Constant’s News

Kind of difficult to escape in the new media festivals or lectures to the supposed « crisis » of new media, Interact or die was the motto of Deaf this year, and « New media Arts at Crossroads » was the title of Geert Lovink’s lecture for Argos, i wont paraphrase him here, because when i did in a previous try out of this post, it looked as if i endorsed this complaint, this self defensive or self whipping tone, so let’s him talk, ask the questions, make the observations, quoting his lecture and his chapter « The cool obscure: the crisis of New Media » :

« Why is new media art perceived as an obscure and self referential subculture that is in the process of disappearing? Why is it so hard for artists that experiment with the latest technologies to be part of pop culture or contemporary arts? Why is so difficult to seek collaborations with scientists? Why did new media art miss out during the exuberant dotcom days and why do geeks an it millionaires prefer buying cars and other middle class baubles of consumption and turn their backs on their own art form? Why was Steve Dietz fired of the Walker Art Center, at the time of the dissolution of the net art program of this institution? Simultaneously as we can observe the disappearance of Public Netbase, the WWVideo Festival in Amsterdam, and as the ZKM largely abandoned the support of production, as the Australia council disbanded the New Media Arts Board. Is the educational sector the only way out for the new media arts actors? Is new media arts fallen into an abyss of misunderstanding? »

Well this last sentence is not a question in G. Lovink words but an assertion.

Don’t you feel already depressed? Or don’t you feel a little bit, or at all, concerned? Continue Reading »

Not even news, just notes ongoing, on-working, on-walking, unfinished…

When did we stop dreaming, exagerating, being outrageous, being glamourous in the media art scene? When did we begin to complain about own categories, ontologies, folksonomies? When did we begin to behave properly, to get success, to long for belonging to the contemporary biennales, museum, art centres? Is this because we felt threatened, surrounded by patents, spams, conservatism, tv reality, gruwesome images thus practices, being undersieged by commercialized freedom, institutionalized resistance?
But really, is formalism, cautionness, self criticism, the only way out, off, against brutality, in time of “surabondance événementielle et spatiale et individualisation des références” (M. Augé, Non-Lieux, Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité, 1992, quoted by T. Druckrey on the pannel Media Art undone).
Well, it looks like the answer chosen by Transmediale 07 in Berlin seems to be yes! Transmediale is a yearly festival for art and digital culture (sic), Berlin 31 Jan - 4 Feb 2007, theme of the year: Unfinish!
But do we really think that by reclaiming one’s place in the art field, or on the art marked, and by focusing mostly on dispositifs, categories, that media practices and media art practitionners will gain themselves a purity or a youth or a maturity? Continue Reading »

Better late than never, we wanted to give a view on the different projects met during the Open Ars meeting organised by Apo 33 and Constellatio in Nantes in february 2006, so some pictures and above all links to organisations, projects interesting in open practices in cultural environment or in artistic practices in open environment…
more images in our images gallery Continue Reading »

Locatie: Interface 3, Middaglijnstraat 30, 1210 Brussel
Tijd: Zaterdag 18 november – 10.00 tot 16.30
Meer info op: http://samedi.collectifs.net/

In het kader van ADA (Netwerk voor vrouwen en technologie) insamenwerking met onder andere: Constant, Interface3, Domaine public, Scumgrrls, Bxlug.
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Constant nodigt u uit voor een serie ontmoetingen, discussies en workshops met en door vrouwen over ’servers’. De serie verandert de samenstelling van de vrije software gemeenschap en het stereotypische nerdy masculine beeld dat ermee geassocieerd wordt.
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Wanneer je je eigen server installeert en onderhoudt moet je jezelf vragen stellen zoals: Hoe verdeel je werk? Wie krijgt toegang? Wat is een ’service’ verlenen? De workshops verbinden technische kennis aan inhoud en stellen de deelneemsters in staat een netwerk te bouwen waardoor da de workshops ideeen en werk verder ontwikkeld kunnen worden.
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Workshop programma:
18/11/06: Wat is een server?
09/12/06: Wat is een “service”?
20/01/07: Debian install party!
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Praktisch:
Vrije toegang, voorrang aan vrouwen.
Aanmelden verplicht.
Voertaal is Frans, Engels en Nederlands kan DIY vertaald worden.
We lunchen samen, breng iets mee dat je met de anderen wilt delen.
Kinder-oppas kan worden geregeld. Vertel ons bij aanmelding: hoeveelheid en leeftijd van de kinderen.
Voor aanmelding, vragen en info: samedi@collectifs.net

Where: Interface 3 , Rue du Méridien 30, 1210 Brussels
When: Saturday Nov. 18, 10 am - 4:30 pm
Info: http://samedi.collectifs.net

In the framework of ADa (Network for women and technology), a collaboration between Constant, Interface 3, Domaine public, Scumgrrls, BxLg, among others
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Constant invites you to series of meetings, debates and workshops with and by women around ’servers’, changing the community of free software users and the stereotypical nerdy male image associated with it.
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When you install and maintain your own server you have to ask questions such as: How do we divide work? Who has acces? What is providing ’service’? The workshops links gaining technical knowledge to content and provide participants a possibility to build a network allowing to expand their thoughts and work from the workshop onwards.
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Workshop program:
18/11/06: What is a server?
09/12/06: What is a “service”?
20/01/07: Debian install party!
***
Practical:
Free access, female priority.
Registration is required.
Prime language is French, English and Dutch DIY translation present.
We lunch collectively, bring something you would like to share with the other participants.
Baby sit can be provided. Please communicate when you register: amount and age of children.
To register, for questions and more info, please mail to:
samedi@collectifs.net

Book presentation
VJ9: The Language of Sharing / Deeltaal / Protocoles d’échanges
Location: Constant office: Fortstraat 5,
1060 st. Gillis, Brussels, +32 (0)2 5392467
Time: Friday 17 November 2006, between 17.00 - 20.00

Constant proudly presents the publication:
VJ9 The language of sharing.
We invite you to join us in our office on November 17, between 17.00 and 20.00. Copies of the book will be freely available, a drink and a snack will be served. If you can’t be present to obtain your copy of the book, but would like to receive one, please leave your post address in our mailbox.
info**at**constant.com
Looking forward to seeing you!

With contributions by: Simon Pope, elpueblodechina, Ronald Patterson, An Mertens, Claudia Borges, Julia Lee Barclay, AGF, Vincent Vandeghinste, Mario Campanella, tatibrazil, Jacques Jouet, Harrisson, Sarah Infanger, Filiep Tacq, Richard Vijgen, Femke Snelting, Wendy van Wynsberghe, Stephane Quertimont, Lucas Catherine, Jamal Boukhriss, Patricia Niedzwicki, Bambi Cueppens, Peter Westenberg, Graham Harwood, Marijs Boulogne, Kris Rutten

Pocket size, 193 pages, B/W print
Design: Roger Teeuwen
Editing: Femke Snelting + Peter Westenberg

(…) Verbindingen/Jonctions 9 took place from 24 until 28 November 2005 between Brussels, Liège and Antwerp. To contribute to a critical reading of language, memory and exchange as underlying structures and applications of digital media, V/J9 considered language and memory as instruments for sharing contents and free exchange of information, instead of accepting them as unchangeable entities. We were curious about language and code as means to express multiplicity; we wanted to find out how dialects, pidgin and slang could act as cultural bridges. We took the words ‘jonctions’ and ‘verbindingen’ literally, and made connections between places and languages in our own country. If we are crossing linguistic borders between fellow citizens speaking Bruxellois, Walloon, English, French, Dutch, West-Vlaams or Moroccan, we are also crossing borders between fiction and a surrealist practice of language; as surrealist as an exquisite corpse; Are our languages like walking dead or cyborgs? (…) Are our languages reflecting a queer deal or are they expressions of patriarchal dictatorship? Can we learn from certain computer languages the ability to evolve according to uses and mistakes? (…)

The program of Verbindingen/Jonctions(VJ), the annual multidisciplinary festival organised by Constant combines high-, low- and no-tech strategies from utopian, contemporary, traditional and tribal cultures with open standards, free licenses, feminism and queer theories. The festival offers radio makers, artists, software programmers, academics, linux users, interface designers, urban explorers, performance artists, technicians and others an occasion to experience each other’s practices, and to share their activities and interests with a broad public of visitors interested.

The idea of the crealab was formulated inside a larger ESF framework; The Memory project, which has been supported and developed for one year by a european team of volunteers, proceeds from different experiences of collecting and emphasizing the data produced during the ESF. It aims to create a space of articulation and visibility of this multiple production.

The European Social Forum (ESF) is one of those spaces where the actors themselves produce their own data and reading of the event. Their productions become thus part of the process or unfolding of the event.

For the Athens EFS, the Memory project opened a laboratory
space, called *CREALAB*, aimed at involving the participants in the production, the
gathering and the streaming of multimedia traces of the event.

(Some) people involved: Julien aka Joke (streaming connectivity, web tv), Rachid Sadaoui (web radio DJ), Carole Faure (Altermundo / coloured lamps), Pierre George (proposal wall), Nuria Verges (free music), Jean-François (servers, hardware, technical chiefcoock), Alejandra (electronics / micro, transmitters, controllers), Mayo (activist research / free open tools), Yves (mapmaster), Sophie Gosselin (theory Apo33)

This year the European Social Forum has landed on the grounds of the former Olympic Village in Athens. On the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th of May 2006 many European social non-governemental organisations gather to participate in an extensive program of seminars, talks, workshops, concerts and presentations. Constant is part of the ‘Crealab’: a temporary laboratory initiated by the Nantes based art + media collective Apo33. The lab investigates ways to deal with the ‘memory’ of the ESF, the archives, databases, image and audio collections, the streamed programmes and online remains of digital workspaces and data gathered in previous editions of the ESF..
How to keep this information alive and meaningful for future use and interpretation? Is it possible to allow for multiple interpretations and subjective readings? The program with seminars, attending groups, speakers and issues addressed can be found on the website of the 4th ESF and more general info on the mainpage of the ESF.

” The European Social Forum is, alongside Genoa and Seattle, one of the major events of the movement against neoliberal globalization and war, deregulation of labor and poverty, climate change and environmental destruction, violation of democratic rights and sexism, racism and the threat of the far right. Tens of thousands of activists participated in the first, second and third European Social Forums which took place in Florence (2002), Paris (2003) and London (2004).

The same will happen in May 2006: thousands of activists from all around Europe will meet in Athens in order to discuss about the perspectives of “the movement of the movements”, exchange their experiences from their struggle and organize coordination and solidarity networks.

We have marched together against the G8, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Prague, in Genoa, in Evian. We took part, all together, in the siege of the European Union Summits in Thessalonica, Nice, Seville, Brussels. We met during the huge antiwar rallies on the 15th of February 2003, in the mass demonstrations against racism, in working class mobilizations defending pensions, public health and education, in rallies against the destruction of the environment, the “anti”terrorist laws and repression.

Today we are more confident that another world is possible, where people will be before profit.”

Cybersoda - Fête de l’internet - Digitale week - Celebration of internet
On March the 22nd I gave a workshop in Interface3. My prime public was between 9 and sixteen years old. I started out by explaining a little what downloading is and where you can download films legally. I gave one example, also the source of my workshop, namely www.archive.org.
Continue Reading »

SInce yesterday, Constant is the happy owner of a PC reborn as an Apodio Multimedia GNU/Linux box. This distribution is developed by the Nantes based collective Apo 33. Thanks to Julien, Sophie and Jean-Francois who helped installing this beautiful collection of mainly audio - visual open softwares running on a Mandriva system at a workshop they made at Nadine, we have some exiting new tools to work with. Thanks Apo, much appreciated –> we’re looking forward to explore Apodio!
Pictures of the workshop: