Friday, December 25, 2009

Arte electrónico: ¿qué preservar y cómo preservarlo?



Conservación del Arte electrónico ¿Qué preservar y cómo preservarlo?
Apuntes [Media art conservation: what aspects should be preserved and how
can we address it?] compiles the proceedings of the homonymous
seminar that took place jointly at the “Espacio Fundación Telefónica” and
the “Centro Cultural de España”, in Buenos Aires.The publication is distributed
under Creative Commons license in Spanish http://taxonomedia.net

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Super 90s Hacker Mash-up - Laurel Ptak (2009)



Super 90s Hacker Mash-up - Laurel Ptak (2009)

In her "Super 90s Hacker Mash-up" project Laurel Ptak has created a visual media archeology of mass media representation/fantasies of hacking. below is an interview between Laurel Ptak and Morgan Currie as published on the Masters of Media collaborative blog of the new media master students of the University of Amsterdam. - jonCates

"Why do these images feel so nostalgic to us now?

From our contemporary perspective, these movies depict a certain kind of anxiety towards technology. By now these technologies have become so normalized in contemporary culture, even banalized, it’s hard for us to understand all the weird uncertainty that shaped these narratives and their aesthetics back then.

Except for Wargames these films were all produced from 1992-2001, when venture capital is flowing in, when any kid who graduates from college gets snatched up by Internet start-ups. Of course in the 90s, deregulation and neoliberal capitalism are also running rampant. So it’s no coincidence that the mass media starts to portray these people as a serious threat and dangerous. The earlier generation of hackers were arguably shielded by academic culture in order to develop what computers would become today. They weren’t yet a threat, because there was nothing at stake; they could just fuck around. It wasn’t until investments in the internet as an economic structure that the media started portraying the hacker as a threatening character.

Also, you can see this imagery in relation to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act passed in ‘98. The DMCA marks a sharp transition into the information age. The notion that information itself is threatening is absorbed into mainstream culture by the 90s.

Why do you think cyberspace took on this form across so many movies? Where did this imagery originate?

Well Tron is probably the earliest one, so it set the style to a degree, but Wargames is the most influential depiction of the hacker as we came to know it.

I also noticed once I started taking stills from the movies, that they all represent the body in relationship to technology in these cyborgian ways. It seems to reflect a fear that the machine could overtake the body.

And these films take incredible creative liberty in depicting software and cyberspace. They just make up what the operating system looks like. Computer technology didn’t correspond to what technology actually looked like at the time. It’s the hollywood effect.

You don’t see the internet looking like some futuristic galaxy of wires and tubes so much today.

Right. And it shows how a minority of the population used it at that point. It didn’t become a mass-owned phenomenon until around the early 2000s, when computers enter into many Americans’ homes. Back in the 90s, not enough people had access to know the difference.

Another fascinating aspect is that the hackers are always white, upper middle class teenagers in their bedrooms. Their privilege becomes a part of the hacker landscape. Usually we don’t depict white suburban kids as frightening or powerful, but by owning a computer they become a threatening image. Any other Hollywood movie representation of that period (think Home Alone) depicted that demographic differently of course.

It’s that the whole cyberspace notion of a computer dispersing power to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to it?

Yeah, and in a couple of the movies the female is a hacker figure. Angelina Jolie in Hackers, Sandra Bullock in The Net. Hollywood was ready to put forth a more gender balanced narrative, but none of my research material or critical texts echoes this. Hacker culture is almost always exclusively depicted as a male culture. But Hollywood was ready to make it something that women participate in. These female depictions are still a minority across all the films, but they’re ahead of the other discourses in terms of gender.

Do you have a personal interest in hacking as a concept?

I’ve come to think of the hacker as a undervalued, underrepresented figure since the past two decades. My project is to recuperate it. The hacker in media is usually either a villainous figure or a super hero. I’m interested in creating a more complicated narrative.

I think we romanticize the ethic and manifesto of the earlier generation of hackers. For some that political ethic was meaningful, but for the majority of people hacking it’s an impulse to have fun, of pranksterism, of defining yourself in relation to authority. I love the idea of every hacker sitting there believing in the manifesto and its ethic, but i’d be surprised if even the last generations of hackers was thinking much about that.

I’m also interested in open source culture in general. And I desperately wish i could be a hacker, but sadly my technical skills underplay that.

How would you define the hacker today?

I’ve been looking at the early history of hackers in university culture, during the days of early computing at MIT, on through its media representations in 90s and early 2000s. Now the dominant mass cultural narrative recedes into cyberterrorism, into Obama’s task force. It’s become much less about teenage boys or individuals who can start nuclear wars and more about governments interacting across large networks.

Is there a contemporary hacker aesthetic we’ll laugh about some day?

We don’t even bother to visualize it much anymore. We know what the internet is, we live intimately with computers, so we don’t have to make some fantastical representation of it all. Part of why these movies were made is because there was so much anxiety about immateriality and invisible forces. In contemporary life we’ve had a decade of participating in a mass way in immateriality and virtuality, and we see it hasn’t ruined society. That’s why the conspiracy theories posited in these movies feel so dated. We’ve become culturally more comfortable with immateriality than we were back then."

Thursday, November 26, 2009

@ RE:LIVE + online



i am currently in Melbourne .AU to present my Media Art Histories research/writing in the RE:LIVE Media Art Histories conference w/fellow conference presenter + MediaArtHistories blog co-founder Nina Wenhart. we're using the Twitter tag #Relive09 && also the more general #MediaArtHistories for the conference related posts that we will make on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23Relive09


http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23MediaArtHistories



join us as we twitter + tweet to each other + the various Media Art worlds on this blog, twitter + the netz!

// jonCates

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Friday, November 13, 2009

documentary collection on DLF web site

Paul Sermon, Telematic Vision (1993-)
Paul Sermon, Telematic Vision (1993-)
Paul Sermon, Telematic Vision (1993-)

This documentary collection on Telematic Vision by Paul Sermon is based on an independent case study conducted by Rolf Wolfensberger in 2008 at the Museum of Communication (Berne, Switzerland), where the artwork has been part of the permanent exhibition since 2003. The case study documents this highly interactive work, not only from a technical perspective, but also by focusing on the particular audience experience in relation to the artist's intentions. Additionally, the study takes into account the technological changes undergone by the work since its creation in 1993. The present documentary collection is part of a series which includes that of The Giver of Names by David Rokeby and of Subtitled Public by Rafael Lozanno-Hemmer. [More...]

Friday, October 23, 2009

monoskop

a fine archive of writings on art, culture and media technology

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

9 evenings at the Daniel Langlois Fondation


still a great documentation

EVA Conference, Berlin 2009

EVA Conference, Berlin 2009
Elektronic Media & Visual Arts
November 11 - 13, 2009

Museums, libraries and archives are the institutional linchpin of the digital transmission of the cultural heritage. In service, research and management they meet the challenge of modern information society by using information and communication technologies. The 16th Berlin EVA conference offers a discussion forum of new media applications. It brings together the memory institutions with researchers of the information and communication technologies, IT - specialists and the public administration sector. Results of research and development will be presented with a strong reference to their usage. A particular "student's day" refers to innovative positions from the academic educational sector. As a member of the international EVA Conferences Network this event offers opportunities for international co-operation.

Conference Languages: German & English

Friday, October 9, 2009

Monday, October 5, 2009

immersive ideals/ critical distances

an interesting PhD thesis by Joseph Nechvatal on the affinity between artistic ideologies based in VR and previous immersive idioms.

ryojiikeda.datamatics.data.series














Ryoji Ikeda is widely recognized as Japan’s leading electronic composer/artist and is renowned for his acclaimed solo concerts, installations, recordings and collaborative work. Working across both visual and sonic media Ikeda explores the ways in which music, time and space are shaped by mathematical methods.

His latest project, datamatics, is an art project that explores the potential to perceive the invisible multi-substance of data that permeates our world. It is a series of experiments in various forms - audiovisual concerts, installations, publications and CD/DVD releases - that seek to materialise pure data. datamatics is the main part of the project and comprises two audiovisual concert pieces; C4I and datamatics. data.series consists of six installations - data.spectra, data.tron, data.tecture, data.scan, data.film and data.gram. dataphonics is a music project focused on the relationship between sound of data and data of sound, and crosses various formats; multi-channel sound piece, radio program and audio/data research etc. Each piece will be published as book or released as CD/DVD.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

::Curating::Exhibiting::Collecting:: MediaArtHistories, CP

The next MediaArtHistories modules in November 2009 and May 2010 will focus on Curating, Exhibiting and Collecting Media Art with the best experts in the field like Steve DIETZ, Christiane PAUL, Gunalan NADARAJAN, and others. These two modules complete a Certified Program in MediaArtHistories :: fully accredited with 30 ECTS (post graduate), offered low residency, parallel to employment, in English. The CP can later be extended to complete the full Master of Arts program incMediaArtHistories or used as study-abroad credits.
www.donau-uni.ac.at/mah-cp

The November module will start with an excursion to Berlin and end in a workshop with Lev MANOVICH. The May module will include a excursion to the relevant Ars Electronica sites and workshops with main players in Linz.

Module 1. Nov 2-12, 2009
Berlin and Goettweig/Krems

Module 2. May 1-11, 2010
Goettweig/Krems and Linz


The postgraduate program MediaArtHistories opens a passageway into the most important developments of contemporary art through a network of renowned international theorists, artists, curators and many others. Using online databases and other modern analysis instruments, knowledge of computer animation, net art, interactive, telematic and genetic art as well as the most recent reflections on nano art, CAVE installations, augmented reality and wearables are examined. Historical derivations that go far back into art and media history are researched in intriguing ways with media art. Important approaches and methods from Image Science, Media Archaeology and the History of Science & Technology are extensively integrated into the program.

The MediaArtHistories MA modules are based on the international practice and expertise in Curation, Collecting, Preserving and Archiving and Researching in the Media Arts. Thus setting the conditions necessary for wider consideration of media art works and the integration of new media into the international contemporary art scene. New databases and other scientific tools structuring and visualizing data provide the contexts to enhance and develop new understanding in the histories of media art.

DANUBE UNIVERSITY - located in a UNESCO world heritage site is the first public university in Europe which specializes in advanced continuing education offering low-residency degree programs for working professionals and lifelong learners. Students come twice a year for 2 week blocks to Monastery Göttweig in Austria. The Wachau is voted #1 Places Rated by National Geographic.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/sustainable/pdf/destination-scorecard.pdf

http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/mah
http://www.virtualart.at
http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/telelectures

Department for Image Science
Danube University Krems

Contact - application information
Andrea Haberson
andrea.haberson@donau-uni.ac.at

Contact - course and content questions
Wendy Coones
wendy.coones@donau-uni.ac.at

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Dan Graham: Beyond. Retrospective at the Whitney


About the Exhibition


On view June 25-October 11, 2009

Dan Graham: Beyond surveys the artist's career from the mid-1960s to the present. As one of contemporary art's most innovative and influential figures, Dan Graham has been at the forefront of many of the most significant developments in art, including conceptual art, video and film installation, performance, site-specific sculpture, and musical collaboration. This exhibition—his first retrospective in the United States—examines each stage of Graham's career through his photographs, projects for magazine pages, films, architectural models and pavilions, performances, video installations, prints, drawings, writings, and his work with musicians Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca, and Japanther.

Graham was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1942 and grew up in New Jersey, a suburban landscape that would inspire him throughout his career. He began his career as a writer, and founded and directed the short-lived John Daniels Gallery in New York in 1964, exhibiting the work of a new generation of conceptual and Minimalist artists—including Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, and Robert Smithson. This experience had a deep influence on Graham's subsequent work, particularly the artist's relationship to his peers and to the culture at large as well as his interest in art’s economic and social framework.

Graham's rejection of the high-seriousness of modern art emerged at the same moment as Pop art in the early 1960s. "I love magazines because they are like pop songs," he once explained about his early conceptual magazine works, "easily disposable, dealing with momentary pleasures." He infused his approach with a wide range of literary, anthropological, and scientific influences, from cybernetics and topology to the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Gregory Bateson, and Margaret Mead. Graham's performances of the 1970s and his architectural pavilions of the 1980s to the present, with their kaleidoscopic refraction of bodily experience, demonstrate his interest in revealing the private self as part of a social, public context.

The fluid, democratic quality of Graham's work continues to exert a powerful influence on younger generations of artists. His desire for a connection to others mirrors our own; yet his work offers a way to critically explore that desire at a moment when interconnectivity and instant feedback are conditioning our collective consciousness to an unprecedented, global degree.


Exhibition Catalogue

Dan Graham: Beyond
Editors: Bennett Simpson and Chrissie Iles.

Essays by Rhea Anastas, Beatriz Colomina, Mark Francis, Dan Graham, Chrissie Iles, Alexandra Midal, Bennett Simpson, Mark von Schlegell, and Philippe Vergne. Interviews with Dan Graham by Kim Gordon, Rodney Graham, and Nicolás Guagnini.

Dan Graham has always pointed beyond in his work: beyond the art object, beyond the studio, beyond the medium, beyond the gallery, beyond the self. Beyond all these categories and into the realm of the social, the public, the democratic, the mass produced, the architectural, the anarchic, and the humorous. This volume, which accompanies a retrospective organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, offers the first comprehensive survey of Graham's work. The book's design evokes magazine format and style, after Graham's important conceptual work from the 1960s in that medium. Generously illustrated in color and black and white, Dan Graham: Beyond features eight new essays, two new interviews with the artist, a section of reprints of Graham's own writing, and an animated manga-style "life of Dan Graham" narrative. It examines Graham's entire body of work, which includes designs for magazine pages, drawing, photographs, film and video, and architectural models and pavilions. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and MIT Press, 2009. 384 pages.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Experimentelle Aesthetik, 1959

.
A reenactment of the Herbert W. Franke, Experimentelle Aesthetik exhibition at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst - Wien, 1959.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

“The Politics of Open Source” Call For Papers

Call for Papers
JITP-2010
“The Politics of Open Source”
May 6-7, 2010 - Amherst, Massachusetts
http://www.umass.edu/jitpwww.umass.edu/jitp

A two-day University of Massachusetts Amherst conference jointly hosted by the:
Department of Political Science
Science, Technology, and Society Initiative (STS)
Journal of Information Technology & Politics (JITP)
Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP)
National Center for Digital Government (NCDG)

Approach
Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS) has made significant advances, both technically and
organizationally, since its emergence in the mid-1980s. Over the last decade, it has moved from a
software development approach involving mostly volunteers to a more complex ecology where firms,
nonprofit organizations, government agencies and volunteers may be involved. Moreover, the
production paradigm continues to expand to other areas of digital content (e.g., Creative Commons,
Wikipedia, Connexions, etc.). In this conference we use the phrase “open source” to capture this
broader phenomenon. The Program Committee encourages disciplinary and interdisciplinary
approaches to the study of open source, broadly defined.

"Politics" in the conference title, can have many interpretations. Political issues closely tied to the free
and open source software movement(s) include: national government policies related to the adoption
of open source technologies or questions related to interoperability and open standards, software
patents, vendor lock-in, and copyright. These are central themes we expect may be discussed in this
forum. In this context, we welcome international submissions since differences in the political
perspective appear in international contexts. However, topics related to how the concept of openness
has led to various interpretations, adaptations, and applications of “open source” in other domains,
and political issues that surround these broader innovations, are also welcome. Specific topics might
include, but are not limited to:

General topics related to the politics of open source
• How open source software or its principles are changing politics
• Emerging transparencies in software, systems and society
• Open source in the developing world and other international contexts
• The political economy of open source
• Digital divides and open source
Open source and the public sector
• Open source software and transparency in government
• Government policies toward open source and open standards
• Regulation and open source
Open source and democracy
• Open source and democratic engagement
• Open source voting systems
• Activism, political mobilization and open source
The expansion of open source into other domains
• Understanding how open source collaboration works and how it can be extended into other
areas of collective action
• Policy areas, such as the effects of free textbooks on education policy or the politics of "One
Laptop Per Child"
• The political implications of open source in other cultural domains

Keynote Speakers
We are pleased to confirm Clay Johnson (Sunlight Labs) as one of the daily keynote speakers for JITP-
2010.

Paper Submissions
Authors are invited to prepare and submit a research paper, policy viewpoint, workbench note, or
teaching innovation manuscript to JITP by January 10, 2010. A small number of papers will be
accepted for presentation at the conference. Other paper authors will be invited to present a poster
during the Thursday evening reception. All accepted authors will be asked to submit a "YouTube"
version of their research findings. Accepted paper and poster authors will be invited to resubmit their
papers to JITP after the conference with the goal of producing a special issue, or double issue, of JITP
on the broad theme of "The Politics of Open Source."

How to Submit
Everything you need to know about how to prepare and submit a strong JITP paper is documented at
http://www.jitp.net/. Conference papers will be put through an expedited blind peer review process
by the Program Committee, and authors will be notified about a decision by March 10, 2010.

Copyrights
Conference proceedings, including both paper manuscripts and poster summaries, will be made
publicly available under a Creative Commons license. Authors who wish to contribute to the JITP
special issue will be asked to sign the publisher’s copyright agreement when they resubmit their
manuscript.

Best Paper and Poster Cash Prizes
The author (or authors) of the best research paper will receive a single $1,000 prize. The creator (or
creators) of the best poster/research presentation will also receive a single prize of $1,000.

Program Committee
M.V. Lee Badgett, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Paul M.A. Baker, Georgia Institute of Technology
Deborah Bryant, Oregon State University Open Source Lab
Andrea Calderaro, European University Institute
Mark Cassell, Kent State University
Edward Cherlin, Earth Treasury
Gabriella Coleman, New York University
Doug Downham, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert English, Daystar Computing & University of Massachusetts Amherst
Joseph Feller, University College Cork
Jelena Karanovic, Rutgers University
Dave Karpf, University of Pennsylvania/Miller Center for Public Affairs
Andrea Kavanaugh, Virginia Tech
Jose Marichal, California Lutheran University
Jens Hardings Perl, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Charlie Schweik, University of Massachusetts Amherst, co-chair
Stuart Shulman, University of Massachusetts Amherst, co-chair
Megan Squire, Elon University
Krishna Ravi Srinivas, Research Information System For Developing Nations
Louis Suarez-Potts, Sun Microsystems, Inc. & OpenOffice.org
Anas Tawileh, Cardiff University & Meedan.net

das wArs Electronica 2009 (thx mario!)

ars electronica 2009 is over,
the audio and video file of the conferences online:
http://www.aec.at/humannature/stream

Friday, September 4, 2009

THE PAST?S DIGITAL PRESENCE: CALL FOR PAPERS

**CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE EXTENSION: SEPTEMBER 30TH**

THE PAST?S DIGITAL PRESENCE:
DATABASE, ARCHIVE, AND KNOWLEDGE WORK IN THE HUMANITIES
A GRADUATE STUDENT SYMPOSIUM AT YALE UNIVERSITY
FEBRUARY 19TH AND 20TH, 2010

How is digital technology changing methods of scholarly research with pre-digital sources in the humanities? If the ?medium is the message,? then how does the message change when primary sources are translated into digital media? What kinds of new research opportunities do databases unlock and what do they make obsolete? What is the future of the rare book and manuscript library and its use? What biases are inherent in the widespread use of digitized material? How can we correct for them? Amidst numerous benefits in accessibility, cost, and convenience, what concerns have been overlooked? We invite graduate students to submit paper proposals for an interdisciplinary symposium that will address how databases and other digital technologies are making an impact on our research in the humanities. The graduate student panels will be moderated by a Yale faculty member or library curator with a panel respondent. The two-day conference will take place February 19th and 20th,
2010, at Yale University.

Keynote Speaker: Peter Stallybrass, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania

Colloquium Guest Speaker: Jacqueline Goldsby, Associate Professor, University of Chicago

Potential paper topics include:
? The Future of the History of the Book
? Public Humanities
? Determining Irrelevance in the Archive
? Defining the Key-Word
? The Material Object in Archival Research
? Local Knowledge, Global Access
? Digital Afterlives
? Foucault, Derrida, and the Archive
? Database Access Across the Profession
? Mapping and Map-Based Platforms
? Interactive Research

Please email a one-page proposal along with a C.V. to pdp@yale.edu. Deadline for submissions is September 30th, 2009. Accepted panelists will be notified in early October. We ask that all graduate-student panelists pre-circulate their paper among their panels by January 20th, 2010. Papers should be no more than 15 minutes in length.

Please contact Molly Farrell, Heather Klemann, Ryan Brasseaux, and Taylor Spence at pdp@yale.edu with any additional inquiries. For more information about conference events, please visit our website:
http://digitalhumanities.yale.edu/pdp.

Molly Farrell
Ph.D. Candidate in English
Yale University

Régine Debatty on Inke Arns and Thibaut de Ruyter's exhibiton 'Awake Are Only the Spirits'



"In his book Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Friedrich Kittler draws parallels between the introduction of a new media and spiritism. The Morse alphabet was quickly adopted in seances of spiritism to converse with the deceased. On some photographic plates one could sometimes discern the face of a ghosts. In 1893, Edison described the 10 uses he imagined for the phonogram and one of them was to record 'the last words of dying persons'..."

this statement begins Régine Debatty's review of 'Awake Are Only the Spirits' - On Ghosts and Their Media exhibition at HMKV (Hartware MedienKunstVerein) in Dortmund, Germany. the Media Art exhibition 'Awake Are Only the Spirits' is curated by Inke Arns and Thibaut de Ruyter. Debatty comments that this exhibition re-instills her enthusiasm about Media Art:


http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/09/awake-are-only-the-spirits-on.php

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Pure:dyne

Watch out for what ever comes out of this!

Pure:dyne Code Sprint- Goto10 @ LABoral Centro de Arte y Creacion Industrial
9th to 15th of August 2009

The artist collective GOTO10 gathers at LABoral this summer for an intense week of coding in support of the ongoing Pure:dyne project, which is underway at this very moment.

Pure:dyne is a GNU/Linux operating system developed by and for artists that offers a complete set of tools for processing audio and video in real time, making it an ideal work platform. Developed by GOTO10 alongside a community of users, Pure:dyne includes the tools most frequently employed by digital artists, all in a coherently integrated format: Pure Data, Supercollider, Icecast, Csound, Fluxus, Processing, Arduino, amongst others. Used by artists, medialabs and universities, Pure:dyne is a powerfult instrument and a network structured for artistic production through the use of FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software).
*
*The LABoral ‘code sprint’ is one of a series initiated by GOTO10 to gather members from across Europe for seven days to work on new features and system developments. Sharing a common living and working space, away from distractions, this intense working method is popular in FLOSS projects to inject a lasting energy into volunteer developers who otherwise collaborate online.

The discoveries and advances made by the Pure:dyne team are to be made available and become a permanent part of the Platform 2 Multimedia Production Centre of LABoral.

http://goto10.org/
www.laboralcentrodearte.org

Wednesday, July 29, 2009


Art and education have launched a papers section, for which they have posted a call for submissions on e-flux . It just launched but could evolve in a useful platform..check out an interesting contribution by Joseph Nechvatal

Friday, July 24, 2009

Modern Art: Who Cares? II MA:WC?II congress 2010

INCCA Update – June 5, 2009

News

Latest news on "Modern Art: Who Cares? II" congress

Preparations for the 2010 congress are in full swing. It will take place in Amsterdam from 9 - 11 June
2010. A pre-congress reception will take place on the evening of the 8th of June.

Registration will start in September 2009, so keep your eye out for updates per email or via the link on
the INCCA http://www.incca.org/modernartwhocares and SBMK websites http://www.sbmk.nl/

Tickets to the congress will cost:
€ 290
€ 160 for students

Included in the price of the ticket is a copy of the book Inside Installations (working title), which is due
for launch in March 2011.

The congress programme is being created in collaboration by a group of experts from 34 organisations
who are working together under the umbrella project PRACTICs. Most of these individuals worked
together during the EU project Inside Installations (2004-2007). For more information about PRACTICs
follow this link. http://www.incca.org/projects/64-current-projects/475-practics

Co-organisers of the congress would like to point out that there will be no call for papers, but there will
be a call for posters. This is expected to be sent out in September 2009.

MA:WC?II will feature plenary lectures as well as a choice of circa 10 parallel sessions per day;
discussions, workshops and site visits. There will also be time allocated to poster presentations and
networking sessions. The themes for the three day congress are as follows:
Day 1: Acquisition: production and collection building
Day 2: Articulation: care & conservation
Day 3: Access: presentation & the role of the public
More details on the programme will be posted alongside registration information in September.

If you have any questions about the Modern Art: Who Cares? II congress, please send an email to
modernartwhocares@gmail.com

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

GCC - Timeline History of Games Presentation




GCC - Timeline History of Games Presentation

Host:

A MAZE.

Date:

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 7:00pm - Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 1:00am

Location:

Homebase
Koethener Str. 44

Description:

Am 29.7.2009 wird der Erfinder der Heimvideospiele Berlin besuchen. Anlass ist die Veröffentlichung seiner Sammlung historischer Dokumente rund um die Erfindung des ersten Heimvideospiels, der Odyssey Konsole von 1972. Die Sammlung wurde in einer exklusiven Kooperation mit dem Computerspiele Museum nun in ein Onlinearchiv eingearbeitet, das am 29.7. der Öffentlichkeit als “Timeline History of Games” erstmals vorgestellt wird und von da an online frei zugänglich ist.

Veranstalter des historsichen Events sind das Computerspiele Museum im fjs e.V., das Berlin Gaming Network und die A MAZE. GbR.
In der HomeBase Lounge!

“Einen besseren Startschuss nach dem Umzug des Games Culture Circles (GCC) in die Homebase kann es kaum geben”, unterstreicht Thorsten S. Wiedemann, Artistic Director bei A MAZE. Die Heimkonsole ist gleichermaßen Sinnbild für eine neue, interaktive Form der Unterhaltung, als auch der Geburt einer ganz neuen Videospielkultur. Inspiriert von Spielen hat eine künstlerische Reflexion des neuen Massenmediums begonnen, die sich bis heute fortsetzt. Mit einer kleinen Ausstellung wird diese kulturelle Umrahmung der Historie zur Interaktion freigegeben. Der GCC, moderiert von Andreas Lange, wird in regelmäßigen Abständen Talkgäste einladen, um die Konvergenzen von Computerspiel und diversen Kunst- und Kulturformen zu hinterfragen – ohne den Bezug zur Medienindustrie zu verlieren.


“Es ist für uns eine historische Gelegenheit und auch eine große Ehre, dass wir in sehr engem Kontakt mit Hr. Baer dieses Kapitel der Gründungsgeschichte der Computer- und Videospiele-Industrie anhand von Originaldokumenten einer breiten Öffentlichkeit zugänglich machen können”, sagt Andreas Lange, Direktor des Computerspiele Museums. Weiterer Kooperationspartner bei der Produktion der Timeline ist die Kunsthochschule Kassel/ Fachbereich Visuelle Kommunikation, die für das Onlinearchiv die Gestaltung entworfen hat.


„Ich freue mich, dass wir den Vater der Heimvideospiele als Gast für eine Veranstaltung unseres Berlin Gaming-Netzwerkes gewinnen konnten. Der Besuch von Herrn Baer unterstreicht den hohen Stellenwert, den Berlin als Games-Standort auch über die Landesgrenzen hinaus besitzt“, kommentiert Benjamin Bezold, Senior PR Manager von TGC, den Deutschland-Besuch von Ralph H. Baer . Mit seinem Business-Netzwerk „Berlin Gaming“ möchte der Berliner Publisher TGC – The Games Company allen gamesaffinen Berlinern die Möglichkeit geben, innerhalb der Gruppe kreative Ideen auszutauschen, Synergien zu nutzen und das eigene Kontaktnetzwerk zu erweitern. „Berlin Gaming“ zählt momentan über 400 registrierte Mitglieder.

Ort:
HomeBase Lounge Berlin
Köthener Str. 44
10963 Berlin

www.homebase-berlin.net



Beginn: 19 Uhr

Der Eintritt ist frei.

Rückfragen und Infos unter: info@amaze-festival.de

***
Erste Inspirationen von seinem Besuch im Computerspielemuseum 2006:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8khOCIK-Dg&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42BCU2DHKFU&feature=channel

Sunday, July 5, 2009

CD

some months late, but still: happy 30th birthday, CD!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD

Thursday, June 25, 2009

picasso's light graffiti














Today and Tomorrow points to a terrific set of photos found in the LIFE archive of Picasso doing light graffiti. They were shot in 1949 by LIFE photographer Gjon Mili when he visited Picasso in Vallauris, France.

from the wooster collective site

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

BBC's Memoryshare - A place to share and explore memories

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/memoryshare/

Memoryshare is an information visualization tool and user-generated archive that the BBC launched back in 2007. The visualizaton is a timeline that resemles a DNA-strand, with a slider on the right that enables you to go back and forth in the structure; a slider on the left side to jump from one year to the other; and a search-function with which you can access specific information via text.
Little colour-coded bulbs along the DNA strand represent the individual archive-entries. I could not figurte out, wheter colour and shape of the bulbs have meaning assigned, too. By clicking on the bulbs, the detailed information opens in a new window. Mouse-over a bulb highlights related entries.
Results can also be viewed as a list to get a different kind of perspective on the data. Entries start in the year 1900 and go up to date.


Memoryshare was featured in Infosthetics on June 24th, 2009, text:
"BBC Memoryshare [bbc.co.uk] is a living archive of memories from 1900 to the present day. Users are invited to contribute, share and browse memories of all their memorable days and life experiences, and see them in the context of recent and historical events. Memories can include text, photos and videos.

Memoryshare is a web service across a number of sites on bbc.co.uk, such as local websites, radio and television. It was launched on the BBC Norfolk site on 8 July 2007, on the BBC London site on 23 July 2007 and on the BBC South Yorkshire site on 25 July 2007. It uses the DNA software developed for h2g2. The long-term aim for BBC Memoryshare is for a fully dynamic service which will enable users to find and search BBC content against date, to create content and to share multi-media content with other users."


links:
- memoryshare on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoryshare
- h2g2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H2g2
- on infostehtics: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2009/06/bbc_memoryshare_a_place_to_share_and_explore_memories.html

Monday, June 22, 2009

Early Computer History @ University of Manchester


From "The Baby" to the "Manchester Mark 1" and the William's Tube. The University of Manchester, were these things were developed more than half a century ago, put together a website with a really nice collection of resources about the history of its early computers.

http://www.computer50.org/

Saturday, June 20, 2009

FILE 2009 - symposium

FILE 2009 symposium, Electronic Language International Festival, 27th - 31st of August, 2009 @ Sesi Paulista's cultural space, Sao Paulo, Brasil

"FILE Symposium intends to create a new point of debate besides the Europe/US axis, with the intent of discussing the electronic digital culture in its international relations, and also to broaden the dialogue on digital culture in its interdisciplinary extension. FILE Symposium is a space for discussing new media that will have round-tables with artists, theoreticians and researchers from Brazil and abroad in the area of art-technology."

url:
http://www.file.org.br/file2009/eng/index.php
http://www.file.org.br/

Thursday, June 18, 2009

monoskop

Monoskop is collaborative research project, that started a wiki about the social history of media art and culture in 2004, focussing on the media art histories of particular collectives and cities. The city entries are like an index to as well as detailed description of the media art scenes of these places.

Their current research project:
Collaborative research on media art and culture in Central and Eastern Europe


wiki:
http://www.burundi.sk/monoskop/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.burundi.sk/monoskop/index.php/Monoskop:About

blog:
http://burundi.sk/monoskop/log/

a.aaaarg.org

http://a.aaaarg.org/

about:
"AAAARG is a conversation platform - at different times it performs as a school, or a reading group, or a journal.

AAAARG was created with the intention of developing critical discourse outside of an institutional framework. But rather than thinking of it like a new building, imagine scaffolding that attaches onto existing buildings and creates new architectures between them."



the platform includes a huge online library with lots of full texts on media theory, philosophy, art, ploitics, including works by Th.W.Adorno, Giorgio Agamben, Roy Ascott, Roland Barthes, Katherine Hayles, Elias Canetti, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and lots and lots of others.

Users are encouraged to upload new texts to the library.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

IMA :: Institute of Media Archeology

http://www.ima.or.at/?page_id=103&language=de

from the mission statement:
"The emphasis is on unearthing female productions in the field of electronic arts, analysing their place in the overall historical context and making them visible for a wider public. With this research priority, the Institute could position itself at an international level and join the network of the few existing institutions that are also active in this field. In 2003, for example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the most renowned institutions world-wide, published the book ”Women, Art, and Technology” edited by Judy Malloy. Within this research domain, the Institute should particularly focus on the acoustic arts in all their manifestations."

Monday, June 15, 2009

CALL FOR PROPOSALS, MEDIAMODES CONFERENCE

MediaModes Graduate Student Conference at the School of Visual Arts, NY

MediaModes is an interdisciplinary graduate student conference that provides
a critical forum to present current scholarship and academic research
projects at the intersection of media, art, and society. Open to all current
graduate students and those who have received a graduate degree within the
last year, MediaModes is sponsored by the MFA Art Criticism & Writing and
MFA Computer Art Departments at the School of Visual Arts.

Proposals due June 15, 2009
Send to: abstracts@mediamodes.com
Find out more at: http://www.MediaModes.com

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

paleo-future + time capsules

http://www.paleofuture.com

a great blog on "futures that never were" by Matt Novak, that covers futuristic visions from the 1880s to the 1990s.

it also has a small section of books on that topic: http://www.paleofuture.com/library/


a second blog by the same author, where he collects information about time capsules, their content and google maps where they are burried; that really made me laugh:
http://timecapsuled.org/

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

another interesting post on CTheory's section "Resetting Theory":

________________________________________________________
CTHEORY: THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE VOL 32, NOS 1-2
*** Visit CTHEORY Online: http://www.ctheory.net ***

RT 005 06/02/2009 Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
______________________________
__________________________


On Game Art, Circuit Bending and Speedrunning as Counter-Practice:
'Hard' and 'Soft' Nonexistence
================================================

Author: Seb Franklin

Intro: "In _The Exploit_ Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker speculate
that "[f]uture avant-garde practices will be those of nonexistence."
[1] This extraordinary claim is a response to the current ubiquity of
digital technology and its impact on cultural politics; if existence
becomes a question of being classified informatically, the avoidance
of this classification, or nonexistence, becomes of paramount
importance. The discussion of nonexistence in _The Exploit_ opens
with a question, one that forms the basis of this essay: "how does
one develop techniques and technologies to make oneself unaccountable
for?" [2] Directly following this question comes a specific, material
example through which a crucial distinction between "unaccountable
for" and "invisible" or "absent" is made -- the use of a laser
pointer, aimed into a surveillance camera in order to 'blind' it. In
this situation, the camera is not destroyed nor is the individual
shining the laser actually hiding, or invisible; instead, they are
simply not present on the particular screen or data set recorded by
the camera in question. [3] The same is true of the tricking of a
server, causing it to record a routine event when one goes online.
These kinds of tactics, "tactics of abandonment", are "positive
technologies" for Galloway and Thacker. They are entirely distinct
from absence, lack, invisibility and nonbeing because they are "full"
or rather, because they "permeate." [4] The practical consequences of
Galloway and Thacker's formulation of nonexistence are clear: It's
not a question of hiding, or living off the grid, but of living on
the grid, in potentially full informatic view, but in a way that
makes one's technical specification or classification impossible." etc.etc.etc.

Friday, May 22, 2009

legendary operating systems

article about ten meanwhile historical operating systems on TecChannel:

http://www.tecchannel.de/pc_mobile/windows/2018554/legendaere_betriebssysteme_msdos_nextstep_amigaos_macos/index2.html

The text is in German, but even for non-German speakers it is worth taking a look at the beautiful screenshots!




VisiCorp Visi On













Mac OS System 1.0












Xerox Alto

Thursday, May 21, 2009

IX @ Hacker Space Fest 2009


IX by h3x3n has been accepted to the Hacker Space Fest 2009, Paris.
The festival starts on June 26th and lasts until June 30th and consists of workshops, presentations, conferences and an exhibition of works.
Our installation can be seen throughout the festival. The presentation of the project will be on Monday, 29th June, 15:00.

agenda: http://www.hackerspace.net/

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Russian proto-electronic music from 1930-s and beyond



"Sound out of Paper" with Andrei Smirnov
May 21 at NK Berlin, Elsenstr. 52 2HH, 2Etage Entrance: Free starting at 21:00

Russian proto-electronic music from 1930-s and beyond, A presentation and film viewing session of synthesized sound from light called Graphical (Drawn) Sound technique produced in the 1930s recently discovered at the Russian State Film Archive. The technology of synthesizing sound from light called Graphical (Drawn) Sound technique which was invented in Soviet Russia in 1929 as a consequence of the newly invented sound-on-film technology. At exactly the same time similar efforts were being undertaken in Germany by Rudolf Pfenninger in Munich and, somewhat later, by Oscar Fischinger in Berlin. This invention came at least twenty years too early while the World War II was already at the threshold. As a result by late 1930-s the work in this domain effectively came to a halt. Although there were several short articles published in USA by V. Solev (1935), most publications about research and developments in the USSR were in Russian. At the same time the most important documents were never published at all and were circulating in manuscript form. Fortunately many unique archives survived and are collected now at the Theremin Center in Moscow. Over two hours of synthesized music produced in 1930s twenty years before the foundation of electronic music were discovered recently at the Russian State Film Archive.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Ars Electronica 2009: Human Nature


Ars Electronica announced the topic for its next festival:
http://www.aec.at/humannature/index_en.html

The festival will take place in Linz, Austria, from Thursday Sept. 3rd to Tuesday Sept. 8th, 2009.

This year is the 30th anniversary of Ars Electronica. The festival started in 1979, from 1980 to 1986 it was held biannually, from 1987 on yearly.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Wolfram|Alpha

on may 18th, 2009, Wolfram|Alpha has been launched. in contrast to search engines such as google, it is called an "answer engine", a growing knowledge base of structured data. users are welcomed to contribute by submitting specific facts, a whole set of structured data as well as algorithms (http://www.wolframalpha.com/participate/participate.html)

"Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries." (http://www.wolframalpha.com/about.html)
these sources can be accessed at the bottom of every query result.

at the moment, wolfram alpha "contains 10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains. Built with Mathematica—which is itself the result of more than 20 years of development at Wolfram Research—Wolfram|Alpha's core code base now exceeds 5 million lines of symbolic Mathematica code. Running on supercomputer-class compute clusters, Wolfram|Alpha makes extensive use of the latest generation of web and parallel computing technologies, including webMathematica and gridMathematica."


blog: http://blog.wolframalpha.com/
website: http://www.wolframalpha.com/

archive 2020


a conference about archiving and sustainability of born digital content. unfortunately it already took place (today, may 18th, 2009) in amsterdam.

http://www.virtueelplatform.nl/en/#2489


talks by:
Lev Manovich (on cultural analytics)
Olga Goriunova (runme.org)
Eric Kluitenberg (the living archive)
Alessandro Ludovico (neural.it)
Aymeric Mansoux (goto10)
Christiane Paul (the whitney artport)
Esther Weltevrede (archiving web dynamics)
Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss (netzspannung.org)

virtueel platform (nl)

http://www.virtueelplatform.nl/en/

mission statement:

"Virtual Platform defines e-culture as new developments in the cultural sector arising from cross-pollination between technology and society. Virtueel Platform firmly believes that e-culture makes an essential contribution to cultural, social and economic innovation, and works to strengthen and develop Dutch e-culture at home and abroad."

Thursday, May 14, 2009

latest post on CTHEORY

CTHEORY: THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE VOL 32, NOS 1-2
*** Visit CTHEORY Online: http://www.ctheory.net ***
RT 004 05/13/2009 Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker


Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter:

Empire@Play: Virtual Games and Global Capitalism

"Amidst the current convulsions, global capitalism has one consolation
left for its increasingly desperate subjects: you may have lost your
job (or will never be able to retire from it), you can't afford to go
out, but you can always stay home (if you still have one) and play a
video game. As Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns and Merrill Lynch fell
and General Motors, Ford and Chrysler reeled round the edge of their
grave, North American sales of game hardware and software hit
all-time highs in 2008. Forecasters claimed virtual play was
recession-proof; a maturing audience of stay-at-home gamers would
cocoon around the Wii, Xbox360 or PS3, or migrate to ~World of
Warcraft~ or ~Second Life~, to enjoy a diversion from economic
disaster. Such estimates of game-business resilience may prove
optimistic: by 2009 job losses were hitting industry behemoths such
as Sony and Electronic Arts (EA). But this latest iteration of
bread-and-circuses culture-theory nevertheless provides a timely
entry for a discussion of digital games as exemplary media of
contemporary Empire."


warm recommendation

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tag ties & affective spies is a critical approach on the social media of our times. What happens when we are “tagging” , “posting” and “sharing” our experiences and opinions in platforms such as those of Facebook, YouTube, flickr or del.icio.us? Are we really connecting and interacting or are we also forming the content and the structure of the social web itself? curated by Daphne Dragona
+interview

Iannis Xenakis's UPIC


UPIC is a computerised musical composition tool, devised by the composer Iannis Xenakis. It was developed at the Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu) in Paris, and was completed in 1977.
more info

you can download an OSC poly-temporal meta-sequencer version based on the UPIC here http://iannix.la-kitchen.fr/

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Olia Lialina and New Media Art Histories of the (so-called) net.art, Net Art and Web Art moments



My colleague Bruce Jenkins (formerly the curator of the Harvard Film Archive and currently on faculty with me in the Film, Video & New Media department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago) asked me to recommend Web Art that could be included in his upcoming "Presenting and Preserving Moving-Image Media" course. I suggested he include a discussion of the work of Olia Lialina. In particular, her Last Real Net Art Museum project:

http://myboyfriendcamebackfromth.ewar.ru

which in part hosts remixes of her MY BOYFRIEND CAME BACK FROM THE WAR project from 1996. The remixes function as a form of archiving and preservation in that they extend the life of the work by reworking this now historical New Media Art project. As such, this series constitutes a significantly dynamic and vital artistic use of archives and archiving.

Her FIRST AND THE ONLY REAL NET ART GALLERY:

http://art.teleportacia.org/

directly addresses web-based exhibition of New Media Art as well as the legendary death or historical status of net.art. In particular, this issues are addressed through the online exhibition MINIATURES OF THE HEROIC PERIOD from 1998:

http://art.teleportacia.org/exhibition/miniatures/


Her collection of texts in the "Texts on net.art, new media and digital folklore" section:

http://art.teleportacia.org/observation/

provides important views into these histories. From that section, her text "Vernacular Web" originally from 2005:


http://art.teleportacia.org/observation/vernacular/


which was then updated and reversioned in 2007:


http://www.contemporary-home-computing.org/vernacular-web-2/


also considers New Media Art Histories and issues of historicity by unlocking ways in which artists and those who do not identify as artists have used the internet and the web over the last 15 or so years...

// jonCates

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

the troubled history of computer art 1963-1989

I came across a very interesting 2005 PhD thesis by Taylor, Grant D., "The machine that made science art: the troubled history of computer art 1963-1989"

abstract: This thesis represents an historical account of the reception and criticism of computer art from its emergence in 1963 to its crisis in 1989, when aesthetic and ideological differences polarise and eventually fragment the art form. Throughout its history, static-pictorial computer art has been extensively maligned. In fact, no other twentieth-century art form has elicited such a negative and often hostile response. In locating the destabilising forces that affect and shape computer art, this thesis identifies a complex interplay of ideological and discursive forces that influence the way computer art has been and is received by the mainstream artworld and the cultural community at large. One of the central factors that contributed to computer art’s marginality was its emergence in that precarious zone between science and art, at a time when the perceived division between the humanistic and scientific cultures was reaching its apogee. The polarising force inherent in the “two cultures” debate framed much of the prejudice towards early computer art. For many of its critics, computer art was the product of the same discursive assumptions, methodologies and vocabulary as science. Moreover, it invested heavily in the metaphors and mythologies of science, especially logic and mathematics. This close relationship with science continued as computer art looked to scientific disciplines and emergent techno-science paradigms for inspiration and insight. While recourse to science was a major impediment to computer art’s acceptance by the artworld orthodoxy, it was the sustained hostility towards the computer that persistently wore away at the computer art enterprise. The anticomputer response came from several sources, both humanist and anti-humanist. The first originated with mainstream critics whose strong humanist tendencies led them to reproach computerised art for its mechanical sterility. A comparison with aesthetically and theoretically similar art forms of the era reveals that the criticism of computer art is motivated by the romantic fear that a computerised surrogate had replaced the artist. Such usurpation undermined some of the keystones of modern Western art, such as notions of artistic “genius” and “creativity”. Any attempt to rationalise the human creative faculty, as many of the scientists and technologists were claiming to do, would for the humanist critics have transgressed what they considered the primordial mystique of art. Criticism of computer art also came from other quarters. Dystopianism gained popularity in the 1970s within the reactive counter-culture and avant-garde movements. Influenced by the pessimistic and cynical sentiment of anti-humanist writings, many within the arts viewed the computer as an emblem of rationalisation, a powerful instrument in the overall subordination of the individual to the emerging technocracy.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Ludic Cartography. Mapping GameSpaces

CFP: Ludic Cartography. Mapping GameSpaces



Sandtable2
[Image courtesy of Sony]

CFP: Ludic Cartography. Mapping GameSpaces

Full Name/Name of Organization
Matteo Bittanti, Henry Lowood, Bonnie De Varco

Stanford University
Contact email: Matteo Bittanti at bittanti at Stanford dot edu and/or Henry Lowood at lowood at Stanford dot edu and/or bonnie de varco at devarco at cruzio. dot com

CFP categories:
Video Games, Cartography, Virtual Worlds, Game Studies, Sociology

Description
The How They Got Game Project at Stanford University is currently seeking papers that explore the connections between mapping, cartographic practices, and electronic gaming for an illustrated book that will be published in 2010. Specifically, we are interested in representations of spaces in video games through the aid of maps and mapping tools. Video games establish new topographies and new geographies that - while making obvious references to pre-existing models - create a new understanding of the world and its spaces. Our goal is to show and explain how digital spaces [i.e. video games and virtual worlds] are being mapped by a new generation of cartographers.

Topics might include:

- History and evolution of mapping in games
- Origins and evolution of strategy guides
- Uses of modern cartographic tools (e.g. Google Earth) for video games
- Uses of innovative displays for mapping/visualizing games
- Case studies of key games that use innovative cartographic solutions
- Legal issues related to cartography in gaming
- Visual display of game related information on-screen and off-screen
- The relationship between traditional (analog) and digital ludic cartography

Please send a one to two page proposal by April 25th to Matteo Bittanti at bittanti at Stanford dot edu and/or Henry Lowood at lowood at Stanford dot edu and/or bonnie de varco at devarco at cruzio. dot com.

Interdisciplinarity will be a key feature of this project. Authors are encouraged to include high-resolution images in their essays and to use pictorial material in a creative, rather than complementary, way in their essay.

Authors of papers accepted be notified by June 1, 2009. In addition to the book, we are currently evaluating various spin-offs (e.g. organizing an exhibition).

Hacker Space Festival 2009 | Call For Proposals




========================================================================
/tmp/lab announces the second Hacker Space Festival
(Paris, 26-30 June 2009)
========================================================================

Hacker Space Festival 2009 | Call For Proposals

In 2008, we organized HSF[1] on the spot, as an ad-hoc meeting for
hackerspaces-related networks, technical and artistic research emerging
from them and social questionning arising from them. This sudden
experiment proved to be a huge success, as much as on the
self-organizing level as on the participants and meetings quality, as
well as the emotionally-charged ambient, the kind of which you make
fond memories.

The 2008 edition generated a strong emulation in France, from its
historical role as the first official hack meeting there, and in Europe
with the subsequent creation of the Hacker Space Brussels[2], the
rapprochement with The Fiber in Amsterdam and the hackerspaces.org[3]
network. Initiatives of hackerspace openings in Grenoble or Lille, or
the upcoming FrHack[4] conference show an actual enthusiasm in the
French hackers community that was doomed to the "underground" not so
long ago. We salute these initiatives and their diversity!

Soon enough, we wanted to reiterate the HSF experience : however, it
was out of the question to institutionalize this temporary autonomous
zone, nor make it an ersatz of the previous edition, nor even to wrap
it into an "elite" or "underground" aura. On the opposite, we ardently
desire; and especially to explore further, in all directions some
lesser known domains (see below) et foster meeting and sharing around
experiences at the confluence of art, technology and politics.

The world financial crisis, the decay of democracy in Europe, the
obscurantism, paranoia and lack of culture presiding over legislation
(Internet and Reaction... Err... Creation Law[5][6]) seem a fertile
environment for the sensible development of new (social...) life forms.
Quick! Let's rest for a few days in jubilation and ecstasy to take a
deep breathe of freedom under the indelicate smells of the medicine
factory nearby!

For if the public space is shrinking to oblivion, where any side-step
becomes suspect, and that, from an early age (deviant behavior
detection in nursery school), where moving without a mobile phone
becomes suspect (hello you Julien Coupat[7], a French political
prisoner in France!), there's a domain that the Leviathan would have a
lot of trouble to contain, and for a reason: that of sensitivity. Even
the desperate attempts of the State to block the free and premonitory
expression of sense (hello you Demeure du Chaos![8]) cannot do anything
against a loud laughter or a knowing glance, a sensual kiss or an
explosion of colors.

Sensitivity, we could say, is what is left to a human being when she
has nothing anymore, and differenciates her from the body corporate or
the institution, that are, in essence, devoid of it. Therefore, Art
definitely remains the public space to share between humans, and only
between us. And if it the last one to share, we propose to explore it
and take it over during the upcoming edition of the Hacker Space
Festival, from the 26th to 30th of June, 2009 at Vitry sur Seine[9].

========================================================================
Keynote Speakers: Sergey Grim and Larry Fake with Eric Schmoudt
Groogle Summer of Crode, Survivor style
"VLC, I vote against you because you really fucked up when..."

========================================================================
== W A N T E D =========================================================

Focus on solutions rather than problems.

* The Final (Hardware) Frontier: Open FPGA Cores, Reverse Engineering
* Designer Religions and Creative Beliefs Systems
* WiFiDoors & WiFi System-on-Chip controllers firmware hacking,
infection & backdooring
* Telecom Core Network Equipment Reverse Engineering: MSC, STP,
Switches, ...
* Algebraic Attacks and Modern Cryptography Attacks
* Autonomous, Parasitic and Viral Drones
* Enhanced or Infected Reality Swarms
* Auto-Builders / Self-Fabrication
* Embedded OS breakins stories & recipes
* Actualization rather than mere concepts
* FPGA & ASIC hacking / backdooring
* Cloud+Privacy+Open Source: O Brave New World?
* Explosion-Proof clothing
* Radio Appz & Hackz: Mesh @ RF Layer 1-3
* Database & Privacy
* Problematic & Ethical Open Source/Content Licenses
* Institutional Relationships: Lobbying or Licking?
* Non Lethal Protection (anti-taser vests?)
* Survival in the Age of the Ministry of Immigration and National
Identity
* Mental asylum improvised visit
* Open Source Legacy Media(TM) Production Solutions (TV, Radio, Press,
DRM)
* Gas Sensors & Environmental Benchmarking
* Building Hackerspaces Without Money
* Milsatcomm hacking: Military satellites shots, broken birds in the
sky
* Other research topics on security and insecurity
* Academics and Hackers
* Organics and Fermentation
* Clean Food in Tainted Environment
* Low Impact Energy & Recycling
* Media Sandwich: layers of crap makes good food?
* Deconstructing Carla Sarkozy
* Knitting DIY Factory (jazzy, eh?)
* Signs of life among industrial wasteland
* Hallucinogenic & Computing: Can you Code on Acid?
* Mesh Networking (Wireless BattleMesh Royal!)
* Legal Sabotage: When Democracy Needs You

And anything that does not fit.

========================================================================
== P R O P O S E =======================================================

Send you contributions to HSF2009-CFP@lists.tmplab.org

+ Type of the proposal:

1. conference (45min. presentation + 10min. for questions)
2. workshop / demo (30min. à 2 heures)
3. installation / performance (music, plastic, sound, video)

Lightning talks can be proposed and organized until the last moment,
according to available space and schedule, in the form of BarCamps or
Blitz Conferences.

+ Required Information:

* Title of the presentation
* Type (see above)
* Language : French or English
* Name of speaker(s)
* Affiliation (organization / company)
* Short biography
* Abstract (5 to 10 lines)
* Topics / Keywords
* Includes a demo? YES | NO
* Release during the festival? YES | NO
* Internet connection required? YES | NO

+ Acceptable Formats

* Open Document
* PDF
* Plain Text
* RTF

+ Agenda

* beginning of proposals : now
* end of proposals : 01 May 2009
* selection notification : 07 May 2009
* publication of program : 15 May 2009

+ Evaluation criteria for proposals:

1. Innovating Topic
2. Open Technology
3. Demonstration / Live Act
4. DIY Reproducibility
5. Fun Potential

The Programming Committee resembles that of last year
See : http://hackerspace.net/committee

========================================================================
== V E N U E ===========================================================

/tmp/lab
6 Bis rue Leon Geffroy
94400 Vitry sur Seine
France

http://hackerspace.net/directions

========================================================================
== P A R T I C I P A T E ===============================================

Email : http://lists.tmplab.org/listinfo.cgi/hsf2009-talk-tmplab.org
CFPmail: HSF2009-CFP@lists.tmplab.org
IRC : irc://irc.freenode.net/frlab
Jabber : xmpp:hsf2009@space.cepheide.org?join
Wiki : http://hackerspace.net/hsf2009

========================================================================
== L I N K S ===========================================================

The CFP is available online at http://hackerspace.net/cfp

[1] http://hackerspace.net/hsf2008
[2] http://hsb.wikidot.com/
[3] http://hackerspaces.org/
[4] http://www.frhack.org/
[5] http://jaimelesautistes.fr/
[6] http://laquadrature.net/
[7] http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Coupat
[8] http://www.demeureduchaos.org/
[9] http://hackerspace.net/
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Digital Art and Culture 2009



Digital Art and Culture 2009

Saturday evening 12 Dec through Tuesday evening 15 Dec.

This iteration of DAC will dwell on the specificities of embodiment and cultural, social and physical location with respect to digital technologies and networked communications.

DAC09 will be structured around themes, each theme being composed of panels. DAC09 will be held in the Arts Plaza of the University of California Irvine. Simon Penny is director of DAC09.

Opening reception: Saturday evening 12Dec at Beall Center for Art and Technology.
The Beall Center will be hosting a specially curated DAC-centric Exhibition.
Conference Proper: Sunday 13Dec, Monday 14Dec, Tuesday 15Dec.

Abstract Proposal Deadline May1.
Proposals must be made within specific conference Themes.
Please visit the website for further details.


New Theme
A Space-Time of Ubiquity and Embeddedness
Theme leaders Ulrik Ekman and Mark Hansen.


Conference Accommodation
Negotiations are under way for reduced price block bookings for attendees at nearby hotels. Information will be posted at dac09.uci.edu

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Creative Cities - Das Versprechen der kreativen Ökonomie

http://www.thenextlayer.org/CreativeCities


SYMPOSIUM 31. März 2009

Veranstalter: ORF, Ö1 Wissenschaft
Ort: Radiokulturhaus Wien
Zeit: 14:00 - 20.00 Uhr


"Mit dem Ende des Industriezeitalters werden die „Creative Industries“

von Regierungen weltweit als wirtschaftliches Hoffnungsgebiet
beschworen. Künstlerische Kreativität soll neue Produkte und
Arbeitsplätze schaffen, und die kreative Arbeit soll nun zum Modell der
Arbeit in allen Branchen werden. Doch welche Widersprüche verbergen sich
hinter dem Versprechen der kreativen Ökonomie?

Ist "Prekarität" der Preis für das flexible und eigenverantwortliche
Arbeiten? Wie vertragen sich künstlerische Gesellschaftskritik und
wirtschaftliches Gewinnstreben? Wer profitiert vom Schutz geistigen
Eigentums? Ist der Zwang zur ökonomischen Verwertbarkeit für das
kreative Schaffen letztlich kontraproduktiv? Vor welchen
Herausforderungen steht die Gesellschaft, wenn Kreativität plötzlich ins
Zentrum wirtschaftlichen Interesses rückt?

Beim Ö1 Symposium dekonstruieren, kontextualisieren und diskutieren
internationale Expert/innen Begriffe wie Kreativität, Creative Class und
Creative Cities."


Programm

Beginn: 14.00 Uhr

Moderation: Ina Zwerger und Armin Medosch
Begrüßung: N.N., BMUKK

Creative Labour & Proletarian Playtime in the European City
Richard Barbrook, Westminster University, London

Kunstarbeit – eine pragmatische Analyse
Diedrich Diederichsen, Kulturwissenschafter, Berlin / Wien

Publikumsgespräch und Pause

Freie Kultur und die Folgen der kreativen Politik -
Am Beispiel der Niederlande

Geert Lovink, Institute of Network Culture, Amsterdam

Vom Kruppstahl zu den Creative Industries – Am Beispiel Dortmund
Inke Arns, HMKV, Hartware Medienkunst, Dortmund

Publikumsgespräch

Images of Economy: KulturproduzentInnen und geistiges Eigentum
Jaime Stapleton, Associate Research Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London

Pause

Künstlerische Interventionen
Marlies Pöschl /cre-activity check;
Djana Covic & Fahim Amir / from live models
tagr.tv

Wirtschaftliche und subjektive Verarmung im Neoliberalismus. Eine Kritik der Creative Industries
Maurizio Lazzarato, Soziologe und Philosoph, Paris
übersetzt von Stefan Nowotny

Diskussion
Vom Versprechen der kreativen Ökonomie: Fantasma oder Paradigmenwechsel?
Mit Andreas Spiegl, Vizerektor der Akademie der Bildenden Künste
Monika Mokre, Politikwissenschafterin (FOKUS)
Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Geschäftsführer von departure
Stefan Leitner-Sidl, Gründer der Schraubenfabrik
Walter Gröbchen, Labelbetreiber
Marion von Osten, Künstlerin

Konzept und Moderation: Ina Zwerger und Armin Medosch