani Mazumdar takes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding Bombay cinema as the unofficial archive of the city in India.

In this analysis of the cinematic city, Mazumdar reveals a complex postnationalist world, convulsed by the social crisis of the 1970s and transformed by the experience of globalization in the 1990s. She argues that the upheaval of postcolonial nationalism led to Bombay cinema’s articulation of urban life in entirely new terms.

Specifically, the place of the village in the imaginary constitution of anticolonial nationalism gave way to a greater acknowledgment, even centrality, of urban space. Bombay Cinema takes the reader on an inventive journey through a cinematic city of mass crowds, violence, fashion, architectural fantasies, and subcultural identities. Moving through the world of gangsters and vamps, families and drifters, and heroes and villains, Bombay Cinema explores an urban landscape marked by industrial decline, civic crisis, working-class disenchantment, and diverse street life.

Combining the anecdotal with the theoretical, the philosophical with the political, and the textual with the historical, Bombay Cinema leads the reader into the heart of the urban labyrinth in India, revising and deepening our understanding of both the city and the cinema.

Ranjani Mazumdar is an independent filmmaker and associate professor of film studies at the School of Art and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

Posted by jo at 03:21 PM | Comments (0)

070707 UpStage Festival

Performances Announced

Shadow puppets, flights of fancy, air guitar and a visit to a London building site will be some of the virtual attractions at 070707 UpStage Festival - a feast of online performances on July 7, 2007 to celebrate the release of UpStage 2.

New Zealand and international artists are creating work specifically for the UpStage environment, which will be performed for an online audiences and simultaneously screened at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington.

UpStage is software that allows audiences from anywhere in the world to participate in live online performances, created in real time by remote players. Audiences need only an internet connection and web browser and can interact through a text chat tool while the players use images to create visual scenes, and operate "avatars" - graphical characters that speak aloud and move.

The diversity of proposals for the festival has impressed the organisers. "It's exciting to see UpStage being used in such a variety of ways," said UpStage project manager Helen Varley Jamieson. "We have all manner of artists - writers, musicians, dancers, performers, videographers, story-tellers - experimenting with how they can use the internet as a creative medium and a site for their work."

The full list of performances and artists is on the UpStage web site. Performance times will be publicised on the UpStage and New Zealand Film Archive web sites soon, and live links to the stages will be accessible from the UpStage web site on July 7; online audiences just need to click!

The performances will be screened live in the the New Zealand Film Archive mediagallery where visitors can buy a coffee, take a seat and watch the performances taking place from remote locations around the world. Exhibitions Manager Mark Williams says "It will be like watching a live movie, as the shows unfold in front our eyes."

UpStage workshop facilitator Vicki Smith has been providing graphic, technical and tutorial support for artists and education groups who are creating performances, and says that the level and range of work being produced promises breathtaking cyberformances (online performances) for audiences to view and take part in.

UpStage 2 is funded by the Community Partnership Fund of the NZ Government's Digital Strategy, with the support of partners CityLink, MediaLab and Auckland University of Technology, and developed by programmer and digital artist Douglas Bagnall.

The launch takes place on 28 June and will be accompanied by an exhibition at the NZ Film Archive from 28 June to 15 July, and the festival on 7 July.

For further information and images, contact:

Helen Varley Jamieson: helen[at]upstage.org.nz
Vicki Smith: vicki[at]upstage.org.nz http://upstage.org.nz/blog/

Posted by jo at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)

Technologically Expanded Dance

Call for Participation

Technologically Expanded Dance: Call for formal presentations, art installations and pocket performances :: November 22 - 24, 2007 :: CULTURGEST, Lisbon Portugal.

The Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, TU Lisbon, is pleased to announce the Conference Technologically Expanded Dance. The following conference topics will be considered: 1. Cross modal perception, artificial synesthesia and intermedial relations between artistic languages 2. Motion capture systems and archives of body movements 3. Aesthetic signification of technology 4. Transfers from game structures onto audible, visual or kinetic narratives 5. Corporeality and new technologies 6. Virtual and augmented reality applied to the stage.

CULTURGEST has a small auditorium, 4 rooms and 1 foyer that could host pannels on the above themes, media art installations, new media artworks and pocket performances. Submitters are invited to check the rider of the hostage spaces within the perspective of site-specific*. Eventually submitters should provide their own equipment. Proposals should be submitted online by 29 June 2007. Following an evaluation by the reviewers, authors will be notified by the end of July 2007.

Posted by jo at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)

project:rendition by JC2

Installation and Performances at Momenta Art

project:rendition by JC2 :: momenta art :: May 25-June 25, 2007 :: Performance Schedule :: Reception: May 25, 7 - 9pm :: 359 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211 :: 718.218.8058.

project:rendition examines the concept of rendering through an installation that incorporates elements of architecture, printed agitprop, audio, and performance in an interactive environment.

The project title refers to "extraordinary rendition," the Bush Administration's practice of clandestine kidnapping and extradition of suspected terrorists to countries where they can be interrogated and tortured beyond the reach of the US judicial system. While extraordinary rendition is an extreme form of political repression, state-induced fear and disenfranchisement are far more common means of rendering individuals and whole populations politically mute or existentially invisible.

The exhibition revolves around a five-sided structure built entirely of one-way mirror, which functions as an inverted Panopticon or surveillance tower. Visitors may either observe those inside the illuminated structure from the safety of the darkened gallery or reverse roles and become potential objects of scrutiny or fascination by entering it.

An excerpt from the famous 1630 sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity," written by the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, will be available as a free broadside to visitors. From Ronald Reagan's "Shining City on the Hill" to George Bush Sr.'s "Thousand Points of Light," Winthrop's Puritan text has served as the lynchpin for the philosophy of American Exceptionalism for the past 200 years.

Performances are scheduled to take place on site throughout the duration of the show. Please check the project:rendition website for performance schedule: www.projectrendition.info

project:rendition is a collaboration by JC2, a group composed of artists Joy Episalla, Joy Garnett, Carrie Moyer and Carrie Yamaoka. JC2 thanks Brian Webster for his invaluable technical expertise, without which this project would not have been realized.

DIRECTIONS: Momenta Art is located at 359 Bedford Avenue, ground floor, between S4th and S5th Sts. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. By subway, take the L train to Bedford stop (the first stop in Brooklyn). Exit on the Bedford side. Walk south 12 blocks. By car, take the outside lane of the Williamsburg Bridge to the first exit. Make a sharp right onto Broadway. Drive 2 blocks to Bedford Avenue and make a right. We are located a half block on the right after you pass under the bridge.

Posted by jo at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)

Helen Thorington Interviews Miya Masaoka

Performing Bodies, Insects and Plants

Miya Masaoka is a musician, composer and performance artist. She has created works for koto, laser interfaces, laptop and video and written scores for ensembles, chamber orchestras and mixed choirs. In her performance pieces she has investigated the sound and movement of insects, as well as the physiological responses of plants, the human brain, and her own body.

Helen Thorington: Miya, you were trained in Japanese court music as well as contemporary music and I understand have expanded on the playing techniques of the koto – first by using extended techniques, but more importantly, by building a Laser Koto. For those who don’t know, can you tell us about the koto and how you developed it? What is the Laser Koto and how does it work?

Miya Masaoka: Sometimes various events, thoughts and inspiration converge in particular ways, and evolve over a period of time, I would say this was the case for the Laser Koto. For many years I had been trying to develop ways of extending the koto electronically –and continue to do so— and along these lines I was an aritist in residence at STEIM in Amsterdam and worked with Matt Wright at CNMAT to develop ways of building an interface for real time processing and sampling using gestural controllers and other ways of capturing and modifying sound. We recorded and mapped 900 koto samples that could be accessed in various ways... Continue reading on Networked_Music_Review >>. Ask Miya questions until July 7, 2007.

Posted by jo at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

1001 nights cast

# 700 Tonight!

1001 nights cast Performance # 700 will be on May 21 at 9:30pm from Madrid.

That is: 8:30pm in London and Lisbon; 3:30pm in New York, Montreal and Bogota; 12:30pm in Los Angeles; 10:30pm in Beirut, Jerusalem, Istanbul; May 22, 3:30am in Hong Kong and Perth; May 22, 6:30am in Sydney; May 22, 7.30am in Auckland.

Since the 600 milestone in February, these new contributors have joined the team: Sheila Ghelani (London), Derville Quigley (Dublin), Maria Miranda (Sydney), Norie Newmark (Sydney), Ruth Watson (Auckland), Christopher de Bono (New York), Arnold Zable (Melbourne), Jordan Peimer (Los Angeles), Peter S. Petralia (London), Catherine Lord (Los Angeles), Adrian Heathfield (London), Sara Jane Bailes (Bristol), Karen Christopher (Chicago), Rinne Groff (New York) and Rebecca Schneider (New York). Many many thanks to these and all the other contributing writers.

Posted by jo at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)

P.Art.y 2007: Network Performance

LAST CALL FOR PROJECTS

P.Art.y [People, Art & Technology] :: 3 day festival for live performance, media arts and electronic music :: Organized by ART CENTER NABI, Seoul, Korea :: September 14-16, 2007 :: Deadline: May 31 :: First Prize: $5,000 (US)

Art Center Nabi, a leading media art institute in Seoul, Korea, is organizing P.Art.y, 3 days’ festival for live performance, exhibition, screening, seminar, and workshop in September 2007. All the creative energies at the intersection between arts and technology will gather and explore new landscape of arts in technological era.

Highlighting live and multi-modal experience in arts making and its reception, P.Art.y will present media performances by Korean and internationally-renowned sound, visual, and performing artists. Responding to a changing data flow and the real-time transmission of information, works of our time are often dynamically open-ended. This open structure of arts foregrounds the live, here and now, and improvisational aesthetics, which harks back to the early network art, Global Grove by Nam June Paik in 1973.

Opening up new artistic and cultural outlets in Seoul, P.Art.y will be a platform for gathering, networking, exchange and inspiration for the people who are in the fields of media arts, electronic music, performing arts, popular culture and other cross-disciplinary creative practices emerged in the networked environment.

CATEGORY: Network Performance :: Physical world and virtual space meet and bring out new interactions. The concept of ‘here and now’ has been questioned, reinterpreted, and reconstructed. Especially the technological progress in so-called ubiquitous computing and pervasive network has opened up new creative platforms for the performative experiences. At P.Art.y, artists, audience and all other participants will share the moment of live event where the existing notions of space and time are put in flux and new communities evolve.

We are looking for fresh and original projects that are relating but not limited to the following examples:

_Live performance with real-time communication, impromptu actions, interactions, audience participation
_Sound-visual performance using diverse network technologies such as radio, internet, mobile, and wireless
_Performative project that explores multi-sensory experience
_Investigations onto the city streets and alternative use of public spaces
_Project incorporating street culture such as skate boarding, graffiti, or dérive activity
_Mobile or locative media-based performance
_Telematic or mixed reality gaming
_Performance using interactive instrument and participatory installation

PRIZE & JURY

_PRIZE

1. 1st winner will be awarded with $ 5,000 USD. Traveling and technical support will be additionally offered for the realization of the proposal at P.Art.y 2007 in Seoul.

2. Other selected works (total numbers not determined) will be invited to P.Art.y 2007. Traveling and technical support will be offered.

_JURY: An international panel of jurors will conduct selection procedure:

Julian Bleecker (US), Professor of Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinematic Arts
Jo-Anne Green (US), Co-director of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. and Turbulence.org.
Drew Hemment (United Kingdom), Director of FutureSonic Festival and Future Everything
Gunalan Nadarajan (Singapore), Festival Director of ISEA 2008, Singapore
Soh Yeong Roh (Korea), Director of Art Center Nabi

_SELECTION CRITERIA

1. Theme relevance: Project should relate to the theme of network performance.
2. Originality: Project should address unique issues and take original approaches.
3. Creative use of the medium: Project should make creative re-use of high and low technologies. Interactive and participatory aspects will be highly scored.
4. Practical feasibility: Project should be in realizable and reasonable scope financially as well as technically.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

_HOW TO APPY

1. All the applicants must register and submit materials via online platform.
2. Biography, project proposal, and other supporting materials (image, sound, movie files) should be uploaded in appropriate format indicated in each section.
Go to http://www.nabi.or.kr/party2007_submission to complete your submission.

Note1: Pre-realized work will be also taken into account only when it is redesigned, upgraded or in different version. In this case, previous versions should be clearly indicated with the information about the exhibitions or events of its previous presentation.
Note2: Awarded works in other festival or competition are not eligible for apply.
Note3: Submitted materials shall not be returned.

_IMPORTANT DATES

Deadline: May 31
Announcement: June 30
(Winner and selected works will be contacted by email and announced at the website.)
P.Art.y 2007: September 14-16, 2007

CONTACT: For more information about the competition, please visit www.nabi.or.kr/party2007.
General info: party[at]nabi.or.kr
Tel: +82-2-2121-0915

Art Center Nabi
99 Seorin-dong, Jongro-ku, SK bldg. 4th fl. Seoul, Korea 110-110

Posted by jo at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)

Anne-Sarah Le Meur

# Eureka + Eye-Ocean

Anne-Sarah Le Meur will present at Eureka: The Moment of Invention, a dialogue between art and science, May 31, 2007.

Eye-Ocean--experimental real time 3D--is on line for 5 days. It is a mono-screen version of an immersive and interactive 3D artwork, Into the Hollow of Darkness, based on exploration and contemplation of non realistic light phenomena in computer generated image. The images are abstract but organic, metaphors of a world both cellular and cosmic, very carnal, so minimal that they become archaïc, a sort of pre-semantic vision (before language). Eye-Ocean is part of the Abbaye de Maubuisson at Contemporary art center in Val-d’Oise during Nuit Blanche on the October 6, 2007.

Posted by jo at 08:21 AM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2007

404 FESTIVAL - ON TOUR / EUROPE 2007

Einstein's Brain Project

[left: Alan Dunning, Paul Woodrow, The Einstein's Brain Project: The Errant Eye, 1997-2001. Virtual reality installation. The participant navigates around a recognizable visual environment, a forest whose outline faded into an abstract visual universe reflecting the variations in biological signals processed in real time by a computer module.]

Astas Romas & 404 Festival decided to launch a European Tour that begins on May 31, 2007. Directors and team of the "404 Festival" will be visiting cultural centers, public and alternative places performing live concerts, projections and conferences, also presenting "404 selected" artworks from international authors. Artists from different countries will join this tour, such as SadMb (Japan), Synchdub (Belgium), Sample Mousse (Finland), Guillermo Giampietro & Lara Baracetti (Italy), Einstein's Brain Project (Canada), Vladimir Manovski and Aleksandar Secerov (Serbia), Miha Ciglar (Slovenia), among others.

"...The cycle of installations in The Einstein's Brain Project (1995-2001) is a major technological detour for Dunning that, nonetheless, re-examines his past conceptual concerns. In this long-term project begun in 1995 with Paul Woodrow and a team of scientists from different fields, Dunning probes the new epistemological models that have developed thanks to technological advances in virtual reality.

The artificial worlds summoned up by the immersive universes often rekindle the presuppositions of a naturalistic project whose aim is to simulate familiar experiences. The interfaces created by Dunning and Woodrow propose a critical counterbalance to the withdrawal to the Cartesian universe. In the wake of recent research in cognitive science, the two men are interested in how biological and brain processes shape our perception of the world.

[Left: Diagram showing the way biological data gathered in real time on the participant's body is altering the display parameters of a three-dimensional virtual universe.] An initial series of installations completed between 1997 and 2001 explored popular culture's fascination with the human brain. Evidence of this fascination is found in Roland Barthes's essay on the fetishism of Einstein's brain, a reflection that serves as a critical point of reference for the installations in this body of work. By reactivating obsolete systems of representation (phrenology, eugenics, etc.), this series also underlines the impact of pseudo-scientific projections on our knowledge of the body and psyche.

In The Fall, The Furnace, The Flesh (1997), (7) participants underwent a sort of ritual as they crossed through a curtain made up of thin vinyl strips. These strips served as a screen for projecting an image of a blazing fire. Participants found themselves in a cubic space defined by four screens. In the middle of the space was an anatomically correct model of the human head covered with touch-sensitive pads (audio-digital). The location of the 55 pads replicated the brain map developed by the phrenologists Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Spurzheim. In the Victorian age, studying the skull's contours over these zones supposedly revealed a person's character traits and psychological predispositions. Dunning recycled the paradigm of phrenology as a means of accessing the installation's touch-sensitive interface. As participants pressed the pads, a series of video segments were projected on the wall. These segments, which came from various sources, showed irreconcilable objects and events that evoked the series of random associations produced by the brain as it assembles fragments of stored memory. Here, the unconscious content could not easily be distinguished from fragments of images from the media sphere. Images appeared erratically: a lunar eclipse, close-ups of the body, a political demonstration, a hall in a museum, a text flashing at a dizzying speed, barely perceptible abstract images. With the combination of images almost infinite, the screen constantly offered new sequences of juxtaposed images.

[Left: Alan Dunning, Paul Woodrow, The Einstein's Brain Project: The Furnace, 1997-1999. Video and sound installation with interactive components. Segments, from various sources, showing irreconcilable objects and events evoking the series of random associations produced by the brain as it assembles fragments of stored memory. Excerpt of the video documentary The Einstein's Brain Project, The Errant Eye, The Furnace, 1998-1999. Go here and click on the first segment under "Multimedia."]

The virtual environment installations The Errant Eye (1997-2001) and The Madhouse (2001) delved into Dunning and Woodrow's premise that the image captured on the retina doesn't always converge with brain activity. In The Errant Eye, the biological data gathered in real time on the participant's body altered the display parameters of a three-dimensional virtual universe. The participant donned a head-mounted display equipped with encephalogram electrodes that recorded the changing amplitude of brainwaves from the brain's right and left sides. The participant then navigated around a recognizable visual environment, a forest whose outline faded into an abstract visual universe reflecting the variations in biological signals processed in real time by a computer module. Once the feedback process reached the balance sought, the participant could recognize recurring motifs that corresponded to certain types of reactions and perceptions.

The Madhouse (2001), which was presented at the gallery Oboro (Montreal, Canada) in 2001, allowed participants to pool their individual perceptions as they experimented simultaneously with feedback. A luminous life-size cast of the human body lay in the centre of a room and was surrounded by participants in an immersive state. The participants touched the surface of the body, which stored and displayed their handprints and fingerprints as if which stored and displayed their handprints and fingerprints as if the body's material presence were providing them with a kind of anchorage in the physical world. Behind their displays, the participants were catapulted into a virtual world, while viewers on the periphery could observe their erratic gestures, which resembled the spasms of mental patients (hence the work's title). Through this sharing of the immersive experience, which is often deemed autarchic, Dunning and Woodrow's project created a more complex model of a virtual community that didn't exclude the body of the participants.

A series of installations in development will further explore technological and conceptual aspects begun within The Einstein's Brain Project. Under the working title (WIW), Worlds in Worlds, Dunning plans to put together an immersive environment whose boundaries will be defined by the real dimensions of the room the participant is in. Dunning is also interested in the Anatomically Lifelike Biological Interface, which operates via a model reproducing certain bio-anatomical functions. In this vein, he is pursing research on the properties of ferrofluids, liquid matter that can be altered by an electromagnetic field and modified by biological signals from the human body.

V.B. © 2002 Fondation Daniel Langlois

Posted by jo at 01:37 PM | Comments (0)

m-cult news 05/07

Urban TV, Participatory Politics +

M2HZ tests underway: M2HZ, the Helsinki-based urban television project is performing tests in May 14-20, 2007. The test broadcast aims to demonstrate a new type of open television in Finland, where local and public access tv is close to nonexistent. The M2HZ model is based on distributed production for a multi-channel transmission platform.

M2HZ is a collaboration between dozens of media, arts and civil organisations, who wish to affect the media landscape and find new audiences. Over 300 people have contributed their voices, insights and work to the development which kicked off in late 2005.

The test week's days are themed around debates on television and media criticism, local and global issues, live and media art, and the public domain. Throughout the week we follow the Sound & Fury of young bands, the events in the Kallio Kukkii neighbourhood festival, exercises by the Hunger theatre, and short films by media artists and students.

The programme is mostly in Finnish but also includes the first international exchanges: the new film Faceless by Manu Luksch and a retrospective of work by the Swedish Rafilm collective.

The test uses the digital tv and streaming platform of DINA tv, a cable channel of media schools. First tests for digital antenna (DVB-T) and mobile (DVB-H) distribution are performed with the VTT Technical Research Centre and the FinPilot2 project. Other key partners are the Youth Centre of Helsinki, Stadia polytechnic, and Otaniemi Underground Broadcasting System OUBS, the live-in television station of engineering students. M2HZ is coordinated by m-cult and supported by the Uusimaa Regional Council.

Participatory politics: m-cult and the Democracy Unit of the Ministry of Justice realize a workshop on participatory politics and foresight on June 8, 2007. The workshop gathers researchers, decision-makers and NGO representatives to discuss experiences of participatory forums and web tools to support deliberative democracy. Visiting experts are Lars Klüver (Danish Board of Technology) and Richard Rogers (University of Amsterdam / govcom.org).

The aim of the workshop is to find new methods, processes and tools for democracy. A special challenge is to bring citizen's views to affect the early phases of government and technology programmes.

m-cult at Pocketfilms: The Forum des Images has invited m-cult to present work on mobile and urban media at the Pocketfilms festival, Paris June 8-10, 2007. At the Pompidou centre, m-cult presentation includes Heidi Tikka's project Situations, the Mobicast project by Adam Hyde and the mobile production experiments realized within M2HZ.

Posted by jo at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

The Showroom: Props, events, encounters: the performance of new sculpture

Conference

The Showroom: Props, events, encounters: the performance of new sculpture :: Two-part conference at the Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, London E2 7ES :: Saturday 26 May 10.00 – 17.00hrs :: Keynote speakers: Joan Jonas, Andrea Phillips, Jan Verwoert :: Artists: Matti Braun, Pablo Bronstein, Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan :: Chair: Sally Tallant

Props, events, encounters: the performance of new sculpture takes its cue from Mike Kelley’s description of the inherent structure at work in the objects that he uses in his performances. He ascribes to these objects a self-governing ordering system that is enacted as they appear in his work, a system that differentiates between objects that stay in the background, contextualising objects and those that will be active within the performance itself.

This one-day conference seeks to examine the emergence of forms in contemporary art in which objects are imbued with a theatrical status, but which avoid a return to Michael Fried’s famous distaste for theatricality in minimalist sculpture. Whilst previous generations of artists might be said to have sought a set of phenomenological relations, now artists form autonomous systems, enlivened in some capacity by the entry of a viewer. These objects attest to philosophies of emergence as well as affect, gift economies as well as forms of magical thinking, the existence of different, perhaps utopian or perhaps avowedly anti-social spaces and times. In these environments the viewer is no longer subservient to the object but is granted instead a personal autonomy. Some of these objects stand in for complex systems of rhetoric, others are simply props in a private theatre in which stories may or may not be revealed to the viewer. Many of these objects, left behind in the gallery, are residues of past events, imbued with the melancholia of lost opportunities. Others are detritus, arranged not so simply.

Props, events, encounters… seeks to address the following questions:
• How are contemporary artists changing the status of the object in their work?
• How might these modifications be aided – and abetted – by the presence of the viewer?
• How do such shifts in attitudes towards objects reflect a changing politics in the status of contemporary ‘sculpture’?

To reserve your ticket please call the gallery as soon as possible on +44 (0)208 983 4115.

Props, events, encounters: the performance of new sculpture is generously supported by The Henry Moore Foundation and Outset.

Posted by jo at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2007

paraflows 07 - annual convention for digital arts and cultures

Proposals due JUNE 15: PARAFLOWS 07, the annual convention for digital arts and cultures in Vienna, is taking place for the first time, it features an exhibition, a symposium, workshops, and various social events. The topic of the 2nd annual convention for digital arts and cultures in the city of Vienna is UN_SPACE.

"A body is defined by having length, width and depth." (Euclid)

In his Philosophy of Nature, Aristotle employs the three dimensions of the body as the basis for his theory of space. For Aristotle, space is the sum of all places occupied by bodies. Space is defined as the limit of the surrounding body toward what is surrounded. This is a theory of relations by which Aristotle rejects the definition of space as the void. Empty space is an impossibility since space is always occupied and there can be no in between.

If aside from the space a body occupies an empty space existed which it enters, empty space and occupied space would overlap, resulting in an unnecessary duplication of space" (Aristotle, Physics).

This year's Paraflows exhibition, titled UN_SPACE, is going to focus on inaccessible, invisible, theoretical, and immaterial space per se. Virtual spaces - a prominent issue in media and net art - as well as social and personal space dimensions and territories (see Erving Goffman, Territorien des Selbst) and real spaces like architectonic, geographic, or elementary, are to be compiled, visualised, and discussed according to their characteristics, their meaning, and their respective insufficiencies.

We also think of UN_SPACE as the elimination of distances, borders and barriers interfering with cultural, social, political and media reality. Concepts dealing with the development of inaccessible territories, technical approaches and theoretical attempts are key aspects of this year's exhibition. Please submit proposals featuring contemporary artworks dealing with the topics mentioned above.

All proposals must be submitted via mail as PDF-files: un_space(at)paraflows.at

in special cases via snail mail to:

paraflows
paraflows headoffice
c/o monochrom
QDK, Museumsplatz 1
A-1070 Vienna
AUSTRIA

Mandatory information for submissions to PARAFLOWS 07 - UN_SPACE:

1) name, institution (if existing), address, e-mail, phone number, website/s
2) submitted work: title, medium, author/artist, year of production
3) work description: 1 page max., photos are recommended
4) technical details, room/space requirements, technical requirements(hardware, operating system, additional software)
5) additional information
6) biography
7) documentation of earlier projects and works (url, website will do)

Language: all submissions have to be in ENGLISH or GERMAN, projects dealing with text must have English and/or German subtitles

We especially encourage international submissions.

DEADLINE: 15th of June, 2007

paraflows 07 / CONTACT
office(at)paraflows.at
Festival-Management: Judith Fegerl, Guenther Friesinger
Office: paraflows headoffice
c/o monochrom
A-1070 Vienna, Museumsplatz 1, Austria
+43/650/20 49 451

Posted by jo at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)

Art Action Festival

Poetic performance and Action Art: Over the past 30 years, Action Art found fertile fields of confluence between the experimentation on vision and gesture and poetic-visual sound dramaturgy. Most of this research was characterized by the connection between Performance Art , “total poetry” and the nomadism of the performer that restlessly shifts through linguistic fields just like through geographic territories and varied socio-cultural circles. This year Harta Performing stresses the concept of nomadism perceived as the key element in the performer work. In the theoretical intervention opening the fifth edition of the festival, great attention will be given to the dialectic of relationships “between spiritus and corpus, subject and object, imagination and reality, thought and action, private and public, local and global, specific and total, project and performance”.

As stated by Giovanni Fontana “on these oppositions, a fluctuating dynamics takes shape, it holds up the energy and matter continuum in which action is strenuously built. The body energy is used to get rid of imposed references and directions and to generate new situations; it continuously breaks the temporary balances and favours the construction of interlinguistic and intermedial systems that influence the dynamics of the elements involved.”

The international festival “ART ACTION - Harta Performing Monza ”, unanimously considered one of the most interesting events in the framework of international Art innovation, is a significant point of reference for cultural exchange. After the success of the previous editions, this year the festival offers to the city of Monza not only a comparison between the new arts but also an opportunity to reflect on one of the most pressing and thrilling issues of the theoretical debate: the meaning and the creation techniques of the “plural work”, true action field of the polyartist , “who can play his cards right between poetry and cinema, theatre and music, dance and visual arts”.

PROGRAMMA

Giovedi 24 Maggio
ore 21 intervento teorico

di Giovanni Fontana
(Nomadismo e tensioni performative)

dalle ore 21,30 alle 24 performances di:

Boris Nieslony (Germania),
Victor Petrov (Bielorussia),
Denis Romanovski (Bielorussia),
Ryszard Lugowski (Polonia),

Venerdi 25 Maggio
dalle ore 21 alle 24 performances di:

John G.Boehme (Canada),
Giovanni Fontana (Italia),
Jan Swidzinski (Polonia),
Luigi Bianco (Italia),

Sabato 26 Maggio
dalle ore 21 alle 24 performances di:

Helge Meyer (Germania),
Gruppo Sinestetico (Italia),
Angelo Pretolani (italia),
Llewyn Maire e Lisa Newman (USA)

Posted by jo at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)

256²

Intervention in Public Space 2007

256² is an intervention in Public Space. In this temporary piece the outline of the virtual NewBerlin in Second Life was marked by Aram Bartholl in physical space at Alexanderplatz Berlin, 15.03.2007.

Jan Northoff and Tobias Neisecke from YOUseeMEin3D.com had the vision to rebuild Berlin entirely in Second Life (they have a reservation on over 3000 Sims!). In spring 2007 they started to build the center of NewBerlin in Second Life. The TV tower at Alexanderplatz is right in the middle of the first Sim. Sim (Simulator) is the land unit of Second Life with a size of 256 x 256 meter in virtual space. But a Sim is not just a square surface in virtual space. In terms of software and hardware each Sim is a seperate instance. One Sim and all action on this Sim is hosted by one server. Also the billing model of Linden Labs, the company who is running Second Life is based on that unit.

The owner of a Sim in Second Life is in control of many functions and properties of that "land": When is night- and when is daylight? May any visitors of that sim create objects? Will these objects stay on that sim? Is health/damage activated? (Avatars can die)... and many more options.

The idea of the public intervention "256²" was to make the first Sim of Second Life's NewBerlin visible in real life Public Space at Alexanderplatz Berlin. Equiped with 64 pieces of plain chalk ( 1piece of chalk = 16 m, 64 pieces = 1024 m) Aram Bartholl drew the outline of this 256 x 256 meter square in public space. The line of chalk, representing the virtual copy of Alexanderplatz crossed a McDonalds, a Church, two housing blocks, a trainstation and a mall, among other objects and surfaces.

"256²" is produced in cooperation with Jan Northoff and Tobias Neisecke from YOUseeMEin3D.com, Thanks to the team for documentation and support.

Posted by jo at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)

Social Tapestries

Conversations and Connections Report

A report (by Kevin Harris and Giles Lane) on the Conversations and Connections project in the Havelock Estate in Southall, is now available to download. It explores the challenges we encountered and the solutions we developed in researching what public authoring could offer for community cohesion and democratic engagement in a low income social housing scheme with serious problems of institutional neglect and low opportunity. In evaluating the project's impact and achievements it offers some key lessons and policy messages for trying to stimulate participation and engagement through technological innovation. The project was funded by an Innovation Grant from the Electoral Policy Division of the Ministry of Justice (formerly the Department for Constitutional Affairs).

http://socialtapestries.net/havelock/ST_Conversations_MoJReport.pdf

A bound version is also available to buy from the Proboscis Store for £5.00 plus postage and packing.

Posted by jo at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)

Mediamatic ARDUINO BASIC & BLUETOOTH WORKSHOP

Call for Participants

ARDUINO BASIC & BLUETOOTH WORKSHOP; DIY wireless interative networking for artists & designers :: 11 | 12 & 13 | 14 | 15 June 2007 :: Mediamatic Amsterdam.

Arduino is an affordable computing platform which is particularly useful for designers and artists who want to build small interactive projects. Arduino takes input from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other outputs. In this workshop you will learn how to work with the basic and the wireless Arduino.

WORKSHOP APPROACH: We offer a 5-day workshop. Depending on your experience you can also register only for the first two, or only for the last three days. We start with a 2-day introduction to Arduino (11 | 12 June), for those who haven't worked with Arduino's before. We will work on the basic USB Arduino, the lay-out of the board, how to connect hardware and some basic programming skills.

In the following days (13 | 14 | 15 June) we will deal with more advanced versions and uses, including Bluetooth Arduino's and the programming possibilities with Pure Data. In these three days you will work on your own small prototype of a wireless Arduino application.

TARGET GROUP: Art students, product developers, computer scientists, hardware hackers, nerds, dancers - everyone is welcome. However, note that some technical affinity is required. Some experience in programming and electronics will come in useful, specifically in soldering and java, but is not strictly necessary. We advise you to download the Arduino software and have a look at http://www.arduino.cc before.

TRAINERS: Ubi de Feo (It) will lead the first days of the workshop. Massimo Banzi (It), who invented Arduino, is present during the last two days.

INFORMATION & REGISTRATION: Check the full programme. For more information about this workshop call Deborah Meibergen of Klaas Kuitenbrouwer + 31 (0)20 6389901 or workshops[at]mediamatic.net. Register here.

LOCATION: Mediamatic is located in the centre of Amsterdam, Oosterdokskade 5, fifth floor, 1011 AD Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

COSTS: 5 days EUR 200,- | 3 days EUR 125,- | 2 days EUR 100,- (incl. VAT).
Including coffee, tea, juice, fruit and cookies but without lunch.

Posted by jo at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)

KeepVid

freeing web video from the streaming corporations

'Broadband' basically was implemented to bring video on the web. The pioneer stamp-sized quicktime shorts and the uncertainty of compression that often corrupted the frames reproduction was suddenly something of the past. YouTube was the successfull repository of choice, winning the bet for the most popular platform. But then the huge mass of video were uploaded (given) and locked in different proprietary streaming formats, to the now Google-owned company and to its galaxy of specialized clones, making their fortune. KeepVid is one of the different tools that let you download a video from there, getting back what others have, in a way, lost. So, what it means to own the file, instead of just watching it while it streams? It's not related to some kind of collector's obsessions, of course. It means to re-appropiate the possibility of sharing it, re-broadcasting it (in private and public) without the mandatory logo and platform server's access. Sharing it's a concept that doesn't need limitations, and the word 'business' is not present in its definition. And if you can watch it, you can record your own personal copy and give it along to somebody else. - Neural.

Posted by jo at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2007

Men in the Wall

Men in the Wall by Liz Aggiss and Billy Cowie :: Opening Reception: Wednesday, June 20, 7 – 10 pm :: Artist Talk 7:30 p.m :: Installation runs June 20 – 30 :: 1639 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404 :: FREE admission :: 310-453-3711.

Men in the Wall is a four-screen, 3-dimensional stereoscopic video dance installation. Special stereoscopic glasses will be provided to watch this 3D world of four men, who share their framed lives in a public quartet while retaining their private differences. The piece runs on a continuous 25-minute loop and will be projected from four different projectors onto the wall.

Billy Cowie and Liz Aggiss principally work together in the area of dance/theatre performance, screen dance and installation. They have made over thirty live performance pieces for their company Divas Dance Theatre, have toured Europe extensively and completed four major screen projects (two BBC Dance for Camera commissions and two ACE Capture projects).

They have created commissioned work for 'Extemporary Dance Theatre',' Mantis', 'Transitions', 'Intoto', 'Carousel' and 'Hi Spin'. Aggis and Cowie’s dance screen work has received numerous international awards including: Czech Crystal, Prague Golden Film Festival (2002); Special Jury Golden Award, Houston (2003); Best Female Film, Mediawaves Hungary (2003); and the Romanian National Office of Cinematography Award (2003). A book about their work entitled Anarchic Dance was published by Routledge in January 2006.

Billy Cowie has composed music performed by Marie McLaughlin, Nicola Hall, Gerard McChrystal, Daphne Scott-Sawyer, Juliet Russell, Rowan Godel, Pammjit Pammi and Naomi Itami. He has also composed music for three BBC Radio projects: 'The Tempest', Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials Trilogy' (both dir by David Hunter) and Thinking Earth (dir Pam Marshall). He has also composed music for film directors Tony Palmer, Chris Rodley, Stephen Frears and Bob Bently. Billy Cowie is currently Principle Research Fellow at the University of Brighton.

Liz Aggiss is a performer/choreographer/film-maker and has received numerous awards including the Bonnie Bird Choreography Award (1994) and the Arts Council Dance Fellowship Award (2003). She has written for Dance Theatre Journal and animated and is currently Professor of Visual Performance at the University of Brighton.

Posted by jo at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)

darkmatter Journal-Issue: 1 May 2007

Celebrity Big Brother

"The banality of the UK Celebrity Big Brother (CBB) reality television show prepared no one for the global media spectacle of the fracas between the b-list Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty and the d(?)-list British super-ignoramus Jade Goody.1 To debate whether the exchanges between an Indian Actress and a white working-class ex-Big Brother participant (and her co-conspirators) wasn’t a racist confrontation simply denies the multiplicity of racisms of British life. Contrary to Germaine Greer’s2 insistence that Shetty vs. Goody exposed class rather than racial antagonisms, the aftermath of CBB raises more complex issues: What does the CBB media stampede say about the discourse of local-global race, gender and class relations? Is Reality TV the political unconscious of everyday repressed racisms? Does the ‘victory’ for Shetty indicate the triumph of anti-racism and/or multicultural neo-liberalism? These are some of many of the issues which have motivated the production of the first Journal Issue of darkmatter in the form of a series of dialogues interrogating CBB...

...darkmatter is an experiment in creating a collective ‘prosthetic race memory’ that reconfigures the circuits of knowledge and power, in a situation where at present the blinding whiteness of network culture continues to make most of the people on the planet invisible. It seems appropriate for darkmatter to emerge at a time where a eurocentric media culture is reproducing itself as the champion of anti-racism, while simultaneously denying the central role of racism in the terrain of contemporary geo-politics. CBB was a minor symptom of the new digital politics of race to come." From Editorial: Celebrity Big Brother dialogues - the global pantomime of race.

Posted by jo at 06:28 PM | Comments (0)

In The Country of Last Refuge

Call for Work

OPEN CALL: In The Country of Last Refuge: A mash-up, on urbanism, communication (and its breakdown, on an intimate and global level) violence and geography :: by Emma Wilcox and Evonne Davis :: With full color illustrated, perfect bound catalog :: Gallery Aferro, Newark NJ:: Submissions in any and all media due Aug 15.

Urbanism :: Vitality :: Paranoia :: Transformation :: Endurance :: Communication :: Perception :: Geography :: Isolation :: Memory :: Justice :: Violence :: Action :: Indifference

Notification by Sep 1 Delivery by Sep 29. Materials for catalog may be requested earlier than work delivery. In the Country of Violence will be on display at Gallery Aferro, Newark NJ, October 2007.

In The Country of Last Things 2004
In The Country of Last Things 4-Ever 2006
In the Country of Last Refuge 2007

Please refer to exhibition guidelines on website.

Please email work to mapsandguns[at]gmail.com or mail work to Emma Wilcox Gallery Aferro 248 Sherman ave #43 NY NY 10034

The mission of Gallery Aferro is to bring cultural education and esthetic engagement with contemporary issues to all people equally, and to create an environment where artists can gather and share physical and intellectual resources. We are working towards an arts community that is available to everyone, without sacrificing standards or quality of experience. Founded in a converted factory building in the Ironbound, Gallery Aferro was planned as a pilot project to be recreated in different architectural forms, in multiple American cities. Gallery Aferro is currently being run out of a 20,000 sq ft building in downtown Newark.

Posted by jo at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)

iMagine: A workshop envisioning the potencies of

artistic creativity for producing social reality

iMagine: A workshop envisioning the potencies of artistic creativity for producing social reality :: May 17-19, 2007 :: CAC Vilnius.

iMagine is the second event in the series of Public Preparation project: the public preparation phase for the upcoming Biennale of Young Artists in Tallinn in October 2007. Public Preparation is a sequence of informal encounters which at the same time constitutes the publicly visible preparation process of the Biennale as well as the course of preparing and educating the public for the Biennale.

3-day-workshop iMagine gathers ca 30 art professionals from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Each workshop day will be conducted by one contemporary art professional and enacted by all participants. It is aimed to become a 'total environment' with its own rules, obstructions and ways to generate meanings and ideas. iMagine focuses on discussion, exchanging ideas and sharing opinions rather than producing art objects.

The workshop will be structured as a non-hierarchical knowledge-oriented environment that will develop ideas and ideals regarding the role of artists in contemporary society. The workshop will deal with issues like the concepts of "legality" and "illegality" in creative practice; the consequences of psychoanalytic theory for art and politics; the role and limits of exhibition format etc.

iMagine also serves as a meeting machine for younger generation art
professionals based in Baltic States and Poland. We would like to imagine iMagine as a huge warm swimming pool full of progressive ideas, coffee breaks, topical topics of contemporary art, younger generation art professionals, provoking questions, experience of collective working practice and participation, relevant theories, and contacts of new friends and collaborators.

Tutors: Aaron Schuster, philosopher and art critic, Brussels; Simon Sheikh, curator, Berlin/Copenhagen; Mara Traumane, curator, Berlin/Riga.

iMagine is organised in collaboration with Biennale of Young Artists, Tallinn, CAC Vilnius and CAIC Vilnius.

The team of organisers: Rael Artel (independent curator, co-curator of the Biennale of Young Artists, Public Preparation, Pdrnu); Virginija Januskeviciute (Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius); Airi Triisberg (freelance researcher, co-organiser of Public Preparation, Berlin); Dovile Tumpyte (Contemporary Art Information Centre of Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius).

iMagine was kindly supported by Centre for Contemporary Arts, Estonia
Estonian Cultural Endowment, Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts.

Posted by jo at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)

Indymedia Needs You

Dissent G8: The next G8 is on our doorsteps, starting with a big demonstration on June 2nd in Rostock, in less than 3 weeks. Most Indymedia websites have reported about the wave of repression that hit the German protest preparation last week. We were glad to see so much care and attention all over the network. There will be one week of actions and protests; there will be many, many media activists and we want to invite you to join us, in Rostock or wherever you are, doing the many things Indymedia's good at: independent, alternative coverage of big protests.

1. Where: There will be two physical media centres, one in a school in a Rostock city district called 'Evershagen', a bit to the north-west of the city centre, on the way to Heiligendamm. Here there will also be offices of other groups such as demonstration organisers, blockades, camps, but also a convergence centre, accomodation, information points and food.

The second media centre will be in the city centre of Rostock, smaller and mostly for less public video and audio production, likely with a little public access space. More info here which will be updated regularly. We are hoping to be able to provide public access computers in the camps. At the moment three camps are secured. More info here and a map here. The radio broadcasting van of Radio "Unerh Marburg" will be at the camp in Reddelich, which will also be a main access point for activists. There may be another media bus, from the Netherlands, either at this or another camp.

2. When

The week of action will start on June 2nd with a big demonstration, and is likely to finish on Friday, June 8th, when the summit is over. More on the 'choreography' of the actions.

3. Who

Indymedia is one part of the media activism in Rostock; there are other groups too. We're collaborating closely, but we're not the same. Don't be surprised when some prefer not to be labeled Indymedia! What we have agreed on is the term "Independent Media Centre' (which in German is "Unabhngiges Medienzentrum" and so sounds completely different. Slightly bizarre, but nothing but a local specialty. We do like each other). More details below, in the Contact section.

4 How

* subscribe to the imc-g8 list or imc-g8-2007 and the g8-mediaactivism list;

* have a look at our wiki pages (far from complete);

* find us on IRC: irc.indymedia.org #g8 (see this to learn how to use IRC);

* for mail that shouldn't be publicly archived contact indymedia at imc-g8[at]lists.so36.net

* Radio: jetsam[at]nadir.org and g8[at]freie-radios.de (en/fr/es/de), phone: 0049 (0)381 490 95 70, fax: 0049 (0)180 502 11 21 32 60, http://radioforum.fm

* Video: videoactivism(at)nadir.org, http://www.videoactivism.de/g8.html and http://g8-tv.org

* Foto: g8-foto[at]riseup.net

* Translations: if you want to help do translations or co-ordinate translations, please contact translation[at]lists.indymedia.org or subscribe to http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/translation

5. What we need your help with

Generally speaking, we need support with all aspects of media activism: editorial, print, supporting the public access spaces, translations, radio, dispatch, tech, video etc. because we do have the impression this is going to be BIG! Details and workspace on the wiki here. We will also need quite a few people ready to help out with very basic things such as doing the helpdesk at the entrance of the media centre(s), preparing information about how we work (see https://g8.indymedia.org.uk/Main_Page#G8_Reporting_Guides), preferably in a way that can easily be printed and hung on the walls of the IMCs.

What we would like to know more specifically is:

- - Who will be coming and what are you planning to do?

- - We will be doing multilingual reporting on the German Indymedia website. See the coordination page here. So we are wondering what the best way would be to make languages 'available', other than English and German. As there is no one Italian website anymore, nor one central French or Spanish language website, do you think it makes more sense to collect material in these languages on the German website, with your support, similar to http://de.indymedia.org/en/ for English or maybe just a category? Or would you rather do this on different websites? And if yes, which?

Which other languages will be interested/worth doing?

We will need more website editors, please get in touch if you are interested.

- - Can you bring hardware? There is a general lack, and more specifically a need for video and audio editing computers.

- - The current plans for video coverage and radios are being prepared by groups with very specific concepts (see below). What we don't have so far are people/groups who would like to offer places for video and radio activists 'in an indymedia style', basically areas in the imc for them, organising for computers that can be used for this, preparing support and some kind of collective atmosphere for video/radio activists to feel 'at home'. If you would like to feel responsible for this. please let us know.

6. Donations

There is a major financial deficit at the moment, we're lacking 11,000. Please help and ask for donations in any possible way!

To: Netzwerk Selbsthilfe e.V.
Bank: Bank f=C3=BCr Sozialwirtschaft
IBAN: DE46100205000003029803
BIC: BFSWDE33BER

Subject: Medienzentrum G8

For money transfers inside the EU free of charge, if you want to donate from outside the EU, please get in touch.

7. General information

This is an excerpt from the general info brochure that will be distributed everywhere and will contain information on all parts of the protests:

The Independent Media Centre (IMC) is a media collective which will be organising reporting on the official G8 summit, the alternative summit and, of course, the protests. The IMC promotes a method of reporting which does not treat news as goods. Instead, it is about grassroots reporting, by the people involved in the protests themselves, by you!

DON'T HATE THE MEDIA - BE THE MEDIA!

We want to offer you the possibility to publish your observations and experiences in the form of text, images, audio or video clips; directly from the streets, to disseminate all over the world. Don't wait for the news industry to spin out stories about your life and our movements; instead, help create and determine the news and, together, we can tell the 'people's news' by making the stories ourselves!

This is how it works at the G8 2007:

The IMC is located at the protest centre in the Evershagen school, together with the convergence centre. Here, in the camps and in the 2nd media centre in Rostock City (Friedrichstr. 23), we will set up computers with public access. Just look out for the ((i)) sign! You can use these computers to write your texts and upload your reports with or without photos. If you are a radio or video activist, you can also come to the IMC and find fellow activists with similar ideas, as well as people with knowledge and experience in case you need technical support.

Independent Media - tune in here:

Internet:

You can find up-to-date news and reports in different languages on http://de.indymedia.org. Various other media collectives are also linked on this page.

Mobil phone (WAP):

If you have a relatively new mobile phone, you can access http://de.indymedia.org/wap. This wap-ticker will always keep you up to date with reports about what has happened around Heiligendamm.

Radio:

You can find our radio programs on http://de.indymedia.org and in different languages on http://radioforum.fm. From the 1st to the 9th of June we will have a radio live-stream with practical information about the latest developments on the spot as well as several streaming-programs for independent radio stations throughout the world. It might be useful to carry a small radio with you.

Video:

The latest video-clips can be found on http://g8-tv.org. From June 2nd - 8th, at 9.00 p.m. they will stream a half hour program with the News of the Day in German and English language. There will also be public screenings of these and other videos at the convergence centre and at the camps.

Print:

We will try to come up with a tiny daily/nightly newspaper. It will be available on the internet, so that everyone can print, copy and share it. We will try to make these newspapers available at every camp.

Participate:

If you make an important observation that has to go out immediately for the up-to-date news or the newsticker: Call: 0162-3568957 (sms and maybe mms possible as well). Watch out for more phone numbers! This number is only for incoming news, and not an info hotline!

If you want to participate in the IMC as a translator (all languages), reporter, tech or in any other form, send an email to g8-mediaactivism[at]lists.nadir.org (public archive) or g8-media[at]so36.net - or just drop in at the IMC at the convergence centre

If you want to help out the radio, e.g. as reporter: jetsam@nadir.org Contact for video activists: videoactivism[at]nadir.org Contact for still images: g8-foto[at]riseup.net General questions and information about the IMC: 0162-8727086 Any kind of donation or support is welcome and highly appreciated!

One more request:

Taking pictures or video at a protest brings great responsibility with it. Your material could get people into big trouble no matter whether they are actively participating or just standing by. Therefore: Take pictures in a way so that faces can not be recognised (during actions). Make sure that you take memory-cards/-chips and films to a secure location regularly, to minimise the risk of confiscation by the police. In any case, before publishing: All people's faces must be blurred! Even those of people who might not have been directly part of an action at that time.

Important: Make sure that the date and time of your camera is set correctly, because this can be crucial evidence afterwards. Do help document police violence and actions in general.

If you report on the protests on your own website and/or upload photos and videos, please tag your posts with "g8" and "heiligendamm" so they become part of the independent summit reporting.

( ( ( i ) ) )

R e s i s t - R e f u s e - R e p o r t

... independent news from the streets for the global community !!!

8 G8 protest information

- - Dissent network (10+ languages)
- - Small group with a lot of info http://www.gipfelsoli.org/Multilanguage
incl. newsletter
- -> https://lists.nadir.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/gipfelsoli-int
and newsfeed http://gipfelsoli.org/feeds/rss2/98

more lists:

- - International Dissent Network list https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/g8-int
- - If you want to receive press releases in different languages, mostly German, subscribe to https://lists.nadir.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/imc-presse

Issues that play a role in the mobilisation:

- - G8 and agriculture network (5 languages) http://dissentnetzwerk.org/wiki/index.php?title=3DArbeitsgruppe_G8_und_Landwirtschaft
- - Migration network (engl.) http://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/82
http://g8-migration.net.tf/
- - Antimilitarism
http://www.g8andwar.de/rostocklaage/rl2.php
http://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/113
- - International Day of Direct Action Against Climate Change and the G8 http://risingtide.org.uk/g8

Groups and networks:

- - Mass blockade network http://www.block-g8.org/index.php?lang=3Den
- - Protest coalition http://www.heiligendamm2007.de/index_en.html
- - The NGOs
http://www.g8-germany.info/english/index.htm
- - Alternative summit
http://www.g8-alternative-summit.org/en/

Practical info

- - Busses and accomodation for the big demo June 2nd http://www.heiligendamm2007.de/Demo_en/Demo_travel.html
- - Forum for car sharing and travel organization http://forum.free4alter.org/phpBB2/index.php?c=3D5
- - Camps
http://www.camping-07.de/
- - attac special trains from Austria and Switzerland https://www.attac.de/sonderzug

Legal Information

WHEN THE GOING GETS ROUGH What foreigners need to know about german police and laws for G8:
http://gipfelsoli.org/rcms_repos/Antirepression/When_the_Going_Gets_Rough.pdf
UK VISITOR WINNER'S GUIDE About police & protest against G8 in Germany: http://gipfelsoli.org/rcms_repos/Antirepression/UK_visitor_winners_guide.pdf
- - Border Situation
http://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/675 (will be updated)

Most of the practical info, including translations into many languages, can be found either at http://dissentnetwork.org/ or http://gipfelsoli.org/Multilanguage.

Anna
for the IMC G8 prep group

You will find updated versions of this email here: https://g8.indymedia.org.uk/IMCInfoMail

http://keys.indymedia.org/cgi-bin/lookup?op=3Dget&search=3DECE49D5Cjabber: anna_too[at]amessage.info

..after the G8? Looking for Jobs. Talk to me.

Posted by jo at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

Snappy Dance Theater

String Beings

Snappy Dance Theater threads together computer science and classically-trained musicians via contemporary dance and theater in its newest work String Beings, Celebrating its 10th Anniversary Season :: May 30-June 10, 2007 :: The Virginia Wimberly Theatre, Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston :: Press Night / Opening Night: Wednesday, May 30 ::

Widely acclaimed for its edgy, ironic and acrobatic performances, Snappy Dance Theater celebrates its 10th anniversary with the world premiere of String Beings, a collaboration with MIT scientist and new media artist Jonathan Bachrach and BSO first violinist Lucia Lin. With real-time video feedback using intelligent video processing and live musicians who become part of the choreography, the new work explores the metaphors of string, focusing on relationships, and commonalities that tie us together by means of Snappy's signature daring, muscular and witty style.

Martha Mason directs the new work, and is the Artistic Director and co-founder of Snappy Dance Theater, a Boston-based contemporary dance company of nine performers who tour nationally and internationally. Mason envisioned the collaboration in early 2006 and brought these artists together to share and develop their ideas. Working closely with Mason is new media artist and MIT computer scientist Jonathan Bachrach Ph.D. He uses his own uniquely-designed intelligent video processing to manipulate live video footage of the Snappy dancers, and then projects the animated video onto the stage, allowing live dancers and virtual “dancers” to interact. String Beings is set to the music of Berlin composer Michael Rodach, and will be performed by Lucia Lin (Boston Symphony and Muir Quartet) and an electric guitarist. Virtuosic Lin brings Rodach’s haunting contemporary score alive, while partnering with the dancers. In one scene, she is lifted and passed between the dancers without ever touching the ground.

Technically, the group works with 2-3 cameras, 2 projectors, multiple screens and stage lighting. Coordinating these technical aspects with the physical, artistic and human elements has created a unique playground for the collaborators. Through the year-long creative process, the artists have explored the dark and humorous sides of social manipulation and the dynamics of power changes both in society and in our personal lives. Snappy’s unique blend of dance, theater, puppetry, circus arts and acrobatics, has provided the artistic and physical elements in which to present these themes. Mason and Bachrach work closely with lighting designer, Joseph Levendusky to experiment with staging and lighting these varied elements. Mason’s direction provides a provocative balance between comedy and tragedy that creates compelling and surprising scenes.

Snappy is the leading contemporary dance company in Massachusetts, and has been presented in 18 States and four countries. The company has attracted major commissions (The Temperamental Wobble by Bank of America Celebrity Series), received critical acclaim in publications, and developed an extensive youth outreach program that complements its general programming. String Beings is partially funded by the LEF Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, an anonymous donor and the artists themselves. String Beings is presented in Boston in association with World Music/CRASHarts and Boston Center for the Arts, as part of the BCA’s 2006-07 Cultural Partners Series.

Performances run Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday at 7:30pm; Friday and Saturday at 8pm; and Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3pm. Tickets are $15―$45. Tickets and information: CRASHarts (617) 876-4275 or www.CRASHarts.org, or at www.BostonTheaterScene.com.

Learn more about the artists:
Snappy Dance Theater – http://www.snappydance.com
Jonathan Bachrach, Ph.D. - http://people.csail.mit.edu/jrb/jrb.html
Lucia Lin - http://www.bso.org/biography.jhtml?area=bso&id=2100095
Michael Rodach - http://www.michaelrodach.com/

Contact Snappy to interview the artists. Carey Foster, cmckinley[at]snappydance.com, 617-947-8370

Posted by jo at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

VJ THEORY

PRACTICE AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS LOCALLY AND GLOBALLY

In collaboration with VIVO and VJ Theory, The Escape Artists presents INTERCONTINENTAL SKYPE DISCUSSION ON VJ THEORY (vjtheory.net), PRACTICE AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS LOCALLY AND GLOBALLY :: Saturday, May 26, 1-3 pm, at the VIVO (Video In | Video Out), 1965 Main Street, Vancouver :: 604-872-8337.

We expect this presentation will be of interest to practitioners and people interested in the area of vjing and realtime interaction (theorists, developers, programmers, artists, activists). This presentation/discussion hopes to create awareness and get people interested in the vjtheory project. We would also like to receive feedback from the participants on the work done so far and ways in which it could expand, specifically, what people want in terms of interacting with each other online about vjing.

We would like to focus our presentation on the subject of community development: How does VJ Theory become a platform for the development of theory informed by individual and collective practice and theory originated by a community instead of an author or group of defined authors.

Participants should expect to get more familiar with the vjtheory project and people involved (contributors and editorial body), providing the opportunity to ask questions to the editors about contributions or any other relevant subject. People can also participate by introducing examples of communities they are familiar with and expressing their ideas on what kinds of interaction they may like to find in a site such as vjtheory.net

For more info on the event contact Camille Baker at camille[at]escapeartists.ca at 604-708-0997

ABOUT VJ THEORY

vjtheory.net is an online community of VJs and artists who reflect on their work and share their ideas with others in the community. This community actively discusses and reflects on philosophy and theory related with VJing and realtime interaction.

The project has been running for over two years and has built up an extensive collection of work which can help other practitioners to critically examine their practice. Through publishing articles, interviews and reviews, the project is able to distribute the work of the community and organise online debates in areas which are highlighted by our contributors.

In this way we have been, increasingly, linking artists, activists and VJs (the links are often already there) which in turn links practices such as realtime installation, performance and political praxis.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED

VJ Theory: Philosophy and Theory of VJing and Realtime Interaction
Editors: Ana Carvalho and Brendan Byrne
Co-editors: Lara Houston and Paul Mumford

The Escape Artists Society (T.E.A.S.) is a small Vancouver media performance society, putting works of media art, performance media, music/sound art, and visual art events into predominantly unusual locations – inserting ‘our’ world into ‘there’ world– penetrating public perceptions of culture, genre and form.

VIVO Media Arts (Video In | Video Out) is a 33 year old media centre focusing on the exhibition, production, education and distribution of video and interdisciplinary media art.

Camille Baker
The Escape Artists Society
Executive Director/ Curator
camille[at]escapeartists.ca
http://www.escapeartists.ca

Posted by jo at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

May 16, 2007

(in)visible sounds

Exhibition and Seminar

(in)visible sounds :: June 2 - July 14, 2007 :: Opening June 1, 5:00 p.m. :: Erich Berger, David Haines & Joyce Hinterding, Usman Haque & Rob Davis, Informationlab (Ursula Lavrencic & Auke Touwslager), Olga Kisseleva, Brandon LaBelle & James Watts, Semiconductor, Theodore Watson :: Exhibition in cooperation with the 5 days off festival.

The omnipresence of computers and mobile communications apparatus has led to digital technology increasingly becoming a part of our environment. Invisible wireless networks have altered our ways of communicating, working, learning and playing. They have even taken on an important role in the creation of our identity and our relationships with others. In the course of this development, interest in the apparatus has increasingly shifted from the technology itself to the role it plays in shaping our experience. The artists in this exhibition investigate the invisible world of sound waves and frequencies and electromagnetic fields. In all cases they touch on issues concerning the radiation that is ever-present, but imperceptible to our senses. They make use of technologies that are present around us, but invisible, and by playing with electromagnetic waves and different frequencies their works surprise us with an abundance of information and possibilities.

In his work Tempest (2004) Erich Berger (Sweden) makes use of the basic principles of Van Eck Phreaking, a technology through which the content van a computer screen can be reconstructed at a distance by picking up the electromagnetic field surrounding that screen. In Tempest pure generative graphic forms are transformed into a dense and intense composition of sound, noise and light. The graphic forms that appear on the screen produce radio waves, which are then picked up by several transistor radios. These are tuned to various AM frequencies and ultimately produce the distinct and lively sounds that go together with the images. David Haines and Joyce Hinterding (Australia) use the live data stream from televisions to precipitate avalanches. In their work Purple Rain (2004) Haines and Hinterding draw an overwhelming connection between the mystic forces of nature and the presence of the thousands of watts that are stirred up by the frequencies of the electromagnetic field.

In the installation Evolving Sonic Environment (2005-2007) Usman Haque and Rob Davis (UK) investigate to what degree the presence of people in a space influences the audio composition created, without the intervention of sensors. Several audio speakers hang form the ceiling, each generating a sound with a different frequency. Intercommunication between these units balances the sounds and maintains the sensitive sonic ecosystem, which is only disrupted by visitors. The consequences these interventions have on the brain of the space can be observed, live on the internet..

The visitors also play an important role in the installation AudioSpace (2005-2007) by Theodore Watson (US). In the 3D augmented aural space visitors can leave messages for others in the form of sound. By means of a special headset with a microphone, texts can be spoken into the space, and at the same time, messages left earlier can be retrieved. The space is filled with invisible messages from previous visitors. On the other hand, Brandon LaBelle and James Watts (US) let one hear the mystic sounds of the building. In the site-specific installation Radio Flirt (2007) visitors with small portable radios walk through the space in search of characteristic noises and the secrets of the building.

Olga Kisseleva (Russia) lets us see the flows of energy and magnetic pollution that surround us. In Landstreams (2006) she creates a new type of abstract landscape art. The paintings are based on various data flows that have been analyzed by a computer. In the film Earth Moves (2006) by Semiconductor (UK) the visualization of unseen forces is also central. Earth Moves reveals an unstable world that is always in flux. The contours and forms of everything around us are being altered by the invisible force of acoustic waves. This process is imperceptible to the naked eye. By combining digital photos of various places with sound from the same locations, new acoustic landscapes are created.

Finally, in a humorous way Informationlab (Ursula Lavrencic, SLO and Auke Touwslager, Netherlands) reveal the invisible aura of the mobile telephone. Cell Phone Disco (2006) is an installation made out of LED-lamps that respond to the electromagnetic field of mobile telephones. As visitors walk through the installation while making calls, the telephone signal activates the LEDs, so that a trail of flickering LEDs follow them through the space. The unseen body of the mobile telephone becomes perceptible.

In addition to the works in the exhibition a selection of video works from the Institute's own collection can be viewed on monitors. These afford insight into an important historic tradition.

Websites artists:
http://kisseleva.free.fr/
http://www.semiconductorfilms.com/
http://randomseed.org/ http://www.sunvalleyresearch.com/haines.htm
http://www.haque.co.uk/evolvingsonicenvironment.php
http://cellphonedisco.informationlab.org/
http://www.errantbodies.org/labelle.html
http://muonics.net/

Seminar (in)visible technology :: Saturday, June 2, 2:00 to 4:30 p.m.

The consequences of invisible technology are to be further examined in a brief seminar. It is becoming increasingly difficult to recognize the effects of these technologies, because once technologies become invisible they also disappear from our consciousness. The environment is no longer experienced as constructed, and people become even more remote from the technology and its influence on their everyday life, actions and thought. In order to break out of this cycle we need to have examples that throw a new light on existing networks and structures. A number of speakers will be casting light into the darkness. The conversation will be based around examples which introduce other ways of accessing invisible networks.

With: Usman Haque & Rob Davis, David Haines & Joyce Hinterding and Olga
Kisseleva.
Commentator: Rob van Kranenburg.
Admission 5,- (students 3,-).
Reservations: info[at]montevideo.nl

5 days off takes place from July 4 through 8 in Paradiso, Melkweg, the Netherlands Media Arts Institute and the Heineken Music Hall. Check for updates: www.5daysoff.nl

Exhibition open: Tuesday through Saturday, 1:00 - 6:00 p.m., also open the first Sunday of the month. Admision 2,50 (1,50 with discount). During 5 days off, free admission with any sort of 5 days off ticket.

For more information and visual material: Marieke Istha, Communications 020 6237101/06 41635002, istha[at]montevideo.nl

With thanks to: Fund for Podium Programming and Marketing, Mondriaan Foundation, Prince Bernhard Cultural Fund, VSB Fund, Australian Council, Maison Descartes, BeamSystems and Steim

Netherlands Media Art Institute
Montevideo / Time Based Arts
Keizersgracht 264
1016 EV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
www.montevideo.nl
T +31 (0)20 6237101
F +31 (0)20 6244423

Posted by jo at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! Paris

Igor Stromajer presents Ballettikka Internettikka

Upgrade! Paris: Igor Stromajer presents Ballettikka Internettikka :: mediator: Anne Roquigny :: Date: Friday, June 1 at 7:00PM (Paris) :: Place: Ars Longa, 67, av Parmentier, 75011 Paris, M° Parmentier :: Streamed (video & audio) in English.

Ballettikka Internettikka, by Igor Stromajer and Brane Zorman, is a serial of tactical art projects which began in 2001 with the exploration of internet ballet. It explores wireless internet ballet performances combined with guerrilla tactics and mobile live internet broadcasting strategies.

Igor Stromajer is an mobile intimate communicator. He researches tactical emotional states and traumatic low-tech strategies. He has shown his work at more than a hundred exhibitions in forty-two countries and received a number of awards. His works are included in the permanent collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Moderna galerija Ljubljana, Slovenia; Computerfinearts Gallery, New York and others.

Posted by jo at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2007

The Geospatial Web

Shaping the Network Society

Arno Scharl, Klaus Tochtermann (Eds.): The Geospatial Web - How Geobrowsers, Social Software and the Web 2.0 are Shaping the Network Society. Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing Series. London: Springer (2007). With a Foreword by Patrick J. Hogan, Program Manager of NASA World Wind

The Geospatial Web will have a profound impact on managing knowledge, structuring workflows within and across organizations, and communicating with like-minded individuals in virtual communities. The enabling technologies for the Geospatial Web are geobrowsers such as NASA World Wind, Google Earth and Microsoft Live Local 3D. These three-dimensional platforms not only reveal the geographic distribution of Web resources and services, but also bring together people of similar interests, browsing behavior, or geographic location.

This edited volume summarizes the latest research on the Geoweb’s technical foundations, describes collaborative tools built on top of geobrowsers, and investigates the environmental, social and economic impacts of geospatial applications. The role of contextual knowledge in shaping the emerging network society deserves particular attention. By integrating geospatial and semantic technology, such contextual knowledge can be extracted automatically - for example, when processing Web documents to identify relevant content for customized news services.

The book's Web site provides the table of contents, preface and foreword, author biographies, 25 abstracts and a sample chapter on "Media Platforms for Managing Geotagged Knowledge Repositories".

Posted by jo at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

Psychobotany

Revolutionary Breakthroughs in Human/Plant Communication

An evening of psychobotany with performances, presentations, and live demos by Botanicalls and the Center for Tactical Magic :: May 15, 8pm :: Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA.

Wouldn't it be great if your plants could call you if they needed water? The Botanicalls team has found a way to make this happen. When a plant on the Botanicalls network needs water, it can call a person and ask for exactly what it needs. The Botanicalls team will be on-hand to demonstrate their unique system of human/plant communication and promote inter-species understanding.

The Center for Tactical Magic presents a performance lecture exploring the magic and mystery of psychobotany. Ranging from Moses’ consultation with a burning bush to the Pentagon’s recent development of “sentinel plants,” Aaron Gach of the CTM provides a brief history of plants as purveyors of knowledge. Audience members will also participate in a live demonstration of extra-sensory perception mediated through the cooperation of living plants.

Posted by jo at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2007

Geert Lovink interviews

Vito Campanelli

Interview with Vito Campanelli about Web Aesthetics by Geert Lovink, nettime.

Ever since I worked with Matthew Fuller in 2004 on A Decade of Web Design, I have been interested in the question if there is such a thing as web aesthetics that could operate beyond the overheated nineteen nineties Internet rhetoric. It is easy to historicize net.art as a pseudo historical avant-garde and then declare it dead, but whats the point of such an all too obvious statement? The Web continues to grow and change at an astonishing rate. It is not sufficient to criticize Web 2.0 as a remake of dotcommania. Corporate and state dominance of the Web continues to be a threat, but this should not shy us away from a rigorous theorization of the Web in all its aspects. It was on the Web that I first encountered the works of the Italian theorist, Vito Campanelli, culminating in a visit to his hometown, Naples, in October 2006. After an inspiring meeting in-real-life we continued our exchange online, culminating in this online interview.

Vito Campanelli is assistant professor of Theory and technique of the
mass communication at University of Napoli LOrientale and a free
lance contributor to magazines such as Neural, Boiler, and Memenest.
Vito also co-founded the web designers collective Klash. From there,
he joined USAD in 2005, a research and development group focused on
e-learning. He is also an independent curator, working for cultural
events in Naples such as Sintesi, the Electronic Arts Festival, and is
the originator of the Web aesthetics research project called The Net
Observer. More recently he co-founded the Napoli new media initiative
MAO, the Media & Arts Office. Vito Campanelli published the book,
Larte della Rete, larte in Rete. Il Neen, la rivoluzione estetica
about the artist Miltos Manetas.

GL: Lets start. Youre working on web aesthetics. The first
association, of course, would be with web design, HTML and the look
and feel of a website. But perhaps thats not what youre aiming at.

VC: In my research into aesthetic forms of the Net, I make a clear
division between commercial expressions and aesthetic expressions,
without qualification. Im not so interested in the latter, while
Im fascinated by the former - those aesthetic forms that exhaust
their essence just in being there, without any intent or aim that
exceeds the personal expressive needs of whoever designed them. This
distinction could seem arbitrary- it could also find a basis if we
consider that modern mediated mass communication is poles apart
relative to any aesthetic feeling: vulgarity and arrogance nullify any
hypothesis of meaning. On the contrary, the research of an aesthetic
point of view is the attempt to assign - again - a sense to our human
paths.

In my opinion aesthetics is the more powerful answer to the violence
of mass communication (or modern commercial communication).
Mass communication eludes every determination, it aims to be
contemporaneously one thing, its own opposite - and everything
between the two opposites. Exposing the message to all its possible
variants, it finishes to abolish it. Indeed, the goal of mass
communication is always the dissipation of any content.

The only alternative to the effects of mass communication is a
return to an aesthetic feeling of things, a kind of aesthetics not
so much ideological, but rather more active (e.g. Adorno) - a kind
of aesthetics able to bring again into society and culture feelings
of economic unconcern (rather an unconcerned interest), discretion,
moderation, the taste for challenge, witticism, and seduction.
Aesthetics is exactly this.

Talking about feelings and emotions means to free oneself from the
communication domain, while facing a category of beauty has become
one of the most subversive actions we can devise in contrast to
the reigning factory of culture and consensus. Within this view
Im suggesting, technology stays in the background: it creates the
necessary conditions for spreading ones own creativity through
digital media. If we accept this position, no matter if a website is
made using HTML or Flash, whats really important is the beauty it
expresses.

GL: Do you find it useful to build a bridge back to the classics of
aesthetics - from Kant to Croce? How should we read such old authors
in the light of the Internet and its development?

VC: A theory that doesnt interface itself to the historical
presupposition of our thinking is nothing more than a stupid and
useless utopia. Nevertheless, the authors you mentioned are not at
the center of my thoughts. Kant doesnt attribute any cognitive value
to art, while Croce is sidelined with respect to Internet and its
socio-cultural postulates. In Croces aesthetics there is a strong
devaluation of technique, as he considers it extrinsic to the art and
linked instead to the communication concept. Moreover, Croce himself
doesnt pose the question of communication. The intuition-expression
is indeed already communication in itself. Croce would never say that
the medium is the message. I refer to other authors, above all Deleuze
and Guattari, who had the merit of prefiguring the actual rhizomatic
structure of the Internet society, and Panofsky, who is a source of
inspiration for Manovich. I find the approach of Rudolf Arnheim very
valuable: according to him we must build aesthetics, starting from
the perceptive and sensory world, not from the idea. If we consider
the relational nature of most Net Art, it becomes interesting also
trying to read, under a different lens, Herbert Marcuses Eros and
Civilization.

GL: It is hard to move away from the postmodern chapter and the way
that era defined aesthetics. Is that a struggle for you? Could we say
that we, still, live in the aftermath of that theory storm and merely
apply the collected insights of the late 20th century to a phenomenon
like the World Wide Web?

VC: What you emphasize is a concrete risk and perhaps it is also a
reason for the difficulties academia has in opening itself up to
a dialectic comparison with the issues the Web has introduced. If
we look closely at the more relevant aesthetic phenomenon in the
last twenty-year period, Net Art, it becomes hard to refute that
this movement, even in its heterogeneity, has introduced new and
confrontational aesthetic canons. Above all, it seems crucial to me
the overtaking of any distinction between content and form or medium:
the interface (that, as Manovich asserts, replaces the form and the
medium into the modern paradigm) is so merged with the content that
thinking of it as a separate level means to eliminate the artistic
dimension. Broadly speaking, I think that authentic advances will be
reached when we cease thinking of the Web as an expressive medium, and
more of a cultural and social interface.

GL: It is said that Deleuze and Guattaris concept have become so
virulent, so active, that they have passed the point of anticipation,
and are now an integral part of our media life. It doesnt mean that
D&G and their followers were wrong or sold out. In fact, it points at
a new condition of theory in which critical concepts start to open
up spaces and come alive, in the midst of the mess called global
capitalism. Seen in this light, what role should a theory of web
aesthetics play?

VC: What happened to Deleuze and Guattaris theories is merely what
always happens: human thought is faster than technical progress. It
often occurs that we are not able to understand the true significance
of contemporary thought, nevertheless,afterwards, inrereading a
book, we see clearly its capacity ofbeing ahead of its time. Its a
situation that characterizes not only philosophy but also, in general,
literature. Im still amazed, for example, at how some cyberpunk
novels have anticipated the focal themes of our times, according to
simple literary inventions. Gibson wrote Neuromancer(July, 1984)
without any knowledge of the Webs reality, still, he had not
difficulty carrying his thought over technologicalarts state.

My idea of aesthetics has - above all - a factual dimension. Id
like to think about a kind of aesthetics busy with dirtying its
hands with the concrete and daily world.Its role should be therefore
giving back to us a beauty dimension which we can contrast against
the widespread vulgarity. To contrast an ephemeral aesthetic act
to the actual dogma of creativity under command, means to take
oneself away from the alienation that characterizes contemporary
creative production. To affirm that aesthetic forms possess a social
and cultural (even pedagogic in some ways) value, it means to negate
- at root - the modern social organization that comes to measure any
expression, including artistic ones, on the basis of market value.

Again, to affirm that a message, a form, a thought, has an intrinsic
value before the commercial one seems banal, nevertheless is an
aversive affirmation if compared to that you describe as the mess
called global capitalism. In my opinion, the diffusion of a Web
aesthetics is ultimately one of the few practicable ways to liberate
our new (digital) world from the slavery in which it has been
condemned by commercial communication.

GL: Its so easy these days to proclaim that theory is dead. How
do you deal with such cynical observations? Is there an Italian
equivalent of pragmatism?

VC: To ask an indolent idealistic Southerner a question about
pragmatism could sound like a provocation, even if - to tell the
truth - you get the point when highlighting the possibility of
different approaches. I do believe that there are peoples who, due
to historical and cultural traditions, are more inclined to theory,
while others are more inclined to direct experience. Even with regard
to new technologies, it seems to me that its possible to highlight
an approach, predominantly European, that tends to make an issue of
technique and to design paths between actual technologic conquests
and the classic thought. There is another approach, one that finds
its fulcrum in California, that appears instead much more focused on
technique in itself. Manovich is an exception, but in his theories
he continuously betrays his Russian origins. Theorys death is
like spring and autumns death: a good topic of conversation for
boring living rooms. History teaches us that theory always returns in
unexpected ways. Theory is dead, long live theory!

GL: Do you teach Web aesthetics? Can you tell us something how
students are bridging theory and the immense drive towards tinkering
and producing?

VC: I wish I was teaching Web aesthetics! Actually, I teach Theory
and techniques of mass communication and I try to feed pills of
aesthetic evaluations into these lessons.

As for students, they seem to me mainly oriented to use the more
various objects (PC,digital devices, books, etc...) and not inclined
to ask themselves questions about the things they are using. They
use them without asking themselves where they come from or which
valences they express over the function of use, or even, which
evolutionary paths they design? This attitude is probably the fruit of
the ruling consumerism that represents, de facto, the only historical
reality that new generations know first hand. Nevertheless there
is perhaps something more: the more or less widespread resignation
and renunciation ofplaying an active and critical role in examining
what surrounds us. Most of the students I usually meet seem to
incarnate the ideal consumer model dreamed up by marketing gurus.
They uncritically accept a lifestyle that other people have designed
for them, rather than shaping their own. The picture of the situation
could appear tragic, nevertheless, its amazing to look at the
reactions that you can breed in them when you are able to uncover
some conditioned thought processes of which they are victim. When it
happens, you can clearly see how a growing interest rises in them,
together with the determination to react (also in a creative way). The
walk is quite long, therefore its important that none of us give up
the responsibility to educate and make new generations aware.

GL: Can you tell us what your theory of Web aesthetics consists of? Is
it a book that youre working on?

VC: Ive published a book on Miltos Manetas and the Neen movement
that, in my opinion, is one of the more significant artistic
avant-garde expressions in the last twenty-years. To state that
websites are the art of our times, as Manetas did in his Manifesto,
means to put intangible and immaterial artworks outside of the art
merchants tentacles. Indeed, the market still doesnt know how to
sell objects like websites, but if we erase the commercial layer, then
Art returns to its natural function: to open windows where mankind can
look at its own condition.

At present Ive finished, together with Danilo Capasso, another book
that has moved from five questions about digital culture that Lev
Manovich thought for us at the occasion of a lecture that Danilo and
myself organized in Naples in April 2005. We asked more than 100
persons (artists, theorists, curators, mathematicians, etc.) all
around the world to answer to Manovichs suggestions and then we chose
50 contributions in order to publish them. The book is now complete
with two different authors reflections but - unfortunately - we are
still waiting for the editor to make up his mind and pass our work
over to the press. This is one of the most significant problems of
publishing nowadays: editors are far too slow to follow the velocity
of circulation of modern ideas. More generally, I look forward to
writing a book on the aesthetics of the database theme and lately,
Ive focused my research in this direction, but - to tell the truth
- the visualization forms of data are so numerous that Im still
lost at sea. GL: The first decade of web design was focused on
speculative thinking about the potentials of the medium, followed by
best practices literature and the long silence after the dotcom boom
crashed. Where are we now?

VC: We are at the Web 2.0 point, and this indicates an evolution of
the way we look at this medium. Despite a lack of unanimity on what
Web 2.0 should be, we certainly have made some steps forward - for
example, we have dropped the useless antithesis between texts and
images: now we consider them as modalities of reading and representing
reality, and we believe that a rich medium (such as the Web) has to
enhance them both, instead of contrasting them. Nowadays we can easily
observe, within the framework of the Net, words that become images and
images that becomes words.

We have also dropped the ideas that the Web constitutes a return to
the oral tradition or to the written word indeed, both statements
have proven fallacious, and we now prefer to speak about a continuum
of languages. These conceptual advances also find a hands-on
application in web design, as interface designs are responding to
narrative and orientation needs that are miles beyond the early
desktop metaphor. As a consequence, the web designers role is no
longer to draw, but rather to arrange environments for interaction
(between users, between image and text, between books and TV,
between the symbolic and the perceptive, between the active and the
passive, etc...). More generally, I think we have overcome that stage
of excitement over the potentials of the medium, and we are now
focusing on the nature of the Web itself - its developments and the
interactions between the Net and society.

I feel tempted to suggest a bold comparison with the situation of
falling in love: first comes the arousal over the potentials of a
body, then the attention shifts to the nature of the soul trapped in
that body (a person takes the place of a body), and finally, all our
thoughts are absorbed in imagining the possible relations between that
person and people all around us (our family, our clan, our workmates,
our flat mates, our playmates, our comrades, etc...). Its also
funny to note that, in accepting this comparison, we have to admit
that network culture is a postulate of the early excitement over the
Web (an excitement that had been driven by the dotcom boom), as a
marriage is a postulate of the initial arousal over a body (driven
by a hormonal boom), allowing us to put the two booms on the same
level.

GL: Is theory in Italy a place of refuge because there is so little
institutional support for new media in your country?

VC: Yes, it is. In my country new media are like Godot in Samuel
Beckettstragicomedy: all the institutions keep on chattering about
the advent of the Internet and new digital tools, but nobody realizes
that they already surround us. In this upsetting situation, theory
becomes the only way to be in touch with such things.

GL: Could we also read the lively Internet scene in Italy as a
subcultural necessity from the age of Berlusconi who managed to
monopolize both commercial and state media when he ruled as prime
minister? And, as a result of that could we say that there is a
sort of temporary compromise between autonomous cultures and more
progressive part of the (IT) business community?

VC: On one hand the lively media scene in Italy is an answer to the
Berlusconi monopoly on broadcast media, but we must not forget that
the one you emphasized is not the only critical situation, indeed
Italy is the country of monopolies, oligopolies, and cartels: Internet
and telecommunications, banks and insurance companies, most of the
vital business articulations are monopolized by the usual suspects.
Onthe other hand there is a very deep-rooted tradition in media
activism. It would suffice to remember the experience of Radio Alice
that started transmitting in 1976, and introduced techniques such as
linguistic sabotage and diffusion of arbitrary information. Many of
the actual initiatives are expressly linked toones born at the end of
the 1970s, although the needs of that period are replaced with more
modern issues.

From my point of view, the most interesting aspect in media activism
is that it leaves behind the dominant communication language;
breaking with language in order to reach life as Artaud said.
Its fascinating to me how the language of advertising, as well as
various modes of ideological communication, are revised into the
best-made operations of subadvertising. Reusingelements of well-known
media such as popular icons and clichs, along with the detournement
of contemporary mass culture headlines, are very creative ways to
criticize the context we live in. To my great displeasure I have to
underline that often initiatives such as street TV or illegal radio
exhaust their energy in building a new transmitting source but what
fails is content. Its like building empty boxes: after the initial
curiosity, nobody wants really to get in.

I dont see any progressive part of the (IT) business community in
Italy. Sure, there is a part that looks cool: its the one that
scans the autonomous cultures searching for coolness. The point
is, there isnt any dialogue. A dialogue presumes a predisposition
to change ones point of view and Im quite sure that thebusiness
communityabsolutely doesnt want to put their assumptions up for
discussion.

GL: You attended the MyCreativity conference in Amsterdam. Do you see
any trace of the creative industries discourse in Italy? If Europes
destiny is going to be exporting design and other lifestyle-related
experiences, then Italy would be in the best possible position. Is
it?

VC: Debate about the creative industry in Italy still has far to go.
The term industry is still not used in association with the term
creativity, as we usually speak about the fashion industry, or
shoe industry or, even, furniture industry. This layout doesnt
encourage the emersion of the creative works element as lowest common
denominator around the different entrepreneurial activities that bring
to life the famous Made in Italy moniker. Creative work is - without
a doubt - at the bottom of the product Italy; nevertheless, the
emphasis is always on Italian genius (that is, the attitude to invent
surprising things), or on Italian lifestyle. I guess that if we took
a poll of strangers accustomed to buying fashionable stuff made in
Italy, we would discover that they believe they are buying the right
to participate in the Italian lifestyle, more than the fruits of
Italian creative labor.

GL: Southern Europe envies the North for all its festivals, centers
and cultural funding whereas Northern Europeans cant stop showing
their excitement for the Virnos, Berardis, Negris, Agambens,
Lazzoratos and Pasquinellis. Isnt that a strange form of symbolic
circulation? How do you see this play between ideas and institutional
cultures on a European scale? Shouldnt we just stop thinking in those
terms and start working on equal levels and forget all this regional
labeling? Eastern Europe, for instance, has suffered for many years
from the regional stigma. Where you come from overdetermines what you
do. Northerners tend not to respond to that criticism.

VC: Maybe the answer is already in your preamble: due to the fact
that in Southern Europe it is quite tough to get funding and support
for cultural initiatives (especially when you move outside of the
mainstream), and many people are more inclined to make intellectual
reflections, rather then to plan events. I would like to avoid any
regional labeling, nevertheless it can be said, with some justice,
that those labels express a state of affairs that is still heavily
conditioned by disparities and specificities working on a regional
basis. Also if we assume a merely linguistic point of view, it is
completely evident that non-anglophone realities suffer enormously
from the inability to participate in an active way with the European
(or international) cultural debate. This fact pushes these realities
to retreat into themselves and to bring to life expressive modalities
distinguished by perspectives that are more regional than global.

As for Italy, one of the most interesting specificity is that the
lack in cultural funding has transformed the country into an amazing
training ground for auto-production phenomena. Operating from the
bottom is, in my opinion, a key phenomenon these days, indeed, it
puts into the cultural economy some truly innovative dynamics, as
long these dynamics break (finally) the chain constraining cultural
production to the economy of (induced) consumptions and needs.
>From this field, to put a lens on the specificity of this Italian
phenomenon could offer answers more interesting than the ones you
obtain considering Italy in the overall European movement.

GL: Is it desirable for you to overcome net.art, media theory, and
electronic arts by integrating it into a broader praxis that would not
have a techno prefix?

VC: My attempt is just that: to free media theory and electronic arts
from techno prefixes in order to consider them just as contemporary
culture. In a book I wrote a couple of years ago, I stated that we
need, now, to surpass the concept of Contemporary Art in order to
define a new contest, one able to contain the theory and the culture
born during the last years and centered around the new medium: the
Internet. Indeed if Contemporary Arts medium has been Television,
it is right to close that chapter so we may open a new one dedicated
to the cultural movements produced by the impact of the Net on
contemporary society. Its not just a question of definitions, rather,
it is an issue of a cultural shift: giving up the critical and
interpretive tools still in use, to build new ones rising from the
awareness that the computer (or the database, as Manovich would say)
has replaced narration as a predominant cultural representation.

GL: Lets go back to web aesthetics. Besides beauty, could we also
use the term style? Is there a positive and critical tradition
of talking about style or is that merely something for fashion
magazines? Maybe it is not wise to look down on fashion Is there
style on the Net?

VC: Nowadays the term style appears to be monopolized by fashion
and design gurus, nevertheless, we should be able to overcome the
nuisance that this linguistic abuse causes, in order to reactivate
a genuine critical debate. To deny the existence of style means to
erase more than five hundred years of philosophical and aesthetical
reflections: the term style, in fact, has been used since the
16th century with the ascendance of the Renaissance maniera that
indicates the personal style of an artist. Style is not a genre and
not prearranged forms that the artist can choose according to his
preferences. Instead, style is a need because it reflects a way of
living, thinking, and imagining the world in which the artist is
immersed. Style is a reflection of the times, and very often the
choice of a style is not even an aware choice: the artist applies the
style of his environment/times without any consciousness (in this
sense the critic is much more aware than the artist).

Style is always related to an epoch, thus it changes along with
the life and the culture existing under the influence of social,
economical and psychological factors. This is the reason style (as
the expression of an epoch) is not transmitted from one generation
to the next. Sometimes the term style is inaccurately described as
artistic individual preferences (le style cest lhomme), but we
have to refuse this equivocal interpretation: individual forms and
preferences need a different denomination, while style is today as
it was 500 years ago the common language of an epoch. If we accept
this interpretation, the pretension of being without a style becomes
silly and disingenuous: can we imagine an artistic work that doesnt
reflect its times?

When I hear speeches about the refusal of style, my mind goes
immediately to the characters of an Orhan Pamuks novel: My Name is
Red. The main characters in this novel are miniaturists of the Ottoman
Empire that discuss (and fight and kill each other) around the subject
of style, the question is: which is true art? The expression of the
individual artist, or a perfect representation of the divine (in
which the artist suppresses any trace of his personal vanity)? The
Nobel Prize-winnings novel describes a very paradigmatic situation:
two different cultures are colliding (the Ottoman Empire meets the
Venetian Empire) and a new epoch rises. There is nothing to do for
the miniaturists - a new epoch introduces a new style, and all their
efforts to keep the traditional approach to the miniature are in vain.

If we look at the Net we can clearly see a lot of genres (mail art,
ASCII art, generative art, hacker art, pixel art, and so on...), but
we can also identify a style. A couple of the main elements of this
style are in my very personal opinion the remixing attitude and
the D.I.Y. practice. Human culture has always been defined by its
ability to remix ideas, concepts and inspirations, but nowadays there
is something new: the new media advent has extended our potential to
such an extent that we remix continuously, even when we are not aware
of it. New media force us to do a continuous cut and paste of the
endless digital data surrounding us. Thus, we can assume that remixing
is the composition method of our times.

At the same time, new media give us the potential to get our hands
around this growing digital data sea, indeed, we can manage and shape
it even if we dont have particular expertise. So we draw data from an
endless source and we recombine them using all kind of digital tools,
in few words: we remix culture on our own. In this situation, can we
imagine an artistic expression that is immune to the two most popular
practices of our times? I dont think so. Instead, the style of our
epoch can be found into what I am tempted to call: R.I.Y. (Remix It
Yourself).

Obviously, there are other elements that contribute to the actual
style, for example, its easy to observe how non-linear narrative
is taking linear narratives place. Instead of denying the concept
of style, we should look around us to identify what are the
characteristics of our times, and in doing that, we would also
understand what the actual style is shaped by.

GL: How do you deal with the popular in web aesthetics? Often it is
said that popular culture is so trashy. But with Internet culture the
masses of users these days are so advanced. Theory and criticism have
yet to discover blogs, Second Life, Wikipedia and all that. Having
said that, its clear we no longer live in the 1980s and have to
promote a serious study of popular (media) culture. Cultural Studies
has established itself in such a big way, we shouldnt have to make
such calls Still there is the question, from a theory point of view,
whether or not to overcome the popular.

VC: What is the popular? This is a good starting point, if we refer
to the Web, and broadly to digital media. Common people are the
vanguard we need to test our theories, our hypothesis, our projects,
and our products too. Whos discovering a new world like Second Life?
Whos populating our databases, our wikis and our blogs? Whos testing
our new digital tools? We need them to reach a critical mass. As a
consequence all the communication is directed to them: try this new
product for free, trial period, make a free tour, open your own
blog, publish your photo album, these and many others formulas
witnessing that we need the masses of users in order to get feedback,
to give basis to our theories, to shape our products.

We dont need them just as audience (the TV age model), the Internet
age postulates an active participation, thus, the masses are required
to turn themselves into players. What would remain of Web 2.0 and
social networks without masses? A desert, I guess.

With all the digital media and contexts we are creating the masses
have also produced an incredible amount of content. If that is
actually what we define as popular culture, then the questions are:
what are we supposed to do with all this stuff? Is this cultural
production significant? Should we spend our time in studying and
analyzing it?

For sure we dont have time to do that, so (usually) we limit
ourselves to give a bit of our attention to the events that, pushed
by mass media, bounce under our noses. The most interesting thing for
me is to observe how the top rated/most viewed videos on YouTube are
all commercial TV like products; the usual Second Life public spaces
(streets and buildings) are crowded with more advertising than Las
Vegas (most of them are dedicated to sex); the stick memories of the
average MP3 players are filled with the same music you can listen to
on any commercial radio station, and shall we talk about the subjects
of the photos stored in millions of digital cameras?

What Im trying to mark is that with new media we are repeating the
stupidity and the uselessness of our TV formats, the advertisings
invasion of any public space, the boredom of the pop music scene,
etc... Vulgarity and the dissipation of any significance are moving
from old media to new media, and I dont see any good reason to spend
my time with such popular culture.

Besides this, its also very interesting to observe how the old media
are becoming more and more permeable to blogs and D.I.Y. information.
This phenomenon is not due to a fascination in more democratic
information sources (the traditional media holders hate new media and
people involved with it), on the contrary - the pressure is rising due
to the growth of the eyes (digital cameras and all the new devices)
that are watching the same events that mainstream media are reporting
to us: the possibility of being uncovered are too many and broadcast
journalists are forced to tell the truth (or at least a plausible
version of it). As a consequence, blogs have become the major source
of news and information about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal
(a scandal born thanks to modern digital devices) and the Iraq War.
Then the question is: what impact is the blogosphere having on the
traditional medias control over news and information? We also have to
consider that bloggers are often the only real journalists, as they
(at their own risk) provide independent news in countries where the
mainstream media is censored or under control.

GL: Is it your aim to promote sophistication in web design? How can we
identify, and then design sophisticated communication?

VC: I dont like sophistication very much, I prefer a minimalist
approach to web design, with clear and linear interfaces that give
intuitive access to sophisticated and very structured data. When you
have to manage complex data sets or very rich multimedia contents, the
best you can do is design a structure that is very minimal. Indeed,
you dont have to add meaning to the content you are representing,
otherwise you make it useless and baroque. Nevertheless, minimalist
doesnt mean careless or dull, instead it means not one sign more
than necessary, it means taking care of details, it means being
moderate and objective.

We also have to consider that there are so many kinds of data that
there cant be one universal formula of access. In fact, some
information, such as the structure of a network, need graphic
expedients to be understood. Also, there are many realities that
have no meaning if showed only in a textual format. In those cases
we use graphs, charts, etc., and very often we obtain wonderful and
unexpected forms. For example, if you look at the Manuel Limas
project, Visual Complexity (www.visualcomplexity.com), youll easily
find many wonderful visualizations of complex networks.

In view of such artistic representation of data the problem becomes:
where is the line? How much graphic sophistication (or embellishment)
do we need to solve a visualization problem? I guess the answer can
found on a case-by-case basis, and the only line we can certainly
detect is the one between the amount of complexity required by a
representation (objective factor) and the self-satisfaction that
pushes any designer into going over what is required (subjective
factor).

(edited by Henry Warwick)

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URLs:

Vito Campanelli's home page
Media & Arts Office
Web designers collective Klash
The Net Observer
Boiler magazine

Posted by jo at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

History Will Repeat Itself: Strategies of Re-enactment

in Contemporary (Media) Art and Performance

History Will Repeat Itself: Strategies of Re-enactment in Contemporary (Media) Art and Performance :: Hartware MedienKunstVerein at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund, Germany: June 9 - September 23, 2007; Opening: Friday, June 8, 2007, 19:00 :: KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Germany: November 18, 2007 – January 13, 2008; Opening: Saturday, November 17, 2007 :: Concept: Inke Arns; Curated by: Inke Arns and
Gabriele Horn; Co-curator: Katharina Fichtner.

The exhibition History Will Repeat Itself illuminates current strategies of re-enactment in contemporary (media) art and performance, and presents the positions and strategies of 23 international artists. A cooperative project by Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) Dortmund and KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, this is the first comprehensive exhibition project on the subject of re-enactment in Germany.

Unlike popular historical re-enactments, artistic re-enactments are not simply affirming what has happened in the past, but rather they are questioning the present via repeating or re-enacting historical events that have left their traces in the collective memory. Re-enactments are artistic interrogations of media images that try to scrutinise the reality of the images, while at the same time pointing towards the fact that the collective memory is significantly informed by media images.

Participating artists include: Guy Ben-Ner (IL/DE), Walter Benjamin (YU), Irina Botea (RO/US), C-Level (US), Daniela Comani (IT/DE), Jeremy Deller (GB), Rod Dickinson (GB), Nikolai Evreinov (RU), Omer Fast (IL/DE), Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard (GB), Heike Gallmeier (DE), Felix Gmelin (SE), Pierre Huyghe (FR), Evil Knievel (US), Korpys/Loeffler (DE), Zbigniew Libera (PL), Robert Longo (US), Tom McCarthy (GB), Frédéric Moser / Philippe Schwinger (CH), Collier Schorr (US), Kerry Tribe (US), T.R. Uthco & Ant Farm (US), Artur Zmijewski (PL).

In Dortmund, the exhibition will run in parallel (9 June - 23 September) to Documenta 12 in Kassel and skulptur.projekte muenster in Munster, Germany. The venue of the show is Hartware MedienKunstVerein at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund, a spectacular 1895 factory hall measuring 2.200 square meters belonging to a giant former steel production plant.

Located in the formerly heavily industrialized region of the Ruhr valley, Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) Dortmund is one of the leading institutions for media art in today's Germany. Founded in 1996, HMKV serves as a platform for the production, presentation, education on and contextualisation of contemporary and experimental media art.

Please note that Dortmund is only 30 min. by train from Munster, and 2,5 hours from Kassel.

Later this year, the show will travel to Berlin and be on display at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art from 18 November 2007 until 13 January 2008.

The exhibition History Will Repeat Itself is funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation, Kunststiftung NRW, Staatskanzlei NRW, Bundesamt für Kultur BAK (Switzerland), NRW Kultursekretariat Wuppertal, The Henry Moore Foundation, Pro Helvetia, and The British Council.

The program of Hartware MedienKunstVerein at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund is supported by Kulturbuero and by Wirtschaftsfoerderung der Stadt Dortmund.

The cultural programs of KW Institute for Contemporary Art are made possible thanks to the support of The Governing Mayor of Berlin - Senate Chancellery - Cultural Affairs.

For press material, please contact Roland Kentrup, kentrup[at]zk.nrw-online.de

Venue and opening hours:
HMKV at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund (exhibition venue)
Thursday and Friday 11 - 22
Saturday and Sunday 11 - 20
Hochofenstrasse / corner Rombergstrasse
Dortmund-Hoerde

How to get there- Map.

Hartware MedienKunstVerein (office)
Guentherstr. 65
44143 Dortmund
Germany
T ++49.231.823106
F ++49.231.8820240
info[at]thmkv.de

Posted by jo at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2007

Squirrel and Acorn

Cell phone Air Pollution Monitor

" ... Squirrel and the companion software, Acorn, also represent a bold exercise in social responsibility and cross-border engagement. "We want to make air quality data visible, accessible and legible to raise consciousness of environmental monitoring," says Spanhake. For this, she has collaborated with Calit2 researcher Kael Greco, author of a mobile webcam application that uploads images taken by the mobile phone automatically and continuously. These images are tagged and manipulated with the sampled pollution data -- the grittier the image, the more polluted the air is -- then displayed in real time on a web page. "This, along with other visual and audible ways, will help to demystify what 20ppm is in a meaningful way," says Spanhake, adding: "Low-cost technology will also make it available and scalable to the technological, environmental and cultural needs of individuals, communities and cities."

The device is low-cost, mobile, and scalable. It is also intended to be a building block for the creation of a mobile wireless sensor network dependent upon those who breathe the air -- people. "Squirrel is meant to monitor an individual's personal exposure to the air, thus providing a means for agency in the production of air pollution data," says Spanhake. "It will enable supplemental data to the environmental protection agencies that cannot afford to scale their technology to population growth and urban sprawl." ..." From Tracking Pollution and Social Movement: Love Fest for Calit2 Technologies at 'Make Fest 2007'.

Posted by jo at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2007

Sherry Turkle

Can You Hear Me Now?

"Thanks to technology, people have never been more connected--or more alienated.

I have traveled 36 hours to a conference on robotic technology in central Japan. The grand ballroom is Wi-Fi enabled, and the speaker is using the Web for his presentation. Laptops are open, fingers are flying. But the audience is not listening. Most seem to be doing their e-mail, downloading files, surfing the Web or looking for a cartoon to illustrate an upcoming presentation. Every once in a while audience members give the speaker some attention, lowering their laptop screens in a kind of digital curtsy.

In the hallway outside the plenary session attendees are on their phones or using laptops and pdas to check their e-mail. Clusters of people chat with each other, making dinner plans, "networking" in that old sense of the term--the sense that implies sharing a meal.

But at this conference it is clear that what people mostly want from public space is to be alone with their personal networks. It is good to come together physically, but it is more important to stay tethered to the people who define one's virtual identity, the identity that counts. I think of how Freud believed in the power of communities to control and subvert us, and a psychoanalytic pun comes to mind: "virtuality and its discontents."

The phrase comes back to me months later as I interview business consultants who seem to have lost touch with their best instincts for how to maintain the bonds that make them most competitive. They are complaining about the BlackBerry revolution. They accept it as inevitable, decry it as corrosive. Consultants used to talk to one another as they waited to give presentations; now they spend that time doing e-mail. Those who once bonded during limousine rides to airports now spend this time on their BlackBerrys. Some say they are making better use of their "downtime," but they argue their point without conviction. This waiting time and going-to-the-airport time was never downtime; it was work time. It was precious time when far-flung global teams solidified relationships and refined ideas.

We live in techno-enthusiastic times, and we are most likely to celebrate our gadgets. Certainly the advertising that sells us our devices has us working from beautiful, remote locations that signal our status. We are connected, tethered, so important that our physical presence is no longer required. There is much talk of new efficiencies; we can work from anywhere and all the time. But tethered life is complex; it is helpful to measure our thrilling new networks against what they may be doing to us as people." From Can You Hear Me Now? by Sherry Turkle, Forbes.

Posted by jo at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! Vancouver

New Writing, New Technologies

Upgrade! Vancouver: New Writing, New Technologies :: May 17, 2007, 7:30 pm :: Launch Party for The Capilano Review [TCR] 2-50: Artifice and Intelligence, guest edited by Andrew Klobucar :: With panel discussion, food, & live a/v by CineCitta :: Co-presented with The Capilano Review :: Intersections Digital Studios (IDS), Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, 1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island.

The latest issue of The Capilano Review: 2-50 - Artifice and Intelligence, features an array of cultural producers currently investigating the complex and rapidly evolving relationships between writing, art, and digital technology.

Join us as we explore critical questions on how contemporary developments in media technologies - its tools and methods - continue to influence many of today's most important literary and art movements, and how these new technologies affect the concept of knowledge.

Panel discussion with Jim Andrews, Kate Armstrong, David Jhave Johnston, Laura Marks, Sandra Seekins, and Darren Wershler-Henry, moderated by Andrew Klobucar.

Join us for food, drinks and live a/v by CineCitta 7:30pm
Panel discussion: 8:30 pm

Supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, Capilano College, Upgrade! Vancouver, & Emily Carr Institute for Art and Design. Darren Wershler-Henry appears courtesy of Capilano College's new Creative Writing Program reading series OPEN TEXT.

The Capilano Review: 2-50 - Artifice and Intelligence
Contributors:
Global Telelanguage Resources
Sandra Seekins
Kate Armstrong
David Jhave Johnston
Laura U. Marks
Sharla Sava
Antonia Hirsch
Kevin Magee
Jim Andrews
Gordon Winiemko
Nancy Patterson
Darren Werschler-Henry

Posted by jo at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)

canal*MOTOBOY

Empowering Individuals to Tell their Stories

The front page of the website zexe.net presents numerous faces along with a button with the phrase, 'Communities use mobile phones to webcast.' This links to seven different pages, each of them representing a social group, a location, and a date. For example, 'gypsies in Leon, 2005,' 'prostitutes in Madrid, 2005,' and 'Nicaraguan migrants in Costa Rica, 2006.' Created by Spanish artist Antoni Abad under the motto 'a project of cellular audiovisual communication to collectives without an active presence in the relevant mass-media,' this work was initiated in 2004 when he asked 17 taxi drivers in Mexico City to spend two months using mobile phones with integrated cameras to 'turn themselves into chroniclers of their own reality.'

Each of them now features in the website, via recorded messages (images described by key words) that they have uploaded in real time to the Internet during that period, as well as the comments posted by users that saw these broadcasts. A similar output is devised for the other segments of the project, of which a new installment has started this month in Sao Paulo. This time, young motorbike couriers--who play a significant role in the city's economy yet aren't socially acknowledged for their activity--are the ones documenting the experiences that make up their quotidian occupations. As Abadi puts it, the 'canal*MOTOBOY proposes a digital public space, where senders and receivers interact within telematic networks,' a tactic to collectively raise the profile of marginalized collectives in the present, unequal society. - Miguel Amado, Rhizome News.

Posted by jo at 04:00 PM | Comments (0)

Heavy Opera: An Audio Tour to Awaken Londoners to

The Impact of Financial Systems on Climate Change

John Jordan and James Marriott’s operatic audio tour set in London’s Square Mile is intended to awaken city workers to the impact of financial systems on climate change. But not only does And While London Burns misgauge how much the suits already know, its hysterical tone also harmonises too easily with the coming new eco-order.

A fountain of water from the river Walbrook shoots up above my head, drums are pounding, a sound system’s bass rumbles. I hear cheers but I can also hear the clatter of police shields and batons around the corner. Seven years after London’s Carnival Against Capital, when protesters outside the LIFFE exchange broke a water mains sending a thirty-foot jet of water into the air, I am walking just a half a mile north of the same spot. Now I can hear the Thames rushing up the valley the Walbrook follows, bursting its banks, laying waste to the tall glass-fronted buildings as some of the most expensive real estate in London collapses around me. I’m swept up in a sonically induced fantasy driven by the tracks on my MP3player. I am taking part in And While London Burns, an operatic guided walk written by John Jordan and James Marriott, set to music by Isa Suarez and produced by the cross-disciplinary art and education group Platform.

John Jordan has played a role in both these participatory dramas, firstly as a member of Reclaim the Streets – one of the anti-capitalist groups that coordinated the Carnival Against Capital in June 1999. This time around as an artist commissioned by Platform – an interdisciplinary arts, campaigning and research group committed to longer term, less partisan approaches to transforming the activities of the financial institutions and corporations with head offices in the Square Mile. The walk is an attempt to dramatise the research Platform has conducted into climate change. James Marriott, its co-founder, explains:" from Heavy Opera by Anthony Iles, It's Not Easy Being Green, MUTE VOL 2 #5.

Posted by jo at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

[iDC] Introducing: Real Costs & Oil Standard

Michael Mandiberg

Trebor Scholz has asked me to write a post introducing two recent projects,"Oil Standard" (2006), "Real Costs" which I releasd a beta version of last week.

"Real Costs" is a Firefox plug-in that inserts emissions data into travel related e-commerce websites. The first version adds CO2 emissions information to airfare websites such as Orbitz.com , United.com, Delta.com , etc. Following versions will work with car directions, car rental, and shipping websites. Think of it like the nutritional information labeling on the back of food... except for emissions.

The objective of the "Real Costs" is to increase awareness of the environmental impact of certain day to day choices in the life of the Internet user. By presenting this environmental impact information in the place where decisions are being made, it will hopefully create an impact on the viewer, encourage a sense of individual agency, start ongoing discussions, and provide a set of alternatives and immediate actions. In the process the user/viewer might even be transformed from passive consumer to engaged citizen.

Experience the project by installing the "Real Costs" plug-in into your Firefox application; the plug-in is available at http://TheRealCosts.com. Currently, this plug-in pulls the origination and destination information for each flight from the page, and then calculates and reinserts the CO2 produced. It compares the CO2 produced for that flight to making that trip by bus or train, and to the average CO2 produced per capita for the average US and world citizen. It is configured to work on the websites of the largest North American air carriers (major global air carriers are currently being added.) A list of these carriers and documentation of all scientific calculations is available on the project Wiki (http://therealcosts.com/wiki).

"Real Costs" builds on many of my prior investigations into intersections between conceptualism, Internet art, and activism. I make art that explores the way the Internet shapes subjectivity and consumerism. I take common genres including e-commerce, blogs and opinion poll sites and create site-specific interventions into this digital vernacular to provoke a moment of contemplation on the part of the viewer. The key example here is the "Oil Standard" Firefox plug-in that converts all prices on a web page from U.S. Dollars into the equivalent value in barrels of crude oil. When you load a web page, the script seamlessly inserts converted prices into the page. As the cost of oil fluctuates on the commodities exchange, prices rise and fall in real-time causing the user to reflect on their relationship to the abstract fluctuation of the price of oil reported on the news everyday. "Oil Standard" synthesized my interest in hactivism and net.art, sustainable economics, and information design to create an art piece that opened up a dialogue about oil, economics, and the environment. It was used and discussed by eco-techies, high school classes, progressive politicians, and Internet artists. This project achieved the goal of making abstract information legible so as to create dialogue about the important issues surrounding how we use the earth's natural resources.

"Real Costs" and "Oil Standard" very intentionally sit in the liminal spaces between art and design, between hactivism and software development, and between situationist intervention and green-tech tool making. I have situated this project in this position at the edge of art because it allows me to present completely unexpected content in familiar forms. The goal is to seduce the viewer through what appears to be a comfortable and usual situation and to create an experience of surprise and wonder. I have done this before, in "Shop Mandiberg", (http://Mandiberg.com/shop) where I buit an e-commerce site as a container for self-portraiture, and in "Bush Poll," (http://BushPoll.com) where I made an opinion poll of the other 153 George Bushes of the country. By making art appear in everyday contexts the potential capacity for art to instigate change is integrated into daily life.

I would contextualize this approach within a growing body of similar work. I see this taking place in work like Angie Waller's http://myfrienemies.com/, Ben Engebreth's http://personal-kyoto.org/, and xtine hansen's http://delocator.net/ + http://yourneighborsbiz.com/. One of the core motivations in these works is to make something that has a function, and which changes or articulates how we interact with (one small part of) the world.

Yours,

Michael Mandiberg

++

Michael Mandiberg
Artist in Residence // Eyebeam
Asst Professor // CSI/CUNY
Michael -at- Mandiberg -dot- com
http://Mandiberg.com

++links++

http://TheRealCosts.com
http://turbulence.org/Works/oilstandard/
http://Mandiberg.com/shop
http://BushPoll.com

http://myfrienemies.com
http://personal-kyoto.org/
http://delocator.net
http://yourneighborsbiz.com

iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity iDC[at]mailman.thing.net http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc

List Archive:
http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/

iDC Photo Stream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/

Posted by jo at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)

Oracle by Justin Bennett

Available for Consultation Now

Oracle: A project by Justin Bennett for the City of Luxembourg: The Oracle, situated in a park on the rue de Trèves, is available for consulation from 28th April until 2nd December, 2007. A park bench by a clump of trees provides the perfect place to rest, to enjoy the view over the city, and to consult the oracle.

The Oracle predicts the future, of course, but it also comes up with wise statements, comments about the visible environment, personal advice, riddles, instructions for performative actions, political observations, and inspiration for all visitors. It attempts to answer all questions, especially those that the visitor didn’t ask. It is truly a 21st century oracle, using state-of-the-art random technology to prepare and share its wisdom.

The oracle speaks the languages Luxembourgish, French and German. For those not willing to make the journey to the city of Luxembourg, or for the linguistically challenged, an online consultation in English is available. However, because of the great distances involved, and the limitations of bandwidth, the oracle cannot guarantee its habitual variety or accuracy.

Oracle responses inspired by, among others: Delphic utterances, I Ching, Nostradamus, Eno/Schmidt’s “Oblique Strategies”, Situationist International, “Kerndenkers” by André Garitte, Jean Luc Godard’s “One plus one”, George Brecht, Confucius.

voices: Sonja Neuman, Christophe Dumont, Stephie Büttrich.
texts: Justin Bennett, Stéphanie Templier, Renate Zentschnig.
curator: Hou Hanru. - Trans(ient) City program.
production: Art Public Contemporain, Paris.

Posted by jo at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)

Visual Voice Pro

An Ultra-Responsive Environment

Visual Voice Pro creates an immersive, reactive digital playspace. The installation is comprised of a sensitive microphone, a computer with a data projector, and custom software written especially for the space. The microphone listens to all of the sounds in the room, from tiny footsteps to laughter to singing or even banging a drum. The computer instantly processes the sounds to create abstract, beautiful graphics. Action and re-action are clearly, vibrantly displayed. When the room is quiet, the scene falls still and dark. When there is noise there is activity. The louder the noise the bigger the effect.

"The entire experience has been designed based on requests from parents and care-givers of people with autism, cerebral palsy, and all sorts of behaviour disorders," says Adam Montandon, "So I am very keen to hear what anybody thinks."

Adam Montandon is the Director of HMC Interactive. You can contact him at Grosvenor House, Belgrave Lane, Plymouth, PL4 7DA, UK :: + 44 (0)845 20 11 462 :: Mob: + 44 (0)772 17 36 021.

Posted by jo at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)

Merce Cunningham Dance Company

Site-Specific, Participatory Experiences

Join us for a Moment with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on Saturday, May 19th: The Orange County Performing Arts Center celebrates the unique character of its new multi-venue Performing Arts Center Campus by presenting the remarkable Merce Cunningham Dance Company. The evening-length experience will feature company performances and multi-media happenings in multiple locations at the Performing Arts Center that will showcase the profound impact of this major American Artist.

7:00 PM – Samueli Theater: Bonnie Brooks, Dance Department Chair, Columbia College Chicago: “How to Watch a Cunningham Concert: Eight Entry Points and Three Exit Strategies”. Join dance scholar Bonnie Brooks as she presents the core concepts of the Cunningham Aesthetic in an informal lecture/demonstration that will demystify the Cunningham aesthetic for the newest audience members and deepen the experience for those who have seen the company in the past.

8:00 PM – Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall:

Merce Cunningham Dance Company performs an Event in the new Concert Hall. To celebrate this new space, the company creates a 30-minute, site specific performance. Musicians John King and William Winant will provide the sound component.

8:30 PM – Plaza Courtyard- ‘Beach Birds for Camera’: Adjacent to the new Richard Serra sculpture, view one of Merce Cunningham’s most important film dances, Beach Birds for Camera (1993, directed by Eliot Caplan), projected onto the wall of the Segerstom Hall at a majestic scale never seen before. The score will be performed live by John King, Stephan Moore, William Winant and Michael Dauphinais. While watching, visit one of the iPod stations to pick up your iPod Shuffle before you enter the next venue, Segerstrom Hall.

9:00 PM – Segerstrom Hall

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company performs Merce’s latest work, eyeSpace in the West Coast Premiere. Mikel Rouse has created an innovative score that incorporates the use of iPod Shuffles, digitally sampled sounds of John Cage’s prepared piano, and an environmental soundscape that will be performed live by MCDC musicians and projected throughout the theater. Decor and costumes are by Brooklyn-based painter Henry Samelson.

9:30 PM – Plaza Courtyard— ‘Playground-MinEvent’

It’s a “Happening!’ Return your iPod to the iPod Stations in the Plaza Courtyard and immerse yourself in ‘Playground – MinEvent; a one-of-a-kind Multi-Media Experience especially created just for tonight and just for you. This MinEvent will transform the Plaza Courtyard with dynamic projections, LIVE Cameras, music DJs, moving lights, and a cast of student dancers.

“Playground-MinEvent’’ is being created as a youthful Orange County 'response' to the ground-breaking work of Merce Cunningham and avant-garde composer, John Cage. Performers include UCI Dance students under the direction of Cunningham alumnus Michael Cole, plus student musicians/DJs, video artists and camera operators from Chapman University and Cal State Fullerton – all to create an Interactive LIVE Video/Soundscape full of surprises.

Posted by jo at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)

Flux Factory presents

Paterson, a collaboration between Flux Factory and a city

Flux Factory is proud to present Paterson, an artistic collaboration between Flux Factory and an entire city :: June 2-July 14 :: Opening Party: Saturday, June 2, 4pm at the Paterson Museum, Paterson, NJ :: For further information: Website, Phone: 718-707-3362, Email contact: Stefany Anne Golberg, info[at]fluxfactory.org

What Are We Doing? Flux Factory has assembled a team of artists and art professionals to create a proposal for a monument to the city of Paterson, New Jersey. We will keep a headquarters at the Paterson Museum which will act as a meeting place, research library, and installation. We are going to immerse ourselves in Paterson in order to come up with ideas that reflect the real people and the real experience of the place. During our six weeks in Paterson there will be daily events like walking tours, lectures, readings, discussions, performances, get-togethers, picnics, boat and bicycle rides, and debates, all free and open to the general public (not including transportation). Tours will be given by Flux Factory and Patersonians alike. Please visit our website for an updated list of event schedules.

Why Paterson? Paterson, New Jersey is a special place. Founded as the first planned industrial city by Alexander Hamilton and others, it played a major role in the industrial and economic development of the United States. But Paterson is also part of the cultural imagination of our country. William Carlos Williams wrote an extended lyric poem taking Paterson as his title and subject. The important American artist Robert Smithson considered Paterson and the surrounding Passaic Valley to be a source of artistic inspiration. Indeed, Paterson and the American Imagination are deeply connected.

Anything Else We Should Know? Monuments are often a disappointment, to say the least, though human beings have been building them since the beginning of civilization. There are places and people we all want to pay homage to. But the end result is often dull and lifeless, the very opposite of the subject being memorialized. What is a monument? Is it an ode to bygone days? A celebration of the past or an expression of the future? We think that “Paterson” will create an artwork out of the process of thinking through these questions. Most fundamentally, this project carries forward an idea of collaboration that animates everything we do at Flux Factory. Flux Factory projects are always about bringing groups of people together in order to create an experience. In this case, the idea of collaboration is being pushed to a whole new level: a collaboration that involves an entire city. Indeed, more than an entire city, since a basic assumption of this project is that Paterson is a lens through which one can discover things about the American experience in general and involve people from all over the world.

PATERSON PARTICIPANTS: Jean Barberis, Mikey Barringer, Angela Beallor, Jason David Brown, Christine Conforti, Joseph Costa, Giacomo De Stefano, Peter Duyan, Alita Edgar, eteam, Neil Freeman, Dana Gramp, The Ivanhoe Artists Mosaic of Paterson, Suzanne Joelson, Joe Milutis, The Paterson Museum, Leonora Retsas, Joe Ruffilo, Shuli Sade, Ruth Stanford.

*Conceived and Organized by Stefany Anne Golberg and Morgan Meis*

‘Paterson’ is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Greenwall Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

EVENTS AND TOURS

*PLEASE NOTE: Schedules may be subject to change, so please visit our website, www.fluxfactory.org, for more information. Most tours, unless otherwise indicated, are walking tours. Please wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to walk.

Town Hall Meetings: Discuss the project with the design team. This is open to the general public—Patersonians and New Yorkers alike. Make your voice heard!
Where to meet: Paterson Museum
Dates: Every Thursday evening from June 7-July 12
Time: 7:00pm

Opening Party: Reception and introduction to the project
Where to meet: Paterson Museum
Date: Saturday, June 2
Time: 4:00pm

Paterson reading group with Joe Milutis: The “Paterson Reading Group” will be an informal discussion of William Carlos Williams’ epic poem Paterson, meeting on throughout June, and featuring tours and special guests. Participants will be expected to furnish their own copy of ‘Paterson’; we’ll be using the “revised edition” with annotations by Christopher MacGowan. To register for the reading group and receive updates and meeting locations, please email joe_milutis[at]brown.edu.

Sunday, June 3; 2pm
Introductions; tour of the Passaic Falls, Paterson Museum;
dutch-treat dinner at Griselda’s.

Monday, June 11; 7pm
Discussion of Book I of Paterson.

Monday, June 25; 7pm
Discussion of Book II of Paterson;
walk on Garrett Mountain

Monday, July 2; 7pm
Discussion of Book III of Paterson;
visit to Paterson Public Library

Monday, July 9; 7pm
Discussion of Books IV and V of Paterson

Special Tour with artist duo eteam: More information to come
Where to meet: TBA
Date: Saturday, June 9
Time: TBA

The Expert’s Historic Tour: Tour with Paterson Museum Director Giacomo De Stefano
Where to meet: Paterson Museum
Dates: Sunday, June 10
Time: 2:00pm

The Flâneur Tour: Three cooperative, unstructured car drives through Paterson with artist Neil Freeman. PLEASE NOTE: Because of space, these tours are limited to 3-4 participants each. First come first serve. Please RSVP to 718.707.3362.
Where to meet: Paterson Museum
Dates: June 10, June 16, June 30
Time: 11:00am

The Pilgrimage Tour: Jean Barberis takes you on a stroll that starts in Grand Central Station and leads you all the way to the Great Falls in Paterson. Actually, it’s only 20 miles, so don’t be shy! Beverages are on us.
Where to meet: Grand Central Station, NYC
Date: Saturday, June 16
Time: 11:00am

The Paterson Art Scene-War Stories from Those Who Know: Artists Joe Ruffilo and Don Kommit give you the lowdown on Paterson’s rich artistic and literary history, from personal stories of Kerouac and Ginsburg to the present.
Where to meet: Paterson Museum
Date: Saturday, July 23
Time: 2:00pm

The Religious Institutions of Paterson: Their Architecture and Influence on the Community: The city of Paterson has nearly 140 places of worship. This tour will focus on the design of a few of the institutions and their effects on the growth and development of the community. Led by Leonora Retsas.
Where to meet: Paterson Museum
Date: Sunday, June 24
Time: 2:00pm

Wednesdays at the Ivanhoe: Visit the one and only Ivanhoe Artists Mosaic, a nonprofit arts organization, meeting house, and gallery in Paterson, for their monthly "Open Mike" with the opening reception for "Love Affair with Paterson" a tribute to all there is to love about the world's first planned industrial city. See website for details and directions to all events, www.ivanhoeartists.org.
Where to meet: Ivanhoe Wheelhouse, Spruce Street between Market St. and McBride Ave, next to Burger King
Date: Wednesday, June 27
Time: 8:00pm

Industrial Archaeology Tour: Tour the city’s unbelievable old mill buildings and industrial architecture with Shuli Sade and others.
Where to meet: Paterson Museum
Date: Saturday, June 30
Time: 1:00pm

Cinematic Visions of Paterson: Films about Paterson, films by Patersonians, and unexpected films… An event with Mikey Barringer. To be followed by a party at the Ivanhoe.
Where to meet: Paterson Museum
Date: Sunday, July 1
Time: 3:00pm

A Re-Tour Of The Monuments Of The Passaic: Travel with Peter Duyan as you re-create, re-walk, and re-photograph Robert Smithson's experience of monumental discovery through Passaic, New Jersey. What are today's New Monuments? Lets find out.

Where to meet: Port Authority NYC. Meet at the 190 bus gate going to Paterson. Roundtrip tickets between NYC and Paterson are $9.00 and can be purchased at the bud station. Call 646.708.2360 for more info.
Date: Saturday, July 7
Time: 10:45am

The Paterson Mystery Tour: Stefany Anne Golberg and Morgan Meis take you on a tour of Paterson full of special discoveries and hidden places…To be followed by drinks and more at The Ivanhoe
Where to meet: Paterson Museum
Date: Sunday, July 8
Time: 2:00pm

Closing Party: Details TBA. See www.fluxfactory.org for updates. Date: Saturday, July 14

There are a number of great festivals happening in Paterson this summer! Check them out:

African American Heritage Parade: June 16, 2007, beginning at 10:00am. Parade starts at the Masonic Temple on Broadway

Puerto Rican Parade and Festival: The festival will happen on Marshall Street from August 24-16. The parade will be on Main Street on August 26

Getting to Paterson from NYC

By Bus: From Port Authority, take the 190 bus to Paterson. For Paterson Museum, take the bus to the end of the line, Broadway. Buses usually leave every 15 minutes. Go to www.njtransit.com for more info. Cost: $4.50 each way

By Train: From Penn Station. Must switch trains in Secaucus. Go to www.njtransit.com for more info and schedules. Cost: $5.25 each way

By Car:Follow Route 80 West and signs to Paterson. For the Paterson Museum, get off at Exit 57-A/B, to Downtown Paterson.

For detailed driving directions to the Paterson Museum, visit www.thepatersonmuseum.com

Flux Factory is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization.

Posted by jo at 08:28 AM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2007

mech[a]OUTPUT

koosil-ja / danceKUMIKO

The Japan Society presents mech[a]OUTPUT by koosil-ja / danceKUMIKO :: Thu-Sat May 31- June 2, 2007.

Radical New York-based choreographer/dancer/ singer song writer/ new media artist Koosil-Ja presents an electrifying multimedia dance-performance with live 3-D environment, seamlessly incorporating elements of traditional noh music and choreography from the classic noh play Dojoji. The legends surrounding Dojo-ji Temple in Wakayama, southeast of Osaka, have inspired numerous noh and kabuki plays about the vengeful spirit of a spurned woman. By juxtaposing the restrained and subtle choreography of Dojoji with 3D world imaging projected on to a large screen, the daring Bessie Award and Guggenheim Fellowship-winning artist Koosil-ja transposes the work into her own aesthetic context, creating an innovative blend of modern and traditional, digital and flesh.

The production features 3D world designed and production by Claudia Hart, 3D Interactive interface designed and performed by John Klima, live Neo Punk Music by Geoff Matters, dramaturgy by Nanako Nakajima, Pendulum & Physical Apparatus Design and Kinetic Engineering by Michael Casselli, Head Gear by Tara Webb, and Betnon-C Bainbirdge (Video Projection Super Engineering).

With:

Geoff Matters (Live Neo Punk Music and Software Design)
Nanako Nakajima (Dramaturgy)
Michael Casselli (Pendulum & Physical Apparatus Design and Kinetic Engineering)
Claudia Hart (3D Wrold)
John Klima (3D Interface & Live Performance)
koosil-ja (Concept, Dance, Video, Video pendulum, Song, Sound Installation and Costume)
Tara Webb (Head Gear)
Benton-C Bainbirdge (Video Projection Super Engineering)

Dates: Thu-Sat May 31- June 2, 2007
Time: 7:30PM
Location: 333 East 47th Street, btwn 1st and 2nd Ave. NYC
Tickets: $25/$20 Japan Society members.
Reservations: Japan Society (212) 715-1258
at JAPAN SOCIETY Ticket Information

STUDENT RUSH $12.50 Student Rush (50% off!)
Pending availability, Student Rush tickets will go on sale an hour
before showtime. Valid ID required, 2 tickets max per ID.

mech[a]OUTPUT is made possible by a commission from Japan Society; funds from American Music Center Live Music for Dance, and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and generous individual contributions.

Posted by jo at 03:37 PM | Comments (0)

Wafaa Bilal: Domestic Tension

Iraqi born artist Wafaa Bilal has become known for provocative interactive video installations. Many of Bilal's projects over the past few years have addressed the dichotomy of the virtual vs. the real.

He attempts to keep in mind the relationship of the viewer to the artwork, with one of his main objectives transforming the normally passive experience of viewing art into an active participation. In Domestic Tension, viewers can log onto the internet to contact, or shoot, Bilal with paintball guns.

Bilal’s objective is to raise awareness of virtual war and privacy, or lack thereof, in the digital age. During the course of the exhibition, Bilal will confine himself to the gallery space. During the installation, people will have 24-hour virtual access to the space via the Internet. They will have the ability to watch Bilal and interact with him through a live web-cam and chat room. Should they choose to do so, viewers will also have the option to shoot Bilal with a paintball gun, transforming the virtual experience into a very physical one.

Bilal’s self imposed confinement is designed to raise awareness about the life of the Iraqi people and the home confinement they face due to the both the violent and the virtual war they face on a daily basis. This sensational approach to the war is meant to engage people who may not be willing to engage in political dialogue through conventional means. Domestic Tension will depict the suffering of war not through human displays of dramatic emotion, but through engaging people in the sort of playful interactive-video game with which they are familiar.

For the duration of May, 2007, Iraqi born artist Wafaa Bilal will live in the FlatFile Galleries in Chicago. The public can watch him 24 hours a day over a live webcam; and if they choose, visitors to his website can shoot him with a remote controlled paintball gun.

Bilal’s self imposed confinement is designed to raise awareness about the life of the Iraqi people and the home confinement they face due to the both the violent and the virtual war they face on a daily basis.

You can participate - eg shoot at him with a paintball gun - by clicking here.

See this site for some videos and more about the Wafaa's work. [via selectparks]

Posted by jo at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

Synk

Real-time Processing

Synk is an experimental dance / video / audio piece where video and audio samples and recycles the movements of the dancer on stage, creating rich layers of images and sound. The performance deals with transformation of time ; distortion, displacement, delay, layering and buffering. The idea of Synk is that no prerecorded video or audio will be used, only material sampled during the performance are presented, to investigate live as raw material, and to impose a structure on a live situation to allow unpredictable results within that frame structure. Synk was made in 2002 and performed in a split-evening with the video ensemble 242.Pilots.

On Friday May 4th, (HC Gilje) performed Synk with Kreutzerkompani and Justin Bennett. More images from Synk (click on the small images).

Posted by jo at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)

Machine For Taking Time (2001-2004) by David Rokeby

“ A colour surveillance camera has been mounted outside the gallery on a computer controlled pan/tilt mechanism, allowing it to see most of the surrounding gardens. Every day since March 28, 2001, the system has been taking still images from 1079 pre-determined positions along a sweeping path around the garden.

[..] the computer software travels through this accumulating archive of images, wandering through time, but progressing very slowly and smoothly through the successive positions in the original path.

The software does four kinds of wandering. It sometimes moves along the path using images from a single day. Or it might disolve sequentially from day to day as it progresses along the path. Alternatively it might dissolve from date to date randomly. Occasionally it will stop its movement along the path and show all the images taken from that position in rapid succession. The shifting of modes and the choices of dates is a function of a somewhat random process, and so the piece never repeats itself.” David Rokeby.

More video documentation at YouTube.

Posted by jo at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

The Prosthetic Impulse:

From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future

Prosthesis -- pointing to an addition, replacement, extension, enhancement -- has become something of an all-purpose metaphor for the interactions of body and technology. Concerned with cybernetics, transplant technology, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality, among other cultural and scientific developments, "the prosthetic" conjures up a posthuman condition. In response to this, the 13 original essays in The Prosthetic Impulse reassert the phenomenological, material, and embodied nature of prosthesis without dismissing its metaphorical potential. They examine the historical and conceptual edge between the human and the posthuman -- between flesh and its accompanying technologies. Rather than tracking the transformation of one into the other, these essays address this borderline and the delicate dialectical situation in which it places us. Concentrating on this edge, the collection demonstrates how the human has been technologized and technology humanized.

The eclectic approach taken by The Prosthetic Impulse draws on disciplines ranging from gender studies, philosophy, and visual culture to psychoanalysis, cybertheory, and phenomenology. The first section, "Carnality: Between Phenomenology and the Biocultural" concentrates on the organic, describing a body that, by its very materiality, is always and already prosthetic. The second section, "Assembling: Internalization. Externalization," considers the technological qualities and peculiarities of prosthesis, raising questions about the ways in which film, photography, AI, drawing, and literature -- representation itself -- can be situated within the framework of a prosthetic discourse. Taken together, the essays suggest that prosthesis is material as well as metaphorical. "It is just a matter of pondering where the inelegant edges lie," the editors write, "and living them most wonderfully."

From The Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future, Edited by Marquard Smith and Joanne Morra.

Marquard Smith is Course Director of the Masters Programme in Art History and Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture in the School of Art and Design History, Kingston University, London. He is editor-in-chief of the journal of visual culture.

Joanne Morra is Senior Lecturer in Historical and Theoretical Studies at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. She is principal editor of the journal of visual culture.

Posted by jo at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)

Sinister

Social Networks Foster Conspiracy

Annina Rüst's Sinister "is a service based on research into software designed to identify and analyse suspicious behaviour through communication patterns rather than the content of conversations (data-surveillance). Visually, Sinister appears as a friendly social networking environment, but it suggests that social networking also fosters conspiracy. Online chat bots and automatised scoundrels (artificially intelligent characters) infiltrate chat networks and discuss seemingly common-place topics such as gardening, but occasionally include criminal harmful comments. You can telephone the bots and insert your own messages into their conversations also, using voice recognition software which looks for con-spirative content. The software then maps and interprets these online conversations, comparing diagrams to a database to determine the possible unfriendly uses people might have for the online social network. In the gallery-based installation, the seats represent the nodes in the social network – by moving the seats around as you join into conversation with your fellow visitors, the computer can then draft and analyse new diagrams based on the connections in the social network you create." Part of MY OWN PRIVATE REALITY: GROWING UP ONLINE IN THE 90S and 00S.

Posted by jo at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)

AUR: a Robotic Desk Lamp

Performs Lives

AUR: a Robotic Desk Lamp is a robotic desk lamp, a collaborative lighting assistant. It serves as a non-anthropomorphic robotic platform as part of Guy Hoffman's Ph.D thesis on human-robot fluency and nonverbal behavior. The lamp's design was conceived around an existing 5-DoF robotic arm, and is aimed to evoke a personal relationship with the human partner without resorting to human-like features. By retaining the lamp's "objectness", I hope to explore the relationship that can be maintained through abstract gestures and nonverbal behavior alone.

The lamp is animated using a custom pipeline enabling the dynamic control of behaviors authored in a 3d animation system. This week, it will take its first stab at performing alongside human actors in MIT Dramashop's Playwrights in Performance. That's right, a robot, on stage, live, with nothing but an emergency button to save it. What: "The Confessor" - a play by Rony Kubat written especially for this human-robot ensemble.

When: May 9, 10, 11 @ 8pm
Where: Kresge Rehearsal Room B (seating *very* limited)
How: As part of MIT Dramashop's "Playwrights in Performance" and in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab

Posted by jo at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! New York

Michael Mandiberg

Upgrade! New York: Michael Mandiberg :: Thursday, May 10, 7:30 PM :: @ Eyebeam, 540-548 west 21st street (bet 10 & 11 Ave).

Michael Mandiberg will be giving a talk + workshop about his new project Real Costs. Attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop to play along. Programming knowledge useful, but not necessary. This hybrid talk/workshop will include a 30 minute presentation of the project, and how it relates to Michael's previous work, followed by guided mod'ing of the script. Michael will provide a focused walk through of the code, and then set everyone free to make some modifications and provide feedback for the project.

Michael Mandiberg is an artist, computer programmer and rogue economist who uses the Internet, video and performance to explore subjectivity, labor and commerce. Michael’s most recent project, Oil Standard, created a browser plug-in that converts all prices on any web page to their equivalent value in barrels of oil. He will continue this vein of work at Eyebeam, employing devices such as Firefox plug-ins and open API platforms to highlight real environmental costs in a global economy.

Posted by jo at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! Sofia

Blender & Open Source Software and Communities

Upgrade! Sofia wakes up in the heat of May to bring local enthusiasts a few steps closer to the international open source software and community with Blender & Open Source Software and Communities :: Wednesday, May, 16th, 2007 :: Cammer Hall, National Theatre of Satire "Aleko Konstantinov", 26 Stefan Karadja Street :: start: 19:00.

An evening of three presentations. Three professionals from three different countries with long experience in 3D graphics and open source software and communities. Three points of view: Why is Blender one of most successful open source projects in multimedia?

Presenters: The point of view of a 3D developer: Rui Campos (Portugal) - Head of the Blender Foundation Education Board. Developer and Trainer of an e-learning platform for internal use. NewsForge writer.

The point of view of an game designer: Sanu Vamanchery Mana (India) - 8 years of experience in the broadcast, gaming and web Industry. Thorough knowledge of 3D Max and Maya's capabilities. Skilled modeler, excellent lighting, dynamic procedural texturing, compositing, keying and mattes, motion tracking and rotoscoping.

The point of view of an architect: Theodore Dounas (Greece) - Research in architectural design and threedimentional computer games Phd candidate. Teaching of architectural design in Intergraphics College, Intergeraphics educational group, www.intergraphics.gr Teaching of computer aided design for architects and designers, in educational organization Papiotis.

The presenters are official trianers at the TOSMI (training on open -source multimedia instruments) organized by InterSpace and supported by the MEDIA programme of the European Commission.

For the people still working with Maya and 3D Studio Max - Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. In one word: it does everything you usually do, but for free.

Links: theupgrade.i-space.org
tosmi.i-space.org
slovo.bg/satirata
blender.cult.bg
intergraphics.gr

Posted by jo at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

ArtCamp

9 juin (9 of june), Rennes (France - UE)

A BarCamp(1) will be organized in Rennes. It will be held on June 9 in Rennes in France. All are welcome! This BarCamp is on contemporary artistic practices ("ArtCamp" : digital arts, Net art, electronic music, visual arts...) with sciences and ICT. The purpose is to support exchanges between international experts, researchers, engineers, amateurs, artists from all horizons... Everything is possible: to cross methods of innovation, to make known a project or a innovating idea, to imagine new collaborations, to show your experiments, to find competences which you lack... A maximum of 80 people can come. Inscription is free but obligatory! Information can be found here. Contact : emmanuel.mahe[at]orange-ftgroup.com

(1) What is a BarCamp? BarCamp is an international network of unconferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies and social protocols. The name is a playful allusion to its origins, with reference to the hacker slang term, foobar: BarCamp arose as a spin-off from Foo Camp, an annual invitation-only unconference hosted by open source publishing luminary, Tim O'Reilly.

BarCamps are organized (and evangelized) largely through the web, harnessing what might be called a Web 2.0 communications toolkit. By "open-sourcing" the organizational process of a Foo Camp unconference, that is, codifying it in a wiki and making that publicly available, BarCamp seems to have struck a chord. It has since been implemented in 31 cities around the world and is serving as a reference for unconferences in other fields. The involvement of key figures in the web development community, such as Tantek Çelik and Ross Mayfield, no doubt has helped its adoption. More information about BarCamps.

Posted by jo at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)

May 09, 2007

Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix

Download it Now

Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix :: Edited by Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye. Design by Joel Swanson (hippocrit.com). Contributors include Niall Lucy, Jon McKenzie, Linda Marie Walker, Craig Saper, Rowan Wilken, Marcel O'Gorman, Teri Hoskin, and Michael Jarrett, with an introduction by editors Tofts and Gye.

"Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix" is an exciting new ebook publication that employs theorist Gregory Ulmer's invocation to invent new forms of electronic writing. As the ebook's editors, Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye, write in their brilliant introduction, "Ulmer has been at the forefront of thinking about new cultural formations as the paradigm of literacy converges with digital culture." Ulmer's work has been central to contemporary thinking on the future of writing and his international presence as one of the leading figures in media arts discourse has influenced a multitude of disciplines from electronic literature and Internet art to critical theory, communications studies, and art history.

The ebook features a diverse group of artists, theorists, and creative writers who develop new forms of hybridized "digital rhetoric." Their inventive and audacious experiments take advantage of recent developments in the field of new media studies, and as part of Alt-X's mission to participate in the creative commons provided by the Web, are available for free download.

This provocative collection of multi-tracked writing puts into play many of Ulmer's breakthrough theories summed up in his most recognized hot-button terms: applied grammatology, heuretics, post(e)-pedagogy, textshop, mystory, and choragraphy. Encouraged by the example of Ulmer's own hyperrhetorical writing style, the authors incorporate collaged imagery, mp3 soundtracks, and QuickTime movies into their innovative multimedia mix while exploring how these same extensions of "writerly performance" explode the false barrier between academic discourse and spontaneous poetics, narrative and rhetoric, and autobiography and fiction. Positing an "illogic of sense" to reclaim what Ulmer calls an "anticipatory consciousness," designed to utilize the force of intuition as a way to invent emergent forms of knowledge, this grouping of hypermedia texts showcase how interdisciplinary writers can remix the methodological approach of an avant-garde philosophy propelled by Ulmer, one that prioritizes an ongoing process of discovery and media arts assemblage.

The ebook is beautifully designed by artist Joel Swanson of hippocrit.com, who crosses his visionary design sensibility with state of the art technology to produce an original work of ebook-art that many will view as finally fulfilling the long-promised potential of online publishing to use stimulating visual arrangement, media hybridization, and typographical ingenuity to blur the distinction between publication, exhibition, and design performance.

Download "Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix" ebook here. (46MB)

Posted by jo at 07:34 PM | Comments (0)

Fijuu2

Needs your Help

Fijuu2 was accepted for installation at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression conference in New York, on show from June 07 through til the 10th this year. We have a very nice (read 'expensive') small form-factor shuttle that we usually use for presenting the piece here in Europe, running Ubuntu 6.10 and a recent NVIDIA SLI graphics card.

As is common in America, there's no fee for presenting work at NIME, so we're reluctant to send the machine over the Atlantic at our own expense. Travel expenses are also not covered, so we're not going to NIME itself. To that effect we can't bring the machine with us as carry-on luggage (like we normally do).

So, we're looking for someone in the New York area that would be willing to provide a machine on which to present Fijuu2 for those three days - publically credited as our official NIME07 hardware sponsor ;)

Installing Fijuu2 itslf is now just a case of double-clicking a few Debian packages - no UNIX kungfu required. this places the only requirements being a gamepad (we can send that over), Ubuntu 6.10, a reasonable sound-card and fast graphics card.

Here's a bit about the project: http://fijuu.com/outline/index.html; recent video describing the interface model: home page here; and here's a bit about NIME 07. Write to inf[at]@fijuu.com if you think you can help. Thanks for reading!

julian
http://julianoliver.com
http://selectparks.net

Posted by jo at 06:27 PM | Comments (0)

Psychobotany:

Revolutionary Breakthroughs in Human/Plant Communication

Psychobotany: Revolutionary Breakthroughs in Human/Plant Communication" :: Opening May 12th 7-10pm :: Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles :: curated by Aaron Gach.

It is rumored that attendees may witness: - documentation of collaborations between plants, dancers, and synthesizers in the 70s - a plant alerting its owner of underwatering via telephone - plants responsive to touch - newsreporting by the Plant Media Network - a potion corner. Vistors can also participate in a social experiment that tests the collective impact of positive and negative thoughts on tomato plants. Druids may or may not be in attendance. All plants and humans welcome.

Featuring the efforts of...

Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
Botanicalls
Cleve Backster
Center for Tactical Magic
Peter Coffin
DARPA
Earth Films
Molly Frances
Marc Herbst
Denise King
John Lifton
Richard Lowenberg
Jim Wiseman
Tom Zahuranec
plus Moses, the Druids, and More!

Machine Project
1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA 90026
213-483-8761

Posted by jo at 06:19 PM | Comments (0)

MediaNoche presents

Ursula Endlicher to Perform www.myspace.com

MediaNoche presents: New media artist Ursula Endlicher will perform www.myspace.com from her "Website Impersonations: The Ten Most Visited" series :: May 12 2007, 8PM :: 161 East 106th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues.

Ursula will take direction from the site's real-time source code combined with material from her 'html-movement-library', which contains movements and gestures submitted by the public. This will determine the flow of her "Website Impersonations" as she follows these choreographic instructions in MediaNoche. Visitors to the exhibition and passers-by are invited to participate in the performance.

According to the artist, "Website Impersonations: The Ten Most Visited is a performance series utilizing the html-movement-library for enacting and re-interpreting the "ten most popular" websites. The choreography for each Website Impersonation comes from the real-time html structure of each site, translated by the library into movement suggestions 'on the fly.' As a performer I never know which html tag, and therefore which movement task will come next as this is depending on how the site is scripted at the moment.

MediaNoche is Uptown's first new media gallery where the digital arts and community converge. Only blocks from Museum Mile, MediaNoche is easily reached by the IRT #6 train to East 103rd Street, or by the bus routes along Third and Lexington Avenues.

FREE and open to the public!
For more information:
Judith Escalona, Director of MediaNoche
212.646.228.7950 or 212.828.0401

This performance is presented in conjunction with Ursula's current exhibition "The html-movement-library and Singing Website Wallpaper" at MediaNoche, extended through June 8, 2007. For more information on the performance series go to
http://www.ursenal.net/wi_ttmv.

Posted by jo at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)

liners performance -- May 10, 2007

The "liners" performance by Zach Lieberman and Theo Watson revolves around a simple graphical idea: a line which starts and never ends. The performance mixes different video clips that people have sent them of lines being drawn, along with live content, in order to tell the story of a seamless line which never ends. The two performers use custom software to seemlessly mix together a large series of live and pre-recorded linear expression into a ceaseless, evolving, whimsical landscape, in which one line leads to the next. From a line of simple pixels, to a hand drawn line, to a horizon line, to a line of text, the performance is not at all about getting to a final destination, but completely about the delight of traveling.

They are accepting contributions until noon on May 10th. For information on what kind of material and where and how to send it, click here

Posted by newradio at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)

DARFUR, A HELL ON EARTH:

DARFUR, DAR AFRICA, DAR CHINA

Studio Soto invites you to the opening reception of Khalid Kodi’s installation DARFUR, A HELL ON EARTH: DARFUR, DAR AFRICA, DAR CHINA :: May 13 - June 3, 2007 :: Opening Reception: May 13, 3 - 6 pm with performance by Veronique-Anne Epiter :: Gallery hours: Th, F, 5-9; Sat., Sun., 12 - 5 :: Panel discussion: SUDAN • DAR • WAR :: Saturday, May 19, 2007 at 3 pm with: Blanche Foster, Acting Executive Director, Darfur Rehabilitation Project, Inc. Abdelbagy Abushanab, President, Darfur Rehabilitation Project, Inc., and David Buchbinder, Human Rights Watch

Utilizing installation, paintings, appropriation and video projection, Khalid Kodi brings to Studio Soto a lamentation and sharp critique of Sudan's long civil war, and China's dubious investments in the current regime.

Posted by jo at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! Berlin

Field trip to Trampoline Berlin

Upgrade! Berlin: field trip to Trampoline Berlin :: Wednesday, May 9 at 7 pm at Trampoline Berlin, Rungestrasse 20; near U - Station Jannowitzbrücke.

Meet the curators of Trampoline Berlin for a talk about the curatorial agenda of this place. We are especially interested in finding out more about their approaches towards innovative presentation formats of media art. The video of this evening will be available online by the end of May.

Trampoline is dedicated to the promotion of new technology art and artists and aims to present cutting edge art in an informal atmosphere; encouraging new artists to exhibit work to a real audience, whilst providing a platform for established artists working in new directions. Trampoline began life in 1997 as Nottingham's first ever platform event for new media art.

In 2001, founders Miles Chalcraft and Anette Schäfer moved to Berlin and expanded Trampoline to Germany. Co-founder Gareth Howell continued Trampoline Nottingham throughout 2001 and 2002. Since then Trampoline has been left in the capable hands of a series of guest curators including Sharmila Cogger and Lizzy Whirrity, Nottingham art based collective, REACTOR and now Emma Lewis. The most recent events took place in October and December 2005, as part of the Radiator Festival. Work is always selected for Trampoline from an open call for submissions. Please find more information here.

You want to join us on our caravan of questions, roaming the media art
spaces of Berlin? Just get in touch with us here.

Posted by jo at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)

Art Intercom: An Interview Series with the iCommons Artists in Residence

MTAA

Art Intercom: An Interview Series with the iCommons Artists in Residence. Featuring Art Collective MTAA: MTAA (M.River & T.Whid Art Associates) is simply described on their website as “a Brooklyn, New York-based conceptual and net art collaboration founded in 1996.” I like them because they give me wine when I visit their studio. I like their work, because it is characterized by economy of expression without being generalized or simplistic. What’s more, they frequently extend this aptitude to create feedback systems that require the same streamlined response from their audience. The result is very clean and eloquent communication mediated by or in the form of websites, installations, sculptures and photographic prints. Creative Commons licensing plays a critical role in their work, because it provides a set of pre-established rules for use of their work so that they don’t have to. In short, it simplifies the conversation, and facilitates the elegance that defines their art.

In the two part interview that follows I discuss specific works and what the collective has planned for the iCommons Summit. Part One; Part Two.

Posted by jo at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)

May 08, 2007

Psychological Prosthetics

@ Pathogeographies

Anya Liftig will be in Chicago this weekend performing her piece, 'Loomed' for the Pathogeographies Show at University of Chicago and Mess Hall. May 13: 2pm: Anya Liftig, Loomed' Performance :: at MESS HALL, 6932 N. Glenwood Avenue, Chicago, IL 60626 :: 773 465 4033 :: 'Morse' stop on the CTA.

Liftig and Lian Sifuentes (PSYCHOLOGICAL PROSTHETICS™) will participate in a Roundtable Discussion, "The Pathological Body," on May 12: 7pm.

About Psychological Prosthetics: Founded in 2005 Psychological Prosthetics explores your political feelings; we help you handle your emotional baggage in these political times. Our products and services range from deluxe to economy. Each service and product is designed for you to explore your political feelings of anxiety, guilt, outrage, apathy, anger, hopelessness and regret. Explore our full range of products from our 30 second rant recorder (investigate your outrage) to our custom designed suitcases for your personal emotional, political baggage.

Psychological Prosthetics™ has traveled internationally to England, France, Switzerland, Israel and the US. Most recently the full range of services was available at the “Corporate Art Expo 07” at the LAB, San Francisco, and at the University of Chicago “Pathogeographies” exhibition.

About Pathogeographies: Pathogeographies: Or, Other People’s Baggage

How do you carry your pile of political feelings, and how do you want to encourage others to carry theirs? Pathogeographies is an exhibition project to be held at Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, June 15-July 7, 2007.

The term pathogeography is modeled on the Situationists’ psychogeography but substitutes pathos (feeling) for psyche (the soul), emphasizing the emotional investments, temperatures, traumas, pleasures, and ephemeral experiences circulating throughout the political and cultural landscape. For Pathogeographies, we have invited other collectives and individuals—artists and non-artists alike—to create suitcases, real or imagined, that can carry tools around the city of Chicago and elsewhere to incite, create, collect, and record political/emotional scenes and return them to the gallery to be inspected, collated, discussed, distributed, and diverted to new uses. We envision the project as a surrealist but not unsympathetic irritant to current cartographic trends in art making. With our collaborators, we want not only to reveal hidden political histories as we map the affective expressions of various body politics, but also to create magical linkages and intensities that might extend our political horizons.

What’s at stake in such a project? Some might argue that despair is the pervasive/prevailing emotional current right now in many political communities—where the only “belief” is in our collective and accumulated failures—of stopping the war, of building a creative and effective left. The political arena seems either unthinkable or out of reach, eliciting intense cynicism from people whose votes aren’t counted, whose needs are ignored, whose grievances have no impact, and for whom “politics” signifies little but abuse of power. An unending sense of emergency is matched only by a corresponding sense of alienation, of not “knowing what to do,” and often, of not knowing what to think and how to feel. And yet, like so many, we persist; we are moved, not only by necessity, but by a relentless search for joy, for a life that can be called good and just. Can hopelessness be transformed? Is there anything useful about guilt? How might we collectivize our despair, and our joys? What’s YOUR utopia in need of a rescue? To explore all these pathogeographies, we call on you, your ideas, energy, participation.

Reviewed by Ryan Griffis:

Pathogeographies
June 15-July7
Gallery 400, University of Illinois, Chicago

In an overcrowded London neighborhood in 1854, the powerful combination of cartography and medical knowledge defeated a cholera outbreak that had killed over 600 residents. Dr. John Snow, credited as single-handedly halting the spread of the disease, mapped the proximity of the deaths to water wells and determined that a single well was the source of infection. Subsequently, he managed to have the use of that well stopped, despite the reluctance of local officials, by removing the pump's handle, thus stopping the outbreak. At least, that's how the story of the development of medical cartography and epidemiology if often told.

A century after Snow's formative maps of London's cholera-stricken Broad Street neighborhood, members of the Lettrist International initiated the theory and practice of psychogeography as the study of how the urban, physical environment impacted the consciousness of its inhabitants. Like Snow, the post-Lettrist Situationists sought to counter a disease they saw contained within the built environment. Also like Snow, they did so with the help of maps - only their maps sought to counter, rather than ameliorate, the oppressive instrumentality of capitalist urban space.

Cartography and mapping, including variations on psychogeography, have become a common trope in contemporary art practice, finding expression in forms across media and subject. It is within this context, among others, that I read the recent exhibition and event series, Pathogeographies. Organized by a Chicago-based collective known as Feel Tank, who's work investigates "the emotional temperature of the body politic," Pathogeographies offers an empathic critique of the urban environment, adding social bonding strategies to the oppositional methods of earlier psychogeographic practice.

The exhibition at Gallery 400 is organized into five key themes, giving some framework to the multitude of projects presented. "Moving Compan" contained interventions in space and place, such as the Institute for Infinitely Small Things' "Unmarked Package: A Case for Feeling Insecure" in which the group traveled around the city with a collection of white boxes marked "Unmarked Package" discussing insecurity with passersby. In "Left Luggage," designed by another Chicago collective, Material Exchange, visitors can browse through a collection of suitcases containing artist projects Laura Davis' autobiographical "My Eighties Self," to Matthew Slaats participatory photo-documentary "Timed Change." Gallery visitors were asked to take an emotional and political breather in the "Slow Feeling" section, where Laurie Palmer's "Cloud Cover" challenges us to connect the effects of UV light on our emotional health with the architectural and political reality we have constructed around us. "Raw Material" presents informational projects, such as the Friends of William Blake's "New Yorkers' Guide to Military Recruitment" and Bonnie Fortune's "Radical Grandmothers" zine in a space also designed to encourage visitors to produce projects of their own. And for "Body Politic," Feel Tank organized a series of events distributed throughout Chicago, including their own "Fifth Annual International Parade of the Politically Depressed," on, appropriately, the Fourth of the July.

At the exhibition opening, Dewayne Slightweight performed "I Want to Know the Habits of Other Girls," a self-described 'queer opera.' The artist performed conversations with characters Gilda Radner, Gordon Gaskill, Limbo Tomboy and The Great Auntie, played by life-sized mannequins made of sewn and stuffed shiny fabric. Slightweight's choreographed music and recorded call-and-response dialogue, unevenly, but quite movingly, climaxed in a utopian, choral sing- along with the audience.

"I Want to Know the Habits" provided, arguably, a great encapsulation of the desires and overall effect of Pathogeographies. The audience, seated mostly on the floor, in a semi-circle around Slightweight's minimal yet baroque 'set,' was presented with a constructed narrative, but without the mandate to suspend disbelief. Yet, neither was there an imperative to reveal truth. Both fiction and reality can serve to oppress and liberate, their objective status as one or the other matters little to our experience of them. What seems to matter most here is the collective nature of reality, how individual experience is multiplied and magnified through social structures. Emotional states become emotional States.

Even as mapping tools become more and more available to a larger public, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe in the potential of maps to lead us somewhere more liberating. While artists and activists will no doubt continue to visualize the spaces of both oppression and community, the organizers of Pathogeographies seem to suggest that it's equally important to resist and create those respective spaces. At some point, the handle might need to be put
back on the pump.

Posted by jo at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

ISEA 2008 Artist In Residence

Call for Proposals

ISEA 2008 Call for Proposals - Artist In Residence @ National University of Singapore.

The organizing committee of the International Symposium of Electronic Arts 2008 (ISEA2008) with generous support from the National University of Singapore (NUS), is soliciting proposals from New Media artists to work collaboratively with NUS centers of research and arts in preparation of work to be submitted for exhibition during the July 2008 ISEA in Singapore. Unlike previous symposia where there was a separate call for artists in residence and one of art works for exhibition, ISEA2008 will only have one call for artists' submission. The submissions selected for the AIR will also be subsequently produced and shown in the main ISEA exhibition. Submissions from countries and cultures underrepresented at other New Media venues are particularly encouraged.

Residencies of up to 3 months in duration can be supported, and must be completed before July 2008. Financial support from NUS is available for:

- Economy airfare to and from the artist/designers country of residence,
- University housing while the artist is in Singapore,
- A monthly allowance of S$2000,
- Materials cost of up to S$1000.

In addition, NUS Host Centers will provide equipment, facilities, and expertise as agreed to on a per-project basis.

Artists will have the opportunity and be expected to participate in public and academic community activities such as lectures and demonstrations during the course of their residency.

More details and the guidelines about AIR call submissions can be found at:
http://www.isea2008.org/air.html

Symposium Themes
http://www.isea2008.org/themes.html

The global and unequally distributed proliferation of information, communication and experiential technologies has led to the development of a highly differentiated and structurally complicated media arts field. Even as the advent of some technologies is actively celebrated and their potential exploited by some, some others have barely come to grips with the possibilities of 'long-obsolescent' technologies.

Even as some struggle with the newness of certain technologies, others somewhat jaded with the determinative influence on their lives and creativity are consciously opting for "old" and "low" technologies. In such a globally differentiated situation, the very notions of "new" and "old" technologies though pandered as an issue of relative sophistication is revealed as an issue of relative access largely determined by historical, political, economic and cultural contexts. That such technologies have become important engines of economic development has made a critical evaluation of their complicities in and complex relationships to particular socio-cultural, economic and political ways of being especially difficult. That one can simultaneously critique technologies and yet enjoy the benefits and pleasures of some particular technologies might seem like a compromise and sell-out for some, but is a necessary aspect of one's being in a world infused with such technologies to a point where opting out is both pragmatically impossible and ethically irresponsible.

In the art world, the problems of how one critically evaluates creative uses of technology are often confused with the questions of how one creatively enables the critical uses of technology. The themes for ISEA2008 Symposium have been selected to respond thus to the challenges of new and old technologies in creatively engaging the critical problems and possibilities of our age.

Locating Media

The oft-heard rhetoric of recent media technologies is that it complicates traditional notions of spatial and geographical location insofar as these technologies are said to attend to one's technological needs without regard to where one is; for example, one common myth goes like this: 'one can access information about anything and communicate with people on the net without regard to which country one is in'.

Such postulations of location-neutrality, however, are based on a fallacious assumption that one's location is merely a secondary aspect of one's experiential environment and thus can be phenomenologically simulated or even negligibly circumvented by the mediation of communication, information and experiential technologies.

Location, however, is a complex experience constituted by one's cultural, economic, political and technological environment that is differentially distributed and conceived in different parts of the world. Thus, new technologies, even while purporting to surmount location, seem to be merely following the contours of the location-specific 27 variables that operate in any particular space. While many recent technologies also present themselves as 'location-aware' that enable one's ability to address these location-specific variables in some ways, it is noteworthy that such experiences very often rely on simulating only an indexical notion of location through a series of sensory cues related to a particular space.

In the light of the centrality of location as a critical problematic and possibility, this theme seeks to examine how the specificities of location mediate and are mediated by both old and new technologies of information, communication and experience. We invite academic research, design and artistic explorations that explore the possibilities and problems of addressing location through media technologies. We are especially keen on works that address the complex historical, cultural, socio-political and economic contexts that affect location-specific interactions with such technologies.

Wiki Wiki

It is interesting that the Hawaiian word, 'wiki wiki', meaning "quick" has become co-opted to label the revolutionary systems and practices that support the easy and speedy tele-collaborative authoring of knowledge online
- i.e., wiki.

Wiki is an extremely easy-to-use authoring system for online content that cannibalizes on the HTML protocols with additional facilities to monitor all the changes being made, revert to content prior to editing as well as a space to discuss the evolving content. The fact that users are able to access the pages and change content without any restrictions, defies the development of a notion of single authorship and thus also the possibility of authorial responsibility for such content.

The relative ease in developing online content with a community of 'at a distance' presents wiki as a model tool for tele-collaborative production. Wiki is yet another example of how technologies are changing the ways in which creative knowledge production is being transformed by enabling collaboration between diverse individuals. In this theme, we seek to initiate discussion, deliberation and development in collaborative creation using new technologies. How have new and old technologies contributed to the development of collaborative making? What are some of the issues raised by collaborative creation; for example, authorship, artistic responsibility, claims to intellectual property, conflicts and confluences of disciplinary knowledge and practices, etc. What are the spaces of such collaborative work - what are the transitional spaces between the artists' studios and scientific labs?

We invite artistic and academic work that addresses and/or exemplifies the problems and possibilities of collaborative creative work that are enabled by technologies. Works that are created by collaborations between diverse and geographically diverse communities are especially encouraged.

Ludic Interfaces

The infantilization of play, that is, the historical association of playing with children and non-serious activities, has led to the systematic exclusion of play and fun from 'serious' creative, scientific and technological investigations. While the ludic (i.e., play-related) dimensions of artistic creativity have been variously explored recently in both art works and in scholarly research, the interactions between technological developments and the pleasures described as 'fun', are few and far between.

In fact, the history of technological development has more instances of people enjoying technologies than of those willing to acknowledge or systematically deliberate on such pleasures. It has been argued recently that the phenomenal development of the game and entertainment industries, primarily driven by various technologies that engender the expanded exploration of embodied pleasures, has highlighted the potential of technologically-driven experiences of fun.

However, there are those who assert that there is still much more need to investigate the complicities between technology and pleasure in these experiences and to develop alternative modalities of exploring the technological possibilities of pleasure and vice versa. In this theme, we seek to address the ways in which fun and enjoyment interact with and complicate new media technologies both in its design, creative development, everyday uses and discursive articulations. We especially encourage works that critically explore the entertainment industries and their use of recent technologies.

Reality Jam

While the reality effects of photography had forced a re-evaluation of the conventions and concerns of painting as well as of perception in the mid 19th century, the realistic aspirations of recent visualization and experiential technologies (e.g., in animation, gaming, immersive environments, mixed / augmented reality) are forcing us to reconsider our registers of the 'real' in our media and our everyday lives.

The confusing of the real and the virtual through seamless transitions and the perpetual obfuscation of the edges that demarcate them are increasingly the focus of scientific research as well as of creative works. The improvisational nature and interference potential of such 'reality jamming' - i.e., this pressing together of the real and virtual in a context where their distinctions are deliberately obscured - open further possibilities for research, scholarship and creative production.

In this theme, we also seek to encourage artists and researchers to explore the ways in which the 'virtual' presences and experiences of folklore, religious beliefs, magical rituals and science and media-fiction interact with and counteract the lived experiences of the 'real'. Scholarly presentations, art works and research in the areas of virtual, mixed and augmented reality, not restricted to the technological platforms and equipment that enable such experiences, are especially encouraged.

Border Transmissions

The 'borderless world' and the 'global village' are different imaginaries of a world seemingly transformed by the speed and efficiency of information, communication and experiential technologies - of a world where the political borders of nation states were considered to be either irrelevant or difficult to sustain.

The age that announced the 'borderless world' is, however, ironically also the one that has displayed the greatest anxiety about this breakdown and invested the largest amount of resources and time in the increasing surveillance and control of these borders. While these borders historically have been permeable to certain kinds of economic, socio-cultural, political and military transactions (i.e., trade, cultural objects and experiences, religious missions, etc.), the development of technologies that facilitated greater communication and transportation across them has only increased the anxiety to control these transactions. The contestation over these borders and of the transmissions across them continues to be a struggle as much determined by technological developments as it is by the politics, cultures and socio-economic systems that mediate within and between these borders. The question of how one negotiates technological developments that simultaneously contribute to the increasing opening and ossification of borders is of utmost significance and in this theme, we invite artistic and scholarly work that engages this question.

We seek to showcase research and creative interventions that deal with the strategic and tactical possibilities of networking, communication and experiential technologies in ways that enable the emergence of different conceptions of borders, nation-states and of the infectious transmissions that problematize these demarcations.

Posted by jo at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution

Feminist Movement: Constant Action + Restless Criticality

Huis & Festival a/d Werf presents If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution: Edition II: ‘Feminist Legacies and Potentials in Contemporary Art Practice’ :: Episode III at Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht May 17 – May 26 2007.

bel hooks talks about ‘feminist movement’, reactivating the term in a transitive way - as a verb almost - so that it becomes this notion of constant action and a kind of restless criticality. – Connie Butler 2007

If I Can’t Dance… is a rolling curatorial project based on performative practices, which departs from a spirit of open questioning and a long term enquiry with artists. Currently it focuses on the legacies and potentials of feminism(s) in relation to art today. Inspired by the quote of Emma Goldman, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”, the project explores the critical and celebratory implications of this statement in artists’ work.

This edition of If I Can’t Dance… explores how feminist thinking on all levels (social, artistic, political, theoretical, ideological or structural) may be important in our cultural life. The project has explored these tendencies as inquisitively and openly as possible over the last year and a half by repeatedly working with an expanding group of over thirty artists and mounting exhibitions, organising symposia and performance events, and running an on-going reading group.

This May for Festival a/d Werf in Utrecht a new programme of performances by Jutta Koether, Jon Mikel Euba, Itziar Okariz and planningtorock will take place. If I Can’t Dance… will also premiere the newly commissioned film of The Otolith Group, “Otolith II’”, at Casco in Utrecht.

Programme

The Otolith Group - “Otolith II”
Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory, Nieuwenkade 213-215
Dutch premiere on Thursday May 17, 20:00 with an introduction by the artists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun; further screenings on Friday May 18, Saturday May 19 & Sunday May 20 15:00, 16:00, 17:00, 18:00, 19:00, 20:00 (45 min)
“Otolith II” is coproduced by Huis & Festival a/d Werf, If I Can’t Dance..., KunstenFestivalDesArts & Argos, Centre for Media and Art

Jutta Koether - “Touch and Resist”
Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2 and 3
Monday May 21 & Tuesday May 22 19:30 hrs (30 min)
“Touch and Resist” is coproduced by Huis & Festival a/d Werf

Jon Mikel Euba – “Re: HORSE” & “RGB Horse”
Cartesiusweg
“Re: Horse”: Tuesday May 22 & Wednesday May 23 17:00 (60 min)
“RGB Horse”: Friday May 25 & Saturday May 26 19:30 (30 min)

Itziar Okariz - “Climbing Buildings”
De Neude
Friday May 25 & Saturday May 26 in the afteroon

planningtorock - “Show me what you got”
Huis a/d Werf, Koepelzaal
Friday May 25 & Saturday May 26 22:15 (45 min)

Curators: Frederique Bergholtz and Annie Fletcher.

Partners & Episodes: Edition II of If I Can’t Dance…is staged in 4 episodes: Huis & Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, May 2006 & May 2007 | de Appel, Amsterdam, November 2006 – January 2007 | MuHKA, Antwerp, October 2007 – January 2008

Financial Support: Edition II of If I Can’t Dance... is financially supported by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, British Council, Stichting Cultuurfonds van de Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten, The Netherlands Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, Mondriaan Foundation, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

Information: For updated information on the programme and addresses of the venues, times and entrance fees check: http://www.festivalaandewerf.nl.

Contact: info[at]ificantdance.org

Posted by jo at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)

Urban Pilgrims

Generating a New Cartography of Place

urbanpilgrims.org/wien :: Exhibition, Website, Survey, Guided Tours, Performances.

Based on an interactive and continuously growing online archive that is generated by the inhabitants of a place, urbanilgrims.org researches individual stories of urban space and interweaves them with real space - guided tours in public using performance / gesture / sound, photographs, as well as discussions with guests / audiences and an installation. On an online questionnaire and map of the city visitors are asked about their personal experiences in relation to specific locations of their choice. Naturally, and through the accumulation of answers, issues of power relationships, space structures, image production and forms of urban appropriation will be addressed. The results of the questionnaire-responses will be structured according to different key-words to easily facilitate access to the information. The questionnaire is adapted throughout the project and tailored to specific issues that want to be addressed by the community. Individual experiences become a public field which generates a new cartography of the place.

Urban Pilgrims are interested in finding aspects, images and moments that are characteristic of place. They want to come closer to the subconscious and collective knowledge, the aim is to converge site-specifically to the genius loci of the location. The genius loci (latin: genius = (protective) spirit, loci = genitiv singular of locus = place) was historically the protective spirit of a place. It was often depicted as a snake. In contemporary usage, genius loci usually refers to a location's distinctive atmosphere, or a 'spirit of place`. (source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

'Angela Dorrer's Pilgrimage digs into the strata of urban myth and anecdote. Responding to a survey model it does not propose a 'more true' reading of the urban landscape. Instead it gives the viewer a glimpse of a particular subjectivity, a part of which is the viewer's own. Dorrer dislocates her project from totalistic narratives and instead aims for a pilgrimage tracing a constellation across the urban environment, responding to traces collected through her survey and the tales of those surveyed.` (Marc Clintberg, Montreal 2006)

With Vienna is starting an internationally planned series. The next cities are Montreal and Copenhagen. Every city originates a complete new series of works.

EXHIBITION: BlumbergB0, blumberggasse 20, A - 1160 Wien
11.05.-24.06.2007, ErC6ffnung Freitag 11.05., 19:00
Installation: Angela Dorrer
with works of Isabel Becker, Judith Fegerl, Barbara Husar, Gerd Gerhard Loeffler, mschuber, monochrom, Doris Steinbichler, vice versa (Gertrude Moser-Wagner/Beverly Piersol)

5 URBAN PILGRIMAGES: The pilgrimages adopt the form of the traditional religious pilgrimage - a journey with several stations. They are a combination of a guided art-tour, punctuated with discussion, performative gesture, and occasionally specific food or music.

19.05.07, Wo die Sonne nie unterging. Multikulturelles Wien und ParallelitC$ten.
Guest: Parvis Amoghli (author, Vienna/cologne), 16:00 b 19:00, 20:00 pilgrims theme-meal
BlumbergB0, blumberggasse 20, A - 1160 Wien,

- b u s p i l g r i m a g e

17.06.2007, 17:00 - 20:00, 20:00 pilgrims theme-meal sonntags 191/urbanpilgrims.org
hosted by Az W Architekturzentrum Wien
meeting point: 16:45 Uhr Museumsshop im MQ, Museumsplatz 1, A - 1070 WIEN
Tickets 18/14 b reservation 1/522 31 15 12, kuzmany[at]azw.at

Concept, design, update, realisation: Angela Dorrer
Programming, technical and support: Patrick Gruban
tel 0043-650-5145356, mail: info[at]urbanpilgrims.org, Info: urbanpilgrims.org

BlumbergB0, blumberggasse 20, A - 1160 Wien, 0699/11 36 41 10

urbanpilgrims.org is supported by the city of Vienna Wien Kultur MA 7, the festival Sohoinottakring, monochrom and AzW Architekturzentrum Wien.

Angela Dorrer, Max Weber Platz 9, 81675 Munich
[email] angela[at]andorrer.de
[april-july07] c/o BlumbergB0, blumberggasse 20, 1160 Wien [cell] +43-(0)-650-5145356 [skype] angela.dorrer [e-fax] +49-(0)-12120-248202 [www] andorrer.de, urbanpilgrims.org, programangels.org (2000-2005)

Posted by jo at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

New art dynamics in Web 2 mode

CALL FOR PAPERS / ART PROJECTS

MEETING [New art dynamics in Web 2 mode] :: Meeting moderator: Juan Martmn Prada :: Deadline for Submissions: June 1st 2007 :: Places: Medialab Madrid, Madrid, Espaqa.

Norms of participation: Researchers, artists, professionals, teachers or collectives interested in participating in this meeting must send an abstract of the research or art project (in the case of theory research, we recommend sending in the full paper) and a brief risumi through the following application form.

Main subject areas of the meeting: What follows is a draft proposal of a number of high-priority subject-matter nuclei for this meeting. Nevertheless, we will also consider projects and research initiatives related to other subject areas proposed by the researchers and/or artists, insofar as they pose an interesting contribution to the subject areas engaged in this meeting.

-An analysis of the processes of transition to the so-called Web 2 and their relationship to the development of new aesthetic and artistic phenomena. New projects, and the current state of the research endeavour.

-Art projects as a model for alternative communication practises in the new digital networks. New media design and new tools for community-based digital action.

-Artistic appropriation of online collective participation technologies.

-Subjectivity, creativity, and critical thought in the context of the new ditigal cooperation platforms.

-The creative, social, and political dimension of the "blog" phenomenon.

-Developments in the field of "Blog-art".

-Cyberfeminist art creativity in the context of the current models of digital participation and cooperation.

-The possibilities of Web 2 regarding the intensification of the inter-cultural dynamics and the circulation of cultural diversity.

-The role of Web 2 in the processes of cultural globalisation.

-Educational applications and/or experiences in Web 2 oriented towards the critical comprehension of the new aesthetic and artistic behaviours.

-New initiatives and cultural policies for the development and support of online art creation.

Posted by jo at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! Second Life

Brad Kligerman

Upgrade! Second Life presents Brad Kligerman, Ars Virtua Artist in Residence :: Thursday May 10 at Noon SLT (Pacific time) :: Here. Brad Kligerman will present a program of short videos that illustrate his current exhibit at Ars Virtua and his residency.

"SL is unique, even as far a synthetic worlds are concerned, due to the fact that all of the its material artifacts are invented, fabricated and owned by its citizens. The world's creators provide the material context (the physical rules and the tools with which to manipulate them) and the social-spatial fabric emerges from a multiplicity of intentions and interests that migrate with its inhabitants. Observation reveals that most of this content, the buildings, clothes, weapons... are replicas of similarly functioning objects from the real world. In the case of objects representing the inhabited environment, this reveals a strange inconsistency in that the SL objects do not function at all like their RL counterparts. This begs the question for the invention of spaces & forms, buildings & agglomerations, programs & structures that are emerging from real SL usages, and not just a symbol of an intention." -- Kligerman

Kligerman will talk about how his interaction and experiments during his residency effected his final work in the gallery. He will show how his work represents the depth and breadth of his experience during the 11 week period. His video presentation will examine his view of the different sources of "creation" in Second Life and his push toward fully "native" experiences.

"Avatars "Engage" in this process which projects them from image to project site in a transformative process expressing the inherent condition of immaterial space. It is a function of frames per second, flickering forever between Image+Space: 2-D+3-D, concept+fabrication, machine+architecture, actual+virtual..." -- Kligerman

AVAIR is an extended performance whose purpose is to investigate the nature of art making in the 3D synthetic environment of Second Life. It is an examination of policy and institution, as well as a reflection on place and art. Artists are given a stipend and technical support. Their methodologies are documented here.

“AVAIR” is a 2006-2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Jerome Foundation.

Ars Virtua is a new media center and gallery located in the synthetic world of Second Life. It is a new type of space that leverages the tension between 3-D rendered game space and terrestrial reality, between simulated and simulation. Ars Virtua is sponsored by the CADRE Laboratory for New Media.

Upgrade! Second Life or UpgradeSL is a bi-monthly meeting of artists and interested parties held in Second Life. UpgradeSL is currently sponsored by BitFactory and Ars Virtua Gallery and New Media Center.

Posted by jo at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)

TOURING SHOW

Curated by Marisa Olson for Rhizome

Touring Show is an online exhibition of artists' maps and 'virtual tours' of contested spaces, ranging from the Military Industrial Complex, to the US-Mexico border, to the body. The mapping and social organization of spaces has not only had a profound impact on the cultures that inhabit them, it has also contributed to the development of a number of artistic traditions, including cartography, drafting, and landscape painting and photography. More recently, the emergence of the artists' lectures and tours as artistic media has coincided with the practice of 'radical cartography,' which in its most elemental terms is the charting of a space's relationship to the empire or ideology that governs it. Also significant to the specific cultural moment traced here is the mingling of technology's impact on our landscape and the use of technologies to explore and document this terrain. The artists here offer a combination of web-based and public projects that can be interpreted as tours in this vein. While some of the projects read as interventions, others simply present the information needed to navigate viewers' own subjective traversals.

Posted by jo at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

May 07, 2007

Silver Lake Film Festival "fringe fest"

Think Again + Miracles in Reverse

Los Angeles Center for Digital Art in conjunction with the Silver Lake Film Festival "fringe fest" presents: Think Again (outdoor public projection) and Miracles in Reverse (interactive video installation) :: Reception and Screenings: Thursday May 10, 2007 7-9pm (in conjunction with downtown art walk).

Think Again is pleased to announce the NAFTA Effect, a public projection project that challenges anti-immigrant rhetoric and mistreatment of migrant labor. It is a two person collaboration between David John Attyah and S.A. Bachman. Think Again's mobile projection will be on view after dark in downtown Los Angeles on May 10 during the Silver Lake Film Festival and the downtown los angeles art walk. talking back to the advertising-dominated landscape of the city, this project acknowledges the contribution and participation of immigrant laborers in the life of Los Angeles.

On the level of policy, the NAFTA Effect highlights how international treaties like NAFTA, in concert with national anti-immigration efforts, reshape the ways that families live and work on both sides of the border. The project addresses current debates surrounding h.r.4437, challenges the proposed 700-mile border fence, and criticizes the criminalization of undocumented workers.

Miracles in Reverse, an ambitious challenge to classic cinematic technique, is an interactive dvd-rom written, directed, and produced by New York artist Julia Heyward. This interactive feature invites single players to navigate a labyrinthine, blair-witch style tale by "scratching" hot spots in the film with a mouse, much the way d.j.'s scratch vinyl records to alter their sound. "Dizzyingly provocative, the film works like memory... it''s a dark, harrowing piece, and the technology works in its favor." Cate McQuaid/ Boston Globe.

Posted by jo at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)

Schwelle

@ Elektra 08

Schwelle II at Elektra 08 / Place des Arts / Cinquieme Salle Series, May 10-12, 2007 :: Schwelle is a three part new media and performance project using cutting edge acoustic and interactive technologies to explore the extreme threshold states of consciousness that constitute human experience. Part II is a live performance in which the audience confronts a lone single performer Michael Schumacher, master improviser and former dancer with William Forsythe's Frankfurt Ballet, experiencing the traumatic transition period between death and rebirth. Utilizing wireless sensor networks in the room and on the dancer's body, Part II creates a stage environment where light, sound and objects take on their own choreography, performing with Schumacher, breathing, and behaving alongside him. Where does the body end and the room begin? What happens in the threshold where body and room merge, mutually influencing and transforming each other?

Concept/Direction: Chris Salter in collaboration with Michael Schumacher
Performer: Michael Schumacher
Dramaturgy: Heidi Gilpin
Lighting: Leah Xiao
Sound Design/Programming: Marije Baalman, Daniel Grigsby, Chris Salter,
Philip Viel
Interaction Design/Sensing/Programming: Marije Baalman
Production Technical Director: Harry Smoak

Co-Production: Elektra Festival and Place des Arts/Cinquieme Salle with
the support of Tesla Medien Kunst Labor-Berlin, Transmediale, ACREQ, Hexagram, Concordia University, FQRSC

Thursday-Saturday, May 10-12, 2007, 20:00
Place des Arts/Cinquieme Salle
Place des Arts
For tickets please call: 514-842-2112
or http://www.pda.qc.ca

Posted by newradio at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)

Inbetween Zone Workshop, Budapest

Call for Participants

Inbetween Zone workshop by Impex – Contemporary Art Provider :: Deadline for applications: 14 May 2007

Challenged by the ongoing rapid and substantial transformation of urban environment, IMPEX aims to act as a platform for the critical analysis of urban development, social discourse and collaboration in art and cultural practices. Therefore, with its own location as a starting point, and at the same time encompassing a wider general discourse on the role of cultural potentials in urban development, IMPEX initiates a long-term interdisciplinary research project. This long-term project will include workshops, exhibitions, public interventions, publications and other alternative methods of collecting, generating and organizing ideas and knowledge.

The first stage of the project is the workshop entitled Inbetween Zone, which will take place from 16 to 23 June 2007, simultaneously with the 7th Biennial of European Towns and Town Planners. (http://www.makingplaces.hu).

The Corvin Promenade project covers an area larger than 80,700 m2 in a zone of the VIII. district adjacent to the downtown, presently undergoing complete urban and architectural reconstruction. Meanwhile, development projects of a different scale, but similar impact as regards urban restructuring, are under way in two neighboring districts (VII, IX). This continuous zone, reaching over districts, will be the ground of the workshop.

Themes of the Workshop are:

1. Public art and urban planning
2. Techniques of collective and individual intervention: how inhabitants can use and form their own living-space
3. Grassroots: creative, grassroots initiations vs. urban planning
4. Limits to planning: limitations of urban planning projects
5. Mistake assessment: analysis and planning of errors in city development projects.
6. Urban policy and identity formation: urban legends – local heroes

What do we provide? Maximum 100 EUR traveling cost for the participants, accommodation and production costs of the workshop. Participation in the workshop is free of charge.

Whom do we expect? Hungarian and foreign applicants who are engaged in the fields of culture, commerce, media or social sciences (artists, architects, sociologists, urbanists, cultural managers, philosophers, filmmakers, anthropologists, designers, economists, managers, communication experts, etc.).

The application has to include: CV and attached documentation of relevant professional practices in English or Hungarian. We accept applications via email, not larger than 1 MB, to the following address: urbancreativity[at]gmail.com

Deadline for applications: 14 May 2007

Further information: contact[at]impex-info.org

Posted by jo at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)

Subtle Technologies Symposium

in situ – art | body | medicine

in situ – art | body | medicine: The 10th Annual Subtle Technologies Festival 2007, Toronto, Canada :: May 24-27, 2007: Subtle Technologies Symposium - Register Early for discounted Festival Passes!

Subtle Technologies is a unique, multidisciplinary festival that explores the complex and subtle relationships between art and science. For the 10th Annual Festival, Subtle Technologies presents practitioners of arts, sciences and medicines, and those who study their context, historians, ethicists, and other critical thinkers to contemplate how these disciplines can work together and reshape perspectives on the body.

As scientific and technological breakthroughs prominently occupy our culture, we ask where the boundaries are. We investigate how we relate bodies in situ: as parts, as a whole, as systems; how we identify, map, modify, protect, violate, and heal.

The programming juxtaposes cutting-edge artistic projects and scientific exploration.

Events include:

BioArt Online Discussion co-presented with Year Zero One.

SymbioticA Tissue Engineering Workshop for Artists co-presented with Year Zero One.

Panel Discussion on the biological as a medium in art and science: Art, Science, and the Emotional Response co-presented with MicrobeWorld and Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD).

Symposium featuring 26 speakers.

Evening of Performance featuring dance, robotics, butoh.

Exhibitions at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Ontario Science Centre, Innis Town Hall Neighbourhood + Ayurveda on Queen Street West.

For more information, please visit our website

Partners: InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Year Zero One, SymbioticA, University of Western Australia, Ontario College of Art & Design, Ontario Science Centre, MicrobeWorld, University of Toronto Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, Design Exchange, University of Toronto Health Care, Technology, and Place.

Supporters: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Australian Network for Art & Technology.

Posted by jo at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)

2007 Subtle Technologies Festival

SymbioticA Tissue Engineering Workshop for Artists

SymbioticA Tissue Engineering Workshop for Artists, part of the 2007 Subtle Technologies Festival - in situ – art | body | medicine :: May 18, 19, 20, 2007 :: Toronto, Canada.

The increasing recognition of technological intervention and integration in medicine and the body has introduced tissue culture (TC) and tissue engineering (TE) as new possibilities for artistic engagement. Bioart, an emerging art form that uses the biological as its medium, explores the vast possibilities of biotechnology. The use of TE for non medical ends is also been explored in areas such as food production (in-vitro meat), leather replacement, locomotion, research models, and art.

Biomedical research has a major influence on perceptions of body, self and medical thinking. TE enables researchers to grow three dimensional living tissue constructs of varying sizes, shapes and tissue types. These constructs continue living and growing in-vitro or as a “new kind of body”.

This two and a half day intensive workshop will introduce artists and other interested people (including architects, designers, ethicists, policy makers) to basic principles of animal TC and TE, as well as to its history and the different artistic projects working with TC and TE. No prior experience necessary.

The workshop was developed by Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr and Dr Stuart Hodgetts and is conducted by artist/researcher/curator Oron Catts, the Artistic Director of SymbioticA (University of Western Australia).

SymbioticA is an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences. SymbioticA is the first research laboratory of its kind, in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department. Catts has eleven years of experience researching tissue technologies as an artistic medium through the Tissue Culture and Art Project (TC&A) that he founded in 1996.

Tissue engineering is the use of a combination of cells, engineering and materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physio-chemical factors to improve or replace biological functions. While most definitions of tissue engineering cover a broad range of applications, in practice the term is closely associated with applications that repair or replace portions of or whole tissues.

Dates and Times:

May 18, Friday, 1pm~5pm
May 19, Saturday, 10am~5pm
May 20, Sunday, 10am~5pm

Location: University of Toronto

There are approximately 25 positions available for this workshop, including up to 5 fully funded scholarships.

More information and application procedures are detailed on the website.

Subtle Technologies Festival includes Performances, Exhibitions, Panel Discussions, Symposium, and Community-based Artwork in addition to this Workshop. Subtle Technologies is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Toronto Arts Council, and the Australian Network for Art and Technology.

Posted by jo at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)

Immersive Sight Within the Third Space:

Augmentation and Spatial Interface in Exhibition Space

"Our field of vision is a continual, multi-tiered number crunching. Bicameral sight is always being processed, interpreted, reacted to, adjusted for focus, comparisons made. It simply is always running as an immersive, multi layered interaction of information and movement in a space. The logical progression of virtual reality is into augmented reality with smaller lenses and data fit more discreetly and logically layered into one's natural field of vision. This has many applications in the traditional museum space. The eye through the cerebral cortex processes and contextualizes constantly at a rapid rate. The key is to allow spatial augmentation to do the same. A fast engine can adjust levels of data and visuals quickly as the participant moves and adjusts their desired experience. This allows another sense of sight." From Immersive Sight Within the Third Space: Augmentation and Spatial Interface in Exhibition Space by Jeremy Hight, Neme.

Posted by jo at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

MOUSEMIXER

Creative Interruptions

MOUSEMIXER: An evening of creative interruptions featuring experimental mashups of digital and new media art technologies :: March 8, 2007 @ 9PM :: Schupf Artists Studios, 54 Montgomery Street, Hamilton, NY. :: INSTRUCTIONS: Find the Mixmouse and knock seven times for admission.

MIXMOUSE.NET is an ongoing, experimental site of student works from Arts 302, Digital Studio II at Colgate University. MIXMOUSE.NET is a platform for the online exhibition and distribution of digital and new media works including net.art and networked performances. MIXMOUSE.NET is: Jon Costantino, Jessica Cozzetta, Polina Koronkevich, Phill O'Connor, Mary Pratt, Jason Rand, Bailey Rogers, Cori Schattner, Ruth Sylvia, Shelby Scott, Colin Twomey, and Jess Worby. MIXMOUSE.NET was initiated and is directed by Cary Peppermint, Assistant Professor of Digital Art. Mixmouse.net is made possible by the Department of Art & Art History at Colgate University.

Posted by jo at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)

1st Internacional Congress Art Tech Media

Spain, May 9-11

1st Internacional Congress Art Tech Media :: 9 - 10 - 11th m a y 2007 :: Spain.

The First International Art Tech Media Conference has been set up in order to reflect upon and analyse questions currently being raised about art and new technological media within an international context. In a globalised world, dominated by communication technologies, with countless questions concerning a future that affects our everyday life, it is essential to make this analysis and to consider, from different perspectives, how our polyhedral, altered reality is being effected by the widespread use of new technology as a support for new ideas and possibilities that are almost infinite. We need to investigate how this occurs in different societies and cultures and to propose models that may go beyond what has been known until now.

The Conference will focus on three clearly complementary regions: national, international (European, Asian) and Ibero-American. The conference is open to the general public, especially those connected to the visual arts and in particular those working in digital art.

Wendsday 9 th may:
MINISTERIO DE CULTURA
Auditorio
Plaza del Rey

12,00 h
Traslation systems receptors

12,30 h:
Opening of 1st Internacional Congress Art Tech Media

Ministra de Cultura. Carmen Calvo
Institutions Collaborators
Directors of Art Tech Media . Montse Arbelo y Joseba Franco

Afternoon:

16,30 - 18,45 h. - Debate: Culturals Politics
- Pavel Smetana. Director CIANT. Prague
- Gefried Stocker. Director Ars Electronica.Linz
- Alberto Saraiva. OI Futuro. Brasil
- Rachel Baker. Visual Arts: Media Art and Moving Image . Art Council UK
- José Carlos Mariategui. Founder of Alta Tecnología Andina (ATA) in Lima, Perú. Currently researcher
in technology and media at London School of Economics, UK.
- Ricardo Echevarría. President of AVAM
- Rebeca Allen. Media Artist /Professor at UCLA Design | Media Arts , former Research Director
at MIT Media Lab Europe in Dublin. Work with Nicholas Negroponte OLPC/MIT
- Andreas Broeckmann. Director TESLA. Berlin

19,00 - 20,00 h. - Presentation of Libro Blanco FECYT
- Eulalia Pérez. Directora Generalof FECYT (Science and Technology Spainish Foundation la Tecnología)
- José Luis Brea.Principal Researcher and Coordinator of Libro blanco
- Javier Echevarría. Director Humanidades CSIC (High Commision of Science
Research)

20,00 - 21,30 h. - Cocktail

Thursday 10th may: MINISTERIO DE CULTURA

Morning:

9,30 h – 11,00 h. Debate: Museums and Art Centers XXI Century: Production, Curators and exhibition of digital art , Inmaterial Museum

- Nina Colosi. Founder/curator, TheProjectRoom.org
International arts & education program @ Chelsea Art Museum, New York
- Lisa Dorin. Curator The Art Institute of Chicago
- Marie-Claire Uberquoi. Director Es Baluard
- Javier Panera. Director DA2
- Laura Barreca. Curator Pan-Palazzo delle Arti Napoli and Università degli Studi della Tuscia
- Elena Rossi. Curator NetSpace: Viaggio dell'arte della rete at MAXXI.
Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Roma
- Antonio Franco. Director MEIAC
- Angela Martínez. Director Audiovisual Department of CCCB
- Nacho Ruiz. Gallery T-20

11,00 h – 12,00 h. Coffe break

12,00 h – 12,30 h. Internacionals Abstract: Centers of art production :
MediaLab, new platforms and process
- Niranjan Rajah. Assistant Professor School of Interactive Arts and Technology Simon Fraser University
- Semi Ryu. Assistant Professor, Kinetic Imaging School of the Arts Virginia Commonwealth University
- Zhuang Lixiao. Counselor Cultural Matters. Embassy of the Popular Republic of China
- Menene Gras. Director Exhibitions Casa Asia

12,30 h – 14,00 h. Debate: Centers of art production : MediaLab, new platforms and process
- Andreas Broeckmann. Director TESLA, Director Transmediale
- Gefried Stocker. Director Ars Electronica.Linz
- Ximo Lizana. Robotic Artist
- Luigi Pagliarini. Robotic expert and director of Peam Festival
- Rosina Gómez-Baeza. Director La Laboral
- Pedro Soler. Hangar
- Marcos M.. Medialab Madrid
- Montse Arbelo y Joseba Franco. Directores Art Tech Media

Afternoon:

16,30 h – 18,00 h. Debate: Art– Industry– Research

- Innovación Tecnológica. Comunidad Madrid
- Vicente Matallana. La Agencia
- Luis Prieto. Sudirector Sociedad de la información. Miniterio de Cultura
- Alejandro Sacristán. Silicon Artists
- Anne Nigten. LAb V2 . Roterdam
- Marcel.lí. Artist
- Anna María Guasch. Crítica de Arte, Universidad Barcelona

18,00 h – 19,00 h. Break

Thurdays 10th may: INSTITUTO CERVANTES

Evening:

19,00h – 21,00 h. Debate: Art and new media . The Iberoamerican Platform

- José Carlos Mariategui. Founder of Alta Tecnología Andina (ATA) in Lima, Perú. Currently researcher
in technology and media at London School of Economics, UK.
- Arcangel Constantini. Artist , curator Cyberlounge Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo . Mexico city
- Graciela Taquini. Curator: Centro de Desarrollo Multimedia del Centro
Cultural General
San Martin of Ministerio de Cultura del Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires
- Enrique Aguerre. Coordinator : Video Department of Museum Nacional of Visual Arts in Uruguay .
Curator of Uruguay in Biennal of Veneza 2007

Friday 11th may: MINISTERIO DE CULTURA

Morning

9,30 – 11,00 h. Debate: Art Critic, pensamiento and Mass Media

- Francisco Serrano. Director Foundation Telefonica
- Rachel Baker. Art Council. UK
- Roberta Bosco. new media journalist. CiberPaís
- Anne Nigten. Roterdam V2
- Graciela Taquini. Curator: Centro de Desarrollo Multimedia del Centro Cultural General
San Martin of Ministerio de Cultura del Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires
- Margarita Schultz. Philosphy´s doctor (Aestetic). Facultad de Artes. University of Chile
- Sergio Calvo Fernández. Decano Facultad de Comunicación. European University of Madrid
- Tina Velho Artista, Coordinadora del Laboratorio de Arte e Tecnologia da Escola de
Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

11,00 h – 12,00 h. Coffee break

11,30 – 13,00 h. Debate: New market: galleries, fairs, biennals, rights

- Montxo Algora. Director Art Futura
- Nestor Olhagaray. Director of Bienal de Video y Nuevos Medios de Chile.
- Luis Silva. Curador, turbulence y director The upgrade Lisboa
- Enrique Aguerre. Coordinator : Video Department of Museum Nacional of Visual Arts in Uruguay .
Curator of Uruguay in Biennal of Veneza 2007
- Ricardo Echevarría. Presidente AVAM

13,15 – 14,00 h. Conclusions

Friday 11th may CASA DE AMERICA

Afternoon:

16,30 – 20,00 h. Abstracts, Iberoamerican Debates

- Tania Aedo. - Tania Aedo. Director of Multimedia Center of CENART (Centro Nacional de las Artes. Mexico
- Gustavo Romano. Artist. Coordinator of Medialab of Centro Cultural de España
at Buenos Aires. Director Limbo project at Museum of Modern Art. Buenos Aires
- Maria José Monge . Adj. Director of MADC Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Costa Rica. (San José)
- Mauricio Delfín. Director of Realidad Visual / Gestor del Programa New
technologies, gestión and cultural politics in Peru.

Posted by jo at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2007

Storefront for Art and Architecture

Postopolis!

Storefront for Art and Architecture :: New York City :: May 28 - June 2, 2007

Postopolis! is a five-day event of near-continuous conversation about architecture, urbanism, landscape, and design. Four bloggers, from four different cities, will host a series of live discussions, interviews, slideshows, panels, talks, and other presentations, and fuse the informal energy and interdisciplinary approach of the architectural blogosphere with the immediacy of face to face interaction.

"BLDGBLOG (Los Angeles), City of Sound (London), Inhabitat (New York City), and Subtopia (San Francisco) will meet in person to orchestrate the event, inviting everyone from practicing architects, city planners, and urban theorists to military historians, game developers, and materials scientists to give their take on both the built and natural environments.

For the past five years, blogging has helped to expand the bounds of architectural discussion; its influence now spreads far beyond the internet to affect museums, institutions, and even higher education. Postopolis! is an historic opportunity to look back at what architecture blogs have achieved – both to celebrate their strengths and to think about their future.

Posted by jo at 06:12 PM | Comments (0)

DANUBE TELELECTURE #3

Myths of Immateriality

DANUBE TELELECTURE # 3 from the MUMOK, Vienna : Myths of Immateriality: Curating, Collecting and Archiving Media Art :: Christiane Paul and Paul Sermon :: The Department for Image Science at Danube-University Krems created a new format of international lecture and debates on key questions of Image Science and Media Art with high-calibre experts - the DANUBE TELELECTURES. The discussion will be recorded by several cameras and transmitted live over the www. Online viewers can participate live in the discussion via email.

During the last decades media art has grown to be the art of our time, though it has hardly arrived in our cultural institutions. The mainstream of art history has neglected developing adequate research tools for these contemporary art works, they are exhibited infrequently in museums, and there are few collectors. Media art is hardly being archived and systematically preserved like ancient and traditional forms of art. This loss of data our society is facing because of the change in storage media and operational systems threatens to result in a total loss of our contemporary digital art. Which practices and strategies in the curating and documenting of media art do experts in the field suggest?

CHRISTIANE PAUL, curator for New Media, Whitney Museum, NY, author of "Digital Art" (Thames & Hudson 2003)
PAUL SERMON, media artist and scientist at the University of Salford, UK.
*(Introduction: Oliver Grau, Univ.-Prof. and Head of the Department for Image Science, Danube University Krems).

Danube TeleLecture # 3 at the MUMOK, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna
Time: May 27, 2007, 17.00h CET (Start of Streaming).

You can attend the event in MUMOK or in realtime over the www.

After 20 minute long lectures the audience will have the possibility to ask the speakers questions. Internet users may join the discussion via e-mail.

Contact: Mag. Jeanna Nikolov-Rammrez Gaviria
Tel: +43 (0)2732 893-2570
E-Mail: jeanna.nikolov[at]donau-uni.ac.at

PARTNERS
ORF
DATABASE OF VIRTUAL ART

Posted by jo at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)

Piksel07

Call for Participation

Piksel07 :: November 15-18 2007 :: Call for Participation :: Deadline: July 15, 2007 :: Piksel[1] is an international event for artists and developers working with open source audiovisual software, hardware & art. Part workshop, part festival, it is organised in Bergen, Norway, by the Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK) [2] and involves participants from more than a dozen countries exchanging ideas, coding, presenting art and software projects, doing workshops, performances and discussions on the aesthetics and politics of FLOSS & art.

This years event - Piksel07 - continues the exploration of free/libre and open source audiovisual code and it's myriad of expressions, and also investigates further the open hardware theme introduced at Piksel06.

Piksel07 is done in collaboration with Gallery 3,14[3] which will host this years exhibition. Piksel is organised by BEK and a community of core participants including members of collectives dyne.org, goto10.org, ap/xxxxx, hackitectura.net, riereta.net, drone.ws, gephex.org and others.

CALL for PROJECTS

For the exhibition and other parts of the programme we currently seek projects in the following categories:

1. Installations: Projects related to the open hardware theme including but not restricted to: circuit bending, reverse engineering, repurposing, modding and DIY electronics, preferably programmed by and running on free and open source software.

2. Audiovisual performance: Live art realised by the use of open source software and/or hardware.

3. Software/Hardware presentations: Innovative DIY hardware and audiovisual software tools or software art released under an open licence.

Deadline - july 15. 2007

Please use the online submit form or send documentation material - preferably as a URL to online documentation with images/video to piksel07[at]bek.no

BEK, att: Gisle Froysland
C. Sundtsgt. 55
5004 Bergen
Norway

piksel07 is produced in cooperation with Kunsthoegskolen in Bergen dep The Academy of Fine Arts, Gallery 3,14. Supported by Bergen Kommune, Norsk Kulturfond and Vestnorsk Filmsenter.

Posted by jo at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! Montreal

POLITICS UNDER FIRE

UPGRADE! MONTREAL: POLITICS UNDER FIRE :: THURSDAY, May 17th :: 20:30H -­ 24:00H :: Société des arts technologiques (SAT), 1195 St. Laurent :: Free and open to the public :: video-art screening & experimental music.

Renegade curators Horea Avram and tobias c. van Veen present works that tackle the social and political dimension of new media, from control and alternatives to control, strategies of democratization and access to creative tactics for confronting mechanisms of power.

The evening is presented as part of the [CTRL]: Technology : Art : Society Symposium, taking place at McGill during daylight hours of May 17th, to which everyone is welcome.

::: UPGRADE SCHEDULE :::

20H30 + / presentation of 'Anti-Data Mining' by RYBN, France. Rybn is a transversal collective which came out of new practices linked to vjing, electonic music, sensorial technologies and open source software.

21H15 + uninterrupted screening of video art. Featuring video-artists Rozalinda Borcila, Ondrej Brody & Kristofer Paetau, Andrew Lynn and The Vacuum Cleaner. Curated by Horea Avram.

22H30 + live electronic and experimental music. Performances by Tara Rodgers, Doug van Nort, Javier Arciniegas, tobias.dj. Also time for drinks.

:: HORAIRE [CTRL]: TAS schedule :: 17 MAI 2007 ::

14H ­ 15:30 DEMOCRACY, ART & MEDIA: PANEL :: With members of / Avec des membres du the Levier Project, Oboro, Centre Canadien d¹Architecture (CCA), Fair Trade Media & Île Sans Fil. [ Banquet Room, Thomson House, 3635 McTavish St., McGill ]

16H ­ 18:00 McKENZIE WARK: GAMER THEORY :: Professor of Cultural and Media Studies at Lang College, New School University. He is the author of several books, most recently Dispositions and A Hacker Manifesto (Harvard UP, 2007). Ever get the feeling that life's a game with changing rules and no clear sides, one you are compelled to play yet cannot win? Welcome to gamespace. Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society. [ Keynote talk, Adams Auditorium, 3450 University St., McGill ]

18H ­ 20:00 Time for dinner

20:00H ­ 24 UpgradeMTL :: POLITICS UNDER FIRE :: [ Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), 1195 St. Laurent ]

[CTRL]: TAS is sponsored by The Beaverbrook Fund for Media@McGill with assistance from the Post-Graduate Students Society and AHCS_GSA. TAS partners include UpgradeMTL, the Society for Art and Technology and the Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University. [CTRL]: TAS is Anna Feigenbaum, tobias c. van Veen & Horea Avram.

Upgrade! is an autonomous, international and grassroots organization of monthly gatherings for digital culture and the technology arts. Upgrade Montreal is generously supported by the Society for Arts and Technology [SAT], through networks of the Upgrade International, the various partners we work with, the artists who donate their time and the personal energies of its organizer triumvirate of tobias c. van Veen, Sophie Le-Phat Ho & Anik Fournier.

Posted by jo at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)

Mobilized!

An Unconference

Mobilized! Exploring Mobile Media and Public Space :: an unconference focused on mobile communications media practices and technologies and the ways they are rapidly changing public space and social interaction :: Saturday, May 5, 7PM EYEBEAM 540 W.21st St. Bet. 10th & 11th Ave., NYC. :: Sunday, May 6, 10AM - 8PM POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY - Six Metrotech Center, Brooklyn.

Mobilized! is an unconference where content is driven and created by a convergence of students, designers, artists, scholars, activists, and media professionals in the spirit of the open source movement. Mobilized! is a chance to look at what people are doing with mobile media, a chance to find out how to do it yourself, and a moment to reflect on the social significance of these practices.

Mobilized! will feature: A kickoff event with keynote by Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of The Anarchist in the Library; a showcase of student, artist, community and new business projects and mobile video and project awards; workshops focused on creating platforms and projects on mobile devices including new tools like Python, Java Micro Edition (J2ME), Microsofts .NET Mobile Edition, Flash Lite, Google Maps and Mobile, Mobile Processing, and a look at how they are being used in areas from open source telephony and mobile video blogging, to mobile gaming and locative urbanism with noted designers, programmers and artists.

There is still room to present projects or conduct a workshop: That means were ooking for anyone, particularly but by no means exclusively, students, interested in doing a presentation of work, a workshop, a talk or discussion around mobile or locative technologies and public space, interpreted widely

If you want to do a workshop, let us know. We have spaces with projectors, computers, etc. If you want to present work, either finished art, design, software, hardware, finished or a work-in-progress, let us know. We will have a presentation area.

Send a note to email: tellme (at) mobilizednyc.org

CUNYcolab, The Center for Social Media at American University, and a group of university programs doing work in digital media have joined to sponsor an event that brings together people making mobile media, designing software, and using mobile and locative technologies.

Posted by jo at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

JOHN BALDESSARI: MUSIC

Beethoven's Trumpet: In One Ear and Out the Same Ear

Bonner Kunstverein and Kunstmuseum Bonn present JOHN BALDESSARI: MUSIC :: 12 May – 29 July, 2007 :: Curators: Christina Végh (Bonner Kunstverein) and Dr. Stefan Gronert (Kunstmuseum Bonn).

JOHN BALDESSARI (*1931, lives and works in Santa Monica, California) is doubtless one of the foremost American artists, whose work – since the 1960s and 1970s – has influenced young American, as well as European, artists. The list of the exhibitions of this multimedia artist is correspondingly long, but the way his work is reviewed still leaves countless questions open. The collaboration between Kunstmuseum Bonn and Bonner Kunstverein – under a common thematic banner – seeks therefore to uncover an (up to now) almost disregarded dimension of his approach: BALDESSARI’S artistic engagement with music.

This is the first time that the two Bonn institutions will collaborate on a project that they have developed in tandem. The two-part exhibition at both Bonn venues makes apparent the different goals and undertakings of their respective houses: while JOHN BALDESSARI is developing a thoroughly up-to-date 3D presentation for the Kunstverein, the exhibition at the Kunstmuseum will pursue his multimedia work from the 1970s to 2006, with a focus on its musical elements.

Using the example of over 50 works (paintings, photographs, videos and mixed media) from international museum and private collections, the Kunstmuseum will make visually comprehensible the great variety of Baldessari’s pictorial vocabulary up to the present.

Meanwhile Baldessari has accepted the Kunstverein’s invitation as an opportunity to create an interactive installation for the first time. The (partial) deafness of a musician and composer was the occasion that sparked BALDESSARI’S questioning of the processes of, and capacities for, hearing. Titled BEETHOVEN`S TRUMPET; IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE SAME EAR there will be six interactive sculpture as well as 9 new works on the theme NOSES and EARS. In the six sculptures BEETHOVEN'S TRUMPET (WITH EAR) OPUS # 127, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135 Beethoven’s ear trumpet will play a central role.

These questions on processes of hearing will again be taken up in a different musical installation by LEIF INGE (*1970, lives in Oslo), an artist invited here for this occasion. INGE’S work 9 BEET STRETCH records Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and stretches it out to a 24-hour duration. On the one hand, the work is presented as an installation and, on the other, as a concert for which the Kunstverein will one time stay open for 24 hours.

This exhibition – custom-made for the Beethoven town Bonn – not only for the first time makes graphic the artistic significance of the theme of music, but also enables the visitor to review how far the complex relationship of text, sound and image in JOHN BALDESSARI’S works have developed from the late 1960s up to the present.

An extensive program has been planned around the exhibition, among which is the acoustic performance BEETHOVEN`S EAR in the exhibit rooms by the American avant-garde composer and award-winner of the Beethoven prize, PAULINE OLIVEROS (in cooperation with the Beethovenfest Bonn), an event organized around the film “Conceptual Paradise” by the Munich media artist, STEFAN RÖMER, video showings in cooperation with the Videonale e.V., as well as the presentation of up to now unknown film material from ALLAN KAPROW to BALDESSARI.

In a two-day symposium, organized in tandem with the University of Bonn, the relevance of conceptual art in today’s world will be discussed. Here the way music and the visual arts became interwoven in the 1960s and at present will be the subject of debate from the perspective of art history, musicology, as well as from that of visual artists and musicians.

Press contact:
Kunstmuseum Bonn: Dr. Stefan Gronert, Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 2,
53113 Bonn, Tel +49 228 7762-26, stefan.gronert[at]bonn.de
Bonner Kunstverein: Anna Dietz, Hochstadenring 22, 53119 Bonn,
Tel.+49 (0) 228 693936, a.dietz[at]bonner-kunstverein.de

Posted by jo at 08:18 AM | Comments (0)

Artists' Television Access

Call for Work

Artists' Television Access (ATA) is accepting experimental and independent shorts (running 20 minutes or less) in all genres for the ATA Film & Video Festival 2007! POSTMARK DEADLINE: June 15, 2007. More details.

Artists' Television Access is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, all-volunteer, artist-run, experimental media arts gallery that has been in operation since 1984. ATA hosts a series of film and video screenings, exhibitions and performances by emerging and established artists and a weekly cable access television program. To celebrate and promote experimental film and filmmakers, ATA hosts the ATA Film and Video Festival —an assembly of short films you won’t see anywhere else.

Posted by jo at 07:30 AM | Comments (0)

May 03, 2007

THURSDAYS@ARGOS

Jon Ippolito: Art After Institutions

argos, centre for art & media in Brussels, presents: THURSDAYS@ARGOS LECTURE: Jon Ippolito: Art After Institutions.

Participatory media like Flickr and YouTube have given ordinary netizens a chance to shine as media creators, but this fact hasn't gone over well with "serious" artists and their curatorial counterparts. Seemingly bereft of the social status, economic privilege, and institutional recognition of mainstream art stars, some new media artists wonder what role, if any, remains for them to play in the the Web 2.0 age of peer-filtered creativity. As Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito argue in the 2006 book 'At the Edge of Art', new media art's dependence on institutions is indeed in crisis, but this is more of a loss for galleries and museums than for the artists themselves. For participatory media are on the verge of enabling creators to regain the power they once held before the era of commodity speculation and the art market: the ability to reconnect people in new forms of creative kinship, whereby artworks facilitate social transactions rather than financial ones. To accept this new role, however, artists, curators, and critics may have to renounce the pyramid scheme offered by the brick-and-mortar art world, replacing the monolithic canon of Great Artists with a dense network of creative participants.

The recipient of Tiffany, Lannan, and American Foundation awards, Jon Ippolito exhibited artwork with collaborative teammates Janet Cohen and Keith Frank at the Walker Art Center, ZKM/Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, and WNET's ReelNewYork Web site. As Associate Curator of Media Arts at the Guggenheim Museum, he curated Virtual Reality: An Emerging Medium and, with John G. Hanhardt, The Worlds of Nam June Paik. Ippolito's critical writing has appeared in periodicals ranging from Flash Art and the Art Journal to the Washington Post. At the Still Water lab co-founded with Joline Blais, Ippolito is at work on three projects--the Variable Media Network, the Open Art Network, and their 2006 book 'At the Edge of Art'--that aim to expand the art world beyond its traditional confines.

In cooperation with the International Visitors Program for Media Arts organised by Digitaal Platform IAK/IBK and Flanders Image.

argos
Werfstraat 13 rue du Chantier
B-1000 Brussels
Belgium
tel +32 2 229 00 03
fax +32 2 223 73 31

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the story of a never ending line

Call for Contributions

Zachary Lieberman is making a performance at the OFFF festival along with his good friend Theo Watson (of L.A.S.E.R TAG fame). The idea of the performance is really quite simple -- the story of a never ending line -- and the performance will be made up of both videos as well as live material, and synthesized graphics.

We are asking you, with your awesome brains and wicked fast design skills, to send us videos in your own style, of a line being drawn from one side of the screen to another. It can be animated, live video, computer generated, or some other way we can't even think of yet.

We would love to get videos from you to use in our performance. The more imaginative the better! All the videos used will be credited at the end of the performance so it will be a great chance to show what you can do with a line and 5 seconds of time. Multiple submissions are encouraged!

Rules:

1: The line should start off screen, enter on one side and leave on
another (doesn't have to be right to left, can be any side to any side, including the same leaving on the same side the line started on).

2: The line should have the effect of being drawn, not moved across the screen. See examples bellow.

Good: http://impssble.com/OFFF/good.mov
Bad: http://impssble.com/OFFF/bad.mov

3: Once a part of a line is drawn it should not move too much, the animation should be the effect of drawing the line (as in the good movie above).

4. The video doesn't necessarily have to be the drawing of a line (although most of what we are working with is), but it can also be something moving along a very clear path. The idea should be about going from point a to point b.

5. Both sound or silent is ok.

6: Videos should be 3 - 8 seconds long, 640 480 quicktime format. (320x240 also ok)

7: Videos should be submitted to zlieb[at]parsons.edu or theo[at]muonics.net (if under 10MB) or posted online for download.

8: We need them by tuesday 8th of May.

We hope you enjoy this challenge, and would like to take part in our project. Thanks and have fun!

zach & theo

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Digital Culture(s) - Ine Poppe

Live Online Today

Digital Culture(s) - Ine Poppe :: Ine Poppe will discuss digital culture, technology and art :: May 3, 2007, 1pm - 3:00pm :: webcast courtesy of Calit2 [Real player and broadband connection required] :; Atkinson Hall Auditorium.

Ine Poppe will present some of her latest research in digital culture which includes working on a novel about three women sharing a humanoid (about robotics, artificial intelligence, sex and 'wet art').

She will discuss her involvement with the hacker community in Amsterdam, and screen part of her film 'Hippies from Hell', which documents the history of Hackers. Poppe lectures on the arts and multimedia and is Professor at Willem de Kooning Art Academy in Rotterdam. Her documentary 'Hippies from Hell' was shown at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2002 and went on to venues in Europe and South America. She has written for several computer games, and also produced 'Necrocam' - an online piece depicting a webcam inside a coffin.

Last summer she took a camera crew to visit robotic Artist Norman White in Canada. She is also working on a novel about life with a humanoid.

Ine Poppe (1960, NL) works in Amsterdam as an artist, writer, director. She writes about digital culture, technology and art, the recent years mainly for the national newspaper NRC-Handelsblad. She has researched and directed television documentaries for National Television; wrote a journalistic book about Dutch Squatters in the eighties, and published essays about art and science. Her art-projects 'Mothermilk cheese' (1984), 'Women with Beards'
(1997) were shown worldwide.

This presentation has been made possible by support from CRCA, Calit2 and the Waag society in Amsterdam.

Posted by jo at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

Bjørn Magnhildøen

Chyphertext / Noisetext Performance

Bjørn Magnhildøen: Chyphertext / Noisetext Performance :: May 3, 20:00 - 21:30 (central european summertime)* Places: web, mail. Subscribe to the noisetext list to receive performance emails. Thanks to noisetext list admin phaneronoemikon / lanny.

Haphazard description of the performance: a c(h)yp(h)ertext performance betatesting, in a series of protocol performances dealing with networked online events. In addition to a text and code feed, there are images, sounds, a webcam, text interaction, and email.

The images are rather randomly chosen among jpgs less than 750 bytes in size. The sound is realtime generated midi from the textfeed the webcam updates every five sec or so the interaction are textbased, you can input text in the form to the right, longer or shorter one-liners - these inputs goes into the feed and from there into the sound output also. Mails are sent out as part of the event. If the thing hangs, halts or hucks up, try to reload the page or restart the browser. Any report or comment appreciated.

Thanks to Norwegian Cultural Council for funding protocol performance, and Atelier Nord for hosting noemata and the event.

* CEST = central european summer time = UTC/GMT +2 hours.
In other timezones the performance will be:
England: 19:00 - 20:30 (UTC +1)
US Westcoast: 11:00 - 12:30 (UTC -7)
US Eastcoast: 16:00 - 17:30 (UTC -4)
(see eg. http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ )

Posted by jo at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2007

Conflux 2007: DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MAY 10TH

Call for Proposals

Conflux 2007 will take place in Brooklyn again this September and we want you in it! The call for proposals is at http://confluxfestival.org and has all the information you need on how to participate. DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MAY 10TH.

The Conflux festival has been described as "a network of maverick artists and unorthodox urban investigators…making fresh, if underground,contributions to pedestrian life in New York City, and upping the ante on today's fight for the soul of high-density metropolises." At Conflux visual and sound artists, writers, urban adventurers and the public gather for four days to explore the physical and psychological landscape of the city. For more information about Conflux, check out the Conflux 2006 site.

Posted by jo at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)

TransISTor

Call for Participants

Last chance to apply to TransISTor workshop in JUNE organised by www.FAMU.cz and www.CIANT.cz.

TransISTor focuses on computer games technologies while opening up their creative potential for non-gaming storytelling domains including art, cinema, TV, educational applications and cross-media productions.

Session 1: Game modifications and machinima films :: 14. 06. - 17. 06. 2007, Prague :: Application deadline: 14. MAY 2007 :: Working language is English :: From combination of comics and video games to films created with game engines. This session will provide an overview of tools and techniques used for customizing and expanding computer games. We will examine issues of game design and game play in the context of cross media production. The goal is to explore the basics of how to create and modify game levels. In the intensive 4-day workshop your will create your first machinima film.

14. - 17. JUNE 2007 | Prague | € 400 (freelancer) / € 800 (corporate) - The price includes training, didactic materials, accommodation and meals.

Preliminary schedule:

14. June
9:00 - 12:00 AM | VIKTOR ANTONOV: Visual storytelling for Game worlds: designing and building a sci-fi universe
1:30 - 5:00 PM | DANI SÁNCHEZ-CRESPO: Independent Vs. Commercial games: from aesthetic to industry aspects

15. June
9:00 - 12:00 AM | FRIEDRICH KIRSCHNER: From game engine to machinima movie 1:30 - 5:00 PM | FRIEDRICH KIRSCHNER: Machinima workshop I.: What makes a machinima?

16. June
9:00 - 12:00 AM | MICHAEL NITSCHE: Machinima and performance 1:30 - 5:00 PM | FRIEDRICH KIRSCHNER: Machinima workshop II.: Live Machinima Sketch.

17. JUNE
9:00 - 12:00 AM | MICHAEL NITSCHE: Machinima and the moving image 1:30 - 5:00 PM | FRIEDRICH KIRSCHNER: Machinima workshop III: A small Movie.

VIKTOR ANTONOV: Visual storytelling for Game worlds: designing and building a sci-fi universe - Case studies of game design by Viktor Antonov, the concept designer and the lead art director of Half-Life 2. On examples of his previous and current work, he will illustrate the different stages of world creation from research to architecture, lighting, and concepts, concentrating on the functions of visual design and visual storytelling. In the presentation he will discuss the fundamentals of game design and principles of creating game environments and spaces that provide good gameplay.

VIKTOR ANTONOV (USA/FR/BG): Art-director and concept designer for Half-Life 2 currently working on a new game “The Crossing” which merges single- and multiplayer aspects into a new genre of "cross-play“.

FRIEDRICH KIRSCHNER: From game engine to machinima movie Machinima is somewhat new and emerging medium that makes use of the realtime rendering capabilities of modern day computer systems to create animated movies. Often enough, machinima repurposes computer gaming technology to help „shooting film in virtual reality“. Though by definition not necessarily bound to computer gaming as such, the two are closely link, not only technologically, but also in their social relevance. Often using the characters and assets from the underlying computer game, machinima works as a way of criticising the games' content and enables the audience to become creative and expand the boundaries set by the rules of the computer game. Machinima transforms into creative play, emphasizing the process of filmmaking as a socially relevant new form of expression and media awareness. With the way machinima is made come broader issues stretching from copyright infringement to new channels of distribution.

FRIEDRICH KIRSCHNER: Machinima workshop I. What makes a machinima? In this session we will look at the Workflow and Content ProductionPipeline for Machinima movies.

II. Live Machinima Sketch. In this session we will create a simple character setup and perform a live sketch.
III. A small Movie.

In the final Workshop session, participants will create a small Machinima sequence and render it to the disk for editing, sound and post-production. The Machinima workshop will consist of a brief overview of the history of machinima, followed by a basic explanation of the concepts and workings and finally some hands-on experience. Through analysis of example movies, attendees will get an idea of what makes machinima unique. The larger context of computer games and gaming culture will be explained and the idea of the social relevancy of machinima will be discussed. We briefly talk about the legal aspects of machinima moviemaking and take a look at newly formed distribution channels like youTube or google video. Druing the 4 day workshop participants will create a small machinima movie with a tool based on the game Unreal Tournament 2004 called MovieSandbox.

FRIEDRICH KIRSCHNER (AT): Artist and researcher at the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz working with the emerging genre of machinima films.

DANI SÁNCHEZ-CRESPO: Independent Vs. Commercial games: from aesthetic to industry aspects :: Should we consider video games an art form or they are simply a commercial product with no values? The presentation will discuss the need for an aesthetic of video games and evaluation of artistic merit, so consumers learn to appreciate what is and what is not relevant in a video game. We will talk about video game artists, their training, and the need to broaden our creator base to incorporate new ideas and creativity. The lecture is driven by examples, from Mario to Half Life, trying to bridge the gap between classic gamers and art critics.

DANI SÁNCHEZ-CRESPO (ES): Entrepreneur and one of the leading voices in game research in Europe who founded Europe’s first Master’s Degree in Video Game Creation. Sub-director of ArtFutura, Spain’s main multimedia festival, and a member of the jury at the Independent Games Festival.

MICHAEL NITSCHE: Machinima and performance: 'part theatre, part film, part videogame' [Salen 2002, 99] Machinima grows from a performance in a virtual world. What are the conditions of this performance? We will look at theory and practice of the idea of the computer as theater for machinima.

Project presentation: Tangible User Interfaces for 3D Real-Time Environments (TUI3D) MICHAEL NITSCHE: Machinima and the moving image 'Filmmaking + Animation + Game Tech' [Marino 2004, 3] No matter what the appearance of machinima, it always deals with the question of the cinematic. But because it is generated so differently from established methods, the 'question of the cinematic' is a two-sided sword in the case of machinima. Is it a move of game media towards film or a simple acquisition of game technologies in the world of moving image production? What is the position of machinima in relation to film? Project presentation: Machinima editing tool Pre-vis efforts.

MICHAEL NITSCHE (USA) Assistant Professor at the School of Literature, Communication & Culture LCC at the Georgia Institute of Technology who launched a website on the academic take on machinima and the first academic book publication on this relatively new field where games and film/ video merge.

TransISTor is a training initiative organised by CIANT - International Centre for Art and New Technologies in cooperation with FAMU - Film and TV Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague supported by the MEDIA Training Programme of the European Union.

CIANT - International Centre for Art and New Technologies
Address: Kubelíkova 27, 130 00 Prague, Czech Republic
Tel.: +42 (0) 296 330 965, Fax: +42 (0) 296 330 964
e-mail: transistor2007 AT ciant.c

Posted by jo at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)

SUMMIT non-aligned initiatives in education culture

Meeting in Berlin

SUMMIT non-aligned initiatives in education culture :: May 24 to 28, 2007, Berlin (DE) :: Two weeks before this years G-8 meeting a wide range of projects, initiatives and protagonists from the fields of art, culture and political activism are going to gather in Berlin for "SUMMIT non-aligned initiatives in education culture": SUMMIT is a proposal to question and to change some of the fundamental terms of the debate around education, knowledge production and information society.

Beyond the widespread lament about the crisis in education there are numerous initiatives converging around "education", recognizing that it is equally a platform for cultural actualisation and self organization: these projects range from free academies, to exhibitions as educational modes to ad-hoc initiatives within social, political and cultural organisations. Parallel to that many initiatives are taking place within or at the margins of institutions which work against the grain of their official modes and expand rather than defy existing aims.

SUMMIT seeks to bring together various approaches from different genres and calls to come forth and unalign from both, the tendencies of bureaucratization and privatization of knowledge and education. The four-day event focusses on four thematic tracks: "Knowledge and Migrancy", "Self-authorization, -organization, -valorization", "Creative Practices" and "Education unrealized and ongoing".

SUMMIT features an evening program with lectures, curated dialogs and performances, a series of meetings and sessions in working groups caucuses, workshops, drafting sessions and history lessons as well as open forums for initiating proposals, highlighting practices and making theory urgent.

SUMMMIT is designed by Irit Rogoff and Florian Schneider in collaboration with Kodwo Eshun, Susanne Lang, Nicolas Siepen and Nora Sternfeld.

Registration and further information at: http://summit.kein.org

Organization: Multitude e.V., together with Goldsmiths College, London University and Witte de With, Rotterdam. SUMMIT is supported by the Federal Culture Foundation, Germany.

Posted by jo at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)

A Handbook for Coding Cultures

Platforms for Communication and Creativity

A Handbook for Coding Cultures provides a lasting companion to the inspiring projects and topical currents of thought explored in the Coding Cultures Symposium and Concept Lab. Six invited writers and groups from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, England, Italy and Hong Kong share their experiences of building imaginative digital tools, social networks, open labs and internet-based knowledge platforms for communication and creativity. Complementing these commissioned texts are contributions from our guest artists from Canada, England and Jamaica. Artist statements from Symposium speakers completes this snapshot of contemporary cultural practice.

Keeping true to the traditions of the free circulation of knowledge and culture, the Coding Cultures Handbook is available free of charge. A limited print edition of the Handbook was launched at the Coding Cultures Symposium on 9 March 2007. It was commissioned by Francesca da Rimini and d/Lux/MediaArts.

The complete Handbook can be viewed or downloaded below. Alternatively, essays can also be downloaded individually ... and where available, a link to the Author's online essay is also provided.

A Handbook for Coding Cultures (in pdf) (3MB) (full version)
A Handbook for Coding Cultures (zipped ) (2.8MB) (full version)

List of Contents :

Lisa Havilah (AUS) - Foreword
David Cranswick (AUS) - Preface

Francesca da Rimini (AUS): Introduction: Archipelagos of open code and free culture

Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett, Furtherfield (England): Do It With Others (DIWO): contributory media in the Furtherfield Neighbourhood

Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney, (Belgium): Open ended processes, open space technologies and open laboratories

Andrew Lowenthal, (AUS): Free Beer vs Free Media

Leandro Fossá, (Brazil) in collaboraton with Claudio Prado (Brazil): Digital Culture: The jump from the 19th to the 21st Century

Lam Oi Wan, (Hong Kong): What is that Star? Media cultural action in the claiming of space

Agnese Trocchi (Italy): Shivers of sharing

Alice Angus and Giles Lane, Proboscis (UK): Cultures of Listening

mervin Jarman (Jamaica) in collaboration with Sonia Mills: mongrelstreet: the culture of codes

Camille Turner (Canada): Representing in Digital Space

David S. Vadiveloo (AUS): A time for empowerment or a new digital divide?

Tallstoreez Productionz (AUS): Returning the Gaze: the hero-project, how to join politics, youth empowerment and entertainment

Christopher Saunders (AUS): Big hART - a model for social and cultural change

Lena Nahlous, Ben Hoh and Trey Thomas (aka MC Trey) (AUS): A presentation about why ICE exists and how it works

Posted by jo at 12:06 PM | Comments (0)

h2.0: New Minds, New Bodies, New Identities

Conference Webcast

h2.0: New Minds, New Bodies, New Identities :: Massachusetts Institute of Technology: May 9 :: 8:30 am to 4:30 pm :: webcast here.

Ushering in a New Era for Human Capability: The story of civilization is the story of humans and their tools. Use of tools has changed the human mind, altered the human body, and fundamentally reshaped human identity. Now at the dawn of the 21st century, a new category of tools and machines is poised to radically change humanity at a velocity well beyond the pace of Darwinian evolution.

A science is emerging that combines a new understanding of how humans work to usher in a new generation of machines that mimic or aid human physical and mental capabilities. Some 150 million of us are over the age of 80, while 200 million of us suffer from severe cognitive, emotional, sensory, or physical disabilities. Giving all or even most of this population a quality of life beyond mere survival is both the scientific challenge of the epoch and the basis for a coming revolution over what it means to be human. To unleash this next stage in human development, our bodies will change, our minds will change, and our identities will change. The age of Human 2.0 is here.

Hosts: JOHN HOCKENBERRY, award-winning journalist; distinguished Media Lab fellow and HUGH HERR, NEC Career Development Professor, MIT Media Lab :: Keynote: OLIVER SACKS :: Special Guests: MICHAEL GRAVES, MICHAEL CHOROST, JOHN DONOGHUE, AIMEE MULLINS and DOUGLAS H. SMITH.

The Media Lab at the Center

In a dramatic and crucially important new initiative, h2.0, the MIT Media Lab seeks to advance on all fronts to define and focus this scientific realignment. The Lab will leverage a new understanding of human cognition, emotion, perception, and movement to produce machines that better serve humanity.

Positioning itself at the center of a confluence of new science is a familiar place for the Media Lab. Understanding the adaptive impulse of humans and harnessing it for the pursuit of a new generation of machines is an endeavor as world shattering as anything the Media Lab has ever undertaken. The goal? New Minds, New Bodies, New Identities.

Posted by jo at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)

Upgrade! Brussels/Ghent

Courtisane Festival for Shortfilm, Video and New Media

Upgrade! Brussels/Ghent: Courtisane Festival for Shortfilm, Video and New Media :: May 3-6, Vooruit, Ghent. From the part of Frictions, platform for media art at Vooruit, your special attention for:

From Safety to Where -- exhibition :: May 3-6 (daily from 13.00 to midnight - ballroom and studio's - free entrance): From Safety to Where gathers video and audiovisual installations where urges and senses rule supreme, where nature turns your world upside down or where nature is the lost piece in the puzzle that makes everything right, where violence can be a catalyst and music is salvation for the soul. (With Aernoudt Jacobs, Jacob Kirkegaard, Lars Nilsson, Jeremy Shaw and Richard T. Walker)

Andrea Bozic: Still life with man and woman -- dance performance :: May 3-6 (20.00 - dome - 11/8 euro): A film set within a live performance with uninvited apparitions, imaginary friends and some real people: a man and a woman. One follows the other but they never manage to end up in the same space. Instead, the space develops a life of its own.

FrictiesSalon: Gerard Holthuis :: May 5 (18.30 - dansstudio - free entrance): Gerard Holthuis recently finished his series 'Careless Reef', six films about life underseas and managed to snatch several international prizes right away. He is the central guest in the FrictiesSalon where we would like to hear him speak about different modes of watching and his peculiar fascination for underwater life and city landscapes.

Christian Marclay's 'Screen Play' -- audiovisual performance :: May 6 (20.00 - theatrehall - 10/8 euro): With Screen Play Christian Marclay made a silent visual score that combines found filmfootage and graphics. Three trio's will bring their interpretation of Marclay's visual score: Greg Kelley/Bhob Rainey/Jason Lescalleet, Tetuzi Akiyama/Ignatz/Stef Irritant en Steve Beresford/John Butcher/Paul Lovens.

Posted by jo at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2007

donaufestival 07

UNPROTECTED GAME S

"[...] Under the motto “unprotected games“, the donaufestival 07 atttempts – without claims to a kitsch utopia of change – to confuse the inner and outer view of (social) game systems with unprotected, artistic games, to swap positions on the thin red line between virtuality and reality and to simulate a risky match of reevaluation and anarchic freedom. Whether performance, media art, art game or musical statement: the donaufestival transforms, in a not unusual though induced form, into a platform for pop-iconoclasts, scrupulous poachers in Bambiland, whether as protagnist or voyeur or both, in personal union. So: make your unprotected game!" Tomas Zierhofer-Kin.

Artists A-Z
//////////fur//// art entertainment interfaces

Addictive TV
Artificiel (Julien Roy & Alexandre Burton)

Baby Dee
Biederman, Andrew
Big Art Group
Blast Theory
Bonnie Prince Billy
Boredoms
Burton, Alexandre (Artificiel)

Clauss, Julien
Current 93
Cyclobe

Deerhoof

ersatzverkehr
eSeL
ESG

Fennesz
Fiasco, Pablo
Finn, Simon
Forrest, Jason

Gang Of Four
Gob Squad
God's Entertainment
Gonzales

Haswell
Haswell & Hecker
Hecker
Hex, Fovea

Jóhannson, Jóhann
Justice Yeldham

Kent, Julia
Kids On TV
Killed By 9Volt Batteries
Koolwijk, Bas van
Krahl Theater, Von
Kreisky
KTL
Kubin, Felix
Kurokawa, Ryoichi
Kurzmann, Christoph

Larsen
Larsen featuring Jóhann Jóhannson
Lesser, Jay
Lidell, Jamie
Little Annie with Paul Wallfish
Lorbeer, Johan

Matmos
Matmos feat. Jay Lesser
Mocky

Niblock, Phill
Notwist, The
Nurse With Wound

Om

Pantaleimon
Parenthetical Girls
Patrick Wolf
plan b
Pook, Lynn
Poss, Robert
Priestbird
Prins, Gert-Jan

Ray_XXXX
rechenzentrum
Roy Julien (Artificiel)

Sand
Schnee & Sand
Schnee (Burkhard Stangl und Christoph Kurzmann)
Sawai, Taeji
Showcase Beat Le Mot
Six Organs Of Admittance
Sphären Versammlung
Stangl, Burkhard
Stenger, Susan
Sun O)))

Thibault, Alain
Throbbing Gristle
Tibet, David
toxic dreams
Two Fish

Vega, Alan

Yeldham, Justice

zeitkratzer volksmusik
zeitkratzer unprotected plays/unprotected music
Zeni Geva

Posted by jo at 06:30 PM | Comments (0)

OK.VIDEO MILITIA

Call for Submissions

OK.VIDEO MILITIA: 3rd Jakarta International Video Festival, Indonesia :: July 10 - 21 July, 2007 :: Call for VIDEO IN / VIDEO OUT / TV SCRATCHING / VIDEO SHOP / WORKSHOPS SERIES :: DEADLINE MAY 15, 2007.

OK.VIDEO: O.K. Video – biannual Jakarta International Video Festival that was established in 2003 by ruangrupa, an artists’ initiative based in Jakarta that focuses on supporting the development of the arts in the specific context of culture in Indonesia through research, study and documentation, along with intensive collaboration and cooperation with artists through organizing exhibitions, artist residency programs, art projects and workshops.

OK.VIDEO: MILITIA: In this 3rd OK.Video Festival, we will try to develop a collaboration work between the artistic team of the festival with the participating artists or with the context of a certain public space. This collaboration work will try to get an artistic strategy that could be fit with the context of the community, public and certain space. The theme of the 3rd Ok. Video Festival is “MILITIA”, means to empowered the civilians in a more organize way or by plan so it also mobilize and connected with some activity that push some changes which is initiated from itself.

In this context, we relate this theme with the development of video as the medium in the society today. With this focus we will try to empower the society as a technology and media user to build a social, political, cultural, and historical consciousness towards the reality that happened in our surroundings.

With MILITIA, as the theme of this year festival, the festival will be showing video works that have this kind of tendencies:

- playing or questioning video/audio technology in our daily life such as video camera, digital camera, videophone, computer, television, surveillance camera, etc.
- investigation, which is raise a social, political and cultural issue or situation that happened in our surroundings.
- video exploration, as a strategy to empower the society such as community video.
- presenting history with personal point of view.
- showing personal experience or society in the daily life with video diary or testimony.

Posted by jo at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

LIVE: (Possession & Poetry Part 2)

Machfield at Tanzquartier Wien

PREMIÈRE: LIVE: (Possession & Poetry Part 2) :: May 10-12, 2007, 7pm :: Length: 3 hours (TQW Foyer and Studios) :: Tanzquartier Wien | Studio.

When someone goes on a journey then they narrate something: for two months, the choreographers Sabina Holzer and the “fictionaut” Jack Hauser went in search of material for their new production, studied Morocco and Spain as well as films, music, texts and dreams. The unforeseeable and the unknown – essential components of every journey – are also the essential parameters of LIVE. On stage with the Machfeld artists’ collective, consisting of Sabine Maier and Michael Mastrototaro as well as the musician Martin Siewert, Holzer and Hauser go into the adventure and the way of work of traveling:

“Some things are prescribed, a lot is prepared”, say the performers. They follow the gestures, sounds, lines and colours which have been appearing carefully. A secret system of phantasms? This and other things the audience is invited to discover with them.

Bon voyage!

Concept, staging: Sabina Holzer, Jack Hauser
Live video, video editing: MACHFELD (aka Sabine Maier & Michael Mastrototaro)
Live soundtrack: Martin Siewert
Realisation, performance: Jack Hauser, Sabina Holzer, Sabine Maier, Michael Mastrototaro, Martin Siewert
Production: Sabina Holzer / Jack Hauser and Tanzquartier Wien.
With the support of the City of Vienna.

MACHFELD, International Arts and Culture Society
A-1020 Vienna, Max Winter-Platz 21/1
Phone: +43(0)650 99 103 04
http://www.machfeld.net
http://www.myspace.com/machfeld

Posted by jo at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

Michael Mandiberg's "Real Costs"

Emissions Alert!

Real Costs is a Firefox plug-in that inserts emissions data into travel related e-commerce website. The first version adds CO2 emissions information to airfare websites such as Orbitz.com, United.com, Delta.com, etc. Following versions will work with car directions, car rental, and shipping websites. Think of it like the nutritional information labeling on the back of food... except for emissions. Requires Greasemonkey. Also by Michael Mandiberg: Oil Standard.

Posted by jo at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)