COOL MEDIA HOT TALK SHOW

COOL MEDIA HOT TALK SHOW: D.I.Y. talk show on art & media :: TOPIC: New Media Art Mythologies :: SPEAKERS: Geert Lovink and Armin Medosch :: QUESTIONS: ask-it-yourself now and during the show here :: June 5, 20.30 CET :: Video stream and interface for online participation :: Location: De Balie, Amsterdam (bring your laptops and mobiles)

New Media Art Mythologies…to be questioned… :: Recent discussions about (new) media art concerned a wide range of issues: starting from the validity of the term itself and ending with questioning the very premises of the modes of distinction through which the (new) media art field constitutes itself as a form of art, cultural practice, social context, institutional domain, and discourse. The feeling of a certain Rubicon, provoking self-introspective reflections, was expressed by many. Continue reading

Upgrade! São Paulo: lucia leão: Networked bodies: art, culture, environment and sustainment in cyberculture :: jun 14.2007 :: 7:30 pm @ i-People: Av Vergueiro 727, next to the Vergueiro Subway Station.

The relationships between art and nature have always been present in the human history. Since pre-historic times, draws of animals in caves reveal the aspiration to represent and/or control nature. Enigmatic pre-historic monuments and planetary observatories are also amazing samples of man interventions in order to understand the surrounding environment and its movements. From the Egyptian frescos, passing through moments of the Renaissance and 18th century art, the landscape becomes the environment for building narratives and, often, it takes an ornamental or symbolic character. The landscape paintings, not by chance, are very frequent and popular in the colonialist expansion periods and show very clear relationships between the territorial conquest and the aspiration of representation. Continue reading

Curated by Shane Brennan

New Work on New Climates: 800 Steps Apart (2007) by Brooke Singer and Brian Rigney Hubbard: 800 Steps Apart questions the response (and responsibility) of government agencies in environmental crises. The administration of toxin-cleanup after 9/11, the video shows, was not uniformly thorough or competent, leaving some victims to suffer the consequences of their contaminated environments. With this terrifying revelation, we are led to question how our government will manage future ecological and environmental disasters that lie on the horizon as a result of climate change. Indeed, 800 Steps Apart challenges the local/global opposition. By uniting a highly localized issue—contamination in Lower Manhattan—and questions of national environmental leadership, the video simultaneously addresses a narrow and broad audience. The way such disasters are handled—even at the level of neighborhoods, blocks and apartments—is relevant to us all; it speaks to our ability and preparedness to deal with environmental emergencies on the global scale—a response that will certainly be tested in decades to come. Continue reading

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries

Lisboa 20 Arte Contemporanea launches next Thursday, May 24, LX 2.0 Project’s new commission: Manhã dos Mongolóides (Morning of the Mongoloids) by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries.

For LX 2.0, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries created the Portuguese version of Morning of the Mongoloids, the laughable, yet tragic (and extremely ironic) story of a white men that wakes up after a night of “drunken partying” to find himself no longer who he used to be. Without any motive or underlying logic, the man wakes up and gradually realizes he is Korean. He looks Korean, he speaks Korean and he lives in Seoul, when just the night before he was a white man living in a western country. The piece is a delightful insight on the prejudiced views towards Asian cultures and specially, Korean culture. Not only are we faced with the main character’s stereotypes of Asian people, as he gradually comes to terms with the improbable change, we, westerners, are confronted with our own biased views of the rest of the world. It is us, not “china men” who are being ironically portrayed. It is a mirror-like device and it is returning us our own prejudiced image of ourselves. Continue reading

Antarctic Village

From February-March 2007, Antarctic Village - No Borders, was installed in Antarctica by the artists. They travelled from Buenos Aires aboard the Hercules KC130 flight on an incredible journey lasting several weeks. Taking place during the Austral summer, the ephemeral installation coincided with the last of the scientific expeditions before the winter months, before the ice mass becomes too thick to traverse. Aided by the logisitical crew and scientists stationed at the Marambio Antarctic Base situated on the Seymour-Marambio Island, (64°14’S 56°37’W), Jorge Orta scouted Antarctica by helicopter, searching for different locations for the temporary encampment of their 50 dome-shaped dwellings.

Antarctic Village is a symbol of the plight of those struggling to transverse borders and to gain the freedom of movement necessary to escape political and social conflict. Dotted along the ice, the tents formed a settlement reminiscent of the images of refugee camps we see so often reported about on our television screens and newspapers (official figures estimate that 141 foreigners have died trying to reach Spain in 2004, Human Rights claim the death toll was 289. 58 Chinese people discovered dead through dehydration by customs officers in the back of an articulated lorry in Dover UK in June 2000, etc., etc.) Continue reading

ePoetry and E. Kac

“…This May, Paris was *the* place to be for digital, experimental, new media poetry, and because there was 2 major events, the “critical mass” was reached and made more obvious that this field is truly challenging.

The first event is epoetry. Everybody (or almost) that counts in digital and new media poetry was there, from all over the world : the pioneers, the big names, the about-to-become-big-names, the new emerging generation. Too many names to list ! Epoetry is first an academic conference that I could not attend, but the proceedings will be online. It is also a series of events that took place in several locations in Paris and the near suburbs. All of them were very well attended and the programme was brilliant. I could not see everything and again, links to the artists web sites are on the epoetry web site, so please go and have a look. I just want to point some works and artists that I saw and that were absolutely brilliant: Continue reading

The Commons on The Common

Platform 2: The Commons on The Common :: Friday, June 1, 5:30 – 7:30PM :: Meet in front of the State House on Boston Common at the 20-foot picnic blanket :: Food & drink on hand, but please bring something of your own to share ::

A picnic on the Boston Common where we will discuss “the Commons” in relation to the work of invited guests, including Iain Kerr/spurse and David Bollier of onthecommons.org. Excerpts from Lewis Hyde’s upcoming book on the commons will be read.

What is the Commons? “The commons is an emerging new paradigm for understanding how groups of people can create and preserve value in more sustainable ways. Unlike the conventional market paradigm, the commons consists of a diverse set of models rooted in social norms and ecological principles. A growing number of scholars, activists and policymakers is beginning to recognize the power of the commons matrix and its importance in creating and managing resources.” — from www.onthecommons.org Continue reading

Conference

New Network Theory: International Conference :: Dates: 28-30 June 2007 :: Location: University of Amsterdam :: Organized by: Institute of Network Cultures (Interactive Media, Amsterdam Polytechnic, HvA), Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, and Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis.

The object of study has shifted from the virtual community and the space of flows to the smart mob. When the object of study changes, so may the distinctions that dominate, particularly the schism between place-based space and place-less space, both organised and given life by networks. We would like to exploit the potential of writing contemporary network theory that suits and reflects the changes to the objects of study that come to define our understandings of network culture – a post-Castellsian network theory, if you will, that takes technical media seriously.

It is time to look for elements that can make up a network theory outside of post-modern cultural studies (which marvelled at the place-less place) and ethnographic social sciences (which reminded us of the ground). What network culture studies needs is a ‘language of new media,’ perhaps even signage, to speak in terms of Lev Manovich; what it currently has is a science-centered ‘unified network theory,’ to paraphrase the language of Albert-László Barabási. Continue reading

Annotating for Civic Engagement

The Electronic Lens explores and creates new paradigms of civic ubiquitous networking with mobile technologies. We think of Electronic Lens as something of a viewfinder. Using a motion that is already familiar (think point and shoot camera phones), the citizen can use the eLens to gather information about physical objects and places.

The eLens matches electronic information with the physical environment in an innovative way. For example, eLens users can post lasting messages in physical locations, tag buildings and places, or create social networks based on interest and social affinities. eLens interactions combine the physical environment with formal and institutional information and the annotations from usersÂ’ personal experiences.

Ultimately the eLens enhances the value of the city for its citizens by making their environments more accessible, more culturally vibrant, more socially just. The eLens fosters communication among people and between institutions; as a result citizens are now better able to navigate the social, institutional and physical urban space. Continue reading

Second Life Re-enactments

While virtual environments like Second Life offer artists a new platform for the creation of original works, it’s always interesting to see the past being reinterpreted. I’m pretty sure it was Marshall McLuhan who said all new media consumes its predecessor’s content before settling on a new form, and we have witnessed his observations unfolding with the Radio > Television > YouTube evolution.

Eva and Franco Mattes (of 0100101110101101 fame) have taken this ethos of appropriation to heart in their ongoing Synthetic Performances. Continue reading