Chris Joseph

Almost Perfect is a rapid prototyping residency and think tank focused on the exploration and creation of locative media. This program is designed for artists, content creators and researchers who are interested in incorporating mobile content into their practice. Participants will work with responsive environments, site specific installation and pervasive computing while exploring the political, social, and economic context of locative media at a critical vantage point through discussions and workshops.

Almost Perfect will provide a supportive environment for individuals or collaborative groups to work with a substantial support team in the development of their prototypes. No previous experience with mobile media or technical expertise is required.

Projects will be developed in dedicated studio and production facilities with the guidance, mentorship and support of internationally renowned peer advisors, BNMI’s Advanced Research Technology Mobile Lab, Hewlett-Packard Labs Bristol, and the staff of BNMI and the Creative Electronic Environment.

Peer Advisors

Paula Levine (CDN/US), a visual artist focusing on experimental narrative and new forms of narrative spaces. Her research/art practice is in GPS technology, wireless, and remote devices. Paula has over twenty years of experience in experimental documentary photography and video.

Christof Migone (CDN) is a multidisciplinary artist, performer, curator and writer. His work and research delves into language, voice, bodies, performance, intimacy, complicity, and endurance. His installations have been exhibited across North America and Europe. He currently lives in Montréal and teaches at Concordia University.

Simon Pope (UK) is currently researching walking as a visual art practice. He often works collaboratively or on large-scale, participatory projects. He represented Wales at their inaugural exhibition at the Venice Biennale of Fine Art in 2003, and forthcoming exhibitions include the group show Waterlog, curated by Jeremy Millar. Simon is a Reader at Cardiff School of Art & Design and is a research associate at Transmedia, Hogeschool Sint Lukas, Brussels and Goldsmith’s College, Digital Studios London.

Almost Perfect

Almost Perfect runs from November 4 - December 1, 2007. Deadline is September 7, 2007 and notifications will be sent out September 17, 2007.

More info at http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/coproduction/

for remix_runran, from Heard any good excuses lately? by Robbie Millen, The Spectator, 25 Sep 1999

flash source: rail1.fla [110KB]

The Surveys, the Phoenix Digital commission I created with Leicester writer and archivist David Hume, has been selected as a finalist in the Net Festival section of the 8th Seoul Film Festival.

“Seoul Net Festival, organized by Seoul Moving Image Forum and presented by Seoul Film Festival Executive Committee, has been trying to introduce talented visual artists all over the world and their brilliant works andto lead the new audio-visual experiences based on “the Internet” and “New Media”. Offering a new paradigm based on new media with its two pivots - digital cinema and internet moving image, Seoul Net Festival is an online international film festival representing SeNef where the most outstanding moving images works are featuring, from premiered films for Internet to cutting-edge interactive web-works. Creative experimentation with digital technology and networking with world-wide spectators are highlights of the Seoul Net Festival.”

Should be fascinating to hear the responses of the Korean audience to what is primarily a Leicester-based piece.

Calling All Filmmakers: Your Chance to Recut Britain

Mosaic Films, Channel 4 and the BFI have joined forces to launch BRITAIN RECUT, a groundbreaking nationwide competition for documentary filmmakers, to mark the BFI’s ‘Documentary Centenaries’ celebrations. For the first time in its history, the BFI has made classic documentary footage available to the public to re-edit into their own short films, as part of an online competition which will see four winning films screened on Channel 4’s 3 Minute Wonder strand, and at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival.

Have you ever noticed how history has an uncanny way of repeating itself? Or are you a doomsayer who thinks that society is moving inexorably toward its destruction? Either way, this is your chance to make a statement about the state of Britain today using the films of yesteryear.

The British Film Institute has released over three hours of material from public information films of the 1940’s and 50’s, just so that you can cut it up and put it back together again in your own way.

This innovative new competition uses a very 21st Century tool - the Internet - to make some gems of the 20th Century available to the great British public and its formidable imagination. You can view, cut and re-assemble the footage with a great piece of online software from Channel 4, and then submit your sequence we’ll call it a video treatment - to a competition for Channel 4’s 3 Minute Wonder.

The four winning filmmakers will receive full production support from Mosaic Films to make their film and have it aired on the 3 Minute Wonder strand, as well as at this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest (7th - 11th November 2007).*

The only restrictions are that your film has to comment on contemporary Britain, and has to be three minutes long. To help you with this, we’ve divided the footage into seven themes:

1. The Role of Women
2. Britishness
3. Health and Nutrition
4. The Environment
5. Leisure Time
6. The Family
7. Work and Industry

We’re looking for ideas that are smart and edgy, and that really play with and extend the possibilities afforded by the material. Your film could be a political polemic, it could be a poetic meditation, or it could be a personal response to the events and people captured in the material. If you are successful, you will be able to add voiceover, sound from other sources, or music, plus you can shoot additional footage if you need to. Maybe you’d like to revisit a location featured in one of the films or shoot an interview or two. Just make sure you include details of this in your proposal and in your script (read our Competition Guidelines for details).

You won’t be judged on the technical quality of your submission, but rather on the idea’s potential and your ability to realise it. The four winning filmmakers will receive a director’s fee and full production support to make their films, including additional shooting if required and the services of a professional editor.

All entries must be received by 5pm on 14th September 2007

For an application pack, see http://www.mosaicfilms.com

Dear Artists and Colleagues,

Akiyoshidai International Art Village is an art institution run by the Yamaguchi Prefecture in Japan.

We’ve run an International Artist in Residency Program since we were established in 1998 as one of the pioneer artist residency institutions in Japan.

We’re pleased to announce the call for applications for our “trans_2007-2008; International Artist in Residence Support Program.”

The aim of “trans_2007-2008 Residence Support Program” is to support young artists’ experimental artistic activities, particularly those that venture beyond the borders of art disciplines and nationalities. Residents will be carefully selected by the Selection Committee of the Residence Program of Akiyoshidai International Art Village. We strongly hope that resident artists will actively tackle many different kinds of projects. Because of the “trans” is a primarily a project oriented artist-in-residence program, AIAV curators will endeavor to assist artists with the completion of their projects. For instance, we could assist in coordinating workshops, lectures, school visits, exhibitions, and so on. Resident artists will submit a proposal to realize such projects.

Read more

transmediale.08 – Conspire …
festival for art and digital culture berlin
29 January - 3 February 2008

and

club transmediale.08 - Unpredictable
festival for adventurous music and related visual arts
25 January - 2 February 2008

*Invite your Entries to the Transmediale Award 2008*

:: Deadline: 7 September 2007
:: Award Ceremony: 2 February 2008

Please find the complete call and submission form for download at:
http://transmediale.de/08/pdf/tmctm08_call

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NEW COMMISSION - INVITATION TO TENDER

The Northern Way Virtual Gateway Commission

The Northern Way, working with Arts Council England to deliver the £10m ‘Welcome to the North’ public art programme, wishes to commission a truly innovative and original virtual artwork ‘Gateway to the North’.

Tenders are invited from organisations seeking to work with a named artist(s), individual artists or collaborating artists for this major commission.

The emphasis of this new commission will be on its virtual long-term presence, although it can also include physical manifestations that make a link between the real and virtual, and is open to a range of artforms and media including: sound, software art, blogging, performance and events, online worlds and mapping systems eg Second Life, GoogleEarth. The proposals will need to include a web-based accessible platform and applicants are also welcome to consider the use of a number of other distribution and presentation platforms such as podcasts and videocasts; CD and DVD; mobile phones and locative media.

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What sparks innovation? A clash of ideas, a fresh perspective, a fusion of expertise?

NESTA Connect seeks to stimulate innovation through collaboration, in part by exploring the participatory culture of the web. On Tuesday 11 September 2007 they are hosting Mass Collaboration? in partnership with the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University, where we will hear from Howard Rheingold, and Mark Earls, writers who examine and challenge traditional perceptions of mass behaviour change and cooperation.

This event is intended as the start of a conversation on how to optimise the potential social impact of technology, and its impact on how we should think about mass collaboration for innovation in the UK and beyond. We hope you can join us.

Speakers will include:
- Jonathan Kestenbaum, Chief Executive, NESTA
- Howard Rheingold, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Annenberg School for Communications, and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Creative Technologies; and author of ‘Smart Mobs’
- Mark Earls, Author of ‘Herd: How to change mass behaviour by harnessing our true nature’
- Roland Harwood, Head of Connect, NESTA

When: Tuesday, 11th September, 2007
Where: NESTA, 1 Plough Place, off New Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1DE
Refreshments from 5.30pm and presentation to start at 6.00pm

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From november 2 - 4, 2007 Image Radio is organised in Eindhoven. Interactive Experiments in Public Space.

We are now inviting artists who work with new and interactive media to submit works for Image Radio.

Eligable are works:
• Of high artistic level
• That use moving images
• That is aimed at public space
• That interacts with public
• That is innovative in use of technology

Work can be submitted / proposed until september 3, 2007 (extended deadline).
Read the call and more on www.imageradio.nl

more information:
MAD emergent art center
René Paré
imageradio@dse.nl

Folksonomy: A look at a hated word but a loved resource
2:00-3:30PM, September 18, 2007. Free and open to the public.
Room 0.01, Clephan Building, De Montfort University, Leicester UK. LE1 9BH

“Folksonomy” was recently voted one of the new terms most likely to make you “wince, shudder or want to bang your head on the keyboard.” This talk by the inventor of the term – Thomas Vander Wal – will offer you a chance to make your own judgment. The talk is open to all and will not require any specialist knowledge on behalf of the audience.

A Folksonomy can be created when users of “web2.0″ sites such as YouTube, Flickr, LastFM and Del.icio.us add keywords (”tags”) to the items they view in order to add information about these items. As more and more users tags such items more information is created about the the items. Unlike library catalogues which are created by experts, folksonomies are like catalogues created by everyday people. For some, this heralds a brave new era of democratic information management, for others it heralds the death of expertise.

Thomas Vander Wal lives in Bethesda, Maryland, and this is a rare opportunity to hear him in the UK. He coined the term “folksonomy” in 2004 and is a popular speaker on tagging/folksonomy, social web, and web applications around well structured information. He is principal, and senior consultant at InfoCloud Solutions, a social web consulting firm. Thomas has been working professionally on the web since 1995 (with a professional IT background beginning in 1988) and has breadth and depth across many roles and disciplines around web design, social web development & research and general web development. He is a member of the Web Standards Project Steering Committee and helped found the Information Architecture Institute and Boxes & Arrows web magazine. See his web site to find out more: http://www.vanderwal.net/

The lecture is presented as part of the AHRC-funded research project Tags Networks Narratives, examining the interdisciplinary application of experimental social software to the study of narrative in digital contexts. It is a unique speculative project assessing the potential for collaborative social-software techniques such as folksonomy in narrative research. The project explores:

* What kinds of collaborative social network tools are available for the gathering and classification of information?
* Which researchers are making online narratives the focus of study, and how are those projects categorised by discipline?
* How can these researchers make effective use of social network tools to share knowledge and develop interdisciplinary collaborations?

The project is based in the Institute of Creative Technologies (IOCT) at De Montfort University, Leicester UK and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board from October 2006-September 2007. The project team consists of Professor Sue Thomas, Bruce Mason and Simon Mills.

The talk is organised in partnership with Production and Research in Transliteracy group http://www.transliteracy.com

For more information and directions to the venue visit http://www.ioct.dmu.ac.uk/tnn/vanderwal07.htm