Report

Posted on by admin Announcement, Events, ideas, news, presentations, projects, publications, Report, reports, research, tools

Decentralized Remote Chaos Experience

Closing Ceremony

Cyberpunk 2022 Trust in digital communication
How We Founded a Citizen Television Station
Unser Weg zum portablen DNA-Synthesizer
US government demands direct police access to European biometric data
Kunst im Umbau
K – Kulturarbeit
Solidarisch essen, ackern, imkern und wohnen
Raum für die schöne Welt
Das Fediverse steht für Vielfalt nicht für Einfalt
Das Mietshäuser Syndikat und das Neubauprojekt Görzer128
Kunst und Kommerz, ein problematisches Verhältnis
Geschlechtergerechtigkeit und Making
Git: Let’s f*ck up history, and then restore it
«Thank you for your data» oder weshalb uns das Thema Data Analytics interessieren sollte
Real citizens of Rheinfelden living in an AI painted model of Jakob Strassers hometown
Metaverse und NFT
Posted on by admin news, projects, Report, reports, research

Privatised Push-Back of the Nivin

Forensic Oceanography published the Nivin report.

In November 2018, five months after Matteo Salvini was made Italy’s Interior Minister, and began to close the country’s ports to rescued migrants, a group of 93 migrants was forcefully returned to Libya after they were ‘rescued’ by the Nivin, a merchant ship flying the Panamanian flag, in violation of their rights, and in breach of international refugee law.

The migrants’ boat was first sighted in the Libyan Search and Rescue (SAR) Zone by a Spanish surveillance aircraft, part of Operation EUNAVFOR MED – Sophia, the EU’s anti-smuggling mission. The EUNAVFOR MED – Sophia Command passed information to the Italian and Libyan Coast Guards to facilitate the interception and ‘pull-back’ of the vessel to Libya. However, as the Libyan Coast Guard (LYCG) patrol vessels were unable to perform this task, the Italian Coast Guard (ICG) directly contacted the nearby Nivin ‘on behalf of the Libyan Coast Guard’, and tasked it with rescue.

LYCG later assumed coordination of the operation, communicating from an Italian Navy ship moored in Tripoli, and, after the Nivin performed the rescue, directed it towards Libya.

While the passengers were initially told they would be brought to Italy, when they realised they were being returned to Libya, they locked themselves in the hold of the ship.

A standoff ensured in the port of Misrata which lasted ten days, until the captured passengers were violently removed from the vessel by Libyan security forces, detained, and subjected to multiple forms of ill-treatment, including torture.

This case exemplifies a recurrent practice that we refer to as ‘privatised push-back’. This new strategy has been implemented by Italy, in collaboration with the LYCG, since mid-2018, as a new modality of delegated rescue, intended to enforce border control and contain the movement of migrants from the Global South seeking to reach Europe.

This report is an investigation into this case and new pattern of practice.

Using georeferencing and AIS tracking data, Forensic Oceanography reconstructed the trajectories of the migrants’ vessel and the Nivin.

Tracking data was cross-referenced with the testimonies of passengers, the reports by rescue NGO WatchTheMed‘s ‘Alarm Phone’, a civilian hotline for migrants in need of emergency rescue; a report by the owner of the Nivin, which he shared with a civilian rescue organisation, the testimonies of MSF-France staff in Libya, an interview with a high-ranking LYCG official, official responses, and leaked reports from EUNAVFOR MED.

Together, these pieces of evidence corroborate one other, and together form and clarify an overall picture: a system of strategic delegation of rescue, operated by a complex of European actors for the purpose of border enforcement.

When the first–and preferred–modality of this strategic delegation, which operates through LYCG interception and pull-back of the migrants, did not succeed, those actors, including the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Rome, opted for a second modality: privatised push-back, implemented through the LYCG and the merchant ship.

Despite the impression of coordination between European actors and the LYCG, control and coordination of such operations remains constantly within the firm hands of European—and, in particular, Italian—actors.

In this case, as well as in others documented in this report, the outcome of the strategy was to deny migrants fleeing Libya the right to leave and request protection in Italy, returning them to a country in which they have faced grave violations. Through this action, Italy has breached its obligation of non-refoulement, one of the cornerstones of international refugee law.

This report is the basis for a legal submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee by Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) on behalf of an individual who was shot and forcefully removed from the Nivin.

Posted on by admin Events, news, presentations, projects, Report

Forensics and rescue in Mediterranean humanitarianism

The EGS seminar this year will continue to pursue the question of refugees, rights, and representation. The struggle for rights and recognition occurs on a battlefield of representations, among other things, and some of the chief actors on that field are humanitarians.  “Refugee” is a category for both humanitarian and human rights discourses, and the tension between the two representations of this condition has given rise to a robust critical literature. To claim rights is not the same thing to ask for help; the demand for justice can be very different than the plea for aid.  Both discourses, though, make reference to the concept of ‘humanity,’ and both practices increasingly rely on forensic or evidentiary strategies. We will explore critical accounts of humanitarian action and ask about their significance in light of the ongoing criminalization not only of migrants in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, but also of the humanitarians who seek to aid them. Is a new sort of politics of humanitarian action emerging in response to this targeting? We will continue to work with the investigators of Forensic Oceanography (this year Charles Heller will join us) , and we will also meet with humanitarian activists based in Malta.

SESSION 1: EXPELLED FROM HUMANTY ALTOGETHER
Hannah Arendt, “The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man,” in The Origins of Totalitarianism, World Publishing (1958), 267-302
Jacques Rancière, “Who is the Subject of the Rights of Man?,” South Atlantic Quarterly 103:2-3 (Spring-Summer 2004), 297-310

SESSION 2: CRITIQUE OF HUMANITARIAN REASON
Didier Fassin, “Truth Ordeal” and “Conclusion,”  in Humanitarian Reason, U Cal P (2011), 109-129, 243-257
Miriam Ticktin, “The Illness Clause,” in Casualties of Care , U Cal P (2011), 89-127

SESSION 3: FORENSIC OCEANOGRAPHY  1: FROM NON-ASSISTANCE TO DEATH BY RESCUE
Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani,  “Case: Left-to-Die Boat” and “Liquid Traces,”  in Forensis, Sternberg (2014) , 638-655, 657-684
Heller and Pezzani, “Ebbing and Flowing,” Near Futures Online 1, March 2016
Forensic Oceanography, The Left-to-Die Boat Case (2012): http://www.forensic-architecture.org/case/left-die-boat/
Forensic Oceanography, Death By Rescue (2016): https://deathbyrescue.org/report/narrative/

SESSION 4: FORENSIC OCEANOGRAPHY 2: CRIMINALIZING RESCUE
Amnesty International, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (2018)
Forensic Oceanography, Blaming the Rescuers (2018):
https://blamingtherescuers.org/
Valentina Zagaria, “When rescue at sea becomes a crime,” Open Democracy (15 September 2018)
https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/valentina-zagaria/when-rescue-at-sea-becomes-crime-who-tunisian-fishermen-arrested-in-italy-really-a
Giulia Bertoluzzi, “Tunisian fishermen on the front line of migrant tragedy,” Middle East Eye (31 October 2017)
https://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/fishermen-zarzis-1153799343

SESSION 5: SEMINAR WITH MALTA HUMANITARIAN ACTIVISTS

SESSION 6: RESCUE AS DEPOLITICIZING OR REPOLITICIZING?
Sophie Hinger, “Transformative Trajectories” (interview with Heller and Pezzani), Movements 4, no. 1 (2018), 193-208
Heller and Pezzani, “The Perils of Migration” (October 2018), draft  – no circulation
Paolo Cuttitta, “Repoliticization through Search and Rescue”,” Geopolitics 23, no. 3 (July -September 2018), 632-660
Paolo Cuttitta, “Pushing Migrants Back to Libya, Persecuting Rescue NGOs,” Border Criminologies blog (18 April 2018), Parts I and II

IF WE HAVE TIME
Joe Sacco, “The Unwanted,” in Journalism, Jonathan Cape (2012), 107-157
https://www.vqronline.org/vqr-gallery/unwanted-part-1
https://www.vqronline.org/vqr-gallery/unwanted-part-2

Posted on by admin Report

Sharing the Legacy

Kultura.TV legacy:

FRAGMENTA Book Crowdfunding Campaign from Fragmenta Malta on Vimeo.

Fragmenta
After 5 successful years, it was time for a celebration!
FRAGMENTA is proud to present all projects realized between 2013 and 2018 in form of a retrospective exhibition. Archive material of the past 5 years, as well as new contributions by FRAGMENTA artists, will be on display. Expect videos, live performances, anecdotes, jokes, surprises, fireworks, and bangs. We will show the real fragments of FRAGMENTA Malta. FRAGMENTA has been supported by Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture.
Fragmenta Malta
Malta’s Muses: Goddess, Madonna, Witch – A lecture and performance with Kay Turner. Fragmenta Malta is incredibly honored and proud to be able to present a site-specific performance by renowned folklore professor and performer Kay Turner on a special prehistoric site of Malta. Kay Turner will lecture on the overlapping her-stories of the Goddess, Madonna and Witch, three figures identifying Woman and women in Maltese life for generations, even millennia. Following the talk, Kay Turner will invite to a participatory performance. The performance will take form of a creative procession to which audience members are invited to join – or simply to watch. We are attempting to recreate a holy trinity. Additional performers from New York City: Mary Sanger, Karen Siegel, and Paula Schors
Since 2013, FRAGMENTA Malta has so far organized 25 art events and experimental exhibitions with many international artists. We are now raising funds to publish a book with an overview of these events, texts about art in public space and reflections on art’s responsibility in society, not only in Malta, but the whole world. The book also contains funny quotes, headlines, and absurdities. FRAGMENTA is an NGO based in Malta. It’s finally happening! The ultimate FRAGMENTA book is now available for pre-order! Written for both newcomers and long-time FRAGMENTA fans alike, this book – “FRAGMENTA 2013 – 2018. Art and Life in Public Space” – is a treasure-trove of art, art in public space and insider-information about Malta. Give your support here to help make this project happen! — https://www.indiegogo.com/…/fragmenta-malta-2013-2018-book-…Fragmenta Malta Bettina Hutschek

Art+Feminism
As part of the international Art+Feminism project, Spazju Kreattiv is hosting a wiki edit-a-thon to bring together people who are interested in learning how to edit Wikipedia to create new articles and improve existing content about women artists in Malta and their works. This hands-on event is led by Dr Toni Sant and facilitated by Wikimedia Community Malta and the M3P Foundation. There was also talks by historian Dr Tracy Prince, a Research Professor at Portland State University’s American Indian Teacher Program. Spazju Kreattiv M3P
Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon hija inizzjattiva bejn Blitz, l-Wikipedia Community Malta u Spazju Kreattiv ġewwa Saint James Cavalier taħt l-kappa tal-proġett Wiki Loves Art. Dan il-proġett inħoloq sabiex jiġu indirizzati ċertu nuqqasijiet fl-enċiklopedija diġitali, Wikipedia. L-attivitajiet infirxu fuq Spazju Kreattiv kif ukoll BLITZ li ospita’ wkoll esebizzjoni viżwali relatata mas-suġġett. Ltqajna mad-Direttur Artistiku Toni Sant fejn tkellimna aktar dwar dan il-katalogu li qed jinħoloq, b’kollezzjoni ta’ l-arti tagħna stess. Eventwalment dan qiegħed jitpoġġa fuq s-sit www.m3p.com.mt sabiex dan l-istess materjal ikun aċċessibbli għal kullħadd. F’kollaborazzjoni ma’ BLITZ, l-organizazzjoni ta’ l-arti kontemporanja fil-Belt Valletta matul l-avveniment li jmiss ser ikunu qegħdin iħarsu lejn l-arti u l-femminiżmu. Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon ser issir fid-9 ta’ Marzu fit-15.30pm sas-18.30pm u fl-10 ta’ Marzu bejn l-10.00am u l-16.00pm ġewwa BLITZ, Sta Lucia Street, Valletta.
During 2018 Blitz will be hosting an ART+FEMMINISM edit-a-thon. Art + Feminism is an international project aimed at improving content on women and the arts on Wikipedia, and encouraging women’s participation in the encyclopaedia. In the lead up to this event, Blitz invited Flora Katz to to present a public talk and raise awareness about Art + Feminism. On the occasion of the International Women’s Rights Day (March 8th), an edit-a-thon will be organised for the first time in Malta on March 9th and 10th, 2018 at the Blitz gallery, with the support of the French Embassy. Flora’s visit is supported by the French Embassy in Malta. For more information about Flora Katz: https://www.fondation-entreprise-ricard.com/…/134-flora-katz For more information regarding upcoming events by Blitz: http://thisisblitz.com/programme/

Transformer
Transformer, a multi-faceted, two-year project that builds relationships bet­ween the Maltese artistic context and international cultural networks through a series of border-crossing curatorial and artistic exchanges. There will be a project introduction by Transformer’s creative directors, Emma Talbot and Mick Finch, followed by a round table discussion with Transformer’s artists and artist-run organisations at 6.45pm, and a panel discussion, which will consider how the participating international artist-run organisations and artists involved with Transformer are operating in the con­tem­porary art context. There will then be the opening of the Transformer multi-site exhibition. Blitz Malta Society of Arts Villa Bologna
Sejjaħ lil Malta (Call Malta) is a site-specific performance by Lebanese artist Tania El Khoury, that take place on two shorelines. It is the sound of the relationship of Malta and Tunisia and the border in between: The Mediterranan Sea. El Khoury is also part of the group exhibition being held at the St Elmo Examinations Centre. Performances will be taking place between 4pm to 7pm (6 shows with limited capacity of 5 people each ride)

Utopian Nights includes a series of public events which bring artists and thinkers together to discuss important social issues related to exile and conflict. Utopian Nights
The Utopian Nights will take place over the course of four themed events, where experts will engage the public with artistic interpretations of pressing political themes. All sessions will include an open debate with experts and an invitation for public feedback, followed by the opportunity to continue discussion during a social mixer event. Utopian Nights: Inside the Border will be taking place from the 1st August to the 5th August 2018 at Howard Gardens, Mdina. Through an array of activities, including debates, storytelling, an open-air cinema, photo studios, street performances and a Spoken Word concert, the public is invited to explore the tangible and intangible borders that cut through and fragment our world today.

The Valletta Design Cluster
The Valletta Design Cluster is a community space for cultural and creative practice situated in the renovated Old Abattoir building (Il-Biċċerija) in Valletta, Malta. The site is undergoing restoration and regeneration in order to host the Valletta Design Cluster facilities as of late 2019. Openness is one of the main pillars on which the Valletta Design Cluster concept builds its vision, placing itself as a key facility for learning, networking, creating, sharing experiences, ideas and projects with a number of stakeholders coming from different communities.
The Valletta Design Cluster is a community space for cultural and creative practice situated in the renovated Old Abattoir building (Il-Biċċerija) in Valletta, Malta. The site is undergoing restoration and regeneration in order to host the Valletta Design Cluster facilities as of late 2019. Openness is one of the main pillars on which the Valletta Design Cluster concept builds its vision, placing itself as a key facility for learning, networking, creating, sharing experiences, ideas, and projects with a number of stakeholders coming from different communities.
Playspace: New narratives for public space is a Valletta 2018 and a Valletta Design Cluster event, developed and delivered by Valletta-based creative studios We Live Here and AP Valletta, in consultation with Invisible Playground (Berlin), Siġġiewi Local Council and Council for Kids. The project proposes an open, street workshop with children as protagonists, where questions as to the nature of public space can be explored through the eyes and voices of the young. While we continue to sacrifice our precious public space for vehicles, we forget that those unable to drive, particularly children, suffer the consequences of car domination most acutely.

The Strada Stretta Concept, now operating under the recently-established Valletta Cultural Agency is an initiative that was initiated back in 2015 by the Valletta 2018 Foundation. It is an initiative developed under the artistic direction of Valletta-born academic Prof. Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci who also led the project in the run-up to and during Valletta’s tenure as European Capital of Culture. The Strada Stretta Concept began with the objective of reviving the cultural life of Strait Street with a series of events bridging traditional art forms with more experimental and contemporary approaches. This year’s calendar will kick-off with Strada Stretta Jam x4 on Thursday 5th September, a live music event featuring three quartet bands and a duo along Strait Street, including veteran musicians Joe Cutajar, Joe Camilleri (Il-Bibi), Dominic Galea, and Spanish singer-songwriter Cristina Villalonga. A second event will be held on Wednesday 6th November: the macabre, the paranormal, and magic will be the theme of a cabaret-style event titled Macabaret. The audience is promised a captivating show led by Malta’s top magician, Vanni Pule’. For further information and to keep up to date with the Strada Stretta Concept, visit and like the Facebook page – www.facebook.com/thestradastrettaconcept Valletta Cultural Agency The Strada Stretta Concept

Cement Truck Procession
Artist Margerita Pulé’s Cement Truck Procession-event continued with the Cement-Bakery during the Mahalla Festival in Malta at the Palazzo in Zabbar November 18th – 25th. Our lives are run by the growl of the cement mixer. The builder’s truck welcomes in our mornings, and the chaser accompanies our lunch. Our days are counted by the digger and the crane. Construction vehicles are integral to our everyday lives, and now they would like an acknowledgment of this fact. In this procession, artist Margerita Pulè acknowledged the authority of the Cement Mixer and led it in a slow walk through along Tower Road in Sliema; a town that has long bent its knee to these construction vehicles. The procession began at the Piazzetta where Tower Road meets Qui Si Sana, walked along Tower Road, and up Dingli St. As the procession made its way along the narrow streets, the audience received small cakes and bread made of cement. At the end of the procession, the Cement Truck left, and the small company carried along Howard St to the small garden to the side of the Teatru Salesjan. Some cement was poured, and the procession’s bandalora was placed in the garden.

Shifting Contexts
The Shifting Contexts exhibition emerged following an open call for young artists by Aġenzija Żgħażagħ. Curated by Trevor Borg, this youth arts project explores the critical role of art in response to a rapidly changing world, one where young people are invited to contribute to the ongoing discourse on topical concerns. The exhibition illustrates how participating artists responded to the theme, which they all shift and move to an original context, thus generating new meanings that allow for further interpretations to emerge. Shifting Contexts promotes a shared vision for the future of young people in accordance with the National Youth Policy – Towards 2020. This will contribute to driving cultural, social and economic regeneration as envisaged in the mission statement of Valletta 2018 and collectively lead to the building of vital and dynamic visions for the future.

Constellation Malta
Curator Rosa Martinez, first female director of the Venice Biennale in 2005, brings an experimental and multi-disciplinary project to generate dialogue about contemporary art and popular culture in public spaces and heritage sites all over the Maltese archipelago. A contemporary art exhibition at various heritage sites sheds new light on megalithic sites like Ħaġar Qim, the fortified cities of Mdina and the Citadel, and other historical and popular venues on the Islands. Just as celestial constellations were shaped to provide orientation, the artistic interventions in Constellation Malta will propose points, routes and new itineraries to navigate the local crossover of social, political, economic and artistic contexts. Moving from the local to the cosmic, the project will address the complexities of our contemporary world.

the Commons
We would like to invite local activists, academics and anyone interested in discussing with international speakers the need for commons in Malta. We are welcoming persons engaged in the defense of collective and cooperative actions, confronting the neoliberalisation of the commons. On November 23-24th (Friday and Saturday afternoons) a round table on the topic of “the Commons” will be held in Valletta, Malta as part of the annual European Capital of Culture. The round table is the culmination of a series of events called Utopian Nights that have been bringing together the public, artists, activists and intellectuals since 2017. Utopian Nights Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture

TACTILE
TACTILE: 12 Concealed Sculptures is a visual art project intended to never be seen. Bringing together the works of Maltese, Japanese and other international sculptors within a space devoid of any light, TACTILE will leave its audiences no other way of understanding the artworks than through the sense of touch. This visually impenetrable setting will invite the general public to interact with the exhibits through what will remain a purely tactile experience. By having these sculptures concealed from the naked eye, the project aims to reverse any preconceived notions of the ‘normal’ process of perceiving visual art exclusively through sight. The Tactile: 12 Concealed Sculptures exhibition is being held at the Valletta University Campus between October 5 and November 4, 2018. It is open to visitors from Monday to Friday between 8am and 5pm; Saturdays from 10am till 2pm; and Sunday 4th November (last day of exhibition) from 10am till 2pm. The last admission is 30 minutes before closing time. Visit tactileproject.com for more information. Tactile: 12 concealed sculptures Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture

The Malta International Arts Festival provides a dynamic platform through which established and emerging Maltese artists can showcase their work and engage with broader audiences. Each year, the festival strives to enrich the cultural calendar with a host of events, including virtuoso music performances, visual installations, dance, and well-established international acts performing at various venues in and around Valletta. For more information visit www.festivals.mt Malta International Arts Festival Ruben Zahra
The Malta International Arts Festival (MIAF), produced by Festivals Malta, has just launched the highly-anticipated programme for its 2019 edition, taking place between 28 June and 14 July. The 14th edition of the MIAF will, once again, showcase an impressive mixture of local and international talent in different venues, encouraging wider audiences to join in the island-wide celebration of artistic innovation and cultural heritage. “The 2019 programme of this unique festival will present innovative productions with a strong interdisciplinary dimension that are accessible to a wide audience,” says Ruben Zahra, artistic director of the MIAF 2019. “Accessibility is at the heart of the MIAF.” Malta International Arts Festival Festivals Malta Ruben Zahra
“Il-Malta International Arts Festival jippreżenta programm varjat ta’ mużika, żfin u tejatru dejjem bl-livell għoli ta’ eċċellenza artistika fl-istess ħin aċċessibbli għal pubbliku wiesgħa”. – Ruben Zahra, Direttur Artistiku. Malta International Arts Festival Festivals Malta

Magna Żmien
Magna Żmien is a project set up by a group of like-minded individuals with the aim of preserving and giving access to local content which was recorded on analogue, sound and image home collections. Central to the project is the reinterpretation and creative use of this digital content for artistic purposes. For more information visit www.magnazmien.com Magna Żmien Tal-Kultura Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture
Magna Żmien presents The Magnificent Memories Machine For the collection of local memories: Landing # 5 Kalkara
Kalkara Parish Hall, Archbishop Gonzi Square, Kalkara
Latitude: 35°53′21″N Longitude: 14°31′46″E
03.11.2018 – 19:30PM
The time-machine performance by Armchair Voyager Wistin and the Banda ta’ Memorji Meraviljużi.
Magna Żmien huwa proġett li twaqqaf min grupp ta’ nies bl-għan komuni ta’ preżervazzjoni u aċċess għal-memorji u stejjer popolari Maltin, li ġew irrekordjati fuq kollezzjonijiet awdjoviżwali li jinsabu fid-djar tan-nies. L-użu u interpretazzjoni tal-kontenut diġitali f’kuntesti ġodda u artistiċi huwa ukoll għan ċentrali għall-dan il-proġett.
Ġewwa Valletta Contemporary, għada ser tiġi mnedhija wirja jisimha ‘Here&Now’ u hija l-ewwel edizzjoni f’sensiela ta’ wirijiet oħra. L-għan tagħhom huwa li jippromovu arti żagħżugħa kemm f’Malta u kemm fir-reġjun mediterran. Din l-esibizzjoni ser tkun f’kollaborazzjoni bejn 9 artisti Maltin żgħażagħ.
Andrew Alamango minn Magna Żmien kellimna aktar dwar dan il-progett li huwa produzzjoni tal- Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture. L-ghan ta dan il-progett huwa t-tfittixija, ricerka ta formats antiki bhal analogue tas-seklu ghoxrin. L-intenzjoni hi li neqilbu l-memorji ta l-individwu ghal dik digitali.
Bhalissa qed issir ricerka f’erbgha lokalitajiet li huma: l-Birgu, s-Siggiewi, l-Mellieha u r-Rabat, Ghawdex. Magna Zmien qed iheggu n-nies sabiex jigu sabiex ihallu l-memorji taghhom. “Holl il-memorji tieghek sabiex ikollkom access. Meta jkollok access ghal-memorji tieghek, tkun tista tgawdi u taqsamhom mal-familja u haddiehor. B’hekk il-pajjiz u n-nies jirbhu!” – Andrew Alamango.

Artistic Multi Unique Sensorial Experience
AMuSE – standing for ‘Artistic Multi Unique Sensorial Experience’ – is a project led by Malta’s oldest arts organisation, MSA, aiming to present new creative readings on the sense of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing through various interpretations in the realm of visual arts. The project is hosting a series of workshops and studio visits to support the artistic research of the 16 selected artists from the 4 participating countries. The project will culminate in an exhibition of artworks to be held in 2019 at MSA’s premises, the Palazzo de La Salle in Valletta.

Inizjamed tħabbar li l-Festival Mediterranju tal-Letteratura ta’ Malta għal din is-sena, l-erbatax-il edizzjoni konsekuttiva, se jkollu ġimgħa sħiħa ta’ attivitajiet, u se jibda nhar il-Ħadd, 18 ta’ Awwissu u jagħlaq bi tliet iljieli bejn il-Ħamis, 22 ta’ Awwissu u s-Sibt, 24 ta’ Awwissu fil-Forti ta’ Sant’Iermu, il-Belt Valletta. Bħal snin oħra fil-Festival se jikkontribwixxu erba’ awturi ewlenin Maltin – Antoine Cassar u Loranne Vella, it-tnejn friski bil-Premju Nazzjonali tal-Ktieb, l-awtriċi Rena Balzan li ilha fix-xena tal-letteratura Maltija mis-snin tmenin, u l-poeta emerġenti Elizabeth Grech. #FMLM2019 Inizjamed

ROTOT – Mediterranean Routes through Intercultural Dialogue
A seminar organized by the cultural association Inizjamed aims to address how different local realities can be brought together to reflect a wider, more common Mediterranean reality, or set of realities, that inter-relate with one another. The aspect of the Phoenicians being a sort of mythical, legendary archetype of common Mediterranean roots that however still inspires many cultural operators in seeking exchange through intercultural dialogue, as opposed to neocolonial and neoliberal economic measures, will provide us with a framework to which all of our speakers can relate to – this is so because in some way or another they either address this aspect through their work, or in a way act as contemporary Phoenicians, so to speak.
Ltqajna mal-Professur JoAnn Cassar, li hija l-Kap tad-Dipartiment tal-Konservazzjoni u Wirt Mibni. Bħala dipartiment għandhom żewġ irwoli mportanti li waħda hija l-konservazzjoni mhux biss tal-bini imma anke tat-tpinġija speċjalment fuq il-ħajt u l-oħra l-irwol li jgħallmu l-istudenti tar-restawr. Kif wkoll kellmitna dwar il-korsijiet tal-Masters f’dan il-qasam.

Download the Valletta 2018 Final Impacts Report

What makes a city better?
The fifth in the Valletta 2018 Foundation’s series of annual conferences, this conference encourages broad reflection on the central issues that define urban life by channelling its discussions through the basic question of “What makes a city better?”. This reflection aims to understand how cities can be shaped to better suit the needs and desires of the individuals and communities that it hosts, whether on a permanent or temporary basis. Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture

The Valletta 2018 Foundation’s Evaluation & Monitoring research plan enables the Foundation to assess the success, or otherwise, of the process in a consistent, accessible and comparable manner.

The Foundation has set up an Evaluation & Monitoring Steering Committee to monitor and evaluate the impacts of Valletta as a European Capital of Culture. The Steering Committee is composed of four public entities (Economic Policy Department, Jobsplus, Malta Tourism Authority, and National Statistics Office) and five researchers, conducting research of a quantitative and qualitative nature. The research plan runs for the period of 2015-2019.

The research plan is structured around 5 research themes, each containing a range of separate studies.

The annual Valletta 2018 international conference builds upon the vital dialogue established during previous editions. Over three days, the conference explores the legacy of the Valletta 2018 European Capital of Culture (ECoC) title locally and across the European spectrum. Topics discussed range from the creation of community projects to the regeneration of previously derelict areas in Valletta, all of which can foster a more vibrant and diverse city.

The conference is an invitation to assess and discuss the changing nature of the city and the future of cultural activity in Valletta. These reflections allow for a deeper understanding of the long-term residual impact of the cultural, social and economic regeneration that took place in Valletta in the run-up to and throughout 2018, ahead of the presentation of the Evaluation and Monitoring results which will take place in 2019.

Teodor Reljic reviewed V18 in MaltaToday: Looking back at 2018: After Valletta 2018, we will never be the same again

The Valletta 2018 Foundation and its ensuing initiatives were far from perfect, but the ability of the Capital of Culture title to bolster existing cultural infrastructure and networking opportunities cannot be ignored. This is the ‘big picture’ viewpoint that emerges from a conversation with a number of creative practitioners and cultural stakeholders on the island, when asked to give their take on Malta’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2018 — which officially concluded with a grand finale party in Valletta on December 15.

“The whole ECoC phenomenon generated unprecedented public awareness of the cultural sector and greater drive, funds and energy,” Albert Marshall, Executive Chairman of Arts Council Malta, said, adding that the series of events which made up the entire initiative also included some significant crowd-pullers, “but it was also this that might have engendered criticism about commercialisation”.

Despite this, Marshall believes that the events forming part of the Valletta 2018 calendar also made room for diversity and experimentation, citing projects such as Rima and Utopian Nights as “engaging people with diverse backgrounds or intergenerational participants”, while initiatives like AltoFest and the Gozo residency programme helped foster an international dimension.

Recalling the build-up towards the event, Kenneth Zammit Tabona, Artistic Director of Teatru Manoel, stressed that while the theatre itself was not directly involved with the Valletta 2018 Foundation, it nonetheless “benefited from the cultural atmosphere created, whose ‘value added’ is incalculable”, and among whose legacies one can list the Valletta International Baroque Festival, which held it inaugural edition in 2011, just as preparations for Valletta’s bid as Capital of Culture first began in earnest.

“We will never be the same again. Let’s hope the momentum will be maintained in future,” Zammit Tabona added, with reference to the recently announced Valletta Cultural Agency, which appears to be set up to build on the Foundation’s work beyond 2018.

Alexandra Pace, founder and director of Valletta-based contemporary art space Blitz, also emphasised the importance of maintaining a focused approach towards any legacy that the Valletta 2018 Foundation hopes to enjoy.

“To build a long lasting impact in the art field local players need continuity, strategy and a shared plan for the future. Uncertainty is terribly limiting considering we don’t have a developed art market to bank on, and much of what happened this year could be impossible in 2019 and upcoming years,” Pace said.

“The European Capital of Culture is an event-based initiative, so if Valletta Foundation is meant to stay, and I hope so, I would expect it to become a third party agency for the development of Valletta art scene in partnership with its art professionals,” she added.

However, the Foundation was also rife with controversy throughout its run up to holding the title over the past year — most of which related to the often injudicious and sometimes even uncouth political dimension that encroached on the project.

Perhaps the most recent and damning occurrence to blight the V18 experience — even attracting negative attention beyond our shores — was a social media gaffe by Chairman Jason Micallef, who in March snapped a picture of St Patrick’s Day revellers and posted it on Facebook, with an accompanying caption that appeared to ridicule the final written words of assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Though any ill intention was vociferously denied by Micallef himself, the gaffe — flagged by PEN International as a reason to strip Micallef of his post — highlighted the troubled nature of the Capital of Culture unfolding under the shadow of Caruana Galizia’s assassination — particularly when Micallef and his team insisted on powering on with an upbeat ‘festa’ theme to colour the entire initiative; ostensibly as a way to make Valletta 2018 accessible to all, but in reality creating something of a parallel universe, where culture positioned as a tool of escapism while the realities of the assassination commanded most of our attention.

In fact, as former Valletta 2018 Executive Director Karsten Xuereb writes in a paper published as part of the congress proceedings of the 9th annual The European network on cultural management and policy (ENTAC) Education and Research Session (Budapest, September 2018), even the deeply contested space of the Daphne Caruana Galizia memorial in front of the Valletta Law Courts ended up literally ‘upstaging’ a Valletta 2018 exhibition.

“The opening of [Dal-Baħar Madwarha (‘The Island Is What The Sea Surrounds’)] took place in front of the cistern entry, in front of the Law Courts in Valletta, and hence just steps away from the Great Siege memorial that has, over the past months, brought together people marking the memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia through makeshift means, attracting international attention and arguably adding nuances to tourists’ perspectives of Malta and its culture,” Xuereb writes.

However, Xuereb’s dismissal from his Valletta 2018 post, along with that of former programme coordinator Margerita Pule, in fact also stands as a black mark on the Foundation’s reputation. A seemingly out-of-the-blue move decided upon just months before the official beginning of the Capital of Culture year, the move raised questions both on the ethical implications of the dismissals, as well as the suspect strategic choice behind replacing such a key post at the eleventh hour.

An open letter signed by a generous number of local artists to this effect led to a dismissive response by Micallef himself, with Parliamentary Secretary Deo Debattista stepping in to offer some consultation sessions with the artists in question, little of which appears to have built substantial bridges.

Reacting to the aura of fear — even hostility — that appears to characterise the artist/government body relationship in Malta, Maren Richter, curator of the ‘Dal-Baħar Madwarha’ exhibition, commented that, “Art and culture should not be orchestrated nor overshadowed by politics. Art itself is never free of the political. But it should be given the freedom to speak for itself.”

Richter also observed how, “There were quite a few international TV teams in Malta this year, who would tell me that they got the impression that artists feared to talk about certain issues in public – with the result that those TV teams rather focused on this observation than on the actual art projects. This is a real pity. Ideally, politics should be narrated through the arts not arts through politics. And the bigger a festival, the more this has to be taken care of actively.”

After all was said and done, a number of local artists and cultural stakeholders appear to be ready to treat any misgivings as water under the bridge, provided that real, structural shortcomings are seen to and acknowledged.

Among these is the undeniably baffling reality of the Foundation never having a ‘proper’ artistic director. While Mario Philip Azzopardi — a contentious figure in his own right, with a social media trigger-finger to rival that of Jason Micallef — was officially given that post, he would quickly clarify that his role was simply that of orchestrating the large-scale spectacles under the 2018 remit, such as its opening ceremony on January 20 and the Pageant of the Seas event.

For Toni Attard, head of strategy at arts funding body Culture Venture and former director of strategy at Arts Council Malta, the lack of such a central figure goes some way towards explaining the erratic shifts in approach that characterised the Foundation’s run-up to the Capital of Culture year.

“From the first bid-book to the final delivery of Valletta 2018, one notices quite a different programme,” Attard said, stressing how the initial idea for the Capital of Culture year was “more artist-led”, with various projects originating from the artistic communities themselves rather than being conceived and controlled by a central governmental body. “Granted, some of these survived the cull and made their way into the final programme… however, they ended up being fringe-like events. This is hardly surprising given that Valletta 2018 ended up without any official artistic director on board, save for its large-scale events.”

The lack of attention being given to ‘smaller’ events certainly finds itself echoed among representatives from the theatrical scene. Among them is Sean Buhagiar, Artistic Director of Teatru Malta. While stressing that Valletta 2018 provided an undeniable boost for the Maltese cultural scene — not least because it put culture on the national agenda in an unprecedented way — he agrees that the tendency to boost flashier large-projects at the expense of their smaller counterparts was something of a misstep.

“Besides the fact that I believe there was way too much happening — causing audience exhaustion and an unsustainable calendar of free events — it was quite a shame to see brilliant projects like Magna Zmien, Gewwa Barra, Latitude 36, Solar Cinema and other projects led by passionate artists being almost disregarded when compared to the high-priced, sugar-coated, large-scale projects. From what I’ve experienced personally, it is these smaller-scale projects which will form part of a real intangible heritage. The focus could have been narrowed down, so as to improve such projects. I would put this down mostly to a lack of a clear, cohesive artistic vision,” Buhagiar said.

Similarly, actor and playwright Malcolm Galea said he would have preferred to see “fewer extravagant and expensive one-off projects and more of a focus on smaller projects that have a higher chance of being self-sufficient and ongoing for the next few years, thereby generating a legacy.”

Actor and director Philip Leone-Ganado, whose ‘Shakespeare at the Pub’ productions offered an interesting ‘fringe’ experience of local theatre, unshackled from public funding institutions, was even more impassioned when discussing the shortcomings of Foundation — both in terms of its attitude towards smaller and ‘dissenting’ voices, and the overall direction that it took as an entity.

“I wish they had realised that appointing divisive figures to lead your project will lead to a divisive project. I wish they had engaged with the whole of the community, not just the parts of it that said the words they want to hear. I wish their insight into what makes the Maltese cultural scene tick extended beyond the festa, that appealing to everyone is appealing to no-one, that ‘give the people what they want’ only takes you so far. I wish they’d focused less on spectacle and more on laying a real groundwork artists could build on in the years to come,” Leone-Ganado said.

Adrian Buckle, founder of Unifaun Theatre, was even more direct and abrasive in his assessment of the Valletta 2018 Foundation and its legacy, simply stating that, “V18 will only be remembered for the parties.”

A more sober analysis came from Daniel Azzopardi, Programme Manager at Spazju Kreattiv at St James Cavalier — one of Valletta’s most prominent cultural institutions.

“There’s always room for improvement, and this is no exception,” Azzopardi said, emphasising the need for “more training programmes and investment in professional development initiatives in areas such as technical work, backstage and production management”.  He also regretted an apparent lack of synergy and collaboration with other public cultural organisations in the development of a holistic long-term sustainable strategy that “enhances opportunities for professionalisation, creates alternative ways of funding, develops systematic audience engagement practices and sets benchmarks for artistic excellence”.

However, others took an even more pragmatic approach to the matter, suggesting that we should moderate our expectations as to what to expect from a Capital of Culture, even confronted with its European reality. It is a viewpoint perfectly encapsulated by Mark Camilleri, Executive Chairman of the National Book Council.

“The biggest recipients to the success of Capital of Culture were businesses in Valletta, but people should not be surprised by this because this is what often happens in Capitals of Culture. Governments tend to view Capitals of Culture as an opportunity to increase tourism and business in the city more, rather than bolster cultural and intellectual development,” Camilleri said, adding that, however, that, “It would be empirically wrong to say that the Capital of Culture didn’t bring about any benefits at all to local culture industries”.

“The Capital of Culture gave a legitimate excuse for cultural and educational bodies like the National Book Council to lobby for more public funding and resources. We have used Capital of Culture as a pretext to lobby government to grant the National Book Council a 16th-century Baroque palace in Valletta. We were successful, and we aim to turn the newly-granted palace into a freely-accessible public space, Museum of Literature and a bookshop which serves as a cultural agent. In a similar way, it remains up to the culture and educational institutions to ensure to leave a long-lasting legacy and bring forth cultural and intellectual development,” Camilleri added.

Contacted for comment, Valletta Major Alexiei Dingli reiterated his desire to disassociate himself from the Foundation, and refrained from commenting further.

No Time for Nostalgia
After V18
Gentrification
Boutique Hotels
Valletta 2018 Closing Spectacle
Digital Projections

Posted on by admin Events, Report

Conference on Digital Culture & AudioVisual Challenges

Adnan presented the after.video book at the DCAC conference in Corfu, Greece.

The International Conference on Digital Culture & AudioVisual Challenges will be held in Corfu (Greece) and is hosted by the Department of Audio & Visual Arts (Ionian University).

The aim of the conference is to bring together technology, art and culture in the Digital Era, as well as to provide a forum on current research and applications incorporating technology, art and culture in the Digital Era.

Researchers, artists and scholars are encouraged to participate in the discussion about the interaction between interdisciplinary creativity, technology, arts and culture. Authors are invited to present original papers for oral or poster presentation in the fields of New Media Arts and Digital Culture.

Posted on by d.tv Deptford.TV, mazi, news, presentations, projects, regeneration, Report, reports, research, ReSynced

Creeknet XF Symposium

Its been a very hectic few weeks at SPC as we bring focus onto DIY networks of Deptford Creek at the first Creeknet Symposium on 20th and 21st June.

The poster here for you to print and put up in your window, outlines event details which can be found in full on the SPC event listings and at http://deptfordcreek.net

The Creeknet friends have been meeting regularly at venues up and down the creek. We have been exploring the fast changing environment and revisiting access points onto the river, crossing bridges and improving an understanding of local concerns and ambitions. The last of these before summer takes hold is on Monday 12th June at noon, in the Undercurrents gallery inside the Birdsnest pub on Deptford Church Street. We will be collecting together images and stories to publish at the local network Anchorholds, a trail of information points along the creek, so please do come along to contribute your experiences !

Rapid progress was made by the very energetic Hoy Steps clear-up group on Monday 5th June. The huge overgrowth of Buddleia clogging views, was cut down and disposed of in a flurry of action and enthusiasm. The vigorous roots of this plant have got deep into and have damaged the sea wall and will continue to regrow unless more drastic measures to remove remnants are adopted soon, even then they are likely to return!

Wooden pallets stored at street level have been sorted and stacked ready for re-use or removal and the rubbish sheet materials, plastic wrappers and polystyrene are bagged ready for disposal. We return early on Tuesday 13th to complete the clean-up process in preparation for a public viewing during Creeknet Symposium the following week.

Friends of Deptford Creek is a community group set up to support, represent and protect the human, natural and built environment of Deptford Creek, London. How do these two different groups work together? How does the changing landscape affect them? What technologies can help?

Find out by joining us over an exciting two days of public meet ups and workshops to exchange ideas and explore the DIY networks of Deptford Creek<http://deptfordcreek.net/>.

Meet MAZI<http://mazizone.eu/> partners from around Europe, Chat to local community groups, and play with our technology that support local networks and discuss what’s next for Deptford. You can attend all or parts of these events over the two days by registering with Eventbrite here:

Tuesday 21st June 2017
Wednesday 22nd June 2017

For further information please visit this website.

This week starting Monday 12 June, we have a busy schedule to install equipment, complete work and do last minute promotion. (really!). Today we are meeting at the Undercurrents Gallery in the Birdsnest pub to update the mazizone prototype there and meet with local mariners and artists to discuss their network systems. On Tuesday it’s an early Lowtide and 10AM return to the Hoysteps to complete clearup work and prepare for a visit the following week, refreshments provided. After lunch we will be installing bluetooth beacons along the creek to mark out the Anchorhold locations

Wireless Wednesday at http://bit.spc.org this week is dedicated to preparation of print materials for distribution during the Creeknet Symposium so please come along and help out, but please hold off on the broken PC’s for a couple of weeks! On Thursday and Friday, We will be testing the Creeknet Anchoholds app, a guide to the DIY networks of Deptford Creek. If you would like to help out please call for more details as we will be working along the length of the tidal creek from Brookmill Park to the Swing bridge.

http://friends.deptfordcreek.net

Don’t forget to tell us you are attending Creeknet Symposium, not least so we can arrange catering! Please register.

Creeknet meet-up @ Hoy

The MAZI Project is working on an alternative technology, Do-It-Yourself networking, a combination of wireless technology, low-cost hardware, and free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) applications, for building local networks, known as community wireless networks.

Posted on by d.tv mazi, Report, reports, research, ReSynced

The Wireless Battle Mesh v10

==========================================================
The Wireless Battle Mesh v10
5th – 11th of June 2017, Vienna, Austria
==========================================================

The next ‘Wireless Battle of the Mesh’ will take place from Mon 5th – Sun 11th of June in the Austrian Museum of Folk Life And Folk Art (http://www.volkskundemuseum.at) in Vienna.

The event aims to bring together all people from across the globe that are interested in wireless mesh network technologies and community networks in general. 6 days full of expert presentations, late night hacking sessions, measurement campaigns, protocol discussions, and a whole lotta other meshy things.

So if you are a mesh networking enthusiast, community networking activist, or have an interest in mesh networks in general, you have to check this out!

Continuously updated information about the event:
http://battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV10

 

Location
========

We are located in the upper floor of very nice historical museum in the middle of Vienna. One large conference room and two adjacent hacking areas are at our full disposal there. The whole area offers nice atmosphere and plenty of room to deploy measurement testbeds. The adjacent park is a beautiful analog distraction, especially in this time of the year. The metalab – a very active local hackerspace – is only 5 minutes away.

 

Accommodation Offering
======================

For those of you who are looking for a convenient and low cost accommodation option: we have made block reservation for 40 people in a nice hostel 10-15min walking distance from the Museum. The packages include 6 nights in a four-bed room incl. breakfast – for a mere €100. Follow the simple instructions below to get one of these hot deals 😉 a first come first serve scheduler is used.

 

Registration
============

The event is *free of charge* and registration is optional – but it makes the organisation much easier if you tell us in advance that you plan to come.

Please send a mail to v10@battlemesh.org that looks somewhat like this:

 

########
Subject: Registration

Name and/or Nick = …
Interested in accommodation package = [Yes/No]
T-Shirt Size = [S/M/L/none]
Other details you want to share: …
(e.g. community, country, URLs, twitter handle, dietary restrictions, …)
########

 

We will then put your name on the public participants list: http://battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV10/Participants
And we will answer with payment instructions for the accommodation package to those that are interested in one.

 

Travel Scholarships
===================

If you want to apply for a travel scholarship (compensating the costs of a long distance flight to Vienna and back) please explicitly tell us so in the registration mail. We will then ask you to prepare a short video message in which you are giving a brief introduction to yourself and your interests.

 

Spread the Word
===============

Please help us spreading the word by forwarding this to all lists and people that might be interested. Blogging about it is also very appreciated, and if you do so, please add a ping-back to the wiki page:

http://battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV10

 

The Local Infrastructure Core Team
==================================

Albert Rafetseder (albert.rafetseder at univie.ac.at, key ID 0x90382EC8)
Clemens Hopfer (datacop at wireloss.net, key ID 0x5EBA9D09)
Paul Fuxjaeger (paul.fuxjaeger at gmx.at, key ID 0xB5BB47E7)

 

Contact
=======

* Web: http://battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV10
* Email: http://ml.ninux.org/mailman/listinfo/battlemesh
* IRC: irc.freenode.net #battlemesh
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/battlemesh/

Posted on by d.tv Deptford.TV, mazi, news, regeneration, Report, reports, research, ReSynced

Creakynet

We visited the Hoy Steps again today to view the condition of the street level area inside the gates and assess the clean up task. After 20 years of restricted access, an accumulation of old wheels, wooden pallets and tangle of Buddleia block the steps. There is also a large amount of scaffolding framing the space which can be used again in any reconstruction plan. High tide at midday prevented us seeing more than half a dozen of the twenty steps that lead down to the muddy shoreline at low tide. A ferry once transported people across the creek to Greenwich at this point. The ‘hoy!’ call out to summon a boat was first heard here hundreds of years ago.

Our previous Creeknet meet-up started out at Laban Dance cafe’ from where we walked down Creekside and over the Ha’penny Hatch footbridge to the fork in the path on the Norman Road side. Thames Tideway are rapidly completing this controversial diversion, whilst setting out their groundwork for an 18m diameter x 60m deep excavation to a 12m diameter 30km sewage overflow tunnel from Ealing on route to Becton.

Waste removal from the Greenwich Pumping station site will add 100 trucks a day to the roads already overloaded with heavy construction services. Earlier suggestions to use huge river barges have been kicked into the long grass in favour of the pre-approved and cheaper option.!

Continuing on our way up to Creek Bridge, we stopped off at the far end of Hiltons Wharf, to step out on to the tiny mooring point in time to catch departure of the Prior’s aggregate ship to Gravesend for a refill. Opposite, the race for construction of two huge towers crashes on, sucking up the entire concrete capacity of Euromix!

After a well deserved coffee at Hoy Kitchen and visit to the steps we were picked up by Camden for a fantastic river trip aboard a motorised lifeboat, which first took us out onto the Thames before returning us to the nest of houseboats at 4 Creekside.

Please take that trip sometime, till then check this video! More photos here.

At the furthest reaches of the tidal creek, Friends of Brookmill Park held their quarterly meeting to map out activities for the rest of spring and early summer. Their re planting program in the formal garden adjacent to Stephen Lawrence centre is proceeding well with fresh lavender beds and new roses. Mariner and beekeeper Julian Kingston will talk about local shipbuilding at a fundraiser event in Brookmill pub on June 7th, space is limited to 30 seats so get your ticket soon!

That’s just a few weeks before the Creeknet Symposium on 20th and 21st June. DIY networks of Deptford Creek host partners from the MAZI project in Germany, Switzerland and Greece to attend this ‘cross pollination event’, all are welcome.

The first day begins at Hoy Kitchen on Creek Road with rolling breakfast welcome, exhibition of local images and stories followed by mass low tide walk at Creekside Discovery Centre at 3pm. The second day starts with project presentations and lunch at Stephen Lawrence Centre, followed by a visit to Redstart Arts and picnic in Brookmill Park. Finally take a walkshop to the Creek Mouth, crossing bridges and exploring the Creeknet trail.

Posted on 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

A showcase of work by students of the course on Live Coding and Live Algorithms given at Leuphana University this past semester. Thirteen students will perform short live or algorithmic music sets they have been creating over the past weeks. Performances by (in no particular order): Kai Man Wong | Sebastian Ganschow | Lucas Wolf | Nico Hampl | Jan Brinkmann | Franziska Henne | Henri Nehlsen | Santi Colombatto | Hannah Keymling | Anna-­Maria Dickmann | Kajetan von Hollen | Kersten Benecke | Daeun Jeon

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

Berghain | Disturbance: Actress | DJ Stingray | Moor Mother | SKY H1 | Yally [Raime] Panorama Bar | Heat: ENDGAME | Mechatok | mobilegirl | Virgil Abloh 02. Februar 2017 | Doors: 21 Uhr / 9 pm | Start: 10:00 pm | Eintritt ab 18 Jahre! / x-­rated Please respect our no-­photos policy

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

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 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 by d.tv Deptford.TV, mazi, news, regeneration, Report, reports, research, ReSynced

Post unitary

Ongoing MAZI research into DIY networks and complimentary solutions has turned up many great options. Our current favorite is Sandstorm.io a a collaboration suite of open source software which continues to develop and swell with features.

Three new servers in centres of activity, have been introduced where the rising need for safe, secure and stable alternatives to corporate cloud is called for by subscribers and collaborators.

Mazi is well on track to present combinations of network and collective development tools in 2018, a pick and mix of hardware, software and scenario conditioning, though we are not there yet! Adoption of ultra low power ARM based pc’s like Raspberry Pi for a multitude of tasks is on a rocket. On the flipside, a mountain of small format, legacy laptop and powerful low cost / free desktop i386 hardware is in great abundance, a glut even, these are perfect hosts for Sandstorm.

As we concluded the third Creeknet meet-up at Stephen Lawrence Centre this week, it was great to welcome this group of residents from the boating community of Deptford Creek.

The large converted coal barge, Luna, moors alongside a nest of boats in the mud at No2 Creekside and this is where will next meet-up again in March. It’s home to ten young people who share the residence and have expressed enthusiasm to shape their own futures here by improving communications between boat owners and public awareness of river living. Concerns over continuity of mooring for the many boats here is uppermost in everyones mind as development plans emerge that throw assumption about tenure into questions.

When we last spoke to Julian Kingston, he mentioned how difficulties in communications between the new LLP owning the yard, the DLR and boat owners was provoking anxiety. Land access here for moored boats depends on continued good will and understanding from all parties. Shoreside utilities, access to clean water and sanitation, power and telecoms are vital.

SPC are working with OU and Creeknet friends to establish a network of interactive installations along the tidal creek, that forms a DIY networking trail from Brookmill Park to the Swing Bridge. Using a combination of low power computing and mesh wireless technology, this initiative aims to support existing neighbourhood activity and inform Mazi toolkit development. Follow it along the length of the tidal creek from beacon to beacon, each point presenting locally sourced and augmented information.

Each Mazizone consists of a reconfigured Rasbian operating on a Raspberry Pi that hosts, webserver and database tools that are arranged and refined to suit local conditions. They are connected to existing broadband internet or as standalone ‘offline’ systems. Each offers ‘Creeknet’ wireless access, which responds to your web request by presenting a captive ‘portal’ page loaded with guides for use, selected collaboration tools,  and a view on each neighborhood.

The current MAZI toolkit release is V1.6 with the project sources bug tracking and development notes at Github. We invite all those interested to get in touch, download and install the development images and contribute feedback and follow our progress. The details of how best to configure and deploy a mazizone are being accumulated as we experiment.

Project partners at Univesity of Thessaly in Greece have the job of building and managing the development of the toolkit software, adding and adapting to the evolving requirements. You can preview the default Mazi toolkit, but for better insight into how progress is being made in London please visit one of the Creeknet Mazizones and try out the options. We now also have berryboot versions of the toolkit hosted by Alex Goldcheidt alongide the hundreds of alternative OS for the Raspberry Pi at Berryserver.

Since loosing the boat in a fire in January, Minesweeper Collective are operating in Deckspace and at DIY Space for London. Their Undercurrents gallery at Birdsnest was first to be installed to support the group art exhibitions updated each month.

We have been meeting Creeknet friends regularly at Hoy kitchen on Creek Road where a Mazizone was installed in March. We will return there this coming Monday at noon for a research session with those specifically interested in clean-up of the Hoy Steps.

Artist Karen Barnes mazizone is Eileen Ford named after her pinhole camera truck parked in the yard at N02 Creekside. It has a built in camera and other sensory extensions, fitted inside her human sized portable ‘box camera’ to record and publish pinhole images on the move. It operates in ‘offline’ mode and presents a guestbook, image galleries, and reports on changing conditions.

When we return to Brookmill Park in May the fourth Creeknet Mazizone will be installed at the Park keepers hut by the pond. It will help friends of Brookmill Park co-ordinate public events, present wildlife images and environmental conditions.

Our UK partners at Open University have set up a mazizone installation of their own to demonstrate to their colleagues and experiment with new features whilst in their work space in Milton Keynes.