transmediale 2006

REALITY ADDICTS demand more than the seclusion of multimedia: they are interested in the real human being, in words and images, in nature and culture. The dependence on reality devotes them to subvert that kind of reality which is produced through means of media-technology with the help of artistic strategies. They celebrate technical defects, play with the almost possible and commit themselves to nonsense seeking to multiply reality by means of exaggeration, rupture, distance, and ever new diversions. Their favourite means of social commentary and criticsm is witty humour; it helps to pinpoint contradiction, communicate and challenge social undertsandings of technology and reality in a digital culture.

The conference investigated the longing for ever more real world and understood humour as a positivistic and affirmitave approach towards reality. The jury seeked for art works that showed awareness of the difference between the production and reception side favouring those pieces that posessed a conceptual rigour combined with artistic strategies that challenge the borders between fiction and reality. The exhibtion housed so-called SMILE MACHINES which break in a at times teasingly ironic manner into the routines of everyday life: They mirror the paradox technological reality exhibiting failure and dysfunction.