Spring NODE.L ‘08 is a seasonal gathering of media art called by NODE.London, showing how London is budding with fresh exhibitions, discussions, musical events and participatory projects.

Designing for the 21st Century: Using Web 2.0 Technologies for Social Action :: March 11; 1 pm - March 12, 4 pm :: SPACE Studios, 129-131 Mare St, Hackney, E8 3RH - Social networking tools and Web 2.0 are this year’s talking points. But the chatter hides their growing history as means to contact, link and engage a broad range of friends, strangers, existing and emergent groups in forms of work and play that build (or challenge) civil society. Their effect has been seen in charity fundraising, community decision-making and political mobilisation. Their use has created shadows that altered the strategy of organisations and changed the shape of projects to include greater and wider participation.

But tools alone don’t make things happen. So this is an opportunity to explore the practices that lead to change and share ideas about the use of these tools to democratise consultation processes, win hearts and minds and the rest. Please bring your experience of working in this way and the potential - and challenges - you see in the new forms of social organisation supported by these developments. We welcome informal and unorthodox contributions as well as more formal talks. Emphasis will be upon reflection and practice, rather than grand research objectives. There will be full wifi connectivity.

body>data>space Open In Process #1 :: March 12, 6:30 - 9:30 pm :: bodydataspace, 2nd Floor, 17–25 Cremer Street, Horeditch, London E2 8HD :: featuring “Festival of Computer Based Art CYNETart_08 (Dresden)” :: “Presentation of Second Life Projects by Michael Takeo Magruder” - Open In Process events take place as a series of live presentation events followed by open debates, focusing on collaborative making processes for interdisciplinary interactive arts.

Hurry Up Please IT’S TIME :: April 14-20, Big Chill House, 257-259 Pentonville Road, King’s Cross, London
N1 9NL - The installation explores the drinker’s eternal concern for questions of TIME. A wide-angle mounted above the bar orthogonally scans the surface of the bar and its neighbouring space for activity. Computer vision scans the scene, comparing pixels adjacent in time, calculating the geography of activity. A co-located overhead projection then projects back downwards, precisely mapping an abstracted video of the scene with a composite temporal image – showing real-time spaces of intense activity blending with a gradient of older archival footage where no activity has taken place. Continual excitement of the pixels over-exposes them towards white-out, theatrically illuminating the most active zones.

And much more …