Welcome Upgrade! Eindhoven, the newest Upgrade! International node! - Upgrade! Eindhoven: Mateusz Herczka and Frederico Bonelli :: May 5, 2008; 8 - 10:30 pm :: TAC (Temporary Art Centre), Vonderweg 1, 611 BK Eindhoven. The discussion will be in English.

The artists will introduce themselves and their projects related to the discourse between art and technology. To get things clear, we want to discuss the notion of ‘art VS science’. Is art hacking technology? or is technology hacking creativity? Where do we stand as artists, curators? And what do technologists, academics say about this? Continue reading

Wrestling with the Blob Beast by Ezra Johnson :: April 17, 2008; 6 - 8 pm :: Dia Art Foundation, 535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor, New York City.

In Wrestling with the Blob Beast, Johnson presents a collection of sixteen animated screensavers. Derived from painting, they cover a wide field, ranging from formal studies where color is a primary concern, to quiet nature scenes like a campfire at night, to vignettes where figure and abstraction appear to be in active battle, as in several pieces where hands appear to wrestle with paint which morphs into a dog’s face and then reverts to paint strokes. While the wrestling pieces serve as humorous metaphors for the sometimes arduous endeavor of painting, others suggest a more serene relationship, such as Fly, in which a tiny painted airplane inches across a wet, painted sky. Continue reading

Info-Aesthetics: Information and Form by Lev Manovich :: April 22, 2008; 3 - 5 pm :: Studio Ciborra, Fifth Floor, Tower One, London School of Economics and Politics, Houghton Street
London.

The unprecedented growth of information puts new pressures on contemporary societies. We need to invent new ways to interact with information, new ways to represent it, and new ways to make sense of it. How are artists, designers, and architects are responding to these challenges? Rather than trying to defend ourselves against “information glut,” can we approach this situation creatively as the opportunity to invent new forms appropriate for our information-rich world? Continue reading

Networking Event and Residency Closing Party: Configurations: Technology and Textiles Networking Afternoon :: April 25, 2008; 3.30 - 6 p :: HTTP Gallery, 71 Ashfield Rd, London (Click here for map and location details) :: Booking essential: email Aaron, visibility [at] furtherfield.org.

You are invited to share ideas, discuss and develop future working around art work that investigates the relationship between new technology, traditional making techniques and transformative political actions. Rachel Beth Egenhoefer, Anna Dumitriu, Ele Carpenter, and Nicola Naismith will present their work using diverse approaches to the making of work using new technology alongside textiles, followed by a “Long Table Discussion”. Continue reading

Creative Commons Salon LA: Share, Remix, Reuse - Legally with Rex Bruce, Holly Willis, Jack Lerner, Chris Weisbart and Michael Wilson :: April 16, 2008; 7:30 pm :: Found Gallery, 1903 Hyperion Ave., Los Angeles, CA.

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.” Rex Bruce, director of the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, will be screening a video he directed that uses public domain imagery from the US Military (also playing at the Centre Pompidou). Continue reading

[Image: J.R. Carpenter] Out of the Box: Adventures in Electronic Literature - a panel discussion with J. R. Carpenter, Jason E. Lewis, Jeff Parker and Alice Van Der Klei :: May 3, 2008; 7:00 pm :: Regence A., Delta Centre-ville Hotel, 777 University Street, Montreal (metro Square Victoria).

Since the computer was invented, writers have been using it to forge new literary forms. This year the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival moves into the cutting-edge field of Electronic Literature. Join us for an exploration of topics ranging from the early days of hypertext fiction to the latest in narrative gaming with an all-star panel of authors who write beyond the book and way outside the box: Continue reading

Fritz Haeg - Animal Estates :: April 16, 2008; 6:30 pm :: The Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute for Technology, 265 Massachusetts Ave 3rd Fl (N52-390), Cambridge MA.

The Center is pleased to host Fritz Haeg and his project Animal Estates. While at MIT, Haeg will give a talk on his work and, with the help of MIT students and artists, build one installment of Animal Estates, a new series of dwellings thoughtfully designed to welcome an animal back into the city. These environments are made for displaced wildlife or for animals that have been domesticated. Continue reading

From Cinema to Machinima — Software, Database, and the Moving Image - Panel Discussion with Lynn Hershman Leeson, Christiane Paul (Moderators), Henrik Bennetsen, Char Davies, Scott Kildall and Second Front, Howard Rheingold (via Second Life), Scott Snibbe, and Camille Utterback :: April 14, 2008; 7:30 - 9:30 pm :: San Francisco Art Institute, Lecture Hall, 800 Chestnut Street campus :: Free and open to the public.

A panel discussion and virtual performance event, From Cinema to Machinima will explore the many ways in which the digital medium has reconfigured, even transformed, the moving image and thereby redefined concepts of cinema. Continue reading

Invisible Threads by Jeff Crouse and Stephanie Rothenberg :: April 15, 2008; 8 -10 pm :: Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, 540 West 21st (between 10th & 11th) :: Free event + performances by current Eyebeam artists.

Think virtually. Buy locally. Invisible Threads - a virtual sweatshop - will be operating live from Second Life and Eyebeam as part of the Synthetic Times Beijing Media Arts Symposium closing reception. The mixed reality performance explores the politics of virtual labor through the creation of a designer jeans sweatshop in the online, 3-dimensional world of Second Life. Continue reading

Test_Lab: Topology :: April 17, 2008; 8:00 pm :: V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media, Eendrachtsstraat 10, Rotterdam :: This event will be streamed live.

Featuring: Tiziana Terranova (IT), Christoph Wachter (DE), Mathias Jud (CH), Yolande Harris (UK), Bureau d’etudes (FR), and Di Mainstone (UK).

Topology is often mentioned as an ultimate example of the same subject being studied in parallel within various branches of science and art, each branch approaching the subject from its own background and with its own methodologies. Today, there are numerous initiatives on the radar in which representatives of the various branches of topology explicitly state a desire to exchange ideas and methodologies related to the topic. But do all these diverse branches even share a common understanding of what topology is? Continue reading