To complement the exhibition Synthetic Times: Media Art China 2008, a Beijing Olympics Cultural project opening at the National Art Museum of China in June 2008, media art pundits debate imminent topical issues revolving around the exhibition themes: Beyond Body; Emotive Digital; The Recombinant Reality; and Here, There and Everywhere at Synthetic Times: Media Art Now. With an introduction by Zhang Ga, artistic director and curator. The evening event kicks off a pre-exhibition symposium (April 15) held at Parsons, the New School for Design, and EYEBEAM, in conjunction with the National Art Museum of China. Continue reading

The winners of the Turbulence supported ShiftSpace Commissions Program have been announced. In The Space category the winners are:

1st Place - Yeas & Nays: A ShiftSpace widget for calling representatives by Christian Croft ($2000) - A ShiftSpace that allows a citizen to call her representative from any webpage, record her call and publish it on that very page. Yeas & Nays attempts to promote civic responsibility and a democratic discourse and make our citizen duty just a bit easier. This space combines ShiftSpace’s power to layer commentary above existing contexts with advances in VoIP telephony to build a tool for informed civic action. It layers the citizen’s act of calling an official on top of online information substantiating her argument. Continue reading

Kunstensite vzw and Courtisane Festival present the mini-symposium Mediakunst 2.0 with Geert Lovink and Mark Amerika focusing on the changing shape and repositioning of media-art in the age of Web 2.0.

In a string of fast paced mini-lectures and presentations, Amerika and Lovink will explore some of the recent tendencies within both the field of media-art as well as popular digital culture. They will attempt to maneuver through the hype and trends emanating from these emerging fields while taking into account broader cultural and historical perspectives. Continue reading

Theory + Practice curated by Evonne M. Davis; Networked curated by Donna Kessinger, New Media Room; If So, Then So! New Work by Kevin Darmanie, Project Room :: April 19 - May 17, 2008 :: Opening Reception: April 19, 7 -10 pm :: Gallery Aferro 73 Market St Newark NJ .

“There are no countries now.” From artist Alan Bigelow’s When I was President :: Theory+ Practice is an acknowledgment, interrogation and fete of the void between what the world could be and what it is. Web artist and writer Alan Bigelow’s piece, When I was President is an interactive projection that details a presidency ended by a suicide bomber: ‘a high school teacher from Des Moines.’ ‘She said it was the only way to make the world right again.’ Continue reading

Upgrade! Paris: Marswalkers - Peter Brabeck, Sadaki kajiwara, Anne Laforet (Moderator) :: April 4, 2008; 8 pm :: La Cantine numérique, 151 rue Montmartre, 75002 Paris (M° Grands Boulevards (8,9) or Bourse (3)).

Les Marswalkers font des images et se demandent pourquoi ils font des images. Ils archivent de l’information numérique, comme tout le monde, et se demandent pourquoi le vivant tend à disparaître tandis que son archivage ne cesse de croître. Ils sont polyvalents, polyglotes, poly-pluridisciplinaires, sans prétention de sauver le monde. Le dimanche ils ont loisirs à photographier, numériser, programmer, googliser, percer-scier-visser, brainstormer… est composé de Karl-Otto von Oertzen & Alexandre Berthier. Continue reading

AREA 10 Project Space, Peckham presents () RE | BOOT - the launch event of Area10’s new media media platform: AREA 10: MEDIALAB /> :: Live Event and Opening: April 12, 2008; 7:00 pm - film screenings, live performances, interactions, vjing, sound art, experimental and electronic noise music :: April 11-12; 11 am - 5 pm - activities include workshops, lectures presentations being held alongside an exhibition of digital and interactive arts :: Area 10 Project Space, Eagle Wharf, Peckham Square, London SE15 5JT (White building behind Peckham Library). Continue reading

Holy Fire. Art of the Digital Age - curated by Yves Bernard & Domenico Quaranta :: April 18 – 30, 2008 :: iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, Bruxelles.

iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology is proud to present Holy Fire. Art of the Digital Age a collective exhibition featuring a unique panel of digital artworks created in the last years by internationally known new media artists, and coming from galleries and collections from around the world (USA, Europe, Russia). Holy Fire is an attempt to explore how new media art, bypassing all the stereotypes connected with its presumed immateriality and difficulties of maintenance, was able to enter the art market. Continue reading

Spirit Surfers - Kevin Bewersdorf and Paul Slocum :: Until May 4 :: Reception: March 22, 2008; 7 - 10 pm (the artists will be in attendance) :: Live electronic music by BUBBLYFISH at 8.30pm (free) :: vertexList, 138 Bayard Street, Brooklyn, NY.

Exhibited works by Kevin Bewersdorf include: Two videos for the Mitchell Chiropractic Clinic Separated by Eighteen Years (two channel video) and Maximum Sorrow Throw Blanket #2 (digitally produced quilt). Also in the show Four Seasons (gicle print on canvas) and You’re Not My Father (video) by Paul Slocum. Both artists will collaborate on the launch of a brand new web-surfing club Spirit Surfers, which will premiere at the opening reception. Continue reading

LIVE - Radical Software Group (Alexander R. Galloway) and MTAA (Mike Sarff & Tim Whidden), Natalie Bookchin, Aphid Stern, Michael Dale, Karen Finley, Siebren Versteeg and Ben Rubin :: April 3 – June 7, 2008 :: Opening Reception: April 3, 6:30 – 9:00 pm :: Beall Center for Art & Technology, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, University of California, Irvine, CA :: curated by David Familian.

What is the meaning of “live” when the majority of our day-to-day interactions are so mediated? LIVE features seven artists who sample and transform data, photographs and video from the Internet and incorporate it into their sculptures and installations. Continue reading

DRAIN - CALL FOR ENTRIES: In 1955, Guy Debord described psychogeography as “the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.” Debord’s psychogeographical map The Naked City (1957) challenged traditional ideas of mapping relating to scale, location, and fixity, and drew on the work of urban social geographer Paul-Henri Chombart de Lauwe’s concept of the city as a conglomeration of distinct quarters, each with its own special function, class divisions, and “physiognomy,” which linked the idea of the urban plan to the body. An important strategy of the pyschogeographical was the dérive, “a technique of transient passage through varied ambiences”. Continue reading