Fictive Days is a two-week performance studio for the collective research of fictional characters. Taking place during the New Life Berlin Festival in June 2008, six to eight artists/researchers will be selected to live and work closely together in a large Berlin apartment. To participate in the project, you must apply to be a mainstream film character. For two full weeks you must adopt the identity of this character and always act as you believe this character would.

During the course of Fictive Days, everyday functions in the project apartment will be arranged solely on the structures of famous film scenes involving the performing characters. Consequently, everything that happens during the two weeks can be understood as a scene. Continue reading

Arc of “The Surrogates” - A contemporary performance art piece by Eva and Franco Mattes (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG) via MTAA.

sur•ro•gate transitive verb: to put in the place of another: to appoint as successor, deputy, or substitute for oneself

On Friday April 11, 2008 as part of its monthly curatorial project, art collective MTAA premiered The Surrogates, a performance art piece exploring the nature of perceived identity and representation, credited to European-based art collective 0100101110101101.ORG (in absentia).

Presented at MTAA’s OTO art space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the two-hour piece began at 7 p.m. with an open bar and velvet rope welcoming attendees in the hallway. Continue reading

Living Room :: Flux Factory in collaboration with openhousenewyork :: October 4-5, 2008 :: Deadline: May 10, 2008.

Living Room is a continuation of Flux Factory’s interest in the urban experience, in New York history, and in the overlap between private and public space. Being a live / work collective, we are fascinated by what it means to inhabit a space, to make it one’s own. We want to invite artists to play with the notion of belonging to a home, and claiming a space as one’s own. So we’re going to give artists the opportunity to go into someone else’s home and make it their own, aesthetically. Continue reading

No Place - like Home. Perspectives on Migration in Europe :: April 15 - June 21, 2008 :: Opening: April 12; 6 - 9 pm :: Argos - Centre for Art and Media, Werfstraat 13 rue du Chantier, B – 1000 Brussels.

The group exhibition No Place - like Home: Perspectives on Migration in Europe features eighteen Belgian and international artists. Their videos, photographic works and installations take a closer look at what lies under the surface of the migration issue. Migration is a thing of all ages. Where Europeans once colonized various continents and emigrated en masse to other lands both in and beyond their own continent, movement from the opposite direction has now taken hold. Capital, goods and information circulate freely in the late-capitalist, globalized world economy. Continue reading

Roberto Aguirrezabala. Net.art 1998 - 2008 :: until April 6, 2008 :: The Huarte Contemporary Art Centre, Huarte (Navarra), Spain :: Curators: Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana.

The Huarte Art Centre is pleased to announce the first net.art solo exhibition by Spanish artist Roberto Aguirrezabala. His works are focused in his two fetishes subjects: the concept of identity and the interpersonal relations in the age of Internet. His projects avoid the stereotype of the website, do not exhibit banners or navigational menu and manage to address the user towards unforeseen thematics developments. The show displays three net.art works: Continue reading

Ars Virtua presents Need, an emerging artists exhibition in collaboration with the ICAM program at the University of California San Diego :: March 20, 2008; 7 pm SLT :: Second Life (Teleport).

The idea of a separate set of needs for ones Second Life is both absurd and fundamental. Abraham Maslow provides an interesting hierarchy for us that other than a few differences lays over the synthetic world very nicely, however avatars are not the people they represent and as such do not have the same needs. The Virtual Environments class at UCSD takes a look at the difference and similarity in this space, this borderland between avatar and human and reflects on different aspects of need for both. Continue reading

CHINA CHINA CHINA!!! - CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART
BEYOND THE GLOBAL MARKET :: March 21 - May 4, 2008 :: Strozzina Contemporary Culture Center, Florence (Italy).

CHINA CHINA CHINA!!! will present the work of 18 contemporary Chinese artists from three different cities - Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou - who are all seeking to define a new cultural identity unfettered by the rules of the global market. A publication (published by Silvana Editoriale) and a series of lectures are planned with the exhibition. This event ties in with the exhibition on the first floor of Palazzo Strozzi, devoted to the Tang dynasty, universally recognized as a high point in Chinese civilization and central to the Chinese Renaissance. Continue reading

NEW LIFE BERLIN FESTIVAL: Call for Artists :: Deadline for Applications: May 1, 2008.

NEW LIFE BERLIN is a participatory art festival dedicated to new modes of moving and existing. Curated from the online art community WOOLOO.ORG, NEW LIFE BERLIN aims to connect the critical resources of a global network of artists with a specific geographical location of importance to today”s cultural production.

INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR ARTISTS: Artists working in all mediums are encouraged to apply for participation in NEW LIFE BERLIN. All applications must be made online. Continue reading

European Media Art Festival: Identity :: April 23 - 27, 2008 :: Osnabrueck, Germany.

The motto of this year’s European Media Art Festival is IDENTITY. Besides focusing on the issue of one’s own identity in a globalised world, the general changes associated with the expansion of digital technologies into all areas of private and public life will also be under discussion.

The festival shows film as a contemporary work of art in cinemas and exhibitions, both performed and multimedia. As an important forum for international Media Art, films, videos, performances, multimedia installations and digital media, such as DVD and internet, will be presented. Continue reading

I’ve finally managed to find the time to read Mike Crang and Stephen Graham’s recent paper, Sentient Cities: Ambient intelligence and the politics of urban space — and it’s really good!

As I’ve said many times, Graham’s work on networked urbanism is superb, and Crang’s work on space, culture and ethnography is also exemplary. Compared to American accounts that draw on cybernetics and systems-thinking in architecture and urban planning (think Bill Mitchell, Malcolm McCullough, etc.) I find the British cultural geography approach (following Nigel Thrift, Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge) far better attuned to the variety and complexity of everyday lived experience, and the connections between place and identity (i.e. power) over time. Continue reading