Pong - the analog arcade machine (prototype #2: championship evening) - by André Gonçalves :: March 28, 2008; 7:00 pm :: Lisboa20 Arte Contemporânea, Rua Tenente Ferreira Durão 18B (Campo de Ourique).

Arcade machine, 2 joysticks, 2 tvs, coin dispenser, 5 diy arduino based network, 26 led score display, 2 motors, 2 fans, 4 optocoupled h-bridges, 2 printer head mechanics, hair dryer, 2 infra-red sensors, 4 switches, 2 potenciometers, button, 220v 5v relay system, 2 fluorescent lamps, 8 power supplies, wood structure, tripod, video camera. Continue reading

Upgrade! São Paulo: CTRL+ ART + DEL: Artistic experimentations and the related technological context -Fabio Oliveira Nunes :: March 29, 2008, 7:30 pm @ i-People: Av Vergueiro 727, next to the Vergueiro Subway Station.

It is suggested a reflection about the artistic production in media art where its context with its several levels - social, public, technological or economic - is fundamental part of its proposition. The objective of this presentation is to think about in which circumstances the technological art can act in questionings of the daily life and the technology itself. Continue reading

Upgrade! Paris: Interfaces, Interactivity & Movement - Collectif Trafik + Jocelyn Cottencin (moderator) :: March 11, 2008; 8 pm :: LE CUBE - ART3000 20, Cours Saint Vincent 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux (RER C - station “Issy”).

Trafik is a multi-talented and interactive graphic and multimedia design agency. Interaction between the 5 partners, whose talent and know-how complement each other, and enable them to fully command and develop new technologies. Also enables the development of new concepts for institutional, cultural and industrial clients. Continue reading

Upgrade! Boston: Caleb Larsen :: March 20, 2008; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: North 181 - entrance on Evans Way [map], Massachusetts College of Art and Design, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston. [Follow the signs posted on the outside of the Tower Building (black glass) [Green Line “E”].

Caleb Larsen is an artist working digitally and physically through prints, sculpture, software, and installation. He has a BFA in painting and is currently an MFA student in the Digital Media program at the Rhode Island School of Design. His work explores the interval that exists between digital life and physical life and the social paradigmatic shifts experienced culturally as a result of the collective consciousness of the internet. Continue reading

Upgrade! Tel Aviv - Jerusalem - Power, Violence, Motion, Speed: Art and Technology through Futurism by Duprass (Liora Belford and Ido Govrin) :: Opening and Live Performance: March 1, 2008; 2 pm :: Meeting with the Artists and Closing: March 13, 2008; 8 pm :: Daila, Shlomzion Hamalka 4, Jerusalem.

The Futurist Manifesto wished to construct a new aesthetic model which would suit the modern world. The typical representation of that aesthetic was the machine and especially the modern modes of transportation. The aim of the manifesto was to encourage the driving forces behind those modern technological symbols: Force, Violence, Motion and Speed; in order to release the world from the investigation of the ancient past. Continue reading

Upgrade! São Paulo: Rosangella Leote -Work in Progress in the Art of New Media :: February 25, 2008, 7:30 pm @ i-People: Av Vergueiro 727, next to the Vergueiro Subway Station.

The new media art has presented a particular quality that seems to characterize most of the artists that are involved with its production. That quality is that the distance between the moment of the insight that generates the art work and the moment of its production is much bigger than its exhibition time. It has been noticed that several factors contribute for that, but a factor that stands out among them is that: the work, which usually seems to be in the drawer, is indeed in continuous state of transformation. Therefore, the intention of this presentation is to discuss the works in progress, characterizing them as art works inside a certain temporal point of view, from their conception until after their implementation.

Upgrade! Brussels/Ghent: the game is up! Art for Sale :: March 5-15, 2008 :: Vooruit Arts Centre, Ghent - Belgium.

Experience Art for Sale in the literal sense of the word with the arcade games trail in the Vooruit building. Just put a coin in your arcade game of choice and take a piece of art – of varying value – home with you. The game is up! asked all the participating artists to design art objects especially for the festival. Continue reading

Upgrade! Boston: Bill Seaman :: February 26, 2008; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: North 181 - entrance on Evans Way [map], Massachusetts College of Art and Design, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston. [Follow the signs posted on the outside of the Tower Building (black glass) [Green Line “E”].

Bill Seaman explores Recombinant Poetics through installations, virtual reality, video, computer controlled laserdisc, and other computer-based media. Major new works include the Hybrid Invention Generator, an exploration of machinic genetics with collaborator Gideon May; two site specific works, Epiphany / Zjavenie, Trnava, Slovakia; and a piece for P0es1s: Aesthetics of Digital Poetry, Berlin, Germany. Continue reading

Upgrade! Paris: Economie 0 :: February 15, 2008; 8 pm (CET) - February 17; 8 pm (CET) For 48 hours non stop! :: La Menagerie de Verre, 12-14 rue Lechevin, Paris 11 and Ars Longa, 67 avenue Parmentier, Paris 11 M° Parmentier :: Free admission.

This special issue of Upgrade! Paris aims to question the relations between Art and Economy: the value of the work of art; the autonomy of the practices, of the artistic production and diffusion; the emerging alternative models; the notions of expense and loss, with a litmus test of the idea of neutralizing the artistic economy. Continue reading

Upgrade! Scotland: Cathie Boyd & Martin Naef :: January 30, 2008; 7.30 - 9.30 pm :: CCA, Sauchiehall St, Glasgow.

Cathie Boyd, Artistic Director of Theatre Cryptic and Martin Naef, Research Programmer will talk about their collaborative project Living Canvas, which uses real-time projection to enable a performer to “wear virtual costumes”. These can then adapt to the body, or even provide a different face. The system enables a dynamic or even improvised performance by detecting the posture and silhouette of the performer and projecting imagery precisely to the selected parts of the body. Continue reading