Chris Joseph Electronic writer and artist

Lansdown Lecture: ‘Out of Control’ by Dick Rijken of STEIM, London, 10 March 2010

Lansdown Lecture: Out of Control by Dick Rijken of STEIM
When: 4:45pm, Wednesday 10 March 2010
Where: Room 137, Middlesex University, Cat Hill, Barnet EN4 8HT

A Lansdown Lecture for the Art and Design Research Institute at Middlesex University.

Out of Control
Confused about the complexities of modern life? Trying to cope with change, but failing? Want to know what it all means? Stop trying to understand, and start training your intuition. Life in the network society cannot be planned, it will be improvised, whether you like it or not. This is a good thing. Musicians have been improvising for ages, and there may be more to learn from art, music and culture than you think when it comes down to business. Open your mind and your ears and listen to that inner voice. Dick Rijken will talk about the past, the present and the future of STEIM, a laboratory for digital live performance in Amsterdam.

About Dick Rijken
Dick Rijken is director of STEIM and professor at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. He also works as an independent consultant in the field of digital culture and new media and is a policy advisor for the Dutch government and for the EU.

His primary interest is the changing role of culture in western society. He looks at information systems as cultural products and investigates how traditional cultural players such as broadcasters and museums can redefine their role in our emerging network society.

At STEIM, he works with musicians and other artists to investigate how live performance and the design of electronic instruments can inspire our thinking about complexity, intuition, and improvisation, concepts that are relevant far beyond the domain of music.

Entrance free. All welcome. No need to book.

http://www.cea.mdx.ac.uk/? location_id=85&item=34

IMPACT! exhibition – London, 16-21 March 2010

IMPACT! exhibition
16th-21st March 2010
11.00am-5.30pm, free admission.
Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2EU

In a unique new project, leading UK science researchers have been working with designers from the Royal College of Art to visualise the potential impact of scientific developments and how they might affect how we live in future Britain. The results can be seen in an extraordinary exhibition offering a powerful insight into how today’s research might transform our experience of the world.

This is a unique collaboration between EPSRC, NESTA and the RCA, mixing science and design to explore the importance of engineering and physical sciences in all aspects of our lives.

Visit the IMPACT! exhibition and see the ideas created when researchers, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, worked with designers from the Royal College of Art to explore the potential impacts of their research.

You can find out more about the people, research and ideas involved at http://www.impactexhibition.org.uk/ , or contact impactexhibition@epsrc.ac.uk for more information.

Please feel free to forward this information on to any of your friends or colleagues who you think may be interested. All are welcome and encouraged to come along to see the result of the designer/researcher collaboration.

Explore the impact of our research at www.impactworld.org.uk

Music, Technology and Innovation Symposium: Eclecticism, Leicester, UK, 3 March 2010

Wednesday 3rd March 2010
4.00pm-7.00pm
Clephan Building, room 0.01, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

This symposium, which forms part of the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre?s 10th anniversary celebration, will investigate how broad the spectrum of music made with technology has become in the last 60 years, what the repercussions have been for music in general, whilst celebrating the MTI?s eclectic vision. Contributors will include GRM Director Dr Daniel Teruggi, Bill Brunson of the Royal Academy of Music, Stockholm, MTI Director, Professor Leigh Landy as well as Professor Simon Emmerson, and DMU?s Institute of Creative Technologies Director, Professor Andrew Hugill.

This is part of the “cultural eXchanges” festival – http://www.dmu.ac.uk/culturalexchanges

ElectroSmog – International Festival for Sustainable Immobility – 18-20 March 2010

ElectroSmog

International Festival for Sustainable Immobility

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM AVAILABLE ON-LINE

Amsterdam / New York / Madrid / Helsinki / Riga / London / Banff / New Zealand / Munich / & on-lIne.

March 18 – 20, 2010

http://www.electrosmogfestival.net

About the festival:

The ElectroSmog festival is a critique of the worldwide explosion of mobility, and an exploration of the new forms of connectedness with others offered to us by network and communication technologies.

Our question is if these new forms of connectedness can help us to develop a viable new lifestyle less determined by speed and constant mobility, which is both ecologically and socially more sustainable.

The preliminary festival program is now available at the ElectroSmog website:
www.electrosmogfestival.net/program

Bringing together a broad coalition:

The ElectroSmog festival brings together a broad coalition of designers, environmentalists, urban and spatial planners, technologists, artists, theorists, and engaged and concerned citizens, to explore and ‘design’ sustainable immobility.

Zero travel:

ElectroSmog is a truly international festival, with everything you might expect: international debates and discussions, performances, art projects, exhibits, site specific projects, screenings, a design competition, and more.
ElectroSmog stakes its claim for a radical break with the current systems of hyper-mobility not simply by discussing the issue, but by actually implementing it.

A few basic ground rules apply for all the festival events listed there:

• No presenter will travel beyond their local or regional boundaries to participate in this event.

• All festival events will always take place in at least two locations connected in real-time.

• A crucial dimension of the festival will be its on-line presence, where audiences from basically anywhere with an internet connection can follow events on-line, join in discussions and debates, visit virtual theatres in metaverses such as second life, and contribute to the program.

Going beyond the broadband enclaves:

ElectroSmog acknowledges from the start that bandwidth is not equally distributed across and within societies. Therefore remote connection to lower bandwidth spaces, do-it-yourself telematics, and information technologies for the majority world will be central concerns the festival will address.

Thematic discussions, presentations and connected debates

The ElectroSmog festival-program is organised around a series of interlocking thematic programs, connected discussions and debates all transmitted live over the internet.

Themes covered by these events include:

• Global views on the crisis of mobility
• Witnessed Presence
• Hyper-mobility and the urban condition
• City & regional branding debate
• e-mobility versus immobility
• Designing for (im-)mobility
• Public media art projects and sustainability
• Energy and information
• ElectroSmog is Good for You!
• Food and global mobility
• Deep local and remote technologies

Satellite events:

Around the main program a host of satellite events is organised locally and translocally.
These include:

• Art projects and local interventions, including original works by Bureau des Etudes, Karen Lancel & Hermen Maat, John Cohns, Sean Kerr, Kevin McCourt & Bartolo Luque, and others.

• Special events, screenings, book launches, and more.

• A program of connected and localised workshops

• On-line projects and environments designed specifically for the festival.

http://www.electrosmogfestival.net

Making an iPhone eBook for kids – 25 February 2010, Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge, UK

http://www.meetup.com/camcreative/

Making an iPhone eBook for kids.

Ever wanted to publish on the iPhone but didn’t know how? Hear Louise Grant of Fuzz Illustration talk about her experience creating an iPhone eBook for kids.

Louise will discuss why and how she created the book, what worked, and what she learnt along the way.

Decode Digital Weekend at V&A, London – 26-28 February 2010

http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/decode/events

Friday Late: Decode Lab
Friday 26 February
Throughout the Museum
18.30–22.00

Celebrate digital art, design and performance at one of the V&A’s popular Friday Lates, with talks, screenings, workshops and more. Create your own digital artworks in an openFrameworks lab, or listen in as Decode artists explore digital design today.

All events free, some may be ticketed.

Digital Design Festival
Saturday 27 & Sunday 28 February
Sackler Centre
10.30–17.00

The fun continues over the weekend with talks and demonstrations from Decode artists such as Memo Akten and Jason Bruges. Come and recode Decode in a workshop with Karsten Schmidt, create your own digital artworks in an openFrameworks lab, or explore the history of digital art in a tour of the display Digital Pioneers.

All events free, some may be ticketed.

Also: if you’re in London, look out for the recoded work created as part of the Decode competition to rework Karsten Schmidt’s digital identity for the exhibition. The three winners Lia, Joe Turner and Henner Wöhler will be shown on the cross track screens across the London Underground network.

Igor Stromajer @ the Thursday Club, Goldsmiths, London – 18 February 2010

THE THURSDAY CLUB PROUDLY PRESENTS

Igor Štromajer &
Ballettikka Internettikka [Internet Ballet]

Ben Pimlott lecture theatre, Ben Pimlott Building
Thursday 18th February 2010 from 6.30-8.30pm

Ballettikka Internettikka (Igor Štromajer and Brane Zorman) is the umbrella name for a series of tactical art projects which began in 2001 with the exploration of Internet ballet. It explores wireless Internet ballet performances combined with guerrilla tactics and mobile live Internet broadcasting strategies. Igor will discuss some of these projects as outlined below http://www.intima.org/bi
::

“We shall fight them on the beaches. We shall fight them on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”
(W. Churchill)

From 2001 to 2009 twenty different Ballettikka Internettikka actions have been performed:

• Net Ballet – Internet, 2001
• Ballet Net – The Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, Russia, 2002
• M-III Robot Ballet – Bergen International Theatre, Bergen, Norway, 2003
• BRVI – Ballettikka RealVideo Internettikka – Television Slovenia – Cultural Program, U3, 2003
• Autto Mobillikka – Ljubljana Motorway Ring, Slovenia, 2003
• Illegallikka Robottikka – Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy, 2004
• BEO Guerrillikka – National Theatre, Belgrade, Serbia, 2005
• VolksNetBallet – Volksbühne, Berlin, Germany, 2006
• Commerciallikka – Internet / Heineken Draughtkeg, 2007/2008
• Portraits – Internet, 2007
• Aeronauttikka – Internet, 2007
• RenminNetBallet – Hong Kong City Hall, 2007
• Stattikka – CYNETart, Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau, Dresden, Germany, 2007
• Olymppikka – Internet, Fire Polygon, 2008
• Religgikka – Internet, 2008
• SubAquattikka – Internet, 2008
• Hydraullikka – Plaza del Rey, Madrid, Spain, 2008
• Intermenttikka – Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea, 2008
• Norddikka – Svalbard, Norway, Arctic Ocean, 2008/2009
• Nipponnikka – Minami Torishima, Japan, Pacific Ocean, 2009

Ballettikka Internettikka uses impossible connections to develop the possible strategies of resistance and disobedience. The project participates in the already existing protocols of communication, yet without being servile to these protocols, it opens up links between emotionality and technology, production and ethics, desire and organization, imagination and institution. The distribution of politics and intimacy without any reason and purpose, with the use of limited, defined, and controlled protocols is a dystopia and an unsubmissive revolt to the world of capital, which can be disarmed only by the use of its own tactics.

Ballettikka Internettikka is a co-production of Intima Virtual Base and Cona 2001–2009 and Aksioma 2003.
Theoretical Adviser: Bojana Kunst
Spatial Adviser: Irena Pivka

In the years 2001–2009 the project was financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the Ministry of Culture of the Kingdom of Spain, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Norsk Kulturfond, Arts Council Korea, Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Hong Kong Cultural Service Department, the Municipality of Madrid, the Municipality of Dresden, the Municipality of Belgrade, the Municipality of Ljubljana, Epson.

The work of Ballettikka Internettikka is also featured in and essay by Bojana Kunst published in the volume Interfaces of Performance now available from Ashgate Publishing (edited by Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka Maria X] (University of Hull), Janis Jefferies (Goldsmiths, University of London) and Rachel Zerihan (Queen Mary, University of London))

For more information on how to get to Goldsmiths:

http://www.gold.ac.uk/find-us/

‘If not you not me’ by Annie Abrahams, HTTP Gallery, London, 12 February – 20 March 2010

HTTP Gallery, London
12 February – 20 March 2010
Open Thursday – Saturday, 12-5pm

Private view and performances: Friday, 12 February 2010, 6:30-9pm
Free admission to exhibition and events.

http://www.http.uk.net/exhibitions/ifnotyounotme/index.shtml

Annie Abrahams (b. NL 1954 , lives and works FR) is an internationally regarded pioneer of networked performance art. ‘If not you not me’ at HTTP Gallery in London is the first exhibition of her work in the UK. Where social networking sites make us think of communication as clean and transparent, Annie Abrahams creates an Internet of feeling – of agitation, collusion, ardour and apprehension. Working with simple interfaces, carefully crafted instructions and disruptions in data-flow, Abrahams sensitises participants and audiences to glitches in communication and invites them to experience and reflect on different ways of being together in a machine-mediated world. The exhibition asks how we deal with the tensions of collaboration and physical separation as we negotiate relationships through video imagery, computer software and digital networks.

Abrahams has created three new works for ‘If not you not me’ at HTTP Gallery, inviting collaboration from visitors to the gallery and others around the world. Shared Still Life / Nature Morte Partagée, a telematic still life for mixed media and LED message board, asks visitors to HTTP Gallery and Kawenga – territoires numériques in Montpellier, France to communicate with one another by arranging objects in the still life and sending messages to one another, with the results visible in a projection in both galleries.

The exhibition’s private view also includes two new collaborative performances to be documented and shown in the exhibition. On Collaboration Graffiti Wall, a collective text and speech performance, draws on reflections around the nature and problems of online collaboration collected via a website.
Huis Clos / No Exit – Jam involves four women artists sitting before webcams in different locations around the world. They will try to organise a unified sound performance, working with and around the inevitable delays that result from the international live feed. In addition to the new works, the exhibition presents documentation of recent networked performances created and curated by Abrahams.

If not you not me is co-produced by Furtherfield.org and HTTP Gallery, London, and bram.org and Kawenga – territoires numériques, Montpellier, France. Furtherfield.org supports experimental practices at the intersections of art, technology and social change. This exhibition was conceived in connection with Furtherfield.org’s Rich Networking project interrogating the transparency of communication, artistic collaboration and sociability through digital networks. This is the fourth event in Furtherfield.org’s three-year Media Art Ecologies programme which foregrounds practices sharing an ecological approach – an interest in the interrelation of technological and natural processes: beings and things, individuals and multitudes, matter and patterns.

Events
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Private view and performances: Friday, 12 February 2010, 6:30-9pm, HTTP Gallery

7pm: On Collaboration Graffiti Wall – Collective text and speech performance at gallery.
To contribute or view texts to be used during the performance visit http://bram.org/collaboration/index.php.

8pm: Shared Still Life / Nature Morte Partagée goes live – telematic still Life installation at HTTP Gallery and Kawenga – territoires numériques, Montpellier, France.

8:30pm: Huis Clos / No Exit – Jam – Telematic performance projected at HTTP Gallery, featuring Anteye Greie (Hailuoto, FI), Pascale Gustin (Paris, FR), Helen Varley Jamieson (Wellington, NZ), and Maja Kalogera (Madrid, ES).

More Information

Annie Abrahams – http://aabrahams.wordpress.com
Bram.org – http://bram.org
Kawenga – territoires numériques – http://www.kawenga.org
Furtherfield.org’s Media Art Ecologies programme – http://www.furtherfield.org/mediaartecologies.php

HTTP Gallery
Unit A2, Arena Design Centre,
71 Ashfield Rd, London N4 1NY.

http://www.http.uk.net

HTTP Gallery is Furtherfield.org’s dedicated space for media art.
Furtherfield.org and HTTP Gallery are supported by Arts Council England, London.

Contact:
Lauren Wright, HTTP Gallery
info [at] furtherfield.org