MOBILE HABITS

MOBILE HABITS: How do you trace a cow in West-Africa? Antropologists and media artists take up the challenge–Date: 29 june 2006; Time: 9.30 - 17.30; Fee: 100 Euro, student discount fee 25 Euro; How to apply: send an email with your CV and short bio to: info [at] virtueelplatform.nl

Both the arts and sciences have carried out extensive research into the issues of mobility and space. Both fields use new media such as GPS and GIS to back up their research. As a result the more recent research into mobility and space has been given a big boost. Both art and science now need each other as never before. The ‘Mobile Habits’ workshop brings artists, designers and scientists together and challenges them to exchange concepts and new working methods in relation to space, place and mobility.

Locative media artists and designers are opening themselves up to theories about mobility and space from the worlds of anthropology and social and at the same time social scientists are discovering the different cartographic and visualisation techniques found in the world of art and media design. Continue reading

Into the Streets

ALWAYS ON–curated by Drew Hemment, José Luis de Vicente, Óscar Abril Ascaso and Advanced Music–is a display dedicated to mobile culture and location projects. It is an initiative based on exhibition and participation, taking SonarMática out onto the streets for the first time. Advance tickets for Sónar by Night as well as general passes for the three days and two nights of Sónar 2006 are already on sale.

This year, Sonarmatica presents itself more participative than ever: a game involving relationships using mobile telephones for nine hundred players at the same time organised by Blast Theory; a walk through Barcelona’s electromagnetic old quarter of Ciutat Vella with Michelle Teran; and a geocaching session are some of the ideas at the exhibition. Continue reading

Urban Networks

Urban Networks–June 9-August 6, 2006–features five interactive art projects that examine social encounters and explorations in urban places. The works in this exhibition employ a range of technological devices that create urban community connections and offer insights into how emerging technologies might play an alternative role in our experience of everyday urban life.

Finishing School presents two projects Meet/Greet and Write/Send from the Public Interaction Objects (PIO) series. Engineered to create meaningful interaction with individuals in various public contexts, each object is informed by varying cultural customs, market economies, lifestyle, entertainment and commercial technologies. Continue reading

Urban Eyes

HTTP Gallery is pleased to present Urban Eyes, an intermedia project by Marcus Kirsch and Jussi Angesleva. Private View: 1st June 2006 7-9pm; Exhibition: 1st June - 9th July 2006, Friday- Sunday: 12 noon-5 pm; Unit A2, Arena Business Centre, 71 Ashfield Rd, London N4 1NY; tel: + 44 (0)20 8802 2827; info[at]http.uk.net

Urban Eyes uses wireless technology, birdseeds and city pigeons to reconnect urban dwellers with their surroundings. The Urban Eyes feeding-platform stands in one of London’s public spaces. By landing on the platform, pigeons tagged with RFID chips send aerial photographs of their locality to surrounding Bluetooth-enabled devices. In this work pigeons become maverick messengers in the information super-highway, fusing feral and digital networks. HTTP Gallery provides an interface to the project, mixing live and documentary footage and offering visitors an opportunity to experiment with Bluetooth. Continue reading

Liquid Narratives

The topic of June at the - empyre - mailing list will be Liquid Narratives. The concept of ‘liquid narrative’ is interesting in that it allows to think about the unfoldings of contemporary languages beyond tech achievements, by relating user controlled applications with formats such as the essay (as described by Adorno in “Der Essay als Form”, The essay as a form) and procedures related to the figure of the narrator (as described by Benjamin in his writings about Nikolai Leskov), among others.

How does the concept of narrative is related to comtemporary culture? Can we really describe nowadays fragmentary and user related procedures of organizing data as narratives? Should they be considered liquid, since they are fluid, reshapable, pliable? How does devices such as the GPS and mobile phones change narrative? How technologies broadband internet and DVD allow other modes of organizing them? Continue reading

TODAY! International Web Conference

The Challenges of Curating Net Art - An International Web Conference, LIVE online May 26, 2006: 10:00-12:00 p.m. at Mobile Studios, Sofia (3:00-5:00 p.m. EST online): presented within the framework of the local Upgrade! Sofia meeting, this web conference is hosted by the Mobile Studios project, Eyebeam, New York, and Turbulence.org in Boston. A panel of international artists and curators is meeting up virtually to discuss various aspects of the mediation, curation and funding of net art.

Hosts: Ela Kagel, digital media producer and co-initiator of Mobile Studios and Ursula Endlicher, NY-based media artist & initiator of the round table in New York. Continue reading

MOVEMENT AND THE VISUAL ARTS

MOVEMENT AND THE VISUAL ARTS (CONFERENCE AND SITE-WIDE PERFORMANCES): June 2, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.; The Getty Center–This day of lectures, dialogues, screenings, and performances explores the increasingly blurred line between the visual arts, dance, and other forms of performance. Featured speakers are Elise Archias, Martin Kersels, Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Babette Mangolte, Peggy Phelan, and Branislav Jakovljevic.

The L.A. Art Girls bring the conference outdoors and out-of-bounds with Fluxus-inspired artistic interventions across the Getty Center site throughout the day. Free; reservations required for the conference. Continue reading

Liberating Brain, Body and Digital Interactions

Keynote: The Naked Interface - Liberating Brain, Body and Digital Interactions by Luke Williams: Friday, July 21, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm.; Webvisions 2006, Explore the Future of the WebJuly 20 to 21, 2006 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, OR.

Throughout the electronic age, people have become accustomed to interacting with digital media indirectly, mediated through screens and peripheral devices. But now, as digital technology becomes invisibly embedded in everyday things, the “feeling” of everyday things is also increasingly becoming embedded in digital technology.

In many senses, physical objects are becoming more important. In an immediate way, they can help us define new systems of relationships with digital information. This presentation will examine how perceptions and gestures formed through our experiences with physical products can effectively bring liberty to the relationship between brain, body and digital media interface. Continue reading

Haque + Bleecker

The Poker Club at the Beehive Inn in Edinburgh featured Usman Haque (artist / architect) and Julian Bleecker (technologist / artist / think tank leader) to discuss the “internet of things” and “open source architecture”. Hosted by New Media Scotland.

Both presenters took us through a short run down of their work and then there was a lively exchange between everyone present. Hopefully there will be a podcast from New Media Scotland in the near future.

Haque’s presentation was broken into three categories: Invisible Stuff, Collaborative Stuff (produced by non experts - or vernacular creativity) and Social Space. He talked about Architecture as an operating system for the collaborative production of space. He stressed the importance of the necessity of the system (whether an augmented object or space) to have the capacity to build ‘its’ own perceptual categories. Several examples of previous and current work were shown. Continue reading

Here’s how to extract DNA from peas (or just about anything else) using meat tenderizer for enzymes, water, rubbing alcohol, salt and a blender - Link. [posted by Phillip Torrone on Make Blog] Continue reading