TX-AP is a joint initiative between media activists in Australia and Indonesia. It is organised collaboratively by EngageMedia (Australia), a video sharing website and free software development, training and networking project and Ruangrupa (Indonesia) a non-profit artist initiative supporting the development of art in the cultural context through events, exhibitions, research and documentation. 50 specially invited media activists and artists will be coming to Indonesia to attend the workshop and share their skills and ideas.

The camp will provide a unique opportunity for artists, video makers, software developers and activists to collaborate and share skills in a global context where on-line video communication skills have become an increasingly important strategy for activists.

Andrew Lowenthal of EngageMedia explained “Transmission Asia-Pacific will be a unique face to face meeting between video makers and open source software developers to shape open source online video sharing applications and their strategic use for social aims”. He went on to explain “free and open source makes sense for organisations with limited means, both from a strictly economic point of view and also as part of their overall strategic aims, as the system of open collaboration and sharing that free software is based on has a natural philosophical fit with organisations working on environmental or social justice issues”.

Participants will attend from around the region, for example participants from from Hong Kong making videos about communities resisting gentrification and over development of urban areas in Hong Kong and China. This group puts video cameras into the hands of those most affected by these policies and then helps them edit and share their work on-line. Projects such as these increase the communication rights of marginalized and displaced peoples allowing them to articulate their concerns to a wider public.

Another media activist from India has been using on-line media distribution to raise awareness of censorship of diverse sexualities in mainstream Indian media outlets. They have produced a satirical and humorous look at queer moments from Bollywood films to draw attention to the marginalisation of these voices within Indian society.

Transmission Asia-Pacific is the 4th in a series of events bringing together video activists and web developers. Previous events have occurred in Rome, London and Amsterdam.

For media access to the camp, stories of individual participants and topics of discussion at the event please contact:

Andrew Lowenthal (EngageMedia): +61 439 093 779 (Australia) +6281319339823 (Indonesia) http://engagemedia.org
Mirwan Andan (Ruangrupa): +62 813 1924 2965 http://ruangrupa.org

For more information on the workshop: http://transmission.cc/txap.

Transmission Asia-Pacific is supported by Hivos and the Open Society Institute.

Following on the first Software Studies Workshop organized by Matthew Fuller (Rotterdam, 2006), the Software Studies Workshop @ UCSD is a foundational event bringing together key U.S. scholars in this emerging area. The workshop will discuss what it means to study software cultures, and the direction and goals of Software Studies as an emerging movement. Our goal is for the workshop to result in publishing a founding statement on the field, as well as initiate a set of interdisciplinary project collaborations.

The workshop will take place in Atkinson Hall, home of Calit2, a pre-eminant research center for future computing and telecommunication, where the Software Studies Initiative @ UCSD is located and currently collaborating with researchers on several exciting projects. The workshop has has also been timed to precede (and co-ordinate with) the HASTAC II conference which will begin in nearby UC Irvine on the evening of Thursday May 22.

Participants:

Ian Bogost (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Geoff Bowker (Santa Clara University)
Benjamin Bratton (UCLA)
Matt Fuller (Goldsmiths)
Kate Hayles (UCLA)
Matt Kirschenbaum (University of Maryland)
Peter Lunefeld (ArtCenter)
Mark Marino (USC)
Michael (Mateas (UCSC)
Nick Montfort (MIT)
Rita Raley (UCSB)
Casey Reas (UCLA)
Warren Sack (UCSC)
Doug Sery (MIT Press)
Chandler McWilliams (UCLA)

Campus Participants:

Lev Manovich (UCSD)
Noah Wardrip-Fruin (UCSD)
Jeremy Douglass (UCSD)
Jordan Crandall (UCSD)
Brian Goldfarb (UCSD)
Jim Hollan (UCSD)
Stefan Tanaka (UCSD)
Geoff Voelker (UCSD)

More participants to be confirmed.

The theme of this workshop is centered around exploring the tension of real versus fake. What is authentic in the realm of the digital? Can something be so fake that it moves into the realm of the real? As an urban art+tech research facility, Eyebeam supports experimental ways of thinking about what constitutes the “real” and “public space”; located in New York, Eyebeam is interested in presenting work that extends beyond the confines of the gallery and explores the theme of Interactivos? in relation to the urban environment. Participants are encouraged to consider how their projects might be presented inside or outside of Eyebeam’s gallery.

How do you generate belief around an idea that is fake or an illusion? How can hoaxes, recreations, and illusions be used aesthetically and critically? We invite you to ponder these questions as you design your proposals.

Interactivos? was initiated by the Medialab-Prado program and the Madrid City Council in 2006. The title, “Interactivos?,” means “interactivity?” in Spanish, and projects made in the workshop are invited to provoke, challenge and engage the notion or concept of interactive art. This summer, Eyebeam joins Medialab-Prado in running Interactivos? as part of its annual summer workshop-based programming. The two week program, a hybrid workshop and exhibition, takes place June 26-July 12, 2008. In addition to the workshop, Interactivos? encourages deeper exploration of the chosen theme through lectures and local events led by some of New York City’s finest. Interactivos? New York was initiated by current R&D OpenLab fellow Zach Lieberman, and will be curated and produced by Eyebeam staff, fellows and residents.

Watermans gallery will be converted into a live design / mapping studio where investigatory, locative media artist Christian Nold together with the designer Daniela Boraschi will be working with local residents to gather information for digital and physical visualizations of the ecological, cultural and economic ‘health’ of Brentford.

Instead of taking tissue samples as one would from a human being Christian Nold and participants will be using a range of cultural probes to investigate the local social body and its unique ailments. Like eastern medicine investigators will be taking a holistic view of Brentford that looks for interconnections between problems and challenges to get a sense of the whole. The project acts as both creative art project as well as hard-nosed consultation with invited stakeholder groups like politicians, historians, the local chamber of commerce as well as ecologists and the general public.

WORKSHOPS

Everyone - young, old and in-between is welcome to take part! First public workshop April 5, 2008 1 pm - 5pm FREE!* Bring your local newspaper, favorite story, images and anything you want to put on the Brentford map!

Further workshops will take place on:
Saturday, April 12 1-5pm
Wednesday, April 23, 6-9pm
Saturday, May 10 1-5pm
Wednesday May 14 6-9pm

Register online: http://www.publicbiopsy.net/join.htm

If you care about the Brentford area you are invited! Come with your own agenda and we will include it!

If you can’t attend a workshop we have arranged for you to be able to contributer online. For online contribution please log on: http://www.publicbiopsy.net/upload.htm.

Our feeling of space and place changes and refreshes constantly through the interaction and communication possibilities of new media. Locations and environments may be altered from public to a private and from concrete to virtual through mobile technologies. These hybrid spaces create emotional and aesthetic possibilities for artists to experiment with. How do artists work with hybrid space and how do they make us aware of the social and cultural implications?

This workshop will be moderated by John Hopkins. Speakers & guests: Armin Medosh, Anne Nigten, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Eric Kluitenberg, Kurt Vanhoutte, Peter Westenberg, Maja Kuzmanovic and Pieter van Bogaert.

During two workshop days we will think, talk and work around four thematic issues:

LOCAL-GLOBAL: The media has brought the global world closer to us. They focus our attention on our local environment as it exists in a globalised world. The concept of place can no longer be naively fenced off from homogenous global networks. Globalisation processes have a number of negative effects, but this is no reason to suffer them. In that sense, artist s strategies to reveal the richness of diversity in a global society are very valuable. Via their acts in spaces, they can show us that there are still opportunities to claim our own space in a world that we do not always seem to have a grip on.

PRIVATE-PUBLIC: Technology enables us to be constantly in contact with places from a distance. This gives us enormous freedom. The shadow side is that the same technology allows us to control more. Artists try to draw attention to controlling networks that are not always visible to us, such as databases, RFID (radiofrequency identification) of surveillance cameras. This enables us to interact with them more consciously and maybe even break the connection now and again.

VISIBLE-INVISIBLE: The phenomenon of ubiquitous computing is about the fact that technology is being integrated into our surroundings ever more seamlessly . In many cases we no longer know where technology is concealed, let alone how to manipulate it ourselves. Our air is full of (polluting) radiation. Artists can reveal these invisible networks in interesting ways using maps, visualisations or photos.

NARRATING-CREATING: Immersive environments, interactive story telling or mapping tell us stories about our place in space. Artists often use low-tech technologies in their work, as a reaction against the glorification of technological intelligence. As a rule, these works function more transparently or are easy to work with. They bring the possibility of shaping your own space within reach, hereby stimulating a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture.

Sharing and mapping experiences, thoughts and visions around creative expressions of hybrid space are the central goal. Every thematic issue will be introduced by an international speaker who explains and highlights the issue from his or her own experience, and a national reporter who reflects upon the situation and possibilities for Flanders (Dutch-speaking Belgium).The exhibition Place@Space at Z33 functions as material for study during this workshop.

In general, traditional conferences, workshops, symposia, tend to a bit of a bore: keynote speakers are the central element and more often than not little time is spent on an interesting discussion / conversation with all participants on the topics dealt with. Most interesting talks are held during the coffee break, the lunch or in the bar afterwards. Besides this, these meetings are generally limited to only text and minimal forms of visual expressions.

The Cowboy Methodology asks for an active engagement of each participant in his/her own language/medium (text, still or moving image). In this way the group of individuals are equally important as the keynote speakers in front of the audience.

Keywords for this methodology are:
* openness
* the individual is empowered, but finds its value in connection to the group
* passion
* transdisciplinary approach
* ad hoc connections generate long lasting relations
* meetings in real life are as equal as meetings in the virtual
*

The Cowboy Methodology heavily relies on the Open Space Technology which proved its value in user generated conferences as BarCamps or Unconferences. And, of course, this methodology could not have existed without the prototypical image of a cowboy: energetic, engaged, in solitude, but aware & depending of the others in his community, Yihaa!

The findings, conclusions, new questions and other output of this workshop will be brought together on the website and in a printed publication.

A world class team, consisting of Leah Buechley, the very creator of the Lilypad Arduino, and wearable computing experts Maurin Donneaud and Vincent Roudaut, guide workshop participants in the development of their own eFashion item or hybrid wearable. In four days participants conceptualize and materialize their project prototype, assisted by fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht as well as physical computing specialist and Fritzing developer Dirk van Oosterbosch.

In 2008 the training will take place in Thessaloniki (Greece) and Sofia (Bulgaria) and will be available in three sessions:

- General Blender techniques, tips and tricks
- Media content for the web, e-Marketing, streaming techniques
- Advanced Blender techniques, external rendering engines, Python scripting

Deadline: April 10.

Each session has a participation fee of 1000 Euro, that covers the training and 6 days accommodation in Sofia, including coffee-breaks and lunches. Scholarships will be available.

The meetings will focus on conceptual discussions and project presentations and, as far as possible, on the development of prototypes and tools.

Schedule: A monthly session will be held on the following Thursdays from 4:30 to 9 pm.

Core subjects:

• Light and the city. Urbanism, media-façades, the fusion of physical and digital urban spaces.
• Augmented Reality, the use of projections on three-dimensional surfaces and physical objects, the use of light as a material.
• Set and stage design and the creation of atmospheres through the projection of light: perspective, optical illusions, etc.
• Investigation of the qualities of our visual perception and its limits.

For:

-architects and urban planners interested in the use of light in public spaces
-visual artists
-set and stage designers
-programmers (applications in real time, generative and visualization systems…)
-physicists and specialists in optics
-sociologists, anthropologists
-psychologists, neurophysiologists
-other interested persons

Participants will be chosen according to the following criteria:
-Personal interest, artistic and/or research experience in the aforementioned areas

(more sessions will be scheduled for Fall)

Context:

The sun’s shadow is the earliest type of projection known to us, and Egyptian and Greek sun dials are the origin of controlled projection. With the advent of artificial light sources, controlled projections were developed, such as shadow plays and magician’s illusionary techniques. In recent history, controlled artificial light sources and their use in photography, the cinema, and moving pictures have multiplied new projection possibilities. These include the use of light as a material to the projection of moving images on a variety of surfaces: buildings used as screens, research in physics on the qualities of light or ways of altering visual perception through controlling light.

Cleotronica 08 is the inaugural version of Cleotronica a festival for media, art, and socio-culture organized by Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF) an alternative initiative for art and culture based in Egypt’s second largest city. Cleotronica 08 is planned as a monthly series of public art projects, workshops, lectures, performances, and exhibitions that commenced in January 2008 gradually building up to an international symposium in May. The festival presents a diverse set of projects, mediums, and issues, ranging from net art to tactical media and from public intervention to design.

Apart from being an international festival, Cleotronica is critically involved with and conditioned to its locality, striving to make a distinct contribution to it by extensively interacting with university students and recent art graduates in its projects. While showcasing a broad range of media related art, the festival is particularly reflective of practices that stimulate media, technology, art, and public socio-cultural activity to come together.

Cleotronica 08 Project # 4: The Silent Ornamental Revolution - A Public Art Project by Jan Robert Leegte (NL) :: Starts March 9 :: Selected public locations all over Alexandria, Egypt.

The Silent Ornamental Revolution is a public art project that uses a series of minimal posters created by Jan Robert Leegte based on his work and text developed in Vienna in 2006, it builds on the idea of the ornament as “sublime” intervention, the ornaments Leegte readapts are derived from popular computer interfaces such as the Windows operating system. The works made in 2006 were video collages simulation ideas of ornamental interventions. The project in Alexandria is a true intervention, using modular posters to build endless ornamental patterns. There will be two types of posters, one based on the artist’s “selection” series, and the other going right down to his “scrollbar” series, using bevels. Basically any urban structure will be selectable, and any surface can be transformed to a minimal or hysterically ornamented facade. Art students from Alexandria will play a vital role in assisting Leegte with this series of interventions in public space.

Jan Robert Leegte (1973) studied Fine Arts at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam after having studied Architecture at the University of Delft. Inspired by artists like Bruce Nauman and Fischli & Weiss, Leegte probes the surface of our surrounding world, aiming to reveal the underlying materials. Fascinated by the world behind the computer screen, he explored the sculptural possibilities of the Internet as from 1997. In 2002 he shifted back to the gallery space, taking along his newly discovered favorite materials with him. Recently Leegte is exploring more “embedded” possibilities out of the gallery space into the endlessly deep contexts of the outside world. His work has been exhibited at a widespread selection of international shows and festivals. Leegte lives and works in Amsterdam.

Cleotronica 08 Project # 5: Stammer: A Lecture in Theory - A Live Performance and Video Installation by Shady El Noshokaty (EG) :: Performance: March 9, 7 pm :: March 9-16, opening directly after live performance :: Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), 10 Hussein Hassab Street, Azarita, Alexandria.

Shady El Noshokaty (1971) is a Cairo based artist and a teacher at the Faculty of Art Education, Helwan University. With a Fulbright grant, he studied avant-garde cinema and video art at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As of 2000, El Noshokaty organized and supervised the annual experimental media art workshop in the Faculty of Art Education until its 5th edition in 2005. His work has been exhibited in numerous local and international institutions including the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, and the Hayward Gallery, London.

Cleotronica 08 Project # 6: Tactical Media Club Alexandria - A Participatory Club for Tactical Media Moderated by Joanne Richardson (RO) and Francesca Bria (IT) :: CLUB MEETINGS: March 2008 20-22: Lecture1: Tactical Media: ast, Present, and Future by Joanne Richardson, March 21, 7 pm; Lecture 2: Social Media, Shared Culture, and the Hacker Movement in Italy by Francesca Bria, March 23, 7 pm :: Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), 10 Hussein Hassab Street, Azarita, Alexandria.

Tactical media is a concept and set of practices that emerged around the Next Five Minutes festivals in Amsterdam from 1993 to 2003. What is common to these practices is the artistic use of media technologies to subvert power. As part of the Cleotronica 2008 festival Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF) will set up a transient club for ‘Tactical Media’ inside its space. The club seeks to collectively explore ‘Tactical Media’ practices in the different contexts of Europe and Egypt, and conduct brainstorming sessions that investigate the possibility of new intersections between art, media, activism, and theory. Artists, activists, and collectives are invited to be members of the club and participate in its discussion and debate group meetings that will be moderated by Joanne Richardson (Romania) and Francesca Bria (Italy). To become a member and participate in the club’s sessions please send us a brief paragraph about yourself and your interests or your collective in English or Arabic to office [at] acafspace.org, please include your complete contact info and write “club” in the subject box.

Joanne Richardson was born in Bucharest, grew up in New York, currently living between Cluj, Romania and Berlin. Founder of D Media in Romania, an NGO for the production and dissemination of art and digital culture. Editor of Subsol webzine, and author of essays on social movements, postcommunism, immaterial labor, copyleft, tactical media, the history of the avant-gardes, and experimental film & video in Eastern Europe. Recent videos on nationalism, delocalization, migration, activism, precarity and borders.

Francesca Bria is a Film Maker, journalist and Independent Network Activist. Born and currently living in Rome . She teaches digital media and video journalism in Rome and she is active as a free lance video journalist. She is counsultant and expert on access to knowledge policy for the Region of Lazio and the European Commission. She has been coordinating an international cooperation project between Italy and Brazil on Digital Culture and she’s currently coordinating a cooperation project on free software in Venezuela. She is the author of different video documentaries and short experimental films on digital media technology, free knowledge, politics, precarity, migration and social justice. She’s active in different networking and grassroot projects for the promotion of shared culture and free technology.

Cleotronica 08 Project # 7: RECYCLIZER - A Workshop on Sampling in Animation and Solo Show by Jan van Nuenen (NL) :: Workshop: Sampling Animation Workshop March 29-31, 2008 :: Exhibition: Jan van Nuenen Solo Show March 28 – April 6, Opening: March 28, 7 pm :: Lecture: Sampling in Contemporary Animation, March 30, 7 pm :: Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), 10 Hussein Hassab Street, Azarita, Alexandria.

RECYCLIZER is a 3 part project by Jan van Nuenen. The exhibition showcases screenings of van Nuenen’s sample-constructed animated worlds of automatons, works that can be seen as the descendants of Bosch aesthetics and imagery in the digital age. The workshop on 29, 30, 31 will concentrate on creating a collectively made animated video that will be put up on You Tube, the video will be created using samples collected by all the workshop’s participants. Please apply to the Workshop by sending a brief e-mail that includes your CV/Bio to office [at] acafspace.org , write “workshop” in subject box, basic knowledge of some graphics/animation programs required. Finally the talk on 30 March will summarize the idea and culture of sampling in Animation and its industry today, live Arabic translation will be available.

Jan van Nuenen (1978) is a video artist and animator based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He studied audio-visual design at the art academy St. Joost in Breda, the Netherlands. He has been working on short, experimental animation films and video-installations since 2002. His works are mainly animated collages of found-footage video and photographical material or samples, cut up, combined and edited with the computer and different types of animation software. The films are characterized by a complex and combined action of loops, repetitions and rhythms, where sound plays a vital role. His works have been shown at different international film, video and art festivals. Van Nuenen also creates electronic music some of which is used in his films.

Turbulence, MCLA Gallery 51, and Greylock Arts are collaborating to create an interactive art and technology project that connects physical spaces in Adams and North Adams Massachusetts via the Internet. Over the past several months, they have been working together to bring forward a series of exciting events, exhibitions, and opportunities to Northern Berkshire County. This collaboration, entitled Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses, has been made possible through the generous support of Turbulence with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

As part of this project we are exploring the concept of re-connecting the Town of Adams and the City of North Adams through the Internet. Adams and North Adams, once a single settlement in Western Massachusetts with communities in north and south Adams, split in 1878. Through Turbulence, we will connect physical spaces in the two locations with virtual spaces on the Internet. MCLA Gallery 51, Greylock Arts, and Turbulence have been collaborating with local artists, including Ven Voisey, Sean Riley and Matthew Belanger, as well as other local arts organizations, to make these upcoming events and exhibitions a reality.

Opportunities:

Turbulence Commissions: As part of Networked Realities Turbulence is offering commissions to artists living in Adams and North Adams to produce Net Art. The subject matter and medium is open and projects need not only exist online. However, projects must include an important and compelling internet experience or component. Visit Turbulent Works, a curated exhibit of previous Turbulence commissions, to see examples of net art. Selected projects will be featured in a future exhibit at Greylock Arts and on turbulence.org. Commissions will range from $300 – $1000 depending on the scope of the proposal. Proposals should include: a paragraph describing the project; the technical needs of the project; a budget; an artist bio; and a link to the artist’s website (if you have one). Group projects are welcome. Selections will be made by Turbulence. Submit your proposal by email to: turbulence@turbulence.org. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Greylock Arts at info@greylockarts.net. The deadline is March 31, 2008.

Arduino Workshop with Tom Igoe: April 5, 2008; 1 – 5 pm :: FREE :: Greylock Arts, 93 Summer St. Adams, MA
Note: Reservations are extremely limited. Contact us at: info@greylockarts.net to reserve your spot today.

Tom Igoe is area head for physical computing classes at New York Universities Tisch School of The Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program. Igoe is also a coveted technology consultant and guest speaker at technology conferences around the world. Igoe’s recently published book, “Making Things Talk”, is a do-it-yourself guide to networking ordinary household items. Ardunio is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. In this workshop Igoe will demonstrate the basic techniques and concepts needed to get started with an Arduino. The workshop is FREE, however, If you wish to go home with your own Arduino kit (which we recommend if you want to continue your work) the cost is $65.