New Media

05.03.2012

“Pumping” at Adamski Gallery in Berlin

Solo exhibition by Joel Tauber – from March 6 to April 28

Joel Tauber is Assistant Professor of Art at Wake Forest University. His installation is “looking at a period that seems remarkably similar to our own – the end of the 19th century in America”.

The artist says about his project:

During my research of the early history of Los Angeles, I was continually amazed by the overwhelming similarities to our current plight, and I was continually struck by how ridiculous it is that we continue to make the same mistakes that we made almost 150 years ago. Read more »
By Sacha Kagan

01.02.2012

Call for submissions: Next idea grant

 

 

Austria
The Ars Electronica Linz GmbH in Linz/Austria welcomes submissions for the “next idea grant” 2012.
Every year Ars Electronica awards prizes to artistic works in the field of media arts in the following seven different categories:

  • Computer Animation / Film / VFX
  • Interactive Art
  • Digital Musics & Sound Art
  • Hybrid Art
  • Digital Communities
  • u19–Create Your World
  • [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant Read more »
By Janna Gehrke

21.10.2011

Interactive Futures (IF) in Vancouver: Animal Influence

Vancouver, BC
17th to 19th of November 2011

From the 17th  until the 19th of  November 2011 you are able to visit the conference „Interactive Futures (IF)“ in Vancouver, BC. The conference includes exhibitions, performances and screenings as well as a workshop with well-known speakers like the ethologist Marc Bekoff and new media artist Lisa Jevbratt. The theme of the conference is „Animal Influence“, as research referring to animal behavior, cognition, creativity and consciousness increased in the recent years and brought forth the idea of animals having emotional and cognitive lives. The focus is put on the research results on animal-human relations and how they effect new media artists in their perception and work with other species, and new ways of dealing with the new knowledge in form of for example experimental art. There will be exhibitions of interactive and new media art works which arose from the artists’ involvement in these themes.
The workshop within the frame of the conference will bring together media artists, scientists and critics as well as philosophers, who can discuss these topics further and bring about new ideas and inspiration.

For a detailed schedule of and registration for the conference,  visit the website: http://www.interactivefutures.ca/

By Janna Gehrke

08.10.2011

“99 Is Not 100 – Documenting the Transformative Power of Art, or the Art of Transformative Documentary”

October 31st, 2011
Sloan Fellow, MIT (USA)

“How do we observe or quantify the impact of an artistic intervention or the impact of a documentary film? Lucy Walker will be reflecting on the experience of making and showing the film Waste Land, a documentary about artist Vik Muniz’s collaboration with the self-designated recyclables materials pickers of Jardim Gramacho, the largest landfill in the world. The film has won over thirty international awards and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Lucy Walker has directed four award-winning feature documentaries: Devil’s Playground, Blindsight, Waste Land and Countdown To Zero.”

 

The “Zones of Emergency: Artistic Interventions – Creative Responses to Conflict & Crisis” Fall 2011 lecture series investigates initiatives and modes of intervention in contested spaces, zones of conflict, or areas affected by environmental disasters. The intention is to explore whether artistic interventions can transform, disrupt or subvert current environmental, urban, political, and social conditions in critical ways. A crucial question is how can such interventions propose ideas, while at the same time respecting the local history and culture.

More information at the Zones of Emergency Blog: http://zonesofemergency.mit.edu/

By Benjamin Smith

04.10.2011

“Enabling Emergent Voices And Expression Through Technology”

October 17th, 2011
MIT Media Lab, USA

“Moore’s law and the Internet have dramatically reduced the cost of producing and distributing information. This has greatly lowered the cost of collaboration and has empowered a qualitatively different “public” to think, express, and act without, or in spite of, central authority. These changes and advances in technology enabled interventions such as low-cost video cameras in the case of WITNESS; blogs (Global Voices); or open hardware and software used to build, distribute, collect and visualize data from geiger counters (Safecast). Ito will discuss how these trends relate to media, citizenship, academics, and conflicts. Joichi Ito was named Director of the MIT Media Lab in April 2011.”

 

The “Zones of Emergency: Artistic Interventions – Creative Responses to Conflict & Crisis” Fall 2011 lecture series investigates initiatives and modes of intervention in contested spaces, zones of conflict, or areas affected by environmental disasters. The intention is to explore whether artistic interventions can transform, disrupt or subvert current environmental, urban, political, and social conditions in critical ways. A crucial question is how can such interventions propose ideas, while at the same time respecting the local history and culture.

More information at the Zones of Emergency Blog: http://zonesofemergency.mit.edu/

By Benjamin Smith

26.09.2011

Techno-Ecologies



November 3rd – December 11th, 2011,
Riga and Liepaja

“Techno-Ecologies is the theme of this year’s Art+Communication festival, the 13th edition of which will take place in Riga from November 3 – 6, 2011, featuring conference (November 4–5) and exhibition (November 4 – December 11) as well as broad programme of performances, screenings, public lectures and workshops in Riga and Liepaja, Latvia.”

“Techno-Ecologies builds upon the concerns of Felix Guattari (the French philosopher and co-conspirator of Gilles Deleuze) about the lack of an integrated perspective on the dramatic techno-scientific transformations the Earth has undergone in recent times. Guattari urges to take three crucially important ‘ecological registers’ into account: the environment, social relations, and human subjectivity.”

“Techno-Ecologies will develop a discussion between artists, theorists, designers, environmental scientists, technologists, responsible entrepreneurs and activists to develop this perspective. Diversity, social and ecological sustainability, and a much deeper understanding of technology as an extension of [their] desires are the building blocks that [they] want to bring together to build a perspective that can help [them] chart less hazardous routes into the future than the ones currently travelled.”

more info: http://rixc.lv/11/

By Benjamin Smith

19.08.2011

Amplify Action

“The exhibition “Amplify Action: Sustainability through the Arts”, is a collaborative project of the Pratt Center for Community Development, Pratt Institute’s Initiative for Arts, Community and Social Change (IACSC), and the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. The project is a part of the Arts Implementation Fund of the Pratt Center, recently established through a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation’s NYC Cultural Innovation Fund. The projects of the Arts Implementation Fund, in partnership with community based organizations in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Cypress Hills create projects that support the execution of visual and performance art works created by local artists, artist groups, and artists abroad that promote a civic dialogue about community sustainability.
“Amplify Action: Sustainability through the Arts” will be presented in Spring 2012 by the Skylight Gallery, a department of BSRC’s Center for Arts and Culture. The exhibition is conceived to demonstrate how arts, culture and media are powerful catalysts for social change, and aims to engage neighborhoods in a dialogue about sustainable living, making healthy consumer choices, and taking environmental action. Works in the exhibit will directly and indirectly examine the different components of sustainability such as, but not limited to: ecology, economy, equity, environmental consciousness, resource conservation and efficiency, agriculture, architecture, infrastructure, environmental justice and health.”

further information:
Call for Artists: http://www.amplifyaction.org/p/call-for-artists.html
Online Application: http://www.amplifyaction.org/p/online-application-form.html

By Benjamin Smith

29.04.2011

Unconference: “Re-Rooting Digital Culture”

13th of May at the University of Westminster

Over the last decade the awareness of anthropogenic climate change has emerged in parallel with global digital communication networks. By their very nature, the new tools, networks and behaviours of productivity, exchange and cooperation between humans and machines grow and develop at an accelerated rate.

The transdisciplinary panel will explore the impact of digital culture on climate change, developing themes adopted in grass-roots, emerging and established practices in art, design and science.

The ideas for the unconference have grown out of Furtherfield’s Media Art Ecologies programme. ”Unconference” thereby stands for a participant-driven meeting, which tries to avoid some of the aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees, sponsored presentations, and top-down organization.

Furtherfield was founded in 1997 as the Internet took shape as a new public space for internationally connected cultural production and is now a centre where upwards of 26,000 contributors worldwide have built a culture around co-creation – swapping and sharing code, music, images, video and ideas.

For more information visit: www.furtherfield.org.

By Ronja Röckemann

14.03.2011

FCForum conclusions – sustainable economic models for the creative sector

“We can no longer put off re-thinking the economic structures that have been producing, financing and funding culture up until now. Many of the old models have become anachronistic and detrimental to civil society. The aim of this document is to promote innovative strategies to defend and extend the sphere in which human creativity and knowledge can prosper freely and sustainably.

This document is addressed to policy reformers, citizens and free/libre culture activists to provide them practical tools to actively operate this change.”

Download the Declaration and “How-to” guide to new models of sustainability in the digital era at http://fcforum.net/sustainable-models-for-creativity

By Sacha Kagan

17.02.2011

Networking the arts to save the Earth

Cathy Fitzgerald, film-maker and author of ecoartnotebook.com, has completed a research paper on the “sometimes under-utilised potential of online art and ecology networks“:

Online social networks are a recent global phenomenon of the last five years. This paper considers the value and under-realised potential of online social networks that connect cultural practitioners and organisations who are responding to ecological concerns across the world. That the cultural sector will have a significant role in engaging the world’s audiences and projecting new visions of how humanity may live more sustainably on this finite earth is increasingly recognised. However, Read more »

By Sacha Kagan

21.09.2010

Future Places. Porto, Portugal, October 2010

Digital Media and Local Cultures

FUTUREPLACES 2010 is a meeting of people with one question in mind: if digital media can do so much for global communication, knowledge and creativity, how can it contribute to local cultural development? Read more »

By Sacha Kagan