“Pygmalion’s Lust, the Maharal’s Fear, and the Cyborg Future of Art: The idea that non-living matter could be used to invoke, influence, and emulate living beings is probably as old as human life itself. Over thousands of years this concept has become deeply ingrained in the human imagination as a locus of desires and fears about the future; and about the role of art and technology in forming it. In reviewing some of this history, I shall focus on, for lack of a better term, the moral of the story; in other words, what prevailing attitudes towards robots and other surrogate beings at a certain place and time tell us about the values of that culture. Continue reading

The installation Salt Lake is a research project concerning the influence of information and the media on our everyday lives. The need to win the ‘communications battle’ encourages the commercial media, the authorities, institutions and individuals to swamp us with audiovisual material. We are presented with this visual, auditory and iconographical corpus as a single large archive, fully searchable, without intellectual, ethical, or moral limitations, in a universal language to be interpreted and recycled by all. This accessibility stimulates reflection on a number of issues. Continue reading

On October 4 2007, iMAL (Interactive Media Art Lab) will open its new venue, the first Center for Digital Cultures and Technology in Brussels, a new place of about 600m2 for the meeting of artistic, scientific and industrial innovations. The inaugural programme is composed of an exhibition, concerts and performances from October 4 - 7, with artists from Belgium, Europe, USA and Second Life.

Ideally located in the very center of Brussels along the Canal in a district currently involved in an intense urban renewal process, the new Center will host the office, workplace and workshop rooms of iMAL, and will propose a public space of 400m2 entirely dedicated to the contemporary artistic and cultural practices emerging from the fusion of computer, telecommunication, network and media. Continue reading

Concrete Dialogues is a collaborative online writing project, created for young writers in Perth, Western Australia. The project organises the creative works of 16 to 30 year olds according to geographic location on a digital streetmap of the Perth Metropolitan region. Submissions are based on specific locations in the city and suburbs, which become hyperlinks across the digital map. The result is a psychogeographic portrait of our city–a mosaic of writing that uncovers the darker doorsteps of the intersections you know, the romances in the parks you drive past, the characters of the suburbs you can’t place.

Concrete Dialogues is a rare opportunity for young writers in Perth. It is somewhere they can exhibit their work and come into contact with other writers. Follow the journey of other site users, create your own journey through the streets and short stories, or contribute your own writing about a school in Whitfords, a riverbank in Rossmoyne, a carpark in Darlington… [via Neural]

The Tools of Culture - Marcin Berdyszak, Scott Kildall, Patrick Lichty, and Second Front :: Opening: October 5, 2007; 5 – 10 p.m. :: Curator’s Tour: October 13, 2007; 6 –10 p.m. :: KOSCIELAK GALLERY, 1646 N. Bosworth Ave., Chicago, IL 60622 :: 773.252.9921.

The Tools of Culture is a collaboration between Marcin Berdyszak (Poznan/Poland), Scott Kildall (San Francisco), and Patrick Lichty (Chicago/New Orleans), and is a part of the Chicago October Artists’ Month themed celebration “Creative Alliances.” In their works these three artists reflect on contemporary culture, technology, and the media and its impact on how our identities are constructed. Continue reading

Stefano Cagol – FLU POWER FLU - BeursSchouwburg, A. Ortsstraat 20-28, 1000 Brussels :: 2007 - 2008 :: Opening: September 29, 2007 ::

FLU as physical and mental, positive and negative influenza / influence. POWER as capacity to exercise influence, control, authority over others. FLU POWER FLU takes the form of public intervention, highlighting contemporary influences, beliefs, pre/misconceptions and belonging. Power, in various forms extends its influence to our daily lives yet our notion of power and its extent of influence is often, perhaps deliberately, overlooked. Moving and interacting within/outside “centers of power” of past and actual Europe, be it cultural, political or financial, FLU POWER FLU aptly questions their authority and invites reflexivity yet inevitably becoming an accomplice to these power games. Continue reading

The Superfund365 weekly email recap is suspended this week to commemorate the 4TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE SUPERFUND’S TRUST FUND GONE BROKE. The following is a bit of background followed by three really simple actions you can take to make sure this day does not pass unnoticed. (Next week we will resume with the regular email recap program.)

THE BACK STORY: This Sunday, September 30, 2007, is the 4th year anniversary of the bankruptcy of Superfund’s Trust Fund. In 2003, the General Accounting Office (GAO) announced that the Superfund’s Trust Fund would be completely used up by the end of that fiscal year (September 30), leaving US taxpayers responsible for cleanup costs instead of the polluting companies. Continue reading

LEONARDO - CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: The Leonardo Lovely Weather: Art and Climate Project and Leonardo Publications are inviting papers, special issue proposals and book proposals that deal with artistic approaches to weather, climate and their modifications. As a result of massive urbanization and the development of the modern lifestyle, it has been possible to observe a deterioration of sensitivity to meteorology and climate. The existence of weather and climate is similar to that of landscape which does not exist in nature without the mind to perceive it as such. The perception of weather and climate, as well as that of landscape is the perception of an arrangement, a configuration of the real. Weather and climate are thus multidimensional phenomenons that include the combined contributions of nature, culture, history and geography, but also the imaginary and the symbolic. Art could help us to question our perceptions and relationships to weather, climate and their changes. Continue reading

On October 4, 2007, Franck Ancel will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first launch of an artificial satellite, 1957-2007: from Sputnik Satellite to Explorer Art, a creation that will be broadcast exclusively over the Internet between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Paris time. In collaboration with Joachim Montessuis for the sound environment and Julien Bittner for the editing of the images, in partnership with France Streaming, this work will be broadcast to any computer QuickTime video player, streamed over the Net from this address: rtsp://qts.zonepro.fr/ancel. Continue reading

Artists often tend to find their concerns and goals intertwined with those of activists thanks to the function–or, or more frequently, the dysfunction–of geography. Sharing the same cities and the same neighborhoods, artists and urban advocates have long occupied overlapping spaces, and a globe-spanning, but LA-centered, show at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) brings together several projects that explore contemporary injustices written onto that common landscape through November 18th. Continue reading