[Image Left: Anthony Townsend] “[I]t should be clear that telepathy is historically linked to numerous other tele-phenomena: it is part of the establishment of tele-culture in general. It is necessarily related to other nineteenth-century forms of communication from a distance through new and often invisible channels, including the railway, telegraphy, photography, the telephone and the gramophone. It is this part of a culture which is still in the process of being articulated, and in this respect perhaps the question “Do you believe in telepathy?” need not be regarded as categorically or essentially distinguishable from questions such as “Do you believe in the telephone?” or “Do you believe in television?” Continue reading

Virus Culture: Infection Communication and the Economy of Desire - a talk by Alessandro Ludovico :: April 22, 2008, 7:30 - 9:00 pm :: CIANT Gallery, Křížkovského 18, 130 00, Praha 3 (close to the Žižkov TV Tower).

Perception of viruses stems both from the way we consider the most recent epidemic diseases and from an innate fear of having one’s own body invaded by other efficient organisms, capable of re-arranging their working patterns in order to facilitate infiltration into their host. Perception of spam, as one of the inescapable communication phenomena of our times, is a changing lively part of our everyday infoscape. Spam is extremely pervasive and effective for billions of persons whose (easy to spot and trade) personal and open communication door are infiltrated usually after being verbally titillated. Continue reading

Multiplace - Network Culture Festival - 16 cities / towns in 8 countries + the Internet :: April 26 - May 3, 2008 :: Bahon, Banska Bystrica, Bratislava, Kosice, Nitra, Trnava, Zilina (Slovak Republic), Berlin (Germany), Brno, Prague, Ostrava (Czech Republic), Budapest (Hungary), Glasgow (UK), Novi Sad (Serbia), Reykjavik (Iceland), Wroclaw (Poland).

Multiplace is a network of people and independent organizations interested in the interaction between media, technology, the arts, culture and society. The activities of this network culminate each year in this festival that simultaneously takes place within various independent organizations internationally. Continue reading

SURVIVALL, ‘Sur-viv-all’, is a word which reflects the 3 languages used during the project, which formed part of Andre Lemos’ sabbatical research at University of Alberta - English, French and Portuguese. The joint interest of the artists was to reflect on the relationship between the virtual territories of cyberspace, abstract representations of our worlds and the material conditions of life. In this case, the videos collected along the way show not only suburbia in winter snow but the blanket of private wifi signals, both closed and open which were detected at the beginning and end of each ‘letter’. Continue reading

The Australia Council for the Arts is offering up to $30,000 for a collaborative, embodied art project in a massive multi-user virtual environment (MMUVE). The grant aims to give Australian artists the opportunity to creatively and critically explore interactive, virtual worlds, with a particular focus on the body and interfaces facilitating ‘mixed realities’. The grant allows for a collaborative team of up to three artists (including a digital visual media practitioner) to develop inter-disciplinary artwork in a MMUVE of their choice. Continue reading

[Worldview is an urban installation for tourists that enables them to record their experience with both an instant-print postcard and a video clip and look through realtime windows into public spaces in other cities.] Fitting in with the surveillance theme in the last few posts but also some older work discussed here (World Bench, Miroir Aux Silhouettes, Intimate Transactions and the work of Paul Sermon), Worldview (by Haque Design) allows users to engage with both the spaces around them, subsequent users to the installation and users interacting with a similar installation elsewhere. Continue reading

Building Bridges is the motto of Munich’s 850th birthday. The project A Day in a Life is going to establish virtual bridges: Munich is linked via livestreaming with some parts of the world. The public place Wittelsbacher Platz is connected via image and sound with – since now - the following cities: Curitiba / Brazil, Skopje / Macedonia, Wellington / New Zealand, London / England, Sendai / Japan.

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. 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

Virtual Residency Project - Call for Participation :: Deadline: May 1, 2008 :: Dates of Residency: June 1 - November 4, 2008.

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. Continue reading

EOD 02 _ electric organ discharge 02 :: April 12 - 19, 2008 :: Théâtre de l’Agora, Place de l’Agora - BP 46 F-91002 Evry cedex.

EOD 02 is an installation by Frederik De Wilde created in collaboration with LAb[au]. EOD 02 is a new-media installation exploring the capacity of special species of living blind fishes to perceive (electrosense) their environment and communicate with each other by emitting electric signals, either in pulses or waves. The installation is based on four aquariums of taintless mirror, each presenting a specific composition of fish producing different electric signals. In each aquarium antennas capture the electric communication between the fishes and render these signals into sound. Under each aquarium a matrix of leds is placed pulsing according to the intensity and rhythm of the emitted signals. In this manner the electrical impulses of the fishes drive sound, light and an entire audiovisual space. More info.