VIDEO SHARING IN PUBLIC SPACES



The following artists/works were selected for the Boston reel which will be shown in Our Friends Are Electric, Federation Square, Melbourne Australia on April 10, 2008:

Ex-static by Nancy Davies (1:43)
PPPP by Nancy Davies (1:22)
Unmarked Package by the Institute for Infinitely Small Things (9:32)
con-flict by Bebe Beard and Lou Cohen (5:00)
Weather You Remember: Alfred I. Maleson by Maura Jasper (1:50)
Anamnesis by Allison Holt (10:31)

Our Friends Are Electric - A Series of Projects Made for Urban Screens is a unique series of screenings in the lead up to the 2008 Urban Screens Conference, to be hosted by Federation Square in October.

From the subways of Paris to electronic billboards in cities such as Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam, Our Friends Are Electric is a series of projects created specifically for public screens throughout the world. Beginning with the launch of The Streaming Museum, the first moving image gallery to be broadcast both in cyberspace, and public space over seven continents simultaneously, Our Friends Are Electric celebrates how today’s cities are becoming connected through a network of urban screens.

In a worldwide launch on January the 29th 2008, The Streaming Museum is set to commemorate the pioneer video artist, Nam June Paik, with an international broadcast of ‘Good Morning Mr. Orwell’ (1984), a seminal work celebrating the global impact of satellite television and forecasting the future of the Internet.

A showcase of international urban screen initiatives, Our Friends Are Electric introduces the concept of urban screens to the Melbourne audience in anticipation of the conference in October. The series will include a range of international video art programs produced for public screens around the world in addition to individual artist initiatives created from collective contributions around the world.

About Video Sharing

The goal of Upgrade! International's Video Sharing in Physical Space project is to create low-tech video-sharing communities in physical spaces. Videos are circulated between cities so that programs can be screened locally and internationally, preferably in the built environment. Flyers with individual contact information for the artists whose work is shown are handed out to encourage people who are seeing the work in each of the cities to develop individual connections and relationships. This is essentially a "social software" aspect that picks up on digital social networking strategies--such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, etc.--and attempts to extend them into new spaces in order to reach new communities. This is an opportunity to participate in the grassroots building of an international network of video artists, and have your work screened around the world.

Participating nodes are Amsterdam, Belgrade, Boston, Chicago, Istanbul, Montreal, Paris, Scotland, Seattle, Skopje and Vancouver.


Upgrade! International
Upgrade! Boston: Video Sharing