Networked_Performance

• 

  Neural 15th Anniversary: Issue #31

  Posted: 17-December-2008, 4:17pm CET by jo

  Neural 15th Anniversary: Issue #31: Neural magazine celebrates 15 years of publishing with Issue #31 and joining S.W.A.M.P. group (Doug Easterly and Matt Kenyon) for a collective micro-printing action.

  Subscribers will receive a numbered / limited edition of S.W.A.M.P.’s “Notepad” sheet of paper with an envelope. It looks like an everyday yellow legal paper, but each line is constructed of micro-printed text and contains the personal details of Iraqi civilian casualties. Subscribers are triggered to write a letter or memo or draw a picture on it and send it to the White House, then signing up for a free replacement sheet on the S.W.A.M.P. website, if they want. Once in circulation each sheet then acts as a “Trojan horse” - slipping the unwanted and unacknowledged civilian body count data into official governmental archives. This is a joint action that proves how paper and pixel together can make the difference.

• 

  Infected: Viral Call for Viral Work

  Posted: 17-December-2008, 7:20pm CET by jo

  KURATOR and LX 2.0 Commissions and Residencies 2009: Infected: Viral Call for Viral Work — Artist commissions for Anti-Bodies: Beyond The Body-Ideal, the South West, Cultural Olympiad, UK :: Deadline: January 31, 2009 (sent by email to info [at] kurator.org.

  KURATOR and LX 2.0 are looking for a new work to infect the Olympics. We will commission two online projects that respond to the idea of the ‘virus’ for Anti-Bodies: Beyond The Body-Ideal, a series of projects that reflect on the ideal ‘body-machine’ of the Olympic athlete. By virus we mean to draw attention to any agent that is able to reproduce itself and spread over communications networks and infect the host body. For instance, a computer virus describes the self-reproducing activities of a program that can simply spread and affect other programs, and thereby reflects the structural properties of the computer and the network it operates through. Moreover, the cultural form of a virus embodies the principles of negation in keeping with the anti-bodies theme.

  The commission fee is UK£1000. In addition, the artists will be offered a short residency (up to 10 days) to develop the work with the Art & Social Technologies research group at the University of Plymouth in UK. Accommodation and travel will be covered (up to UK£500 /per commission).

  There are a number of precedents for artists dealing with the virus as metaphor in the broadest sense. An example is the ‘biennale.py’ virus that contaminated the Venice Biennale’s web site (produced by 0100101110101101.org with epidemiC, for the Slovenian pavilion of 2000). For the programmer Jaromil, the source code of a virus is potential lyrical poetry. Related to this, the elegance of his Unix shell ‘forkbomb’ (2002) encapsulates this aesthetic approach in presenting only thirteen characters to dramatic effect. Once entered into the command line of a Unix shell and run, the program exhausts the system’s resources, causing the computer to crash. It was also included in the exhibition ‘I Love You: Computer, Viren, Hacker, Kultur’ (held at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, in 2002), referring to the ‘I Love You’ virus (of 2000) that spread through the communities of the Internet. The destructive potential of a virus operates in the spirit of auto-destruction and Dadaist tactics to negate the destructive tendencies of the social world.

  Anti-Bodies is coordinated by Relational, supported by Arts Council England and has been granted the London 2012 Inspire mark as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

  ANNOUNCEMENT OF SELECTED PROPOSALS: 19 FEBRUARY 2009, in conjunction with the launch of Anti-Bodies: Beyond The Body-Ideal

• 

  Live Stage: Watching Google AdWords [Cambridge, MA]

  Posted: 17-December-2008, 10:17pm CET by jo

  Watching Google AdWords: The Mysterious Mechanization of Meaning in the Google Brain by Hal Roberts :: December 23, 2008; 12:30 pm :: Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor, Cambridge, Massachusetts and webcast live :: RSVP required.

  Google’s AdWords system serves ads alongside about a quarter of all web traffic. In the process of serving those ads, Google actively processes the user browsing data in order to target its advertising, making AdWords one of the world’s most extensive processors of personal data. But existing approaches to privacy and surveillance struggle to describe harms from such uses of consumer data that are proportionate to the amount of personal data involved. Google may have access to this vast stream of personal data, but it cannot take away your job, jail you, or kill you using that data, and there are many well documented cases of surveillance, online and offline, that do result in those sorts of outcomes. So why should we care deeply about Google’s processing of advertising data online in the face of other, obviously authoritarian uses of surveillance?

  We should care because Google’s use of the AdWords data seeds a network of grey surveillance that may not have direct effects on the individual surveillance subjects but does have important effects on our modes of creating and consuming content online. By viewing AdWords as a network of grey surveillance, we can analyze it not as a single source of Big Brother type surveillance, but instead as the hub of a network of surveillance like activities. Each of these activities may or may not amount to surveillance or have a significant, direct impact on the individual subject, but together they have potentially profound impacts on social discourse (and through that discourse on the individual subjects of surveillance).

  In particular, the grey surveillance activities that surround Google’s search and ad ranking systems have fostered the growth of a system of collective intelligence (a Google brain) powered by its deep integration into the content consumption of its users. The AdWords and AdSense terming systems have moved the work of creating meaning for consumer objects away from the advertising itself and toward the attached content. And that network, driven by ad auction and pay per click payment systems, acts as a deeply opaque mechanized bureaucracy that replaces many of the functions traditionally served by advertising agencies. The result is a mysterious mechanization of meaning in the Google brain which plays a central role in the creation of social discourse online.

  Hal Roberts is the long time geek in/out of residence at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. He is currently doing research in the areas of internet filtering circumvention, botnet and other grey forms of surveillance, and analysis of main stream and new/citizen media. Hal has worked on the technical side of many Berkman projects over the years, including H2O, Weblogs at Harvard Law, and Global Voices Online. See An Eye on Surveillance Blog.

• 

  Between Saying and Doing

  Posted: 17-December-2008, 10:52pm CET by jo

  Above: Video documentation of the performance Between Saying and Doing

  Between Saying and Doing is a video documenting an intervention performance at Eva and Franco Mattes (http://www.0100101110101101.org) Synthetic Performances exhibition in Second Life on the 4th of April 2008. The aims of the Synthetic Performances were to re-enact historical 20th century performances within virtual environments effectively questioning physicality and being by creating a conflict with performances traditionally perceived role.

  Between Saying and Doing takes Eva and Franco Mattes work as its starting point and relates it to the artist?s ideas appropriated from Keith Arnatt in performances entitled Trouser - Word Piece. Questioning the role of the artist, identity and being, Between Saying and Doing considers in an ironic manner how new media as an environment reconfigures the artists practice, simultaneously expanding possibilities of expression and communication while undermining existing value systems.

  

  Above: Click image for a gallery of performance photos.

  

  Above: Click image for a a gallery of performance photos taken in front of various art works in Second Life.

  [posted by Garrett Lynch on asquare.org]

• 

  Jennifer Steinkamp [Cairo]

  Posted: 17-December-2008, 11:06pm CET by jo

  Jennifer Steinkamp at International Cairo Biennale :: December 20, 2008 - February 20, 2009 :: Gallery 4, Second Floor, Palace of Art, Opera House Complex, Gezira, Cairo.

  The United States will be represented at the 11th International Cairo Biennale by new-media artist Jennifer Steinkamp as well as with a diverse program of activities designed to promote international exchange. Organized by Kimberli Meyer, director of the MAK Center for Art & Architecture at the Schindler House in Los Angeles, a team of Los Angeles-based artists and curators will conduct a variety of adjunct programs, including “Animation Buffet,” a screening of contemporary experimental animation; “Other Sides of the World,” a public roundtable discussion; a website and blog; and an exhibition catalogue.

  Jennifer Steinkamp is known for creating computer-generated immersive installations that are both thought provoking and dazzling to the eye. Her digital animations use state-of-the-art technologies and employ elements of popular culture while raising fundamental questions about politics, perception and existence. At the Cairo Arts Palace, Steinkamp will exhibit her multi-channel video piece Dervish (2004?2005). The installation will be accompanied by a new work, Dervish Cairo (2008), a suite of three prints that superimposes the trees of Dervish onto photographs of Cairo’s urban landscape.

  The Los Angeles art community will also be represented in Cairo by a diverse group of cultural producers. These include writer, curator and artist Malik Gaines; artist and curator Sherin Guirguis; curator Chip Tom; and animation scholar and CalArts faculty member, Maureen Furniss. The L.A. team is conducting a variety of cultural programs as part of the U.S. contribution to the Cairo Biennale. Public dialogue will be activated on December 22 with “Other Sides of the World,” a presentation and roundtable discussion in which Gaines, Guirguis, Meyer and Tom give short presentations on their multi-disciplinary work in Los Angeles and discuss common threads in their practices. “Animation Buffet,” curated by Maureen Furniss, will be screened on December 23. The 80-minute program features short videos by a wide variety of international artists. The “Extra-Biennial Blog,” part of the project web site, will chronicle the activities and art of the Biennale, as well as other art event s in Cairo such as the multi-venue exhibition “Photo Cairo 4: The Long Shortcut,” and the workshop and site-specific performance “Eleven Human Senses” by LA group My Barbarian at The Townhouse Gallery.

  A full-color, English and Arabic exhibition catalogue has been produced, which is available at the MAK Center bookstore. To order the book.

  The official United States entry in the Eleventh International Cairo Biennale is presented by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State, Washington, D.C., in cooperation with the American Embassy, Cairo. The program has been organized by the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, Los Angeles.

  Special thanks to the officers and staff of the Public Affairs Office of the American Embassy in Cairo, the Commissaire General Ehab El-Laban, and the Palace of Art director Mohamed Talaat.

  The MAK Center for Art & Architecture is located at the Schindler House, 835 N. Kings Road in West Hollywood. Public hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Regular admission is free for Friends of the Schindler House and on Fridays, 4 to 6 p.m. Parking is available at the public structure at the northeast corner of Kings Road and Santa Monica Boulevard.

• 

  Into the Light [Antwerp]

  Posted: 17-December-2008, 11:49pm CET by jo

  Error One: Into the Light :: late afternoons and nights from December 19, 2008 - January 4, 2009 :: Opening: December 18, 2008; 7:00 pm with a Performance by Caron Geary (UK) at 9:00 pm :: Leopold de Waelplaats, Antwerp.

  The eleventh edition of ERROR ONE brings together international artists who work with video, audio, photo and light installations. These contemporary works of art are displayed in interaction with the city, on facades, windows and screens around the Leopold De Waelplaats in Antwerp, in the vicinity of the Royal Museum of Fine Art. Into the Light could serve as a counterbalance to the dearth of light on the shortest and darkest days of the year.

  Participating artists: Thomas Bayrle (GER), Pierre Bismuth (FR), Nikolaus Gansterer (AU), Caron Geary (UK), INTERFACULTYgroup, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (BE)

  Into the Light addresses the status of the image and its complex interaction with its surroundings. The works brought together here display the participating artist’s differing attitudes and methodologies. They were selected for their complexity, their complementarity and their potential for inciting the viewer to take another look at reality.

  Thomas Bayrle investigates the infrastructure of the visual surroundings and weaves patterns into visually complex superstructures. Pierre Bismuth deconstructs common patterns of perception and adds to them an element of astonishment. Nikolaus Gansterer confronts us with a dubious, complex system of scientific theories as well as the boundary between nature, culture and art. Caron Geary’s photographic work poses questions about identity and gender. For Into the Light, the INTERFACULTYgroup produced a new work for a specific location, namely, a future hotel on the Leopold de Waelplaats. The work is the result of a process of cooperation that reacts to the spatial and social context. Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven’s psychedelic computer animations bear witness to a fascination for technology and its influence on humanity and society.

  Presentations daily from 5 p.m. until late at night on the Leopold De Waelplaats in Antwerp-the square in front of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.

  In the framework of Into the Light, ERROR ONE is also working together with young curators and artists on a new initiative. Parallel to the project’s exterior locations, a new exhibition space ? REIS ? is opening on the first and second floors of Kasteelstraat 3. The group exhibition Multiple 12 will be running there simultaneously with Into the Light. For this opening exhibition, all the available space will be filled with the work of 6 artists who have been invited by an equivalent number of curators. REIS and ERROR ONE invite everyone to get acquainted with the new space and the work of the participating artists: Dirk Bogaert, Ninon Brière (Fr), Wim Catrysse, Shelbatra Yashari, Riaan Van Jaarsveldt (SA) and Pieter Vermeersch. Curators and organizers of this first exhibition: Tuur Delodder, Alan Quireyns, Katleen Schueremans, Lieve Sysmans, Ben Van den Berghe, Marthe Van Dessel and Wouter Van der Hallen. (Info: Wouter Van der Hallen, woutervdh@gmail.com of 0477/935483)

  The information center for Into the Light is located in the Museum Café, CAMU, Leopold De Waelplaats in Antwerp, and is open daily from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., except on Mondays, 25 and 31 December, and 1 and 2 January. After closing time of the KMSKA, the information center and the CAMU are accessible via the stairs on the right side of the KMSKA. A second information center: REIS, Kasteelstraat 3, opening hours Friday through Sunday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

  Presentations ‘Into the Light’
  18 December 2008 ? 4 January 2009
  Leopold De Waelplaats, Antwerp: Square at KMSKA, Nero, Revista, Vooruitzicht NV, Zeno X Gallery
  Daily from 5 p.m. until late at night

  Parallel: REIS ? ‘Multiple 12′
  18 December 2008 ? 4 January 2009
  Kasteelstraat 3, Antwerp
  Friday to Sunday from 5-8 p.m.

• 

  Media-Space 09 [Stuttgart]

  Posted: 17-December-2008, 11:56pm CET by jo

  Stuttgarter Filmwinter :: January 22-25, 2009 :: Media-Space 09 - artist talk and discussion :: January 23; 2:00 pm :: Ex-Ikea, Kronenstra_e 36, 70174 Stuttgart.

  The current financial crisis certainly marks a rupture, if not an end to the most recent form of neo-liberalism. What are the effects? Can we find different ways to think and reflect about these processes, which define the affected system? How do artists react to the complexity of this self-made global crisis? These are some framing questions which the Media-Space curator-team used to choose art-works from within the field of new media. For the first time the curator team had been selected by an open Wand 5 e.V. competition.

  At the End of October 2008 the Media-Space crew started the online curator blog-discussion here. As a result they now present a selected artist crew list:

  - MYPOCKET, Burak Arikan
  - META-MARKETS, Burak Arikan, Engin Erdogan, Cenk Dolek
  - SPREADPLAYER, 2008, Derivart: (Daniel Beunza, Mar Canet, Jeszs Rodrmguez, collaboration: Eduard Aylon)
  - METROPOLIS 2009, Interstella alias Anja Franz
  - GOLD FARMERS (documentary), Ge Jin, 2006
  - THE COMING RACE, Ben Rivers
  - MILLION DOLLAR BLOCKS, SIDL Spatial Information Design Lab, Columbia University
  - THE MINI-EPOCH SERIES (2003) UK, Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt
  - SOUND OF EBAY, \bermorgen, 2008
  - NEW YORK TIMES SPECIAL EDITION, Various artists
  - STOCKSPACE, Marius Watz

  Online Curator Crew for Media-Space 09: Marius Watz (New York, Oslo) / Burak Arikan (New York, Istanbul) / Monika Jaeckel (Berlin) / Chris Mennel (Stuttgart) / Monica Nunez (Belfast) / Yuan Peng (Stuttgart).

• 

  Live Stage: GAMERZ 04 [Aix-en-Provence]

  Posted: 17-December-2008, 4:18pm CET by jo

  Performances Night / Festival multimedia GAMERZ 04: I.M.M.E.D.I.A.T.E. and Confipop - 4 bits Gameboy Live :: February 6, 2009; 9:00 pm to midnight :: Aix-en-Provence, France.

  I.M.M.E.D.I.A.T.E. -Immersive Media Dance Integrating in Telematic Environments: I.M.M.E.D.I.A.T.E. creation is an international co-production performance in the field of technological art with a strong emphasis on “future prototyping and fabrication of life”. It brings together practitioners from areas of visual arts, performing arts, sound art, dance, robotics, computer science, biology, biotechnology, genetics, artificial life, artificial intelligence, and philosophy in order to realize a performance to be presented and toured in several European countries.

  Team: artistic director : Pavel Smetana (Cz) // original electronic music : Luka Princic (Slo) // dancer & musical performer : Jurij Konjar (Slo) // motion capture & 3D : Michal Masa (Cz) // production & light design : Stephane Kyles (Fr/USA) // video creation : Romain Senatore (Fr) // Quentin Destieu (Fr) // technical production: Jan Sebek (Cz)

  Confipop - 4 bits Gameboy live: Confipop is a chipmusic Marseille based artist who makes music with a Gameboy and some modified sound toys. Native from the techno free party, he has been making music under different pseudonyme since 1996. As the best dancefloor’s friend, Confipop makes a happy and groovy dancing music, which goes from reggaeblip to technoblop, with the specific 4 bits sound of the gameboy: a modern music with old forgotten gamesound, very appropriated to have fun. Building his own toys/instruments, Confipop is an adept and a teacher of “circuitbending”�, which consists in modifying toys in order to make music rather than buying expensive instruments. Confipop is running the Marseille Micro_HQ with chipmusician Dubmood, organising workshops, seminars and concerts dedicated to chip music with the French organisations La Cyber Nostra and Freesson, booking artists and broadcasting regular radio-shows on radio Galere.

  Festival multimedia GAMERZ 04 :: January 8 — February 6, 2009 :: Opening: January 8; 7:00 pm :: Aix-en-Provence (FR).

  What is going on when video games turn to be a medium that allows artists to create? When artists invest fields such as virtual universes, or network? When contemporary art meets entertaining and freaking universes?

  Back from Istanbul and for the fourth time, the international event GAMERZ spreads over the city of Aix-en-Provence, taking over three locations of contemporary art. From early 2009, a real cultural tour emulates the city during a month, inviting the public to discover the new creation through a serie of exhibitions, meetings, and performances.

  Away of a simple festival, GAMERZ deploys a deep work over artistic creations and new interventions around creative processes. Realized in cooperation with Germany, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey, Austria, England, and in collaboration with Second Nature association, M2F Creations is undertaking a real inter-cultural exchange and proposes an intense rendez-vous with contemporary art in the region of P.A.C.A.