The Cultural Association, MADRID ABIERTO, announces the start of the presentation of projects period for the 6th edition of its international public art programme which will be held in 2009 and 2010. The programme will hold debate sessions on public art and will generate a series of interventions of an ephemeral or temporary nature in the centre of Madrid, whose authors will mainly be selected through this open call for presentations. A specific call for presentations of sonorous work, which includes collaboration in the audiovisual TV Interventions project, is also announced. PARTICIPATION BASES:

1. Reflecting from the stance of contemporary art practice on cultural, social and political environment, the purpose of this call for applications is to select artists to produce interventions of a temporary or ephemeral nature aimed at contributing to activate the public space. The initiative includes two specific projects for the Casa de América and Círculo de Bellas Artes buildings, which will be incorporated into Madrid Abierto with other invited projects and selected sonorous and audiovisual works.

This edition of Madrid Abierto will be dedicated to emerging practices that critically engage with the urban environment. Madrid Abierto 2009-2010 aim to include a wide variety of practitioners and art forms that establish their strengths in an expanded role, and that work in the social realm of art practice and audience participation. The idea is to produce and show work that connect various disciplines and that opens up for collaborations between, for example, artists, architects, designers, computer programmers, social scientists and urban planners.

For cities to thrive, to be communicative and alive, and to function as catalysers of public life, it is necessary to stimulate civic participation and community involvement. Given the current framework, where society often fail to negotiate some of the most immediate challenges, how can pooling resources such as the ones found in interdisciplinary groups, develop alternative work methods? How can inertia and nostalgia be substituted by visionary and inspiring tools that act as catalysts for change?

2. The programme schedule is as follows:

- Application deadline: until September 10th 2008.
- Selection of artists: until October 31st 2008.
- Preparatory meetings and seminars: February 2009.
- Elaboration of final projects: until April 30th 2009.
- Assessment of projects and installation permits: until June 30th 2009.
- Execution of artistic interventions and transmission of sound and audiovisual works: February 2010.

3. Coinciding with ARCO, the interventions will be take place in February 2010 in Madrid, with some form of presence or reference in the junctions Paseo de la Castellana-Recoletos-Prado and Calle de Alcalá-Gran Vía.

The sound works will be transmitted by Radio 3, Radio Nacional de España in February 2010. Audiovisual works will be presented during this time too.

4. Artists of all nationalities are encouraged to present their applications (except for the Casa de América project, which is open to Latin American artists only), either individually or as a team. In the case of team application, one representative must be appointed.

5. A) Artistic interventions.-Each participant must include:

* Curriculum of no more than 2000 characters with a photocopy of the author or authors’ National Identity Document (or equivalent).

* Description of a project already executed and the draft of a project for Madrid. In both cases no more than 4000 characters.

* A maximum of six sketches or images of the project or draft project in jpg format with a maximum resolution of 72 dpi.

* Description of the technical set up and needs of the draft project.

* Estimated and broken down budget of the draft project, including details of items that could possibly be self-financed.

* All the files must be PC compatible. Files sent from an Apple computer must have adequate extensions (doc, xls, pdf, jpg, tif, etc.).

* Should the above-mentioned information fail to be received in full, the participation will be rejected.

* The maximum budget for each selected artist is 15,000 euros. In all cases this sum includes expenses derived from the preparatory meeting in February 2009, as well as travel, accommodation, production, transport and set up of the intervention in February 2010, the author or authors fees (up to a maximum of 2000 euros) and any applicable taxes.

B) Sound Art.- Each participant must include:

* Curriculum of no more than 2000 characters and a photocopy of the author or authors’ National Identity Document (or equivalent).

* Description of the proposed piece, not exceeding 4000 characters.

* Maximum length of work is10 minutes per author and must be sent on a CD.

* Selected artists will receive 500 euros. A direct master copy of the work will form part of the documentary collection and public archives of Madrid Abierto. The work may possibly be placed on the website, for non-profitable purposes and with prior consent of the authors.

C) Audiovisual work.- The audiovisual work selected in the 2008 and 2009 calls for applications for TV Interventions will form part of the Madrid Abierto 2009-2010 programme in collaboration with Fundación Rodríguez and Centro Cultural Montehermoso (and may be transmitted by Canal Metro). Those selected will receive 500 euros and a direct master copy of the work will form part of the documentary collection and public archives of Madrid Abierto. The work may possibly be placed on the website for non-profitable purposes and with prior consent of the authors.

Audiovisual applications will not be accepted through the Madrid Abierto application procedure.

6. All the proposals must be sent by electronic mail to abierto [at] madridabierto.com prior to September 10th 2008.

7. The advisory committee of Madrid Abierto, presided by Programme Director Jorge Díez and comprised of Cecilia Andersson, Guillaume Dèsanges, Ramon Parramon, Mª Inés Rodríguez, Fito Rodríguez and artist group Democracia, participates in the various phases of this edition. Casa de América and Círculo de Bellas Artes will appoint a representative for the task of selecting each institution’s intervention.

Cecilia Andersson will be this edition’s curator. In collaboration with the advisory committee of Madrid Abierto, she selects the participating artists on the basis of their track record, the quality and viability of the proposals and the total reversibility of the interventions. The organiser may round off the selection with invited artists, up to a maximum of 50% of the total number of selected artists in the open invitation. Since these projects will occupy public spaces, Madrid Abierto will obtain the necessary municipal permits to the set up the interventions.

Should the selected artists use images or elements belonging to third parties, they must provide authorisation of the proprietors for the use of images or extracts in the project.

8. Madrid Abierto reserves the right to publish and reproduce the selected artistic interventions for all purposes associated with the promotion of the programme, and shall incorporate all generated documentation into its documentary collection and public archives. The selected projects and works are the property of the authors and, as the case may be, the promoting institutions shall have a preferential right to purchase them.

9. Participation in this call for applications entails full acceptance of the conditions of entry.

Direction: Jorge Díez
Curator: Cecilia Andersson
Adviser Committee: Cecilia Andersson, Democracia, Guillaume Dèsanges, Jorge Díez, Ramon Parramon, Fito Rodríguez and Mª Inés Rodríguez
Coordinator: RMS La Asociación
Graphic Design: 451
Organize: Asociación Cultural Madrid Abierto
Sponsors: Fundación Altadis, Comunidad de Madrid and Ayuntamiento de Madrid Collaborators: Fundación Telefónica, ARCO, La Casa Encendida, Ministerio de Cultura, RNE3, Canal Metro, Círculo de Bellas Artes and Casa de América

The Laboratorio de Arte y Espacio Social (LAES) is a collaborative research workshop directed by María Fernanda Cartagena and Bill Kelley, Jr. for the Education Department of the Museo del Banco Central del Ecuador (Central Bank Museum of Ecuador). LAES will offer a free and open space for participants of any discipline to investigate and engage in issues involving the relationship between art and public space. Methodological research that involves working with and understanding public cultural practices are of primary concern within a field that has seen enormous growth of activity both locally and internationally, institutionally and informally, and individually and collectively.

Practices born in or outside the art world system hold numerous promising possibilities depending on the public one chooses to work with. LAES, under the institutional umbrella of the largest museum in Ecuador, will seek to investigate the ties between institutional possibilities and the numerous independent artist/activist led projects in the region. Relationships between art and political movements, collaborative strategies and community work, as well as contemporary and historic forms of public space cultural practices will be investigated.

During the entire month of August, LAES will be lead by a group specializing in various disciplinary practices. The workshop interlocutors include: X. Andrade (Guayaquil, urban anthropology and art practice), María Fernanda Cartagena (Quito-Buenos Aires, visual cultures), Deborah Morillo (Quito, pedagogy and art practice), Bill Kelley, Jr. (Los Angeles, art theory), and invited artists Alejandro Meitin representing the collective Ala Plástica (La Plata, Argentina) and Graciela Carnevale (Rosario, Argentina) presenting with Tucumán Arde Archive.

LAES workshop will also feature the exhibition “Por qué no te callas?” Activismo, desobediencia y medios de comunicación (Why don’t you shut up? Activism, disobedience and mediums of communication), a title taken from the headlines after King Juan Carlos of Spain yelled the infamous phrase at Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in 2007, will be hosted by Espacio Arte Actual in Quito and will feature the Tucumán Arde Archive (Argentina 1968) as well as contemporary video artists: BijaRi (Brazil), Boredom Patrol (USA), Bulbo (Mexico), Etcétera, now Internacional Errorista (Argentina), Ana Fernández and Miguel Alvear (Ecuador), Frente 3 de Fevereiro (Brazil), María Teresa Ponce and Fabiano Kueva (Ecuador), and The Yes Men (USA). “Por qué no te callas?” is organized by María Fernanda Cartagena and Bill Kelley, Jr. Much like the LAES workshop, this exhibition attempts to investigate art’s relationship to the changing nature of public space, as well as bridge the gap between historic and contemporary cultural practices forty years after the events of ‘68.

More information can be found at the LAES blogsite and at the Museo del Banco Central website.

Contact and Inquiries: laes08[at]gmail.com or through the education program Cultura Para Todos at the Central Bank of Ecuador: Ana María Armijos/ Daniel León, (+593) 2220904 ext. 48.

[...] The starting point for the StoryBank project then, was a sense that the villagers had valuable stories and information to share, which might be extended with new technology. In particular, the way they currently told stories with pictures and music might be used to enliven radio content, or could be captured and shared in new ways. This observation led us to examine the way community radio programmes are made and enjoyed, and identify some real benefits that might be achieved with digital technology. These included widening participation through making stories on a mobile phone, using photographs as illustrations, and providing ‘listen again’ facilities in a convenient location…”

David Frohlich is the Director of the Digital World Research Centre and Professor of Interaction Design at the University of Surrey, where he works on future photography, literacy and communication technologies. Before joining Digital World, Frohlich, who has a PhD in psychology, spent 14 years as Senior Research Scientist at Hewlett Packard Labs, a time devoted to tangible interfaces, new media design, and the digital divide. Matt Jones returned from New Zealand to Wales to help set up the Future Interaction Technology Lab at Swansea University. As a Reader in the FIT Lab he explores the human-computer interaction aspects of mobile and ubiquitous computing as well as socially-inclusive and impacting design. He recently co-authored Mobile Interaction Design (Wiley 2006). For the last two years, Frohlich and Jones have worked together on StoryBank, a project enabling textual and computer illiterate people to build a repository of audio-visual content via camera phones. Here’s their report from Budikote, a village in rural India.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeuMlGq3X-M

Lumens — by Matthew Belanger, Sean Riley, and Ven Voisey — is an installation of lamps networked across three spaces: Greylock Arts (Adams, MA), MCLA Gallery51 Annex (North Adams, MA), and Turbulence.org. Scores of lamps have been borrowed from the residents of Adams and North Adams to fill the two gallery spaces. Their images and stories are represented on Turbulence.org, which also serves to connect the two locations telematically. The lamps — which have been outfitted with proximity sensors and arduino microcontrollers — light up in response to a visitor’s presence and simultaneously illuminate lamps in the counterpart spaces. Thus, an individual in Adams can communicate his/her presence to an individual in North Adams, and vice versa. Additionally, as visitors investigate the history of a particular lamp online, the lamp will light in the physical gallery space. Lumens re-connects North Adams and Adams — originally a single community. Lumens is a project of Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses.

Estudio Teddy Cruz’s research-based architectural studio, located at the San Diego-Tijuana border, has been recognized internationally in collaboration with community-based nonprofit organizations for using the neighborhood as a site of experimentation in order to research new forms of affordable housing and social density.

According to Cruz, “The need to reveal territorial and institutional conflict as an operational tool to redefine architecture practice is prompting many architects to research the conditions that can promote the intensification of social relations and public culture at the different scales of the territory, the city and the neighborhood.”

This exhibition will serve as a public platform to discuss the crisis of affordable housing, and the de-funding of public infrastructure in the contemporary city. It will elaborate on the realization that no advances in socially and environmentally sustainable building design can occur without reorganizing the existing political structures, economic resources, and social capital that can produce alternative systems for habitation.

Organized around a series of conceptual and geographic scales, the exhibition takes the viewer from the concept of an increasing global border (coined by Teddy Cruz as the “political equator”) to the micro-scale of the neighborhood on the border of San Diego and Tijuana that has served as a laboratory for Estudio Teddy Cruz in the last few years. The exhibition shows that it is in peripheral areas such as these that conditions of social emergency are transforming our way of thinking about urban matters.

The projects on view include conceptual works, presented through videos, photographs, drawings, models and cartographies, such as “Mapping Non-Conformity,” which questions conventions of land use representations and its exclusion of social interactions to measure density, and “McMansion Retrofitted,” which proposes to alter an existing 8000 square foot single-family suburban house into a mixed-use multi-family dwelling.

Projects of intervention are also included in the exhibition. Some of these projects are grounded in San Diego/ Tijuana urban dynamics. In “Living Rooms at the Border”, a project developed in collaboration with Casa Familiar, special zoning accommodations are being negotiated with the city of San Diego to allow a parcel of land that would normally accommodate three single family homes to instead accommodate 12 affordable housing units operating with a shared kitchen, community garden, and a former church transformed into a community center in the border town of San Ysidro. “Manufactured Sites” creates a semi modular frame, produced by a Tijuana maquiladora (manufacturing plant), that serves as a scaffold when combined with salvaged and recycled building parts brought from San Diego to create worker housing. Other projects present how the lessons from Estudio Teddy Cruz’s border neighborhood projects have been translated to interventions in different regions, such as Hudson, NY, where “Hudson 2+4″ has been produced in collaboration with the PARC Foundation.

About the PARC Foundation: PARC Foundation was created to raise public awareness of environmental planning and the importance of architectural design excellence. Since its inception, the Foundation has been originating and operating its own cultural programs, and promoting intersections between art and architecture, including working since 2004 in the City of Hudson, NY to investigate new approaches for community re-development. In 2006, the Foundation began a strategic partnership with designer Teddy Cruz to advance its research and to strengthen the mission of providing public, socio-economic and cultural support systems for communities in need.

A project of Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses, Lumens is an installation of lamps networked across three spaces: Greylock Arts, MCLA Gallery 51, and Turbulence.org. Scores of personal lamps that usually inhabit and illuminate the interiors of homes and shops have been borrowed from the residents of Adams and North Adams, Massachusetts, filling two gallery spaces: Greylock Arts in Adams and MCLA Gallery 51 Annex in North Adams. In addition, their images and stories are represented on turbulence.org, which also serves to connect the two locations telematically.

Clusters of lamps have been outfitted with proximity sensors and arduino microcontrollers. Lamps illuminate in response to a visitor’s presence and simultaneously illuminate lamps in the counterpart spaces. Thus, an individual in Adams can communicate his/her presence to an individual in North Adams, and vice versa. Additionally, as visitors investigate the history of a particular lamp online it will also illuminate in the physical gallery space.

Lumens (re)connects North Adams and Adams — originally a single community — through an exploration of location, influence, history, and the present.

Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses is a collaboration of Greylock Arts, MCLA Gallery 51, and Turbulence. Lumens has been made possible through the generous support of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the LEF Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Physical interaction consultant Tom Igoe.
Special thanks to: Larry Alice, Michael Chapman, Abbi Hermosa.

Beginning May 23, artists and designers are invited to submit yard signs to MyYardOurMessage.com around the theme of what it means to actively participate in a democracy. Starting July 1, the public will be invited to vote on the artist-created design submissions.

The top 50 vote-getting designs will be announced August 1 and, subsequently, made available to order as a full-sized political yard sign for $20 including shipping. Top designs will also be available as free downloads. In addition, the Walker Art Center and mnartists.org will print the winning yard sign creations and place them in neighborhoods throughout the Twin Cities metro area, including those immediately surrounding the site of the Republican National Convention.

My Yard Our Message is a project conceived by Scott Sayre, is produced by the Walker Art Center and mnartists.org in collaboration with The UnConvention.

Key dates and deadlines:

Design submissions deadline: June 30, 2008
Public voting on yard sign entrants will run from July 1–27, 2008
50 winning designs will be announced August 1, 2008

Entries end July 1. More information: http://www.myyardourmessage.com/about/

Defense Coop is a forum that connects Second Life artists and builders with public defense attorneys throughout the United States to help illustrate scenarios, using 3d graphic movies (machinima), for the defense of indigent clients at trial.

“When a defendant stands trial, it is an agonizing experience. She faces the accusations of the District Attorney, the police, and any independent witnesses the State brings to testify against him. The police are trained how to talk to and persuade juries. They know to come across as affable, good natured people; they know to look at the jury when the speak; they know how to answer the District Attorney’s questions in a way that effectively narrates the events in controversy. They have reports that they wrote just after the events in controversy, which they review prior to testifying. They understand the elements that the District Attorney must establish in order to convict a defendant. Most importantly, they testify all the time - they have lots of experience in the courtroom, and generally feel comfortable there.” — Laura Baldwin (Red76 member, and Portland, Oregon public defense lawyer)

A typical defendant has none of this and is frequently faced with limited resources, compared to those of the state, to make a compelling, memorable, believable case to the jury. This is where Second Life simulation / machinima can be of vital use.

FIGMENT is a celebration of creative culture from June 27-29, 2008 on Governors Island in New York Harbor. It provides an open forum for artists, helps build a creative community, and fosters participatory and public art. A broad spectrum of arts are represented, including sculpture, performance, music, installation, dance, costuming and activities. It is free and open to the public.
Among the projects planned for this event are:
Starlight on the Island—A series of solar panel powered, spherical steel sculptures that will absorb sunlight to light the island at night.

The Rose Petal Pool—The creators of this multi-media, interactive sound installation encourage children of all ages to enjoy the rich sensory experience.

Arbor Animus (Spirited, Courageous Tree)—The artist collective will bring their 16-foot tall, multi-media (metal, wood, LED lights) American Willow Tree to Governors Island as part of the sculpture’s 2008 national tour of major art festivals.

FIGMENT 2008 will also offer a range of offerings by video and film artists sharing both their personal and collective expressions—often influenced by Governors Island— including the documentation of the construction of an elaborate reclaimed wood sculpture and one NY native’s 1979 marriage in the island’s Trinity Church.

Other FIGMENT art installations will incorporate such innovative materials and resources as telescopes, a teepee, 2,000 silver colored flags, and a pair of five-foot tall wooden lips! The majority of sculptures and art pieces are touchable and climbable—resulting in much art that is interactive and child-friendly.

The work of both emerging and established choreographers will be featured as part of the many dance performances taking place throughout the 3-day event. Similarly, FIGMENT 2008 will have a range of performance art offerings, including such original and unusual unions as the merging of creative writing with art and improvisational drama exercises with therapeutic movement, sound, and role-play. In addition, visitors to the island can participate in the creation of pop-trash poetry done karaoke style, Ukrainian body painting, private readings at the “Poetry Brothel,” and the “intrepid” use of cameras to record various urban explorations.

The musical offerings of FIGMENT 2008 are extensive, as well as exceptional in their variety and innovation. They range from boogie and classic rock to futuristic Brooklyn hip-hop to the “healing” sounds of electric keyboards to traditional bawdy German songs about murder, madness and mayhem—to the accompaniment of an organ grinder! Many of the performances are also representative of the collaborative spirit of multiple disciplines working together: a sound installation incorporating restaurant kitchen recordings, live electric flute accompanied by modern dancers, a mix of acoustic and electronic dance music resulting from remixes of Rwandan mass and folktronica.

Finally, humor permeates many of the offerings, as probably best represented by the Celtic vocalist who will be singing her heartfelt songs about love, loss and indigestion.

FIGMENT will include City of Dreams Mini Golf, a nine-hole mini golf course that will be installed on Governors Island from June 27 to October 5. It will be free and open to the public throughout the season. Each hole will be conceived, constructed and installed by a different artist or group of artists, all variations on the theme “City of Dreams.”

The following principles guide the development, production and experience of FIGMENT:

PARTICIPATION
FIGMENT is committed to the spirit of participation. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play.

DECOMMODIFICATION
We seek to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

INCLUSION
Anyone may be a part of FIGMENT. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

SELF-EXPRESSION
Self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.

SELF-RELIANCE
FIGMENT encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.

GIVING
FIGMENT is devoted to acts of gift giving and volunteering. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

COMMUNAL EFFORT
We value creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY
We value civil society. Each participant in FIGMENT is responsible for helping to create a civil environment for all other participants. We will endeavor to produce this event in a way that fosters a civil society and that is socially responsible.

LEAVE NO TRACE
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves to leave each place in a better state than we found it.

IMMEDIACY
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.

This is not the only innovation of Nico Nico Douga. Its collectively negotiated tags and social bookmark based rankings create a platform, where new genres and subgenres constantly evolve at high speed. The evolution of the genres becomes a meta-story on its own (Yoshikawa Hideyuki). More than one million videos were uploaded in the last 16 months, most of them self-produced by the fans. The majority of these videos are remixes of anime, games or TV content. They are thus relatives of AMV (Anime Music Videos), though wilder, faster, and with a wider range of contents and references.

Nico Nico Douga’s Url is http://www.nicovideo.jp/. You can access the main interface directly, but if you want to see the videos, you have to subscribe. However, access is free and pretty easy. If you are interested in academic research about Nico Nico Douga: The Metadata Project, based at the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, London, conducts ethnographic research on it. First results are published on this blog: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/metagold/. Here you can also find further help how to access Nico Nico Douga: See the early post “So what is Nico Nico Douga” for this.