networked_performance

r4WB1t5 micro.Fests in Mexico City will build contextualized, temporary and contingent social structures in the forms of interconnected New Media Art Festivals, Sound Art Events, Social Software, Open Networks of Collaboration and Realtime Audio and Video Performances. These handcrafted digital systems and timespaces will operate as open ports and collaborative situations. Selected artists from Chicago will inhabit these open sourced software architectures hosted by institutions, organizations and individuals in Mexico City. Artists in Mexico City will collaborate and continue conversations initiated by the MEXICAN r4wb1t5 macro.Fest hosted in Chicago during April 2006.

r4WB1t5 micro.Fests are international, decentralized, self-organized and independent festivals of raw bits of digital art and dirty new media. (A) r4WB1t5 micro.Fest is itself an open platform or framework for creating these events in alternative and conversational contexts such as bars, basements, lofts, art spaces, apartments, galleries, online video game environments and other networked spaces. (A) r4WB1t5 micro.Fests extend out of and feeds back into DaDaist, Situationist, Fluxist, punk, digital art and New Media theorypractices, histories, possibilities and positionalities. (A) r4WB1t5 micro.Fests are always free and open collaborative projects, available to anyone interested in self-organizing Digital Arts and dirty New Media.

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June 18, 2007

UpStage version 2

Launch

You are warmly invited to join the UpStage team to celebrate the launch of UpStage version 2 :: June 28, 5:30-7:00 pm :: New Zealand Film Archive (cnr Taranaki & Ghuznee Streets) :: To mark the software launch an exhibition, Puppets to Pixels – an interactive playground for children of all ages, will run at the New Zealand Film Archive Gallery from June 28 - July 15. And 070707, a festival of UpStage performances, takes place on July 7, online and screened simultaneously at the Film Archive.

UpStage is a ground-breaking web-based venue for live, online performance. First launched in 2004, it’s time for the second release with improvements to the interface and innovative new features. UpStage V2 has been developed by Avatar Body Collision and Douglas Bagnall, with funding assistance from the Community Partnership Fund of the Digital Strategy, and the generous support of sponsors CityLink, MediaLab and Auckland University of Technology.

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Upgrade! Tel Aviv-Jerusalem

Yael Kanarek

Upgrade! Tel Aviv-Jerusalem: "Object of Desire" - Yael Kanarek (IL/USA) on the occasion of her new show in Israel :: June 16, 2007, 21:00 :: @ Daila, Shlomtsion Hamalka st. 4, Jerusalem :: Free Entrance.

Object of Desire is the third chapter in World of Awe, and online travelogue (www.worldofawe.net) that chronicles a search for lost treasure in a parallel world called Sunset/Sunrise. The project imagines a post-gender and post-national protagonist. Born from an observation that language defines borders and territory on the Internet, Object of Desire examines these borders, as the chapter is written in three languages: English, Arabic and Hebrew. To raise the notion of physicality of the Internet, the fifteen scenes of the online project download from servers in four locations---New York, Tel Aviv, Ramallah, and Izmir.

During the artist's talk, Yael will guide the audience through several scenes, point to memes born in the Middle East and Mediterranean that are present in contemporary culture, and talk about her upcoming solo exhibition at Nelly Aman's gallery, opening July 1 in Tel Aviv.

Since 1995, Yael Kanarek has developed a unique project using photography, text, sculpture, and performance. For the past decade she has integrated a range of media into a hypertext system with epic proportions titled World of Awe. Grounded with an original narrative that expands the ancient tradition and genre of a traveler's tale, Kanarek's World of Awe explores connections between storytelling, travel, memory, and technology. With a solo exhibition slated for 2007 at the Jewish Museum, Kanarek has been recognized internationally with a Rockefeller New Media fellowship, the Netizens Webprize, and the CNRS/UNESCO Lewis Carroll Prix Argos in France. Selected for the 2002 Whitney Biennial, she has received grants from the Jerome Foundation Media Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and commissions from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Turbulence.org, and The Alternative Museum. Kanarek has also held residencies at Eyebeam and Harvestworks. Her work has been written about in The New York Times, Le Monde Interactif, Tema Celeste, ARTnews, Time Out, Flash Art Italy, Firma, Paper, Wired, The Journal News, ArtByte, and Internet Art by Rachel Greene. In 2000, Kanarek founded Upgrade!, an international network of artists and curators.

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Collaboration:

New Ways of Learning and Working Together

If one principle could be seen to inform the opaque surface of what in the 1990s was called a "new economy" – the shifts and changes, the dynamics and blockades, the emergencies and habit formations taking place within the realm of immaterial production – it would certainly be: "Work together".Facing the challenges of digital technologies, global communications, and networking environments, as well as the inherant ignorance of traditional systems towards these, 'working together' has emerged as an unsystematic mode of collective learning processes.Slowly and almost unnoticeably, a new word came into vogue. At first sight it might seem the least significant common denominator for describing new modes of working together, yet "collaboration" has become one of the leading terms of an emergent contemporary political sensibility.Often collapsed into the most utilitarian understanding, 'collaboration' is far more than acting together, as it extends towards a network of interconnected approaches and efforts. - Collaboration: Seven notes on new ways of learning and working together by Florian Schneider, NOEMA.

Posted by jo at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

alt.SPACE Festival 2007

Radical & The Revolutionary

alt.SPACE Network of Artist Research Groups presents alt.SPACE Festival 2007: The Radical & The Revolutionary :: It is time for the third annual alt.SPACE Festival. This time it will take the form of a month-long peripatetic symposium, criss-crossing the urban wilderness that is London in a variety of ways, through a variety of means and involving a variety of events and activities ranging from dinner parties, picnics and informal walks, to project presentations and discussions, to more theoretical papers and a concluding 24 consecutive hour long conference.

The overall theme this year is The Radical and the Revolutionary. What is the validity and usefulness of these concepts in terms of contemporary, and future, forms of politically engaged cultural practice? Can they be reclaimed, rendered affirmative and dissentious tools, and if so, how? What kind of histories can we access and how do we access them? What strategies are ours to employ? What forms of linkages and connections, what kinds of networks and collaboration? This year the overall theme will be engaged with from four perspectives each of which involved its own set of events and activities: *Sound*, *Cartography*, *Illegality*, and *Dissemination*.

*This year also sees* the launch of *alt.SPACE Radio* - our IT-radio station which will broadcast much of the festival and many other forthcoming alt.SPACE events. Additionally, the festival celebrates the very first issue of our journal: *alt.SPACE hardCOPY. *Please see www.altspace.info for further details.

*Come join us.* All events are free of charge. Everyone is welcome. For some events we ask you to let us know beforehand, particularly those that involve public space meetings or preparatory readings or discussions. It's all very informal and convivial. We look forward to seeing you. If you have received this directly from the alt.SPACE Network you will receive updates as of the specific events of the festival: specific speakers, presentations and other details will be announced week-by-week. If you did not receive this email directly from us but wishes to continue to receive these updates, please feel free to join our mailing list. Simply visit www.altspace.info and follow links for 'workspace' and then 'mailing lists' for directions.

Posted by jo at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

Gallery TPW presents

Dubious Views

Dubious Views: Questioning Institutional Representations in Tourism and Cartography :: Curators: Michelle Kasprzak, Michael Alstad, Shawn Micallef :: A bilingual online exhibition produced by Gallery TPW and funded by the Virtual Museums of Canada.

Every time you open your eyes, a hundred different sources vie for your attention. This spectacle - the cacophonous accumulation of images superimposed over the "real" world - is built by everything from advertisements to entertainment to government. This institutional view of the world can come to stand in for and suppress any other visions or versions that might be out there.

The artists discussed in Dubious Views address the role of the "institution" in terms of its effect on the understanding of place. It is examined in relationship to the tourism industry, and in the context of mapmaking and geography. In both cases, the artists involved look at and play with creating alternatives to the institutional view, and attempt to challenge its singularity, its authority, and its monolithic profile.

Artists include: David Rokeby, Surveillance Camera Players, Michelle Teran, Proboscis, Sylvia Grace Borda, Janet Cardiff, Eugene Atget, Nikki S. Lee, Charles Marville, Roger Minick, [murmur], N.E. Thing Co., Shelley Niro, Louise Noguchi, Mitch Robertson, Ed Ruscha, Camille Turner, Jin-me Yoon, and more.

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

June 15, 2007

(re)Actor2: The Second International Conference on Digital Live Art

CALL FOR PAPERS, INSTALLATIONS & PERFORMANCES

(re)Actor2: The Second International Conference on Digital Live Art: Bad Girls, Gadgets & Guerrilla Performance :: Broadcasting House & Leeds Met Gallery, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK :: September 10th, 2007.

Digital Live Art is the intersection of Human-computer Interaction (HCI), Live Art and Computing. (re)Actor2: The Second International Conference on Digital Live Art seeks to bring together practitioners and academics from the varying worlds of Live Art, Computing and HCI for a lively debate and event which will explore this emerging field. We are particularly interested in unanticipated performance spaces and playful arenas, such as festivals and nightclubs.

This year's theme, BAD GIRLS, GADGETS & GUERRILLA PERFORMANCE focuses on women who are practicing at the intersection of Computing and Live Art. In focusing on women, Computing and the Arts, this year we look to celebrate the diverse skills, knowledge and experience that women bring to the field. It is our hope that bringing these people together will foster an environment for mutual learning, mentoring and support. Proposals and participation are welcomed from all genders.

KEYNOTE

Our keynote presentation this year will be from the Guerrilla Girls of New York. In 1985, a group of women artists founded the Guerrilla Girls. They assumed the names of dead women artists and wore gorilla masks in public, concealing their identities and focusing on the issues rather than their personalities. Between 1985 and 2000, close to 100 women, working collectively and anonymously, produced posters, billboards, public actions, books and other projects to make feminism funny and fashionable. At the turn of the millennium, three separate and independent incorporated groups formed to bring fake fur and feminism to new frontiers. Guerrilla Girls, Inc. was established by two founding Guerrilla Girls and other members to continue the use of provocative text, visuals and humor in the service of feminism and social change. They have written several books and create projects about the art world, film, politics and pop culture. They travel the world, talking about the issues and their experiences as feminist masked avengers, reinventing the “f” word into the 21st century. They could be anyone; they are everywhere.

VENUE – DAYTIME EVENT

As before, this year we include both a daytime and evening event. The formal daytime event will take place in the old BBC Broadcasting House, a newly refurbished building at Leeds Metropolitan University on Monday, September 10th, 2007. The day will consist of keynote presentations, formal papers and interactive installations. Leeds Met Gallery will curate a special exhibition which will see some of the accepted proposals exhibited in the gallery during the conference.

EVENING AFTER PARTY

The daytime event will be followed by an exhilarating after party with commissioned installations, DJs, VJs and live performances in the vibrant city of Leeds. Commissioned performances will be followed by the incredible Lost Vagueness http://www.lostvagueness.com/ of Glastonbury fame. Over the years, Lost Vagueness has picked up a reputation for being the most anarchic and culturally twisted location at the festival, a place where performers and guests languish together in the warped decadence of the surroundings. This will be the first time Lost Vagueness has performed in the city of Leeds.

FUNDING

We have a limited number commissions available for live performances and installations. You can make a request for funding when you submit your proposal. We also have a limited number of travel bursaries available for those who may not be otherwise able to make it to the conference.

PROPOSALS

All proposals will be peer reviewed by the conference committee. Proposals must not exceed the 2-page limit and must be prepared using the conference publications format provided on our website. However, you may provide additional info (links to digital material including online video, photos and websites) using the third page of the proposal template. We are accepting proposals for:

* academic paper presentations (day)
* live performances (including DJ/VJ sets) (day and evening)
* interactive installations (day and evening)

Topics of interest included but definitely not limited to:

• Technology as a vehicle for social and peformative interactivity
• Human-computer interaction and intervention
• Women, performance and technology
• Audience behaviour and rules of engagement in interactive works
• Non-complicit performance
• Stumble performance and digital live encounters
• Guerrilla interventions
• Performative contracts – rule making and rule breaking
• Digital/live performance and the club space
• Experimental visual and sonic interfaces for live performance
• Performance and social infection

Accepted proposals will be published in the conference proceedings and included on our website. Following last year’s conference, participants were invited to submit their papers to a special edition of the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media on Digital Live Art (2007 - Intellect Press). A similar publication will be produced from this year's conference.

IMPORTANT DATES

Proposal submission deadline: 28th June, 2007
Notification of acceptance: 28th July, 2007
Conference date: September 10th, 2007

(re)Actor DIRECTORS

Jennifer Sheridan, BigDog Interactive
Alice Bayliss, University of Leeds

CONFERENCE CHAIRS

Rebekka Kill, Leeds Metropolitan University
Alice Bayliss, University of Leeds
Jennifer Sheridan, BigDog Interactive

EVENT ADMINISTRATION
Patsy Robertshaw, Leeds Met University

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
Maribeth Back, FX PAL, California
Christopher Baugh, University of Leeds
Steve Benford, University of Nottingham
Joanna Berzowska, Concordia University
Teresa Brayshaw, Leeds Metropolitan University
Daniel Brine, Live Art Development Agency, UK
Susan Broadhurst, Brunel University
Nick Bryan-Kinns, Queen Mary, University of London
Linda Candy, University of Technology, Sydney
David Collins, Doncaster College
Beatriz da Costa, University of California
Steve Dixon, Brunel University
Jon Dovey, Bristol University
Linda Drew, Chelsea College of Art and Design
Matt Fenton, Nuffield Theatre Lancaster
Geraldine Fitzpatrick, University of Sussex
Bill Gaver, Goldsmiths University of London
Gabriella Giannachi, University of Exeter
Ceri Hand, Metal, Liverpool
Rania Ho, Korean Advanced Institute of Culture & Technology
Moira Innes, Leeds Met Gallery
Clare Jackson, Axis
Lois Keidan, Live Art Development Agency, UK
Boriana Koleva, University of Nottingham
Charles Kriel, London Metropolitan University
Annie Lloyd, Leeds Metropolitan University
Suzy Mason, Speedqueen, UK
Jill Morgan, Leeds Metropolitan University
Angela Piccini, Bristol University
Sita Popat, University of Leeds
Michelle Teran, Artist, Canada
Mick Wallis, University of Leeds

Sponsored by the Arts Council of England, University of Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan University, BigDog Interactive and Nokia. Jointly organised by the School of Performance and Cultural Industries – University of Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan University and BigDog Interactive

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

June 14, 2007

Living Room Lecture Series: Alison Norrington

Female Icons: It's Not The Gaze, But The Look...

FEMALE ICONS: IT'S NOT THE GAZE, BUT THE LOOK... As a part of the Living Room Lecture Series, De Geuzen welcomes author Alison Norrington. The event will be streamed live from Rotterdam :: FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2007 @ 15:00 (calculate the time for your own region).

For the Female Icons series, Norrington will be lecturing about her own experiences in the world of Chick Lit, a rapidly expanding genre of women's contemporary fiction. Talking about some of the characters in her novels, she will discuss the possibilities and restraints of the genre as a whole. Norrington's lecture is a part of De Geuzen's Living Room Lectures, a series of talks hosted in our respective homes.

Alison Norrington is the author of Class Act, Look Before You Leap and Three of A Kind. She has written articles for The Irish Star, Irish Tatler and Evening Herald. She is also a regular contributer to Women's Way. For more information on Alison Norrington see:

:: Alison Norrington's site http://www.alisonnorrington.com
:: Alison Norrington on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Norrington

For background reading on Chick Lit visit:

:: Chick Lit defined by wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_lit
:: Chick Lit Author Rountable http://www.authorsontheweb.com/features/0402-chicklit/chicklit.asp
:: Step into the shoes of a chick-lit author http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1753802006

Posted by jo at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

LOYAL_ROOFTOPS_2007

OPEN CALL

As part of the program of the festival "Bürgerstolz und Stadtfrieden" (Civil Pride and Urban Peace) we offer a billboard for screening video works from May 15 - September 24, 2007. Loyal_Rooftops_2007 shows video works, that point at social grievances and/or the struggle of independent culture/cultural institutions and therefore the festival "Bürgerstolz und Stadtfrieden" seems to be the right place at the right time to position themselves, short before those free spaces are closing.

The works will be shown without sound and as a loop, alternating daily. All participating artists will be present on our info media. We will be happy to give you a hand concerning accommodation. (more info here shortly; Galerie Loyal -Werner-Hilpertstr. 22 - 34117 Kassel)

Download Application Form.pdf. Send your DVD to: Martin Dege, Menzelstrasse 13, D - 34121 Kassel (dege (ät) uni-kassel.de).

Posted by jo at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

Neural n. 27

Celebrating 10 years

The new printed Neural issue in English is available. Neural.it celebrates 10 years of activity! Please check it and subscribe to RSS feeds, if you want :: 1 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION! 3 issues + EXCLUSIVE DVD BY GRENZE (Helsinki, 2006); Europe 24,90 Euro - World 38.97 U.S. Dollars :: BACK ISSUES:

Neural n. 27 contents: new.media.art . Cornelia Sollfrank (interview) . Arthur Kroker (interview) . news (Mire.project, Journal, Wordie, Email Clock Independent Robotic Community) . reviews (Book of Imaginary Media, In Human Format, City2City, Electronic Literature Collection 1, At the Edge of Art Words in Flux, GameScenes, Designing Interactions) . centerfold: 'netPong' by Oriol Ferrer Mesia.

e.music: . Girl Talk (interview) . Kim Cascone (interview) . Alex McLean, Live Coding (interview). news: (SoniColumn, Deep House for Symphonic Band and Choir, Ambient Addition, Breadboard Band, Forester) . reviews: (Vj, RT-32 Acoustic Space Lab, Synken, We Are All Drifting, 7ft_Konka, Women Take Back The Noise) . reviews cd: (Muslimgauze, @C, Funkstorung, Johan Johannsson, Kim Cascone, Nathan Davis, Mattin, Giuseppe Ielasi, Rosy Parlane, Strange Attractor vs Disinformation, Eric La Casa, Freiband, Flim, The Alps, Cagesan, Chris Watson & Bj Nilsen, Peter Rehberg, Marc Behrens and Paolo Raposo, Nick Didkovsky, Blotnik Brothers).

hacktivism: . Pirate Bay legal response style . Thieves of the Invisible . An Education and Labor Dispatch, by Trebor Scholz . news (PigeonBlog, Fake Progress Bar, View Finder Heatmap, Ad Generator, Logo.Hallucination) . reviews: ([the] xxxxx [reader], M.White - The Body and the Screen, H. Wagenbreth - Cry for Help, 36 scam Emails from Africa, F.Snelting+P.Westenberg - The Language of Sharing, T. Hansen - What Does Public Mean?)

Posted by jo at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)

Andy Gracie and others

BIORAMA

DIGITAL UNIT RESEARCH presents BIORAMA @ MEDIA Centre Huddersfield :: July 13, 2007: A one-day event serving to contextualise, examine and expand upon the work and theory produced while Andy Gracie is Artist in Residence at the DRU. The research undertaken during the residency weaves together the microbiology of the Pennines around Marsden Moor, traditional and digital networking systems, perceptions of landscape and the history and possible future of interstellar communication.

Biorama Hike: _starting at 10 a.m. @ Marsden :: A 5 mile guided walking lecture and environmental study with Andy Gracie and Brandon Ballangee on Marsden Moor lasting around 3 hours. The walk will cover some of the physical territory featured in Andy's research, the talk will cover the parallel conceptual territories and simple scientific experiments will be carried out at various points on the way. Each participant will receive the Biorama Hiking kit with which to enhance their experience of the event. Particpants should book in advance as places are limited and should bring sturdy walking footwear and sun block.

Biorama Sessions: _starting at 3 p.m. @ Media Centre of Huddersfield :: The Biorama Sessions will introduce a number of artists whose work explores the natural environment, artificial landscapes and interactions with real or imagined lifeforms.

Participants: Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Andy Gracie, Brandon Ballengee, C-Lab, etoy, France Cadet, and London Fieldworks. Special guests in the evening.

Designed and presented by Monica Bello (CAPSULA) for the Digital Research Unit. Contact: monica[at]capsula.org.es.

Posted by jo at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)

Artists Space

New Economy

Artists Space presents New Economy, curated by João Ribas :: June 15 – July 28, 2007 :: Opening Reception: June 15; 6:00-8:00 PM :: 38 Greene Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10013 :: 212.226.3970 :: info[at]artistsspace.org

Chantal Akerman, Kader Attia, Ursula Biemann, Mike Bouchet, Heath Bunting, Los Carpinteros, Carolina Caycedo, Daniel Dewar & Grégory Gicquel, Harun Farocki, Eva and Franco Mattes a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG, Cildo Meireles, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Oliver Ressler, Joe Scanlan, Santiago Sierra, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Milica Tomic, and Donelle Woolford.

Special Film Screenings in conjunction with New Economy: Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street) :: June 19 and July 5; 7:30 pm - Chantal Akerman's FROM THE OTHER SIDE / DE L'AUTRE CÔTÉ; 2002, 99 minutes. In English and Spanish with English subtitles.

Posted by jo at 03:39 PM | Comments (0)

Netherlands Media Art Institute

Pond

pond: Artists in Residence - Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk, Opening and presentation: June 15, 4:00 pm :: Exhibition from June 16 -July 14, 2007 :: Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Keizersgracht 264, 1016 EV
Amsterdam, Nederland :: Tel: 020 6237101 :: Email: info[at]montevideo.nl

Part of the 'Metabiosis' project, Marloes De Valk (NL) and Aymeric Mansoux (FR) investigate to what extent information can develop in a network of computers linked with each other and how it is possible for an audience to interact with it. The pond installation consists of three interconnected machines. Each machine runs a simple ecosystem model in which small strings of data are produced, processed and sent back and forth from computer to computer.

In reality the string contains a set of items that only make sense in the virtual machine / pond that interprets all this information. Because the model includes a two dimensional environment, visualized on screens, it is possible to follow the whole process as it is being computed on each machine. Even though the number crunching methods are abstract, with the aid of the visual output, one string of information can be tracked and referred to as a visible and animated 'creature'. When the machines are turned on, these 'creatures' remain in the computer memory and can jump to other computers/ecosystems.

They can reproduce (copy of information), evolve (update of information), and they can die (non recoverable loss of information). These self organized ecosystems produce patterns emerging from the initial rules set in the ecosystem model. At the same time, on a projection, the whole process and data exchange is visualised, bringing an even higher level metaphor and different point of view on how the information is flowing through the three machines.

It is possible for the audience to interact with each pond via a touchscreen, directly influencing and breaking the self organizing process. The input has immediate effect on the overall system and provides a way to bend or control the information flow.

pond is an experiment and a game for people who are curious about the possibilities of standalone processes, generative systems and artificial life.

During the residency, Mansoux and de Valk will investigate how the fragile transition regime between periodic and chaotic phases of a self organizing system can lead to complex behaviours with which an audience can interact with. The two visualisation models of the processed information raise the issue of the matryoshka effect through the relationship between interpretation and processed data.

Aymeric Mansoux is an artist and co-founder of GOTO10, an organization dedicated to create, produce, and support FLOSS+Art. He has taken part in many artistic experiments based on the internet and the emergence of networks, and considers any form of data to be a new clay that can be used to develop autonomous artistic processes. Currently part of the Digital Research Unit of the University of Huddersfield, his recent projects include the mysterious packets toolkit (with Tom Schouten and Marloes de Valk), the 0xA band (with Chun Lee), the digital artlife Metabiosis project (with Marloes de Valk), the pure:dyne GNU/Linux live distribution for media artists (with Chun Lee and Antonios Galanopoulos) and ongoing theoretical research into tools and digital autonomous processes. He is also part of the production and curatorial team of make art, an international FLOSS+Art festival in France.

Marloes de Valk is an audiovisual artist, part of digital art collective GOTO10. She was born in Holland, 1976, and is currently based in the UK. She studied Sound and Image at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, specializing in abstract compositional computer games, HCI and crashing computers. Her work consists of audiovisual performances and installations, investigating machine theater and narratives of digital processes. She is part of the packets project, developing and documenting new tools for artistic creation, and is currently collaborating with French artist Aymeric Mansoux on Metabiosis, a project investigating the ups and downs of data packets living in a world of connected ecosystems. Marloes is part of the Digital Research Unit at the University of Huddersfield.

Posted by jo at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

WGBH Lab

Open Call and Filmmakers-in-Residence Programs

WGBH Lab's Open Call seeks big ideas for small screens, including cell phones, PDAs, and television broadcast. Selected applicants receive funding to complete their short films, input during the production process from professional media makers, and a place to showcase their work.

This year, the Lab invites filmmakers and other aspiring media makers to submit proposals for 3-minute videos expressing reflections on and/or responses to war. Possible entries might include a grandfather’s story from World War II, thoughts on the current war in Iraq, or other contemplations on how war impacts society. Finished work may be presented via broadcast and broadband in conjunction with Ken Burns’ PBS documentary miniseries The War, airing in September 2007.

The deadline for entries is June 21, 2007. Later this year, P.O.V. will curate a Lab Open Call to develop original short content. P.O.V.’s editorial team will work closely with WGBH Lab and filmmakers to create rich content that can be distributed on multiple platforms during P.O.V.’s 2008 season.

Filmmakers-in-Residence: WGBH invites filmmakers and innovators from related industries to work on their independently funded projects during a nine-month residency at WGBH. Selected participants will receive a stipend, working space, administrative support, editing equipment, editorial guidance, and access to WGBH staff to advance their projects.

The deadline for the next round of filmmakers-in-residence applications is August 4, 2007.

P.O.V. will host a visit of Filmmakers-in-Residence at their New York offices. Workshops on a variety of topics will be conducted on areas such as: communications, production, community engagement and interactive strategies. These sessions will be individually tailored to the needs and goals of each filmmaker.

Sandbox: The WGBH Lab Sandbox is an open content initiative that allows users gain access to use rights-cleared, WGBH-owned content to use for their own (non-commercial) purposes. The public is invited, but not required, to share the results of their work by posting a link to the site. Users can post comments on each other’s work. The WGBH Lab Sandbox will relaunch in July with a new and expanded collection of content.

WGBH Boston is America’s preeminent public broadcaster, producing such celebrated national PBS series as Masterpiece Theatre, Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Nova, Arthur and more than a dozen other award-winning primetime, lifestyle and children’s series. Boston’s last remaining independent TV station, WGBH’s local TV productions (among them, Greater Boston, Basic Black and La Plaza), focus on the region’s diverse community, while WGBH 89.7 FM is Boston’s NPR Arts & Culture station, offering a rich menu of classical, jazz, blues, news programming and more. WGBH is the leading producer of online content for pbs.org—one of the most-visited dot-org sites on the Internet—a major producer for public radio and a pioneer in developing educational multimedia and new technologies that make media accessible for people with disabilities. For its efforts, WGBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors, including Oscars, Emmys, Peabodys and duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards.

Produced by American Documentary, Inc. and celebrating its 20th season on PBS in 2007, the award-winning P.O.V. series is the longest-running showcase on television to feature the work of America's best contemporary-issue independent filmmakers. Airing Tuesdays at 10 p.m., June through September, with primetime specials during the year, P.O.V. has brought more than 250 award-winning documentaries to millions nationwide, and now has a Webby Award-winning online series, P.O.V.'s Borders. Since 1988, P.O.V. has pioneered the art of presentation and outreach using independent nonfiction media to build new communities in conversation about today's most pressing social issues.

Posted by jo at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)

iCommons Summit 2007

The Art Happens Here

[Image: Nathaniel Stern's Sentimental Construction #1, part of The Wireframe Series site-specific, publicly performed “spaces,” made of rope (2007). Performers / documentarians / collaborators: JC Bukenya, Tomislav Domis, Joy Garnett, Ana Husman, Kathryn Smith, Tim Whidden (MTAA) and Jaka Zeleznikar.] The Art Happens Here :: Opens 15 June @ 21h30, Croatian time :: iCommons Summit 2007, Lazareti Art Workshop, Dubrovnik Croatia :: Simulcast to Annenberg Island in SL, 12h30 PDT, Second Life.

The Art Happens Here is a contemporary art exhibition and presentation at the iCommons Summit 2007, resulting from an ongoing artist in residence programme. Six international artists and a critic were invited to produce physical and virtual work that engages with fair use, copyright, re-mixing, piracy and/or collaboration on some level - whether directly or indirectly.

Works on show will include, but not be limited to, art books, murals, net.art, sculpture, public performance, video and installation -- all conceptually linked by their engagement with the Commons, by the artists' time spent in Dubrovnik. Participants include: Joy Garnett (USA), Ana Husman (Croatia), Kathryn Smith (South Africa), Nathaniel Stern (USA / South Africa), MTAA (Mike Sarff & Tim Whidden, USA), Jaka Zeleznikar (Slovenia) and blog-critic Paddy Johnson (of artfagcity, USA). There will also be a special appearance in the SL exhibition by Patrick Lichty, aka Man Michinaga (USA).

Artist Discussion Panel on Creative Commons and its potential uses and effects in professional arts practice will be a part of the iCommons main programme in Dubrovnik, 15h00 Croatian time.

Posted by jo at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2007

Canadian Journal of Communication

Call for Papers

Special Issue on Wireless Technologies, Mobile Practices :: Mobile wireless devices such as handheld pdas, cellular telephones, and portable computers are part of a changing landscape of communications and culture. In the last decade alone, for instance, the use of cell phones has increased fourfold in Canada signaling a remarkable shift in the telecommunications industry, the convergence of a number of technologies onto a single platform, and new ways of conducting person-to-person communication and creating community. In addition to these devices, Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth, WANS, and GPS comprise integrated segments of the new infrastructure of the so-called wireless world as well as an emergent vocabulary for citizens and consumers.

The Canadian Journal of Communication invites submissions, in English or in French, for a forthcoming special issue on mobile communications and wireless technologies. We are interested in innovative, critical approaches that decipher a range of mobile technologies and practices in wireless contexts. Possible themes include:

:: Everyday uses: sharing our lives via the mobile (text, voice, video)
:: Civic engagement, activism and mobile technologies
:: Wireless services and emergency communication
:: Privacy, surveillance and mobile phones
:: Community Wireless Networks
:: Policy: CRTC regulations and spectrum policy
:: Mobility, Labour: new conditions of work
:: Shifting notions of space, place and time in a mobile world
:: Rhetoric and discourses on mobility and wireless worlds
:: Art, design and mobile technologies
:: Mobile genres and cellular convergence
:: Global and international perspectives on mobile technologies

Full-length papers (@ 7000-9000 words) should be submitted electronically following the guidelines laid out on the CJC submissions website. Make sure to write in all caps "MOBILE" in the Comments to the Editor field, and to include it on the cover page of your article as well. Do not include your name on the cover page.

Deadline for papers is Sept. 1, 2007. Papers selected by the editors will then be sent for peer review for final decision.

Comments and queries can be sent to one of the special issue editors:

Dr. Barbara Crow, York University, bacrow[at]sympatico.ca
Dr. Kim Sawchuk, Concordia University, kim.sawchuk[at]sympatico.ca
Dr. Richard Smith, Simon Fraser University, smith[at]sfu.ca

Posted by jo at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)

Lynette Wallworth

Hold: Vessel 2, 2007

Lynette Wallworth: Hold: Vessel 2, 2007 :: BFI Southbank, London SE1 :: 23 June - 2 September :: Artist's talk: Lynette Wallworth in Conversation with renowned scientist, writer and presenter Mark Lythgoe - July 3, 18:20 NFT2 :: FREE :: 020 7928 3232

Lynette Wallworth's London debut sees the BFI commissioning Hold: Vessel 2, 2007, enabling the artist to further develop her critically acclaimed piece Hold: Vessel 1, 2001. An interactive, large-scale installation that explores the intimacy and immensity of the natural world and our relationship to it, this work uses moving image and technology to reveal the hidden intricacies of human immersion in the wide, complex world.

The piece is activated by the viewer, the interaction being a metaphor for our connectedness within biological, social and ecological systems. Upon entering the exhibition space, the visitor is encouraged to 'catch' falling projected images of astronomical and underwater life in lens-shaped glass bowls. With intimate moments of synchronised light and sound, the installation celebrates minutiae - microscopic views of marine life forms and photographic imagery of deep space - leaving the visitor with a sense of communal participation within a complex system of which we are a part.

The images in Hold: Vessel 2 come from current visioning technologies such as X-ray Microtomography and remotely operated light sensitive cameras allowing us to see intricate detail inaccessible to the human eye. A reflection upon our own place in a complex and starkly beautiful world, the work helps us explore the complex interconnectivity between things that we do not always see or know.

Lynette Wallworth is the second of an ongoing series of art exhibitions at BFI Southbank exploring contemporary artists' use of the moving image.

Lynette Wallworth - Hold: Vessel 1, 2001
Courtesy of and commissioned by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, Australia http://www.acmi.net.au

Lynette Wallworth - Hold: Vessel 2, 2007
Commissioned by the BFI, London, Produced by Forma Touring and Supported by Arts Council England

Posted by jo at 06:40 PM | Comments (0)

N3krozoft Ltd

The REMOTE FAIRYTALES

REMOTE FAIRYTALES - CONTES LOINTAINS - FABEL OP AFSTAND - N3krozoft Ltd exhibit + live internet performance :: Performance: June 14, 2007, 7pm :: Exhibition: June 14-September 12, 2007 :: Location: MAAC Gallery, 26 rue des Chartreux, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.

LIVE INTERNET PERFORMANCE: feat. the girl without hands, a lecture & the Aether collective. The opening performance can be followed ONLINE :: June 14, 7 pm CET (central european time) - 10am in California - noon in Colombia - 9pm in Moscow - midnight in Bangkok - 2am in Tokyo. Get your local performance time here.

INCLUDING: 3 fully functional ZOETROPES, graphical prints, a rare exhaustive screening of the classic videoperformance LOL (laughing out loud) & other artifacts. Additionally, n3krozoft ltd will release an EXCLUSIVE edition of its complete videographic works (1904-2007).

In addition to being the world leader in Biometrics-Based Information Exchange (BBIX), N3KROZOFT has strong market positions in non-euclidean translation systems and on-the-fly data processing and visualisation. The Strategic Imagery Group is currently testing and integrating a fully functional real-time media architecture that will be reliable, unexpensive, and packaged with documentation and source code (though not necessarily complete in terms of desired features).

Aether collective: Initiated in May 2007 during a workshop at the Mapping Festival in Geneva, Switzerland, Æther9 is a collaborative art project exploring the field of realtime video transmission. Developed by an international group of visual artists and collectives working in different locations spread around the globe and communicating solely through the Internet, Æther9 intends to become a functional framework for collaborative video performance.

Zoetrope: The zoetrope was invented in 1834 by William Horner. It was based on Joseph Plateau's phenakistoscope, but was more convenient since it did not require a viewing mirror and allowed more than one person to use it at the same time. Original zoetrope by William George Horner, 1834. Exhibit of Optical Toys.

LOL (laughing out loud): Media performance created by N3krozoft Ltd Media Group (2003-2005).

Beklemmende Online-Tragödie – review by Raffael Dörig for Regioartline (in german)

in(security) by Ryan Holsopple for ITP 2006 Thesis Week.

Posted by jo at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)

[-CC-] "curating media/net/art

Call for Papers

Call for [-CC-] "curating media/net/art--papers" :: Abstracts deadline: June 30, 2007 :: Notification of acceptance: July 7, 2007 :: Deadline for finalized papers: August 31, 2007.

For the project [-CC-] "circualting contexts--curating media/net/art" from June 1st - October 31st, 2007 which takes place in Vienna and in the online medium, the public is invited to enter papers concerned with contemporary curatorial practices in- and outside the virtual space. The papers should be limited to max. 15.000 characters and must be licencened under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. [-CC-] "curating media/net/art--papers" is open to all thematic fields but may be related to the topics below too. Selected papers will be printed in the forthcoming catalogue.

1 visualizing work.flows and (filtering-) processes
2 virtual/real representations in real/virtual spaces
3 facing participation / the lack of collaboration
4 web 2.0--curatorial facilities or technical barriers
5 involvement of (art-)institutions / rise of significance

Please send your submissions or questions to: curating(at)cont3xt.net

The curating of Internet-based art on the Internet is a multifaceted communication-process between Internet-users with all kinds of different backgrounds regarding the content. Along with the changing conditions of production and reception of art on the Internet came new possibilities of curation which deserve study. [-CC-] "circualting contexts--curating media/net/art" is a series of experimental long-term research projects hosted by the Vienna-based organisation CONT3XT.NET, investigating current tendencies in the curation of (New) Media and Internet Art.

Posted by jo at 08:53 AM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2007

Upgrade! Paris

chdh

Upgrade! Paris: Cyrille Henri and Nicolas Montgermont present chdh :: Date: June 15, 2007 at 7:00 PM :: Place: Point Ephimhre, 200 quai de Valmy 75010 Paris, M0 Stalingrad :: Mediator : Dominique Moulon.

chdh is a live hybrid performance, offering a symbiosis between the sound and the image. Between minimalism and industrial, chdh creates a single, cold but organic universe. Thanks to the use of mathematical algorithms and physical models, chdh brings a new vision of the use of data-processing tools in musical creation. The use of audio-visual objects, having a sound component and a video component controlled by the same parameters allow an effective management of the relations between the two medias.

This project evokes a virtual world, made up with more or less autonomous abstract creatures. The aesthetics of the video and the sound is minimalist: sines, diracs and noises interact with cubes, spheres and other primitive in 3D on a black and white visual environment.

The role of chdh during live performances is to play with the movement of these objects, in order to make them live and react. Two musicians handle the instruments by using an abstracted layer, software representation of the audio-visual object. Each algorithm then creates data used for the video synthesis and for the sound synthesis, creating a strong cohesion during the performance.

Cyrille Henry, artist and multi-field developer, he is interested in interactions between human gesture and data processing for artistic exploration. His work was directed in turn towards the sensors or physical modelling for gestur analysis, human interface devices, as well as the sound and visual synthesis in real time. He worked 4 years in La kitchen in Paris (in charge of the hardware department) for the development of sensors interfaces and their uses in an artistic context (live spectacle, dance, interactive installation, music). He is one of the founder members of the chdh project. Since 2005, he works as a free-lance developer/engineer around pure-data/Gem and sensors.

Nicolas Montgermont, researcher and artist, studies the relations between art and sciences using the computer as a workshop. After a formation in signal processing, he studies sciences applied to music at the IRCAM center, being specially focused on real time control of synthesis. Currently, he carries out a PhD thesis on the analysis of the flutist playing at the Laboratory of Musical Acoustics (LAM) in Paris. His creating work is the search of a numerical aesthetics, using and developing personal tools to explore the specific possibilities of a computer. Founder of Basses Lumihres, an association working on the fusion of the relationship between various mediums of the contemporary art, he works mainly in the musical field, through three projects : chdh ; ABM, a break/noise laptop duo and Ngio, a minimalist and numerical sound.

Info and archives on: http://incident.net/theupgrade. The Upgrade! Paris sessions are organized by Incident.net. They are public and monthly. Artists, researchers, architects, theorists present during one hour their recent work. Partners: CITU, Ars Longa, RYbN, The Upgrade! International.

Posted by jo at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

Sonar 2007

Spam, the Economy of Desire

SPAM as an art form: As in previous years, one of Sonar's exhibition areas is once again set aside exclusively for displaying the latest developments in digital art. Located on the 1st floor of the Centre de Cultura Contemporànea, this year's exhibition focuses on SPAM, one of the most common and undesirable elements on the net. In this selection of works curated by Alessandro Ludovico, the unwanted information that we delete every morning without a second thought becomes an artistic device used by artists to explore different mechanisms for communication – and intrusion - in the technological age.

Sonar also gives a place to the latest new media art from Barcelona through Digital Art on Demand, organised in collaboration with the gallery Niu, one of the city's main new media cultural centres. Local artists and foreign Barcelona-based artists participate in this showcase called Viviendo@bcn. Mediateletipos.net (a satellite project of the important Galician portal artesonoro.org) will also be a guest at this year's Sonar, with eight interesting projects that explore the same general area: the revolution that the widespread use of web 2.0 will imply in relation to the music scene.

Spam, the Economy of Desire :: Alessandro Ludovico (IT) - As one of the inescapable communication phenomena of our times, junk e-mail is a substantial part of our infoscape. "Spam" is an exhibition of works curated by Alessandro Ludovico that explores how digital artists have proven themselves smarter than spammers. Taking Spam beyond the computer screen or responding to it through aesthetic strategies of all kinds, these artists could be considered to be the bravest, definitive email heroes.

Jonathan Land, "The Spam Letters"
http://thespamletters.com

Richard Airlie, Ian Morrison, "Spamradio"
http://thespamletters.com

Alex Dragulescu, "Spam Architecture"
http://www.sq.ro/spamarchitecture.php

Bill Shackelford, "Spamtrap"
http://billshackelford.com/home/portfolio_spamtra_826

Markus Boeniger, "Spam Shirt"
www.spamshirt.com

Luca Bertini, "800-178968, a Toll Free Number"
http://ilnumeroverde.net/about/cornice3_eng.html

Dean Cameron, Victor Isaac, "Urgent & Confidential"
www.spamscamscam.com

Nick Philip, "Nowhere.com"
http://nphilip.best.vwh.net/instal.htm

"Today's Spam"
http://spamtoday.blogspot.com/

Viviendo@bcn :: Niu (ES) - Barcelona, a Mediterranean and usually sunny city, is one of Europe's most active and innovative hubs for audiovisual and multimedia arts. Much of this innovation and richness comes from artists born outside of Barcelona, people from a thousand and one different cities who decide to stop here for a time. Many of these artists explore audiovisual language as a form of artistic expression. This small selection shows the creative scope of eight collectives led by artists who have made Barcelona their home over the last few years. Recent arrivals from Sevilla, Bogota or Berlin who are making Barcelona a stop on their professional path and contributing a cultural richness that may be hard to quantify, but is undoubtedly positive. Niu is a cultural space located in Barcelona's Poblenou area that produces, exhibits and publicises contemporary audiovisual arts, multimedia design, digital art and independent electronic music. The subject of study, production and exhibition is the "audio and visual" culture that emerges with the inrush of digital technology into the world of art, design and communication.

Alberto Tognazzi, "Intimidades"
www.intimidades.es

Dslnc Studio (con música de Pablo Maffi), "Electrospoken World Video
Collage Generator"
www.desilence.net

Matekemata, "Airport"
www.matekemata.com

Sebastián Seifert & Miguel Marín, "Catangos Remixed"
www.niubcn.com/catangos

AC 3monitor, "28 Dead...Hundred Injured"
www.myspace.com/ac3monitor

Háztelo, "El Cruce"
www.haztelo.com

Institut Fatima, "Wireless Artist for Everyone!"
www.myspace.com/institutfatima

Equipo & Txalo Toloza-Fernández, "Usted No Está Aquí"
www.miprimerdrop.com
www.equipoweb.de

Redes Aurales :: Mediateletipos.net (ES) - We find ourselves facing the need to construct a new theory of knowledge that will allow us to study societies through their sound imaginaries. In this supposed new stage, the semantic web plays an essential and major role, a place for construction rather representation: from the figurative plane to pattern, from perspective to immersion, from object to process, from content to context, from reception to negotiation, from observation to action and from brain automatism to the distributing mind. Here in this new context is where we may find the keys to help us resolve the problem. Mediateletipos.net (a satellite project of the portal artesonoro.org), has selected eight projects that use social consensus as a means of working towards constructing that longed for means to knowledge through "aurality".

"Ccmixter"
http://ccmixter.org

"Earlabs"
http://earlabs.org

"Escoitar"
www.escoitar.org

"The Freesound Project"
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu

"Jamendo"
www.jamendo.com

"Pandora"
www.pandora.com

"Ruccas"
http://ruccas.org

"Soundtransit"
http://soundtransit.nl

Posted by jo at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

CHArt 2007

FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS

CHArt (COMPUTERS AND THE HISTORY OF ART) TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONFERENCE: DIGITAL ARCHIVE FEVER :: CALL FOR PAPERS :: November 8 - 9, 2007 :: London Venue to be confirmed :: Deadline: June 30.

Museums, galleries, archives, libraries and media organisations such as publishers and film and broadcast companies, have traditionally mediated and controlled access to cultural resources and knowledge. What is the future of such ‘top-down’ institutions in the age of ‘bottom-up’ access to knowledge and cultural artifacts through what is generally known as Web 2:0 - encompassing YouTube, Bittorrent, Napster, Wikipedia, Google, MySpace and more. Will such institutions respond to this threat to their cultural hegemony by resistance or adaptation? How can a museum or a gallery or, for that matter, a broadcasting company, appeal to an audience which has unprecedented access to cultural resources? How can institutions predicated on a cultural economy of scarcity compete in an emerging state of cultural abundance?

For the twenty-second CHArt conference we are looking for papers that reflect upon these issues, particularly in relation to visual culture. We particularly welcome contributions from those working in either ‘traditional’ cultural organisations or those involved in new forms of cultural access and distribution.

Please email submissions (a three hundred word synopsis of the proposed paper with CV of presenter/s and other key figures) by 31 May 2007 to Hazel Gardiner (hazel.gardiner[at]kcl.ac.uk).

Dr Charlie Gere, Chair, CHArt
CHArt
c/o Centre for Computing in the Humanities
Kings College, University of London
Kay House
7 Arundel Street
WC2R 3DX

Posted by jo at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2007

Come Out & Play Festival

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

TURN AMSTERDAM INTO A PLAYGROUND IN THE SECOND ANNUAL COME OUT & PLAY FESTIVAL, SEPTEMBER 22-23 :: SUBMISSION DEADLINE :: July 15, 2007 :: The Come Out & Play Festival seeks to provide a forum for new types of public games and play. We want to bring together a public eager to rediscover the world around them through play with designers interested in producing innovative new games and experiences. Oh yeah, and we want to have city-size fun.

The festival offers a chance to explore new styles of games and play. Last year the festival featured games from the creators of I Love Bees, PacManhattan, The Go Game, Conqwest, Big Urban Game and more. From massive multi-player scavenger hunts to public play performances, the festival gives players and the public the chance to take part in a variety of different games. We are extremely excited to announce that Come Out & Play will be landing in Amsterdam, Netherlands this September for a two day festival. In collaboration with the PICNIC'07 cross media week, Come Out & Play will be running a two-day mini-festival in Amsterdam this September.

SUBMIT TO THE FESTIVAL

Have you got a game? We want to include as many different types of games as possible in the festival schedule. We are looking specifically for games with defined goals and interesting, meaningful choices for the players. These games should be interactive and directly engage the participants. Your game can have a technology component or it can be old school with absolutely no tech; to us, it's much more important that the game produce an interesting experience for the players. We will be reviewing submissions focusing on these criteria when we select games for the schedule:

Most importantly, your game must be playable in Amsterdam during the festival.

Your submission will be reviewed by a panel of street game "experts" brought together to assemble the lineup for this most sacred event. Okay, we are actually a bunch of yahoos. But we have run a few games and we really like playing in fun ones. So make sure your game sounds fun and interesting. We like innovative use of public space. We like games which make people interact in new ways. We like games that alter your perception of your surroundings. But most importantly, we just want the players to have fun.

APPLICATION :: Download the application form (.doc).

SCHEDULE

- Submission deadline: July 15
- Notifications: July 31
- Festival: September 22-23

INQUIRIES?

Email us at info[at]comeoutandplay.org

PLAY or VOLUNTEER

WHAT ABOUT NEW YORK?! The Come Out & Play Festival will return to New York City in the Spring of 2008 for more city-sized fun.

Posted by jo at 05:14 PM | Comments (0)

Disrupting Narratives

Real-time Interaction in Electronic Media

LIVE WEBCAST OF Disrupting Narratives :: July 13, 2007, 10.00–18.30 :: Tate Modern Starr Auditorium, Bankside, London SE1 :: in collaboration with iRes (Research in Interactive Art & Design) at University College Falmouth :: Concept by Kate Southworth, developed in collaboration with Tate Modern :: Tickets £20 (£12 concessions) booking recommended or call 020 7887 8888.

This international symposium brings together some of the world's leading media artists, theorists and researchers to explore real-time interaction in electronic media. Over the last few years network theories have started to shape our thinking about social and cultural issues. This event seeks out artistic strategies and art forms that engage with these ideas. Contributors include: Mark Amerika, Alexander R Galloway, Andrea Zapp, Kelli Dipple, Kate Rich and Paul Sermon.

Timetable

10:00 Arrival and Registration

10:15 Welcome and Introduction (Kate Southworth)

10:30 Session 1: Counter-Narratives

Mark Amerika: Remixology, Hybridized Processes, and Postproduction Art: A Counternarrative - In this keynote address, artist and theorist Mark Amerika remixes personal narrative, philosophical inquiry, spontaneous theories, and cyberpunk fictions that investigate the emergence of digitally constructed identities, fictional personas, experiential metadata, narrative mythologies, and collaborative networks. Locating what he describes as the "postproduction artist" who engages with D-I-Y networking and alternative distribution schemes to build new models of audience development, Amerika will role-play the contemporary remixologist who is part VJ, part novelist, and part net artist, a made-up character in a book yet written, someone who uses the forms of new media not so much to counter spectacle in the media culture, but to create a counternarrative drift that moves away from the art object per se while investigating the depth of possibilities waiting to be discovered in the creative unconscious.

11:30 Andrea Zapp: For We are Where We are not: Mixed-Reality Narratives and Installations - Andrea Zapp’s practice focuses on room installations in the gallery that are linked to a digital network, mostly through components of surveillance technology. At present she also concentrates on model and miniature aesthetics as a format of expression and narrative architecture; small or shifting scales become another motif to discuss virtual and personal spaces of memory and identity. Life-sized installations like a hut or a hotel room as well as participants are linked to their remote model replicas or online versions – to create surreal stages of viewer involvement that discuss the change of existence in a wired world.

12:15 Kelli Dipple: ... duration, distribution and participation _ the performative-emergent narrative - Focussing on examples of contemporary artists' work, this presentation will observe a notion of performativity in context of cross-platform artistic and curatorial practice. Providing examples of emergent counter-narrative; demonstrated through interaction, participation, interventions and interfaces - that effectively penetrate an exhibition's mode, duration, functionality, and design. Technology is increasingly ubiquitus within all practice, it permeates interpretation, education, exhibition, performance, communication and distribution; it is sometimes therefore, difficult to tell where an artwork begins and ends. The fluid spaces without protocol dominate emergent narratives of New Media that engage both internal and external configurations of the institution. In order to redraw our expectations of what is possible, how are we able to imagine the virtual museum, the distributed museum or the online gallery - are they feasible platforms? How satisfied are we with broadcast and redistribution as primary modes? How do we present New Media Art and make better use of platform-specific versioning in conjunction with social networks, to facilitate more detailed dialogues and provide more satisfyingly responsive cultural architectures?

13:00 Lunch Break

14:00 Session 2 Counter-Protocols

Alexander R Galloway: Counter-Protocol - In this keynote address, Alexander Galloway asks us to imagine an art exhibit of computer viruses. How would one curate such a show? Would the exhibition consist of documentation of known viruses, or of viruses roaming live? Would it be more like an archive or more like a zoo? Perhaps the exhibit would require the coordination of several museums, each with "honey pot" computers, sacrificial lambs offered up as attractor hosts for the contagion. A network would be required, the sole purpose of which would be to reiterate sequences of infection and replication. Now imagine an exhibit of a different sort: a museum exhibit dedicated to epidemics. Again, how would one curate an exhibit of disease? Would it include the actual virulent microbes themselves (in a sort of "microbial menagerie"), in addition to the documentation of epidemics in history? Would the epidemics have to be "historical" in order for them to qualify for exhibition? Or would two entirely different types of institutions be required: a museum of the present versus a museum of the past? In this talk Alexander Galloway explores a "counter-protocol" aesthetic and how it relates to the contemporary landscape of artmaking.

15:05 Paul Sermon: My work in the field of telematic arts explores the emergence of a user-determined narrative by bringing remote participants together in a shared telepresent environment. Through the use of live chroma-keying and videoconferencing technology, two public rooms or installations and their audiences are joined in a virtual duplicate that turns into a mutual, visual space of activity. Linked via an H.323 Internet videoconference connection, this form of immersive interactive exchange can be established between almost any two locations in the world. As an artist I am both designer of the environment and therefore ‘director’ of the narrative, which I determine through the social and political milieu that I choose to play out in these telepresent encounters.

15:50 Tea Break. Tea, coffee and biscuits are served in the Starr Auditorium Foyer

16:15 Kate Rich: Feral Trade (Import-Export) is an artist-run grocery business established in Bristol, 2003. The process is called Feral Trade to distinguish it from other methods such as Fair or Free. Feral Trade forges new, wild trade routes across hybrid territories of business, art and social interaction. Goods are run along social routes, avoiding official channels of grocery distribution in preference for a hand-carried cargo system, often using other artists or curators as mules. This distribution infrastructure is modelled on the 'store and forward' protocol of email, and proposes the surplus freight potential of networked social and cultural movements as a viable alternative to regular freight services (white van, supermarket lorry, Parcelforce, DHL).

17:05 Panel Discussion

17:50 Closing Remarks (Kate Southworth)

18:00 Drinks Reception. Drinks are served in the East Room on Level 7

Mark Amerika has been named a "Time Magazine 100 Innovator" and has had four retrospectives of his digital art work. In spring 2000, GRAMMATRON was selected as one of the first works of Internet Art to be exhibited in the prestigious Whitney Biennial of American Art. His most recent book, META/DATA: A Digital Poetics, was just published by The MIT Press. A Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado, Amerika's practice-based research methods have been translated into novels, feature-length films, museum installations, and live multimedia performances that integrate experimental music, live writing, and video sampling into the narrative mix.

Kelli Dipple is the Webcasting Curator for Tate, working across Tate Media, Performance and Adult Education programmes. Her role is to oversee live event broadcasts, curate a context for the development of Tate's Net Art commissions and to curate performances For Tate Modern's Long Weekend. Kelli trained in theatre directing and choreography at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia and has worked for over a decade at the intersection of new media and performance practice, specializing in the integration of visual, interactive, communication and network technologies. Previous to working for Tate, Kelli curated and produced digital media and performance programmes for Site Gallery in Sheffield. She also continues her own performative research, which has taken the form of site-specific and interactive performance, software development, personal data exchange and multi-screen or single-channel broadcast. For the past twelve years she has worked in the area of live cinematic and networked events. Undertaking artist residencies and projects in conjunction with Virtual Platform (NL), PVA (UK), Montevideo (NL), Steim (NL), Interaktions Labor (Germany), The University of Manchester (UK) and The University of Florida (USA). She has also worked and collaborated extensively with artist-lead groups in the UK including NODE.London, Active Ingredient, Future Physical, Resonance FM and Furtherfield; as well as with Australian artists, Company in Space, Keith Armstrong and The Transmute Collective.

Alexander R. Galloway is an author and programmer. He is a founding member of the software collective RSG and creator of the data surveillance engine Carnivore. The New York Times recently described his work as "conceptually sharp, visually compelling and completely attuned to the political moment." Galloway is the author of Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization (MIT, 2004), Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture (Minnesota, 2006), and a new book coauthored with Eugene Thacker called The Exploit: A Theory of Networks (forthcoming). He teaches at New York University.

Kate Rich is an Australian-born artist & trader. In the 1990s she moved to California to work as radio engineer with the Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT), an international agency producing an array of critical information products including economic and ecologic indices, event-triggered webcam networks, and animal operated emergency broadcast devices. The Bureau's work has been exhibited broadly in academic, scientific and museum contexts. Restless at the turn of the century, she headed further east to take up the post of Bar Manager at the Cube Microplex, Bristol UK; where she launched Feral Trade, a public experiment trading goods over social networks. She is currently moving deeper into the infrastructure of cultural economy, developing protocols to define and manage amenities of hospitality, mobility, catering, sports and survival in the cultural realm.

Paul Sermon is Professor of Creative Technology and leader of the Creative Technology Research Group in the Adelphi Research Institute for Creative Arts and Sciences, University of Salford. Born in 1966, he received a BA Hons. Fine Art at the Gwent College of Higher Education in 1988 and an MFA at the University of Reading in 1991. He was awarded the Golden Nica for Interactive Arts at the Prix Ars Electronica 1991 in Linz, and the Interactive Media Festival Sparkey Award in Los Angeles in 1994. Paul Sermon was artist-in-residence at the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe in 1993; dozent for telematic arts at the HGB Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, Germany from 1993 to 1999; and guest professor for performance and environment at the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz from 1998 to 2000. Since June 2000 he has been based at the University of Salford, where he is researching immersive and expanded telematic environments.

Kate Southworth is an artist and researcher. With Patrick Simons she is a founding member of the art group glorious ninth - producers of distributed artworks, DIY installations and invisible networks. Current experiments into co-poietic relationships between code and ritual find form as aural-visual works, installations, performative presentations and texts, and expose their ongoing aesthetic and political attempts to evade systems of control. Recent works, such as November and love_potion, use magic, tactical gardening and social networks to recover knowledge of herbs and healing from commercial control and to share it as common knowledge. glorious ninth’s work has been exhibited in academic, gallery and online contexts. Kate received BA (Hons) in Fine Art and an MSc in Multimedia Systems. She has taught Media Art subjects at Universities in London, Dublin and Cornwall. Currently she is leader of the iRes Research Group in Interactive Art & Design at University College Falmouth where, for the last five years, she has been Course Leader of MA Interactive Art & Design.

Andrea Zapp was born in Germany and has a background in film and TV studies and creates disorientating digital platforms mixing real, virtual and online spaces, combined with surveillance interfaces and technology. She has edited two books, Networked Narrative Environments as imaginary spaces of being, MMU/FACT Liverpool, 2004; and New Screen Media, Cinema/Art / Narrative, BFI, London/ ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2002, (with Martin Rieser). She curated StoryRooms, an international Exhibition on Networking and Media Art that took place at The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, from October 05 to January 06. She has lectured widely internationally; her art works have been shown at Siggraph 06 Boston, Ars Electronica Linz; ISEA Liverpool and Paris; Pittsburgh Center for the Arts; Festival of Visions Hong Kong - Berlin, Media Forum Moscow, Austrian Photo Triennial Graz, Museum of Image and Sound Sao Paulo; Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts Tokyo; Kunstverein Stuttgart, Intern. Art Fair Madrid, Film Festival Rotterdam; and at conferences including the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth, Australia; Siggraph Los Angeles, ISEA 02 Nagoya; Muestra Euroamericana de Video y Arte Digital, Buenos Aires. In 2005 she was appointed Senior Lecturer and Route Leader for the MA Media Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University.

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

Igor Stromajer presents Ballettikka Internettikka

Valencia, Spain

Igor Stromajer presents Ballettikka Internettikka :: June 14, 18:30 :: Sala Parpalls, New Media Room, Carrer Alboraia 5, Valencia, Spain.

Igor Stromajer's Internet oeuvre is characterized by the substitution of the traditional theatre space by the use of the Internet for his intimate performance.
[ . . .] "Ballettikka Internettikka" realized by net.artist Igor Stromajer and net.composer Brane Zorman is an internet guerrilla performance. Differently from other net.art works by Stromajer, which are confined to fixed spaces on the Net, accessible from infinite co-ordinate combinations of time, place, and space, "Ballettikka Internettikka" combines the Internet based ubication with the artist's placement in an offline scenario (corporeally speaking), so the intervention takes place both online and offline, conceived as a complimentary effect. [ . . .]

This Internet situationist performance is a critique of elitist and bourgeois art spaces and consumer art culture and capitalism, by claiming public art spaces. This is achieved by entering secondary locations of established art institutions and then broadcasting the action via the Internet, taking advantage of the whole new scope that the Internet offers: a higher bandwidth, a complimentary effect to off-line activism, omni-directionality, and participation.

Posted by jo at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)

SWITCH, Issue 23

FUNCTION // BORDER // DYSFUNCTION

SWITCH: The online New Media Art Journal of the CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University is pleased to announce the launch of Issue 23: FUNCTION // BORDER // DYSFUNCTION.

After 2 solid years of work leading up to ISEA2006 and the ZeroOne Festival, CADRE and SWITCH have been considering new agendas, strategies and opportunities. Over the last several months, the CADRE Laboratory has engaged in a diverse set of activities. We have explored issues such as failure (its lessons and its utility), borders (real / virtual, body / technology, open / closed), and in what direction "new" media may be going. Issue 23 highlights the diversity of these activities, which we have grouped under the rubric of "Function / Border / Dysfunction". Among other things, we have interviews with Michael Joaquin Grey, Saskia Sassen and Lu Jie. Cultural theorist / art historian Dore Bowen explores "The Function of Dysfunction" in her article on Fluxus event scores. The CADRE Lab introduces its Speaker Salon Series, it's new artist residency with the Montalvo Arts Center and its collaboration with Ars Virtua in sponsoring the Borders conference in Second Life.

About SWITCH: SWITCH is the new media art journal of the CADRE Laboratory for New Media of the School of Art and Design at San Jose State University. It has been published on the Web since 1995. SWITCH is interested in fostering a critical viewpoint on issues and developments in the multiple crossovers between art and technology. Its main focus in on questioning and analyzing, as well as reporting and discussing these new art forms as they develop, in hopes of encouraging dialogue and possible collaboration with others who are working and considering similar issues. SWITCH aims to critically evaluate developments in art and technology in order to contribute to the formation of alternative viewpoints with the intention of expanding the arena in which new art and technology emerge. SWITCH is overseen by CADRE faculty Joel Slayton and Rachel Beth Egenhoefer.

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Speculative Data and the Creative Imaginary:

Shared Visions between Art and Technology

Speculative Data and the Creative Imaginary: Shared Visions between Art and Technology :: June 4 - August 24, 2007 :: Opening Event: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 :: Exhibition Viewing - 6:00-8:00 PM :: Performance by Roger Dannenberg :: ACM Creativity and Cognition Panel: Bridging Art and Science with Creativity Support Tools with Rita Colwell (University of Maryland), Sara Diamond (Ontario College of Art and Design), Paul Greenhalgh (Corcoran Gallery of Art), and Dr. William Wulf (National Academy of Engineering) - 8:00 - 9:00 PM :: National Academy of Sciences Rotunda Gallery, 2100 C Street N.W., Washington D.C. :: Curator: Pamela Jennings.

Complementing the ACM Creativity and Cognition Conference themes: cultivating creative minds; sustaining creative communities; and promoting creative engagement, the works in this exhibition illustrate the breadth of creative digital media that impact interdisciplinary practices across the arts, science and technology research.

This exhibition features interactive computer installations, large format digital prints, and wearable technology, representing a confluence of technology research and creativity that include the visual arts, design, architecture, performance, science, technology and engineering. The exhibited works share a common trajectory of exploring speculative inquiries, imaginary scenarios and real-time phenomenon from outer space to cyberspace; multi-dimensional space to urban space; public space to virtually embodied space; ecological space to social space.

This exhibition is dedicated to outgoing National Academy of Engineering President William A. Wulf, in recognition of his many years of support for the arts program at the National Academies in Washington D.C. Contributors to this exhibition include: Nell Breyer, Sheldon Brown, Donna Cox, Roger Dannenberg (opening night), Ernest Edmonds, Tiffany Holmes, Pamela Jennings, Greg Judelman and Maria Lantin, George Legrady, Marcos Novak, Sabrina Raaf, Bill Seaman, Thecla Schiphorst, Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, and Martin Wattenberg.

Special Presentation Event at the National Academy of Sciences Gallery Auditorium Thursday, July 12, 2007:

Film Screening of Robert Rauschenberg's - Open Score with special Introduction by producer Julie Martin
Reception: 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Film Screening: 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

In 1966, 10 New York artists worked with 30 engineers and scientists from the Bell Telephone Laboratories to create groundbreaking performances that incorporated new technology. They used video projection, wireless sound transmission, and Doppler sonar -- technologies that are commonplace today but that had never been seen in the art of the 1960s. Julie Martin, producer of the ?9 Evenings? DVD series, will discuss the film series as well as the 1966 event that was the first large-scale collaboration between artists, engineers, and scientists. Open Score is co-produced by E.A.T. and ARTPIX and distributed by Microcinema International.

Press Contact: Alana Quinn, Outreach Manager, Office of Exhibitions and Cultural Programs, National Academy of Sciences (202)-334-2415 aquinn[at]nas.edu
Public Contact: arts@nas.edu (202) 334-2436

Posted by jo at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2007

University College Dublin Conference

Perspectives on the Body and Embodiment

Perspectives on the Body and Embodiment :: University College Dublin :: Friday June 8-9, 2007 .

Since the investigations of phenomenological theorists such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, the themes of embodiment and situatedness have enjoyed increased popularity over a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, literature, women's studies among others. Recognition that the body is not merely an appendage to the self, but rather is what opens up the possibility of meaningful subjective existence, has radically shifted the classical philosophical understanding of the body. Within popular culture this shift is reflected with an increased interest in embodiment in realms such as design, architecture, education and business.

This conference aims to explore the themes of the body and embodiment in contemporary discourse inviting papers from a range of disciplines including, but not limited to, philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, performance studies, women's studies and literature. This unique inter-disciplinary perspective will provide a multi-faceted understanding of how Western thinking has changed with understanding the role of the body in constituting or influencing cognition, subjectivity, identity and discourse.

Nathaniel Stern: Implicit Bodies through Explicit Action

This research contends that the body is performed. A body can “act” as a site of emergence, a boundary project, and an incipience. While Rebecca Schneider’s “explicit body” in feminist performance art performatively unfolds (Latin: explicare) and explicates, the implicit body concordantly enfolds (Latin: implicare) and implies. Inter-action is both constitutive of, and always already involved in, the flesh. Like an animated moebius strip, the body feeds back between affection and reflection. This paper attempts to think through digital art as a proscenium for, and framer of, the implicit body.

Nathaniel Stern is an internationally exhibited installation and video artist, net.artist, printmaker and performance poet. He is currently working towards a production- and research-based PhD on interactive art and embodiment at Trinity College, Dublin. Recent works include an article in the Leonardo Journal of, Art Science and Technology, a write-up in NY Arts Magazine, solo exhibitions at Art on Paper gallery (Johannesburg) and the Johannesburg Art Museum, and artist residencies at the iCommons (Croatia), Frans Masereel Centre (Belgium) and the Anderson Ranch (USA).

Posted by jo at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2007

H2.0: New Minds, New Bodies, New Identities

'Hacking the Human'

[Image: Aimee Mullins, a Paralympic athlete and model, showed an image of her running with her 'cheetah legs,' which helped her break world running records.] Creative technology meets quiet humanity in Media Lab's adaptive device event: Mission is 'hacking the human,' says director Frank Moss - by Stephanie Schorow, MIT News Office Correspondent, May 11, 2007. VIDEO -Archived webcasts and presentations.

Forget cool new gadgets or killer-ap software. "We're hacking the human," said Frank Moss, director of MIT's Media Lab, in introducing "H2.0: New Minds, New Bodies, New Identities," the lab's May 9 symposium that showed -- often in mind-blowing detail -- how addressing the challenges posed by disabilities can broaden the scope of human ability.

"The goal of today's symposium is to demonstrate the amazing possibilities in new adaptive technology," as MIT President Susan Hockfield noted.

But "amazing" came with a sense of humor, as provided by MIT Media Lab Distinguished Fellow and veteran TV journalist John Hockenberry, who acted as master of ceremonies and got things rolling by showing off the sparkling lights on his wheelchair.

And tales of the "amazing" were tempered by the quiet humanity of author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, the keynote speaker, who mesmerized his audience with stories of the brain's adaptability.

Hockenberry set the tone by bringing on stage a telephone and a typewriter (which he defined as a "laptop that prints while you type.") The typewriter, he noted, was invented to let the blind write, and telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell was seeking ways to help the deaf.

What if, he asked, new technology was about more than creating new devices to "dump" on the population? What if it involved thinking about "human mechanisms and abilities?"

"Who knows about that? People with disabilities," Hockenberry said. They "know about that intimate relationship with technology. In a sense, people with disabilities are first adopters of this extreme collaborative quality that's going to define technology in the 21st century."

The 73-year-old Sacks, the author of "Awakenings" (which became a movie starring Robin Williams) and the seminal "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," took the stage, the very picture of vitality in black sneakers, black pants and a black T-shirt, his large dome of a head matched by a snowy beard. Yet he acknowledged he has some retinal problems and is keenly interested in new eye research.

Speaking diffidently, in the self-effacing style of a bookish don, Sacks described how Parkinson's patients, frozen into human statues, could be led into dancing and singing with the right stimuli. Perhaps, he speculated, the Media Lab will come up with a device that will provide the right stimulation. But "the most wonderful power resides in music," he said. Music "will facilitate movement and action in a Parkinsonian as nothing can."

Sacks also spoke of "phantom limbs," a phenomenon in which amputees retain sensation in missing limbs. Once thought to be a "nostalgic construct like the memory of departed parents," such sensations represent the brain's ability to map out senses and motor skills, Sacks said. A famous pianist who lost his right arm could still create fingering on a new piece for students.

Citing 19th-century doctor Silas Weir Mitchell, who identified the phenomenon in the Civil War, Sacks noted, "A phantom is longing, as it were, to be re-embodied."

South African poet David Wright lost his hearing at age 9, but he didn't realize he was deaf because he would continue to hear phantom voices, Sacks said. "If they turned away, he couldn't hear them." In the blind, the sensory cortex of the brain becomes hypersensitive, producing experience or images that are "quasi visual," something the rest of us cannot imagine, he said.

Sacks turned from natural to artificial adaptations, describing how a grid of electrodes can be placed on the tongues of the blind and connected to a video camera.

"This sounds absurd, if not obscene, but in fact people who have this can not only rapidly learn to interpret it and derive information, but they can start to experience it as if visual. You don't have to have eyes to have a visual experience."

But "one needs some caution in this brave new world." Sacks also told of "Virgil," a congenitally blind man, contented with his life, who was talked into an operation that would restore his sight. When the bandages were taken off, there was "a long confused silence." The shifting mass of colors and textures meant nothing to him and only worsened his disabilities. Virgil "was never able to make sense of the visual world," Sacks said. "You have to learn to see."

Other speakers described MIT research initiatives for augmenting mental and physical capabilities to improve human life. Many gave deeply personal accounts. Writer Michael Chorost ("Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human") explained -- and showed -- what he could hear with his cochlear implant. Deb Roy, AT&T Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, who is videotaping every waking moment in his home, demonstrated ways to cull specific information from the "ultra dense" data of recording, including his son's vocal progress from saying "ga-ga" to "water."

During a talk by Hugh Herr, NEC Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, about breakthroughs in building adaptive gait prostheses, Herr reached down and rolled up his pants leg to show the latest prototype, adding that he often forgets to mention he is an amputee himself. "This is the strongest ankle in the world -- when I walk up steps it pushes me up," he said, provoking an Arnold Schwartzenegger imitation from Hockenberry. (Herr lost his legs in a climbing accident as a teenager.)

Another symposium high point came when Aimee Mullins, a Paralympic athlete and model, strutted on stage with her prosthetic legs tucked into four-inch stiletto heels. Not only does she compete in sports events, often on unusual, curved "cheetah legs," Mullins, a stunning, slender blonde, has modeled her "legs" as fashion accessories. "People say I have no legs, but, in fact, I have 10 pairs," she remarked.

Rosalind Picard, professor of media arts and sciences, demonstrated software that recognizes human emotions (which may help those with autism), while Cynthia Breazeal, LG Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, introduced the robot Leonardo, which can work through classic "false belief" scenarios.

William J. Mitchell, MIT Design Laboratory director, showed designs for folding electric cars that address both air quality and parking issues. Other experts outlined differing ways to approach neural disorders, from "back entrances" via the nervous system to direct brain interfaces.

The symposium also was punctuated by short films in which Hockenberry -- in deadpan, Stephen Colbert fashion -- visits various MIT luminaries to demand an "upgrade." The clips showed images of MIT's research from robots to voting screens to spray-on clothing.

Famed architect and designer Michael Graves, who suffered a mysterious illness in 2003 that paralyzed his legs, discussed new home product designs, such as adjustable tub rails, easy-grip shower heads and reversible walker/wheelchairs -- all increasingly attractive to an aging baby boomer population, as well as the disabled. "This is a business opportunity," Hockenberry noted. Indeed, "There are things that are simple to do and they don't cost more; you just have to use your mind and your convictions," Graves said.

Receiving a standing ovation was a performance of "My Eagle Song," by Dan Ellsey, who has cerebral palsy, on a computer designed by Tod Machover and Adam Boulanger that allows him to both compose and play.

The symposium ended with a flourish as Herr nimbly scaled a climbing wall erected on stage (he said he had been told he would never climb again) and Hockenberry showed off his "upgrade," a "hacked" Segway wheelchair.

"You see how we're changed. How have you changed?" he asked the audience.

To see the archived webcast of "H2.0: New Minds, New Bodies, New Identities," go to h20.media.mit.edu/.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 16, 2007 (download PDF).

Posted by jo at 04:59 PM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2007

xxxxx workshop_15 Berlin: Electric Art Lab with Jeff Mann

Call for Participants

xxxxx workshop_15 Berlin: Electric Art Lab with Jeff Mann :: June 16, 2:00 pm :: Course fee: 15 euros :: RSVP at m[at]1010.co.uk :: xxxxx, pickledfeet, Linienstrasse 54, Berlin 10119 :: U2, Rosa-Luxemburg-Pl.; U8, Rosenthaler Pl. :: Telephone: 3050187482.

Our ancestors believed that ordinary objects could contain energies, spirits, intelligence, and the spark of life. Today, tens of billions of tiny electronic processors permeate our reality, embedded in phones, watches, appliances, toys, cars, factory equipment, and our entire technological infrastructure. In this lab / workshop, we'll look at the microcontroller - the basic element of this distributed network of intelligent objects. These "computers on a chip" are small, inexpensive, simple, and unlike their desktop/laptop cousins, are designed for interaction with the physical world. How can creative individuals use microcontrollers to produce evocative, compelling objects and experiences that go beyond typical mass-produced consumer products?

We'll look at examples and discuss how artists have incorporated embedded processors into sculpture, installation, and performance. We'll compare various microcontroller platforms and, using the open-source Arduino board, we'll experiment with building activated objects that include sensors, processing, and movement. We'll also look at using the microcontroller as a physical interface for audio / video environments like Pure Data, and for remote interaction over the Internet.

The workshop is designed for people of all levels of experience. No equipment is required, but it's recommended to bring as many of the following things as possible:

- Materials to modify, hack, and build objects with. Household items, battery-operated toys, plastic, wood, metal, anything you find interesting. Before the workshop, try to imagine two or three simple ideas you might try to make.
- Laptop with Arduino and Pd software installed.
- Toolbox with cutters, glue gun, screwdrivers, as well as soldering irons, multimeter, etc.
- Microcontrollers - a limited number of Arduino boards will be shared between the participants. You can also purchase your own before the workshop for 27 euros in Berlin at: http://www.segor.de/
- Sensors and Actuators - pushbuttons, photocells, rangefinders, accelerometers; DC, R/C servo, and stepper motors.
- Electronics parts and supplies - a selection of wire, connectors, resistors, capacitors, transistors, chips, and so on.

More details about tools and materials can be found at: http://jeffmann.com/resources.html

About the instructor: Jeff Mann creates electric art with computers, electronics, kinetics, and telecommunications media. His work explores the nature of technological life and its cultural representation; it draws out tensions between notions of utopian industrialism, personal theatre, and the evocative enigma of electronic equipment.

Background: A weekly series of constructivist workshops emphasising making and connection within the field of the existent. Workshops led by field-expert practitioners extend over realms of code and embedded code, environmental code, noise, transmission and reception, and electromysticism. Workshops solely utilise free software and GNU toolbase.

Practitioners include Julian Oliver (http://selectparks.net/), Derek Holzer (http://soundtransit.nl), Jeff Mann (http://jeffmann.com), Martin Howse (http://1010.co.uk), Fredrik Olofsson (http://www.fredrikolofsson.com/), superfactory (http://superfactory.biz).

Further planned workshops will cover PD connectivity and hardware, ATmega8 microcontrollers, free software documentation, VLF reception, radio antenna design, FPGA design...

http://1010.co.uk/xxxxx_research_institute.html
http://1010.co.uk

Posted by jo at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)

SELF 2.0 at vertexList

Emerging American Media Artists

VertexList space has the pleasure to present “SELF 2.0”, a group exhibition of emerging US based media artists. On display recent projects by Mike Beradino, Charles Beronio, Zachary Biberstine, Kara Hearn, Jia Lim and Laura Nova. Commenting on the contemporary strategies of electronically mediated self, SELF 2.0 introduces new and exciting voices of artists from across the country.

A reception will take place on Friday, June 15th 2007 from 7pm - 10pm. The exhibition will be on display until Saturday, July 08th, 2007. Live circuit music performance by Jamie Allen/Season of the Bit @ the opening reception. Curated by Marcin Ramocki and Sakurako Shimizu.

Mike Beradino: Mikey Newchurch - My works are physical recursions, between the digital and physical. These recursions are similar a feed back loop such as a microphone next to a speaker. The speaker output signal becomes the input of the microphone and so on and so on.

An object is created then digitized then produced then digitized then produced. Environments such as SecondLife are populated with objects from real life, but our real life objects probably originated in some digital environment. These two pieces are re-presentations of the hollow vessel of the digital avatar. Mikey Newchurch is re-presented from a CNC mill in a series; which is an attempt of giving some physicality to my virtual body. While Mica Sicling is produce in at life sized scale in paper. An indexical relationship of re-presentation of the avatar is created, the original data that is used to create the virtual is used to create the tangible. That is why I included the process of production.

Mike Beradino’s work addresses issues involving the appropriation of digital environments, antiquated technologies, and Internet based do-it-yourself communities. He is particularly interested in the dissemination of 3-dimensional digital environments such as the video games, within our culture. Mike showed his work at Alterspace (Chicago) and online (Aho Museum, Second Life). He is currently working on his MFA degree at Parsons.

Charles Beronio: Untitled (Pretty Vacant) - Vinyl banner with applied vinyl lettering and grommets, 4' x 15', 2006 :: Charles Beronio (b. New York City) lives and works in Oakland/San Francisco and Brooklyn. He completed his MFA in Sculpture at the California College of the Arts (2005), where he is currently developing his thesis on the aesthetics of supermarkets for his MA in Visual Criticism. As an artist and writer, his practice includes a diverse range of work steeped in romantic conceptualism and allegorical formalism. His work utilizes a diverse range of familiar and common materials found in the marketplace and constructed landscape to reveal submerged meanings and narratives– challenging the trajectories of ideology and commerce. He has shown at Galeria de la Raza, Intersection for the Arts, Southern Exposure, Triple Base, Queens Nails Annex, and the S.F. Art Commission in San Francisco, as well as Gallery Lui Velazquez (Tijuana, Mexico), High Energy Constructs (Los Angeles), and Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery (Portland). He was included in Consume/d: Creative Critical Acts from the Bay Area (2005) in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. In 2006 he curated Material World at the Alliance Francais San Francisco and staged the collaborative exhibition Blackout with artist Sasha Dela at Diverseworks, Houston. He will also be included in New American Talent 22 at Arthouse in Austin, Texas. He has published several design related articles in CMYK magazine (New York) and his forthcoming magazine/book project Dark Prospects will be published by Printed Matter Inc. later this year.

Zachary Biberstine: flag - This 2006 video performance begins with the unfurling of the American flag and ends with the gasping for breath. This attempted embodiment, although painful and enduring, was an effort to understand and progress. The performance attempts to not only share this experience, but also evoke the experiences of others; create a connection on a visual, audible, and memory level.

Currently working in personal, time based performance; the work of Zachary Biberstine takes many shapes. Interested in experience and embodiment, his recent work lives in and through performative acts, sometimes shown as artifacts or documentation. His work deals with ideas of experience, embodiment, displacement, expansion, and collapse.

Kara Hearn: Reincarnated scenes - These scenes are my effort to degrade and venerate the heroics of Hollywood movies. By utilizing the echniques of cinema in the simplest possible ways I hope to recreate narratives that are stripped of everything but the pathos inherent in the medium.

Kara Hearn is an interdisciplinary video artist. She works with the stuff of popular entertainment to map the complexities of various emotional states, such as fear, melancholy, courage, and obsession. She studies these conditions and builds intimate and absurd narratives to understand them by. Her work has shown at White Columns, Pacific Film Archive, New Langton Arts, the Walker Art Center, Dallas Video Festival, and the Festival Tous Courts International Festival of Cinema. She recently received an MFA in Art Practice at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jia Lim: Avatar Duet- Home Spring - 3 D animation, sound, single channel installation :: It all started with my curiosity about the human mind, conscious and unconscious. After reading Elegant Universe, my curiosities were somewhat solved. It was then that I realized that science and philosophy have the same value system as the artistic process, which is creation originates from the imagination or unconsciousness.

Jia Lim is a Korean – American new media artist involved in analysis of identity in pop-culture. Her work was exhibited in Gwang-ju Bienale, Gallery 24 (NYC) and Gallery Andante (Seoul). She holds and MFA in Electronic Arts from the University of Cincinnati and M.P.S in Interactive Telecommunication Program (NYU).

Laura Nova: First Love - I will provide the opportunity for participants to reconstruct memories of their “First Love” using a facial composite software. Images of reconstructed faces will become a part of the installation.

Laura Nova was born in 1973 and grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut. Lives and works on the Lower East Side, New York. Laura Nova is a visual artist working in video, sculpture and installation. Her work is rooted in social relationships and literalized emotions. Using the gallery and site-specific spaces, she creates installations using a wide range of media to explore concepts of public and private behavior and the relationship between the human body and architecture. She received her B.F.A. and B.A. in art and history from Cornell University in 1996 and an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2001 as a Jacob Javits Fellow. She lived and worked in London as a Rotary International Scholar and completed Associate Research at Goldsmiths College in 2002. She has exhibited internationally, most recently at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York City and VTO Gallery in London. For the past year she participated in the Henry Street Settlement Artist in Residence Program. She has taught at City College, School of Visual Arts, Pratt Institute, The College of New Jersey and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. /

Jamie Allen makes interactive art and sound makers with his head and hands. He thinks technology can allow us to circumvent and reinvent traditional, commercial and hierarchical relationships to art and performance. His work in design, music, performance and public art creates physical relationships between people and media. Jamie has teaching engagements in interactive art and robotics at the Pratt Institute and musical interface design at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Department. Jamie's art and performance work is regularly exhibited in New York City and abroad.

Michael J. Horan is a musician and artist based in New York City.

VertexList gallery hours are Friday, Saturday, Sunday 2pm - 6 pm, or by appointment. We are located between Graham and Manhattan Avenues on Bayard St. For more info please visit our website www.vertexlist.net or call 646 258 3792.

Posted by jo at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2007

FLOSS+Art - Call for Papers

FLOSS+Art :: Call for Papers :: Deadline: September 15th 2007 - people.makeart is a new project by GOTO10. It is a repository of articles and lecture materials focused on the relationship between FLOSS (Free / Libre / Open Source Software) and digital arts, as well as a database of free digital art projects. The selected papers will be published on the people.makeart website and will be printed in the FLOSS+Art book, scheduled for spring 2008, using OpenMute's POD publishing service.

GOTO10 is now accepting new, old and recycled papers on the following issues: - opening digital art's practice, code and culture - FLOSS communities VS. art collectives - digital art licensing, copying and distributing, using open content models - role of the artist in FLOSS development - influence of FLOSS on digital art practices - free software to produce art and the art of producing free software - economy of an open digital artwork - FLOSS as an embedded political message in digital art - paradox and limitations of open licenses for digital art - FLOSS as a way to quote and embed other artworks in a new one - digital artist as a FLOSS developer/user and vice-versa - definitions and manifestos for a free software art - branching and forking of an open digital artwork - opening digital art to ensure future maintainance and porting.

Submission Procedures:

- Submit your final paper to pmafloss-at-goto10-dot-org
no later than September 15th, 2007. Include the text "FLOSS+Art"
followed by your paper's title in your e-mail subject line.
- Submit as many papers as you want, one mail submission for each.
- Accepted formats : plaintext, LaTeX, OpenDocument
No other file format will be accepted.
- The paper must be attached to the mail, do not send us links
- The submitted paper must be written in English
- Paper must be 1500 words minimum

More information: http://people.makeart.goto10.org/

The FLOSS+Art POD publishing is a collaboration between GOTO10 and the Digital Research Unit of the University of Huddersfield, with commissions and contributions from various organisations and institutions.

Posted by jo at 05:03 PM | Comments (0)

Inter-Arts: Grants: Second Life Artist Residency

Call for Applications

The Australia Council for the Arts is offering up to $20,000 for a collaborative artist residency in the virtual world of Second Life. Application closing date July 27, 2007. The aim of the residency is to offer Australian artists and writers the opportunity to creatively and critically explore new interactive, virtual platforms.

The residency allows for a collaborative team of up to three people (including a writer, musician/sound artist and digital visual media practitioner) to develop inter-disciplinary artwork in Second Life. Applications will only be accepted from teams who fulfil all the residency requirements, including having the necessary artform experience. Artists or writers who have professional experience in more than one of the required artform areas can include this as part of their submission.

Program purpose: The Second Life artist residency is an initiative of the Literature Board, Music Board and Inter-Arts Office of the Australia Council. The residency is ‘in-world’ and requires artists and writers to explore the possibilities of inter-disciplinary literary, music/sound art and digital visual media practices. The successful team will develop new artistic in-world practices and comment on the social and cultural layers that have evolved in Second Life.

Key requirements of the project are a clear strategy for harnessing both in-world and ‘real life’ audiences and developing public exhibition opportunities for the artwork in Australia.

The main objectives of the program are to:

Provide opportunities for artists and writers to develop art that challenges and explores the aesthetic, social, political and cultural realities of Second Life
Encourage collaborations between artists and writers working across literature, music/sound art and digital visual media to develop high quality, experimental arts practices in Second Life. More info here >>

Posted by jo at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2007

LABworkshops: Modding, Reversing and Intervening in Today’s Gaming Worlds

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

LABworkshops: Modding, Reversing and Intervening in Today’s Gaming Worlds - July 2 – 27, 2007 :: In July LABoral Centre for Art and Creative Industries is organising four workshops exploring the intersections between videogames, art and reality today. A different side of videogames will be revealed by creators who can uncover their codes, subvert the standards imposed by the industry and can even address social and political issues through them. Game hardware and software will be used for performances, activism and critique and participants will have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the language of videogames and create new meanings and results.

MODDING: An intense workshop tackling the basic notions about modding and editing of Quake III Arena levels with the aid of open source code elements. In order to create fully redistributable games, participants will learn to generate interactive 3D contents for Quake III and to engineer new game features in the game engine’s source code.

Workshop led by: JULIAN OLIVER (NZ) is an artist, educator and media theorist specialising in the development of free software. In 1998 he set up Select Parks, an artistic game development collective.

Dates: 02. – 07. 07.2007
Hours: 10 am – 2 pm & 4 – 7 pm
15 participants, age +18, selected by CV and motivation letter in English
Registration fee: 100 €
Registration: www.laboralcentrodearte.org
Deadline: 15.06.2007
Working language: English
Prior experience in programming and 3D modelling will be valued

BORDERGAMES: The Fiambrera Obrera team will work with digital cameras and image editing, teaching basic levels of 3D modelling as well as some “tricks” and activities related with their software: narrative design and characters, modelling and remodelling of scripts and characters. Participants will be involved in field work in the area of Gijon.

Workshop led by: LA FIAMBRERA OBRERA (ES) is an open group that works in areas charged with a high degree of political and social conflict. Their methods are primarily direct action and intervention.

Dates: 09. – 13.07.2007
Workshop limited to members of Asociación Mar de Niebla
Hours: 12 am – 2 pm & 4 – 8 pm
Working language: Spanish

ENTERING THE TERRITORIES OF SECOND LIFE: Second Life (SL) is an online virtual world currently inhabited by over six million “residents”. This workshop explores SL as a platform for art expression, activism and critique. It will be led by a machinima professional, two media artists and a programmer who work on SL on a practical and theoretical level using it as an ideal platform to share ideas and to perform. Participants will learn through collaborative work how to make machinimas, how to write basic scripts and how to use SL as a platform for social action and artistic expression.

Workshop led by: RICARD GRAS (ESP) is an artist, producer and director of machinima Europe Board. He explores new creative uses for technologies and relationships between art and the media. In 2003, he founded LA-INTERACTIvA, one of the companies that are officially in charge of the development of SL; KRISTIAN LUKIC (SERBIA) is a writer, artist and a cultural and game researcher. He is a program manager in New Media Center – kuda.org and the founder of Eastwood – Real Time Strategy Group and also of Napon - Institute for flexible culture and technologies; ILIAS MARMARAS (GR) is a new media artist and a leading member of the international group Personal Cinema. He has been working in gaming environments and game art since 1999; and YANNIS SCOULIDAS (GR) is a technical director, administrator and programmer of Personal Cinema and specialist in software and hardware.

Dates: 17. – 21.07.2007
Hours: 10 am – 2 pm & 4 – 8 pm
15 participants, age +18, selected by CV and motivation letter in English
Registration fee: 100 €
Registration: www.laboralcentrodearte.org
Deadline: 03.07.2007
Working language: English
Experience in on-line game environments and especially familiarisation with SL will be valued

CHIPTUNES – 8BIt MUSIC: 8bit sound and music is a distinctive feature of early videogames, and has become a seminal contemporary music style utilized by artists and DJs in engaging live audiovisual performances and remixes. This workshop will bring together creators from US and Spain who will work with young people to create music using Gameboys. The workshop will close with an evening of Chiptunes performances with sounds by the artists, the workshop participants and visuals by media artists Entter.

Workshop led by: HAEYOUNG KIM (BUBBLYFISH) (KO) is a sound artist and composer who explores the textures of sounds and their cultural representation. Her work has been presented in art venues, clubs and new media festivals around the world; CHRIS BURKE (GLOMAG) (USA) has been making 8bit music since 2001. He has performed in many countries and his music has played in films, on television and on the Internet. The machinima series “This Spartan Life”, features his music as well as other 8bit artists and is featured in Gameworld; RABATO(ESP) composes music with the famous software Littlesounddj created by Johan Kotlinski for a Nintendo Gameboy consoles. He is the co-founder of microBCN and has participated in festivals and concerts in various cities; YES, ROBOT (ESP) mix Gameboy sounds with other instruments like synthesizes, samples and toys modified by themselves. They are founding members of the 8bit collective microBCN; and ENTTER(ESP) is formed by Raúl Berrueco and Raquel Meyers. Entter was formed to create a collective space for the expression of the common restlessness felt by many creative people in the interactive media art field. Their fields of research include AVperformance, installations, non-linear narrative, videogames, interfaces, experimental music, VJing and net.art.

Dates: 26. – 27.07.2007
Hours: 11 am – 2 pm & 4 – 7 pm
15 participants, age +18, selected by CVand motivation letter
Registration fee: 50 €
Registration: www.laboralcentrodearte.org
Deadline: 16.07.2007
Working language: English and Spanish
Prior basic programming experience and music ability will be valued

Concept and Coordination of workshops:
Daphne Dragona, independent new media arts curator, Athens
Carl Goodman, Deputy Director and Director of Digital Media, Museum of the Moving Image, New York

Activities will take place at the labs and workshops of the LABoral Centre for Art and Creative Industries.

LABoral Centre for Art and Creative Industries is a space for artistic exchange. It is set up with the purpose of establishing an effective alliance between art, design, culture, industry and economic progress and the goal of becoming a space for interaction and dialogue between art, new technologies and industrial creation. It throws a special spotlight in production, creation and research into art concepts still being defined.

LABoral Centre for Art and Creative Industries
Director: Rosina Gómez-Baeza
Universidad Laboral s/n, 33394 Gijón, Asturias – Spain
T. +34 985 185 577 F. +34 985 337 355
labworkshops[at]laboralcentrodearte.org
www.laboralcentrodearte.org

Posted by jo at 05:31 PM | Comments (0)

SIGGRAPH Unraveled 2007

Call for Proposals

As this year's fashion event, SIGGRAPH will present a living exhibition of fashion, an event combining the fun and glamour of a runway show with the personal engagement of interactive installations. We are looking for fashion design which pushes the boundaries of technology -- computational & conceptual couture & wearables, fashion with a social agenda concerning technology (although may not have embedded technology), and fashion produced using algorithmic fabrication or innovative manufacturing techniques. Because of the exhibition format, it will also be possible to show architectural textile installations, we are also open to submissions in this category.

Like last year, the event will be combined with the chapters party (3000+ tech savvy people in the audience). Here's how it will work: early on in the party, we will announce and present the designers as they enter with models wearing their garments, kind of an informal runway entrance to let the audience know what work is present.

The designer / models pairs will then join the party and interact with attendees, showing and discussing their works, possibly even letting the the attendees try the works on, or if the pieces are too fragile, they can be placed on mannequins; the format and degree of interactivity will be up to the designers. We hope that this format will allow attendees a better way to experience the pieces up close, giving them a chance to understand their depth-- in concept, construction or technical means -- something that can be lost in a traditional runway setting. However, this presentation method still allows the pieces to be shown in action and 'embodied' with live models.

As part of the show, we will be producing a high quality printed catalog which will serve as program for the show and as take away documentation after the show (all designers will receive free copies). The event will also feature professional photography and videography (available for use royalty free after the show) and professional models.

Submitted works should be functional (not concept projects) and able to be withstand some level of demonstration by the time of the show. Designers (or a representative) are expected to appear in person to present their work.

Please submit:

Title of work

Names and email addresses of designers

Brief description (not to exceed one page, one paragraph is fine) Photos (if available, if not, a sketch), Video (if available) Method of Display preferred for party interaction (worn by model, worn by designer, static on mannequin, tried on by audience, etc, can be changed and negotiated closer to event)

Please email your submission as a single PDF (photos embedded) to: amanda[at]media.mit.edu (does not need to be ACM formatted). Video can be sent separately or it can be viewed by us on a website, send the URL

Submission Deadline: June 15, midnight PST: The submissions will be committee reviewed and you will receive a notification by July 1 (at the latest). You may also email with questions before the submission deadline.

SIGGRAPH 2007 will take place in San Diego, CA from August 5-9 2007 (Unraveled event will occur on either Aug 6 or 8, TBD). SIGGRAPH: the premiere international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques Photos, runway video, project info and curatorial statement on last year's show, Unravel 2006, can be found at: http://www.siggraph.org/s2006/unravel.

Posted by jo at 01:10 PM | Comments (0)

The Vera List Center for Art and Politics

9 Scripts from a Nation at War + Martha Rosler

[Image: “9 Scripts from a Nation at War,” 2007, Video still] The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is pleased to mark a presence at Kassel, Germany, this summer with several works by Martha Rosler, member of the Vera List Center’s Advisory Committee and 9 Scripts from a Nation at War, 2007, a video project by the 2006/2007 Vera List Center Fellows: David Thorne, Katya Sander, Ashley Hunt, Sharon Hayes, Andrea Geyer :: All are to be presented in an international exhibition in the city of Kassel, held from June 16- September 23, 2007.

“9 Scripts” investigates the idea of the individual as defined by and through the expectations and exigencies of society and politics, specifically in the context of the American war in Iraq. Within continuously shifting perspectives, the work is essentially structured around a central question: How does war construct specific positions for individuals to fill, enact, speak from, or resist.

Martha Rosler’s works will include “Kassel Gardens (from the Perspective of a Mole)” (2007), as well as “The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems” (1975/76), “Hothouse (Harem)” (c. 1975), and “Flower Fields (Color Field Painting)” (1975). They will be displayed in various venues and parks in Kassel and present views of landscape and the natural world invested with history, beauty, metaphor, and subversion.

“9 Scripts from a Nation at War” was developed, in part, during a Vera List Center Fellowship at The New School, New York, with support from the American Art Foundation, the Danish Arts Foundation and the Swing Space Program of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School advances the discourse on the role of the arts in society and their relationship to the socio-political climate in which they are created. It organizes public programs that respond to pressing social and political issues of our time as articulated by the academic community and visual and performing artists. The center complements the university’s educational mission and brings together scholars and students, the people of New York, and national and international audiences to explore new modes and possibilities for civic engagement.

The Vera List Center for Art and Politics
The New School
66 West 12th Street, room 903
New York, NY 10011
212.229.2436
kuonic[at]newschool.edu

Posted by jo at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)

ENDOSYMBIONT

Gallery transformed by Trains/Commuters

ENDOSYMBIONT:: Curated by Dana Moser :: June 7 - July 15 :: Opening Reception: Thursday, June 7, 6-9 p.m. :: Gallery Hours: Wednesday, Thursday 6-9pm, Saturday, 2-5pm, or by appointment :: AXIOM Gallery.

Artists Jake Lee High, Jerel Dye, Sean O’Brien, and Fred Wolflink redefine the AXIOM gallery as an interactive monument. The gallery space is metaphorically transformed into a biological cell that feeds off the sounds and electromagnetic fields of passing MBTA trains. Viewers’ interactions with the interior and exterior of the gallery reshape conditions within the cell, while at the same time, drain the cell’s energy. Through the use of sensors and cameras, pedestrians, as both variable and viewer, affect the cell’s functions- including video, lighting, motors and other electronic instruments. Taking advantage of the unique location of the gallery, and through analysis of people’s daily commutes, the gallery space engages the public and enriches their transit routines.

AXIOM Gallery is located on the ground floor level of the Green Street Subway ("T") station on the Orange line, at the corner of Amory and Green Streets.

Posted by jo at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

DearCinema Fest 2007

Call for Submissions

DearCinema, an online community of filmmakers and film-lovers is organizing an online film festival, the first DearCinema Fest 2007. Short films made on any format (including mobile phone cameras and web cams) may be submitted. The maximum duration of an entry should be not more than 30 minutes. An eminent jury will select the films for online and offline screening.

Submission closes on June 30th, 2007.

For further details visit: http://DearCinema.com

Posted by jo at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

June 2007 on -empyre- soft-skinned space

Constructions of Identity: Performance Life

June 2007 on -empyre- soft-skinned space: "Constructions of identity: performance life" with Barbara Campbell (AU), Jill Magid (US) and Stacia Yeapanis (US). Please join our guests for a month's reflection and debate; subscribe here.

This month on -empyre- will concentrate on the construction of identity among artists who have explored notions of 'feminine' identity at one point or another - especially how it relates to space and landscape. The emphasis of the discussion will focus on the play between 'real' and 'virtual' space, as it is so much a part of the everyday and a powerful tool for artists to promote and create their works. The discussion will also focus on how curators have worked with artists with these concerns.

Barbara Campbell is a performance artist who has worked with the contextual properties of all kinds of sites since 1982. Back then, her sites were physical: galleries, museums, stairways, atriums, piers, to name some. At the moment her performance site is actually a website. "But I don't think this qualifies me as a new media artist. In fact I waited until the internet acquired the patina of age before I became really interested in it, because then it became possible to discern user patterns and the messages of the medium itself. Community, distribution, globalisation, interactivity, citizen-media, were some of those messages, and these are what I'm employing now." Barbara's current project is 1001 nights cast, in which she performs a short text-based work for 1001 consecutive nights. The performance is relayed as a live webcast to anyone, anywhere, who is logged on to http://1001.net.au.

Stacia Laura Yeapanis is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Chicago, IL. She received her MFA from the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006. Her work can be seen in the Museum of Contemporary Photography's Midwest Photographers Collection and in the Rhizome Artbase. Stacia is an avid Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and has two wonderful cats, Gertie and Gloria.

Everybody Hurts, a hybrid fansite/conceptual art piece exploring mediated emotion and the fansite as a performance of identity; My Life as a Sim, documentation of this ongoing project on my portfolio site; Commercial-Free: The Museum of TV on DVD, another hybrid fansite/conceptual art piece exploring fandom in relation to museum curation.

Jill Magid: "I seek intimate relationships with impersonal structures. The systems I choose to work with- such as police, secret services, CCTV, and forensic identification, function at a distance, with a wide-angle perspective, equalizing everyone and erasing the individual. I seek the potential softness and intimacy of their technologies, the fallacy of their omniscient point of view, the ways in which they hold memory (yet often cease to remember), their engrained position in society (the cause of their invisibility), their authority, their apparent intangibility and, with all of this, their potential reversibility."

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

June 01, 2007

Upgrade! Berlin

Iliadahomero from Curitiba / Brazil

Upgrade! Berlin presents: Iliadahomero from Curitiba / Brazil :: Friday, June 8th 2007; 8 pm :: Studiobühne, Ritterstrasse 12-14, 10969 Berlin / Germany, U Prinzenstrasse.

Brazilian composer & director Octavio Camargo from Curitiba shows together with Claudete Pereira Jorge an interpretation of the first chant of the Iliade, the epos of Homer. The Iliade is known as the most ancient oeuvre of occidentail literature. The 50-minutes monologue reveals the impact of this text as the source code of European culture. The performance will be in Portuguese, but the underlying semiotics of this piece can be grasped beyond any language restraints. And that's exactly the intention of this play: Homer is used here as a media and a vehicle for interaction in different platforms of language, thus projecting different translations to different idioms.

"I see language as a code" says Octavio Camargo, "and with this dramatic piece, we want to share this code with our audience. I believe that the texts of Homer can provide a deep understanding of the modern human condition." Indeed, the Iliade is a veritable semiotic knot of the European culture and still, after 2500 years, provides a broad array of the most important archetypes and topoi of the occidental thinking.

Interpretation: Claudete Pereira Jorge | Director: Octavio Camargo | Translation: Odorico Mendes

Claudete Pereira Jorge is a popular actress from Brazil, who has been working on many different theatre and film stages for more than 30 years now. Octavio Camargo is a composer and theatre director, and has been teaching Aesthetics and Harmony at the University of Arts in Parana (EMBAP), Brazil, since 1992.

Some Links to Octavios works:

http://organismo.art.br/blog/?p=2026
http://organismo.art.br/blog/?p=2015
http://www.errantbodies.org/camargo.html
http://errantbodies.blogspot.com/

Iliadahomero is currently guest at the Thessaloniki Biennial and will continue its travels throughout different European cities of the Upgrade! network http://theupgrade.net.

Posted by jo at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

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

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)

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

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

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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).

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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.

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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)

May 23, 2007

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)

May 22, 2007

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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