Events

Posted on January 14, 2018December 31, 2019 by admin Events, news, reports

Valletta 2018 Opening Week

Culture Matters: The Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture Foundation will be exploring the legacy of the European Capital of Culture title through a seminar discussing research findings from 2017.

A unique project focusing on the exchange of language, poetry and potatoes. Malta and Leeuwarden share strong agricultural ties,exchanging potato crops and seeds twice a year. From these seeds, Maltese farmers grow potatoes which are then shipped back to Leeuwarden. Poetry in Potato Bags makes use of this relationship by exchanging poetry along with the agricultural produce. Poetry in Potato Bags is a Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture collaboration with Potatoes Go Wild, Inizjamed, Appoġġ, and, of course, Leeuwarden 2018.

The seminar will be addressed by a number of individual researchers and public entities carrying out qualitative and quantitative research across a number of sectors. Also addressing the conference will be Szilvia Nagy, who forms part of Local Operators Platform (LOCOP), a research network dedicated to critically assessing cultural policies and supra-regional funding strategies such as the European Capital of Culture programme.

Wiċċna / Our Face project, led by Zvezdan Reljic, Yugoslav/Maltese photographer, is planned to be a book of around 200 photographic portraits of individuals from different backgrounds, generations and ethnicities who currently reside in Malta and accompanied by a short caption taken from the individual’s answer to the often complicated question “Where are you from?” Wiċċna / Our Face Zvezdan Reljić Prints by Zvezdan Reljic

Italian post-rock outfit Mokadelic, renowned for their breathtaking soundtracks, besides their albums proper, played two exclusive nights at the University Campus Theatre (ex MITP) in Valletta last weekend. In a rather unique experience for Malta, the five piece Rome-based band, who have scored soundtracks for Oscar-winning director Gabriele Salvatores amongst others, will play their soundtrack to the hit Italian TV series ‘Gomorra’ in its entirety; in what promises to be a special musical and visual experience.

Ħaġraisland is a collection of reflections by Isaac Azzopardi about the changing aesthetics of Malta. Through the use of construction material, appropriation and rubbing techniques, the show revolves around three main references: Austin Camilleri’s installation Stones from 1999, as a Maltese contemporary art canon, Anselm Kiefer’s ideas about art as alchemy and Malta’s changing urbanity.

Led by artistic director Mikiko Kikuta, European Eyes on Japan / Japan Today is a visual arts project that has toured over thirty European Capitals of Culture since 1999. In anticipation of our European Capital of Culture year, the project extended an invitation to Maltese photographer, Alexandra Pace, from Valletta 2018 and photographer Alice Wielinga from our twin European Capital of Culture, Leeuwarden-Fryslân 2018. Both photographers lived and work in Japan, looking to capture the country’s lifestyle through a European lens. An exhibition featuring the work of both artists will be hosted in Malta at Spazju Kreattiv, after which it will travel to Leeuwarden and Japan.

Latitude 36 – exhibition by Charlie Cauchi, a project stemming from Charlie Cauchi’s upbringing as a Maltese migrant’s daughter in the United Kingdom, brings real-life stories to the forefront to create “a more honest and open debate about migration”. For more information visit www.latitude36.org

Heba Shibani is a Libyan journalist and news producer who has worked in a number of Libyan and international media outlets such as Reuters, Libya’s channel, and Alaseema Television. After eight years in photojournalism and street photography, her approach has evolved to present heritage with a fresh edge, by illustrating the relationship between a place and its residents and focusing on the concept of home. During The Trail Heba will be running photoshoots for Trail visitors, with an option for visitors to keep their photos – a unique opportunity not to miss out on! Heba AlShibani Allura – The Trail 2018

Malta Calls, a kaleidoscopic outdoor dance performance envelops the crowd in a 360-degree sensory experience. Drama, dance and film join forces in this pumping event, where projections representing ‘Present’ and ‘Future’ twist and turn, play and replay, as their movements capture aspirations, hopes and dreams in a moment of eternal anticipation. Malta Calls will be held on the grounds of St Clare’s College Secondary (ex Sir Adrian Dingli), Pembroke on Friday 20th July from 8pm onwards. ŻfinMalta Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture

‘Reflections and Connections’ and ‘Ħaġarna’ inaugurated as part of Art in Public Spaces. Two of the winning projects from the Art in Public Spaces competition which took place in 2015. 6 different projects intended for 6 particular spaces had won this competition. The two projects inaugurated are in Gozo, where ‘Reflections and Connections’ is a public staircase which has been adorned with mosaic in Għajnsielem and ‘Ħaġarna’ is a contemporary sculpture in Xagħra. Minister for Gozo Justyne Caruana was also present for the inauguration of the second project. ħaġarna

Decor Elly is a home-based 3D printing workshop which produces unique figurines for further processing, using decoupage & other finishes. Long before entering the world of 3D printing, Elaine was experimenting with photography and papier-mâché sculptures, as well as textile design including techniques such as weaving and macrame. Then, introduced to 3D design during her studies, she became interested in this process and the scope for creating her own products from start to finish. The range of objects she designed and produced started to grow; from a multi-coloured cow resembling contemporary dialogue with figurative arts (i.e. Damien Hirst), to creative remixes of classical art usually found only in established museums or galleries (e.g. the Venus de Milo, Michelangelo’s David) – all with an unexpected and quirky touch. Beyond Elaine’s intriguing choices of themes, her trademark approach lies in her use of experimental finishes, and how these unusual textures add another level of surprise for her audiences. Decor Elly Elly LongLegs Michal Lubay Lubiszewski

We met up with Martha who literally does something out of nothing! Taking #upcycling to a whole new level.

The word MODS stands for “Music on D Spot”, which describes the mission of this collective of Portuguese musicians: to create improvised music with intimate connections to moving images in cinema or video. This edition of MODS COLLECTIVE investigates the work of Malta’s cinema pioneer, Cecil Satariano, an award-winning filmmaker of great artistic value whose work is still largely unrecognised in Malta and Europe. Taking as its starting point two short films by Satariano – “I’m Furious Red” and “Guzeppi” – Portuguese and Maltese musicians bring improvisational forms to table. Much more than a soundtrack, this is a piece of music that works symbiotically with cinema, creating a new layer of meaning alongside Satariano’s work. Created and organised by Capivara Azul – Cultural Association, in co-production with Fondazzjoni Kreattività with the collaboration of Marietherese Voice Studio and with the support of the Valletta 2018 Foundation and the Guimarães Municipality.

The Valletta 2018 Foundation was one of the main partners supporting the Malta Robotics Olympiad, which has now established itself as Malta’s major annual event for design, technology and education. Following two years of successful collaborations, the Valletta Design Cluster partnered with the Design and Technology Learning Centre to present the Design & Technology Expo at a special edition of the Malta Robotics Olympiad (MRO) in 2018. The event brought together educational institutions, technology and innovation-driven enterprises and agencies, as well as private exhibitors, while also hosting diverse national and international events, competitions, challenges and exhibitions. For more information about the event, visit https://www.mromalta.com/

MASTERCLASS by Liliana Cavani at Valletta Campus – University of Malta. During this class Liliana Cavani discussed the distinctive features of her craft of directing film. The event was introduced by Prof Gloria Lauri-Lucente and moderated by Prof Gaetana Marrone Puglia. The session was also be open to questions from the audience. University of Malta

Our European Capital of Culture year begins with a unique celebration that’s worthy of the traditional Maltese Festa. Visit the capital from the 14th to the 21st of January and participate in our island-wide festa!

Valletta 2018 is an exciting year-long celebration – a cultural programme that starts in our capital city and reaches out to towns and villages all over Malta and Gozo. Our Opening Week draws crowds to the heart of Valletta with music and entertainment, street artists and performers spreading word of the Opening around the capital’s streets, exhibitions set in diverse venues around the city, open days that re-discover Valletta’s fascinating historical spaces, community storytelling events centred around the city’s residents and the spaces they use, and much more.

At the centre of our grand festa are the joy, dance, music and reverie that fill Valletta’s four main squares – St George’s Square, St John’s Square, Castille Square, and the area around the Triton Fountain – where the Catalan theatrical group, La Fura dels Baus, blurs the line between audience and performer with outdoor acrobatics, while ŻfinMalta offer contemporary dance performances. Throughout our celebration, digital projections, video art and choral symphony lend the capital a wondrous and magical atmosphere. And all over on the city, travelling bands and performers take the festivities to the streets, inviting residents and visitors all over the Maltese Islands to take part in this spectacular celebration.

On the 20th of January, join us for Erba’ Pjazez, with shows every hour on the hour during the evening. Erba’ Pjazez will be hosted in Triton Square (Il-Qawma tat-Tritoni), St George’s Square (Qalbna), St John’s Square (Elfejn u Tmintax) and Castille Square (Minn Qiegħ l-Imgħoddi għall-Quċċata tal-Ġejjieni).

During the week of the 20th of January, from the 14th of January up until the 21st, come and join us for Opening Week. A variety of activities will be happening in an around Valletta for the entire week leading up to the opening as we prepare to host our European Capital of Culture year. Our Opening Week events are divided in six different themes:

‘Vitor’ was written and directed by Paul Portelli, and produced by Katya Hanna. Behind the camera, as cinematographer, was Michael Carol Bartolo, and the art direction was entrusted to Katrina Xuereb. ‘Vitor’ placed third at the 3rd edition of FICME, the International Student Festival of Short Film, Hammamet, Tunisia. Four short films by the students of the Master of Arts in Film Studies. Two, Vitor and Boy Wonder are by students currently following the course, and the other two are dissertations by the first graduates from the course, Lara Azzopardi (Kuzra) and Bruce Micallef Eynaud (The Inner Voice).

The programme is designed to provide emerging creatives in the community with an opportunity to access and learn from a nourishing pool of talent and a rich network of peers. Keit Bonnici recently graduated with a BA in Design, with 1st Class Honours, from Goldsmiths – University of London. The artist’s background includes studies in Design/(thinking), Art and Engineering. He has also received formation in circus arts and movement. “My aim is to carve out my own creative interdisciplinary practice; and become a freelance designer working with the space between art and design.”

MICAS kicks off its summer celebration with an art talk at MUŻA by Edith Devaney, contemporary curator and head of the summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. This will be followed by the launch of Jumpstart: An Incomplete Timeline and a reception at Castille Square. The MICAS Summer Celebration is happening in collaboration with the Valletta Cultural Agency and it is supported by Heritage Malta and Spazju Kreattiv. MICAS Summer Celebration MICAS

MUŻA huwa l-isem magħżul għall-mużew ġdid ta ‘l-arti u l-proġett prinċipali ta’ Malta. Il-proġett huwa mużew ta ‘arti tal-komunità nazzjonali, l-ewwel wieħed li qed jiġi żviluppat f’sit storiku fil-Belt tal-Belt Valletta; Sit ta ‘Wirt Dinji tal-UNESCO mibni bħala belt-fortizza. Illum, fl-isfond tal-Belt Kapitali Ewropeja 2018, il-proġett tal-Muża se jkun qed juża prattiċi innovattivi flimkien ma’ tekniċi tradizzjonali biex jiġu indirizzati problemi strutturali maġġuri fuq il-binja storika. Il-prattiċi li qed jintużaw ġew użati l-ewwel darba fl-Italja biex jirristrutturaw binjiet li ġġarrfu bit-terremoti. Din l-esperjenza ġdida se tħalli legat ukoll fil prattiċi tar-restawr tal-bini antik f’pajjiżna u ġew attentati b’mod qalbieni għall-ewwel darba minn Heritage Malta.

Zahra Al-Mahdi hija artista, kittieba, novellista grafika u film maker. Bħalissa tagħmel parti mir-residenza ta’ l-artisti ġewwa l-Belt Valletta u qegħda taħdem fuq proġett kif in-nies jinteraġixxu ma’ spazji madwarhom. L-esebizzjoni tagħha ser tiftaħ fil-21 ta’ Ġunju ġewwa Blitz

Wara l-ftuħ uffiċċjali tal- Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture, f’dan il-filmat ħa nsegwu wieħed mill-ewwel avvenimenti mużikali li qed jiġu organizzati. F’dan il-kunċert daqqu l-grupp Malti, Hot Club of Valletta u The Other Europeans.

Bi preparazzjoni għal Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture ġew inkarigati l-erba’ festi tal-Belt fosthom ta’ San Duminku, sabiex jieħdu ħsieb l-armar tat-toroq. F’dan il-filmat ser nsegwu ta’ San Duminku jarmaw Strada Merkanti, Strada San Kristofru u Strada San Domenico.

Il-vjaġġi tal-ferry bejn Valletta u t-tlett ibliet qed ikunu ftit differenti mis-soltu… Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture

Posted on November 15, 2017December 31, 2019 by admin Events

Engaging the Contemporary 2017 Issues in Contemporary Political and Social Philosophy

The Department of Philosophy of the University of Malta is hosting the 4th edition of Engaging the Contemporary at the University of Malta (Msida Campus) on 16-17 November 2017. This year’s theme is Issues in Contemporary Political and Social Philosophy. EtC17 addresses current debates in political and social philosophy by examining different theoretical approaches as well as their application to existing political and social realities. The aim of EtC17 is to serve as a platform for interdisciplinary thinking and dialogue.

It raises questions about the possible shape of critique in contemporary times, its objects and its scopes. It seeks to identify spaces where critique – within and without academic discourse – can intervene in public spheres. It attempts to invigorate a sense of democracy beyond populism, and aims to explore a political language of responsibility beyond burden-sharing. It hopes that attempts to think of a world without unjust economic inequalities, or of solidarity that is not reducible to economic gain, do not amount to thinking the impossible. It questions whether we are, after all, living in times of crises: crises of democracy, refugee crises, environmental crises. It invites sensible urgent transformations – at the levels of discourse, law, and institutions – and the necessary work of thought to complement them.

Prof. Claude Mangion, Head of the Department of Philosophy, commented: ‘Every year, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Malta organises a conference and invites the public to attend, and listen to the speakers who will be coming from all over the world, as well as local speakers, to discuss issues in contemporary political and social philosophy. There will be discussion of topics which are very topical in the contemporary world and contemporary political discourse.’

With two keynote speakers, and over 40 papers from Masters/Ph.D. students and academics, this conference will encourage a critical consideration of a wide range of topics, including but not limited to panels on Contemporary Critical Theory, Post-Truth Politics, Foucault, Democracy and Resistance, Capitalism and Biopolitics, Epistemic Injustice, as well as Political Issues in Contemporary Malta.

There are no registration fees, and students and members of the general public can attend any panels of their choice. For any information, visit the conference website, Facebook event page, or send an email on engagingthecontemporary@um.edu.mt

The full conference programme can be found online.

The booklet of abstracts can be found online.

Posted on February 9, 2017 by adnan Announcement, Events, ideas, news, presentations, Report, reports, research

Algorave @ Transmediale – ever elusive

This year we took our Digital Media students from Coventry University to an exchange with Digital Media students from Leuphana Unviersity to Berlin, during the Transmediale Festival. A student excursion as a collaboration between Leuphana University, Coventry University and transmediale whereby students from the digital media bachelor programs of both schools can engage with the content of the festival while also having space and time for guided reflection, led by the organising faculty and invited guests, in the period of February 2nd through February 5th, mixing groups of digital media bachelors students from
Leuphana University and Coventry University. The aim will be for students to engage with the festival activities while having moments to reflect theoretically, artistically and technically with the material at hand.

I made a note of the following sessions at Transmediale:

Material Flows: Rafts and Bodies at Sea

Starting from the project Plastic Raft of Lampedusa (by YoHa, 2016–17), featured in the exhibition “alien matter,” this session discusses moments where technical objects such as watercraft and human life becomes inseparable. By dismantling the type of rubber boat used by refugees for crossing the Mediterranean, the project addresses an underexplored space where technical objects and human bodies historically and contemporaneously conjoin and merge into new entities. Placelessness is contrasted with the forms of governance, materials, and technical standards that have the power to hold a body afloat or allow it to drown. It is an extreme metaphor for our relationship to digital technologies, where bodies emerge that are in transversal collaboration with technical objects and the administrative machinery of advanced capitalism. This is not a project that is concerned with the morals of the European migrant crisis, nor is it an attempt to re-invoke the sublime of European aesthetics. This project is about a plastic boat whose journey takes place in the sea’s lack of fixity, the space between different state actors and scales of administrative discipline.

YOHA–PLASTIC RAFT OF LAMPEDUSA
As part of the special exhibition “alien matter” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, The DAZ (Deutsches Architektur Zentrum) hosts the disassembled rubber raft of _Plastic Raft of Lampedusa_ by artist duo YoHa. In their work, the artists explore the circulation of economic, material, and human flows that have a mutual influence on one another. 2–8 FEBRUARY 2017, DAILY 15:00–20:00 Deutsches Architektur Zentrum DAZ Köpenicker Straße 48/49, 2. courtyard, 10179 Berlin
www.daz.de

TRACING INFORMATION SOCIETY–A TIMELINE
In collaboration with the Technopolitics working group, transmediale presents the exhibition “Tracing Information Society–a Timeline” at neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK). Technopolitics turns the
exhibition venue into a curated space for knowledge. A twelve-meter-long timeline depicts the development of the Information Society from 1900 until today.

Elemental Machines

The concept of machines generally describes an assemblage of parts assigned to an overall function, designed by a human. Yet, the entwined histories of science, technology, and art are filled with ideas about nature functioning like machines, and of visions where machines become “natural” and organic. These two paths seem to merge as machines increasingly communicate autonomously and operate in fields beyond human perception and influence. Can we devise new perspectives for understanding the elemental machines that now seem to operate contingently within hybrid techno-ecologies like the forces of nature? What are the new aesthetic and political affordances or subjectivities involved in the process of technology becoming environmental?

Becoming Infrastructural – Becoming Environmental

What does the infrastructural and environmental becoming of technology really mean? Which economic, cultural, and geopolitical factors become apparent when we overcome the purposeful dematerialization of media? How can new infrastructural imaginaries, escaping anthropocentrism, embrace a different understanding of the role and impact of technology today? To address these questions, different emerging ecologies and multiple paradigms become the starting point for a keynote conversation. Lisa Parks examines entanglements of the natural with the technological, and presents the unknown use, adoption, and interruption of infrastructural sites by nonhuman species, pointing towards new conceptualizations for their uses beyond the human. Erich Hörl approaches “environmentality” as a new contemporary condition, discussing how within this new “General Ecology,” we must take into account the environmental becoming, not only of technology, but also of power, thinking, and the world itself. The keynote conversation explores the challenges and limitations of this new infrastructural and environmental condition.

Excursion: Ecologies

The event features new artistic research into messy, disperse ecologies, which characterize planetary life, as it is re-constructed in flows of data, capital, and natural resources. In order to make the underlying planetary systems more tangible, the micro- and macro-political will be connected and the problematics of scale are brought to the foreground through the projects Mycelium Network Society and Shift Register.

Mycelium Network Society, a brand new network initiative situated in a post-internet mudland, diverts the pursuit of magic mushroom, from a state of hyper-hallucination to collective fungal consciousness, and investigates the fungi culture, its network capacity to communicate and process information.

Shift Register is a research project investigating how human media, technological and infrastructural activities have marked the earth. It investigates and renders legible the material evidence of human activities on earth, registering these not as indicators of human achievement, but as ambiguous negotiations and signposts of planetary exhaustion.

Friendly Fire: What Is It to Re-think Radical Politics, Today?

In light of recent political events like Brexit and the Trump victory, the Left must re-think its approaches. The rise of Right-wing populism is transforming the arena of conflict, struggle, and antagonism, marking it with increasingly xenophobic and nationalistic politics. How can the Left question and understand this arena anew? Is there an emergent politics, which can design effective forms of organization and confrontational strategies, and extend the logics of political communication? How should the Left reconsider radical agendas and strategies? And how can it effectively adjust trajectory and mobilize forces to confront the increasingly hostile, cynical, and polarized social, economic, and political terrain? Central to this new terrain is a rapid re-articulation of relationships between the masses, communities, movements, infrastructures, and media, both old and new. This panel reflects on the role of digital media in the political field, the data infrastructure of the public sphere, and a politics of re-collectivity that reexamines conflict and struggle as progressive forces in democracy.

This panel is a cooperation between Berliner Gazette and transmediale and launch for the Berliner Gazette annual project FRIENDLY FIRE

Hegemonic Media and Their Opponents

Persistent inequalities continue to prevail on the dark side of today’s powerful media platforms. Companies like Facebook and Google possess the power to shape ideologies, beliefs, and desires by offering a range of services from providing Internet access to supplying infrastructures for the accumulation and organization of information. The panel will discuss emerging forms of digital colonialism while looking into various examples of opposition and resistance. Can we confront the subtle and hidden forms of this new cultural hegemony? Who are (or aren’t) the new digital subalterns? Focal points of discussion include the defeat of Facebook’s Free Basics service in India, the politics of the Google Cultural Institute, and new transcultural forms of resistance.

Immediate & Habitual: The Elusiveness of Mediation

With the increased networking of our digital world, media technologies—once stable apparatuses of communication—have dissolved into new ecologies. Being composed of and affected by human and nonhuman actors, users and machines, fleshy bodies and digital objects, such media ecologies overcome previously conceived separations and dichotomies between culture and technology. How does this ongoing yet unnoticeable shift transform our everyday life? And what renders the processes behind media technology today so elusive? During this keynote conversation, two prominent Media Studies scholars shed light on these questions from different angles. Richard Grusin emphasizes the role of a new immediate, radical, and ubiquitous form of mediation that transcends communication, affecting future-oriented events. Wendy Chun stresses the importance of the habitual character of media technologies today, through which media becomes part of our lives, and in reverse our lives become part of a new technological culture.

Middle Session: The Elemental Middle

As media steadily melt into the environment, they become both more naturalized and estranged in the sense that we understand the way they work less and less. The “Elemental” Middle Session highlights the unnoticeable media we live and work among, focusing equally on their material (technical) properties and their cultural meanings. Rather than relying on the worn-out critical mechanisms of “revealing what lies beneath” or “exposing hidden truths,” the discussion focuses on de-naturalization and re-familiarization. Speakers discuss areas of infrastructural intersection and entanglement, identifying ways in which structures of power reinforce each other through ubiquitous media. What are the “elemental” substrates of contemporary media? Is it helpful or possible to try and reduce a complex ecosystem of human and nonhuman actors to its elementary particles?

Prove You Are Nonhuman

From the time of the famed Turing test until today, humans have engaged with different forms of artificial intelligence, drawing comparison to possibilities of the human brain. The role of the human, capable of complex processes that machines cannot perform, has often been to intervene and secure proper functioning of machine learning systems. In today’s entangled condition, with examples of bots tweeting as humans, filtering and moderating news content, or as high frequency traders defining financial flows, it is increasingly difficult to tell who or what is acting. Is it possible to locate and comprehend the role and function of nonhuman actors? Which old and new approaches are might be of use? What would it take and what would it mean to stop anthropomorphizing computers and obtain a machinic point of view?

Singularities

A singularity is a point in space-time of such unfathomable density that the very nature of reality is brought into question. Associated with elusive black holes and the alien particles that bubble up from quantum foam at their event horizon, the term ‘singularity’ has also been co-opted by cultural theorists and techno-utopianists to describe moments of profound social, ontological, or material transformation—the coming-into-being of new worlds that redefine their own origins. Panelists contend with the idea of singularities and ruptures, tackling transformative promises of populist narratives, and ideological discrepancies that are deeply embedded in art and design practices. By reflecting on Afrofuturism and digital colonialism, they will also question narcissistic singularities of ‘I,’ ‘here,’ and ‘now’, counter the rhetoric of technological utopias, and confound principles of human universality.

Strange Ecologies: From Necropolitics to Reproductive Revolutions

In this keynote conversation Steve Kurtz and Johannes Paul Raether explore the less visible or even unacknowledged territories associated with the politics of death and reproduction in the Capitalocene. The impact of excessive human influence on life and our planet’s environments frame most progressive discussions about ecology today, simultaneously making the world both naturalized and denaturalized. Humans are typically treated as a dangerous alien force upsetting the balance of nature, and a force of reduction in terms of diversity and complexity in nature. At the same time, humans have long known that life and the environment are not balanced, nor do they have any necessary direction or purpose. Situated in the middle of strange ecologies, the challenge is to confront the full spectrum of power mechanisms and politics behind our environmental and evolutionary thinking. Through two talks and a conversation, Steve Kurtz and Johannes Paul Raether address the environment, death, and the practices, ethics, and politics of reproduction, questioning their contradictions and paradoxes.

Thanks to C-Base we had the perfect location for this series of student workshops during the Transmediale Festival. The Program was as follows:

THURSDAY, FEB 3

Presentations by Future Design City Feb 2, 15:00 – 16:00 @ C-Base Towards Urban Interactions The rise of computation embedded into objects, walls, and buildings introduces a new paradigm for the way humans interact with their environments. How will we design the relationship between people and such connected spaces? How might interactive systems scale across everyday human experience? And which new opportunities and challenges could appear, when we imagine future cities as networks of overlapping, dynamic data points?

Bio Andreas Rau
Andreas Rau is an interaction designer, creative coder and jazz pianist based in Berlin. As co-founder of the Institute for Urban Interactions, he researches the interplay of people and their environments in emerging interactive spaces. His concepts and prototypes aim to create meaningful experiences across the physical and digital worlds, always questioning the relationship between the two.
www.andreasrau.eu
www.urbaninteractions.org

Live Code and Live Algorithms – Feb 2, 16:00-18:00 @ C-Base

CTM 2017 – Fear Anger Love Feb 2, 22:00 – 05:00 Berghain/Panoramabar

FRIDAY, FEB 3

ACTIVITIY STREAM A:
TidalCycles Workshop – Feb 3, 12:00-17:00 @ C-Base led by Alex McLean & Alexandra Cardenas

TidalCycles (or Tidal for short) is a language for live coding patterns of events in time. It allows you to make musical patterns with text, describing sequences and ways of transforming and combining them, exploring complex interactions between simple parts. Tidal does not make sound itself, but is designed for use with the SuperDirt synth, and can control other synths over Open Sound Control or MIDI. This workshop will explore the expressive power of the Tidal language as a way of generating and performing musical sequences. Tidal is a very intuitive language, and thus should be accessible to total beginners using the built-in sound material Tidal provides. For those with experience in SuperCollider, you’ll be happy to know that Tidal can be used as a sequencing language for all the sophisticated synths and sample playback mechanisms you’ve created in SuperCollider. https://tidalcycles.org/

PREPARATIONS FOR THE WORKSHOP
It is important that all students attending this workshop bring a laptop and install all the pre-requisite software in advance. This means you need to install Haskell, Atom, SuperCollider (3.7 or later) and
Git.

For installation instructions use the following links:
Installation instructions for Mac Users https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJTfGv2sT-w
Installation instructions for all platforms https://tidalcycles.org/getting_started.html

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP LEADERS

Alex McLean (UK) has been active across the digital arts since the year 2000, including live coding music, and software art for which he won the Transmediale award in 2002. Alex co- founded the TOPLAP and Algorave movements, and has collaborated widely including as part of Slub, Canute, aalleexx, and xynaaxmue. He completed his PhD thesis on Programming Languages for the Arts at Goldsmiths London, during which time he initiated the free/open source live coding environment TidalCycles, connecting code and music to create a rich approach to pattern making. Alex is based between Sheffield UK, and the research institute in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where he uses live coding techniques to explore the ancient thought processes of textile weavers, for the European project PENELOPE lead by Ellen Harlizius-Klück. He releases his solo music as Yaxu on the Computer Club label, including the EP Peak Cut and forthcoming album Spicule. He curates the Festival of Algorithmic and Mechanical Movement, and is co-editing the Oxford Handbook on Algorithmic Music with Roger Dean, due out during 2017. yaxu.org

Alexandra Cardenas (CO) is a composer, programmer, and improviser of music born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1976. She studied composition at the Universidad de Los Andes where she also carried studies in mathematics and classical guitar. Using open source software like SuperCollider and TidalCycles, her work is focused on the exploration of the musicality of code and the algorithmic behavior of music. Alexandra is among the pioneers of live coding in electroacoustic music and part of the forefront of the Algorave scene. Currently, she lives in Berlin, Germany, and is doing her masters in Sound Studies at the Berlin University of the Arts. cargocollective.com/tiemposdelruido

ACTIVITIY STREAM B:
Exhibition Tour – Feb 3, 12:30-17:30

To facilitate reflection, we ask the organisers of transmediale for a spacewhere the students can convene at specific times on a daily basis with the faculty from Coventry and Leuphana, as well as guests invited from the festival roster. For this we would only need a room to convene in at a specific time each day.

The students at Leuphana will have had a course on live coding performance and be able to contextualize and deeply appreciate the artists who perform during the Algorave events put forth in the second proposal of this package.

While the younger group of students from Coventry will be able to experience this event as an expose of what is artistically possible with code. The more advanced students from the Leuphana group will have the option to perform their work during the early slot of the proposed Algorave night.

1 – Critical Constellations of the Audio-Machine in Mexico
Kunstraum, Mariannenplatz 2 12:30

This year’s exhibition takes as its focus the history and current state of electronic music and sound art in Mexico, guiding visitors through the various different musical styles and sound experiments that have emerged in the country since the beginning of the 20th century. Curated by sound researcher Carlos Prieto Acevedo, the exhibition features work by a number of active members of the Mexican sound art community, including Ariel Guzik, Angélica Castelló, Guillermo Galindo, Roberto Morales Manzaneres, Verónica Gerber, Mario de Vega and Carlos Sandoval. Talks and performances featuring Mexican music from the last 20 years as well as reworks and reconstructions of pieces from the beginnings of experimental music in Mexico link the exhibition to a larger international context

2 – Primitives
HAU2, Hallisches Ufer 32 15:00

Alan Warburton’s “Primitives” installation will be on display during the festival week, free of charge, exploring the intersection of entertainment and science using cutting-edge CGI “crowd simulation” software. This technology is normally used in Hollywood blockbuster films to fill out cities, stadiums and battlefields and also by researchers and engineers working in crisis mapping, city planning and events management. Warburton’s AV project explores this simulation software to “liberate the digital crowd” and allow it to live and explore more experimental parameters.

3 – On the Far Side of the Marchlands
Schering Stiftung, Unter den Linden 32-34 16:30

The exhibition “On the Far Side of the Marchlands” at Schering Stiftung explores the potential of radically new topographies through border regions (marchlands) created by the artists, composed from inextricably linked realms of experience, culture, and materiality. The 3D Additivist Cookbook, conceived and edited by Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke, is the point of departure for the exhibition, bringing together radical projects by over one hundred artists, activists, and theorists.

Algorave – Feb 3, 20:00 - 00:00 @ HKW

Algorave embraces the alien sounds of raves from the past, and introduce alien, futuristic rhythms and beats made through strange, algorithm-aided processes. It’s up to the good people on the dance floor to help the musicians make sense of this unstable situation and do the real creative work in making a great party. These days just about all electronic music is made using software, but with artificial barriers between the people creating the software algorithms and the people making the music. Using systems built for creating algorithmic music and visuals, these barriers are broken down, and musicians are able to compose and work live with their music as intricate processes. Algorithmic music is no new idea, but Algorave focuses on humans making and dancing to music. Algorave musicians don’t pretend their software is being creative, they take responsibility for the music they make, shaping it using whatever means they have. More importantly the focus is not on what the musician is doing, but on the music, and people dancing to it. Organized in collaboration between transmediale, Alex McLean, Alexandra Cardenas and Jonathan Reus, the Algorave at this year’s transmediale is the first event of its kind in Berlin. It is a kind of “coming home”, a celebration of transmediale’s history of supporting the early development of live coding since the early 2000’s, as well as celebrating how far live coding has come as a practice since then. With sets by: Alexandra Cardenas & Camilla Vatne Barratt-Due (CO/NO) | Alex McLean (UK) | coï¿¥ï3⁄∕4¡pt (UK) | La verbena electronica (ES) | Belisha Beacon (BE) | Fredrik Olofsson (DE) (visuals) | Miri Kat (UK) (visuals)

ORGANISERS

Jonathan Reus-Brodsky (Leuphana University, DE)

Jonathan Reus-Brodsky is an American composer-performer whose musical work blends machine aesthetics with free improvisation. In 2009 Jonathan received a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research into computationally-mediated music systems at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam. Afterwards he worked at STEIM as a curator, research coordinator and educator. He is a founding member of the Instrument Inventors Initiative performative media collective based in The Hague. He is lecturer for Computational and Coded Cultures at Leuphana University, Lüneburg.

Adnan Hadzi (Coventry University, UK)

Adnan Hadzi undertook his practice-based PhD onFLOSSTV – Free, Libre, Open Source Software (FLOSS) within participatory TV hacking Media and Arts Practices’ at Goldsmiths, University of London. Adnan’s research focuses on the influence of digitalization and the new forms of (documentary-) film production, as well as the author’s rights in relation to collective authorship.

Rob Canning (Coventry University, UK)

Rob Canning is a composer and performer with a research focus centred around networked creativity and open working methodologies. His recent work explores possible interplays between performers and network delivered instruction sets; these range from traditional ensemble pieces which utilise browser based net-scores to simultaneous network streamed sonic drifts as in his Streamscape project.

PROFILE OF STUDENT GROUPS

The organizing faculty from Leuphana and Coventry will each bring a group of approximately 25 students to participate in the excursion. Leuphana University, Bachelors Major of Digital Media

The Major of Digital Media bachelors at Leuphana University aims to educate students to have a wholistic view of the digital as it exists in its myriad formations in science, culture and aesthetics. The program originates out of a joint cooperation between the Digital Cultures Research Lab and Institute for Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media. Students receive a mixed course load from diverse teachers in computer science, history and epistemology of computing, software studies, creative coding, digital art, electronic music, net critique and similar topics. The group attending the excursion will be in their 3 rd year of study in the new digital media major, and have already completed much of the above coursework. The excursion will serve as the culmination of a hands-on seminar on livecoding and computer music.

Coventry University, Digital Media Bachelors
The group of Digital Media students from Coventry will be in their first year of study, and therefore be extremely new to digital cultures and creative use of digital media. We see the pairing of these students with the more advanced group from Leuphana as an ideal informal mentorship situation.

REFLECTION SPACE
In order to facilitate daily theoretical discussions around the experiences of the festival, we ask that transmediale provide a meeting space once per day for the organising faculty and the student groups to convene. The space should provide adequate seating for up to 50 students, a video projector and stereo sound.

ALGORAVE SHOWCASE

SYNOPSIS

We propose an Algorave showcase night as part of transmediale’s activities for 2017 – organized in collaboration between transmediale, Jonathan Reus-Brodsky, Alex McLean and Alexandra Cardenas, artists from the live coding scene who are eager to realize Berlin’s first Algorave as a celebration of transmediale’s history of supporting the early development of live coding since the early 2000’s. Next to the main Algorave club night we also propose a possible mini-symposium and public live coding workshops.

PROPOSAL

We propose an Algorave club night as part of Transmediale’s activities for 2017. The Algorave will be the first event of its kind in Berlin, and will be organized in collaboration between transmediale, live coding pioneer Alex McLean, Mexican live coder/composer Alexandra Cardenas and American live coder/instrumentalist Jonathan Reus-Brodsky. The Algorave showcase at transmediale’s historic 30 year anniversary comes out of a desire to celebrate transmediale’s history of supporting the early
development of live coding since the early 2000’s. In this way, the Algorave at transmediale is a kind of coming home, a celebration of how far live coding has come as a practice and a focal point for thinking where it may go. Along with the club night, we propose a mini-symposium and public workshops around the Genesis and Cultures of live coding.
The students from Leuphana University described in the student excursion proposal of this package will have just had a course on live coding performance and be able to contextualize and deeply appreciate the artists who perform during this event, and hopefully participate as part of an early slot during the club night.

ORGANISERS

Jonathan Reus-Brodsky (Leuphana University, DE)

Jonathan Reus-Brodsky is an American composer-performer whose musical work blends machine aesthetics with free improvisation. In 2009 Jonathan received a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research into computationally-mediated music systems at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in
Amsterdam. Afterwards he worked at STEIM as a curator, research coordinator and educator. He is a founding member of the Instrument Inventors Initiative performative media collective based in
The Hague, and teaches as lecturer for Computational and Coded Culture at Leuphana University, Lüneburg.

Alexandra Cardenas (MEX/DE)

Alexandra Cardenas is a Colombian composer and improviser based in Berlin, who has followed a path from Western classical composition to improvisation and live electronics. Her recent work has included live coding performance, including performances at the forefront of the Algorave scene.

Alex McLean (UK)

Alex McLean is a software artist, live coding musician and researcher based in Sheffield UK. He is active in the live coding community, including creating the live-coding environment TidalCycles, an co-founding the TOPLAP and Algorave movements. He has performed widely since the year 2000 in several collaborations including Slub with Dave Griffiths and Adrian Ward, Canute with Yeeking (Rephlex), and aalleexx with Alexandra Cardenas. Alex performs solo as Yaxu, releasing music on the Computer Club label, including Peak Cut EP which Bleep.com described as a “.. polyrhythmic and hyperreal strand of techno .. showcased on cuts like Public Life and Cyclic showing that he is not just testing the confines of how music can be consumed but also how genres can sound.” He won the Transmediale Software Art award in 2001, the British Science Association Daphne Oram Award Lecture in 2015, and is sound artist in residence at the Open Data Institute during 2016. He is currently
co-editing the Oxford Handbook on Algorithmic Music with Roger Dean.

ALGORAVE CLUB NIGHT

We propose a club night featuring a showcase of some of the top artists from the Algorave scene, presenting a whole night of live coded electronic dance music and presented in collaboration with
Alexandra Cardenas and Alex McLean . The club night ideally begins early (7pm), with an early slot
for the more advanced students of Leuphana University’s digital media program to perform with
their work from the previous semester’s seminar on live coding. After the early slot we transition
into a full club evening with the featured artists, going late into the night. Leuphana University is
able to contribute towards the fees of the artists, as they will also participate in more intimate
encounters with the students.

VENUE & TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

• A medium-sized dance venue with loud stereo sound system
• Multiple projectors & projection screens for visualists and projection of code.
• A long standing-height table where multiple artists can set up simultaneously.
• It will be necessary to have a sound technician for the evening.
ARTIST TRAVEL & FEES
• Leuphana University is able to provide fees for a limited number of invited artists in so far as
they provide guest tutoring/mentorship for the student groups.
• transmediale provides assistance with artist travel and lodging costs.
DOCUMENTATION OF PAST ALGORAVES
Algorave article in Wired
• http://www.wired.co.uk/article/algorave
Algorave at OCCII, Amsterdam
• http://motherboard.vice.com/nl/read/algorave-coden-in-de-club
Algorave at Leeds Digital Festival, 2016
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTBMHE1Tj48&feature=youtu.be&t=33m11s
Canute at Algorave Karlsruhe 2015
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAq4BAbvRS4

LONG LIST OF ARTISTS MUSICIANS
• Jonathan Reus-Brodsky (US/NL) + Colin Hacklander (US/DE)
• Alexandra Cardenas (MEX/DE)
• Alex McLean (UK)
• Renick Bell (JP)
• Hlodver Sigurdsson (IS)
• Alberto de Campo (AT/DE)
• Frederik Oloffson (SW)
• Benoit and the Mandelbrots (DE)
• Shelly Knots + Jo Anne = ALGOBABEZ (UK)
• Nick Collins (UK)
• Thor Magnusson (UK)
• The Void* (NL)
• Till Bovermann (DE)
• Luuma (UK)
• Sean Cotterill (UK)
• Calum Gunn (UK)
• Polinski (UK)
• Belisha Beacon (UK)
• Anny (UK)
• Lil data (UK)
VISUALISTS
• Jack Rusher (DE)
• Francesca Sargent (chez) (UK)
• Dan Hett (rituals) (UK)
• Antonio Roberts (hellocatfood) (UK)

ALGORAVE WORKSHOPS AND MINI SYMPOSIUM

Taking advantage of the high caliber of invited artists, we propose the possibility for doing one or two public workshops related to live coding and Algorave. And potentially a small symposium or panel discussion on the Genesis & Cultures of Livecoding. The workshops and mini-symposium follow a successful similar format to those presented in Amsterdam during their Algorave events in 2014. Two workshops from that event, an introduction to SuperCollider and a more advanced workshop of livecoding with live instruments could be presented, as well as a possible workshop on Alex McLean’s Tidal environment, which is beginner friendly and would potentially appeal to a larger public audience.

POTENTIAL WORKSHOPS
• Intro to SuperCollider
• http://www.codedmatters.nl/workshop/learn-basics-sound-synthesis-supercollider/
• SuperCollider & Live Instruments
• http://www.codedmatters.nl/workshop/supercollider-live-instruments/
• Intro to TidalCycles
• http://tidalcycles.org/
• Link to mini-symposium held in Amsterdam
• http://www.codedmatters.nl/workshop/algorave-mini-symposium/
SPACE & TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
• A medium-sized workshop space with tables and chairs
• stereo sound system
• projector/screen

Throughout the run of the festival, excursions, and closing weekend, around 180 international thinkers and cultural producers will reframe the question of the role of media today through panels, performances, workshops and screenings.

FESTIVAL 02.–05.02.2017 [1]

transmediale’s new publication _ACROSS & BEYOND – A TRANSMEDIALE READER ON POST-DIGITAL PRACTICES, CONCEPTS, AND INSTITUTIONS_ is out now! This collection of art and theory analyzes today’s post-digital conditions for critical media practices–moving across and beyond the analog and the digital, the human and the nonhuman. The contributions also look across and beyond the field of media art, staking out new paths for understanding and working in the transversal territories between theory, technology, and art.

In the keynote conversation _Becoming Infrastructural – Becoming Environmental_ (Fri, 03.02.2017, 18:00), LISA PARKS and ERICH HÖRL discuss entanglements between nature and technology, where infrastructural sites are interrupted by nonhuman species and a “General Ecology” of new power
structures emerges.

WENDY CHUN and RICHARD GRUSIN talk about mediation beyond the media and the habitual patterns of immediate communication in the keynote conversation _Immediate & Habitual: The Elusiveness of Mediation_ (Sat, 04.02.2017, 18:00).

In the keynote conversation _Strange Ecologies: From Necropolitics to Reproductive Revolutions_ (Sun, 05.02.2017, 18:00), STEVE KURTZ and JOHANNES PAUL RAETHER explore unacknowledged territories amid the politics of death and ethics of reproduction in the Capitalocene, questioning their
contradictions and paradoxes.

transmediale and CTM Festival [2] will feature _LEXACHAST_, a collaboration between PAN label founder BILL KOULIGAS and futuristic sound design duo AMNESIA SCANNER. The performance introduces a mangled dystopian soundtrack that revolves around generative live-streaming visuals by artist Harm van den Dorpel (Fri, 03.02.2017, 21:00).

Another highlight is the screening of _THE SPRAWL (PROPAGANDA ABOUT PROPAGANDA)_: With their debut feature film, METAHAVEN investigates the role and power of propaganda in the social media age. The film is a paranoid digital trip in which form and content continually influence each
other. The screening is followed by a talk between Metahaven and artist and researcher Susan Schuppli (Sat, 04.02.2017, 21:00). Trailer [3]

Find a list of confirmed participants on our updated website [1]. The full program is soon available. read more [4]

EXHIBITION 02.02.–05.03.2017 [1]

Within the scope of _ever elusive – thirty years of transmediale_, the special exhibition “ALIEN MATTER”, curated by Inke Arns, will be on view at Haus der Kulturen der Welt from 2 February to 5 March 2017.

“Alien matter” refers to man-made, and at the same time, radically different, potentially intelligent matter. It is the outcome of a naturalization of technological artefacts. Environments shaped by technology result in new relationships between man and machine. Technical objects, previously defined merely as objects of utility, have become autonomous agents. Through their ability to learn and network, they challenge the central role of the human subject.

Approximately 20 exhibiting artists from Berlin and around the world will present works about shifts within such power structures, raising questions about the state of our current environment and whether it has already passed the tipping point, becoming “alien matter”. Find the full list of artists and their artworks here [5]. [6]

ACROSS & BEYOND – A transmediale Reader on Post-digital Practices, Concepts, and Institutions

In the upcoming weeks transmediale is publishing a selection of essays of this publication on transmediale/journal [6]. You can already read the introductory essay “Across and Beyond: Post-digital Practices, Concepts, and Institutions” by Ryan Bishop, Kristoffer Gansing and Jussi Parikka here [7].
_across & beyond_ was developed by transmediale and Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton.

Order your copy now or grab it at transmediale 2017 _ever elusive_! read more [8]

Links:
——
[1] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1741&qid=123250
[2] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1742&qid=123250
[3] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1743&qid=123250
[4] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1744&qid=123250
[5] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1745&qid=123250
[6] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1746&qid=123250
[7] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1747&qid=123250
[8] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1748&qid=123250
[9] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1749&qid=123250
[10] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1750&qid=123250
[11] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1751&qid=123250
[12] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1752&qid=123250
[13] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1753&qid=123250
[14] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1754&qid=123250
[15] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1755&qid=123250
[16] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1756&qid=123250
[17] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1757&qid=123250
[18] https://spot.transmediale.de/sites/default/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=1758&qid=123250
[19] https://spot.transmediale.de/civicrm/mailing/optout?reset=1&jid=2081&qid=123250&h=0f7a801e00d63ed2

Posted on May 5, 2016 by adnan Events, news, presentations, projects, publications, Report, reports, research

after.video @ LibreGraphics

Adnan presented the after.video project at the LibreGraphics conference.

after.video is a new online service which will be making available a series of variably aged video presentations which cover a collection of topics. What it represents then is a repackaging (Assemblages) of material from a variety of sources, presumably professionally edited and augmented. If you visit their website, you see they are not quite operational, and that this is a paid subscription service.

Now in its 11th year, the international Libre Graphics Meeting turns its focus for 2016 to the theme “Other Dimensions”, encompassing time-based media and the third dimension, new additions to LGM’s established focus on graphics.

From its first edition in 2006, held in Lyon, France, Libre Graphics Meeting has been a locus for software contributors, artists, designers, and users to come together and share their knowledge and to experience camaraderie. This year will see four days of presentations, talks, hacking sessions, workshops, and meetings.

Prominent software projects such as GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, GNOME, and others will come together to demonstrate the progress on their projects and to discuss them within the context of the larger Libre Graphics community. LGM 2016 will play host to animators, architects, artists, book designers, cartographers, developers, documenters, educators, engravers, graphic designers, git visualizers, hackers, photographers, rasterizers, reverse engineers, tool makers, type designers, and video archivers (among others!).

The 2016 edition of LGM will have a full program of workshops, presentations and talks across the entire spectrum of Free/Libre and Open Source graphics projects and communities. The full program can be found online http://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2016/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/LGM2016program.pdf

With a great after party: Autonomous Tech Fetish & also check out Lara’s project dataunion.

The next LibreGraphics meeting will be in Rio De Jaineiro.

Posted on March 11, 2016 by adnan Events, news, presentations, projects

Nervous Systems

!Mediengruppe Bitnik exhibits the Assange Room at HKW.

Can our inner thoughts be transmitted by our eye movements? Can our future actions be predicted by our current behavior? Julien Prévieux’s film Patterns of Life enacts more than a century of evolving technologies in tracking human behavior, from reorganizing the factory floor to today’s “activity-based intelligence” in the “war on terror.” This is but one example from over 30 works tracing the inversions that mark the relationship between man and machine. Co-curated by Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski from the Tactical Technology Collective and Anselm Franke the exhibition showcases a range of reflections on our quantified society and the processes of self-quantification. Historical artworks call for a reinterpretation of early conceptual art’s concern with quantification, its “aesthetics of bureaucracy,” and the deconstruction of the self in light of current data- collection. The exhibition includes contributions by media historians and writers, reconstructing the history and the present rise of data-technologies and portraying the world they bring about. A live installation—conceived by Tactical Tech—offers an active space in which visitors can explore their own digital traces. This White Room combines selected artworks, digital products, investigations, and activist projects with discussions, consultations, and demos exploring the devices we use every day, and how we can regain some control over our data.

Posted on November 15, 2015 by adnan Events, news

Percussion and distortion modules

‘000‘ is about aberrant analogue distortion and percussion devices for both stand-alone and Eurorack format. The Spanish/German øpen-hardware team will present at the London Music Hackspace for the fist time their new set of analogue percussive tools, followed by a DIY workshop where participants can build their complete stand-alone – or Eurorack-compatible modular drum system.

An introduction to analogue percurssive synthesis, concept and module design of an aberrant modular drum machine. The talk will also cover the ethos and philosophy of the open hardware team. Come ask questions and test the modules!

The talk will serve as a prelude to the workshops which will take place on the weekend of the 4th and 5th of December. You can choose the modules for the workshop in this link.

Posted on September 23, 2015 by adnan Events, reports, research, ReSynced

Bacalao!

James Stevens & Adnan Hadzi are in Athens attending Hybrid City III where co-collaborators in next years MAZI project met together for the first time to hold a workshop at the event, discuss respective projects and get to know one another.

Armin Medosch gave closing keynote speech and just published the supporting document here!

Our work complete, here we are with Adnan, Andreas and Panos before diner at the beach.. !

This weekend YT will present a quick review of Consume.net at the Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network annual conference where members of the group will meet in Athens to celebrate progress and discuss future plans for development, wider inclusion and enhancements.

AMWN node=10636

Up Periscope! is a printed media campaign to run at street level which presents an opportunity for passers by to investigate AWMN and see the view from the rooftop of each node location eg. Senius 10636. Each poster presents a QRcode for easy linking to the many panoramic images stored on the WIND node database.

can I see my apartment from here? then there is a good chance of making a link back.

So it is a tool for network builders to help identify viable locations to interlink with the free information infrastructure and promote AWMN. Over 1000 high speed wireless network nodes span Athens and across Greece, linking villages and cities alike.

YT and Adnan last visited Athens during New Babylon in 2014 and set out to introduce reStreet workshop group to the delights of file synchronization with SYNC and Syncthing, QRcodes and button badges.

Our friend Mathias Jud visited us in London “Our visit to London last month finally realizes in an online Video. We have been invited to give a talk at a TED Global event. It was a good experience but also quite demanding with rehearsals, mandatory events and a strange diner at the house of the James Bond producer … and somehow asked not to talk about before the event. However the video has been put online today”, when producing a TED talk on Art that lets you talk back to NSA spies.

Posted on September 17, 2015 by adnan Announcement, Events, news, Report, research

Contesting the “Dark Web”. CipherSongs: Trustless an installation for encrypted data streams

Rob Canning composed CipherSongs which one currently can tune into on http://cipher.kiben.net/

The abstract of his paper for BFX describes CipherSongs as:

CipherSongs: Trustless is the first in a proposed series of performance and installation works reflecting on issues surrounding encrypted network communication technologies. It is a data driven, audio visual installation which responds to real-time data from the Bitmessage service. Bitmessage is a decentralised, peer-to-peer, trustless communications protocol (Warren, 2012), the service became particularly popular after the 2013 Snowden revelations exposing the widespread collection and analysis of communications metadata. These works respond to the threat to our “right to a private life” (Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998) posed by the recently elected Conservative government’s plans to amend the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) (Home Office, 2014). The proposed amendment to DRIPA, commonly referred to as “The Snoopers’ Charter”, seeks to abolish the use of encrypted communications in the UK16 . In this context, CipherSongs functions as the ‘canary in the coal mine’, an early warning system where the disappearance of song indicates a dangerous problem within the system.

The installation operates as an agent within the system it references, it is actively engaged with the data and political context that are its subjects. As nodes within both the Tor network and the Bitmessanger system it provides extra robustness and diversity to their decentralised infrastructures. It critiques the dominant assertions of the mainstream or “strategic media” which aligns users of strong cryptography with the “Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse”: drug dealers, paedophiles, money launderers and terrorists (May, 1994).

Posted on August 15, 2015 by adnan Events, reports, research

Dyne @ CCC Camp

This year Dyne presented Devuan @ the CCC camp. Also see how to take care of skeletons in your closet with tomb.

quoted from the ccc devuan page:

Believe it or not, there are many users and ICT professionals needing to opt-out from systemd, for various reasons for instance to keep compatibility with old scripts or to keep supporting embedded setups, or simply because they don’t believe systemd is going to work. As a matter of fact, from its first announcement in November 2014 until today the Devuan project received enormous media attention and a steady stream of donations up to approximately 10.000€.

This lightning talk will illustrate the state of things in Devuan development, which is quickly approaching its 1.0 Beta release.

For the 1.0 release Devuan will derives its own installer and package repositories from Debian Jessie, applying the necessary modifications to remove systemd. Our objective for 2015 is to make anyone using Debian Wheezy or Jessie able to update or switch to Devuan 1.0 – and we are very close to enter Beta stage.

As of today we have a continuous integration system in place and fully functional based on gitlab, jenkins and a custom repository software called Amprolla. We are also supporting the development of a new, minimal susbstitute for udev which written from scratch and is called vdev.

Posted on June 22, 2015 by d.tv Events

Landestelle & HEK @ Art Basel

Our friends Wisard Bros performed the MidiFizz DJ-set at Landestelle.

Read more about the Landestelle project (in German).

At Liste Art Fair HeK presents four artistic positions, Aram Bartholl, Constant Dullaart, Raquel Meyers and Evan Roth under the title PEBKAC IMHO.

“Search the web for ‘iPhone reverse product placement’, and you will find a clip from the first ‘Sex and the City’ movie (2008), in which the character Carrie gets handed an iPhone and shrieks; “I don’t know how to work this’. Shot the year the first Apple smartphone was released, the clip overtly illustrates our current relationship to technology. Carrie was not in the know, did not understand popular technology. Left at the altar, not in control of her life, not able to master new technology. We as the viewer do want to understand how technology works, want control, not be left at the altar, and get an iPhone. read more.

The action of the art group “diezelle” started by 5PM (19 June) in front of Art Basel, as a protest against the police action during the ArtBasel 2013. Another group gathered on the Claramatte for a parallel demonstration using homemade tanks made out of cardboard, shouting: “What is art”

D.TV