Synchroni-cities

http://synchroni-cities.net

As part of A.P.D.C. audience participation test beds initiative we have introduced “SYNCHRONI-CITIES” project. It brings forth the diversity and cultural specificity of different European spaces. It is based on the idea of cultural exploration, dialogue and simultaneity.

The game is shaped as a simultaneous urban exploration quest based on the idea of creating “synonymous places” (different locations in different cities/countries that have a common definition: the same trail leads to them). It takes place in the real world and the internet. A mixed-reality platform will be developed in order to allow artists and the general public to explore and share cultural aspects of the European urban space. Thus, it gives the artists and communities the opportunity to engage in an intercultural dialogue that simultaneously stresses upon identity and alterity.

The concept: ”A trail can lead to many places. Places a given trail leads to define a multiplace.”

We generally assume maps guide us from where ever we are to where we want to go. When using a map we repeatedly match the map’s clues (corners, street names, etc.) against reality and the road to our destination is a trail of clues we successfully matched against points of reality. If we don’t know our destination, the map (the clue set) and the process of using the map (the matching process) validate the place at the end of our journey and make us recognize it as the point we wanted to get to. We define such a place as “the place our trail leads us to.” This definition is as valid as our judgement, our clues and our reality. If any of these conditions are offset we wind up in different places every time we use the same map. Then we have a set of places that are synonymous, because they have the same definition: the same trail leads us to them.

The project was initiated by A.P.D.C. core partner from Cluj (Romania) AltArt Foundation which promotes innovative forms of art based on new technologies and contributes to the development of effective policies aimed at cultural development. Through its activities the foundation supports the cultural community in Romania to synchronize to trends in contemporary arts throughout Europe and promotes an innovative approach of the arts from both artists and audiences.

ADD soundsystem ver. 2.0

 

http://addsoundsystem.org

As part of A.P.D.C. audience participation test beds initiative we have introduced “ADD soundsystem” project. It is an installation conceived as an open system and tool for other artists to realize their own sound content. ADD soundsystem can become a space for some form of music production or performance, it can be used as a sound installation or a sonic playground for a workshop. The aim is to create a specific social context, space for encounters, communication and participation. ADD soundsystem oscilates between different types of sound production and perception. It decentralizes the position of musician / performer and obliterates both creative and physical gap between the creator and the audience. The installation is designed to be as transparent, easily understood and operated for any audience member.

ADDsoundsystem is a low cost, DIY portable surround system with a decentralized control. It is a rhizomatic structure. It can be hacked into numerous ways. It may be installed in numerous constellations, reduced or expanded. It is an ongoing project and a traveling installation (a soundsystem is supposed to travel). Wherever it is installed it is open to input from others both at the level of installation and on the level of sound content. It may be installed on its own or it may co-exist with other installations.

ADD soundsystem is a participatory project by rRadim Labuda and Darina Alster.

 

Programme of the Mini-Symposium “New Media Art Audiences”

Mini-Symposium “New Media Art Audiences” took place at CIANT GALLERY in Prague (Krizkovskeho 18, map) on Friday, May 23rd, 2008. Talks were held in English, entry was free, limited number of seats.

This debate event was an opportunity to engage with the evolving nature of audience in the field of new media art. We brought together curators, festival directors as well as artists in order to discuss natures and identities of new media art events (concerning products, processes, visitor experiences) and different professional perspectives on new media creativity, curatorship and programming, e.g. those of the artist, artist-curator, curator, technician, educator, artist-educator, academic etc. The main focus was on audience participation or on how to get various audiences interested in art in and of the information age. The event was linked into the international project A.P.D.C. (Audience Participation in Digital Culture) which is supported by the Grundtvig programme (Life-long learning) of the European Union. Main organiser: CIANT – International Centre for Art and New Technologies in Prague, in collaboration with: Centre for Global Studies, Czech Academy of Sciences.

Programme

PART I

NEW MEDIA ART EVENTS AND ITS AUDIENCES

12.00–12.10 Welcome by Pavel Sedlák

12.10–12.40 Barbara U. Schmidt: ARS ELECTRONICA: Diversity of “New” Audiences of Media Art

12.40–12.50 Discussion

12.50–13.15 Thomas Dumke and Anja Dietel: CYNETart_07encounter: Various Degrees and Possibilities of Including the Audience and Communicating Media Art Works to the Public

13.15–13.40 Slavo Krekovič: Multiplace Festival

13.40–14.05 Honza Svasek: seeMe.ath.cx

14.05–14.15 Discussion

14.15–15.30 Break

PART II

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

15.30–16.00 Paul Wilson / Liquidiser: Point of Centre

16.00–16.30 Sonja Leboš: Playfulness of Public Space

16.30–17.00 Rarita Szakats: Terra incognita: Mixed Reality as Experienced by Users

17.00–17.20 Discussion coffee

17.20–17.50 Bojana Romic: Art Recognition in the Information Age

17.50–18.00 Discussion

18.00–20.00 Dinner

20.00–20.30 rRadim Labuda: ADD soundsystem in Context, followed by a performance by Slavo Krekovič

 

Multiplace by Slavo Krekovič

Multiplace Festival

Slavo Krekovič

Multiplace is network-in-movement of people and organisations interested in interaction between media, technologies, art, culture and society. Network activities culminate every year into the festival, that is happening parallely at several locations in the world. Its program is open to workshops, installations, discussions, concerts, performances, exhibitions, presentations, screenings and especially new forms of creativity. Original focus on the new media culture has been evolving since 2002 and besides the technological aspect of digital media in art, the focus shifted also to questions related to its aesthetical, social, cultural, legal and political issues. The aim of the festival-network Multiplace is to create the fertile ground for media art, to support the creativity in an open and collaborative environment and to encourage critical reflection on the life in the culture shaped by technologies. Multiplace emphasizes the experimentation with the possibilities of collaboration and networking among particular nodes in the network, but also with new ways of audience participation and involvement.

Bio: Slavo Krekovič (SK) is a founding editor-in-chief of of ¾ revue and co-organiser of Multiplace festival.

Terra Incognita. Mixed Reality as Experienced by Users by Rariţa Szakáts and Laura Codreanu

Terra Incognita. Mixed reality as experienced by users

Rariţa Szakáts and Laura Codreanu

“Terra Incognita” is a series of real/virtual exploration events developed by AltArt between 2000-2006. The projects were conceived as multiplayer game platforms, commenting social changes in Romania. The four editions of “Terra Incognita” covered issues like traveling via telepresence, the fading communist heritage, urban legends or local/european values. The presentation gives an overview of the user experiences that the various mixed reality platforms of Terra Incognita has enabled. The level of audience participation and their direct experience varied from one edition to the other: in “TI1” – virtually exploring remote territories and uncharted cultures by guiding a team of real travelers; in “TI2” – moving around avatars in order to re-immerse in the past by getting to know communist cultures similar to their own; in “TI3” – active input of personal stories and experiences that became landmarks in the “urban community map” they created on the game platform; and in “TI4” – creating their own avatars and virtually traveling around European cities while at the same time competing with each other and cooperating with each other in discovering the European values.

Bio: Rariţa Szakáts (RO) works as arts manager and cultural policymaker. She graduated the University of Arts and Design in Cluj, Romania (2003) and holds a second BA in Journalism at Babes Bolyai University Cluj, Romania (1997). During the past ten years she worked in fields such as culture, media, democracy and minority rights in different nongovernmental organizations: AltArt Foundation, Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center, Soros Foundation for an Open Society Romania. Rariţa Szakáts is part of the AltArt creative team and the executive director of the foundation. Born in 1975, Rariţa Szakáts lives and works in Cluj, Romania.

Bio: Laura Codreanu (RO) was born in 1976 in Cluj, Romania. She currently works as arts manager and editor. She graduated the University of Arts and Design in Cluj, Romania (2003) – photography – video and computer image section and the Babes Bolyai University Cluj – Spanish and English Language and Literature (2003) and Journalism (1997). She worked in book publishing, advertising, culture, media, illustration and design (for Saga Publishing House, Echinox Magazine, Netsoft Systems, AltArt Foundation, Soros Foundation for an Open Society Romania). She is presently working as project coordinator in the AltArt Foundation.

AltArt Foundation: Among the cultural phenomena we witness in Romania during the last 10 years, digital culture is the field with the most spectacular growth. Its manifestations – opens source culture and file sharing, chat, net art, gaming, blogs a.o. – are more and more present in the life of the community, generating debates, opinions, social and economic imapacts, loss and gain, so to say …progress. AltArt is commited to supporting the development of digital culture in Romania. AltArt work includes urban exploration projects, exhibitions, professional development for artists and cultural managers, workshops in animation, film and the creative use of new technology, public screenings and debates, research and policy development. AltArt runs in Cluj the Binar Centre – a lab for arts and technologies that offers resources in the field of digital culture through a documentation collection, open workshops and a showcase of European new media arts projects.

ARS ELECTRONICA: Diversity of “New” Audiences of Media Art by Barbara U. Schmidt

ARS ELECTRONICA: Diversity of “New” Audiences of Media Art

Barbara U. Schmidt

This presentation is related to the research project “Operating System Ars Electronica”. By using the terms “operation” and “operating system” that were introduced into the field of arts in the early ‘90s, this project specifically refers to discussions from the area of institutional critique which questioned strategies of the presentation and appreciation of art. The term “system” also refers to a primarily cultural studies approach, which serves to describe and analyze, how the Ars Electronica Festival was initiated and how all of its components function and interact. The program of the Ars Electronica Festival is outstanding, because it offers the audiences a great variety of events and approaches. But its structure is not neutral, rather it positions the events in distinct sequences, at special times and locations. These parameters have a great influence: they signalize the ‘importance’ of events, they separate contents from each other, they get along with distinct behaviors and dress codes, they indicate whether the event is rather entertaining or instructive. Thus there is a broad variety of topics and events but at the same time there is also a clear system of classification, a system which also implies a differentiation between audiences: between lay persons and experts, insiders and outsiders, artists and amateurs. In my paper I would like to ask whether these distinctions – which are significant for the field of media art in general – still meet with the practices, the interests, and the self-concept of all groups of audiences; because due to the mediatization of society there is a wide range of visitors who do not fit into these binary patterns: they have for instance expertise in programming or web-design concerning to their professional background, others are creative and well informed media-amateurs or game aficinados. My paper is based on interviews with visitors of Ars Electronica in 2006.

Bio: Barbara U. Schmidt (DE) is researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media.Art.Research. in Linz (A), where she directs a research project on the institutional development and objectives of the Ars Electronica. She studied art history and German language and literature at the universities of Bonn and Munich. From 1995 to 1998 she was an assistant to the Women’s Representative of, and a lecturer at, the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. She was also active as a curator (exhibitions, multimedia projects, conferences, and film events, among others for Kunstraum München and the Künstlerwerkstatt Lothringer Strasse, Munich) as well as an assistant lecturer at various Austrian universities. Between 2003 and 2005, Schmidt worked as an assistant professor at the Institute for Media/Media Theory at the University of Arts and Industrial Design in Linz and as director of the research project “New Media Images,” supported by the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture.

ADD soundsystem in Context by rRadim Labuda

ADD soundsystem in Context

rRadim Labuda

ADD soundsystem project is a sound installation conceived as an open system and tool for other artists to realize their own sound content.

It can become a space for live music production or performance, it can be used as a sound installation or a sonic playground for a workshop. The aim is to create a specific social context, space for encounters, communication and participation. ADD soundsystem oscillates between different types of sound production and perception. It decentralizes the position of musician / performer and obliterates both creative and physical gap between the creator and the audience. Installation is designed to be transparent, easily understood and operated for any audience member. See more.

Bio: Radim Labuda (SK) has studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the studios of Prof. Miloš Šejn and Prof. Michael Bielický. In 2004 he spent a semester at San Francisco Art Institute. In 2005 he has become a finalist for the Oskár Čepan Award in Slovakia. Graduated in 2006. Since 2004 his work is focused on the medium of video. Exhibited nationally and internationally.

Art Recognition in the Information Age by Bojana Romic

Art Recognition in the Information Age

Bojana Romic

The presentation will address two problems that in connection with the position of being a Serbian artist, and more general question about possibility of art recognition in the information age.

Being a multimedia artist of today, demands quite a financial investment, and often lot of research. In Serbia, there are just a few NGO’s and other organizations that may provide funding, but under specific circumstances – for example, only for the projects that are made in cooperation with artists from the country that organization represents. During 90s, artists from Serbia were more likely to get funds from such organizations if their artwork deals with current political situation in the country. The result was that many young artists started making artworks that address the political context, even if they had completely different area of interest, just in order to get funding, and because they hoped they could make themselves “visible” in terms of European market. As information age and development of nano-technology affected the current art practice in the world, it became fashionable to make experiments with touch-sensitive fibers, sonic sculptures, wearable interactive textile and the like – unfortunately, that sort of art practice is not likely to be developed in countries like Serbia, just because the technical equipment for such works is so costly. On the other hand, art groups sometimes produce low-cost works that deal with video gaming and net art, and are usually made by artists and programmers who work together on voluntary-basis. Internet seems to offer infinite possibilities: you may think that now, when you have such perfect tool to express yourself, you can beat the traditional pathway in building your career, and avoid showing off at traditionally important festivals/meetings/biennials in order to become a recognized artist. We need to have on mind that we’re all facing information overload, to many data, too poorly organized – and we CAN imagine that cyberspace is “perfectly democratic place where it makes no difference whether you’re man or woman, black or white”, and that only good idea matters, but as Tim Jordan points out: “power is pre- and postpolitics, pre- and postculture and pre- and postauthority – power is the condition and limit of politics, culture and authority /1/”. So do you (in the information age) can get recognized even if you avoid art establishment, or you still have to get recognized by the curatorial “owner of the gaze/ owner of the power” via traditional sources? In short, what is fundamentally changed in such system with the information age? Personally, I’m closer to the opinion that information age didn’t bring a huge change in this economy of power/technopower in curatorial praxis until now, but yet I still think that Internet offers nice opportunities for selfpromotion. Manuel Castells points out that spaces of places are connected with space of flows /2/ (interactive network), which means that topological map of today should be changed up to distinctive level. On that behalf, there is a potential that New York-London-Berlin axis should share more/less the same relevance with virtual spaces in curatorial praxis in future. If that’s the case, it would be useful to discuss how to what are the rules of the game in this new, augmented reality.

/1/ Tim Jordan, one of the participants of <eyebeam> forum, later published in Interaction – artistic practice in the network, edited by Amy Scholder with Jordan Crandall, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, 107, /2/ Manuel Castells “Space of Flows, Space of Places: Materials for a Theory of Urbanism in the Information Age” in The Cybercities Reader, Routledge, London and New York, 2004

Bio: Bojana Romic (SRB), visual artist and theoretician, graduated at the department for visual arts at the University of Fine Arts in Belgrade. Right now on PhD studies on Theory of Art and New Media Department, University of Arts, Belgrade, with the main field of intertest in cybercultures.

seeMe.ath.cx by Honza Svasek

seeMe.ath.cx

Honza Svasek

The talk will concentrate on grassroots new media art production and will try to get some of the 1984 Unix Hacking spirit across to the audience.

seeMe.ath.cx is an Experimental and Interactive New Media Artwork In Progress. It is a Open Source Software Mosaic consisting of imgSeek: a. Content Based Image Retrieval System, a hacked version of Motion: a Software Motion Detector, Apache, PHP and Firefox in kiosk mode and some scripts, running on a hacked Packard Bell laptop under Ubuntu. Currently this artwork can be seen and interacted with at the Katendrechtse Lagedijk 461 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where it is usually mounted in the door of Werkplaats LUNA-TIKS, an art production facility run by Honza Svašek and friends. This work displays a matrix of 20 images which are visually similar to the current image. Usually the current image shows the observer of the artwork as observed by the artwork. If the current image does not change for some time, the system goes in sleeping mode and starts dreaming: a random matrix of the past gets displayed. The artwork demands user participation, and has been on display in a relatively poor area of Rotterdam.

Honza Svasek (NL)

http://www.HonzaSvasek.nl, http://kansenzone.blogspot.com

Playfulness of Public Space by Sonja Leboš

Playfulness of Public Space

Sonja Leboš

In this presentation, the main point of reference is the possibility of interaction of media and random audience in public space.

In my opinion, media art could release a sort of dynamic power which should enable playfulness of content in public space. While now we are having a dictatorship of commercial substance in mediascapes of public spaces, this presentation emphasizes the importance of drafting (even the smallest of the scale) projects which use public space as its playfield. In the presentation I will be talking about few of such projects, where playfulness of virtual space (expanding that notion to its wider referential field) clutches into dull and instant mediascape of a city, while transforming streets and squares towards some new forms of a less sullied urbanity.

Bio: Sonja Leboš (CRO) is cultural practitioner, living and working in Zagreb. Trained as architect and set designer in Zagreb and Prague, and educationist in art and craft in Stuttgart, she rounded her formal curriculum with mastering Cultural Anthropology and Hispanic Languages and Cultures at Zagreb University. As the chairwoman of AIIR (Association for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Research) she initiated, produced and implemented various project, as e.g. some recent ones: ‘Cybercinematography – Semantics of Cities’ Retrodynamics’, on-going project, ‘Return to the City (of Dubrovnik)’ – 30’ documentary in cooperation with CroatianTV, 2007, ‘Space of identity, space of interaction, space of change’, research in urbanity, 2006-2008, on-going, ‘Body as a Site of Alteration: Croatian cinema d’auteur of 60’s and 70’s of the XX.Ct’, investigations in the history of the Croatian cinema, 2007; in cooperation with MM Centre, Student Centre Zagreb, 2007, ‘Narrative structures and the notion of subject: space of identity in the Croatian cinematography in the middle of XX.Ct’, investigations in the history of the Croatian cinema, 2006.