The Black Book of push-backs

The Black Book of push-back

A 1500-page ‘Black Book’ that documents the horrific violence suffered by over 12,000 people at the hands of authorities on the EU’s external borders has been released today – International Migrants Day – by The Left in the European Parliament. Compiled by BVMN and printed over two volumes, the ‘Black Book of Pushbacks’ is a collection of hundreds of testimonies of migrants and asylum seekers who have experienced human rights violations at external borders.

Machine Learning and Environmental Justice

Living Data and AI

Adnan Hadzi presented Machine Learning and Environmental Justice at the the RIXC Art and Science festival: ECODATA.

The RIXC Art-Science Festival: ECODATA aim is to explore the ‘ecosystematic perspective’. More than just rising awareness that living organisms are highly interdependent on each other and their environments, this year’s festival edition aims to reveal a web of connections that interweaves biological, social and techno-scientific systems, living and digital data, artistic and scientific approaches. 

ECODATA exhibition is the central axis of the festival, which forms the rest of the program, made in collaboration with Ecodata–Ecomedia–Ecoaesthetics” research group led by researcher and theorist Yvonne VOLKART, (Basel, Switzerland). The purpose of this exhibition is to bridge the gap between technological and ecological as well as to incorporate technological issues into ecological art. This year’s exhibition will feature twenty artworks by internationally acknowledged artists working in the field of media art, science and ecology.

ECODATA Exhibition
Guided Tour Through the Exhibition
ECODATA Opening Keynote Session: Art and Science Discussion
ECODATA Artist Talks
CODATA and A/I (artistic intelligence): Opening Performance by the Digital Dramaturgy Labsquared
ECODATA Exhibition Opening
Session 1: Technologies of Ecological
Session 3: BioSensing and Ecosystematic Perspective (1)
Session 4: EcoAesthetics
Thematic Session 5: Atmospheric Experience
ECODATA Thematic Keynote Talk
Session 6: BioPolitcs and BioDigital Poetics
Session 8: EcoAesthetics and Data
Session 9: Living Data and AI
Closing Session 10: GREEN REVISITED – Encountering Emerging Naturecultures
Closing Keynote Talk
Closing Program (Part 2): PLA(N)Tform Online Exhibition
Closing Program (Part 1): FOREST GARDEN GREENHOUSE Concert

CTM & TM: End-to-End 2020 Highlights

end-to-end, p2p, my to me

Sad by Design

Double Counting: The Odum Oration

Marshall McLuhan Lecture 2020

Exchange #1: The Wheres and Whens of Networks

Exchange #2:Empires and Ecologies of the Cloud

Exchange #3: Next to Devastation

Exchange #4: Deplatformization and the Ethics of Exclusion

Exchange #5: Neural Network Cultures

Research Networks

Revolutionary Networked Politics

Commoning by P2P Care

SILENT WORKS. The Hidden Human Labor in AI-Driven Capitalism

THE HUMAN SEARCH ENGINE: On Smashing the Googlearchy and Other Millennial Pursuits

The Councils of the Pluriversal: Affective Temporalities of Reproduction and Climate Change

AIDOL World

End to End Closing Session

End to End Symposium
The symposium of transmediale at Volksbühne Berlin features two intensive days of in-depth exchange, screenings, performances, and artistic interventions. More than 50 artists and thinkers will examine networks as social, technological, and artistic infrastructures. Looking back at an era of network idealism, they will ask if the network is still a viable model to react to urgent challenges such as climate change and the consequences of artificial intelligence—and what a future after the network society might look like.
PhD Workshop Participants

Autonomous Pirate Machinery

Double Counting: The Odum Oration (Cycles of Circulation)

John Julian and Jamie Allen during Double Counting: The Odum Oration

Cycles of Circulation

Asunder

Present.Perfect.

Welcome to the Federation. the What, Why and How of Alternative Social Media #1

Welcome to the Federation. the What, Why and How of Alternative Social Media #2

Revision: Neural 25+1, Critical Publishing and Archiving

Revision: Piratbyrån (2003–2009) Piratbyrån

CiTiZEN KiNO #84: Asymmetric Media and the Simulacrumbs (for the 20th Anniversary of Indymedia)

The Eternal Network

To Seek Nows, To Breed Futures #2

Forest Walk #3

Don’t Forget to Change The Beat From Time To Time—About Counter-Raving

The Good Life

The good life is what we long for. Fantasies of the good life feed our habitats and identities, from personal desires to political projects and commercial culture. They inspire future visions and filter images of the past. Sara Cwynar’s practice across photography, collage and film toggles between different epochs and aesthetics, revealing how the quest for the good life has been driven by evolving ideals, values, and taste, yet always grounded in conventionality and predictable comforts. Exploring the backbone of iconographies and clichés, where common constructs meet reassuring genres, Cwynar tackles the critical concept of visual truth and deciphers a reality of mundane objects and pictures merely reformulated by algorithms. Responding to the way technology challenges our vision, she creates a timeless and indelible reservoir of upfront, non-hierarchical images that resist the internet, the primary source of visual knowledge and experience in the XXI century.

Exhibition dates: 12 July – 20 September 2019
Open times: Tuesday – Friday: 1.00 – 6.00pm, Saturday: 10.00am – 1.00pm

This exhibition is supported by the Government of Canada. Blitz is supported by Arts Council Malta through a Cultural Partnership Agreement.

#blitzvalletta #malta #contemporary_art #exhibition #art #artinmalta #artspace #valletta

Dal-Ba’ar Madwarha: Valletta 2018’s major visual arts exhibition

Valletta 2018’s major multi-site exhibition, “Dal-Baħar Madwarha”, opens its doors to curious visitors across the Islands starting from the 10th of March. Curated by Maren Richter, large installations, performances and public interventions are taking place in both traditional and unexpected locations across Malta, exploring the idea of “islandness” in playful and critical ways.

Ibrahim Mahama’s work for the Pixkerija, Valletta’s Old Fish Market, will be directly connected to the fabric of the building of the Pixkerija. Mahama’s large scale intervention – a physical line made of meshes – intends to highlight the working history of the old fish market, its uncertain future and the Mediterranean Sea as a symbol of trading between Africa an Europe.

Only a week from now – 10th of March – the first projects of Dal Bahar Madwarha will start to appear. Kultura paid a visit to Manaf Halbouni: “Uprooted“: What if you are forced to live in a space of 1qm? The Syrian-German artist invites us to imagine ourselves without a home – What if ‚our car‘, a symbol of freedom of mobility, became home due to misfortune or war?

Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture’s major multi-site exhibition, “Dal-Baħar Madwarha”, opened its doors to curious visitors across the Islands from 10th of March. Curated by Maren Richter, large installations, performances and public interventions are taking place in both traditional and unexpected locations across Malta, exploring the idea of “islandness” in playful and critical ways. The projects range from design objects to architecture and complex issues of urban development and society with a focus on “research through practice”.

Heba Y Amin – OPERATION SUNKEN SEA
A fictive office that explores colonial omnipotentia by initiating a large-scale infrastructural intervention through the draining and rerouting of the Mediterranean Sea to converge Africa and Europe into one supercontinent. Heba Y Amin is an Egyptian visual artist, researcher and lecturer based in Berlin, whose work engages with narratives of national sovereignty, often in contested territories and questions methodological assumptions embedded within Western historiography.

Dal-Baħar Madwarha – Giraffa: James Micallef Grimaud’s intervention refers to the fact that the Maltese Archipelago are close to both Africa and Europe. Today Africa and Europe seem to further away from each other than ever. New borders and new forms of migration have been established. A transformed crane painted as a giraffe welcomes the travellers when entering the harbour, or those in search for the iconic view over the Grand Harbour and remind us of tolerance and diversity of cultures.

James Micallef Grimaud has directed several artistic projects including the first large scale mural in Malta. He is the founder of the Troglodyte crew, a street art collective working on several projects around Malta. He defines himself as an artist, who maintains critical but positive and witty approach to life on the Island.

This event is on till 1st July at the Marsa/Grand Harbour Docks.

Between spring and summer 2018, curator Maren Richter brings Valletta 2018’s major visual arts exhibition to our European Capital of Culture, with large installations, performances and public interventions taking place in both traditional and unexpected locales across the country. Among the exhibition’s star sites is the Pixkerija at Barriera Wharf, a Grade 2 scheduled building that was built in the 1930’s.

Richter is working with more than twenty-five established and emerging artists from fifteen countries –including Malta, France, Austria, Egypt, Germany, Syria, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Ghana, Spain, and Palestine – who are collaborating with local partners around the Islands.

The title Dal-Baħar Madwarha is inspired by a quote from the work of philosopher Gilles Deleuze, ‘The island is what the sea surrounds’. This sets the tone for newly commissioned and existing pieces that explore the idea of “islandness” in playful and critical ways. It’s an artistic journey through the contemporary realities of the Maltese Islands, placing at their helm the Islands’ relationship with their closest neighbour – the Mediterranean Sea.

The exhibition re-traces borders, imagining new geographies that view the sea as fluid and transformable rather than another physical barrier between people, places and culture.

In Richter’s words: “The multi-site programme invites international and Maltese artists to recast and respond to current and past urgencies and challenges, in which the Mediterranean Sea plays a significant role […] The island is a mode of pausing, familiarised by a certain romanticism. Whereas the sea looms large in the language of our imaginations; it is a site of reflection, voyage, and volatile freedom.”

In the light of such thought-provoking inquiries, the exhibition explores the identity of our Islands within a wider global context, bringing creative, social and political visions of the Mediterranean to light through the region’s most iconic and enduring image: the deep blue sea.

The Glass Room: Big data, privacy and interactive art

Over 40,000 people visited The Glass Room in London and New York City. Hear how Tactical Tech and Mozilla are using immersive art to inform people about data security and privacy.

The Glass Room is an immersive, hands-on art experience that teaches people about personal data.

During two exhibitions, in New York City and London, over 40,000 people learned about how personal data is gathered, how it’s used, and the myriad types of data companies, governments, organisations and others access. A collaboration between Tactical Tech and Mozilla offers lessons in communicating about technical issues like data and privacy. It also provides insights into innovative public engagement strategies.

For a pedestrian on a busy street of London or New York, The Glass Room is a pop-up “tech store with a twist.” At first glance, it seems to offer the latest in shiny digital consumer products, such as the newest tablet or fitness tracker. But as you go inside, you find there’s nothing for sale. Instead, as you explore you’ll find a selection of art works exploring who is collecting our personal data and why, and what we can do about it.

The Glass Room brings together art, technology and the aesthetics of consumer retail. Visitors are presented with political questions about the data we share online with or without our knowledge. The exhibition creates a welcoming and accessible space that enables visitors to question their own assumptions about their digital lives and data, and to explore difficult and suppressed questions about their online activities.

A Glass Room tour. Photo by David Mirzoeff.

Tactical Tech has partnered with Mozilla to open Glass Room exhibitions in New York and London in the two years since  opening “The White Room” in a larger exhibition at the Berlin Haus der Kulturen der Welt.

Following The Glass Room New York, the New York Times reported:

“To move through the Glass Room…was to be reminded of the many ways we unwittingly submit ourselves and one another to unnecessary surveillance, with devastating consequences… I left the Glass Room invigorated by the ways artists are exploring the dark side of our digital footprint.”

Tactical Tech has worked on data and privacy for some years. We’ve seen many public awareness campaigns on data, privacy and surveillance, struggle to make a significant impact.

Putting together the Glass Room, we saw an opportunity to work with artists and their work to lead people outside their comfort zone and test their assumptions. By creating an immersive space we were able to test different forms of engagement through art objects, animations and products visitors could take away, such as our Data Detox Kits.

Data Detox Bar

People interacting at the Data Detox Bar. Photo by David Mirzoeff.

With The Glass Room we hoped we could bring debates and discourse highly prevalent in academia and technology activism to a broader audience. In a sense we hoped to fill the perception gap between niche discussions and issues on technology and popular media depictions of technology, such as Black Mirror, by presenting abstract and often speculative issues as a real-life, tangible, and even tactile, experience.

It turned out to be a timely intervention as large-scale data harvesting conversations enter more mainstream discourse. We challenged the audience’s willingness to engage with a broader and deeper reflection about the “quantified society,” the impact all-pervasive data sharing is having on our public sphere – transport, health, education – as well as on our sense of ourselves.

Following the success of the White Room in Berlin, we worked closely with Mozilla, artists, and designers from an experiential agency to expand and develop the concept to work in a retail context.

In both cities before opening, we launched advertising campaigns on billboards, in subway stations and online.

The exhibit was open for around three weeks in each city and over that period visitor numbers kept growing. By the final weekend in London we had reached our capacity inside and queues formed down the road.

The results: over 40,000 visitors attended, and there has been widespread media coverage, including articles in the New York Times, Channel 4 News, the BBCNew ScientistVogue and tech media such as The Verge. Social media activity was also sparked; for example, a Facebook Live event attracted over 47,000 viewers.

Audiences have been diverse. The majority of the visitors were ordinary passersby,who were either drawn in when walking past or heard about the exhibition from word of mouth. We attracted tourists, hipsters on the way to the cinema, families on a day out or simply people wandering in while shopping.

For the exhibits, we partnered with local artists to curate art works to add context and relevance so that the facts about how our personal data is being collected and used could come alive for non-technical visitors. We also installed a “Data Detox Bar” – at the back of the space in New York and right in the centre of the store in London – where people could pick up a “Data Detox Kit,” our easy 8-day guide to a digital makeover. We also created dedicated event spaces where we curated programmes involving activists, technologists, journalists, and some of our partner artists, where their own work around data and privacy was presented and discussed.

Glass Room visitors, 2017.

Glass Room visitors, 2017. Photo by Alistair Alexander.

Critically, for both cities, we recruited and trained a local group of “Ingeniuses” from diverse backgrounds and communities. Many had no experience in technology or privacy but after a four-day training camp, had enough knowledge to give privacy help and advice. They  were a constant and welcoming presence in the space, engaging visitors in conversations, providing explanations, and even offering some recommendations when such were sought. They also led workshops, free and open to everyone and to all levels of technical knowledge, with titles such as “WTF – What the Facebook,” “Mastering your Mobile” and “DeGooglize your Life.”

The exhibitions sparked a depth of engagement rarely seen in awareness-raising campaigns. Many visitors stayed for an hour or more; some stayed for an entire day to take free workshops. Lots of people came back for repeat visits, often bringing with them friends or family.

The Glass Room was open for around 3 weeks in both cities and over that period visitor numbers kept growing. By the final weekend in London we had reached our capacity inside and queues formed down the road.

In New York and London visitors filled out over 840 feedback cards. Some typical feedback:

After visiting the Glass Room I feel…

  • As if I’m finally accessing the vault control room. Shocked, enlightened, provoked.
  • Happy someone is showing us how our data is being used.
  • Interested in technology and data. I want to study technology and data. (from an eight-year old youngster)
  • Glad there is so much research keeping watch on corporate surveillance.
  • My mind has been opened.
  • Healthily paranoid.

After visiting the Glass Room I want…

  • To cleanse my online life and move away from Google.
  • To know more. It is not about becoming paranoid, it’s about being more prepared.
  • To get involved in protective steps to recover privacy for all.
  • To be more creative how I talk to people about privacy and security.
  • To talk to human beings more than ever.

Child at Glass Room London

A child at interactive Glass Room exhibit in London. Photo by David Mirzoeff.

What we learned

What can be taken away from this project? We think at least these things:

By setting up an exhibition in prime shopping locations, we were able to take issues of data and privacy to where people are, rather than hoping they‘d come to us.

By using art to explore these topics, we were challenging peoples’ assumptions in ways a conventional narrative can never achieve, and we were opening avenues for further enquiry.

By mirroring the design cues of tech stores, we used a visual language that everyone understands, and thus we were able to attract people who might well be put off by an art exhibition.

By taking the issues off line and creating an immersive physical space that was free and open to everyone, we created a public spectacle – an inclusive space where the experience of discovering these curious objects was shared with others, making the whole experience memorable and impactful.

And perhaps most crucially, by having a team of Ingeniuses who were from the local communities, we made the exhibition a vibrant, warm and human space – where visitors always had someone they could talk to.

Challenges

Of course, putting on a project of this scale has its limitations and challenges.

Renting prime retail locations and launching outdoor advertising campaigns doesn’t come cheap and we – like most small non-profits would – needed additional support. We were lucky that Mozilla proved to be the perfect partner. Not only did they have resources to do the project justice, but as the project progressed it became clear that their objectives and values were closely aligned with ours, and they gave us the freedom and support to develop the concept as far as we could.

Even with such an ideal partner though, an exhibition like this can only be temporary and will only reach a limited number of people in a very specific location. So we need to figure out ways of reaching more people, in more places, at substantially less cost.

Easier said than done, but we’re working on it. Over 2017 we developed a portable version of the exhibition, the Glass Room Experience. This kit recreates some of the objects from the main exhibition as 3D cardboard shapes and posters. We trialed this at around 10 events in Europe as we iterated the design. The kit development, production and distribution cost only a fraction of the main exhibition. And it provides small organisations and groups with materials that they can use to help explain these issues to their communities.

Although far smaller, the effect we have achieved on Experience visitors – over 7,000 of them to date – we believe, has been  highly positive and has allowed us to take the Glass Room to places and people who would never see the full Glass Room.

The future

We are working again with Mozilla to produce a new edition of the “Internet of Things” that will be distributed to 75 events and organisations around the world in 2018. At the same time, we plan to find  “multiplier” organisations that can print, distribute and support dozens of Glass Room Experienceevents themselves – allowing us to reach far beyond what our own capacity would allow.

The Glass Room experience kit development, production and distribution does have a cost, but it is a fraction of the main exhibitions. And crucially, The Experience provides small organisations and groups with materials that they can use to help explain these issues to their communities.

We’ll also be working with larger events and festivals to produce a mobile version of the exhibit, Glass Room Plus, which will be entirely self-funded. And we’ll be looking at developing new versions for schools and young people, libraries and universities, among many other audiences.

We’ll be looking at developing our self-learning resources online, so people can access more structured approaches to improving their online privacy.

We may yet open a major Glass Room pop-up store in another major world city in the future, but for now we’re working on promising avenues that can take Glass Room themes and narratives to yet new places and contexts: a hack lab in Lagos, a conference in Taipei, a crypto-rave in Brazil.

So the Glass Room project continues to evolve and develop. Indeed, it may be coming to you in 2018 – wherever and whoever you are. And if it’s not coming anywhere near, please get in touch – you could be the perfect Glass Room Experience host.


This story was written by Alistair Alexander of Tactical Tech. Alexander helped develop and implement The Glass Room project.

Top photo of Glass Room storefront by Nousha Salimi.

Visit the Glass Room London virtually, in WebVR

This past week, Mozilla and Tactical Tech launched The Glass Room in London. This “store” is actually an exhibition that disrupts how we think about technology and encourages people to make informed choices about their online lives. Now, anyone can experience the exhibit online and in real life.

Like a Black Mirror episode come to life, The Glass Room prompts reflection, experimentation and play. At first glance, it offers the latest in shiny digital consumer products, such as the newest tablet, fitness tracker or facial recognition software. But as visitors go inside, they find there is nothing for sale.

A closer look at the ‘products’ reveals works of art that peek behind the screens and into the hidden world of what happens to user data. The ‘Ingenius’ team is on hand to answer questions raised by the exhibit, engaging the public in conversation and helping them with alternatives, privacy tips and tricks.

This 360° view will take you deep inside the space and allow you to experience the exhibit everyone in London is talking about.

Experience The Glass Room London in WebVR

As a pioneer in WebVR technology, Mozilla believes this is an excellent opportunity to make this unique experience available on the web to everyone, everywhere, without the need to install an app or proprietary VR software. You simply click on the link and enjoy.

If you have an Oculus Rift or HTC VIVE, you can click on the VR icon to launch the Glass Room experience in WebVR. You can then immerse yourself in everything The Glass Room has to offer without taking a trip to London. All you need is the latest version of Firefox. WebVR for Firefox is enabled by default on Windows, so simply open the web site and you can explore the virtual Glass Room with your headset and hand controls. Mac users with headsets can download Firefox Nightly for early access to WebVR.

As this revolutionary technology develops, there will be more opportunities to create interactive exhibits, like The Glass Room, in VR that tell immersive stories on the web.

Visit vr.mozilla.org to find more experiences we recommend in WebVR including A- Painter, a VR painting experience.  If you’d like to learn more about the history and capabilities of WebVR, check out this Medium post by Sean White.

070707 UpStage Festival Performances Announced


Shadow puppets, flights of fancy, air guitar and a visit to a London building site will be some of the virtual attractions at 070707 UpStage Festival – a feast of online performances on July 7, 2007 to celebrate the release of UpStage 2.

New Zealand and international artists are creating work specifically for the UpStage environment, which will be performed for an online audiences and simultaneously screened at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington.

UpStage is software that allows audiences from anywhere in the world to participate in live online performances, created in real time by remote players. Audiences need only an internet connection and web browser and can interact through a text chat tool while the players use images to create visual scenes, and operate “avatars” – graphical characters that speak aloud and move.

The diversity of proposals for the festival has impressed the organisers. “It’s exciting to see UpStage being used in such a variety of ways,” said UpStage project manager Helen Varley Jamieson. “We have all manner of artists – writers, musicians, dancers, performers, videographers, story-tellers – experimenting with how they can use the internet as a creative medium and a site for their work.”

The full list of performances and artists is attached and is on the UpStage web site. Performance times will be publicised on the UpStage and New Zealand Film Archive web sites soon, and live links to the stages will be accessible from the UpStage web site on July 7; online audiences just need to click!

The performances will be screened live in the the New Zealand Film Archive mediagallery where visitors can buy a coffee, take a seat and watch the performances taking place from remote locations around the world. Exhibitions Manager Mark Williams says “It will be like watching a live movie, as the shows unfold in front our eyes.”

UpStage workshop facilitator Vicki Smith has been providing graphic, technical and tutorial support for artists and education groups who are creating performances, and says that the level and range of work being produced promises breathtaking cyberformances (online performances) for audiences to view and take part in.

UpStage 2 is funded by the Community Partnership Fund of the NZ Government’s Digital Strategy, with the support of partners CityLink, MediaLab and Auckland University of Technology, and developed by programmer and digital artist Douglas Bagnall.

The launch takes place on 28 June and will be accompanied by an exhibition at the NZ Film Archive from 28 June to 15 July, and the festival on 7 July.

For further information and images, contact:

Helen Varley Jamieson, helen@upstage.org.nz

Vicki Smith, vicki@upstage.org.nz

 

 

070707: UpStage Festival – call for participation

I received this announcement by way of Helen Varley Jamieson, the Project Manager for UpStage. I think this will be interesting and great fun! I certainly plan to participate. Check it out:

A festival of live online performances to celebrate the launch of UpStage 2. 

You are warmly invited to create your own original cyberformance and perform it to a global audience, using UpStage.

Purpose-built for live interactive performance events, UpStage is easy and fun to use. It works via a web browser so you don’t need to download or install anything to create or attend a performance. The UpStage team can help you to learn how to use the software and give advice on devising work in UpStage and creating graphics.

To learn more about UpStage, come to the next open session: Wednesday 7 March, 9pm New Zealand time – check here for your local time.

To submit a proposal, email the following information to info@upstage.org.nz:

  • working title of your cyberformance and 3-4 sentences about it;
  •  names and locations of people involved;
  • brief background /bios (not more than 300 words);
  • preferred time(s), in your local time, for presentation on 070707;
  • contact email and postal address.

Performances can be on any theme or topic – adapt a stage classic, tell your own story or go for the avant garde! The only rules are it must be no longer than 21 minutes, and must be created and performed in UpStage.

The deadline is MARCH 31 2007; selections will be made shortly after this and you will be advised as soon as possible. The festival will take place online in UpStage, and screened at the New Zealand Film Archive, Wellington, NZ, on 0707070 (7 July 2007). There us no entry fee; participated artists will be listed in a printed programme and on the UpStage website, and will receive a DVD of the festival and copies of promotional material.

For further information email: info@upstage.org.na



					

Ten thousand Deer in the virtual Woods

This is fantastic news! Press release as it appeared yesterday on the Tale of Tales website:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ten thousand Deer in the virtual Woods
The Endless Forest crosses the 10,000 registered users mark

Today, the number of confirmed registered players of The Endless Forest has exceeded ten thousand, while the artistic game project has been downloaded over 64,000 times since its first release in September 2005.The Endless Forest is a social screensaver. A multiplayer game without goals or chat. A peaceful environment where every player is represented as a deer, running around, rubbing trees and sleeping in the sun. And casting Forest Magic on each other or partying under a night sky filled with floral fireworks during ABIOGENESIS, a spectacle created in realtime by authors Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn whenever the mood hits them.Tale of Tales is a Belgian games development company founded by former internet artists Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn, better known as “Entropy8Zuper!”. Their goal is to explore the potential of the games medium as an artistically expressive form of entertainment.

The Endless Forest is supported by Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxemburg, Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds and Design Vlaanderen.

The Endless Forest can be downloaded for free from
http://Tale-of-Tales.com/TheEndlessForest/

Cybertheaters mailinglist

A few months ago I started off a mailing list: Cybertheatres is a list devoted to the discussion and exchange on networked performance practices, that is, performances that employ the Internet and /or other networking technologies and techniques as media, but also as hybrid stages. Other than networked performance, the list also has an interest in diverse hybrids between theatre /performance and technologies.

The list, as well as this blog, are components of my PhD research in cybertheaters. The aim of the list is to send out news about relevant events, performances, symposia, lectures or any other activities to people interested in the field. I also hope that this will become a space for discussion on issues around the intersection of performance and technologies. Anybody subscribed to the list can post out to everyone, as well as search the archives and use the chatroom provided by JISCmail .

If you are interested in the field of performance and technologies as an artist, theorist, researcher, or technologist, if you enjoy to watch such events, or if you’d just like to know more about the field and what’s happening, come and join the mailing list.