Willem de Ridder has been pioneering his entire life in the arts and the media. In the beginning of the sixties he brought in Holland all the modern young composers together in the MES (Mood Engineering Society), which resulted in the very first art performances and happenings. He became chairman for Northern Europe of Fluxus, started the First European Mail Order Warehouse for Fluxus works and made with Wim T. Schippers a national television program in which Holland heard for the first time about pop art, fluxus, zero, and his own anti-art activities. In 1965 he started a national newspaper in which everybody could publish anything they wanted. It caused a revolution in medialand (like internet now). Together with friends he started Paradiso and Fantasio, two clubs in which everybody could jump on stage and do whatever they wanted. Soon there were 150 of those clubs all over the country.

Together with English media adventurers like Jim Haynes, Germaine Greer, William Levy and Heathcote Williams he started SUCK, the First European Sexpaper, the beginning of the sexual revolution. They organised also the very first sexfilm festivals in Amsterdam, with visitors from all over the world. When he discovered how reading and writing had fatal effects on our society, he stopped with the newspapers and moved to the capital city of the image culture: Hollywood. There he started making weekly radio shows without any scripts for Holland. He developed the very first audio tours, before the walkman was invented. Then he made a radioshow in which the listeners were asked to sit in their car, turn on the radio and follow his instructions. About 30.000 of them started driving in the middle of the night having an adventure they would never forget.

Together with Max Lobckovicz, Shirley and Paul Eberle he made the first magazines in America in which everybody could publish anything they wanted about their sexlife. With Queen Adrena he introduced the first erotic telephone lines. He also made the very first magazine with sound in Hollywood, and so he went on and on.

In Holland he is called the Master Story Teller so you will hang on his lips, thumb in your mouth, time vanishes and space will disappear.

He is going to tell his entire story in TELIC Arts Exchange. Among others about his illegal exhibition in the MOMA.

Upcoming Gravity Art events:
April 19 - Time-Based Conceptual Art symposium at UCLA
http://www.telic.info/time-based-conceptual-art-symposium.yeah
April 26 - Erik Wesselo presentation
http://www.telic.info/erik-wesselo.yeah
April 26 - final screening of Here is Always Somewhere Else
http://www.telic.info/here-is-always-somewhere-else.yeah

The following discussion, led by Jelena, considers the impact of the networked performance Radioballet and the ethics of collective action, not least with the absence of material and reciprocal relationships limiting expressions of solidarity. It was recorded 14/07/07 with the participants Rael Artel, Anna azar, Karol Sienkiewicz, Margus Tamm, Airi Triisberg and Andreas Trossek, in the workshop on ‘Collectives, Actions, Re-enactments’ held as part of the ‘Exercises on Adhocracy’ camp in Parnu, Estonia…” From Miraculous Mass-communication - Radioballet by LIGNA, Variant issue 31.

Radioballet gegen die Nato Sicherheitskonferenz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAr7_kcZE4k

The free radio group LIGNA exists since 1997. In several shows and performances they have been investigating the importance of dispersal in radio as well as of the radio. One of the main focuses is to refer to forgotten and remote possibilities of radio use in order to develop new forms of interactive practices (Mental Radio Show). Another emphasis has been placed on the development of concepts and the production of performative audio plays (Labyrinthe und Interferenzen), in order to find out how radio can intervene in public and controlled spaces, so that its public nature reappears in the form of uncontrollable situations (Radioballett: Übung in unnötigem Aufenthalt).

Radio Ballet Leipzig Main station Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpT-wb3TPXk

New technologies constantly emerge as mediums for artistic practice and thus, bring forth a reconsideration of terms and redrawing of territories. RFID, WiFi, WiMAX, networked objects, reactive spaces, distributed actions, and psycho-geographic interventions are amongst a few contemporary artistic strategies and technologies that touch the borders of what once encompassed free103point9’s scope for Transmission Arts. Furthermore, there is always room for stretching non-technological conceptual definitions of Transmission Arts.

In light of such ongoing developments, free103point9 recognizes the need to engage a practice of inquiry that reaches beyond it’s own organizational limits of understanding. We are inviting practitioners and supporters involved with transmission ideas and activities to expand or challenge our articulation of Transmission Arts. Please help us expand our practices and galvanize our community by taking a few minutes to share your experience with us.

To submit your work for inclusion in free103point9’s archive of Transmission Arts (contemporary artist and works), please submit the following text to archive [at] free103point9.org with a subject header (Transmission Works) by the deadline March 15, 2008:
• Artist statement and links/documentation to specific works with titles and description of works. (500 word max)
• A response to, or definition of, the term “Transmission Arts.” (500 word max) Historical works and artist cited as influences. (500 word max)

2. The second tier of this archive will seek contributions from artist, curators, writers, and researchers to reflect, critique, consider, and respond to specific issues and topics related to transmission. We are inviting artists, scholars or curators working with New Media, Sound, Performance, Inter-media, Conceptual Art, Video, Installation, Social Activism, or Collective Strategies to identify artists (historical or contemporary) relevant to a discussion of Transmission Arts and to interject and engage in a larger discussion on Transmission Arts as a genre.

To learn more about this conversation, please submit a short bio (300 word max) with a general inquiry to archive@free103point9.org subject heading (Transmission Arts Discussion) by March 15, 2008.

free103point9 is a non-profit arts organization focused on establishing and cultivating the genre Transmission Arts. free103point9 activities support and promote artists exploring transmission mediums for creative expression.

The Solent Centre for Architecture + Design, in partnership with London based media art innovators Hive Networks and artist Armin Medosch, have been working with Southampton City Council’s Oral History Unit on Hidden Histories, a unique project that turns the city itself into a giant outdoor gallery.

Hidden Histories makes accessible some of the highs and lows of Southampton’s 20th Century history, the glory of great ships and journeys as well as the disasters and long forgotten tales. Hidden Histories will uncover those treasures through a revolutionary new concept of Street Radio. This is a totally new way of experiencing the city. The system utilises wireless communication technologies such as WIFI and Bluetooth in combination with FM radio to create a public interface to the city’s heritage. A selection of stories from the Oral History Unit will be broadcast from 10 nodal points linked together to form a media rich walk that transports people through the changing life of the city. Following the success of the pilot scheme it is hoped that the project can be extended further not only in Southampton but to other towns and cities as well.

Read more research notes by Armin Medosch.

Press contact: Rosie Danby 023 8028 3053 rosie [at] solentcentre.org.uk
The Solent Centre for Architecture and Design, 30a High Street, Lyndhurst Hampshire SO43 7BG

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

This fourth edition of NOW explores three dimensions of the new urban condition: the conquest of the radio-electric space, the recovery of the public space and the city as an ecological challenge. Imminent changes in the way digital society is managed, resistance to the depoliticised city and the challenge of sustainable urban development are three interconnected processes that require greater knowledge, creativity and commitment from more and more citizens.

The Invisible Conquest: a Social and Cultural History of Hertzian Space with Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Honor Harger, Armin Medosch and William J. Mitchell; Coordinated and moderated by José Luis de Vicente; November 29 at 7 pm, Hall.

The radio-electric spectrum—the field of electromagnetic waves in which radio and television transmissions, mobile telephone and GPS signals, Wi-Fi networks and much more circulate—is the information society’s building land. Its increasing conquest and colonisation over the course of the 20th century has transformed both the way cities are articulated and the relations between individuals. Nonetheless, we know little about this spectrum: who owns it, how it is governed, how its use is decided. Despite being a supposedly scarce and precious resource, the way it is regulated is rarely subjected to processes involving public scrutiny.

Two years from the “Digital Switchover”—when all radio and TV transmissions will go completely digital—more and more voices are demanding far-reaching changes in the way the radio-electric spectrum is managed, calling for greater emphasis on its dimension as a public and community space and for more social players to be allowed access to it, especially now that we are all broadcasters, at least to some extent. “Open spectrum” activists also point out that the shortage of airwave frequencies that makes it necessary to regulate the system is inherited from an outdated technology model that, if redesigned, could open up a new era of “infinite broadband”.

Reclaiming the City: Street Art, Graphic Dissidence and Counter Advertising with Richard Sennett, Steve Lambert and Pierre Humeau; Coordinated and moderated by the RiSc Observatory; November 30 at 7 pm, Hall.

More and more, the contemporary city is becoming a privatised, depoliticised city, a permanent shop window for products on sale and commercial messages that hinder interaction in equal conditions, political negotiation and collective representation. We move around and consume the public space of the neo-liberal city, but we hardly use it. This is a reflection we make during our travels through the space in which we find messages written in dissonant tones. Artistic and counter-advertising interventions in the urban space alerts us against consumerist hypnotism and encourages us to question rules that penalise different ways of thinking, seeing and creating.

Neurotica: Habitat. The contemporary Habitat Faced by Climate Chaos with Václav Cílek, Alex Steffen and Joan Rieradevall with the special participation of Vandana Shiva; Coordinated by Capsula; December 1 at 7.30 pm, Hall.

By 2008 it is predicted that, for the first time in human history, most of the world’s population will live in the cities. The objective of the second phase of the Neurotica project is to study the metabolism of urban habitats and the possibilities that ecological innovation can improve the quality of life in the mega-cities and surrounding rural areas. The challenge is to find solutions in preventing the countryside from being turned into a controlled market garden devoted to producing food and energy products for the city, and to slow down trends toward hyper-consumerism.

Is technical and scientific development the environmental solution or the cause behind unsustainability? What is society’s view of our advance towards climate chaos?

NOW is a working platform that will take place at the CCCB from 2006 to 2009. The project reflects on the present on the basis of the scientific, technological, artistic, social and spiritual transformations taking place at the start of the 21st century — because today it is no longer possible to explain art and culture without interiorizing scientific concepts and working with a systemic view of the world. NOW is a process of research, creation and diffusion bringing together different local and international agents involved in promoting a change of paradigm in the information and knowledge society and in globalized cultures.

network performance: I’m sitting under an antenna okno - 3-4 pm: As part of the Radiophonic festival and the opening of the new space, OKNO presents I’m sitting under an antenna. Four locations connect over the free wireless network Reseau Citoyen. They form a sonic link, streaming their sounds to one another, performing together on the rhythm of the network. For OKNO, Isjtar researches virtual cities, that grow and pulse, perturbated by the other parts of the chain. At Maison de la Creation Stéphanie Laforce and Bruno Devuyst improvise on sonorous objects for an electroacoustical performance. Their performance will only be available online. At the old RTT building, a group of musicians holds a single tone for three days, 24 hours a day. At the Brigitinnes, Givan Bela and Ivan Markoff mix and present the project in realtime. Concept and production by Annemie Maes, Olivier Meunier and David Kowalkowski. http://www.ogeem.be http://ecurie.be

peopledatabase slowscan transmission - 3 - 7 pm: The peopledatabase is an online meeting place for artists, philosophers, musicians, writers and other interested participants. The archive, composed of hundreds of passport photographs, is used as a mirror. It provokes an answer given by the multiple collaborators. Initiated in 2000, it is considered as a growing social structure for cultural exchange. For the Radiophonic Festival, so-on/collective proposes a series of new readings out of the People Database. New York soundscapes create the background for the poems by the New York writer Kristin Prevallet. Her contributions are infiltrated by viruses and as such the original texts and language will be slowly transformed. Stream & radio panik 105.4 FM.

Slowscan television is a picture transmission method which makes a picture visible for a few seconds. It’s used mainly by amateur radio operators to transmit and receive static pictures via radio. A realtime reading of the full database will link the slowscanned passport images to the online contributions,thus creating an onsite/online experience. Make your online contribution to the peopledatabase.

screenbased concrete - 3 - 7 pm: Screenbased Concrete is a technical experiment initiated by Pieter Heremans. The properties of physical space get analysed due to a projected sequence of bit maps. This analysis of geometrical settings of objects is used to map projections on existing / real / build 3D structures and researches as such the evolution of surface textures towards a projected image. Reality is modeled into a new perception.

OKNO - artist run organisation for art and mediatechnology - brussels - opens its 07/08 season in a new space - A small but flexible space, with an accessible terrace for outdoor events, grants us the right setting for developing our upcoming projects. From its initial mission on OKNO wants to bring interesting phenomena in contemporary and experimental media under the attention of a broad audience. In addition to that it wants to develop new ways for creating, exhibiting and disseminating art. Art is a pars-pro-toto for culture. OKNO considers it constructed and constructable, and in constant (ex)change.

San Jose Semaphore is a permanent public artwork created by artist Ben Rubin. It was commissioned by Adobe Systems Incorporated in collaboration with the City of San Jose’s Office of Cultural Affair’s Public Art Program.

Located within the top floors of Adobe’s Almaden Tower headquarters in San Jose, California, San Jose, the work is a multi-sensory kinetic artwork that illuminates the San Jose skyline with the transmission of a coded message. The content of the San Jose Semaphore’s message was a mystery; and cracking the encryption technique and deciphering the message was posed as a challenge for the public. To the first person or group to successfully crack the code, Adobe promised to award bragging rights and acknowledgment on both the Adobe website and the San Jose Semaphore website.

Two research scientists from San Jose, Mark Snesrud and Bob Mayo, submitted their solution to the encoded message on September 8, 2006. One year after the launch of the Semaphore, they remain the only ones to have found the solution. Click on “Challenge” here to read their stories.

Ben Rubin is a media artist based in New York City. Mr. Rubin’s exhibitions include shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the MIT List Visual Arts Center, and the Skirball Center in Los Angeles (in a show organized by the Getty Museum). He has been a frequent collaborator with artists and performers including Laurie Anderson, Diller+Scofidio, Ann Hamilton, Arto Lindsay, Steve Reich, and Beryl Korot. Rubin’s Listening Post (2002, with statistician Mark Hansen) won the 2004 Golden Nica Prize from Ars Electronica, and was acquired by the San Jose Museum of Art in 2006. Mr. Rubin received a B.A. from Brown University in 1987 and an M.S. in visual studies from the MIT Media Lab in 1989. Rubin teaches at the Yale School of Art.

Thanks to information aesthetics

Taking cue from the subtitle of Rubén Ortiz-Torres’ blog, Saturday’s conversation is a live rant about art and culture across borders in the post colonial era. Ruben Ortiz-Torres was born in Mexico City in 1964 and has been living / working in Los Angeles since 1990. He was educated within the utopian models of republican Spanish anarchism confronted by the tragedies and cultural clashes of the post colonial third world. After giving up the dream of playing major league baseball, he decided to study art.
After enduring Mexico City’s earthquake and pollution Ortiz-Torres moved to L.A. with a Fulbright grant to survive riots, fires, floods, more earthquakes, and proposition 187. During all of this, he has produced artwork in the form of paintings, photographs, objects, installations, videos, and films which, since 1982 have been featured internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions. He is part of the permanent Faculty of the University of California in San Diego.

WUNP 95.2 FM is a radio station produced by neuroTransmitter (Valerie Tevere + Angel Nevarez) for United Nations Plaza. WUNP is a portal for broadcasting audio works, conversations, and conceptual radio projects. Over the course of the summer and fall of 2007 WUNP will be on air across Berlin and beyond through internet stream on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays beginning at 6 PM CEST (Berlin) through November.

Local broadcast times: 9-11am Honolulu / 11am-1pm Anchorage / 12-2pm Los Angeles, Vancouver / 1-3pm San Salvador / 2-4pm Bogota, Mexico City / 3-5pm Montreal, New York / 4-6pm Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo / 4:30-6:30pm St. John’s / 7-9pm Casablanca, Reykjavik / 8-10pm Algiers, Dublin, London / 9-11pm Berlin, Rome, Zagreb / 10pm-12am Beirut, Istanbul, Nairobi, Ramallah / 11pm-1am Baghdad / 11:30pm-1:30am Tehran / +1 day — 12-2am Islamabad, Moscow / 1-3am Dhaka / 1:30-3:30am Mumbai, New Delhi / 2-4am Chiang Mai, Hanoi / 3-5am Beijing / 4-6am Seoul, Taipei, Tokyo / 5-7am Sydney / 6-8am Vladivostok / 7-9am Auckland / 8-10am Anadyr / 9-11am Christmas Island /

United Nations Plaza is organized by Anton Vidokle in collaboration with Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Martha Rosler, Walid Raad, Jalal Toufic, Nikolaus Hirsch, Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Tirdad Zolghadr.

For further information, please contact:

Ms. Magdalena Magiera
unitednationsplaza
Platz der Vereinten Nationen 14a
Berlin 10249 GermanyUNP
T. +49 (0)30 700 89 0 90
F. +49 (0)30 700 89 0 85