Transmediale: Deep North
February 5th, 2009 by fsnelting
The theme of this year’s Transmediale was relevant enough: how does media-art respond to, is responsible for, or take part in solutions for climate change? The exhibition presented works with these questions as a theme (more or less), but as a whole felt quite haphazard and disjointed. A few works that made an impression: Reynold Reynold’s 6 apartments (two screen continuous film portraying people living with decay in their individual surrounding, while being confronted with reports on climate change on a global scale); Wright, Harwoods, Yokokoji’s Tantalum memorial (the mining of ‘Blood Coltran’ addressed in mysterious ways … this piece won the Transmediale price), Man with a movie camera (Perry Bard, interesting re-make of a classic, now in the public domain), Fernando Jose Pereira, Remoteness (Webcam images from a northpole station edited into a beautiful videowork).
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pixelpost
December 20th, 2008 by Modest
Ivan Monroy Lopez reports on Piksel Festival 2009
the first thing that caught my eye about piksel 08 was the call for works that was put out during the summer: “How does code dream? What are the dreams of code? […] code dreams explores the dreams of this soft machine; bachelors coding for pleasure, reverse engineering paranoiac constructs of the real, automatic coding practice, soft hardware, and everyday magic.” at the other end of the rainbow, during the actual piksel winter weekend, i did get excited about code once more. yes, i like the idea that the piksel weekend was the dream of a piece of code.
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happy new ears
September 13th, 2008 by Peter
a day out to the Happy new ears festival in Kortrijk with Michael, Femke and Lena, what more could you wish for !
just wrote a small report of a few things that stood out / caught the eye
we saw a few installations in the city (klinkende stad) ,
unfortunately did not have time to attend all the pieces, and in the evening went to see the concert of the THE FREQ_OUT ORCHESTRA
program and complete info about the works, to be found at:
http://www.happynewears.be/2008/en/index.php
first impressions:
– small incrowd of aquintented people ( we immediately ran into Els van Riel, Pieter Paul Mortier … 🙂
– very well publicised: posters, flyers everywhere, extremely well communicated through media, email, posted invites etcetera.
– venue hard to find for people who do not know Kortrijk: difficult to read road + city maps
– great and generous gesture to give free cd with highpoints of the program whith entree tickets
– open source = absent, it is a macintosh world
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Insert Content Here.
September 12th, 2008 by fsnelting
Ars Elektronika 2008: Wenn Eigentum an Seine Grenzen stösst
I knew not to expect too much from the hint of critical content in this years theme. So, for the first time ever visiting the festival, I enjoyed going through the main exhibition CyberArts even if only as a catalogue of potential works; however gadgetry and grand the installations and projects sometimes where, they did inspire.
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Who is afraid of new media (bis)
April 26th, 2007 by laurence
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? Read the rest of this entry »
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Who is afraid of media art?
March 6th, 2007 by laurence
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? Read the rest of this entry »
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Open Ars meeting
March 5th, 2007 by laurence
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 Read the rest of this entry »
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Workshop Vrouwen & vrije software
November 14th, 2006 by laurence
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
Workshop programma:
18/11/06: Wat is een server?
09/12/06: Wat is een “service�
20/01/07: Debian install party!
***
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
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Women & free softwares workshops
November 14th, 2006 by laurence
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
***
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.
***
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
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Book presentation Language of Sharing
October 31st, 2006 by Peter
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 ï¬nd 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 ï¬ction 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.
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