Join Amy Jo Diaz and Casey Hughes for an afternoon of personal-diorama-making. These dioramas are intended to produce miniature immersive environments using both two and three-dimensional elements and a point-of-view.

The workshop will begin with a brief discussion of dioramas with examples representing the breadth of the medium. The participants will be asked to imagine a context (fictional or not) which they will construct within a provided frame. The intention isn’t to represent the context literally but rather create a palpable atmosphere. Throughout this workshop we will be introducing concepts and techniques to aid the participants in the development of their dioramas. These techniques will range from incorporation of lighting and viewing devices (peep holes, webcams, etc.) to working with intuition through lateral and associative thinking.

No experience in design is necessary for this workshop so people at all levels of design experience are encouraged to join. All the necessary materials will be provided but participants are invited to bring magazines and materials that they would like to use/share.

The workshop will be organized by Amy Jo Diaz, a Los Angeles based artist who has worked extensively in collage and Casey Hughes, a Los Angeles based architect who has a built, lit and photographed many-a-architectural model.

(photo credit: Max Hooper Schneider)

Affexity is a play on both ‘affect city’ and ‘a-fixity.’

Affexity is a choreographic exploration with Augmented Reality on mobile devices with 2 intended outcomes: a pilot choreography embedded in urban spaces using geospatial tagging and the groundwork for an initiative in open source choreographies. The innovation of this project is in concept, composition, modes of audience participation, and technological development.

Collaborators:

Susan Kozel Professor at MEDEA Institute of interactivity Malmö University (Malmö)

Jay David Bolter Professor of Media and Technology, Mixed Environments Lab at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, USA)

Maria Engberg (Lecturer at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, Visiting Professor at the School of Literature, Communication and Culture at Georgia Tech, and Visiting Affiliate Researcher at the Wesley Center for New Media)

Jeannette Ginslov, independent Screen Dance Artist and choreographer (Copenhagen)

Karolina Rosenquist (Medea Collaborative Media Initiative, Malmö)

Wubkje Kuindersma (free lance dancer and choreographer based in Copenhagen)

Timo Engelhardt (Masters Student Malmö University Computer Science Department: Software Design)

Two other students from Georgia Tech are also involved in the project: Nachiketas Ramanujam and Sanika Mokashi who will work on the AR programming in USA.

This video Camera & Editor - Jeannette Ginslov

Video produced by Walking Gusto Productions 2012

City Within the City — presented in Seoul, South Korea, and Melbourne, Australia, two of the world’s most urbanized centres — seeks to uncover and interweave fictional, composite, fabricated and re-purposed narratives where human subjectivity encounters the built environment.

City Within the City acknowledges cities and urban areas as a prevalent way of life for a large portion of the world’s population today. Approaching cities not as mere statistical entities, this exhibition examines the issues that arise from regarding them as agglomerations of people established over time. As such, they can be experienced as sites of reciprocal action between built environments — historically, geographically and administratively determined — where human subjectivities appear in constant physical, psychological and intellectual reconfiguration.

This first version of City Within the City presented at Artsonje Center, reflects Seoul’s urban structure. The dynamic metropolis Seoul has become bears traces from the impact of industrialization, the devastation of the Korean War, reconstruction under postwar and Cold War regimes, and its emergence as a world presence due to economic growth. These complex factors influence the dynamics specific to the commercial and industrialized zones of Seoul. Increasingly contained within these governmentally and politically demarcated areas, what possibilities for creativity, transgression and resistance exist for the human body, imagination and memory?

City Within the City charts the remembered, fictional, expected and resisted cities as they are publicly and privately negotiated by the individual. Questioning the consequences of and presenting alternatives to formal governmental configurations of city development, several works in the exhibition provide resources and open platforms to reconsider urban spaces as increasingly active sites for creative investigation and transgression.

The works featuring in City Within the City adopt parallel and tangential ways to address different points of friction, misalignments, and moments open to re-imagining existing circumstances. Through this process, the exhibition offers itself as a site for widening the possibilities for engagement with the cities within our cities.

City Within the City @ Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne :: August 17-September 22, 2012 :: 200 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy VIC 3065 Australia.

ARTISTS

Abraham CRUZVILLEGAS, Nayla DABAJI and Ziad BITAR, Alicia FRANKOVICH, Emil GOH, Jinyeoul JUNG and Changmo AHN, Yeondoo JUNG, Ash KEATING, KIM Beom, Jooyoung LEE, Minouk LIM, Listen to the City, Andrew MCQUALTER, Part-time Suite, Hyunsuk SEO, Haegue YANG, Jun YANG, Suyeon YUN and Jinyoung KOH

CURATORIUM

Sunjung Kim, Claudia Pestana, Hyejin Lim (SAMUSO) with Alexie Glass-Kantor, Emily Cormack (Gertrude Contemporary)

Affexity is a play on both ‘affect city’ and ‘a-fixity.’

Affexity is a choreographic exploration with Augmented Reality on mobile devices with 2 intended outcomes: a pilot choreography embedded in urban spaces using geospatial tagging and the groundwork for an initiative in open source choreographies. The innovation of this project is in concept, composition, modes of audience participation, and technological development.

Collaborators:

Susan Kozel Professor at MEDEA Institute of interactivity Malmö University (Malmö)

Jay David Bolter Professor of Media and Technology, Mixed Environments Lab at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, USA)

Maria Engberg (Lecturer at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, Visiting Professor at the School of Literature, Communication and Culture at Georgia Tech, and Visiting Affiliate Researcher at the Wesley Center for New Media)

Jeannette Ginslov, independent Screen Dance Artist and choreographer (Copenhagen)

Simon Ellis, choreographer and dancer, Senior Lecturer at Roehampton University (London)

Two Masters students: one from the Malmö University Computer Science department’s Software Design programme, one from Georgia Tech in Atlanta will be recruited.

Video and edit by Jeannette Ginslov
Sound mix and voice over by Jeannette Ginslov
Sounds from video and Caleb Fawcett

Video produced by Walking Gusto Productions 2011

Around the turn of the century, Geocities had tens of millions of “homesteaders” as the digital tennants were called and was bought by Yahoo! for three and a half billion dollars. Ten years later in 2009, as other metaphors of the internet (such as the social network) had taken over, and the homesteaders had left their properties vacant after migrating to Facebook, Geocities was shutdown and deleted. In an heroic effort to preserve 10 years of collaborative work by 35 million people, the Archive Team made a backup of the site just before it shut down. The resulting 650 Gigabyte bittorrent file is the digital Pompeii that is the subject of an interactive excavation that allows you to wander through an episode of recent online history.

In 2009 the City of Gdansk introduced the idea of a night time festival of contemporary art and design in public space. The idea to invite national and international artists and designers to read and comment on the city’s fabric has become an event in which the city, its traditions, its sites, its uses and its communities play the central role.

NARRACJE is engaged in the collective imagination of the city. It comprises the idea to reflect the current developments, to skip routines and to be part of a new culture of public space.

NARRACJE: Open Space for Art

The third edition of NARRACJE will present again an ensemble of national and international artists and designers who are dedicated to work in public space. For four days the night sights of Gdańsk’s “Dolne Miasto” will become the backdrop of a variety of installations and the canvas of a multitude of interventions. Starting at the Green Gate the series of installations and interventions will stretch throughout Gdańsk’s lower city, where the historical urban configuration is still present. This year’s parcours will link the city’s center with the nearby lower city.

NARRACJE Location: Dolne Miasto

“Dolne Miasto” has not undergone any urban developments since the end of the World War II. Architectural traces document the Dutch, French, German, Polish, Russian and Swedish influences. The contemporary appearance is dominated by the neighborhood’s development during the 18th and 19th centuries when manufacturing plants and workers housing were built. In the coming years “Dolne Miasto” will be in the focus of a revitalization program. The next month offer the ephemeral opportunity to witness the transformation of an urban quarter with unique qualities. Looking back, its characteristics are minted by the landscape it has been built on and now, in the process of revitalization, the need of infrastructure and the design of the urban landscape are of equal importance. The festival NARRACJE takes the opportunity to focus on the interdependencies of natural and urban landscapes and reflects on the nature of the city (”Natura Miasta”) as part of global phenomena in urban development.

NARRACJE Subject: Natura Miasta

While the number of people living in cities is growing architecture, design, engineering and urban planning are facing major challenges. Part of it is the need to reflect on the role of nature and ecology in order to develop the tandem of nature qualities and built form for a city being a living organism. The curator Bettina Pelz invited artists and designers to share how the cross-linked relationship of natural, architectural, socio-cultural and digital environments influence their artistic work.

Atsara - Roland Devocelle and Audrey Rocher, Jakub Budzynski and Monika Waraxa, Jennifer Braun, Dominik Busch, Sean Capone, Rob Carter, Alexandra Chomicz and Antonio Xavier, Kamila Chomicz, Elektro Moon Vision - Elwira Wojtunik and Popesz Csaba Láng, Ahmet Doǧan, Marcin Grezęda and Paweł Sasin, Andrea Thembie Hannig, Kobas Laksa, Gionata Gesi Ozmo, Ursula Scherrer, RaumZeitPiraten, Rosmarie Weinlich, Ania Witkowska, Tomasz Grzegorz Wlazlak, Marek Zygmunt will change the city’s landscape by night through projections, installations and performances and broach the issue of the changing qualities of public space in the 24-h-social-city as well as issue of the role of the natural in the experience of landscape.

Curator: Bettina Pelz
Organizers: Gdansk 2016/i kultura, The City of Gdansk, Gdansk City Gallery
Partners: Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk Gallery of Photography

For more info please contact Julia Cyrzan, PR coordinator: pr [at] narracje.gdansk2016.eu

Open Galleries

In addition the Gdańsk City Gallery will present an exhibition of Magdalena Jetelová and Łaznia Center for Contemporary Art hosts an exhibition of Gilbert and George. They are part of several art institutions which will be open for visitors at night time during NARRACJE.

Additional Program

The producers, Gdańsk 2016 in cooperation with the Gdańsk City Gallery, the City of Gdańsk and Łaznia Center for Contemporary Art, will provide a festive and educational program, including guided tours. For further information check the website.

Composer/performer Pamela Z will lead participants on a walk that creates musical scores from the graphic features (micro and macro) of downtown Manhattan. Participants will form a roving experimental sound and performance ensemble that will interpret and play the neighborhood’s building facades, sidewalk hardware, public art and street markings to make a contrapuntal, chance-based chorus.

This walk holds 12 people and is part of Urban Design Week 2011, organized by The Institute for Urban Design.

Teleshared actions are procedures for collaborative creation in real time. The works are produced online between two or more users by means of interactive systems or telepresence. These expanded performative practices generate new spaces, languages and narrative forms. The possibility of the “body-less” message. And all of this founded on a basic concept: transform space into time. The workshop consists of teleshared actions which give an incentive to experimentation and critical reflection in relation to remote communication processes.

The workshop has as its main participants: María Domínguez Alba, Manuel Terán, ErnestoGarcía and Sara Malinarich, who collaborate in the areas of lighting, use of camera, video, sound, plastic, action, contents, interfaces and documentation. At distance, experiments are carried out, co-authoring with Alexandre Berthier from Canada and Vicente Pastor from Portugal, who will interact in real time with the participants by means of video conference systems and other software.

Supervised by: Sara Malinarich

Free registration (limited places): talleres [at] laboralcentrodearte.org

By McKenzie Wark. Commissioned by Vectors Journal. Art by Kevin Pyle. Music by The Love Technology.

SALT Beyoğlu’s second comprehensive exhibition Becoming Istanbul will be accompanied by parallel programs 90 and The Making Of Beyoğlu. Turkey’s aim to find itself a valid place within the global networks of politics, economy, commerce, culture and tourism has become the burden of İstanbul. The city is promoted to new users, both locally and internationally, with imagery far removed from its actual overall state and infrastructure. SALT Beyoğlu will host three projects that examine İstanbul from different vantage points, attempting to offer a more multifaceted understanding of the city.

With an accumulation of resources relating to contemporary phenomena and production in İstanbul, Becoming Istanbul depicts the rapid change that has put the formation of urban spaces and urban life under pressure. As part of the Becoming Istanbul project, hundreds of media have been collected with the cooperation of artists, architects, cartoonists, researchers, news media and cultural institutions. This material is organized in an interactive database where users can explore the network of concepts that define İstanbul’s present. The exhibition’s structure is nonlinear; each viewer may chart his or her own course through the database, making each experience of Becoming Istanbul unique. The internal dynamics of the database’s content as a whole, not visible in individual navigations, will also be interpreted by Burak Arıkan in a work deciphering the relationships between concepts and time.

The framework of Becoming Istanbul was conceieved by Pelin Derviş, Bülent Tanju and Uğur Tanyeli in 2008. They also edited the publication Becoming Istanbul, a multi-authored critical dictionary published in Turkish, English and German. Two other books published as part of the project were Tracing Istanbul (from the air), edited by Meriç Öner, which discusses the causes and effects of changes in İstanbul’s urban texture based on the aerial photography of Oğuz Meriç; and Mapping Istanbul, co-edited by Pelin Derviş and Meriç Öner, a visualization of the city through maps.

Developed in parallel to Becoming Istanbul, 90 is a program of events including lectures, tours, presentations and performances seeking to answer questions around contemporary İstanbul. During the project, 90 events will be organized to share the phenomena and potential of the city, with the objective to resist an exclusionist or “expert” stance through a broad profile of speakers and diverse array of topics. Those wishing to contribute to the development of 90 can propose topics and speakers in the suggestion box at the entrance of SALT Beyoğlu, or on the Facebook page “SALT Online – Proje İstanbul.”

Becoming Istanbul and 90 will also be accompanied by The Making Of Beyoğlu, a series of workshops discussing the methodology and implementation of projects initiated in the city’s center. Examining specific case studies in İstanbul’s Beyoğlu district, The Making Of Beyoğlu was developed in collaboration with Rotterdam-based Bureau Venhuizen. As part of the exhibition, examples of spatial planning projects will be discussed within the framework of “The Making Of,” workshops designed by Hans Venhuizen in the form of games. The project seeks to examine proposed changes to Beyoğlu in an open dialogue with participants of different backgrounds. The Making Of Beyoğlu workshops, supported by the Netherlands Architecture Fund (Stimuleringsfonds voor Architectuur), are open to individuals from all disciplines across İstanbul. Registration for workshops can be completed on the Facebook page “SALT Online – Proje İstanbul.”

Through Becoming Istanbul, 90 and The Making Of Beyoğlu, SALT shares its enthusiasm for and experience in urban research. The graphic and spatial design of these projects, to be presented on SALT Beyoğlu’s second and third floors, is carried out in collaboration with design firms Project Projects and Superpool. Designed by Evren Yantaç and developed by Hüseyin Kuşçu, the interactive database is already online and will remain fully accessible as a contemporary urban archive following the duration of the exhibition.