[spectre] Architecture as Sonic Experience workshop with Esther Polak & Ivar van Bekkum - Berlin, Feb. 2 & 3, 2018
Dear Spectrites, In the satellite program of transmediale 2018 we are organising a workshop (Feb. 2 & 3, 12.30 - 17.00) and discussion with Dutch artists Esther Polak and Ivar ven Bekkum, together with Hybrid Space Lab, which is based in Berlin. Details below. Keywords: For anyone interested and in Berlin there is still opportunity to join the workshop, participation is free, we just would like to know what you expect or can contribute to the workshop - please contact the artists if you wish to join at: binaural sound recording, urban space, field recording, locative media, digital cartography cont...@polakvanbekkum.com <mailto:cont...@polakvanbekkum.com> bests, Eric — reDesigning Affect Space #1: Like Space: Architecture as Sonic Experience Masterclass by Esther Polak & Ivar van Bekkum in cooperation with Hybrid Space Lab & Transmediale Festival. Berlin, February 2 - 4, 2018. “Like Space” is a research by Hybrid Space Lab on the emotional and affective dimensions of hybrid (combined physical and media) space. In their work, Esther Polak and Ivar van Bekkum (PolakVanBekkum) are investigating mobility and the (urban) landscape. In recent years they have explored the possibilities of location-specific binaural sound recordings. To enter a physical identification with mobilities and moving objects, they connected their recording equipment to those objects, instead of the human head. To radicalise this work method in scale, PolakVanBekkum proposes to apply it to a building. As a result, one ear would hear the eastern side of a building, while the other ear would hear the western side. Workshop: Architecture as Sonic Experience Your ears are about 20 cm apart. How will you experience the city once you enlarge that distance? Will this make you hear like a giant? In two afternoons, you will experiment with listening over expanded distances: with your ears one meter apart, 2 meters, 5 meters, 20 meters, as if you enlarge your head. Can you intertwine sounds that enter your ears from a greater distance than you are used to? We will bring mics and extension cables to connect those distances to headphones. We can use our mobile phones to produce live streams. And don’t hesitate to bring your own equipment to experiment with. Once we decided on a setup, we will go out to the street to ‘become’ different objects: a tree, a bridge, a car, or a bus stop. We, Ivar and Esther, are curious to radicalise the scale of this work method as far as possible. Can we even identify with a building adding one ear to one side and the other to the opposite side? At the start of the workshop all participants will be asked to introduce themselves, to see what fields of knowledge, experience, and curiosity each of us brings. During the workshop we will build on this collective expertise. Concluding the workshop, we will define what ‘spatial listening’ brought us. Can we approach the urban landscape from this position with a different view, or rather a different ear? What sort of bodily information do we get? What is the role of (mobile) tech to this? What is this kind of spatial listening? And how does it affect our sense of city-awareness? Context: This masterclass is part of ‘reDesigning Affect Space’, an international design- theory, practice, and research project initiated by lead-researcher Eric Kluitenberg, which consists of a series of masterclasses and conferences in Berlin, Madrid, Rotterdam and The Hague. The project aims to develop a more differentiated design agenda for the increasingly dense connections between public space, mobile media, and wireless networks, and the shift to affective relations in public space that result from this densification. Links: binaural recordings of moving objects: car recording https://vimeo.com/136873473 vorkheftruck recording https://vimeo.com/138551393 caterpillar recording https://vimeo.com/137422115 trolley recording https://vimeo.com/138643907 PolakVan Bekkum: www.polakvanbekkum.com Essay reDesigning Affect Space (Open! Platform for Art, Culture and the Public Domain): www.onlineopen.org/re-designing-affect-space Dates: Workshop: Friday & Saturday, 12.30 -17.00, February 2 & 3, 2018 Location: SPEKTRUM Bürknerstr. 12, 12047 Berlin >> U8 Schönleinstrasse Panel discussion @ Transmediale: Sunday February 4, 13.30 - 15.00 Location: Haus der Kulturen der Welt Participation: The workshop is open to students and professionals who are interested in and engaged with: – alternative ways to experience urban space – binaural sound recording – field recording Please send your short (two sentence) motivation to: cont...@polakvanbekkum.com <mailto:cont...@polakvanbekkum.com> Participation is free. Participation is free of charge, but accommodation and food should be organised by participants themselves. reDesigning Affect Space is generously supported by Creative Industries
[spectre] Architecture as Sonic Experience Masterclass by Esther Polak & Ivar van Bekkum, Berlin April 14 - 16
Dear Spectrites, Coming weekend the first workshop annex masterclass of the reDesigning Affect Space project will be conducted by artists Esther Polak and Ivar van Bekkum, at Spektrum in Berlin, on April 14 & 15, with a public presentation of results on Monday evening April 16. Limited places are still available for the workshop, which is free of charge, but we ask for a ultra brief motivation from prospective participants. To join please send an e-mail to: cont...@polakvanbekkum.com <mailto:cont...@polakvanbekkum.com> -Eric ——— reDesigning Affect Space #1: Architecture as Sonic Experience Masterclass by Esther Polak & Ivar van Bekkum in cooperation with Hybrid Space Lab & Spektrum. Berlin, April 14 - 16, 2018. “Like Space” is a research by Hybrid Space Lab on the emotional and affective dimensions of hybrid (combined physical and media) space. In their work, Esther Polak and Ivar van Bekkum (PolakVanBekkum) are investigating mobility and the (urban) landscape. In recent years they have explored the possibilities of location-specific binaural sound recordings. To enter a physical identification with mobilities and moving objects, they connected their recording equipment to those objects, instead of the human head. To radicalise this work method in scale, PolakVanBekkum proposes to apply it to a building. As a result, one ear would hear the eastern side of a building, while the other ear would hear the western side. Workshop: Architecture as Sonic Experience Your ears are about 20 cm apart. How will you experience the city once you enlarge that distance? Will this make you hear like a giant? In two afternoons, you will experiment with listening over expanded distances: with your ears one meter apart, 2 meters, 5 meters, 20 meters, as if you enlarge your head. Can you intertwine sounds that enter your ears from a greater distance than you are used to? We will bring mics and extension cables to connect those distances to headphones. We can use our mobile phones to produce live streams. And don’t hesitate to bring your own equipment to experiment with. Once we decided on a setup, we will go out to the street to ‘become’ different objects: a tree, a bridge, a car, or a bus stop. We, Ivar and Esther, are curious to radicalise the scale of this work method as far as possible. Can we even identify with a building adding one ear to one side and the other to the opposite side? At the start of the workshop all participants will be asked to introduce themselves, to see what fields of knowledge, experience, and curiosity each of us brings. During the workshop we will build on this collective expertise. Concluding the workshop, we will define what ‘spatial listening’ brought us. Can we approach the urban landscape from this position with a different view, or rather a different ear? What sort of bodily information do we get? What is the role of (mobile) tech to this? What is this kind of spatial listening? And how does it affect our sense of city-awareness? http://spektrumberlin.de/events/detail/architecture-as-sonic-experience.html <http://spektrumberlin.de/events/detail/architecture-as-sonic-experience.html> Presentation: The results of the workshop will be presented in a public discussion at Spektrum on Monday April 16, starting at 20.00 (doors open: 19.30). http://spektrumberlin.de/events/detail/presentation-architecture-as-sonic-experience-esther-polak-ivar-van-bekkum.html <http://spektrumberlin.de/events/detail/presentation-architecture-as-sonic-experience-esther-polak-ivar-van-bekkum.html> Context: This masterclass is part of ‘reDesigning Affect Space’, an international design- theory, practice, and research project initiated by lead-researcher Eric Kluitenberg, which consists of a series of masterclasses and conferences in Berlin, Madrid, Rotterdam and The Hague. The project aims to develop a more differentiated design agenda for the increasingly dense connections between public space, mobile media, and wireless networks, and the shift to affective relations in public space that result from this densification. Links: binaural recordings of moving objects: car recording https://vimeo.com/136873473 <https://vimeo.com/136873473> vorkheftruck recording https://vimeo.com/138551393 <https://vimeo.com/138551393> caterpillar recording https://vimeo.com/137422115 <https://vimeo.com/137422115> trolley recording https://vimeo.com/138643907 <https://vimeo.com/138643907> PolakVan Bekkum: www.polakvanbekkum.com <http://www.polakvanbekkum.com/> Spektrum: http://spektrumberlin.de <http://spektrumberlin.de/> Hybrid Space Lab: http://hybridspacelab.net <http://hybridspacelab.net/> Essay reDesigning Affect Space (Open! Platform for Art, Culture and the Public Domain): www.onlineopen.org/re-designing-affect-space <http://www.onlineopen.org/re-designing-affect-spac
[spectre] Dr. Shahidul Alam Detained - Appeal for his Release #FreeShahidulAlam
Dear Spectrites, Very disturbing news has just come in about the arrest of our friend, media-activist, curator, photographer, long time colleague Shahidul Alam in Dhaka, Bangladesh. We demand the immediate release of Shahidul Alam and condemn the disproportionate violence apparently exercised during his arrest. Concerned, Eric ——— Dr. Shahidul Alam Detained - Appeal for his Release #FreeShahidulAlam Dr. Shahidul Alam, internationally renowned photographer, activist, founder and Managing Director of the Bangladesh multimedia company, Drik, founder of Chobi Mela International Photography Festival and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, was forcibly abducted from his home on the night of 5 August. The next day he appeared in court, apparently so badly beaten that he was unable to walk on his own. Sources say Shahidul is being charged under Bangladesh’s ICT law for his reports on Facebook of ongoing student protests and for an interview he gave to Al Jazeera about the protests. Shahidul has been a close friend and inspiring partner of the Prince Claus Fund for many years. He is a tireless advocate of values that we share: that all people should have the right to freedom of cultural expression. Through his reporting and photography he has discovered and shared hidden human stories not only in Bangladesh but of the many other cultures encountered on his travels. The Prince Claus Fund and its Network Partners deplore the extreme violence and intimidation exercised in Shahidul’s arrest, We call for his immediate and unconditional release. #FreeShahidulAlam On behalf of the Prince Claus Fund, Joumana El Zein Khoury, Director Network Partners of the Prince Claus Fund: Alliance des Editeurs Independants – IAIP, international Alta Tecnologia Andina, Peru Arab Image Foundation, Lebanon Archi Africa, Ghana + Africa Associación Pro Arte y Cultura (APAC), Bolivia BizArt Art Center, China Caribbean Contemporary Art (CCA) Cinematheque de Tanger, Marocco Compagnie Falinga, Burkina Faso Creating Independent and Artistic Networks, Argentina (CRIA) Despina Non-Profit Cultural Association, Brazil Dokufest – International Documentary and Short Film Festival, Kosovo Dox Box, Syria Drik Picture Library Ltd., Bangladesh Hri Institute, Nepal Jant-Bi, Senegal Kibii Foundation, Surinam Land Art Mongolia Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA), Kenya Museo d Antioquia, Colombia Tirana Institute of Contemporary Art (T.I.C.A.), Albania Redsea Cultural Foundation, Somaliland Reyum Institute of Arts and Culture, Cambodia San Art, Vietnam Studios Kabako, Democratic Republic of Congo Supersudaca, Latin America Triangle Arts Trust (TAT), UK University Centre for Arts and Drama, Ingoma Nshya, Rwanda Utan Kayu Network, Indonesia VideoBrazil, Brazil Visual Culture Research Centre – VCRC, Ukraine Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIF), Tanzania Sources: https://princeclausfund.org/news/shahidul-alam-detained-appeal-for-his-release https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/bangladesh-renowned-photographer-detained-media-comments-180806065359943.html http://shahidulnews.com http://drik.net __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] Alex Adriaansens (1953-2018)
Thank you so much Andreas for posting this - through your posting I frist found out about Alex’s passing away, having talked to him several times during his arduous last few years. Nothing more to say than that I wish to pay my respects to Alex, a beautiful person and a deeply respected professional in our little ‘field’, I will dearly miss our accidental encounters.. A really sad start of the new year.. Eric > On 31 Dec 2018, at 07:13, Andreas Broeckmann wrote: > > Alex Adriaansens, artist, curator and long-time director of the > Rotterdam-based V2_Organisation, V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media, passed away > yesterday, 30 December 2018, after several years of struggling with cancer. > For over thirty-five years, Alex was active in the field of art and > technology, as an initiator, an organiser, and as an advisor. His influence > on many of us was enormous. He projected an amazing, passionate engagement > with art and with the ways in which new technologies impact society. Perhaps > even more importantly, he was one of the most gentle, friendly and optimistic > people I can think of. This optimism, coupled with a clear vision and a > strong sense of urgency for what needs to be done, fuelled his work and put > the V2_ Organisation, and many of the projects that Alex was involved in, > among the most influential initiatives in new media art since the 1980s. Now > he leaves behind his wife, Angelica, and will be missed immensely by many > others, as a friend and colleague, mentor, and as one of the guiding spirits > of a whole international scene. > > Alex Adriaansens was born in 1953 (on Valentine's Day) and studied at the art > academy in Den Bosch from 1972 to 1976. In 1981, he, together with Joke > Brouwer and a whole group of artists and activists, set up the artist > collective "V2" which became, in 1986, the V2_Organisation, Institute for the > Unstable Media. The organisation grew and moved to Rotterdam in 1994, > developing a regular program of exhibition, performance, festival, workshop > and publication activities, which it continues after Alex, due to his > declining health, passed on the directorship to Michel van Dartel last summer. > > In the course of more than three decades, many of the now hotly debated > topics of digital culture – from interactivity and virtual reality, to social > media and artificial intelligence – were pioneered in exhibitions, > conferences and book publications by V2_, under the directorship of Alex > Adriaansens and Joke Brouwer. Alex was not an egocentric leader, but a deeply > social, collaborative animal who, rather than insisting on this or that, > stimulated things to evolve and to happen. This turned all the projects he > was involved in into permeable platforms in which he would collaborate to > achieve the best possible results, piloting ideas and concepts which would > often reach the mainstream media and art circles only years later. The 1987 > "Manifesto for the Unstable Media" remains a crucial document of the critical > avantgarde spirit that infused the early years, insisting on the necessity to > engage the new electronic and digital technologies both aesthetically and > politically. > > For Alex, whatever the situation was, there was no other way than to go on, > to imagine the next step, to push ahead. In this moment of loss and sadness, > there is nothing better to do in his spirit. Pause, mourn, and press on. > > Andreas Broeckmann > > > (There will probably be a funerary service on 7 January 2019 at 11:00 hrs in > Rotterdam.) > __ > SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe > Info, archive and help: > http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Workshop @ Neuhaus, HNI, Rotterdam: Collective Bodies Moving in Affect Space: Are We Data? | Neuhaus
Dear Spectrites, The reDesigning Affect Space public research trajectory is drawing to a close with a public program on Thursday September 5 and a workshop guide by JARD architecture agency from Madrid at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, Friday September 6 and Saturday September 7 - join us on one or more of these dates if you happen to be in the proximity of Rotterdam! bests, Eric ——— Collective Bodies Moving in Affect Space: Are We Data? Workshop at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, September 6 & 7, 2019, as part of the Neuhaus Curriculum, a temporary transdisciplinary academy for more-than-human knowledge. https://neuhaus.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/timetable/collective-bodies-moving-affect-space-are-we-data <https://neuhaus.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/timetable/collective-bodies-moving-affect-space-are-we-data> Every step we humans take in public space, how long we are seated, or how long we remain in an over-crowded square, our movements become data. CCTV and surveillance are all about personal data (a.k.a. facial recognition). It could be either a human or an algorithm looking at us, but it is mostly framed around individual information. When its focus shifts from individual data to collective data, do we in turn become data? Using the latest convolutional neural networks (commonly applied to analysing visual data), the workshop will use artificial intelligence to analyse the meaning of movement in public space. With a camera installed in the centre of Rotterdam, the workshop will explore the meaning of our collective body in public space while interacting with it live. We will capture the movement of bodies in real-time and design a series of actions to disrupt, play and understand the power and importance of collective flow to understand the city, the public and the social. The workshop is organised as part of the reDesigning Affect Space <https://www.onlineopen.org/re-designing-affect-space> public research trajectory (also presented at Het Nieuwe Instituut <https://thursdaynight.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/activities/redesigning-affect-space> one day before this workshop on Thursday 5 September 2019) and Neuhaus <https://neuhaus.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en>. Affect Space Affect Space is a spatial model for analysing the interplay between urban public space with mobile technology and the affective intensities that are generated by mediated and embodied exchanges. In fact, the Affect Space model closely describes the designed practices by some techno-political actors, like IT service provides and governments at the forefront of developments. The question at stake is how Affect Space can be redesigned for a more poetic, critical, and open civic engagement, and how to include the design disciplines in shaping such alternative designs? JARD architecture studio JARD <http://www.jard.us/> is an architectonic physic-digital office that works during a daily average of 13 hours 23 minutes and 54 seconds in a discontinuous space-time without adjusting to official vacation periods and on a mutant velocity depending on the context conditions of every project. Javier Argota and Rodrigo Delso are architects educated at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (2014 and 2012 respectively) currently working as researchers and professors at the same university that have complemented their training at Goldsmiths University (London, 2015), Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburg, 2016) and the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago, 2008). Javier Argoto researches on data visualization, interactive media and new technologies applied to urban planning and architecture within Hypermedia Research Group at Polytechnic University of Madrid. Rodrigo Delso is a chronopath, specialised in critical-theoretical research on the digital dimension of cities, who is currently developing his PHD titled ChronoPolis that has been recently awarded in the national competition Arquímedes (2014) for young Spanish researchers. They are the founders of JARD, the innovation pedagogical platform 100×10 and masters program in Architectonic Communication, MAca of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. Eric Kluitenberg Eric Kluitenberg <http://independent.academia.edu/EricKluitenberg> is a theorist, writer, curator, and educator working at the intersection of culture, politics, media, and technology. He is the Editor in Chief of the Tactical Media Files online documentation platform for Tactical Media. He was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, and currently teaches cultural and media theory at the Art Science Interfaculty and the Interactive / Media / Design programme in The Hague. Publications include The Book of Imaginary Media (2006), Delusive Spaces - essays (2008), the theme issues of Open, Journal for Art and the Public Domain, "Hybrid Space" (2006), and "(Im)Mobili
Re: [spectre] a terrible day
Yes thank you so much Andreas, I think we all need a bit of time to digest this- what happens here is not just something with unprecedented geopolitical implications, but also runs right through (Ukranian / Russian) families. An unspeakable tragedy… Deeply concerned, Eric > On 24 Feb 2022, at 11:42, Andreas Broeckmann wrote: > > Dear friends, > > after the build-up of the last days and weeks, this morning we woke up to a > terrible new situation. The Russian attack on Ukraine is a catastrophe, for > the people and the country of Ukraine, and thus for Europe, and I believe > also for Russia. This war will not only bring futile and awful destruction, > but it will also change many things, not only in the Ukrainian territories > now under attack. > > I'm writing to open up this space for debate. You may have other channels for > such discussions elsewhere (... it has been more than twenty years ago that > the Syndicate list, the precursor to Spectre, was an important channel for > such discussions during the conflict in Kosovo and the NATO attacks on > Serbia). But this list, with its legacy of reflecting the diversity and > solidarity of artists and cultural practitioners in "Deep Europe" and beyond, > is certainly available for exchange, analysis and coordination if required. > > If there are people here on the list who can report about the situation in > Ukraine, they may want to inform their international colleagues about what > forms of help and solidarity might be useful. > > And if there are people (especially in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, etc.) who > would like to write anonymously, please, feel free to write to me and I will > anonymise and forward any reasonable messages. > > Andreas > __ > SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe > Info, archive and help: > http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Art and Political Conflict - A public debate at Framer Framed, Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, Sunday July 6, 14.00 - 17.00hrs
Art and Political Conflict A public debate at Framer Framed, Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, Sunday July 6, 14.00 - 17.00hrs The relationship between art and political conflict has been significantly reshaped by the proliferation of digital media and the internet as a means of instant dissemination of images, texts, and audiovisual expressions. Artistic /activist actions intervene via these digital means into an expanded symbolical space that is no longer the sole sanctuary of artists and art audiences, but instead has become the ‘neural fibre’ of everyday life. At first sight this seems to have simplified the task enormously of art that wants to intervene in daily life, not least in urgent political affairs. However, the intervention of art in political conflict has turned out anything but uncomplicated in recent years. The idea that art can address pressing social, ecological and material issues in a wider public domain to some extent presupposes a democratic context that is willing to absorb and respond to this criticism. When this context is absent, in the face of authoritarian rule, amidst tightening ideological domination, the efficacy of artistic/activist intervention is called into question, while unpredictable detrimental results of actions further complicate the situation. Recent outpourings of artistic/activist protest for instance in Turkey and Russia seem to have amplified the tightening of authoritarian rule. The hopeful beginnings of the uprising in Syria (once dubbed the “Syrian Cyber-Revolution”, suggesting the image of a bloodless revolution) have descended into a nightmare. The rise of violent sectarian religious fundamentalist movements in the wake of the various crises in the Middle East have rendered the arts all but speechless. How can artists respond to such extreme deployments of brutal political force, and what are responsibilities do they face in staging political dissent? How can art, as a predominantly secular ideology, produce a counter-weight to the ideological closures of fundamentalist religious (mass-)movements? This public debate is organised at the occasion of the Tactical Media Connections research meeting at the Tolhuistuin, which marks the start of a public research trajectory tracing the legacies of Tactical Media and its connections to current forms of artistic / activist media practices. Tactical Media had been identified in the 1990s as an emerging practice at the intersection of art, media, political activism and technological experimentation. Tactical Media are media of crisis and opposition. Tactical Media crack open the media, cultural, and political landscape. Completely without innocence their operations are never uncontroversial or straightforward. The debate will be staged inside the exhibition Crisis of History ( www.crisisofhistory.nl ), which presents the works of young artists from the Middle East that investigate the Modernist dream and what is left of it. The exhibition includes, inter alia, the provocative Jihadi Gangster series by Aman Mojadidi (Afghanistan), the video Children of the Left by Urok Shirhan (Iraq), and the demolition of Mecca in the installation Ground Zero by Ahmed Mater (Saudi-Arabia). With: Brian Holmes (writer, art critic, translator, activist), Robert Kluijver (Curator of Crisis of History), Paolo Gerbaudo (Researcher, writer, lecturer King's College London), Simona Lodi (director Share Festival Torino), Ozge Celikaslan (Video Vortex Istanbul) Moderators: David Garcia (artist, researcher, co-founder Next 5 Minutes) & Eric Kluitenberg (writer, theorist, editor in chief Tactical Media Files). Location: Framer Framed at the Tolhuistuin Buiksloterweg 5c, Amsterdam. Sunday, July 6, 2014 - 14.00 - 17.00 hrs. Admission: free Resources: For updates on the Tactical Media Connections public research please refer to our blogs: http://blog.tacticalmediafiles.net http://new-tactical-research.co.uk/ Documentation of the evolving practices of Tactical Media is collected at: www.tacticalmediafiles.net Further materials are collected in the website of Brian Holmes' 'Tactical Media Generation' project: http://autonomousuniversity.org/content/tactical-media-generation Support: This debate is organised in collaboration with Framer Framed ( http://framerframed.nl/en/ ) and the Tolhuistuin (www.tolhuistuin.nl/english). Tactical Media Connections is supported by the e-culture program of the Creative Industries Fund NL.__ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Tactical Media Connections update May 1, 2015
Dear Spectrites! This project update on the Tactical Media Connections research, publication, and event trajectory, which started in the summer of 2014, comes slightly belated to Spectre list. Apologies for that. If you are interested to become involved in these meetings or the project described below please contact the projectors initiators David Garcia and Eric Kluitenberg. The online version is at: http://blog.tacticalmediafiles.net/?p=435 <http://blog.tacticalmediafiles.net/?p=435> best wishes, Eric --- Tactical Media Connections update: May 1, 2015 A public research trajectory tracing the legacies of Tactical Media and its connections to the present. Tactical Media Connections is an extended trajectory of collaborative research tracing the legacies of Tactical Media and mapping the relationships between its precursors and its progeny. The program is realised through a series of meetings and exhibitions, culminating in the publication of a Tactical Media Anthology with contributions and dialogues ranging across generations and territories. Taken as a whole the project seeks to engage the many threads and practices that have emerged out of and relate back to the classical moment in the middle of the 1990s when Tactical Media was identified - not least through the renowned Next 5 Minutes festival series, when it came to be understood as a constellation of different yet connected cultures of contestation, operating at the specific intersection of art, media, technological experimentation and social/political activism. Central to the idea of Tactical Media was a nomadic movement between mainstream media channels, alternative cultures and dissident lifestyles by those groups who felt somehow aggrieved, misrepresented or otherwise marginalised in the wider public domain. Unlike the “social turn” and other manifestations of community arts and post-studio practice, that emerged in the 1990s, Tactical Media has not become another an art-world genre. Its scope and significance has gone far beyond the accepted confines of the art scene. This lack of rootedness in a single discourse means it has largely escaped institutional capture. It has however paid a high price for avoiding any kind of strategic grounding with a bad case of historical amnesia. This widespread amnesia has meant that the scope and achievements of this movement are frequently forgotten or overlooked, rendering important lessons unavailable to subsequent generations of practitioners and activists. In developing Tactical Media Connections, we have avoided fixed definitions, we are instead treating the moment when Tactical Media was initially named and described as a key reference point or rather a “point of lost origin”, a temporal vector enabling us to move in two directions at once: On the one hand we can reflect on the precursors, without getting lost in history. On the other hand we can look towards Tactical Media’s progeny and legacies, and their possible futures from an extended and more deeply informed perspective. As a framework it is designed to manage the extreme complexity we are unleashing. Exploiting this temporal vector we need no longer use the term Tactical Media to cover every practice that appears relevant. Rather this “point of lost origin” can be seen as one important moment of convergence in these evolving cycles of contestation and engagement, at a moment in time when anyone can ‘become the media’ at the touch of a screen. Trajectory The Tactical Media Connections public research project got underway with an international research meeting at Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam’s new cultural centre, in July 2014. The meeting was combined with a public debate on “Art and Political Conflict”, organised in collaboration with Framer Framed, the gallery and exhibition agency at the Tolhuistuin. Since then activity has shifted to ‘behind the scene’ activities. In the past months we have been developing the different ‘components’ of our trajectory; the publication - a comprehensive anthology of Tactical Media; the first stage of a thorough upgrade of the Tactical Media Files online documentation resource; and preparations for a series of public events and exhibitions to be organised in the Fall of 2016 and Spring 2017 in The Netherlands and the UK. MIT Press confirmed as publisher for the Tactical Media Anthology We are delighted that the MIT Press has agreed to publish the Tactical Media Anthology, which is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2016. The book as a whole will be ± 450 pages, as a full-colour edition, edited by Eric Kluitenberg and David Garcia in close consultation with Brian Holmes. Our ambition is to do justice to the full scope and significance of Tactical Media activity over the past three decades: connecting debates, controversies and experiences of various generations of artists, activists, media makers and theorists
[spectre] The Zombie of the Author - In memoriam Remko Scha (September 15, 1945 - November 9, 2015)
systems of rules that would generate other systems of rules (visual and auditory grammars) that in turn would generate outputs - to bring further unpredictability into the game. However, also this procedure would not meet our requirements as it would simply constitute a ‘second order deferred authorship’, nothing more, and so the author would still persist, even if not immediately perceptible / intelligible (which would count as progress in this account). We continued for a few months writing scenarios (using stock images as industrial digital ready-mades modified by second order generative grammars for instance), sending them back and forth, discussing them in face to face meetings - in his university office, in bars, at cultural events, whenever we had a chance to connect. But we never were able to come up with a procedure, as scenario, a formal system, that would once and for all eliminate the author, not even with a lower-case ‘a’. The author would always come back to haunt us a zombie of intention, preconception, bias, and interest - a continuous threat to unfettered aesthetic reflection. Until finally we gave up... We concluded that within the digital the author could not be eliminated and thus our endeavour had proven to be senseless. We felt that it would be a facile and empty gesture to then write a text for the journal that would draw this conclusion, as our set aim was to achieve the opposite. And so, we ended the exploration, thanked the editor for his generous interest and invitation, and never wrote or published the paper (despite having extensive notes). Remko did continue his quest for an aesthetic ideal, which we now knew was unattainable, with the Institute for Artificial Art. producing a variety of wondrous artistic interventions in years to come. In this he was inching ever closer to a ‘universal’ aesthetic language freed from subjective debasement, culturation and the abominations of taste. And exactly with this singular quest he became a unique idiosyncratic voice, somewhere in this shadowy land between the arts and the sciences. He will be deeply missed, by many, certainly by me. Eric Kluitenberg Amsterdam, November 20, 2015 __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Technology / Affect / Space #1: Mapping Affect Space, Open! / LAPS in De Balie, Amsterdam, Friday 22 April 2016.
LAPS & Open! present: Technology / Affect / Space #1: Mapping Affect Space A public discussion and research meeting about mapping technologies and embodiment in the emergent techno-sensuous spatial order of Affect Space. April 22, 14:00-18:00 De Balie, Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam Since 2011 we have witnessed a recurrent global media spectacle where massive protest gatherings in public space seem to emerge from out of nowhere, accompanied by an avalanche of self-produced media mostly distributed over the Internet. From Puerta del Sol in Madrid to the streets of Istanbul, Ferguson, Haren and Paris (Je (ne) Suis Charly), this recurrent spectacle appears across vastly different contexts and around a wide variety of issues. The pattern we see in these gatherings remains remarkably constant: Affectively highly charged mobilisations via the Internet spill over into public space, but because this public space is awash with mobile media and wireless networks, the "action in the street" immediately feeds back into the media network. How do we understand and engage with these massive ephemeral events and the techno-social dynamics producing them? Following up on the essay Affect Space written for Open! by media theorist and researcher Eric Kluitenberg early 2015, Open! together with LAPS, the MIT ACT Art Culture and Technology program in Boston, and Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam has launched a public research trajectory to explore these dynamics beyond the protest gatherings themselves. In this meeting we discuss how the emergent techno-sensuous spatial order of Affect Space can be mapped using the very technologies that produce these new dynamics. We also question how the body is situated in these dense spaces as both an affective receptor and amplifier? This meeting is followed by a public program organised in co-operation with Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam on Friday May 20 around the question ‘How to design Affect Space?’. In parallel to these public discussions a series of six commissioned essays will be published on the Open! platform. Talks and presentations by: Christian Nold, artist designer (Emotional Cartography), artists Esther Polak/Ivar van Bekkum, choreographer and media researcher Susan Kozel, cultural and media theorist Nishant Sha, performance artist Arthur Elsenaar, Jeroen Boomgaard (LAPS), and Eric Kluitenberg. Tickets: 7,50 euro; students 2,50 euro Reservations at De Balie: www.debalie.nl <http://www.debalie.nl/>, +31 20 5535 100 For further information: De Balie, wwwdebalie.nl <http://wwwdebalie.nl/> LAPS | Research Institute for Art & Public Space, www.laps.rietveld.nl <http://www.laps.rietveld.nl/> Open!, Platform for Art, Culture & the Public Domain, www.onlineopen.org <http://www.onlineopen.org/> Links: Affect Space essay: http://www.onlineopen.org/affect-space <http://www.onlineopen.org/affect-space> Christian Nold: http://www.softhook.com/ <http://www.softhook.com/> Polak / van Bekkum: http://polakvanbekkum.com/ Susan Kozel: http://medea.mah.se/2010/10/susan-kozel-professor-of-new-media/ Nishant Sha: https://leuphana.academia.edu/NishantShah __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Reminder: Technology / Affect / Space #2: Designing Affect Space, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, Friday May 20, 13.30 hrs.
Het Nieuwe Instituut & Open! present: Technology / Affect / Space #2: Designing Affect Space Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, Friday May 20, start: 13.30 A public discussion and research meeting about the affective geographies of urban space and affective data in the city. In recent years a new pattern of mobilisation has emerged in urban space. Massive gatherings of crowds appear as quickly as they dissolve. The mobilisation starts online via the internet, charges with affective intensity, and spills out into public space - the places where people want to meet. But public space itself is filled with mobile media (smart phones) and wireless networks (3g, 4g, wifi) so that the ‘action on the street’ is immediately recorded and sent back into the media network. In this way small incidents can transform quickly into massive events. Open! the online platform for art, culture and the public domain has launched a public research trajectory into the dynamics of this recurrent pattern, following up on the essay Affect Space written for Open! by media theorist and researcher Eric Kluitenberg (2015). Three public discussions and research meeting have been convened with our partners the MIT ACT (Art, Culture, Technology) program in Cambridge (Mass.), LAPS Research Institute in Art and Public Space in Amsterdam, and Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam to explore these dynamics. In parallel to these public meetings a series of six commissioned essays will be published on the Open! platform in the coming months. In this meeting we will explore the role of affective exchanges in urban public spaces and the ways in which mobile and wireless technologies reinforce and amplify these exchanges. Next we will examine the ways in which ‘affective data’ are extracted from the urban environment, as evidenced in for instance the City Pulse research project of Atos and the Living Laboratory pilot project currently undertaken by the city of Eindhoven, to monitor the leisure district Stratumseind in real-time, while simultaneously analysing social media feeds to detect ‘mood-changes’. The overall aim is to question what the role of (spatial) design disciplines can be in these complex and highly volatile spaces, which are both massive and ephemeral at the same time. Talks and presentations by: Javier Argota & Rodrigo Delso Gutiérrez (JARD, architects and researchers, Madrid), Michael Buser (Geographer, University of the West of England), Linnet Taylor (researcher, University of Amsterdam), Albert Seubers (Director Global Strategy IT in Cities, Atos), Marcel Schouwenaar (The Incredible Machine / Internet of Things Design Manifesto, Rotterdam), Michiel de Lange (researcher Utrecht University), Martijn de Waal (researcher University of Amsterdam), and Eric Kluitenberg (moderator). Entrance: free Reservations: edit...@onlineopen.org <mailto:edit...@onlineopen.org?subject=Technology%20%2F%20Affect%20%2F%20Space%20%232> Further information: Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam http://hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en <http://hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en> Open!, Platform for Art, Culture & the Public Domain www.onlineopen.org <http://www.onlineopen.org/> LAPS - Rietveld Academy: http://laps-rietveld.nl/?lang=en_us <http://laps-rietveld.nl/?lang=en_us> Links: Affect Space essay: www.onlineopen.org/affect-space <http://www.onlineopen.org/affect-space> JARD (Rodrigo Delso Gutiérrez & Javier Argota) www.openurbantelevision.com <http://www.openurbantelevision.com/> http://parsejournal.com/conference/2015-2/draft-timetable/the-conflict-of-urban-synchronicity-and-its-heterotemporalities <http://parsejournal.com/conference/2015-2/draft-timetable/the-conflict-of-urban-synchronicity-and-its-heterotemporalities> Michael Buser http://people.uwe.ac.uk/Pages/person.aspx?accountname=campus\m-buser <http://people.uwe.ac.uk/Pages/person.aspx?accountname=campus\m-buser> Linnet Taylor www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/t/a/l.e.m.taylor/l.e.m.taylor.html <http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/t/a/l.e.m.taylor/l.e.m.taylor.html> Albert Seubers http://ascent.atos.net/author/albertseubers <http://ascent.atos.net/author/albertseubers> http://ascent.atos.net/securing-the-cities-of-the-future <http://ascent.atos.net/securing-the-cities-of-the-future> Marcel Schouwenaar http://iotmanifesto.org/ <http://iotmanifesto.org/> www.the-incredible-machine.com/ <http://www.the-incredible-machine.com/> Michiel de Lange www.uu.nl/staff/MLdeLange <http://www.uu.nl/staff/MLdeLange> http://themobilecity.nl/author/michiel <http://themobilecity.nl/author/michiel> Martijn de Waal http://themobilecity.nl/author/martijn <http://themobilecity.nl/author/martijn> http://thehackablecity.nl <http://thehackablecity.nl/>__ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] As If / Vox Populi / The Syrian Archive / The Society of Post-Control - Tactical Media Connections public program, Amsterdam January 20 - 22, 2017.
Dear Spectrites, Please find the next chapter in our Tactical Media Connections public research, January 20 - 22 in Amsterdam - hope to see some of you there. Best wishes, Eric - - - As If / Vox Populi / The Syrian Archive / The Society of Post-Control Tactical Media Connections public program, Amsterdam January 20 - 22, 2017. As part of the Tactical Media Connections public research trajectory tracing the legacies of Tactical Media and its connections to the present, a series of public events take place in Amsterdam between January 20 and 22, 2017. The public program includes an exhibition at Framer Framed in the Tolhuistuin cultural centre, opening on Friday January 20; a public debate at Eye Filmmuseum on Saturday January 21, and a one day conference (‘The Society of Post-Control’) again at the Tolhuistuin on Sunday January 22. Please find below a brief program overview, followed by a detailed description of the different parts of the public program. Last-minute program updates will be available at: http://blog.tacticalmediafiles.net www.tacticalmediafiles.net Enquiries can be directed at: postcont...@xs4all.nl Program Overview: As If The Media Artist as Trickster Exhibition at Framer Framed, Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, 20 January – 5 March 2017 Opening: Friday, January 20, 2017, 17.00 Curated by Annet Dekker and David Garcia, in collaboration with Ian Alan Paul The exhibition As If: The Media Artist as Trickster focuses on politically inspired media art that uses deception in all its forms. It shows the artist as a trickster, as a ‘dark jester’, using a variety of hoaxes, hacks and ruses to reveal the hidden workings of power structures and the possibility of alternative futures. At the heart of As If is the desire to address one of today’s most urgent political issues: a radical shift in the boundary between fiction and reality in public discourse, in a world increasingly governed by ‘post-truth’ politics. Artists: Morehshin Allahyari, Arabian Street Artists, Paolo Cirio, Coco Fusco, Paul Garrin, Julian Oliver / Danja Vasiliev, Ian Alan Paul, Superflux, The Yes Men, UBERMORGEN, Wachter & Jud, Robert Ochshorn http://framerframed.nl/en/exposities/expositie-as-if-the-media-artist-as-trickster Vox Populi and The Syrian Archive Documenting revolution and conflict in the digital age Public Debate Eye Film Museum Saturday, January 21, 12.00 - 17.00 The program at Eye explorer the complicated relationship between the activist moment, increasingly mediated by the participants in these events themselves and increasingly in near real-time, and the static character of the archive and its implicit ‘suspension of time’. We center for this on two ambitious projects under development: Vox Populi - Archiving a Revolution in the Digital Age, of artist Lara Baladi, and The Syrian Archive, an initiative launched by a collective of human rights activists dedicated to preserving open source documentation relating to human rights violations and other crimes committed by all sides during the conflict in Syria. Speakers: Lara Baladi (Vox Populi), Hadi Al Khatib & Jeff Deutch (The Syrian Archive), Robert Ochshorn, and guests. Moderated by Annet Dekker & Eric Kluitenberg The Society of Post-Control Conference Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam Sunday January 22, 12.00 - 18.00 Drawing on Michael Seemann’s concept of Digital Tailspin (“Kontrollverlust”) this expanded conversation will explore the idea that a situation has emerged where the overwhelming complexity of technological and socio-economic systems is giving rise to an ever increasing number of unpredictable and uncontrollable events. How do civic rights advocates, activists, image makers and artists respond to this evolving context of Post-Control? Are there new opportunities for progressive emancipatory politics that are able to surf the chaos as effectively as the insurgent populists of the new right (alt.right and beyond)? How to respond to ‘Post-Control’ online and offline? Speakers: Michael Seemann, Geert Lovink, Marc Tuters, Kim de Groot, David Garcia, Ingrid Eel, Ian Alan Paul, Bernardo Gutiérrez , Steve Kurtz, and guests. Moderated by Eric Kluitenberg. Context: This program is part of Tactical Media Connections, a public research trajectory initiated in 2014 by Eric Kluitenberg and David Garcia tracing the legacies of Tactical Media and its connections to the present. www.tacticalmediafiles.net/articles/3646 After Amsterdam the exhibition and associated events public events will travel to FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technologies in Liverpool (2 March – 31 May 2017) and HeK (House of Electronic Arts), Basel (21 March – 21 May 2017), with a change of exhibition title to How Much of this is Fiction. The programs in detail: As If The Media Artist as Trickster Exhibition at Framer Framed, Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, 20 January – 5 March 2017 Opening: Friday, January 20,
[spectre] fwd: Sonic Acts XI — The Antholog y of Computer Art - Amsterdam, February 23 - 26, 200 6
Sonic Acts XI — The Anthology of Computer Art 23 – 26 February 2006 – Paradiso / De Balie, Amsterdam - The February Issue of The Wire , sent to all subscribers, includes a special Sonic Acts XI DVD including more than three and a half hour of contemporary computer art, made by almost forty artists from all over the world. The DVD is also available during the festival. - The Sonic Acts website is almost complete and contains a lot of information on the different programmes, the artists and who does what when and other relevant information, like changes in the programme. http://www.sonicacts.com - The most important changes in the programme: Rutger Wolfson (NL), Casey Reas (US) and Arjen Mulder (NL) will moderate the conference, Rob Young (UK) will replace Gerard Walhof (NL) . Erich Berger (AT) cancelled his performance, Fe-mail (NO) is confirmed. - The eleventh edition of the Sonic Acts Festival will be held from Thursday 23rd to Sunday 26th February 2006 in Paradiso and De Balie in Amsterdam. Entitled Sonic Acts XI — The Anthology of Computer Art, the festival will include a three-day international conference, three evenings and nights of live performances, an extensive film programme and an exhibition. A DVD and a book on the festival theme will also be published to coincide with it. The three-day conference will provide a multifaceted and penetrating overview of computer art. International speakers from computer arts, film, the fine arts, music, the academic world, literature and art history will, from the perspective of their own background, discuss the historical developments, present the current position of computer art, and consider its future. Jasia Reichardt (UK) opens the festival at February 23 2006 with a Keynote lecture. Reichardt is writer and curator and made history in 1968 with the exhibit Cybernetic Serendipity. Speakers at the conference include Lillian Schwartz (US), pioneer in the field of computer-generated art and computer films; Curtis Roads (US), composer and author of the influential Computer Music Tutorial; Stephen Wilson (US), professor of conceptual design at the SFSU and author of the authoritative Information Arts, Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology; Joost Rekveld (NL), artist, produces abstract films and kinetic installations since 1991; Ben Fry (USA), artist, who's current research involves the visualization of genetic data. With Casey Reas he is developing the open source programming environment Processing; Manfred Mohr (US), computer artist since 1968 and considered as one of the pioneers; Frieder Nake (DE), professor interactive computer- graphics in Bremen and one of the three artists in the first computer art exhibitions (1965, Stuttgart). A key-person in the field of computer art and information aesthetics since then; Andreas Broeckmann (DE), artistic director of the international media art festival Transmediale in Berlin. In texts and lectures he deals with post-medial practices and the possibilities for a 'machinic' aesthetics of media art; Matthias Weiss (DE), studied art history and philosophy and is considered an authority in the field of net-art; John Oswald (CA), composer and sound-artist. Became famous in 1990 with his Plunderphonics; Rob Young (UK), editor for the music magazine The Wire; Golan Levin (US), artist, composer, performer and engineer, develops new forms of interaction with audiovisual systems; Joan Leandre (ES), also known as Retroyou, artist working with modified games; Wolf Lieser (DE), curator and founder of the Digital Art Museum; Erik van Blokland (NL), designer and co-founder of Letterror. Arjen Mulder (NL), Casey Reas (US) and Rutger Wolfson (NL) will moderate during the conference. The festival will start with performances by Granular Synthesis (AT) and Curtis Roads & Brian O'Reilly (US). Granular Synthesis, renowned for its monumental and impressive audio-visual performances and installations, will perform Areal. Curtis Roads & Brian O'Reilly will perform their international acclaimed octaphonic audiovisual piece Point Line Cloud. The Friday programme is being compiled in collaboration with Jace Clayton (a.k.a. DJ/rupture), founder of Negrophonic and Soot Records, and will include: The Bug feat. Ras B (Rephlex, UK), Beans (Warp, US), Gh
[spectre] Fwd: Felix Stalder: Netbase (1995-2006)
bad news from Vienna... eric :((( Begin forwarded message: From: Felix Stalder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: February 19, 2006 0:37:08 GMT+01:00 To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net Subject: Netbase (1995-2006) Reply-To: Felix Stalder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Yesterday, there was a party in Vienna. It was a small, at times sombre, at times exuberant affair, fitting for the occasion. The final call for netbase, the institute for cultural technologies. Today, the doors remained closed and the website turned static. After more than a decade sailing hard against the currents, suffering countless near-death experiences, it's hard to believe that the fall of the curtain is now final. No more publicity stunts. With the netbase, one of the last 'free radicals' of the early internet culture disappears, an institution which understood art as necessarily critical, both of the commercial hype and the old and new centers of power. Insisting on the freedom of art, defining its value as cultural intelligence, probing alternative futures, netbase refused play along with the neo-liberal redefinition of culture into 'services' to be measured by tourism boards, economic development agencies, or ministries of education. Rather, what characterized netbase was an insistence on acting in public, engaging the public directly and on its own terms. That such an approach is ultimately doomed, particularly in a country like Austria, is hardly a surprise. Like a crash in a formula one race, it's easy to say "i saw it coming." Even if the real surprise is probably that netbase lasted that long, witnessing its closure is a sad affair nevertheless. Particularly for many nettimers, who enjoyed, at one time or another, its particular kind of hospitality in here Vienna. Felix +---+-+--- http://felix.openflows.org # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Sonic Acts - Conference program live streams (24 - 26 February, 2006)
Dear Spectrites, For those of you not in Amsterdam, or the ones who did not get a ticket (apparently the conference is sold out), you can try to tune into the live web cast of the Sonic Acts conference program the coming days at De Balie. Please find all entry points here: http://www.debalie.nl/live Sonic Acts festival website: http://www.sonicacts.com/ Live webcasts from other events in Paradiso can be found at the Fabchannel website: http://www.fabchannel.com Below is a short list of presentations as a first orientation. More info can be found on the Sonic Acts website. Best wishes, Eric Sonic Acts Conference Short List: 24-02 / 13:00 Stephen Wilson - Artists at the Frontiers of Research [US] Balie big hall / Conference 24-02 / 13:45 Andreas Broeckmann - Image, Process, Performance, Machine. Aspects of an Aesthetics of the Machinic [DE] Balie big hall / Conference 24-02 / 15:00 Matthias Weiß - Provides a micronanalysis of computer code fruitful insights on Computer arts? [DE] Balie big hall / Conference 24-02 / 15:45 Ben Fry - Computational Information Design [US] Paradiso small hall / Conference 24-02 / 17:00 Rob Young - We are Dancing Mechanik: Computers, Pop and Embedded Chips [UK] Balie big hall / Conference 24-02 / 17:45 Discussion - moderated by Rutger Wolfson [NL] Balie big hall / Conference 25-02 / 13:00 Frieder Nake - Now is the Time [DE] Balie big hall / Conference 25-02 / 13:45 Lillian Schwartz [US] Balie big hall / Conference 25-02 / 15:00 Manfred Mohr [US] Balie big hall / Conference 25-02 / 15:45 Curtis Roads - Composition in the electronic medium [US] Balie big hall / Conference 25-02 / 17:00 Golan Levin [US] Balie big hall / Conference 25-02 / 17:45 Discussion - moderated by Casey Reas [US] Balie big hall / Conference 26-02 / 13:00 Wolf Lieser - Digital Art changes the Fine Arts and the Art Market [DE] Balie big hall / Conference 26-02 / 13:45 Erik van Blokland - Code and typography. Some examples of LettError work [NL] Balie big hall / Conference 26-02 / 15:00 John Oswald - A Short Talk on Endlessness [CA] Balie big hall / Conference 26-02 / 15:45 Joost Rekveld - Light Matters [NL] Balie big hall / Conference 26-02 / 17:00 Joan Leandre - Retroyou vs Nostalg [ES] Balie big hall / Conference 26-02 / 17:45 Discussion - moderated by Arjen Mulder [NL] Balie big hall / Conference http://www.debalie.nl/live http://www.sonicacts.com/ __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] La precarité toujours? - On the Fre nch protests, new social subjects and insecurity as livi ng condition
dear spectrites, Not art or immediately media culture, but the debate on precarity has not left the media culture circles untouched. As part of the euroMayday campaign De Balie in Amsterdam organises an evening abot the French protests, their social segregation and the relationship with the larger debate on precarity, in close collaboration with flexmens.org and greenpepper magazine. The debate can be followed live via our regular webcast, and please feel welcome to join the chat channel that is always available during the live-stream. regards, eric - A N N O U N C E M E N T La precarité toujours? On the French protests, new social subjects and insecurity as living condition http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=salon&articleid=51572 Monday, May 1, 2006 - 20.00 hrs - admission free De Balie Amsterdam Live-stream @: http://www.debalie.nl/live Massive demonstrations, blocked railway lines, occupied universities: the French youth succeeded with it’s energetic protests against the CPE to launch the issue of precarity into the mass media. Only months ago, youth in the /banlieues/ made their situation public, with action methods that were no less confronting. In the Netherland the term precarity is unknown. Precarity, or “precarité” in French, refers to unstable and insecure work and living conditions that have become more and more dominant in our “flexible” society. Meanwhile, social movements from around the continent have made the topic subject of their daily political practice. On the 1^st of May, Mayday, twenty European cities will be the site of Euromayday parades and protests of temp/net/flex workers and migrants against precarity, for flexicurity and citizenship. They allude to the rise of new social subjects, Brain- and Chainworkers, and the /precariat/ as a new, fragmented proletariat. In the Netherlands, flexibility has been the reality for years: contract are generally temporary, rarely permanent and never for life – and no trade union that is still opposed to that. Work and income have become more insecure, while everyone still has fixed basic expenses, that aren’t flexible at all. With the new privatised care system and a rise in rents coming up, it looks like precarity threatens to become the norm for more and more people in the Netherlands as well. Is the unrest in France representative for the situation in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, or is it a local reality? Is precarity an issue, and if so, what are the consequences for our thinking about work, life and politics? Do the trade unions still have any role to play? And can’t flexibilised labour relations offer the possibility of a more autonomous lifestyle? On the 1st of May, Labour Day, de Balie will host a discussion on these questions and more. With spoken columns, film, debate and reports of the Euromayday parades. SPEAKERS: Anne Querrien (French sociologist and urbanist, editor of Multitudes) Rutger Groot Wassink (Historian) Eddy Stam (Organiser with FNV bondgenoten) FILM: Organising the Unorganizable (32 min, VS 2004) Entrance | free Start | 20.00 hours Language | English - Dutch The program can be followed via live-stream at: http://www.debalie.nl/live LINKS / RESOURCES: - Anna Querien @ Multitudes: http://multitudes.samizdat.net/auteur.php3?id_auteur=40 - Mute Precarious Reader: http://www.metamute.org/en/node/416 - Node.London Reader: http://publication.nodel.org/Publication - Jean Baudriallard – The Phyres of Autumn (New Left Review): http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR27101.shtml - wikipedia on precarity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precarity - euroMayday campaign: http://euromayday.org ORGANISED in collaboration with Flexmens.org & Greenpepper Magazine http://www.flexmens.org http://www.greenpeppermagazine.org debalie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10 1017 RR Amsterdam http://www.debalie.nl __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Sat. June 17 - Live Stream: Old Curtains, New Screens - Media, Minorities and Politics in Post-Communist Europe, De Balie, Amsterdam
Old Curtains, New Screens Media, Minorities and Politics in Post-Communist Europe Symposium and Evening Program De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam. http://www.debalie.nl Saturday June 17, 2006. 10.00 – 22.00 hrs Live-stream at: http://www.debalie.nl/live The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 formally removed the separation that had divided Europe for decades. The post-Wall landscape has been quickly transformed by new forms of mediation: changing infrastructures, technologies, and aesthetic forms that range from print to mobile phone to satellite television networks. This media boom has linked the post-communist region to the circulation of Europe and the globe at large in the last fifteen years. At the same time, new lines of separation, new curtains are also visible within policies and representations alike. We are particularly interested in how ethnic, gender, sexual, and religious minorities have been affected by the increased post-Wall attention that has been focused on them, and how they have been able to turn new media and social technologies into political and representational tools. This symposium will bring together leading regional and national experts in the fields of broadcasting, visual art, new media activism, and film production to examine recent East and Central European media and political transformations. All panellists are involved in both the daily tasks of negotiating policy issues and in the theoretical work of understanding new identity formations that are no longer locked into national systems but are inevitably hybrid, sustained by and actively absorbing transnational affiliations. The event will be constructed as an interweaving series of engaging and informative short presentations, discussions, as well as film and video screenings. Themes of the symposium and evening program, Saturday June 17, 2006: Xenophobia and the Emergence of New Media Networks 17 June, 10:30 - 11:15 Tomász Kitlinski focuses on how new forms of xenophobia have accompanied the emergence of transnational gay, lesbian, and feminist media networks in Central and Eastern Europe. In the centre of his presentation is the "sexual dissident," whose coming out introduces a new voice into post-socialist literature, culture, and activism. The discourses of official media often dehumanize women and sexual minorities. Kitlinski addresses these forms of exclusion and the ways in which the groups involved try to challenge them through mobilizing new media networks. Tomász Kitlinski is lecturer in philosophy at the Marie Curie University, Lublin, Poland. He is the author of The Stranger Is Within Us (Aureus, 2001), co-author of Love and Democracy: Reflections on the Homosexual Question in Poland (Aureus, 2005) and contributed to Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the National Interest (New York University Press, 2001). He contributed to 'New Europe, Old Monsters' and other texts on international and Polish new media. Virtual Space and Internet Media: Self-Representations of East European Women on the Web 17 June, 11:45 - 12:30 Arturas Tereskinas analyzes the visual strategies articulated by Eastern European women in their internet personals. What issues of self-representation, gender, body and sexuality do these images raise? What representational conventions do they employ? Examining the problems of fantasy, pornography and desire, Tereskinas argues that through these images women describe and specify not only their sexualities but also their longings, insecurities, yearnings and their movement towards new possibilities. Iconography and narrative of these personals offer imaginary forms of resolution for contradictions that exist in both Eastern European cultures and women's lives. Arturas Tereskinas is Associate Professor of Sociology at Vytauras Magnus University and Vilnius University, Lithuania. He is the author of Bodily Signs: Sexuality, Identity and Space in Lithuanian Culture (2001) and Imperfect Communities: Identity, Discourse and Nation in the Seventeenth-Century Grand Duchy of Lithuania (2005) and the editor of Public Lives, Intimate Places: Body, Publicity, and Fantasy in Contemporary Lithuania (2002) and Men and Fatherhood: New Forms of Masculinity in Europe (2005, with Jolanta Reingardiene). The Role of European Institutions in Support of New Media: The Case of Roma Media 17 June, 12:30 - 13:15 Valeriu Nicolae will discuss the role that European institutions and NGOs play in supporting media-related projects. He will explicitly focus on the ways in which Roma media have emerged in post-1989 Europe, and how these media have started both to challenge mass media and to function as alternative sources of information. Valeriu Nicolae is secretary-general of ERGO, the European Roma Grassroots Organizations Network, a network of Roma org
[spectre] Announce: Creative Class Struggles, or: Creative Precarity: On the creatives and their class consciousness
A N N O U N C E M E N T Creative Class Struggles or Creative Precarity: On the creatives and their class consciousness De Balie, Amsterdam Sunday September 3, 2006 start: 20.30 hrs. In recent years the “creative class” is regarded as the avant garde of Western economic development. Cities proclaim themselves to be ‘creative cities’. They roll out the red carpets for creative workers with equally creative marketing campaigns. Although the term “creative class” appears to refer to the traditional socio-economic definition, in fact an unheard of diversity of professions is subsumed under this heading: fashion designers, journalists, financial consultants, ICT experts, artists, graphic designers, and advertising professionals. The most important characteristic all these groups seem to share is a fast and flexible life- and work-style. Work doesn’t stop here at office hours, but continues into the ‘late hours’, and one continuously has to be up to date with latest developments in the field. These mobile, highly educated, and flexibly deployable employees - cultural entrepreneurs - are presented by policy makers as an ideal for the European labour market, which is transforming itself thoroughly to become ‘the most competitive knowledge economy of the world’. Concurrent with the discussion about the creative class another discussion has gained momentum, about another and comparably diverse class; that of precarious labour. Precarious here means uncertain, hazardous - as in the ‘precarious balance’ of a rope-dancer. This new class of employee usually operates in serial temporary and flexible work arrangements, and has no predictable security about income, pensions, or guarantees about the future availability of social benefits or chances for self-improvement in a Europe where the welfare state has become a thing of the past. A remarkable form of social mobilisation has surfaced around the issue of precarity, in one of the most unlikely areas where it could have been expected; the domain of free and flexible labour. Both classes, the creative and the precarious, merge to some extent. Artists are obviously highly familiar with such precarious living and working conditions ever since their professional group was first invented. Reasons for some to speak about a “creative under-class” or a “creative class-struggle”. Many members of this ‘creative under- class’ are involved in voluntary labour; they share information and ideas with each other and could become the founders of a new public domain (2.0), a “creative common”. The growing identification of the cultural and creative sector as an economic domain does raise the question however if it is still possible to escape from such stifling economic utilitarianism? As part of this concluding evening of the weekend of public culture at De Balie the Creative Workers Manifesto will be presented, a call for decent creative labour conditions. More information about the weekend program can be found in the accompanying web dossier: http://www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=51947 Discussion with; Ned Rossiter, researcher University of Ulster, Belfast, kpD / kleines post-fordistisches Drama (Marion von Osten, artist and independent theorist, Katja Reichard, independent bookstore Pro qm and organiser of autonomous culture events, Berlin), Mei Li Vos political scientist and chairwoman of the Alternatief Voor Vakbond (Alternative for Labour Union), and contributions by Flexmens.org and Greenpepper Magazine. Master of ceremonies for the evening is Max Bruinsma, design critic. Language: English Sunday September 3, 2006 Start 20.30 hrs. Admission: free The program can also be followed live on the internet at: http://www.debalie.nl/live De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 Amsterdam http://www.debalie.nl __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] De Balie Sept 1-3: The Public Desire - in search of new forms of public culture...
A N N O U N C E M E N T The Public Desire In search of new forms of public culture... September 1, 2 & 3, 2006 De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics Amsterdam Admission free – please reserve! http://www.debalie.nl/agenda After the age of individualisation, now the ‘public’ seems to be the focus of attention. In the first weekend of September (2006), De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam, will explore the new forms of public culture, which we think we see emerging in all kinds of unlikely places around us - primarily by asking questions such as: Where are the new forms of public discourse and debate? Is a new shape of the ‘public’ without movements emerging? How does such a thing work? How important are the new forms of knowledge sharing such as Wikipedia and the various digital commons? How sustainable are they? How to handle public fear and the obsession for public safety and hyper-surveillance? How can we utilise public space in novel ways as a space of encounter and surprise, rather than an extended shopping mall (beyond ‘reclaim the streets’)? The challenge is to go beyond the eternal lamentations of the decline and fall of the ‘public” (public space / public man / public culture). Merely offering a critique is not enough. the critique needs to be updated and nuanced, public culture needs to be reinvented! There is such a thing as society! The 1990s are sometimes described as the era without social movements. In-between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crash of Nasdaq many residents of Western countries lived in a happy illusion that liberalism and democracy had achieved their final victory (the illusion of the ‘End of History’). With this triumph public culture seemed a redundant anachronistic notion henceforth. However, recent events have shown that public culture is remarkably alive - from the World Social Fora, to the mass mobilisation against the CPE-labour laws in France and the on-going precarity debate, to the cultures of information and knowledge sharing of the digital commons in their various guises. The era without (the necessity) of social movements appears to be over, but the new social formations are unfamiliar, heterogeneous, puzzling, contradictory, in need of clarification... The Public Desire is a kaleidoscopic weekend program full of debates, conversations, performances, interventions, public cinema, art projects and discussions about old and new forms of public culture. Background materials, detailed descriptions and program information can all be found in the special web dossier on the Balie website: http://www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=51947 PROGRAM OVERVIEW (of English and ‘non-verbal’ programs - click the URLs for details or scroll below) * Saturday September 2 – from 13.30 hrs Radio Ballet LIGNA I Am[not]sterdam. 10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body” Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62935 * Saturday September 2 - 15.00 hrs Issue Politics - From Parties to Issues Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62483 * Sunday September 3 – 11.00 hrs Permanent Breakfast Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62943 * Sunday September 3 - 15.00 hrs: From Open Source to Open Knowledge Discussion about the public accessibility of scientific knowledge Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=media&articleid=63175 * Sunday September 3 - 20.30 hrs Creative Class Struggles or Creative Precarity: On the creatives and their class consciousness Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62459 Live webcasts: All these programs can also be followed live via internet as videostream and mp3 audio. For details please refer to: http://www.debalie.nl/live PROGRAM DETAILS: * Saturday September 2 – from 13.30 hrs Radio Ballet LIGNA I Am[not]sterdam. 10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body” The free radio group LIGNA exists since 1995. LIGNA consists of the media theorists and radio artists Ole Frahm, Michael Hüners, and Torsten Michaelsen, who since the early nineties have been working at the "Freies Sender Kombinat" (FSK), a public non-profit radio station in Hamburg. In several shows and performances they have been investigating the importance of dispersal in radio as well as of the radio. One of the main focuses is to refer to forgotten and remote possibilities of radio use in order to develop new forms of interactive practices. Another emphasis has been placed on the development of concepts and the production of performative audio plays in order to find out how radio can intervene in public and controlled spaces, so that its public nature reappears in the form of uncontrollable situations The “Radio Ballet” is an excellent example of the latter: it is
[spectre] Reminder: Live Streams The Public Desire - September 2 &3, De Balie Amsterdam
R E M I N D E R / L I V E S T R E A M S : The Public Desire In search of new forms of public culture... September 1, 2 & 3, 2006 De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics Amsterdam The Public Desire is a kaleidoscopic weekend program full of debates, conversations, performances, interventions, public cinema, art projects and discussions about old and new forms of public culture. Live Web-Casts: The programs below can be followed live via internet as videostream and mp3 audio: For details please refer to: http://www.debalie.nl/live (all time indications CET) PROGRAM OVERVIEW (of English spoken and ‘non-verbal’ programs - click the URLs for details or scroll below) * Saturday September 2 13.30 hrs: Radio Ballet LIGNA I Am[not]sterdam. 10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body” Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62935 * Saturday September 2 15.00 hrs Issue Politics - From Parties to Issues Debate with Noortje Marres, political philosopher and researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Michel Feher, philosopher, cofounder of Zone Books and author of Powerless by Design, a critique of the ‘international community’, Inge van der Vlies, professor of administrative and constitutional law, University of Amsterdam, Rebecca Gomperts, founder of Women on Waves and Emer Beamer, artist and organiser of a range of ‘civic education’ projects. Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62483 * Sunday September 3 11.00 hrs: Permanent Breakfast Starting at 11.00 am we reclaim the square as a place where we can all join in and listen to speeches, share personal stories and meet new friends! Speeches are in Dutch, the food is tasty in all sorts of languages! Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62943 15.00 hrs: From Open Source to Open Knowledge Discussion about the public accessibility of scientific knowledge With: Saul Albert (artists and writer from London, he is cofounder of the initiative The People Speak which deals in its collaborative projects (for instance Talkaoke, Distributed Library) with notions of democratised media), Ronald Beelaard (Wikimedia Nederland, ended up with Wikipedia through his board function with a public library and is one of the moderators of the Dutch Wikipedia), Sebastian Lütgert (artist and software programmer from Berlin, whose internet projects such as ROLUX, textz.com en Pirate Cinema are often related to opening up knowledge and information to free exchange and distribution and the negation of intellectual property rights. In 2004 Lütgert became the object of absurd legal proceedings over the on-line publication of texts of Theodor W. Adorno.) Kurt De Belder (Librarian of Leiden University and representative of Digital Academic Repositories (DARE), which gives free access to academic research output in The Netherlands). Paul Keller (Creative Commons Nederland, is head of the Public Domain Program of the Waag Society in Amsterdam and is an active member of the European noborder network). Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=media&articleid=63175 20.30 hrs: Creative Class Struggles or Creative Precarity: On the creatives and their class consciousness + presentation of the Creative Workers Manifesto With: Ned Rossiter, researcher University of Ulster, Belfast, kpD / kleines post-fordistisches Drama (Marion von Osten, artist and independent theorist, Katja Reichard, independent bookstore Pro qm and organiser of autonomous culture events, Berlin), Mei Li Vos political scientist and chairwoman of the Alternatief Voor Vakbond (Alternative for Labour Union), and contributions by Flexmens.org and Greenpepper Magazine. Master of ceremonies for the evening is Max Bruinsma, design critic. Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62459 - Web Dossier: Background information and other materials can be found in the special web dossier on the Balie website: http://www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=51947 - De Balie Live on the internet (real) video streams & mp3 audio: http://www.debalie.nl/live (all time indications CET) - All programs are admission free http://www.debalie.nl/agenda Details about live webcast videosterams & mp3 audio: http://www.debalie.nl/live (all time indications CET) Address: De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 Amsterdam http://www.debalie.nl __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Skycatcher: An art project of Luna Maurer
A N N O U N C E M E N T Skycatcher: an art project of Luna Maurer De Balie Amsterdam Sunday November 5, 2006 / 16.00 hrs. http://www.debalie.nl/media World-premiere of the project ‘Skycatcher’ by artist Luna Maurer. An installation on the roof of De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam, takes a picture every 5 minutes of the perpetually changing skies. Already well over 100 thousand images have been archived so far in the project database: Always the same viewpoint, yet never the same picture. The skies, mostly strewn with clouds, have played a tremendously important role in the Netherlands’ visual arts for many centuries, because of their painterly and poetic qualities. The Dutch sea- climate ensures a constant interplay of constellations of clouds, rain, blue skies, covered and clear skies. With the skycatcher the visitor of the website is offered the opportunity to make her or his own selections, out of the thousands of images recorded by Maurer’s installation to date, and thus experience their endless multiplicity. During the afternoon Luna Maurer will present her project, while guest speakers offer their personal / professional comments, a.o.: Pier Siebesma, meteorologist working for the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI), and Eric Kluitenberg, media theorist, De Balie. A specially produced poster of the project will be on sale during the presentation, which displays one year of variable skies in A0 format... The project will be in operation from July 2005 till July 2007. The website of skycatcher will go ‘live’ on November 5, 2006: http://www.sky-catcher.nl Special thanks to the Fonds Beeldende Kunst, Vormgeving en Bouwkunst Admission: free - De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 Amsterdam http://www.debalie.nl __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Lecture Saskia Sassen - Public Interventions, De Balie 18 nov. + live web cast
A N N O U N C E M E N T Saskia Sassen: Public Interventions The Shifting Meaning of the Urban Condition De Balie, Amsterdam Saturday, November 18, 2006 Start: 20.30 hrs (CET) http://www.debalie.nl/media Live-stream webcast: www.debalie.nl/live This year’s SKOR lecture (Fourndation for Art and Public Space) is delivered by Saskia Sassen, who will talk about the ‘making’ of public space by means of architectural and artistic interventions. The evening includes the presentation of Open 11, which takes hybrid space as its theme and includes an essay contributed by Sassen. Human experience is threatened by the massive architecture of world cities and the density of infrastructures – digital and otherwise – that exist to serve international capital and the global economy. Sassen argues that there is a need for the production of subversive narratives as a counterbalance to this, to make the local and what has been silenced manifest and to generate new forms of ‘modest public spaces’. Saskia Sassen is Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago and Professor at the London School of Economics. She has gained worldwide acclaim for studies such as The Global City and Cities in a World Economy. Her most recent publication is Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton University Press, 2006). Panellists: Arnold Reijndorp, urban sociologist Willem van Weelden, artist and theorist Moderator: Bahram Sadeghi Language: English Organised by: SKOR / Open / De Balie SKOR is the Netherlands Foundation for Art and Public Space http://www.skor.nl Open, a cahier about art and the public domain, is published twice a year by NAi Publishers in association with skor. http://www.opencahier.nl Open 11, “hybrid space”, investigates how wireless media mobilise and transform public space. http://www.naipublishers.nl/art/open11_e.html With contributions by Howard Rheingold, Saskia Sassen, Frans Vogelaar/ Elizabeth Sikiardi, Noortje Marres, Koen Brams/Dirk Pultau, Marion Hamm, Esther Polak, De Geuzen, Kristina Andersen, Arie Altena, Daniel van der Velden, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Max Bruinsma, and Assia Kraan. Guest-editor: Eric Kluitenberg ADDRESS: De Balie, Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam http://www.debalie.nl/serviceartikel.jsp?articleid=47985 RESERVATIONS: De Balie t 020-5535100, or via: www.debalie.nl/agenda Admission: 12,50 (students: 7,50) __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] The Evening of Imaginary Media - Monday December 4, De Balie, Amsterdam
A N N O U N C E M E N T The Evening of Imaginary Media The imaginary future of media.. / Book Launch / DVD presentation / lecture Richard Barbrook / live performance Peter Blegvad / De Balie, Amsterdam Monday December 4, 2006 19.30 hrs: Book presentation 20.30 hrs: Evening program In conjunction with the publication of the “Book & DVD of Imaginary Media” by De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics in Amsterdam, in collaboration with NAi Publishers (Rotterdam), De Balie presents an intimate yet spectacular program around the concept of ‘imaginary media’. For centuries mankind has dreamt about the ultimate communication medium, which should once and for all eradicate the ubiquitous human misunderstanding - however, miscommunication still prevails today as a seemingly inextinguishable feature of human experience... The evening will start with the presentation of the “Book of Imaginary Media”, after which RICHARD BARBROOK will speak about the imaginary future of artificial intelligence and the extremely real cold war agenda hiding behind these imaginations. Richard Barbrook is a researcher and co-ordinator of the Hypermedia Research Centre at the University of Westminster, London. Barbrook is currently working on a book devoted to this topic, which will appear next spring under the title “Imaginary Futures - From Thinking Machines to the Global Village” A PREVIEW will be given of the “DVD of Imaginary Media”, which includes the son et lumière adaptation of “On Imaginary Media” by Peter Blegvad, based on the theatre performance he developed for De Balie in 2004. PETER BLEGVAD will also perform live and contribute some of his elusive songs. Blegvad collaborated in the past with cultbands such as Faust, Slap Happy and Henry Cow, and with avant-garde artists as John Zorn. He is the creator of the famous Leviathan cartoon, published in the Independent on Sunday, and he developed a remarkable solo-career as a singer / composer. He also gained esteem with his sound plays (Eartoons) for BBC radio in London. Further information can be found at the Balie website: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=media&articleid=88410 BACKGROUND: In 2004 De Balie organised the mini-festival “An Archaeology of Imaginary Media” about the dreams, visions and imaginations of the ultimate communication medium with a selection of world-renown media scientists, media archaeologists, writers, artists and filmmakers. The Book and the DVD of Imaginary Media now conclude these archaeological explorations. THE PUBLICATION: The Book of Imaginary Media will be available from mid-November from NAi Publishers in Rotterdam and in bookshops - with contributions by Siegfried Zielinski, Erkki Huhtamo, Bruce Sterling, John Akomfrah, Zoe Beloff, Edwin Carels, Timothy Druckrey, Richard Barbrook, and edited by Eric Kluitenberg (De Balie). The accompanying DVD contains, next to “On Imaginary Media” by Peter Blegvad, the experimental short movie “Aqua Micans” by François Ducat, and a selection of cartoons specially produced for the 2004 festival by Ben Katchor, Peter Blegvad, Thomas Zummer, Jonathan Rosen, Sasa (aka Aleksander Zograf), Gary Panter, Dick Tuinder, Neal Fox en Les Coleman. Information page of NAi Publishers: http://www.naipublishers.nl/art/imaginary_media_e.html PROGRAM: 19.30 - Book Launch Book of Imaginary Media 20.30 - Start evening program. Conclusion: ± 22.30 hrs. Admission: free / reserving tickets is possible via the Balie website Language: English Information: http://www.debalie.nl/media An extensive web dossier has previously been compiled around this project: http://www.debalie.nl/archaeology __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Review of Josephine Bosma's, Nettitudes: Let's Talk Net Art (2011)
Dear Spectrites, Here is a review of the excellent book of Josephine Bosma, Nettitudes: Let's Talk Net Art, which came out late in 2011, written for OPEN, Journal on Art and the Public Domain. It was a pleasure to write this review as this book finally offers a serious consideration of the Net Art phenomenon as an artistic and cultural genre, without overly ideological biases towards or against the contemporary arts world, nor framing it as a socio/political occurrence. The kind of book Net Art deserves and a useful contribution to a serious discussion of this artistic genre, in my opinion. Reproduced here with kind permission of the journal editors. Best wishes, Eric -- Review of Josephine Bosma's, Nettitudes: Let's Talk Net Art (2011) by Eric Kluitenberg Nettitudes, the new book by Josephine Bosma, is an important contribution to the often confusing and unbalanced discussion about the Internet and contemporary art. This contribution becomes especially clear from what the book does not do. First of all, Bosma does not try to offer a historical overview of the phenomenon that she calls 'net art'. She also indicates clearly why it is difficult to mark out this area unequivocally, for there are widely differing views as to how the interaction between the Internet and contemporary art should be interpreted. Indeed, net art must in the first place be seen in a broader context than that of contemporary art, because the development of this 'genre' cannot be seen separately from the various forms of network culture with which it sometimes partly converges or by which it is influenced. Moreover, Bosma does not wish to call net art a discipline or movement, as the entire terrain is too diverse and heterogeneous for that, and also has too much of a cross-disciplinary character. Nor is it a good idea to have net art purely coincide with the medium of the Internet, which itself can hardly be described. When the same problem is approached from an art theoretical point of view, limiting net art to a particular medium is also absolutely absurd. Bosma herself refers to Rosalind Krauss, the American art theorist, who in her famous essay 'Sculpture in the Expanded Field' argued that contemporary art has wrested itself from the yoke of the medium – it has entered an 'expanded field' in which every material or medium can be appropriated, but to which the 'work' can never be reduced. That does not mean that the medium as a category can simply be shoved aside. This would lead to a simplistic dichotomy between conceptualism versus materialism – a false contradiction, according to Bosma, which would only work counter-productively in trying to better understand the phenomenon she investigates. What is of primary importance for most of the works that fall under the term 'net art' is a good understanding of the network culture from which they spring: the interactions that artists have online with one another and with the public. Bosma furthermore points out that net art does not only refer to art that takes place in one way or another on the Internet and on the screen. It can also concern work that is directly inspired by the new realities that the Internet and online cultures create, but whose manifestation takes place entirely off-line, separately from the Internet. Therefore, the definition she uses to describe net art reads in its shortest form as: art that is rooted in or based on Internet cultures. This way, she prevents an arbitrary broadening of the concept, for only works which cannot be seen separately from the cultures that have developed around the Internet can legitimately be considered net art. With this definition, it is clear that the phenomenology, logic and structure of the Internet cannot be bypassed when coming up with an adequate description of net art. No more than can net art be reduced to a technological genre. According to Bosma, it is hard to give a good description of this heterogeneous and cross-disciplinary field and introduce some structure into the discussion, but not impossible. In order to get a grasp of the material, she introduces five key concepts by which the vast majority of the works that she calls net art can be understood: Code / Flow / Screen / Matter / Context. She uses 'Code' to look at work that primarily is aimed at the technical infrastructure and software that form the underpinnings of the Internet. This is the most abstract category, accounting for the fact that the Internet in fact rests upon a series of agreements set down in technical protocols. The fact that interesting artistic experiments are being carried out in precisely this inaccessible area indicates the depth of the artistic research behind those experiments. Bosma unlocks this hermetic area with a clear description of the classical project 'Web
[spectre] Economies of the Commons 3 – Sustainable Futures for Digital Archives, Amsterdam October 11 & 12, 2012
Economies of the Commons 3 – Sustainable Futures for Digital Archives The international conference on the challenges and future of archives Date: 11 & 12 October 2012 Location: EYE Film Institute Netherlands, Amsterdam Tickets: €75 early bird fee (ends September 12th) www.ecommons.eu Images for the Future presents Economies of the Commons 3 – Sustainable Futures for Digital Archives. This third ‘eCommons’ international conference will be the biggest yet with two streams of extraordinary keynotes, presentations, hands-on workshops and plenty of networking. Economies of the Commons 3 – Sustainable Futures for Digital Archives ('eCommons 3') serves all who look for visionary, theoretical and hands-on practical know how on the current challenges and the future of archives. Program & Speakers eCommons 3 explores two themes: 1/ The Challenge of Large Numbers: preservation, digitization and presentation of film, audio, video and photography: lessons learned in the Images for the Future project. 2/ The Future of Archives: in two sessions ('The Economies of Sharing' and 'Re-Imagining the Archive') we examine the new role of digital and on-line rich media collections as active public resources, and we discuss new models to sustain them into the future. These themes will be explored in two separate tracks. Please see the full program here: http://ecommons.eu/program/ We are pleased to also announce an impressive list of speakers, including: Kate Theimer (ArchivesNext) William Uricchio (MIT, Utrecht University) Tony Ageh (BBC Archive Development) Jill Cousins (Europeana) Paul Rutten (independent researcher) Alan Hanjalic (Delft University of Technology) Jan van Wonderen (Zwijsen educational publishers) Felix Stalder (Zurich University of the Arts) Mirko Tobias Schaefer (Utrecht University) Julia Noordegraaf (University of Amsterdam) David Bollier (independent author, activist, blogger and consultant) Martin Berendse (Dutch National Archives) Bernd Hugenholtz (Institute for Information Law) Marco Rendina (Cinecittà Luce) Economies of the Commons 3 – Sustainable Futures for Digital Archives takes place in the brand new location of EYE Film Institute Netherlands, partner in Images for the Future and, since April 2012, located in one of Amsterdam’s most spectacular new buildings on the IJ river. We are doing our best to make your stay in Amsterdam as pleasant as possible and have listed some great hotel options. If you decide quickly, you can benefit from the 10% eCommons discount in the acclaimed Lloyd Hotel. More information here: http://ecommons.eu/program/ We hope to welcome you in Amsterdam on October 11th and 12th. Should you have any further questions, please contact Eveline Groot (e...@kl.nl) or Thijs van Exel (t...@kl.nl). For more information and regular updates: www.ecommons.eu __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Fr. Feb. 8, 20.30 hrs: Nader Vossoughian: Otto Neurath - Information and the Global Polis, De Balie, Amsterdam
A N N O U N C E M E N T Nader Vossoughian: Otto Neurath - Information and the Global Polis De Balie Amsterdam, Friday February 8, 20.30 hrs Live webcast at: www.debalie.nl/live The American philosopher and architectural theorist Nader Vossoughian investigates in this presentation the possibilities for a democratic and participatory approach top urban and social planning. He will devote specific attention to the work of the Austrian philosopher, sociologist and economist Otto Neurath (1882-1945). Writer, editor and cultural theorist Steve Rushton will offer a short response to Vossoughian's presentation. --- Nader Vossoughian: Otto Neurath - Information and the Global Polis Abstract of the lecture (De Balie, Amsterdam, February 8, 2008) Urban and military planning have been virtually indistinguishable for most of history. Ancient Roman towns such as Timgad and London were first conceived as military encampments. In the nineteenth century, Georges-Eugène Haussmann constructed his boulevards in Paris with the aim of stemming civil unrest. Given this past, are participatory or democratic approaches to urban and social planning possible? They are, at least in principle, and this lecture explores one such example. This presentation looks specifically at the ideas and achievements of the Austrian sociologist and planner Otto Neurath (1882-1945), a long- neglected giant in the history of the Information Age. A founder of the Vienna Circle and the Unity of Science movement, a collaborator of figures as varied as Paul Otlet, Cornelis van Eesteren, Gerd Arntz, and Le Corbusier, he had an indelible impact on discussions about the modern metropolis. He advocated informal or participatory approaches to urban and social planning and attempted to find ways of democratizing public space in the contemporary city. In this lecture, he is presented as a theorist of the global polis – as someone who attempted to reconcile the tangibility and intimacy of the ancient Greek city-state, a place that according to Aristotle fostered community and democratic exchange, with the anonymity and heterogeneity of the global metropolis. More information and links: www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=media&articleid=208232 Website of the exhibition After Neurath – The Global Polis at Stroom, The Hague: www.stroom.nl/activiteiten/manifestatie.php?m_id=8710842 Date | Firday February 8 Time | 20.30 uur Language | English Tickets | 5 euro Live webcast | www.debalie.nl/live Organised in collaboration with Stroom – Centre for Visual Art and Architecture, The Hague. __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Conference: Economies of the Commons - Strategies for Sustainable Access and Creative Reuse of Images and Sounds Online, April 10-12, 2008, The Netherlands
FIRST GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT Economies of the Commons Strategies for Sustainable Access and Creative Reuse of Images and Sounds Online International Working Conference De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam, April 11 & 12, 2008 Seminar on Intellectual Property Rights The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum, April 10, 2008 www.ecommons.eu A wide range of actors around the globe is currently involved in the creation of unprecedentedly rich and invaluable audiovisual cultural and knowledge resources on the internet. These range from national audiovisual archives, broadcasters, professional cultural producers and institutions to civic and p2p file sharing initiatives. De Balie in Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum, in collaboration with Knowledgeland, Images for the Future, and Virtual Platform, organise a two-day international public working conference on the economies, sustainability, and opportunities for creative reuse of these public audiovisual resources and archives. While the level of activity and investment in this area is enormous, the question of the longer-term sustainability of these audiovisual resources remains wide open. Continued massive public investment is one obvious solution, with equally obvious drawbacks. The conference intends to question which alternative economic models exist, or could be developed that can sustain invaluable public resources. Paradoxically, we may have to ask: What is a sustainable business model for the digital commons? The Economies of the Commons conference will focus on three core issues: strategies for sustainability, new modes of value creation, and the potentials for creative reuse around the digital commons. Our main questions are: - What kind of strategies are available to facilitate the growth of these emerging public knowledge resources, and guarantee their longer- term sustainability? - How is value created around the emerging digital commons, and how can this value be capitalised on for the public good? - How can these resources be activated as a creative productive force for contemporary culture, and how can the reuse of these enormously rich resources be facilitated and stimulated? These questions will be related to current projects, such as Images of the Future (the largest digitisation project of audiovisual heritage in the Netherlands), P2P Fusion (European research project on audio and video sharing), BBC Creative Archives, Prelinger Archives, Smithsonian Global Sound and UbuWeb. The conference brings together a highly international group of specialists, including Peter Kaufman (Intelligent Television), Rick Prelinger (prelinger Archives), Roei Amit (INA), Kenneth Goldsmith (UbuWeb), Anthony McCann (Hallam University), Hubert Best (Best & Soames / FOCAL), Lucy Guibault (University of Amsterdam), Florian Schneider (Kein.tv) and many others. Economies of the Commons creates spaces of discussion in which perspectives of mainstream audiovisual archives are mixed with those of market players as well as public domain and non-legal exchange networks (p2p). The program comprises a variety of formats, such as public keynote lectures, interdisciplinary workshops for the exchange of ideas, experiences and the formulation of strategies, as well as targeted seminars addressing very specific problems relevant to specialists, cultural and media producers, policy makers, and decision makers in public and private organisations. The Economies of the Commons conference addresses a range of target groups that do not regularly meet each other. These include: (broadcast) media professionals, representatives from cultural heritage organisations, internet entrepreneurs, ethnomusicologists, musicians and representatives of the music industry, media activists, researchers in the domains of internet law, economy, information science, p2p file sharing activists, policy makers, and professionals from the field of art and culture. Special public evening programs will introduce the topics of the conference to a wider audience and present best practice examples. A one-day seminar at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum, on Intellectual Property Rights issues in the digital audiovisual domain, precedes the conference on Thursday April 10, the results of which will feed into the conference program. A web dossier has been set up that provides further information on the conference program and side events, program updates, and information on speakers and highlighted case studies, as well as general background and research materials. This dossier can be found at: www.ecommons.eu Enquiries about the conference program and registration can be directed at: Eric Kluitenberg De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 1017 RR Amsterdam www.debalie.n
[spectre] REGISTER NOW for the Economies of the Commons Conference, Amsterdam April 11 & 12 2008
Conference Economies of the Commons 11 & 12 april 2008 – REGISTER NOW! Conference Economies of the Commons - Strategies for Sustainable Access and Creative Reuse of Images and Sounds Online - De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam, April 11 & 12, 2008 De Balie in Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum, in collaboration with Knowledgeland, Images for the Future, and Virtual Platform, organise a two-day international public working conference on the economies, sustainability, and opportunities for creative reuse of these public audiovisual resources and archives. www.ecommons.eu REGISTRATION AND TICKETS: Passepartout for April 11 & 12 (including evening programs): 25 euro Conference Day-ticket: 15 euro Public evening programs: 5 euro To reserve a place for the Economies of the Commons conference, please order your ticket on-line: www.debalie.nl/dossierartikel.jsp?dossierid=208416&articleid=215589 Friday April 11 – Working conference day 1 and public events Location: De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam Time: 10 - 17.30 hrs 10.00: Opening / Welcome 10.30: Conference Keynote: Peter Kaufman: The Economics of Film and Video Distribution in the Digital Age 11.30: Panel 1: Audiovisual Archives 13.00: Lunch break 14.00: Panel 2: Commons-based Peer Production 15.30: Coffee break 15.45: Panel 3: European Digital Library 17.15: Wrap up first conference day Evening Program: Economies of the Commons Public Keynotes & Responses Presented in collaboration with Images for the Future Location: De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam Date: Friday April 11, 2008 Time: 20.30 - 22.30 hrs Public Keynote 1: Rick Prelinger Public Keynote 2: David Bollier Panel discussion with Prelinger, Bollier and Representatives of Images of the Future consortium Continuous: Screening block: Steal This Film / Good Copy, Bad Copy / Panorama Ephemera Saturday April 12 - Working conference day 2 and public events Location: De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam Time: 11 - 18.00 hrs 11.00: Panel 4: Uncommon Business Models 12.30: Lunch Break 13.30: Panel 5: Intangible Cultural Heritage 15.00: Coffee Break 15.15: Panel 6: Professional Cultural Producers 16.45: Coffee Break 17.00: Report from the Legal Seminar on Intellectual Property Rights 17.30: Closing Session / Conference wrap up Evening Program: Public screening, live cinema & performance program Presented in collaboration with Cinema De Balie Location: De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam Date: Saturday April 12, 2008 Time: 21.00 - 23.30 With: 2 short films by Peter Tscherkassky Narrated screening program by Rick Prelinger ‘Films on the mass media’ Commons based remix music / sound performances Nicholas Proost - Gravity Other short films tba Continuous: Screening block: Steal This Film / Good Copy, Bad Copy / Panorama Ephemera About Economies of the Commons De Balie in Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum, in collaboration with Knowledgeland, Images for the Future, and Virtual Platform, organise a two-day international public working conference on the economies, sustainability, and opportunities for creative reuse of these public audiovisual resources and archives. The Economies of the Commons conference will focus on three core issues: strategies for sustainability, new modes of value creation, and the potentials for creative reuse around the digital commons. Our main questions are: - What kinds of strategies are available to facilitate the growth of these emerging public knowledge resources, and guarantee their longer- term sustainability? - How is value created around the emerging digital commons, and how can this value be capitalised on for the public good? - How can these resources be activated as a creative productive force for contemporary culture, and how can the reuse of these enormously rich resources be facilitated and stimulated? The conference brings together a highly international group of specialists, including Peter Kaufman (Intelligent Television), Rick Prelinger (Prelinger Archives), Roei Amit (INA), Kenneth Goldsmith (UbuWeb), Anthony McCann (Hallam University), Hubert Best (Best & Soames / FOCAL), Lucie Guibault (University of Amsterdam), Florian Schneider (Kein.tv) David Bollier (On The Commons), and many others. The Economies of the Commons conference addresses a range of target groups that do not regularly meet each other. These include: (broadcast) media professionals, representati
[spectre] Final Program Economies of the Commons Conference, De Balie, Amsterdam April 11 & 12, + legal seminar Inst. for Sound and Vision, Hilversum, April 10
with the need of professionals to make a living? What new and alternative distribution models emerge for professional cultural producers and cultural institutions? Speakers: Florian Schneider (Kein.tv), Kenneth Goldsmith (Ubuweb), Bauke Freiburg (Fabchannel / Culture Player), Chai Locher (NFTVM), Rick Prelinger (Prelinger Archives). Moderator: Eric Kluitenberg 16.45: Coffee Break 17.00: Report from the Legal Seminar on Intellectual Property Rights Report session of the most important results from the workshop on orphan works & clearing rights, the workshop on open content licensing, and the closing debate of the legal seminar on Thursday April 10. 17.30: Closing Session / Conference wrap up --- Mashup Cinema Location: De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam Saturday April 12, 2008 - 21.00 - 00.00 Found footage and the digital commons Public screening, live cinema & performance program Found Footage has always been an important source of inspiration for experimental filmmakers. The use of 'found images' is not just affordable, it is mostly employed to attach a different meaning through a new composition of images to existing icons. With materials found on the floor, in the waste baskets of montage rooms, or in a dust bin outside the studio, filmmakers are conveying messages, which besides being pretentious or at times politically charged, can also simply be funny. During this special evening about reuse of digital and analogue images you can expect a presentation by the internet's most renown film archivist Rick Prelinger. He will present a selection from his monumental archive of 'sponsored' and 'ephemeral' films about media publics and media producers from the 1930s to the 1960s, which can be read as a historical commentary on our contemporary digital media culture. Next to this a short-film program has been put together with films that attach a new meaning to existing analogue film materials. These screenings are interspersed with short music and sound performances in which music fragments are mixed live, sampled from digital remix projects such as ccMixter and Freesound, and historical sound samples presented by Kenneth Goldsmith (Ubuweb) Films: Outer Space Peter Tscherkassky 10’ Suggesting a convulsive hall of mirrors, Peter Tscherkassky's widescreen tour de force Outer Space reinvents a 1981 Barbara Hershey horror vehicle, leaving the original's crystalline surface intact only to violently shatter its narrative illusion. L’Arrivée Peter Tscherkassky 2’ L'Arrivée is Tscherkassky's second homage to the Lumiére-brothers. First you see the arrival of the film itself, which shows the arrival of a train at a station. But that train collides with a second train, causing a violent crash, which leads us to an unexpected third arrival, the arrival of a beautiful woman – the happy-end. Light is Calling Bill Morisson 8’ A scene from The Bells (1926) is optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon’s 7 minute composition. A meditation on the fleeting nature of life and love, as seen through the roiling emulsion of an film. Beirut Outtakes Peggy Ahwesh 8’ The cellars of a traditional cinema in the entertainment district of Beirut are opened after years of being hermetically sealed. Peggy Awash constructed a veritable time machine out of the film materials found there, with a spoken montage of old Lebanese drama and western action movies. Gravity Nicholas Provost 6’ The reassuring world of multiplied cinematographic kisses is shattered by a stroboscopic effect that plunges and looses us into the dizzying vertigo of the embrace where, as often in Provost’s cinema, love becomes a passionate battle in which monsters are finally unmasked. Bitches Brew Heidrun Holzfeind 11’ Sampled from mostly male directed movies from the 60s to today, the video shows women who take back control and power, fight off their attackers or take revenge on their assailants. A man’s nightmare! The Mashup Cinema program is presented in association with balie cinema --- LOCATIONS: De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 Amsterdam www.debalie.nl Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision Sumatralaan 45 Mediapark Hilversum www.beeldengeluid.nl Conference website and dossier with suggested reading materials: www.ecommons.eu __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Fwd: Iraq War Ends
what does this mean? NYT hack check the data also... Begin forwarded message: Resent-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: the_nettime_of_record <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: November 12, 2008 12:55:33 GMT+01:00 Resent-To: Nettime <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Iraq War Ends http://www.nytimes-se.com # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Fwd: HUNDREDS CLAIM CREDIT FOR NEW YORK TIMES SPOOF
Begin forwarded message: From: amanda mcdonald crowley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: November 13, 2008 0:22:53 GMT+01:00 To: "Amanda M.C." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: HUNDREDS CLAIM CREDIT FOR NEW YORK TIMES SPOOF November 12, 2008 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 917-202-5479 718-208-0684 415-533-3961 "SPECIAL" NEW YORK TIMES BLANKETS CITIES WITH MESSAGE OF HOPE AND CHANGE Thousands of volunteers behind elaborate operation * PDF: http://www.nytimes-se.com/pdf * Ongoing video releases: http://www.nytimes-se.com/video * The New York Times responds: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/pranksters-spoof-the-times/ Hundreds of independent writers, artists, and activists are claiming credit for an elaborate project, 6 months in the making, in which 1.2 million copies of a "special edition" of the New York Times were distributed in cities across the U.S. by thousands of volunteers. The papers, dated July 4th of next year, were headlined with long-awaited news: "IRAQ WAR ENDS". The edition, which bears the same look and feel as the real deal, includes stories describing what the future could hold: national health care, the abolition of corporate lobbying, a maximum wage for CEOs, etc. There was also a spoof site, at http://www.nytimes-se.com/. "Is this true? I wish it were true!" said one reader. "It can be true, if we demand it." "We wanted to experience what it would look like, and feel like, to read headlines we really want to read. It's about what's possible, if we think big and act collectively," said Steve Lambert, one of the project's organizers and an editor of the paper. "This election was a massive referendum on change. There's a lot of hope in the air, but there's a lot of uncertainty too. It's up to all of us now to make these headlines come true," said Beka Economopoulos, one of the project's organizers. "It doesn't stop here. We gave Obama a mandate, but he'll need mandate after mandate after mandate to do what we elected him to do. He'll need a lot of support, and yes, a lot of pressure," said Andy Bichlbaum, another project organizer and editor of the paper. The people behind the project are involved in a diverse range of groups, including The Yes Men, the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK, United for Peace and Justice, Not An Alternative, May First/People Link, Improv Everywhere, Evil Twin, and Cultures of Resistance. In response to the spoof, the New York Times said only, "We are looking into it." Alex S. Jones, former Times reporter who is an authority on the history of the paper, says: "I would say if you've got one, hold on to it. It will probably be a collector's item." -30- To unsubscribe from these notices, please reply with "REMOVE" as the subject or body of your message. __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Rough Guide to Amsterdam: Border Inquiries - live discussion between Dom Omladine, Belgrade & De Balie, Amsterdam, Saturday November 29, 19.00 - 21.00 hrs.
A N N O U N C E M E N T ROUGH GUIDE TO AMSTERDAM | BORDER INQUIRIES Saturday 29 November, 19:00 hrs Border Inquiries is a live-connected public discussion between Belgrade and Amsterdam about the new and ever-changing borders on the Balkans, as part of the "Rough Guide to Amsterdam" festival, at Dom Omladine in Belgrade, November 28 - 30, 2008. The discussion will take place simultaneously in the spaces of De Balie and Dom Omladine, connected live via internet. The event brings together researchers, activists and engaged citizens in both cities around issues of border control, border management and migration, to discuss how these issues reflect the precarious relationship of the Balkan region to the European Union. Borders act as filters, not simply as inclusion and exclusion mechanisms. What the border filters out or lets through is dependent on who operates the border. A peculiarity of the Balkan condition however, is that there are so many overlapping spheres of interest and power that is deeply unclear who actually operates the border? What are the mechanisms deployed in the region to maintain and manage the borders (technological, policing, regulatory, legal, etc.)? The aim of this gathering in two cities is to create an open forum where a first attempt is made to map the complex transnational presence of the multitude of agencies (OSCE, NATO, UNMIK, KFOR, SFOR, and various missions from the EU, USA and Russian Federation) involved in consolidating the volatile Balkan borders. The discussion could lead to a larger visualisation and mapping project. With: writer and new media developer Florian Schneider (Kein.org), filmmaker Želimir Žilnik (tbc), artist and author of "Schengen without effort" Vahida Ramujkić, artist and researcher Zoran Pantelić (new media center Kuda.org), art and media explorer Kristian Lukić (new media center Kuda.org), Milenko Srećković (FreedomFight - Zrenjanin), artist Željko Blaće (Mi2 / Jan van Eijk Academy) (tbc), artist Darko Fritz (tbc) and researcher Paul Keller (Kein.org / Knowledgeland). Moderated by Eric Kluitenberg in Amsterdam, Branka Ćurčić and Richard de Boer in Belgrade. This discussion is organised by De Balie in collaboration with Kuda.org (Novi Sad), Dom Omladine (Belgrade) and with support of Kein.org, and is part of the three-day program Rough Guide to Amsterdam, 28-30 November 2008 in Dom Omladine. Where & when? Saturday 29 November, 19.00 - 21.00 hrs Belgrade: Dom Omladine, I. sprat Amsterdam: De Balie, salon Free entry --- About A Rough Guide to Amsterdam: De Balie, centre for politics and arts, presents from November 28 through 30 the ROUGH GUIDE TO AMSTERDAM, a three day manifestation in Serbia’s capital Belgrade De Balie produces a programme with video diaries, debates, music, films, photography, theatre, video art and graphic design in co- operation with several partners. Through art and discussion, De Balie wants to attack the existing clichés. Not the differences, but the similarities between Serbia and the Netherlands are the main focus. Both countries show cracks in their national self-image and in both countries, ‘national identity’ is currently a hotly discussed topic, as is the question of how to relate to one’s country’s past. * Check the Rough Guide to Amsterdam blog for impressions and updates of the program: http://roughguideamsterdam.wordpress.com __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Economies of the Commons 2: Paying the costs of making things free - Conference, seminar and public programs, Amsterdam & Hilversum 11 - 13 November 2010
A N N O U N C E M E N T Economies of the Commons 2 Paying the costs of making things free International conference, seminar and public evening programs Amsterdam & Hilversum November 11 – 13, 2010 Economies of the Commons 2 is a critical examination of the economics of on-line public domain and open access resources of information, knowledge, and media (the ‘digital commons’). The past 10 years have seen the rise of a variety of such open content resources attracting millions of users, sometimes on a daily basis. The impact of projects such as Wikipedia, Images of the Future, and Europeana testify to the vibrancy of the new digital public domain. No longer left to the exclusive domains of digital ‘insiders’, open content resources are rapidly becoming widely used and highly popular. While protagonists of open content praise its low-cost accessibility and collaborative structures, critics claim it undermines the established “gate keeping” functions of authors, the academy, and professional institutions while lacking a reliable business model of its own. Economies of the Commons 2 provides a timely and crucial analysis of sustainable economic models that can promote and safeguard the online public domain. We want to find out what the new hybrid solutions are for archiving, access and reuse of on-line content that can both create viable markets and serve the public interest in a competitive global 21st century information economy. Economies of the Commons 2 consists of an international seminar on Open Video hosted by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision on November 11 in Hilversum, a two day international conference and two public evening programs on November 12 and 13 at De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam. The event builds upon the successful Economies of the Commons conference organised in April 2008. Confirmed speakers include: Charlotte Hess (Syracuse University - Keynote), Ben Moskowitz (Open Video Alliance), Simona Levi (Free Culture Forum), Bas Savenije (Royal Library The Hague), Michael Edson (Smithsonian Commons), Yann Moulier Boutang (Multitudes), Peter B. Kaufman (Intelligent Television), Harry Verwayen (Europeana), James Boyle (Duke University), Rufus Pollock (Open Knowledge Foundation), Jeff Ubois (DTN), Sandra Fauconnier (NIMK), Volker Grassmuck (USP Sao Paulo), Dymitri Kleiner (Telekommunisten), Jaromil (NIMK Artlab), Marco Sachy (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Nathaniel Tkacz (Melbourne University), Dolf Veenvliet (Blender), Michael Dale (Open Media for Wikipedia), Lucie Guibault (University of Amsterdam), a.o. Organisers: Images for the Future Consortium / Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision / De Balie / Institute of Network Cultures University of Amsterdam, Department of New Media For detailed program information check our website: www.ecommons.eu __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Economies of the Commons 2 - Final Program - Hilversum & Amsterdam, November 11-13, 2010.
A N N O U N C E M E N T Economies of the Commons 2 - Paying the costs of making things free * * * FINAL PROGRAM * * * International conference, seminar and public evening programs Amsterdam & Hilversum November 11 – 13, 2010 www.ecommons.eu Economies of the Commons 2 is a critical examination of the economics of on-line public domain and open access resources of information, knowledge, and media (the ‘digital commons’). The past 10 years have seen the rise of a variety of such open content resources attracting millions of users, sometimes on a daily basis. The impact of projects such as Wikipedia, Images of the Future, and Europeana testify to the vibrancy of the new digital public domain. No longer left to the exclusive domains of digital ‘insiders’, open content resources are rapidly becoming widely used and highly popular. While protagonists of open content praise its low-cost accessibility and collaborative structures, critics claim it undermines the established “gate keeping” functions of authors, the academy, and professional institutions while lacking a reliable business model of its own. Economies of the Commons 2 provides a timely and crucial analysis of sustainable economic models that can promote and safeguard the online public domain. We want to find out what the new hybrid solutions are for archiving, access and reuse of on-line content that can both create viable markets and serve the public interest in a competitive global 21st century information economy. Economies of the Commons 2 consists of an international seminar on Open Video hosted by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision on November 11 in Hilversum, a two day international conference and two public evening programs on November 12 and 13 at De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam. The event builds upon the successful Economies of the Commons conference organised in April 2008. Organisers: Images for the Future Consortium / Kennisland (Knowledgeland) / De Balie / Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision / Institute of Network Cultures / University of Amsterdam, Department of New Media PROGRAM OVERVIEW: THURSDAY NOVEMBER 11 Pre-Conference Seminar: Open Video Conference Europe Venue: Mediacentrum, Sumatralaan 45 (Media Park), Hilversum 10.00 - 11.00 Plenary keynotes: Ben Moskowitz (Open Video Alliance) Peter B. Kaufman (Intelligent Television) 11.15 - 13.00 Plenary Presentations of Relevant Projects Michael Dale (Wikimedia Foundation) – Video on Wikipedia Jamie King (VODO) – Promoting and Distributing Creative Works Using P2P Dolf Veenvliet (Blender Foundation) – Open Movie Projects and Software Frans Ward (Surfnet) – Open Video in Education Bram Tullemans (NPO) – Online Video for Dutch Public Broadcasting 13.00 - 14.00 Lunch break 14.00 - 1600 Parallel Working Groups: 1. Video on Wikipedia Moderators: Ben Moskowitz & Michael Dale 2. Open Distribution Models for Broadcasting Moderator: Peter B. Kaufman & Paul Keller 16.15 - 17.00 Closing discussion and closing remarks Admission free - reservation required due to limited seating. Send an e-mail to: ian.van.r...@balie.nl FRIDAY NOVEMBER 12 Economies of the Commons 2 Conference - Day 1 Venue: De Balie, Amsterdam 10.30 – 11.00 Doors open 11.00 – 11.15 Welcome and introduction to the conference: Eric Kluitenberg (De Balie) 11.15 – 12.00 Conference Keynote Address: Constructing a Commons-Based Digital Infrastructure Charlotte Hess, Associate Dean for Research, Collections, & Scholarly Communication, Syracuse University, and internationally renown commons theorist. http://library.syr.edu/about/people/staffbio/Hess_Charlotte.php 12.00 - 12.30 Invited responses and discussion: With: Joost Poort, SEO Economic Researcher on the market structure and regulation of infrastructures http://www.seo.nl 12.30 – 13.30 Lunch break 13.30 – 15.30 Critique of the ‘Free and Open’ Speakers Yann Moulier Boutang, University of Technology of Compiègne, editor of Quarterly French Review MULTITUDES. Sustainablility of Free and Open: from Terra Nullius to the new Commons Dymitri Kleiner, author of Telekommunist Manifesto www.telekommunisten.net Simona Levi is a multidisciplinary artist born in Italy and established in Barcelona, director of Conservas, a cultural activity centre, co-founder of EXGAE and organiser of the Free Culture Forum Barcelona. http://fcforum.net Nate Tkacz, Melbourne University Death Knell for Open Politics http://nathanieltkacz.net/ Moderator: Geert Lovink, founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures. http://networkcultures.org 15.45 – 17.30 Pro-Active Archives Speakers Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy for the Smithsonian Institution and Smithsonian Commons The Smithsonian Commons www.si.edu/commons/prototype Sandra Fauconnier, Collection, Netherlands Media Art Institute NIMk: Mediating Media Art
[spectre] Distance versus Desire - Clearing the ElectroSmog
s?). This new consciousness of segregation will undoubtedly spark conflict and critical debate. The second step would be to accept the need for hybrid and therefore ‘messy’ solutions. The economics of mobility will undoubtedly play an important role in shaping future mobility regimes. The exploration of alternative sources of energy and alternative transportation systems and technologies provide another avenue to look for viable escape routes. The on-going refinement of communication tools, media environments, tele-work arrangements and 21st century electronic cottages and other models of sustainable immobility will also play a role in those situations where practical advantages take priority over the libidinal drive for encounter. (Tele-)Presence researcher Caroline Nevejan emphasises that the new communication technologies do not offer us ideal solutions at all, but they will in the future become increasingly indispensable. [4] The least desirable scenario is that of the crash, the ‘accident-catastrophe’ preprogrammed in current systems of hyper-nobility. Given the tidings from a confused planet rushing at high-speed into a global traffic jam, reported at ElectroSmog, this scenario cannot be excluded from our considerations for now. Eric Kluitenberg Amsterdam, November 2010 Notes: 1 - An overview of documentation resources from the festival can be found at: www.electrosmogfestival.net/documentation 2 - Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave, Bantam Books, New York, 1980. 3 - www.gowestproject.com 4 - See for Nevejan’s research on Witnessed Presence: www.systemsdesign.tbm.tudelft.nl/witness __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Book launch: Nettitudes, Let’s Talk Net Art, by Jospehine Bosma, at De Balie, Amsterdam, April 14, 20.30 hrs.
A N N O U N C E M E N T Josephine Bosma’s, Nettitudes, Let’s Talk Net Art will be launched 14th of April at De Balie in Amsterdam at 20:30 hrs. After more than two decades of the Internet it is time for a thorough evaluation of art in this continuously growing and unpredictable environment. During the book presentation of ‘Nettitudes – Let’s Talk Net Art’ of writer and critic Josephine Bosma serious reflections on the present state of net art will be alternated with a festive celebration of the realization of this book. We will do this with the critics Sarah Cook and Arie Altena, and a performance by the artist Peter Luining. Nettitudes is published by the Institute for Network Cultures and Nai Publishers. With also the author Josephine Bosma and Geert Lovink, initiator of the INC book series. About the book: During the 1990s, net art burst onto the scene as a radical reflection on the role of technology in contemporary art. In Nettitudes, Dutch art critic Josephine Bosma catalogues the tumultuous history of art as it became situated in the material dimensions of the Internet, from the spectacular interventions of the first decade to today’s dispersed practices, including online acoustics, poetry and archiving. Never the darling of the media art institutions and ignored by many curators and critics since its emergence, net art still persists as a ‘non-movement’, residing in the cracks of contemporary media culture. Nettitudes provides an analytical foundation and an insider’s view on net art’s many expressions as it grapples with the aesthetic, conceptual and social issues of our times. Design: Studio Léon & Loes, Paperback, 272 pages, 14 x 21 cm, English edition, ISBN 978-90-5662-800-0, € 23.50. In association with the NAi Publishers, available from April 2011. About the author: Josephine Bosma is an Amsterdam-based journalist and critic who has commented on the fields of art and new media since 1993. One of the first to probe into and engage with the domain of net art, her pioneering work is published internationally in books, periodicals and catalogues. More information: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/weblog/2011/03/29/booklaunch-josephine-bosmas-nettitudes-lets-talk-net-art/ http://www.naipublishers.nl/art/nettitudes_e.html __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Open 21 - (Im)Mobility, Exploring the Boundaries of Hypermobility - Theme Issue Journal for Art and the Public Domain
A N N O U N C E M E N T Tuesday evening May 24 we presented the theme issue (im)Mobility of Open, Journal for Art and the Public Domain at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, in combination with a screening of The Forgotten Space, the film by Allan Sekula and Noël Burch (www.skor.nl/artefact-5492-en.html). Below more information on the issue. - eric - Open 21 (Im)Mobility Exploring the Boundaries of Hypermobility Increasing densities of communications technologies seem to lead to an increase in physical and motorised mobility, rather than their replacement or reduction. At the same time, these accelerating flows of data and commodities stand in sharp contrast to the elbow room afforded to the biological body, which in fact is forced to a standstill. And while data, goods and capital have been freed of their territorial restrictions, the opposite is true for a growing proportion of the world's population: border regimes, surveillance and identity control are being intensified at a rapid pace. In short, we are seeing both an uncurbed and uncontrolled increase of mobility and segregating filtrations. This issue of Open explores the internal contradictions of prevailing im/mobility regimes and their effects on social and physical space. Contents: Media theorist Eric Kluitenberg, guest editor of this issue, charts the many mobility regimes in search of a perspective for intervention. Philosopher Marc Schuilenburg argues for connectivity with the local, introducing the concept of 'terroir'. Cultural critic Brian Holmes analyses the capitalist mobility system: container transport and just-in-time production. Film stills from the documentary Forgotten Space by Allan Sekula and Noël Burch portray the relation between oceanic shipping lanes and the globalised economy. Architectural historian Wim Nijenhuis wonders what exile means in today's 'exit city'. Architect Charlotte Lebbe investigates the external borders of the Schengen Area and sees the rise of a new 'dispositif' surveillance: the Ban-Opticum. Sociologist Merijn Oudenampsen and architect Miguel Robles-Durán interview David Harvey on the spatial effects of capital accumulation. Media theorist Joss Hands writes about the mobilising capacity of social media in recent events in the Middle East. Media artist and researcher Florian Schneider introduces the concept of 'transnationality' in order to tackle the ambivalence of current border regimes. Design critic John Thackara argues for a change in the thinking on mobility. Media theorist Tatiana Goryucheva asks where the democratisaton of technological design begins, investigating the case of food traceability technology. Design studio Metahaven drafts a speculative future for 'mobile money', and architect Nerea Calvillo discusses the visual urban interfaces charting air pollution developed for the In the Air project in Madrid. www.skor.nl/artefact-5491-en.html --- Open is an initiative of SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and is published by NAI Publishers. Jorinde Seijdel and Liesbeth Melis (eds.) Eric Kluitenberg (guest editor) Open 21 (Im)mobility Exploring the Limits of Hypermobility Design: Thomas Buxó and Klaartje van Eijk, Paperback, Illustrated (colour and b/w), 176 pages, 17 x 24 cm English edition, ISBN 978-90-5662-814-7, € 23.50 Dutch edition, ISBN 978-90-5662-813-0 May 2011 www.naipublishers.com/art/open21_e.html __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Alternative economies and the funding cutbacks + a few words on the situation in NL
Dear Spectrites, A fascinating discussion is emerging in (late) response to the funding cutbacks in the UK, NL, and now Slovenia. Without wanting to take anything away from what has been said so far, I would like to introduce a slightly different angle to the discussion. Because this is all still in becoming, it necessarily has to be sketchy. That public funding for arts, especially the experimental arts and media arts / networked arts, are under increasing pressure is not really new - the scale and acceleration of austerisation is, obviously. Seeing for a long time the shifting funding priorities (from an 'arts' or slightly more autonomous designation to the 'economistic' notion of 'creative industries - a bit more about that in respect to the situation in The Netherlands at the end) it was clear that alternative models of sustainability for the kind of practices that are at least close to my heart should be probed and developed. In 2008 we started this discussion around the rapid growth of on-line collections of audio visual material and their public accessibility with the Economies of the Commons conference series, inspired by the term that Felix Stalder had originally suggested to us. The conferences provide a relevant constellation of heritage, archive, as well as independent initiatives, producers, cultural and arts organisations and representatives of (public) broadcasting. This is an on-going discussion and exploration. The idea in rough terms is to investigate how in view of the unreliability of public support structures (as has become abundantly clear now, but remember we started this discussion in 2007/8, alternative support structures can be constructed for these kind of experimental and public access practices and resources that still retain the ideals of accessibility, of publicness, of sharing, of free exchange (free as in unfettered - not 'gratis'). Documentation of the first ECommons conference: www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=208416 Website of ECommons 2: www.ecommons.eu There are different layers to this undertaking. One important step is to understand what kind and how value is created in situations where no immediate transaction takes place when having access to the resources, productions, gatherings, exchanges we are studying. Here the figure of the commons (a highly anglosaxonian notion and not 'common' in The Netherlands at all), comes squarely into view. It is possible through this notion of shared resources, the commons, to tap into a rich experience and body of both practical work and excellent (economic) theory that has been developed in the commons movement suis generis, by a.o. Ollstrom and Hess and many others. The figure of the commons identifies a third economic logic, next to that of the Market and Public (State) support, that is highly productive in a multitude of situations to resolve problems of access to resources, knowledge, skills, means of production, reputation building (important for the general art economy / market that is essentially a reputation economy), distribution infrastructures and more. The commons is not an ant-thesis to the market, nor is it replacement for public support structures, much rather it is complementary. Current debates about crowd funding that have suddenly become popular (surprise!?) are hopelessly beside the point, they reflect the simple logic of established cultural institutions who see their public funding go down and want to compensate this monetary loss simply by extracting more money from 'the crowd' - rather than rethinking the nature of their own practice and ways of working. We can see that this will lead nowhere as 'the crowd' will not be willing to supplement dwindling public arts funds, meanwhile not getting anything new and not getting a stake or a new kind of involvement in the organisations and their cultural output. In other words, this short term strategy amounts to the same as simply raising the prices of your ticket sales, and we know what the result of this will be, raise them too much and the audience will stay away. After two conferences (2008 and 2010) and extended discussions in the local and international environment the main observation that I take from the Economies of the Commons debate is that new realities are forcing cultural organisations to both rethink how they work and how they raise support for their activities. Replacing public funding with a commons based revenue stream will not work, while complete commercialisation will de the death trap for what makes this cultural activity most valuable (i.e. public accessibility, active dialogue, reuse and remix, critical engagement of the aesthetics and politics of experimental and media arts). Therefore it seems that hybrid models of practice need to be developed very urgently. Public funding should not be discarded, but should be fought for and where possible reinstated in the fu
[spectre] Tracing the Ephemeral: Tactical Media and the Lure of the Archive
Dear Spectrites, The following short text was written together with David Garcia at the occasion of the start of the Tactical Media Files Blog, which was launched a short while ago. The text repositions some ideas about the Tactical Media phenomenon and the relevance of the term today, as well as its inherent contradictions. We focus in particular on the aims of the Tactical Media Files as a documentation resource for the practices of tactical media, and the problems this inevitably invites. The Blog can be found at: http://blog.tacticalmediafiles.net The Tactical Media Files website can be found at: www.tacticalmediafiles.net Enjoy the read! bests, Eric Tracing the Ephemeral: Tactical Media and the Lure of the Archive by David Garcia and Eric Kluitenberg "Tactical Media emerged when the modest goals of media artists and media activists were transformed into a movement that challenged everyone to produce their own media in support of their own political struggles. This "new media" activism was based on the insight that the long-held distinction between the 'street' (reality) and the 'media' (representation) could no longer be upheld. On the contrary, the media had come to infuse all of society. To challenge dominant (strategic) structures in society, it was necessary to develop new (tactical) means of producing and distributing media. Not a specialised task separate from the social movements, but a key activity around which social movements could coalesce." [1] (From "About the Tactical Media Files", October, 2008) In 2003 media theorist McKenzie Wark wrote “Tactical media has been a productive rhetoric, stimulating a lot of interesting new work. But like all rhetorics, eventually its coherence will blur, its energy will dissipate. There's a job to do to make sure that it leaves something behind, in the archive, embedded in institutions, for those who come after.” [2] The Tactical Media Files, operating as a repository of “traces” of experience, knowledge and tactics goes some way to answering this call for “something to be left behind in the archive”. But the archival must feed a living stream of practice. And so McKenzie Wark’s text requires some qualification, nearly two decades after its initial articulation the rhetorical energy of the tactical has not entirely “dissipated or blurred”. Though full of contradictions Tactical Media has remained strangely persistent. In part because it is more than a rhetoric it is above all a practice. In the era of WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring it is clear that rumours of its passing have been greatly exaggerated. The fusion of smart encryption, smart phone movies and social networks transmitting and receiving in real-time has redefined tactical media from “contingent and local” to being no less contingent but now, certainly global. The opening sentence of The ABC of Tactical Media (1997) remains accurate "Tactical Media are what happens when the cheap 'do it yourself' media, made possible by the revolution in consumer electronics and expanded forms of distribution (from public access cable to the internet) are exploited by groups and individuals who feel aggrieved by or excluded from the wider culture". Tactical media is literally "what happens", it is factual, indexical, pragmatic, something that can be observed, an outcome of the way certain processes in society and culture connect to evolving technological infrastructures. Tactical Media activities have the greatest impact when two apparently contradictory, imperatives are, not so much resolved, as held in dynamic equilibrium. On the one hand there is the imperative to “engage the unbreakable link between representation and politics” (CAE) and on the other hand the recognition that the politics of representation “are badly adapted to an understanding of the increasingly infrastructural nature of communications in a world of digital media” (Matthew Fuller. Towards an Evil Media Studies). [3] As for this Tactical Media Files - it is a documentation tool for these ephemeral and fleeting processes - it is not an anthropological undertaking, because it participates actively in what it documents. It is not a science, not an institution, but much more of a tool, an intervention, but one with more long-term aims. More practically we want to create something of a memory, however incomplete, of the practices of tactical media, knowing that these practices are always in a hurry to 'move on'. . Tactical Media has always existed in an uncomfortable space between a fluidity of practice that by its nature resisted or outright refused to be named, and the recognition of constantly being 'saddled with designations' by those who are uncomfortable with the unnamed (CAE). More than a desire
[spectre] Fwd: "Lost in Transition" opens soon in Tallinn, Estonia
Begin forwarded message: From: "Rael Artel" Date: July 18, 2011 23:05:48 GMT+02:00 To: p...@publicpreparation.org Subject: "Lost in Transition" opens soon in Tallinn, Estonia Reply-To: r...@publicpreparation.org PRESS RELEASE 18.07.2011 Exhibition title: Lost in Transition Framework: Your Periphery Is My Centre Venue: CAME, Põhja 35, Tallinn, Estonia Dates: Jul 22–Aug 28, 2011 Artists: Arnis Balcus (Riga), Alexei Gordin (Tallinn), Wojtek Doroszuk (Krakow/Rouen), Ivan Jurica (Bratislava/Vienna), Flo Kasearu (Tallinn), Gergely Laszlo & Katarina Ševic (Budapest), Zampa di Leone (according to artist's words, from "the Arse of the Balkan"), Anna-Stina Treumund (Tallinn), Katarina Zdjelar (Belgrad/Rotterdam) Curator: Rael Artel (Pärnu) Do you remember the Summer of 1991? Can you recall the weather? What did you do on August 19th? How did you spend your evening? Where were you and with whom, when you heard about the coup d'état in Kremlin, Moscow? What did you say to your parents, friends and neighbors? What was announced on public television? What was the atmosphere in general? As of this summer, 20 years have passed since that week, when the Socialist regime officially fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. The attempt to preserve the monstrously dysfunctional system failed, and the putsch delivered to it a deathblow, reorganizing the order of nation-states and democracy in the geopolitical region of Eastern Europe. Besides the change of political system, economic principles were even more dramatically reshaped, from one extreme to another: from a state-operated Socialist plan-economy to wild and heartless cowboy-capitalism. To name this process, the term 'transitional economy' was used and 'privatization' became one of its keywords. Privatization changed fundamentally the relations between the state and its citizens, between the owners of the means of production and the workers, between local and international capital. With the reforms, previously held assumptions about valued and legitimate ways of living, working and spending leisure time were renovated, so to speak; reframed through the lens of Europe. In the dominant historical-political discourse, the last decades are perceived as a positive and progressive period, which, apart from the odd difficulty, have improved the quality of life in all the nations in former Eastern Europe. According to the understanding promoted in the mainstream, we all became winners that very week in August 1991; “we” as a region of democratic and independent nation-states, as well as "we" as private individuals. It seems to me that the question of what we may have lost has not been asked. And, after such a radical change in the surrounding situation, are we still lost in the confusion introduced by these rapid reforms? The historical processes described above frame the subject of discussion for "Lost in Transition", an international exhibition of contemporary art that aims to collect and present a selection of critical perspectives on the prevalent social realities and lifestyles generated and practiced in former Eastern Europe 20 years after that fatal August day. Through this assortment of works I wish to sketch out some characteristic developments in the economic and social situation that have given rise to particular sets of values and ways of living in the era of transition, both in everyday life as well as in the art world. I see the medium of exhibition not as a mere display of works for intellectual pleasure or exciting leisure time, but as a proposition to discuss particular aspects of social reality and power relations we face daily in this part of Europe. "Lost in Transition" is a part of "Your Periphery Is My Centre", a series of contemporary art presentations in various formats that examine ambivalent aspects of the life in former Eastern Europe and its neighboring regions. The show is accompanied by publication: edited by Rael Artel, designed by Jaan Evart, published by PP Publications, 64 pages, in Estonian and English. The exhibition is a part of official cultural program of Tallinn, European Capital of Culture 2011. The show takes place in the framework of the festival "Kultuuritolm 2011" and as a part of the project "Your Periphery Is My Center". Support: Eesti Kultuurkapital, Hungarian Embassy in Tallinn More information: Rael Artel gsm: + 372 56 229 213 email: r...@publicpreparation.org skype: raelartel __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Book: Media Archaeology - Approaches, Applications, and Implications, edited by Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka
Dear Spectrites, I had the honour of contributing an overview of the 'archaeology of imaginary media' to the new anthology "Media Archaeology: that was put together by Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka, and which has recently come out with University of California Press after being in the making for some four years(!). Think this hasn't been posted on Spectre yet, so I include the original announcement below - great book and an important contribution to the field. bests, Eric - Media Archaeology Approaches, Applications, and Implications, edited by Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka University of California Press, June 2011 This book introduces an archaeological approach to the study of media - one that sifts through the evidence to learn how media were written about, used, designed, preserved, and sometimes discarded. Edited by Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka, with contributions from internationally prominent scholars from Europe, North America, and Japan, the essays help us understand how the media that predate today’s interactive, digital forms were in their time contested, adopted and embedded in the everyday. Providing a broad overview of the many historical and theoretical facets of Media Archaeology as an emerging field, the book encourages discussion by presenting a full range of different voices. By revisiting ‘old’ or even ‘dead’ media, it provides a richer horizon for understanding ‘new’ media in their complex and often contradictory roles in contemporary society and culture. http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520262744 "Taken together, this excellent collection of essays by a wide range of scholars and practitioners demonstrates how the emerging field of media archaeology not only excavates the ways in which newer media work to remediate earlier forms and practices but also sketches out how older media help to premediate new ones." —Richard Grusin, author of Premediation: Affect and Mediality after 9/11 “Where McLuhan’s Understanding Media ends, Media Archaeology actually begins. Refusing the often futile search for the eternal laws of media, Media Archaeology does something more difficult and rare. It literally brings the history of media alive by drawing into presence the enigmatic, heterogeneous, unruly past of the media—its artifacts, machines, imaginaries, tactics, and games. What results is a fabulous cabinet of (media) memories: the imaginary moving with kinetic frenzy, histories of what happens when media collide in the electronic space of the virtual, and stories about those strange interstitial spaces between analogue and digital.” —Arthur Kroker, author of The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism “This brilliant collection of essays provides much needed material and historical grounding for our understanding of new media. At the same time, it animates that ground by recognizing the integral roles that imagination, embodiment, and even productive disturbance play in media historiography. Yet these essays constitute more than a collection of historical case studies; together, they transform the book’s subject into its overall method. Media Archaeology performs media archaeology. Huhtamo and Parikka excavate the intellectual traditions and map the epistemological terrain of media archaeology itself, demonstrating that the field is ripe with possibilities not only for further historical examination, but also for imagining exciting new scholarly and creative futures.” —Shannon Mattern, The New School "Media archaeology is a wonderful new shadow field. If you are willing to step outside the glow of new media, this book's approaches can shift how you experience the objects and experiences that fill the new everyday of contemporary life. No one captures the beauty of studying new media in the shadow of older media implements and practices better than Erkki Huhtamo, the Finnish writer, curator, and scholar of media technology and design famous for his creative work as a preservationist and an interpreter of pre-cinematic technologies of visual display. He has teamed up here with Jussi Parikka, the Finnish scholar who has brought us an insect theory of media, to give us this long-awaited collection of essays in media archaeology. The surprise of the book is that the essays collectively bring forward a range of approaches to considering archaeological practice, giving us new ways to think about our embodied and subjective orientations to technologies and objects through the lens of the material remnants of practice, rather than offering a narrow definition of the field. The collection moves between computational machines and influencing machines, preservation and imagination, offering a range of ways to live the new everyday of media experience through the imaginary of archaeology." —Lisa Cartwright, co-author of Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture __
[spectre] Fwd: MobilityShifts: An International Future of Learning Summit - The New School in NYC, October 10-16, 2011
Begin forwarded message: From: "Trebor Scholz" Date: August 31, 2011 20:30:22 GMT+02:00 CALL FOR REGISTRATIONS MobilityShifts: An International Future of Learning Summit The New School in NYC October 10-16, 2011 The New School presents the second event in its Politics of Digital Culture conference series "MobilityShifts: An International Future of Learning Summit." Comprised of a conference, hands-on workshops, project demonstrations, exhibitions and a theater performance featuring youth and educators from New York City and Chicago, MobilityShifts is a week-long summit in October 2011. MobilityShifts makes unexpected international connections between the theories of Jacques Rancière and Ivan Illich, learning projects outside the bounds of schools and universities, mobile platforms, and the Open Web. Stop, reflect, listen, discuss, and build with artists, media scholars, policy makers, students, technologists, teachers, librarians, legal scholars and learning activists from 21 countries. http://www.mobilityshifts.org http://mobilityshifts.org/conference/program/ REGISTRATION To attend MobilityShifts you must register. The early bird rate ends on September 15th. http://www.mobilityshifts.org/register1 http://www.mobilityshifts.org/register1 Participants include: Eduardo Ochoa, Hal Plotkin, Cathy Davidson, Michael Wesch, Oliver Grau, Mimi Ito, Henry Jenkins, Anya Kamenetz, Geert Lovink, Shin Mizukoshi, John Palfrey, Eric Kluitenberg, Irit Rogoff, Juliana Rotich, Benjamin Bratton, Katie Salen, Shveta Sarda, Molly Steenson, Elizabeth Losh, Tony Conrad, Lev Manovich, Torsten Meyer, Jan Schmidt, Tomi Ahonen, Beth Coleman, John Willinsky, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Alexander Halavais, Giselle Beiguelman, David Carroll, Tania Bustos, Kate Crawford, Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Sean Dockray, Rolf Hapel, Juan Manuel Lopez Garduno, Daria Ng, Chris Lawrence, Josie Fraser, David Theo Goldberg, Marisa Jahn, Sam Gregory, Shravan Goli, Manu Kapur, Edward Keller, Jairo Moreno, Michael Pettinger, Michael Preston, Daniela Rosner, Richard Scullin, Ramon Sanguesa, Elaine Savory, Luis Camnitzer, Nishant Shah, Janek Sowa, Dan Visel, Nitin Sawhney and many others. http://mobilityshifts.org/conference/participants Summit Chair Trebor Scholz Co-Chairs: Edward Keller, Elizabeth Losh, Matthew K. Gold, David Theo Goldberg , Karen DeMoss, Sean Dockray Producer: Jennifer Conley Darling Associate Producers: Caroline Buck, Liz Carlson Selected workshops: http://mobilityshifts.org/workshops/ (Workshops require an additional reservation at no extra cost). This summit builds on two previous events: Mozilla's Drumbeat Festival in Barcelona (2010) and Digital Media and Learning in Los Angeles (2011). MobilityShifts is sponsored by The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The New School and the Mozilla Foundation. We gratefully acknowledge our partners: American University of Paris, Carnegie Mellon University, Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, Goethe-Institut, HASTAC, Japan Society, MetaMute, Prezi, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, SocialText, UC San Diego’s Sixth College, and University of Pennsylvania. __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Media Squares: On the new forms of protest and their media, int. seminar, Friday September 30, Amsterdam
A N N O U N C E M E N T Media Squares On the new forms of protest and their media Social protest has become almost inseparably linked to a plethora of media images and messages distributed via internet, mobile phones, social media, internet video platforms and of course traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio and television. A popular category to have emerged recently is the 'twitter-revolution'. In almost all cases (Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, London) the role of the platform turned out to be less than essential in retrospect. Protests mostly manifested on the streets and particularly the public squares ('Take the Square'). Deeply rooted blogger-networks did however play a mayor role, preparing the protests that have now been dubbed the "Arabian Spring'. And internet played a crucial role in the organisation and co-ordination of the European 'anti-austerity' protests (Spain, Greece, UK, Italy). This international seminar brings together theorists, artists, designers, activists and media specialists to develop a critical analysis of the new forms of social protest and their media dimension. The program is divided into two blocks. The first block focuses on an in-depth analysis of the evolving WikiLeaks-saga, while the second block will examine the remarkable string of protests in the Mediterranean region. These discussions will be interrupted at times by startling artistic interventions in current social and political debates. Participants in the program are: Daniel van der Velden (Metahaven), Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Cultures, INC), Aalam Wassef (Ahmad Sherif), Omar Robert Hamilton (Mosireen / Tahrir Cinema, Cairo) Nat Muller (independent curator), David Garcia (Chelsea College), Jodi Dean (Hobart and William Smith Colleges / Blog Theory), X.net Democracia Real Ya - Barcelona, Gahlia Elsrakbi (Foundland), Nadia Plesner (Darfurnica), Florian Conradi and Michelle Christensen (stateless plug-in), Sami Ben Gharbia (Global Voices - tbc). The seminar is part of an on-going research into Tactical Media, the fusion of art, media, politics and cultural activism, centred around the "Tactical Media Files", an on-line documentation resource of Tactical Media practices world-wide. [ www.tacticalmediafiles.net ] Doors open: 10.00 Start Program: 10.30 uur End Program: 17.00 uur Program Overview: 10.30 - Opening / Introduction: Eric Kluitenberg (Tactical Media Files / De Balie) Part I - Repositioning WikiLeaks 11.00 - 11.20 - Presentation: Daniel van der Velden (Metahaven) 11.20 - 11.30 - Responses 11.30 - 11.45 - Discussion 11.45 - 12.05 - Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Cultures) 12.05 - 12.15 - Responses 12.15 - 12.30 - Discussion Respondents: Jodi Dean (Hobart and William Smith Colleges / Blog Theory), David Garcia (Chelsea College of Art & Design) 12.30 - 12.45 - Artist presentation: Nadia Plesner - Darfurnica 13.00 - 14.00 - Lunch break Part II - Revolution in the Mediterranean 14.00 - 14.20 - Presentation: Aalam Wassef (Ahmad Sherif) 14.20 - 14.30 - Responses 14.30 - 14.45 - Discussion 14.45 - 15.05 - Presentation: Omar Robert Hamilton (Mosireen / Tahrir Cinema) 15.05 - 15.15 - Responses 15.15 - 15.30 - Discussion Respondents: Ghalia Elsrakbi (Foundland), Nat Muller (Independent Curator), Sami Ben Gharbia (Global Voices - tbc) 15.30 - 15.45 - Artist Presentation: Florian Conradi and Michelle Christensen (stateless plug-in) 15.45 - 16.00 - Coffee break 16.00 - 16.20 - Skype session with X.net Democracia Real Ya, Barcelona 16.10 - 16.10 - Responses 16.25 - 17.00 - Closing Discussion Location: De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 Amsterdam Admission: 5 euro (no reductions) http://debalie.activetickets.com/ProgrammaDetail.aspx?id=24170 Links: Tactical Media Files: www.tacticalmediafiles.net Tahrir Cinema: www.cinerevolutionnow.com/2011/07/tahrir-cinema.html Mosireen: http://mosireen.org Take the Square: http://takethesquare.net Democracia real Ya!: www.democraciarealya.es/manifiesto-comun/manifesto-english/ stateless plug-in: http://statelessplugin.net Nadia Plesner - Darfurnica: www.nadiaplesner.com/Website/darfurnica.php __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Revolutionary Archives: Tactical Screenings from Tahrir, Amsterdam Friday September 30, 20.30 hrs.
A N N O U N C E M E N T Revolutionary Archives: Tactical Screenings from Tahrir Screening & talk with Omar Robert Hamilton: Friday September 30, De Balie, Amsterdam, 20.30 hrs In the midst of the Egyptian uprising Tahrir Cinema was started on July 14th by a group of film makers and artists, organising open air public screenings on Tahrir Square, of films that had something to do with 'the Revolution'. Curation of the films was largely open source. The organisers asked people on the square for their footage, or what they wanted to see up on the screen - "a screen to serve the square". Out of this frenzy of media-activity Mosireen emerged, a new independent media centre in Cairo. During the protests Mosireen supported people on Tahrir Square to edit their materials, created DVDs with raw footage and clips, and set up an archive of the Revolution. This special screening program organised in the frame of "Media Squares" program at De Balie will present a selection of videos and films from Tahrir Cinema in collaboration with Mosireen, Cairo. The screening will be hosted and narrated by Omar Robert Hamilton, one of the initiators of Tahrir Cinema, and Nat Muller, independent curator based in The Netherlands. Links: Tahrir Cinema: www.cinerevolutionnow.com/2011/07/tahrir-cinema.html Omar Robert Hamilton: www.orhamilton.com/bio.html Mosireen: http://mosireen.org This program is presented in the frame of the international seminar "Media Squares - On the new forms of social protest and their media" See: www.tacticalmediafiles.net/article.jsp?objectnumber=54334 Location: De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam Program starts: 20.30 hrs. Admission: 5 euro (no reductions) Tickets: http://debalie.activetickets.com/ProgrammaDetail.aspx?id=597 __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Launch Open 21 "Im/Mobility" at Immigrant Movement International, New York City, October 9, 2011, 2 PM
Press Release October 9, 2011 Launch Open 21 at Immigrant Movement International, New York City, October 9, 2011, 2 PM Lectures by Brian Holmes and Eric Kluitenberg and presentation Open 21 on (Im)Mobility Programme October 9, 2011 2:00 PM Introduction by Jorinde Seijdel Open 21 (Im)mobility. Exploring the Limits of Hypermobility 2:30 PM Lecture Brian Holmes What Sustains a Public Sphere? Solidarity in the Post-Liberal Societies 3:15 PM Lecture Eric Kluitenberg The Global Im/Mobility Privilege 4 PM End Further info: www.skor.nl/eng/site/item/launch-open-21-at-immigrant-movement-international-new-york-city About: Brian Holmes is a cultural critic living at present in Chicago. He works on crisis theory and technopolitics. All his texts are obtainable free of charge here: http://brianholmes.wordpress.com For decades, the critique of neoliberalism has been a paying proposition for left-leaning artists and intellectuals. Amidst the Internet and real-estate booms, a fragile mix of enlightenment and entrepreneurial values preserved some space for theories of radical democracy. Today, financial turmoil and its hard-right political consequences have laid that ambiguity to rest. In this lecture, Brian Holmes reopens the debate about the practical basis for an aesthetics of equality. The first step toward new institutions of solidarity, he argues, is to understand one's own position on the margins. Eric Kluitenberg is a writer and curator who focuses on culture, media and technology, living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Recent publications include Book of Imaginary Media (2006) and Delusive Spaces (essays, 2008). The right to freedom of movement is enshrined in international systems of law and power that offer little space for individual influence or control. Our examination of the global regimes of im/mobility revealed how deeply the transnational is rooted in specific local constellations, which offer the optimal point of intervention. Jorinde Seijdel is editor in chief of Open. Cahier on Art and the Public Domain. Immigrant Movement International (IM International) is a five-year project initiated by artist Tania Bruguera. Its mission is to help define the immigrant as a unique, new global citizen in a post-national world and to test the concept of arte útil or 'useful art', in which artists actively implement the merger of art into society’s urgent social, political and scientific issues. Year one of Immigrant Movement International is supported by The Queens Museum of Art, located in Queens’ historic Flushing Meadows Corona Park, and CreativeTime, a public art organization that sponsors art and artists all over New York City. Location Immigrant Movement International 108-59 Roosevelt Avenue Queens, NY 11368 United States Further info: http://immigrant-movement.us/?page_id=173 - Open 21: (Im)Mobility. Exploring the Limits of Hypermobility Advanced communications technologies seem to be paving the way for an increase in physical and motorized mobility. At the same time, these accelerating flows of data and commodities stand in sharp contrast to the elbow room afforded to the biological body, which in fact is forced to a standstill. And while data, goods and capital have been freed of their territorial restrictions, the opposite is true for a growing proportion of the world’s population: border regimes, surveillance and identity control are being intensified at a rapid pace. In short, we are seeing both an uncurbed and uncontrolled increase of mobility and segregating filtrations. This issue of Open explores the internal contradictions of prevailing mobility regimes and their effects on social and physical space. With, amongst others, an interview with David Harvey. Open investigates the contemporary conditions of public space and changing notions of publicness in a structural manner in relation to cultural production. This implies an experimental and interdisciplinary exposition of the reality, possibilities and limitations of the current public domain, in particular from sociological, philosophical, political and artistic perspectives. Within the framework of this ‘project in progress’, themes such as safety, memory, visibility, cultural freedom, tolerance hybrid space, the rise of informal media, art as a public affair, manipulative, precarity and privacy have been examined. Open is edited by Jorinde Seijdel (editor in chief) and Liesbeth Melis (final editing) and appears twice a year in a Dutch-language and an English-language edition. The graphic design is by Thomas Buxò and Klaartje van Eijk. Open is an initiative of SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, www.skor.nl) and is published by NAi Publishers (www.naipublishers.nl). For information, ordering and subscriptions see SKOR, NAi Publishers or send
[spectre] Reminder: Media Squares - On the new forms of social protest and their media - Friday Sept. 30, 10.30 - 17.00, De Balie, Amsterdam
R E M I N D E R Media Squares On the new forms of protest and their media Friday September 30, 10.30 - 17.00 hrs, De Balie Amsterdam Social protest has become almost inseparably linked to a plethora of media images and messages distributed via internet, mobile phones, social media, internet video platforms and of course traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio and television. A popular category to have emerged recently is the 'twitter-revolution'. In almost all cases (Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, London) the role of the platform turned out to be less than essential in retrospect. Protests mostly manifested on the streets and particularly the public squares ('Take the Square'). Deeply rooted blogger-networks did however play a mayor role, preparing the protests that have now been dubbed the "Arabian Spring'. And internet played a crucial role in the organisation and co-ordination of the European 'anti-austerity' protests (Spain, Greece, UK, Italy). This international seminar brings together theorists, artists, designers, activists and media specialists to develop a critical analysis of the new forms of social protest and their media dimension. The program is divided into two blocks. The first block focuses on an in-depth analysis of the evolving WikiLeaks-saga, while the second block will examine the remarkable string of protests in the Mediterranean region. These discussions will be interrupted at times by startling artistic interventions in current social and political debates. Participants in the program are: Daniel van der Velden (Metahaven), Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Cultures, INC), Aalam Wassef (Ahmad Sherif), Omar Robert Hamilton (Mosireen / Tahrir Cinema, Cairo) Nat Muller (independent curator), David Garcia (Chelsea College), Jodi Dean (Hobart and William Smith Colleges / Blog Theory), X.net & Democracia Real Ya - Barcelona, Gahlia Elsrakbi (Foundland), Nadia Plesner (Darfurnica), Florian Conradi and Michelle Christensen (stateless plug-in), Oscar Pretel (15 M .nl). The seminar is part of an on-going research into Tactical Media, the fusion of art, media, politics and cultural activism, centred around the "Tactical Media Files", an on-line documentation resource of Tactical Media practices world-wide. [ www.tacticalmediafiles.net ] Doors open: 10.00 Start Program: 10.30 uur End Program: 17.00 uur Live-stream: www.debalie.nl/live Program Overview: 10.30 - Opening / Introduction: Eric Kluitenberg (Tactical Media Files / De Balie) Part I - Repositioning WikiLeaks 11.00 - 11.20 - Presentation: Daniel van der Velden (Metahaven) 11.20 - 11.30 - Responses 11.30 - 11.45 - Discussion 11.45 - 12.05 - Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Cultures) 12.05 - 12.15 - Responses 12.15 - 12.30 - Discussion Respondents: Jodi Dean (Hobart and William Smith Colleges / Blog Theory), David Garcia (Chelsea College of Art & Design) 12.30 - 12.45 - Artist presentation: Nadia Plesner - Darfurnica 13.00 - 14.00 - Lunch break Part II - Revolution in the Mediterranean 14.00 - 14.20 - Presentation: Aalam Wassef (Ahmad Sherif) 14.20 - 14.30 - Responses 14.30 - 14.45 - Discussion 14.45 - 15.05 - Presentation: Omar Robert Hamilton (Mosireen / Tahrir Cinema) 15.05 - 15.15 - Responses 15.15 - 15.30 - Discussion Respondents: Ghalia Elsrakbi (Foundland), Nat Muller (Independent Curator), Oscar Pretel (15 M .nl) 15.30 - 15.45 - Artist Presentation: Florian Conradi and Michelle Christensen (stateless plug-in) 15.45 - 16.00 - Coffee break 16.00 - 16.20 - Skype session with X.net & Democracia Real Ya, Barcelona 16.10 - 16.10 - Responses 16.25 - 17.00 - Closing Discussion Location: De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 Amsterdam Admission: 5 euro (no reductions) http://debalie.activetickets.com/ProgrammaDetail.aspx?id=24170 Links: Tactical Media Files: www.tacticalmediafiles.net Tahrir Cinema: www.cinerevolutionnow.com/2011/07/tahrir-cinema.html Mosireen: http://mosireen.org Take the Square: http://takethesquare.net Democracia real Ya!: www.democraciarealya.es/manifiesto-comun/manifesto-english/ stateless plug-in: http://statelessplugin.net Nadia Plesner - Darfurnica: www.nadiaplesner.com/Website/darfurnica.php -- EVENING PROGRAM: Revolutionary Archives: Tactical Screenings from Tahrir Screening & talk with Omar Robert Hamilton: Friday September 30, De Balie, Amsterdam, 20.30 hrs In the midst of the Egyptian uprising Tahrir Cinema was started on July 14th by a group of film makers and artists, organising open air public screenings on Tahrir Square, of films that had something to do with 'the Revolution'. Curation of the films was largely open source. The organisers asked people on the square for their footage, or what they wanted to see up on the screen - "a screen to serve the square". Out of this frenzy of media-activity Mosireen emerged, a
[spectre] Webcasts Media Squares international seminar on the new forms of protest and their media, now available at Tactical Media Files
A N N O U N C E M E N T Webcasts Media Squares now available at Tactical Media Files International public seminar on the new forms of protest and their media. Hosted by De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam, on Friday September 30, 2011. www.tacticalmediafiles.net/article.jsp?objectnumber=55328 Social protest has become almost inseparably linked to a plethora of media images and messages distributed via internet, mobile phones, social media, internet video platforms and of course traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio and television. A popular category to have emerged recently is the 'twitter-revolution'. In almost all cases (Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, London) the role of the platform turned out to be less than essential in retrospect. Protests mostly manifested on the streets and particularly the public squares ('Take the Square'). Deeply rooted blogger-networks did however play a mayor role, preparing the protests that have now been dubbed the "Arabian Spring'. And internet played a crucial role in the organisation and co-ordination of the European 'anti-austerity' protests (Spain, Greece, UK, Italy). This international seminar brought together theorists, artists, designers, activists and media specialists to develop a critical analysis of the new forms of social protest and their media dimension. The program divided into two blocks. The first block focused on an in-depth analysis of the evolving WikiLeaks-saga, while the second block examined the remarkable string of protests in the Mediterranean region. These discussions were interrupted at times by startling artistic interventions in current social and political debates. Participants in the program: Daniel van der Velden (Metahaven), Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Cultures, INC), Aalam Wassef (Ahmad Sherif), Omar Robert Hamilton (Mosireen / Tahrir Cinema, Cairo) Nat Muller (independent curator), David Garcia (Chelsea College), Jodi Dean (Hobart and William Smith Colleges / Blog Theory), X.net & Democracia Real Ya - Barcelona, Gahlia Elsrakbi (Foundland), Nadia Plesner (Darfurnica), Florian Conradi and Michelle Christensen (stateless plug-in), Oscar Pretel (15 M .nl). The seminar is part of an on-going research into Tactical Media, the fusion of art, media, politics and cultural activism, centred around the "Tactical Media Files", an on-line documentation resource of Tactical Media practices world-wide. www.tacticalmediafiles.net The webcasts of the entire seminar are now available on-line at the Tactical Media Files website, fully annotated, including background information about the speakers and links to vital resources. See: www.tacticalmediafiles.net/article.jsp?objectnumber=55328 Program Overview: 10.30 - Opening / Introduction: Eric Kluitenberg (Tactical Media Files / De Balie) Part I - Repositioning WikiLeaks 11.00 - 11.20 - Presentation: Daniel van der Velden (Metahaven) 11.20 - 11.30 - Responses 11.30 - 11.45 - Discussion 11.45 - 12.05 - Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Cultures) 12.05 - 12.15 - Responses 12.15 - 12.30 - Discussion Respondents: Jodi Dean (Hobart and William Smith Colleges / Blog Theory), David Garcia (Chelsea College of Art & Design) 12.30 - 12.45 - Artist presentation: Nadia Plesner - Darfurnica Part II - Revolution in the Mediterranean 14.00 - 14.20 - Presentation: Aalam Wassef (Ahmad Sherif) 14.20 - 14.30 - Responses 14.30 - 14.45 - Discussion 14.45 - 15.05 - Presentation: Omar Robert Hamilton (Mosireen / Tahrir Cinema) 15.05 - 15.15 - Responses 15.15 - 15.30 - Discussion Respondents: Ghalia Elsrakbi (Foundland), Nat Muller (Independent Curator) 15.30 - 15.45 - Artist Presentation: Florian Conradi and Michelle Christensen (stateless plug-in) 16.00 - 16.20 - Skype session with X.net & Democracia Real Ya, Barcelona 16.10 - 16.10 - Responses Respondent: Oscar Pretel (15 M .nl) 16.25 - 17.00 - Closing Discussion Links: * Hans Ulrich Obrist in Conversation with Julian Assange (includes proposals for WikiLeaks corporate identity redesign by metahaven.net) www.e-flux.com/journal/view/232 * Geert Lovink & Patrice Riemens , Twelve Theses on WikiLeaks www.tacticalmediafiles.net/article.jsp?objectnumber=49391 * Tahrir Cinema: www.cinerevolutionnow.com/2011/07/tahrir-cinema.html * Mosireen: http://mosireen.org * Take the Square: http://takethesquare.net * Democracia real Ya!: www.democraciarealya.es/manifiesto-comun/manifesto-english/ * Nadia Plesner - Darfurnica: www.nadiaplesner.com/Website/darfurnica.php * stateless plug-in: http://statelessplugin.net__ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Second Introduction to an Archaeology of Imaginary Media
cal space of the viewer. It is another attempt to bring the domain of the imaginary and the quasi- documentary fictions of her cinematic works one step closer to the actual existence of the observer here and now. Timothy Druckrey, finally, completes our journey into the realm of imaginary media by examining the works of a number of media artists who build in different ways upon a cinematic tradition. They realize within their work new definitions of previously unknown media and mediatic forms that are brought into existence there. Emblematic for this is the work of the artist Julien Maire. He constructs intricate media machineries (micro-mechanic animation machines contained within customized glass slides). He employs them in public showings that seem to reinvigorate the traditions of the occult pre-cinematic moving image shows that Edwin Carels refers to in his essay. According to Druckrey the 'proto-cinematic micro-machines' that Maire is using 'both evoke and outdistance the illusions of the phantasmagoric projectionists of the pre-cinema.' Druckrey discerns an interplay between illusion and a certain visibility of the technological interface, intensified in particular in Maire's work by his direct interventions in the performance of his work, which oscillates between the staged illusions of the cinematographic imaginary and the self-awareness of the viewer when these illusions are consciously broken. The fascinating ingenuity of this work highlights the complex relationships between the imagination and the actual realization of the media imaginary. It seems a befitting ending note for now, for our preliminary forays into the domain of imaginary media, of which, obviously, we all still have no truly clear idea of what it is about, or as Theweleit mused in his presentation, 'what may be in it . . .'. Let's see . . . Eric Kluitenberg Amsterdam, July 2005 Notes: [1] The first introduction was written for the Imaginary Media Reader (February, 2004) and can be found on-line at: www.debalie.nl/ archaeology [2] The word 'media' means many things, here we refer primarily to communications media. [3] Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York: Verso, 1991), 6. [4] Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957). [5] Erkki Huhtamo, 'From Kaleidoscomaniac to Cybernerd - Towards an Archeology of the Media', in: Timothy Druckrey, Electronic Culture - Technology and Visual Representation (New York: Aperture, 1996), 296-303. [6] Siegfried Zielinski, Media Archaeology, originally published by C- theory, November 1996 - www.ctheory.net [7] www.deadmedia.org [8] In German we might call them 'Real Existierende Medien'. [9] See also the Vinyl Video website: www.vynilvideo.com [10] Immersive Virtual Reality might be considered such a recurrent, yet unrealized mediatic desire. [11] For reasons entirely beyond control of either Theweleit himself or the editors, it was impossible to include his contribution in the book, which is why a summary of his argument is provided here. [12] Marshall and Eric McLuhan, Laws of Media: The New Science (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988). [13] Paraphrasing from the talk: Theweleit's presentation can be found on-line in full length as a streaming video document in the dossier Media Archaeology on the De Balie website: www.debalie.nl/ archaeology [14] Course Notes, Guitar Craft Course November 1, 1996, San Jose Seminary, Gandara, Argentina, released by R. Fripp on the list serve Elephant Talk, February 11, 1997. __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Belgrade Tourist Info Point, 13 - 15 dec. 2006 @ De Balie, Amsterdam / Domoladine, Belgrade, program and announcement
re are about 15 000 images tagged this way so far, and, if nothing, the results will be really unpredictable... The idea is to let observers lead the approach in determining, or interpreting the space - I guess a lot of the images were being shot and uploaded by foreigners who visited Belgrade - tourists, in a way - and to let the observers around central Amsterdam to become another circle of observers, who are offered an already randomized, personal and "filtered" view of the city, but no framework or key to interpret the images. 1.3 VIDEO LINK - SLOBODNAKULTURA.ORG, CREATIVE COMMONS SERBIA (15.12, 19:00) This same video platform as in WELKOM program will be used for some "remote" presentations and possible discussions. In this occasion we want to present the activities of slobodnakultura.org this way, but the platform can be expanded to present more and provide discussion about different issues with other content producers, artists and activists. On De Balie side there will be Paul Keller (Creative Commons NL Project Lead) to share the experiences from Netherlands with emerging Serbian initiative. This would correspond to the additional Creative Commons events in the program (a rough-guide.net web site, CC lounge) and may be of a real and practical help to members of slobodnakultura.org. Slobodnakultura.org is a meta - organization, a collective consisting of different organizations and individuals with more then 100 members. The lowest common denominator of all the parties involved is free culture (slobodna kultura). The organization just got the permission from Creative Commons International for localization and porting of CC licenses into Serbian law. This is perceived as very important for the community and the society as a whole. 1.4 CC LOUNGE (during all 3 days) http://a-rough-guide.net/en/belgrade_tourist_info_point/cc_lounge Creative Commons Lounge was developed some time ago, while attending meetings and panels organized by slobodnakultura.org and similar initiatives. Wherever there is a meeting or a conference of some kind, there is a cafe or bar nearby or attached to the venue where people take their time to rest, relax, think things over or just have a private conversation over coffee. Additional reason to develop the program was to offer cafe owners a worry-free and copyright-free music selection, in exchange for the possibility to distribute flyers and brochures explaining the guests what they are listening and the basics of Creative Commons initiative. All that in hope that it will popularize the very concept of "some rights reserved" approach further. De Balie's bar will be transformed during the days of the presentation into a CC Lounge place, by playing already selected CC music and distributing purpose-made flyers in Serbian, according to the audience expected. The music should not be too loud, and should not prevent the regular small talk/conversation in the bar. 2. CLIPBOARD 2.0 - live from de balie (geert lovink: TBA, eric kluitenberg/vladimir jeri_ vlidi: 14.12, 15:00, paul keller: 15.12. 18:00) audio stream/podcast http://a-rough-guide.net/en/belgrade_tourist_info_point/ clipboard_2_0_live_from_de_balie A debut of original CLIPBOARD broadcast/podcast series was in Amsterdam, April 2005, during De Appel's Radiodays program. Now there comes a sequel with the same participants from Amsterdam theoretical/ network cultures/activist scene, but from another location, De Balie, and with slightly different set of topics/questions and a different moment-in-time angle. Interesting turnover is that the author of the Clipboard series of interviews will be interviewed by Eric Kluitenberg this time. It will be streamed as a live conversation and archived for podcast, because the situation of "going live" gives different "feel" and atmosphere then a "record/edit" one, for both the participants and listeners. Formulations and articulations seem to differ from written or edited versions and seem to be shorter, more direct and understandable by the wider audience. A live stream and a podcast should be available on the project's site. TOPICS / ISSUES: more: copyleft/copyright issues, creative commons license, legislation in the digital domain, digital authorities, digital politics, the right to copy&paste, models and approaches to ownership/ user rights/royalties, digital clone/analog copy, market and commercial issues, piracy - how and if piracy is contributing in bridging the gap between hi tech societies and the rest of the world, is culture and communication supposed to be free for all the people as an axiom, open source discussions and legal/ethical issues...self- education as a right/obligation, are the wikipedia, MIT opencourseware, google and alike a models for a futur
[spectre] The Network of Waves - Public Agency in Hybrid Space
dear spectrites, This essay was written for the new issue of Open (#11), cahier about art and the public domain - "Hybrid Space". The essay introduces the overall theme of the issue, and suggests some strategic considerations on the use of hybrid space. More information on the issue can be found at the website of NAi Publishers: http://www.naipublishers.nl/art/open11_e.html and at the website of Open: http://www.opencahier.nl The journal was presented at De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics in Amsterdam, on November 18, with the annual SKOR lecture, delivered this year by Saskia Sassen: "Public Interventions - The Shifting Meaning of the Urban Condition". The lecture is available on-line at: http://www.debalie.nl/terugkijken See also: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=media&articleid=85601 best wishes, eric --- The Network of Waves Public Agency in Hybrid Space by Eric Kluitenberg The office space above which I live, in a corner house in the Indische Buurt, somewhere in Amsterdam East, used to house a local police station. At that time I was not yet living there. The place was briefly in the national news because of a fair-sized riot which took place there. A couple of Moroccan youths were brought to the station for some minor offence. Their friends thought that this was not right, so they followed the police back to the station to besiege the policemen there. It was not just a few friends who ran after the policemen, but a much larger group which suddenly turned up at the station, coming from nowhere at the precise moment when the youths were brought in. At that time this phenomenon, later known as a ‘flash mob’, [1] was still relatively new. The police on site were unpleasantly surprised, and had to issue a hasty call for reinforcements to negotiate with the besiegers. When it was all over a police spokesman said that it was a disgrace that the Moroccan youths had used their mobile phones to mobilize a mob. How else could these youths all have known at the same time that something was going on at which their physical presence was ‘urgently desired’? And exactly where they needed to be? What the spokesman meant was that the youths had compiled mailing lists for text messages and then used texting to get together as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Texting with mailing lists was a popular application, because at that time text messages could still be sent and received free of charge. A few years ago ‘flash mobs’ received a good deal of attention from the mass media. Semi-spontaneous public gatherings of groups of people, hardly if at all known to one another, nondescript, with no determining characteristics such as banners, uniform or logo, briefly performed some collective synchronous action, and then dissolved back into ‘the general public’. Directions and information about the gathering were sent out by text messages, or e-mails, telling participants where, when and what. These short messages could easily be sent on to friends and acquaintances with the aim of starting a chain reaction resulting in the appearance of an unpredictably large mob at a predetermined time and place. Reclaim the Mall!! The ‘flash-mob’ phenomenon is thought by some people to have originated in a few relatively unmanageable actions in large shopping centres in American towns, disorganizing them temporarily and playfully. These actions generally had no political significance. This all changed at the end of the 1990s. The ‘Reclaim the Streets’ movement, [2] highly active at the time, which used to organize illegally orchestrated ‘street raves’ in the public spaces of large towns, made intensive use of text and e-mail address lists to organize quasi-spontaneous street parties. They did however give these street parties a layered political agenda. The parties were generally given concrete political and social themes and were linked to particular actions, such as support for a strike by London Underground staff. The movement’s desire to also use these actions to free public space from its economically determined function (for instance transport, shopping or advertising) was succinctly expressed in the slogan ‘The streets for people!’. The parties followed a fixed procedure. The evening before, a sound truck with a generator, a DJ kit and a large number of loudspeakers would park in a wide street. Shortly before the start a double collision would be staged at the beginning and end of the street. The crucial factor here was the provision of information for the participants, who were, in principle, unknown to the organizers. Participants therefore received a short message containing simple directions to the place, the date, the time and a few instructions, such as ‘wait for the orange smoke – that's when the
[spectre] Presentation The Oracle Machine - An in stallation by Jeroen Joosse for the façade of De Balie i n Amsterdam.
A N N O U N C E M E N T The Oracle Machine An installation for the façade of De Balie in Amsterdam. “This is what we write, this is what we read; this is how we deal with information today” PRESENTATION: Saturday January 20, 20.00 hrs / De Balie, Amsterdam. http://www.debalie.nl/media Designer Jeroen Joosse devised an interactive installation for the façade De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam. The Oracle Machine consists of a five screen window projection, which can be seen daily, starting from January 20th - after sunset - from the Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen and the Leidseplein on the windows De Balie. The Oracle Machine displays a continuous stream of statements and opinions about social, political, and cultural issues. These texts do not originate from journalists, editors, writers and other specialists, but come directly out of the virtual public domain of the internet. Current affairs and debates determine the issues, but it is possible for everyone to interrupt the stream and send in an issue via sms, to (temporarily) control the façade of De Balie. The explosion of opinions on weblogs, fora and other places on the net, and the increased accessibility of this information, would suggest a booming climate for public debate and individual opinion- making. However, the fragmentation is considerable, and so is indifference. The Oracle Machine visualises this cacophony. It investigates the tension between diversity and involvement, and brings the virtual and physical public spaces closer together. The automatic nature of retrieving texts from the internet, and the ‘bias’ used within this process - similar to the major search engines - confronts us with our information practices: this is what we write. this is what we read, this is how we deal with information today. The inexorable stream of messages on the screens of the machine constitutes a reflection of what already for a long time is daily practice on the internet. The Oracle Machine stimulates, contributes to the formation of opinions, leaves us indifferent, irritates, provokes. And all this with the ‘voice of the community’. Bring Your Issue! The official presentation of the project is on Saturday January 20th at 20.00 hours. Richard Rogers, researcher and head of New Media at the University of Amsterdam, media theoretician Eric Kluitenberg and designer Jeroen Joosse will give comments and provide background to the project. Subsequently, the Oracle Machine can be seen ‘live’ in action: also the audience will be allowed to give search terms (issues) to the Oracle to witness what is written on the internet at this particular moment about the issue at hand. The Oracle Machine is realised with the support of Karel Brascamp (software development), and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. ___ De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 Amsterdam http://www.debalie.nl http://www.debalie.nl/media __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] OPEN 11 - Hybrid Space issue now fully available on-line
dear Spectrites, A short message to inform you that because the issue sold out at the publisher the editors of OPEN Cahier on Art and the Public Domain have made all contributions to issue 11 on Hybrid Space available at the website of the magazine. (excellent idea I would say!) You can find all texts here: http://www.skor.nl/article-2883-en.html The issue itself might still be available at some bookshops, but cannot be ordered from the publisher anymore. I pasted the table of contents below - fyi. best wishes, Eric --- OPEN no. 11 Hybrid Space. How wireless media are mobilizing public space http://www.skor.nl/article-2883-en.html Contents OPEN 11 Hybrid Space: The public domain is a place where people act and create a ‘communal world full of differences’. This space has become ‘hybrid’ in nature: a complex of concrete and virtual qualities, of static and mobile domains, of public and private spheres, of global and local interests. Last but not least, hybrid space is formed by wireless and mobile media like GSM, GPS, Wi-Fi and RFID. These media are deployed as control mechanisms, but also as alternative tools for increasing and intensifying public agency. A select company of artists, designers, architects and urban designers is investigating its implications and possibilities and putting them to the test. Overview OPEN Jorinde Seijdel Editorial Online article Eric Kluitenberg The Network of Waves Living and Acting in a Hybrid Space The emergence of digital media has meant that in recent years the use and significance of traditional public space has altered radically. The newest developments in information technology make use of apparatus which is less and less noticeable, so making a critical attitude more difficult. Eric Kluitenberg, researcher in the field of the significance of new technologies for society and guest editor of the present issue, draws attention to a number of activist strategies to encourage public and private action in a hybrid space. Online article Saskia Sassen Public Interventions The Shifting Meaning of the Urban Condition Saskia Sassen, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, is specialized in the influence that globalization and digitization processes have on the transformations of urban space. In this essay, she looks at the possibilities of artistic practice to ‘make’ public space that can produce unsettling stories and make visible that which is local and has been silenced. Online article Howard Rheingold and Eric Kluitenberg Mindful Disconnection Counterpowering the Panopticon from the Inside In this article, media experts Howard Rheingold and Eric Kluitenberg ask us to consider if unquestioned connectivity – the drive to connect everything to everything, and everyone to everyone by means of electronic media – is necessarily a good thing. To stimulate ideas, the authors propose a possible alternative: a practice of ‘mindful disconnection’, or rather the ‘art of selective disconnectivity’. Online article Assia Kraan To Act in Public through Geo-Annotation Social Encounters through Locative Media Art Locative media art makes artistic use of location-aware and time- aware media to promote social encounters between users and locations. The social contact is usually experienced via a PC. Assia Kraan wonders whether the shared location is only the pretext or also the location for social activity. Online article Klaas Kuitenbrouwer RFID & Agency The Cultural and Social Possibilities of RFID RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) is rapidly finding new applications and this is giving rise to concerns about threats to privacy. It’s therefore worth thinking about how individuals can have a say in which privacy they are willing to share with whom and when. If citizens can acquire more access to particular RFID implementations, then RFID can also become a support for other, socially interesting value systems. Recent developments in online culture provide exciting ideas for this. Online article Koen Brams and Dirk Pültau ‘Once It’s Gone, It’s Gone’ Interview with Jef Cornelis about the television films Mens en agglomeratie (‘Man and conurbation’, 1966), Waarover men niet spreekt (‘Things that aren’t mentioned’, 1968) and De straat (‘The street’, 1972) Since the early 1960s the Flemish television producer Jef Cornelis has explored the conditions of television as a public medium. A number of his early films look at the changes that have occurred in urban public space. Reason for Open to publish an interview with him by Koen Brams and Dirk Pültau as part of a broader investigation of Cornelis’ work. Online article Noortje Marres Column Online article Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar Soft Urbanism Neighbours Network City (NNC) in the Ruhr region Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar of invOFFICE for architec
[spectre] FWD: RECALLING RFID - two-day public program on RFID and things to come. (Amsterdam, 19-20 October)
From: richard de boer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * RECALLING RFID two-day public program on RFID and things to come. 19 & 20 OCTOBER 2007 DE BALIE AMSTERDAM [ FULL PROGRAM ONLINE ] http://www.debalie.nl/recallingrfid [ LIVE WEBCAST] http://www.debalie.nl/live * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * recall 1 bring (a fact, event, or situation) back into one's mind, esp. so as to recount it to others; remember. 2 officially order (someone) to return to a place. It's in travel documents, building passes, pet animals, clothing stores, libraries, public pools, theme parks and prisons... and yet only a few of us know what RFID is. RFID (radio frequency identification) uses radio waves to identify people, animals or objects carrying encoded microchips. For government and industry, RFID signifies economic innovation, while for the futurist it marks the next stage in digital connectivity. RFID's pervasiveness will only increase in the years to come, forcing shifts in perceptions of the public sphere and private domain. Alongside the promise RFID brings, there are implications for security, individual privacy and beyond. If it was not already clear, RFID clues us in to the fact that in digital networks, there is no forgetting or memory loss. As such, RFID lends itself both to optimism and fear, forming a microcosm through which a collective, ambivalent relationship to technology is put on display. Recalling RFID centers around this 'invisible' technology with a public seminar, workshops and a smart opera. The program brings together distinctive conceptions of RFID and its uses, reconfiguring discourses as dialogue. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * friday 19 oct | 10.00-17.30 SEMINAR – RECALLING RFID Presentations and debates on RFID and digital connectivity. Live webcast at http://www.debalie.nl/live 10.00 Welcome & introduction 10.15 Session 1. Self, Safety, Security. # Moderator: Rob van Kranenburg (Waag Society) # Speakers: Christian van 't Hof (Rathenau Institute), Melanie Rieback (VU University), Stephan Engberg (Priway/Copenhagen Business School) 12.00 Session II. Serious Play. # Moderator: Eric Kluitenberg (De Balie) # Speakers: Timo Arnall (Oslo School of Architecture & Design), Rafi Haladjian (Violet), Wouter Schilpzand (Rathenau Institute), Willem Velthoven (Mediamatic) 13.30 Lunch break 14.30 Session III. Two Sides of the Same Coin? # Moderator: Jeroen van den Hoven (Delft University of Technology) # Speakers: Katherine Albrecht (CASPIAN), Bart Schermer (RFID Platform) 16.15 Closing Session. Postscripts. # Moderators: Richard de Boer (De Balie) & Rob van Kranenburg (Waag Society) 17.30 End saturday 20 oct | 11.00-17.00 PARALLEL WORKSHOPS On Saturday, two parallel participatory workshops are set up in De Balie. Concepts for Social RFID, hosted by Mediamatic, works on concrete proposals for relevant social RFID projects. Mapping Future Histories of RFID, by the Digital Methods Initiative, will capture RFID debates on the Web, making useful histories of the present. The workshops will kick off with an introduction by designer Timo Arnall. The workshops are held in English language. Please note the total number of participants to this workshop is limited to facilitate close interaction. saturday 20 oct | 19.00, 20.30, 22.00 NABAZ'MOB – OPERA FOR 100 SMART RABBITS A magic opera featuring one hundred Nabaztag smart rabbits in a musical and choreographic partition in three movements, composed by the French artists Antoine Schmitt and Jean-Jacques Birgé. A poetic metaphor for a future of pervasive digital connectivity. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TICKETS SEMINAR: € 20 incl. lunch (students € 10) DMI WORKSHOP: € 20 incl. lunch (students € 10) NABAZ'MOB OPERA: € 3,50 BUY OR RESERVE TICKETS ONLINE: http://www.debalie.nl/recallingrfid ticket office: + 31 (0)20 553 51 00 RECALLING RFID is a collaboration between De Balie, the Institute for Network Cultures and Rob van Kranenburg. This program is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Mondriaan Foundation. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] War Memorials: Première Circle of Memory, De Balie, Amsterdam, October 23, 20.30 h rs
De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam, presents: War Memorials Première Circle of Memory | with director Andrea Oskari Rossini Tuesday October 23 | 20.30 hrs | movie, lecture and conversation | language: English At the occasion of the first Dutch screening of Circle of Memory (Andrea Oskari Rossini, Italy 2007, 60”, English subtitles), De Balie presents an evening on war memorials and the role they play in the politics of memory. In his film, Rossini potrays several memorials that were built by Tito in remembrance of the German invasion of former Yugoslavia in 1941. The memorials, being important actors in Tito’s proud nationalistic retoric after the Second World War, did not only witness the nineties’ brutalities from up close, but were then ‘recycled’ in an ideological way. They became part of the hate raising retoric, that set up the different so-called ethnic-religious groups up against each other. The film analyses the memorials in order to underline the importance of the historical situation which led to their construction as well as the consequences of the changed political and cultural context of the period up to the wars of the nineties. The film will be introduced by historian Frank van Vree (professor of Journalism and Culture, University of Amsterdam). Afterwards, filmmaker Andrea Rossini will be discussing with Francesco Strazzari (political scientist) and Satko Mujagic (Optimisti 2004 Foundation, striving for an Omarska memorial centre). The discussion, moderated by Dragan Klaic (cultural scientist), will elaborate further on the political and cultural forces that (actively) influence the construction of memories, and on the transforming roles of war memorials within changing political contexts. What is the role of memory in the elaboration of conflicts and conflict prevention? Live Webcast: http://www.debalie.nl/live Practical details De Balie, Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10, 1017 PR Amsterdam Tuesday October 23, 20.30 hrs Tickets 6 euro / 4 euro reduced price The program will be streamed live via www.debalie.nl/live Reservations: De Balie 020-5535100. Ticket office open on weekdays: 17.00 – 21.00 hrs. Reservations can also be made on www.debalie.nl/ agenda __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] FW: Sonic Acts XII – The Cinemati c Experience
dear Spectrites, Herewith the festival announce of Sonic Acts XII - the Amsterdam festival for synaesthetic art. The conference will happen in De Balie again, and the live webcast can be followed here: www.debalie.nl/live Archive will later appear here: www.debalie.nl/terugkijken and here: http://www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=13636 bests, eric Sonic Acts XII – The Cinematic Experience 21–24 February 2008 Amsterdam Paradiso, De Balie, Netherlands Media Arts Institute, Melkweg. With: Asher, François Bayle, BJNilsen, Bobby&Blumm, Michel Chion, Cluster, Boris Debackere, D-Fuse, Timothy Druckrey, Christian Fennesz, Hildur Gudnadottir, Mike Harding, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Pierre Henry, Kurt Hentschläger, Gerard Holthuis, Erkki Huhtamo, Ken Jacobs, Douglas Kahn, Kenneth Kirschner, Frank Kooi, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Pe Lang, Ulf Langheinrich, Leafcutter John, Leerraum, Rose Lowder, Diego Losa, Julien Maire, Ivo Malec, Bruce McClure, Arjen Mulder, Marnix de Nijs, Joachim Nordwall, Stephen O'Malley, Otolab, Bernard Parmegiani, Pita, Pomassl & Nikita Tsymbal, Mahmoud Refat, Joost Rekveld, Pierre Schaeffer, Schlammpeitziger, Jeffrey Shaw, Signal (Carsten Nicolai, Frank Bretschneider & Olaf Bender), Mika Taanila, Daniel Teruggi, TeZ, Kasper Toeplitz, Mika Vainio, C.Spencer Yeh, Christian Zanési, Zimoun Sonic Acts XII will be held between 21 and 24 February 2008 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The 12th edition is devoted to The Cinematic Experience and incorporates an international conference, a wide range of concerts and performances, an exhibition and a diverse programme of films. The programme will focus on the rich history of the cinematic experience, from magic lanterns, colour organs and zootropes to experience machines and immersive environments. Sonic Acts will also peer into the future. Will cinema distance itself from narrative in the near future? What is the prospect for celluloid? And what role will sensory deprivation play in future cinema? Conference The three-day conference will provide a comprehensive overview of the cinematic experience. International experts from the fields of film, visual arts, music, science, literature and art history will reflect on historic developments, the current situation and near-future developments, from the perspective of their respective specialities. Speakers include Jeffrey Shaw, Douglas Kahn, Arjen Mulder, Timothy Druckrey and Ken Jacobs. Live performances The performance programme features a homage to The Drone as a way to challenge time; a wide range of cinematic performances featuring old and new heroes of the audiovisual avant-garde; and a series of cinematic sound works and performances designed for the Acousmonium. With: Stephen O'Malley, Mika Vainio, Fennesz, Signal, Ulf Langheinrich, D-Fuse, Cluster, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Pomassl and many others. Film Programme The film programme highlights essential building blocks of cinema with programmes such as Absolute Frame, Absolute Time and Absolute Sound, and Artist in Focus programmes presenting Ken Jacobs, Rose Lowder, and Mika Taanila. The programme Future Cinema will explore the developments cinema might undergo in the future. With films from: Mika Taanila, Peter Tscherkassky, Stan Brakhage, Jose Antonio Sistiaga, Tony Conrad, Gerard Holthuis, Pierre Hebert and many others. Exhibition The exhibition will be held from 21 February until 22 March 2008 at Netherlands Media Arts Institute (NMAI) and Melkweg Mediaroom. It will present works that create various forms of cinematic experience, ranging from music to visual art, installations and media arts. Featured artists include: Julien Maire, Ulf Langheinrich, Boris Debackere, Leerraum [ ] and Kurt Hentschläger. Tickets Conference & Festival Passepartout: 50 euro / 40 euro* Festival Passepartout (excl. conference): 35 euro / 30 euro* Day Ticket (valid for conference & live performances): 20 euro / 15 euro* Single Film Ticket De Balie: 7 euro / 5* Ticket Opening Evening (21 February 2008): 12,50 euro / 10 euro* Evening Tickets (22-24 February 2008): 15 euro / 12,50 euro* Exhibition Ticket NMai: 2,50 euro / 1,50 euro* (free of charge with any festival ticket for the entire exhibition period.) The exhibition at Melkweg Mediaroom is accessible free of charge. *Concessions are available for students (CJP) and 65+. De Groene Amsterdammer readers’ offer allows for reduced admission available at the box-offices of the venues. -- New website now online with complete programme and background information: www.sonicacts.com __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Strategies for Tactical Archives, Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam October 27 & 28, 2023
ure the vital role of (community) memory and documentation in shaping current and future practices. With this conference, we aim to explore the question of how to create more sustainable and dependable documentation and archiving resources for public engagement. What approaches to archiving can ground experiences from the bottom up? In what ways can records contest dominant narratives and form accessible, shared knowledge bases? When and how do documentation resources become productive for community activation? Speakers Sarah Schulman (ACT UP Oral History Project) Özge Çelikaslan (bak.ma <http://bak.ma/>) Henry Warwick (RTA School of Media, Toronto) Chris Julien (Waag / Extinction Rebellion) David Garcia (Experimental Media Research Centre, Bournemouth University) Klaas Kuitenbrouwer (Nieuwe Instituut) Gaby Wijers (LI-MA) Ari Ralph (WORM Pirate Bay) Per Backhuis (IISH) Program overview Session 1: Time and Memory Sarah Schulman and David Garcia, with a response from Eliza Steinbock (tbc). Session 2: Infrastructure and Care Klaas Kuitenbrouwer and Gaby Wijers, with a response from Ari Ralph. Session 3: Strategies and Futures Özge Çelikaslan, Henry Warwick and Chris Julien, with a response from Per Backhuis. The event will be moderated by Eric Kluitenberg (Tactical Media Files) and Alexandra Barancová (Network Archives Design and Digital Culture). Language: English Location: Nieuwe Instituut, Museumpark 25, Rotterdam. See also: https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/events/strategies-tactical-archives-day2 <https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/events/strategies-tactical-archives-day2> Tickets: 10,-/5,-/0,- <https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/strategies-for-tactical-archives-day-2-tickets-686438133937?aff=oddtdtcreator> Please note: This event has ‘suggested’ pricing - in solidarity with the trying times we all face you are welcome to order your ticket free of charge! –––––– Strategies for Tactical Archives is jointly organised by Eric Kluitenberg (Tactical Media Files) and the Network Archives Design and Digital Culture <https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/projects/nadd>, in the context of the exhibition REBOOT: Pioneering Digital Art <https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/projects/reboot-baanbrekende-digitale-kunst> and generously supported by Nieuwe Instituut’s International Visitor Programme 2023 and the Creative Industries Fund NL. __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
[spectre] Final Program Strategies for Tactical Archives, Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam October 27 & 28, 2023.
e urgencies of the present moment. This eternal dominance of the ‘here and now’ can obscure the vital role of (community) memory and documentation in shaping current and future practices. With this conference, we aim to explore the question of how to create more sustainable and dependable documentation and archiving resources for public engagement. What approaches to archiving can ground experiences from the bottom up? In what ways can records contest dominant narratives and form accessible, shared knowledge bases? When and how do documentation resources become productive for community activation? Speakers Sarah Schulman (ACT UP Oral History Project <https://actuporalhistory.org/>) David Garcia (New Tactical Research <https://new-tactical-research.co.uk/> / Experimental Media Research Centre <https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/centres-institutes/emerge>, Bournemouth University) Eliza Steinbock (Maastricht University <https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ea-steinbock>) Klaas Kuitenbrouwer (REBOOT <https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/projects/reboot-baanbrekende-digitale-kunst>, Nieuwe Instituut) Gaby Wijers (Digital Care, <https://www.li-ma.nl/lima/article/digital-care> LI-MA) Ari Ralph (WORM Pirate Bay <https://worm.org/about/worm-pirate-bay/>) Özge Çelikaslan (bak.ma <https://bak.ma/>) Henry Warwick (Radical Tactics of the Offline Archive <https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-07-radical-tactics-of-the-offline-library-henry-warwick/> / RTA School of Media, Toronto Metropolitan University) Chris Julien (Waag / Extinction Rebellion <https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjulien/?challengeId=AQHoH7h2nSHIugAAAYsjW037mGxOQgE60bNK-Uifqj9QbrxYWHvhYPw5vPSn30DVBy4654nDYyal5SZ9rxiI13c3oyMSjo8wag&submissionId=01f3e5da-3f54-8d17-bcbd-b0734991d30f&challengeSource=AgEIy6DH3Zxw-gAAAYsjW5TNijwt-zu7OhJLEdkJYdKFmTKuMETugT1uU-2Z6cg&challegeType=AgHAjfwWqfxoBgAAAYsjW5TQ13TqfFyM8Z7-kBE08DTHQIMnfgiINMc&memberId=AgFfHho0Fp_nNQAAAYsjW5TT4SNt-bJvfiSX5_SxuY6TwRY&recognizeDevice=AgGAoqTAJbSXggAAAYsjW5TXPf4mYvTZ6qr7j2yQB6i0la9XUP0x>) Per Backhuis (IISH <https://iisg.amsterdam/en/about/staff/Per-Backhuis>) Program 09.30 registration open 10.00 auditorium open 10.15 welcome and introduction Session 1: Time and Memory 10.30 Sarah Schulman 11.00 David Garcia 11.20 response by Eliza Steinbock 11.30 discussion 11.45 break Session 2: Infrastructure and Care 12.00 Klaas Kuitenbrouwer (remote) 12.15 Gaby Wijers 12.35 response by Ari Ralph 12.45 discussion 13.05 lunch & Reboot exhibition visit Session 3: Strategies and Futures 14.20 Özge Celikaslan 14.45 Henry Warwick 15.10 break 15.25 Chris Julien 15.50 response by Per Backhuis 16.00 closing discussion 16.30 program end The conference will be moderated by Eric Kluitenberg (Tactical Media Files) and Alexandra Barancová (Network Archives Design and Digital Culture). Language: English | Location: Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam Tickets: 10,-/5,-/0,- <https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/strategies-for-tactical-archives-day-2-tickets-686438133937?aff=oddtdtcreator> Please note: This event has ‘suggested’ pricing - in solidarity with the trying times we all face you are welcome to order your ticket free of charge! _ This event is jointly organised by Eric Kluitenberg (Tactical Media Files <http://www.tacticalmediafiles.net/>) and Alexandra Barancová (Network Archives Design and Digital Culture <https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/projects/nadd>), in the context of the exhibition REBOOT: Pioneering Digital Art <https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/projects/reboot-baanbrekende-digitale-kunst> and generously supported by Nieuwe Instituut’s International Visitor Programme 2023 and the Creative Industries Fund NL. __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre