Upgrade! San Diego: Ben Van Dyke :: November 16, 2011; 7:30 – 8:30 pm :: sdspace 4 art, 325 15th Street (between J and K), East Village, San Diego, CA. Continue reading

Upgrade! Zagreb: Anne Roquigny and WJ-S Workshop :: October 3-7, 2011 :: net club mama, Preradoviceva 18, Zagreb, Croatia.

DJs / VJs / WJs — WJ-S is a software and a flexible public device for web performances allowing WJs (webjays, artists, curators, web addicts, web mutants…) to play live with online text, sound and visual… WJs take the control of a multiscreens environment and surf at distance in different browser windows simultaneously. WJ-S is a visible and collective experience of the surf. WJ-S is an immersive experience in the flux. Continue reading

Upgrade! San Diego: Kim Stringfellow :: October 19, 2011; 7:30 pm :: Space4Art, 325 15th Street, San Diego, CA :: Free and open to the public. There will be a cash bar!

Kim Stringfellow will join us in the opening event to launch the San Diego node. She will talk about her current work addressing ecological, historical, and activist issues related to land use and the built environment.

Kim Stringfellow is an artist and educator residing in Joshua Tree, California. Her professional practice and research interests address ecological, historical, and activist issues related to land use and the built environment through hybrid documentary forms incorporating writing, digital media, photography, audio, video, installation, mapping, and locative media. Continue reading

Upgrade! Chicago: Chris Cuellar :: October 4, 2011; 7:00 pm :: The Nightingale 1084 N. Milwaukee, Chicago, IL.

Chris Cuellar will be presenting on a series he recently organized for the Art21 blog where he transformed the guest column into a practical art-making resource as well as a vehicle for the un-distribution of existing works. He asked a small group of artists to give away their secrets in the form of online tutorials. Each how-to is meant to give the reader enough information to accurately reproduce the project presented. Furthermore, in order to reduce issues of artistic ownership, each artist’s contribution has been more or less ‘anonymized’ before posting, with as many overt references to the the individual artist or original project removed as possible. Continue reading

Upgrade! Chicago: Juanjose Rivas :: August 27, 2011; 7:00 pm :: The Nightingale 1084 N. Milwaukee, Chicago, IL.

Juanjose Rivas is a Noise && Dirty New Media Artist based in Mexico City. His experimental musics, video art projects and realtime audio video performances have been screened and performed internationally. From his recent performance at BENT Festival in NYC to his current and previous engagements in the Chicago scene, Rivas brings a visceral digitalPunk energy to every event. For his screening at the Nightingale, he will be showing selections from his personal and collaborative projects. Continue reading

Monetary Utopias with Jaromil & Marco Sachy, Enric Duran, Christian Nold, Mansour Ciss Kanakassy, Baruch Gottlieb :: CONFERENCE: MCDate – le café numérique | Upgrade! Paris with Mal au Pixel Festival; June 17, 2011; 7:00 pm :: Maison des Métallos, 94 Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris + and on Digitalarti live stream.

For its sixth edition, Mal au Pixel Festival — dedicated to the Open Source and DIY Cultures — looks at the issue of alternative money and currencies through a series of public lectures. This conferences panel is associated to an exhibition at Plateforme Gallery, with Paolo Cirio, Baruch Gottlieb & Mansour Ciss Kanakassy, DYNDY, Christian Nold. Continue reading

Upgrade! Paris: Anne Laforet — on the occasion of the publication of Le netart au musée – Stratégies de conservation des Å“uvres en ligne (Questions Théoriques) :: June 5, 2011; 6:00 pm :: Les Douches, 5 rue Legouvré, 75010 Paris.

With some museums acquiring net art works in the recent years, issues of preservation and exhibition have arisen. On the one hand, the digital materials of these works are fragile and continually on the verge of obsolescence. On the other hand, these works have to be online and activated by their audience to be full works of art. Preservation is both related to the material dimension of the artwork but also is a dialog with the artist and the museum. Continue reading

Upgrade! Boston: Dietmar Offenhuber: Diagrammatic Reasoning :: May 24, 2011; 7:00 pm :: MIT Media Lab (E14), 6th Floor, Room 633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts (map).

Abstract: Charles Sanders Peirce conceived the notion of diagrammatic reasoning as a method of inquiry through diagrammatic operations, emphasizing the fundamentally spatial and sensory nature of language and thought. This talk will show a selection of my projects that employ diagrammatic principles in a variety of time-based, spatial, and software formats.

Dietmar Offenhuber is a media artist and research fellow in the Senseable City Lab at the Department for Urban Studies and Planning, MIT. He has backgrounds in architecture, urban studies and digital media and works on the spatial aspects of cognition, representation and behavior. Continue reading

Upgrade! Paris #44 — Public presentation at the occasion of the exhibition Relaxation situationnelle, with The Wa & Jérôme Fino :: April 27, 2011; 5:00 pm :: Ateliers Lorette, 1 place Lorette – 13002 Marseille.

Technocratic management of public spaces considers the body as an object that interferes with flow regulation. Citizens are patronized, attacked by these anti-ergonomic devices. Space is degrading / degraded. Today, public space ceases to be a shared space. It embodies the violence of powers. — Gilles Paté

The french law of 21 January 1995 laid the foundation for the prevention of malice in the planning and construction. Continue reading

UPGRADE! PARIS #42 /DEV/ART/#8: Benjamin Gaulon aka RECYCLISM :: March 18, 2011; 7:00 – 11:00 pm :: Blackboxe, 17 rue de la Chapelle, 75018, Paris.

Benjamin Gaulon received a degree in Visual Communication from l’École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg and a MFA in Interactive Media & Environment from the Frank Mohr Institute. During his time at the Frank Mohr Institute, he developed several high profile projects, including de Pong Game, the Recycling Entertainment System, the PrintBall and Corrupt. After Graduating Gaulon started leading D.A.T.A (Dublin Art and Technology Association) and co-founded the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA) in 2007. Continue reading