Artists of diverse backgrounds are involved, working mainly through performative strategies. Sceneries involving the passers-by in every city are created. For example you may see four people of four countries at the same time on four screens, communicating via webcam their wishes oder questions as a sort of statement.

The artists are still in dialogue about the common strategies. Given the same rules, the differences of the mentalities in the participating countries are going to be shaped more clearly. A Day in a Life is an international networking project. It gives a lot of space for discoveries, pushes accidental development in communication, letting emerge irritating and surprising connections.

The performances will take place on 19th and 20th of July 2008 at Wittelsbacher Platz. At the same time at ZKMax, Passage Maximilanstrasse / Altstadtring, video works of the participating artists will be shown. Sponsored by the Department of Culture of the Bavarian Capital Munich. Some participating artists are supported by the „Artist-in-Residence“ programme of Villa Waldberta.

A DAY IN A LIFE builds bridges, highlighting the familiar in the foreign and the foreign in the familiar.
Curation and Coordination: Horst Konietzny

CALL FOR PROPOSALS/PROJECT PARTNERS

Further development of a streaming event between nodes of Upgrade! International. The first version was held between Munich, Istanbul, Boston and Oklahoma City as part of the annual Upgrade! International gathering on November 30, 2006.

The project A DAY IN A LIFE (DIAL) locates the global in the local. The peculiarities and characteristics of each location are contrasted with those typical and atypical to other locations, other cities, other countries, coalescing their similarities and differences into a poetic fusion. Enabled by the growing power of the Internet - all locations are networked together via broadband technology.

DIAL was begun as a multimedia bridging of peoples and locations world-wide. Its second version will be specially aimed at the theme of Munich’s 850th birthday: “Building Bridges.” Artists in various places will interpret the theme in cooperative interventions in daily life both in their home locations and on-site in Munich. The 3rd annual gathering of Upgrade! International can help to bring oversees artists to Munich as stopovers on their way to the gathering in Skopje, Macedonia. The following is a description of the basic concept which should be further developed by the participating artists.

THE SETTING

Publicly accessible spaces in participating cities around the world will be connected via Internet for a span of several hours. At any given time, streaming video and audio from at least two participating partner locations can be seen and heard in these spaces, projected next to each other on screens or monitors and audible over speaker systems.

The spaces should be locations that play a role in the typical everyday life of each country – cafes, squares, city streets. These snapshots of daily life from diverse cultural backgrounds are given meaning by the selective eye of the streaming camera, the defining frame of the screen and the juxtaposition with similar but different scenes from another city. Stimulated by the tendency of the viewer to fill a formal frame of reference with meaning – in Marcel Duchamp’s words, “It is the viewers who make the pictures.”

Meaning is constructed not only by the formal framing, but also by focusing the action on specific themes. This is done through targeted media interventions and actions that take place at both locations simultaneously and which at pre-arranged times react to a common theme.

The simultaneous artistic interventions bring the snapshots into sharp juxtaposition with each other. The performance creates a medial and performative bridge of prepared performance, chance occurrence and the inevitable intercultural differences between the locations.

THE ACTION

The events in each location are structured spatially by the eye of the camera and the image frame, and the chance occurrences are given meaning via medial interventions such as a soundtrack or subtitles. Interactions between the local and the distant participants are particularly interesting and stimulating, as our event last year in Oklahoma City has shown. For instance a simple sandbox of red earth served as the site for a lively exchange for visual and textual feedback as artists in both locations mirrored and developed on each other’s words and images drawn in the sand.

The interventions may make use of various formal methods, but all will deal with the common theme “bridges” and the intervention from each city will illuminate characteristic local references to this theme.

The interventions may be executed using differing formal strategies but will all treat the common theme “bridges.” The interventions from each city will reflect on characteristic local references to this theme.

Examples of possible performances:

All performances should incorporate direct interaction with participants in another location. This can be visual, textual or audio, but the mutual interaction should be directly recognizable to non-participants watching only the screen view showing the two streams.

* Annotating everyday life: Participants and passers-by write or draw on a glass surface (for instance a café window) while a camera records the scenes of daily life visible through the glass frame.

* Bridging texts: The streaming camera records text banners as they are unfurled across the two participating locations. In each location only a fragment is visible; the full meaning only becomes clear when the videostreams of the two locations are viewed simultaneously on a screen.

* Express yourself: Passers-by are requested to jot down personal wishes for changes in the political, economic, private, ecological etc. situation and drop the notes into collection boxes. These texts can be held directly in front of the camera as the streaming image itself, or inserted as “subtitles” into the streaming video of the scene.

* Do it yourself political protest: Passers-by are requested to demonstrate spontaneously for or against something, or can write their own slogans on placards.

* Street happenings: Passers-by are handed leaflets requesting them to perform specific actions. Within the anonymous stream of pedestrians new patterns of motions and behavior arise.

* Multi-local choreography: Dancers are linked to each other with a common time code. The complete choreography is only visible when viewing both videostreams together on the screen.

ACCOMPANYING EVENTS For those who are able to come to Munich, we will arrange art talks and if possible workshops and an exhibit in cooperation with institutions in Munich.

Location One presents its first ever Virtual Residency Project in the form of a call to artists and other creative individuals with the express purpose of fostering collaboration and creativity across geographical expanses and areas of expertise around the topic of the 2008 US Presidential Election. The goal of this residency is to find 3 participants who are not necessarily physically proximate but who are willing to collaborate with other artists / engineers / scientists / writers / musicians / poets / activists to develop a project using such non-F2F (face to face) interfaces such as webcams, email, chat, video, blogs, Second Life, MIDI, skype, walkie-talkie, snail mail, radio or POTS (plain old telephone service), tin cans on string, or any other means of collaboration to develop a project that will be presented at Location One in the fall of 2008, in advance of the US Presidential election.

Please send CV, url or any materials to virtualresidency [at] location1.org.

Multiplace 2008 invites artists and cultural workers to submit events / performances / installations / ideas of a networked character, such as online performances, streaming and radio projects, collaborative networked projects and workshops, or the works accessing the networks within a physical location, urban space or between remote venues. Use of digital technologies is not a crucial requirement.

Submitted projects will be proposed to participating venues and organisers. These will assist in providing the infrastructure (technical equipment, internet connection, material, staff, etc) for the project (if needed).

HOW TO SUBMIT: You are welcome to submit your proposal here. There you can also find the current list of submitted projects and ideas. Please note that your submission has to be posted by February 29, 2008.

ABOUT MULTIPLACE: Multiplace was formed as a result of collective efforts of various organisers and associations from the fields of art and technology in Slovakia and later in Czech Republic, Austria and Europe. Its first activity was Multiplace new media event in April 2002, and since then the festival is organised anually each spring focusing on networked art and culture. In 2004, a civic non-for-profit association Multiplace was founded, which operates on a basis of open organisation. Today, Multiplace plays a crucial role in communication, theory and promotion of media arts in central Europe.

ONLINE RESOURCES ON NETWORK ART

* Norie Neumark (2005) Relays, Delays, and Distance Art/Activism, (introduction to At a Distance - Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet)
* Overviews of network art projects, 1, 2
* Networked Performance Blog
* Networked Music Review
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor-network_theory

For further information please write to admin at multiplace dot sk

From Feb 7 to April 15, 2008 you can see: The Remote chair in Boston, Huret & Spector Gallery, Emerson College :: The Remote chair in Second Life, Ars Virtua :: PDF menu of interactions between the two spaces :: Real time data from the two spaces @ turbulence.org.

Communication between the two halves of this extended environment is a complex choreography coupling the environmental phenomena of humidity, temperature, light, speech, mist, wind, sound and proximity across the two. The object in Boston appears to be a seat; but, experientially, the Second Life space appears to be inside the seat. A similar alteration of scale occurs in the other direction. Visitors to the Boston space and the Second Life space must negotiate to achieve goals: e.g. by sitting down, breathing, touching, knocking, colliding.

Imagine that hidden underneath the chair in Boston is a chair in Second Life (SL). But under the big chair in SL is a smaller chair (which looks a lot like the Boston chair). So under the SL small chair is the Boston chair, etc. etc. etc…

Boston’s effect on Second Life:
- as humidity around the chair in Boston rises, the amount of mist around the SL chair increases
- as the light level falling on the Boston chair decreases (for example when you sit on it), the fog in SL gets darker
- as the temperature rises in Boston, the lamp in SL changes from blue to red
- as the light level on each side of the Boston chair changes (e.g. if you sit on it and wiggle from side to side), the SL chair starts to wiggle from side to side too
- the more times you sit on the Boston chair, the taller the SL chair becomes
- as time progresses in Boston, the SL big chair slowly rotates

Second Life’s effect on Boston:
- as the number of avatars near the chair in SL increase, the Boston lamp will get brighter and brighter
- when someone sits on the SL small chair, the mist machine in Boston switches on
- if someone starts chatting near the SL chair, the lower blue fan in Boston starts blowing and pushes out the mist (if it’s switched on… which means only if someone is sitting on the SL small chair!)
- every time an avatar collides with underside of the SL big chair, the Boston chair starts knocking underneath
- every time an avatar touches the SL big chair, it changes the colour of the Boston lamp
- as the wind in Second Life increases speed, the upper blue fan in Boston blows more strongly….

Watch a video.

The environmental data of both spaces is publicly available in realtime via the EnvironmentXML repository enabling others to build devices and spaces that connect directly to both the Boston and Second Life spaces.

- EnvironmentXML page for Remote chair in Boston
- EnvironmentXML page for Remote chair in Second Life

The intention is to explore an architecture that is resolutely “human” (in the sense of being inhabited, configured and determined by its occupants) yet context-free (because it does not privilege geographical location).

Remote is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Mixed Realities exhibition. It was made possible with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. [posted on Haque Design + Research]

Streaming Museum will present an ongoing program of multi-media exhibitions in collaboration with international curators and cultural institutions. The exhibitions will be displayed simultaneously on large screens at the participating locations, where the website itself will also be on view on nearby monitors for access to a “Global Meetup” and program information. Streaming Museum is conceived as a source of free cultural content and public service messaging on the environment, education and health, accessed via Internet and in high visibility public locations.

The opening exhibition is a 38-minute video work, Good Morning Mr. Orwell, by pioneer video artist Nam June Paik. This entertaining transcontinental musical extravaganza was broadcast by satellite on January 1 of the Orwellian year 1984. It interweaves fine art and pop culture icons including Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Merce Cunningham, Salvador Dali, Philip Glass, John Cage, pop singers Sapho and The Thompson Twins, and many others. Paik’s ideas in the 1970s about the “information superhighway” and global connectivity forecast the Internet.

In addition to curated programming, visitors at each location are invited to a Global Meetup by uploading pictures via cell phone or email to www.StreamingMuseum.org/meetup using an address displayed at the location. The images can be viewed on monitors at Streaming Museum venues around the world according to local schedules, and on the website through February 29.

The venues on seven continents networked for the launch are: The Premises Gallery, Johannesburg Civic Theater, Johannesburg, South Africa; Argentine Scientific Base, Jubany, Antarctica; Art Center Nabi, Seoul, Korea; Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia; Birkbeck University of London, London, England; Piazza Duomo, Milan, Italy; Victory Park, Dallas, Texas, USA; Centro Municipal de Exposiciones Subte, Montevideo, Uruguay; Ars Virtua Gallery and New Media Center, Second Life.

The project has been initiated by Nina Colosi, a New York-based Curator and Founder/Creative Director of Streaming Museum. She also founded www.TheProjectRoom.org, an international arts and education program in 2003 at Chelsea Art Museum, New York City.

Marc Garrett and Ruth Catlow from Furtherfield.org will demo VisitorsStudio and introduce participants to its (easy-to-use) tool-set and features. Using your own files (bring jpg, mp3, swf, flv under 200k) or harvesting files from the net, you can work with others to create and distribute mixes and remixes. The day will end with a live online performance by all participants.

VisitorsStudio (Furtherfield.org 2003-) is an networked, many to many, real-time art project created and distributed live in real-time across the Internet. Participants link together at the same time and mix and remix audio-visual files. The VisitorsStudio artware is also an always-on, open, social space. As they work together, live conversations between participants (identified by their moving cursor arrows) become a part of the performance- along with comments and heckling from the audience.

Through VisitorsStudio, Furtherfield.org explores the ongoing expressive and communicative processes of human beings collaborating in new ways in this context, as active agents in the production of the cultural landscape.

The multitude of inputs, exchanges, and disruptions will be distilled in an exhibition which opens at PROGRAM BERLIN on January 31, 2008 to coincide with transmediale.08. Here the variations will continue to multiply as the process is augmented by the actions of visitors to the space.

TRANSIT LOUNGE is a project by Katie Hepworth and Miriam Mlecek and involves the following artists: Chris Bennie (Brisbane), Bianca Calandra (Berlin), Robert Curgenven (Berlin), Cat Hope (Perth), Tanja Kimme (Melbourne), Somaya Langley (Berlin), Sarah Last (Muttama), Silvia Marzall (Berlin), Ben Milbourne (Melbourne), Michael Prior (Melbourne), Lynda Roberts (Melbourne), Jodi Rose (Berlin), Sumugan Sivanesan (Sydney), Anna Tautfest (Berlin).

After ten years of the emergence of the world wide web, artists have consistently sought to describe its ability through metaphor, material, and social means, such as creating a place of community beyond the borders of politicians and their regulations. Imagining the Internet as a live, emergent poem, or an on-going platform toward explorations of the Internet as material is the mission of concreteSTREAM. In the tradition of music concrete, concrete poetry, and concrete video, concreteSTREAM seeks to understand and define the possibilities of time and geography on the internet through streaming technologies.

concreteSTREAM is an international netcast of artists works, discussions of artists works, and experimental live exchanges on the internet. These projects offer a platform of interactive discussion, as well as a venue for live and recorded experiments in performance, video, intermedia and intervention art between artists and theorists throughout the world. Three areas of research activities define concreteSTREAM:

1. Streaming live panels and lectures of artists, activists and theorists. This area includes invited panels and regular visiting artists lecture series at UMBC.

2. concreteSTREAM netcasts firstTHURSDAYS where the first Thursday between 4-5pm each month during Fall/Spring season will offer a special topic video series by a Guest Curator.

3. concreteSTREAM engages in experimental live exchanges with similar creative research organizations for 2-way live events between locations, using low-bandwidth and Internet 2.

Archive.

Give It Up is a live breakdance battle that takes place between 2 geographically separate spaces linked through a live web stream. Part performance art, part social experiment, the project explores hyper-socialized space of web-based performance through an open-source model of participation, and examines the complex relationship between relational practice, collaboration and the practice of art making.

STREAM is an exhibition that will surprise New York audiences, making us reconsider, rethink and re-contextualize global art making and information technology. The selected group of Portuguese artists stretch and stream their particular lenses into outposts of innovative art, be it where their work is made, in New York or elsewhere. STREAM’s media-based works require a public art space where the art is available in a one-to-one temporal engagement, a viewing that takes place in the context of continual coming and goings, with traffic and a constant flow of visitors – different from a cinema or a concert hall. STREAM is presented as an irregular flux, which overflows its margins and continuously re-establishes its limits. All are time-based works, moving in various directions, streaming from the artist’s studio to a public space: artworks that fetishize digital media, use video and audio narratives, and display performative aspects inherent to technology.

ARTISTS: PEDRO BARATEIRO / PEDRO CABRAL SANTO / FILIPA CÉSAR / LUISA CUNHA / ALEXANDRE ESTRELA / CRISTINA MATEUS / CARLOS ROQUE /ANDRÉ SIER / JOÃO SIMÕES / MIGUEL SOARES / RUI TOSCANO