Newsletter: Salon
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Newsletter from 22.12.2008 transmediale.09 DEEP NORTH 28.01. - 01.02.2009 House of World Cultures Berlin, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10 Salon
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1. The Digital Greenhouse 2. Re-Articulating the scenarios of environmental catastrophe 3. Re-hacking your World 4. Silent Deep 5. Critical Consumer Culture 6. Special Event: Networking Creativity 7. Salon Microevent: 'light, sweet, cold, dark, crude - LSCDC'
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1. The Digital Greenhouse The Digital Greenhouse is the transmediale.09 salon for strategic artistic, performative and net-based discourse. Bringing together artists, cultural activists, hackers and a cosmopolitan array of thinkers and makers the salon seeks to address the cultural 'raison d'etre' beyond the daily headlines of climate change rhetoric. How does digital art and culture maneuver across political and societal boundaries between 'our' North and an emergent, less 'silent' and deep South to create new voices and strong cultural networks? With the irreversible global transformations we face, the Digital Greenhouse becomes a training camp for the cultural revolution essential in creating new tools and methods of agency and dialogue. All Salon events take place in 'conference room 1' of the House of World Cultures. Admission is 5 euros, reduced 3 euros. Tickets may be purchased in advance, starting January 15th.
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2. Re-Articulating the scenarios of environmental catastrophe Hosted by the Art Group Re-Articulacija Wed, 28.01. 1200 hrs Increasing social inequality, aggravation of living standards, short-sighted environmental policy, violation of human rights are all facts pointing to the increasing extremes in the conditions of life. These conditions are not cultural dysfunctions, but fundamentally connected to the processes of global capital to systematically exploit the environment. We see a strategy to increase the awareness of catastrophic scenarios in order to produce surplus value on one side, while asking for our common responsibility to counter the negative effects of environmental change on the other. Re-Articulacija's artistic position aims to re-think what the alternatives to current neoliberal realities with their mechanisms of exploitation could be, and within a workshop format discuss alternative future scenarios that seek to de-link and abolish the dependency on such politics. Re-Articulacija project members Marina Grzinic and Sebastjan Leban invite the festival audience to join political philosophers Sefik Seki Tatlic and Madina Tlostanova, along with transmediale 2009 Award nominee Petko Dourmana to engage in a session of collective research to counter contemporary global forms of exploitation, control, censorship and expropriation.
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3. Re-hacking your World Thu, 29.01. 1200 hrs: Sensible Software - Hosted by Andrea Goetzke (newthinking) 1500 hrs: Fair Trade Hardware - Hosted by Aymeric Mansoux (goto10.org) 1900 hrs: I Saw Disaster - Hosted by Vera Tollmann Has our cultural hardware and software become useless and unserviceable faced with the complex challenges that confront us? 'Re-hacking your World' examines issues of crisis and possibility by intervening in the relationships between environment, industry and culture. In order to prevent a complete takeover of commercial interests in the development of digital cultures in Africa, Asia and Latin America for example, it becomes essential to promote and strengthen the vocabulary of open source systems and develop fair use mechanisms. Shifts in perception, departures from common practice and deconstructing embedded cultural codes all play a role in securing such a vision. But who to take our cues from? 'Re-Hacking your World' welcomes Massimo Banzi (tinker.it), Martin Howse (xxxxx), Gisle Froysland (piksel), Juha Huuskonen (pixelache) und Adam Somlai-Fischer (Kitchen Budapest) to develop 'Fair Trade Hardware' and 'Sensible Software' solutions for a new world, while Timothy Druckrey and Birgit Richards take a step back from the screen, and gaze into the voyeuristic practice of the 'YouTube' testimonial video ... showing us how far we still have to go.
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4. The Silent Deep Hosted by Laura Schleussner with Bronac Ferran Fri, 30.01. 1200 hrs: Mauj (Pakistan) + House Of Natural Fiber / HONF (Indonesia) 1500 hrs: SLUM.TV (Kenya) + NomadicMILK (Nigeria) The acceleration by which we deplete the finite resources that fuel both our economy and our lifestyle, shows not only the dimension of our dependency but also reveals its infallible consistency. Impatiently awaiting the final scramble for the Earth's remaining resources as the ice melts, the world's developing nations and unstable regions, long considered 'zones of silence' in our collective conscience, have become the central stage for our dependencies. What roles do digital culture and media activism play in increasing our perception into the political and cultural dynamics playing out in advance of the climatological tipping point? An rapid growing network of poetic interventionists, critical thinkers and grass-roots media collectives are broaching these barriers, creating new contexts for sustainable development by increasing access to technology and enabling greater freedom of expression. With Venzha Christ, Atteqa Malik and Nameera Ahmed, Biki Kangwana and Alexander Nikolic (online in Nairobi), and Esther Polak with Tijmen Schep.
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5. Critical Consumer Culture Sat, 31.01. Moderated by Brian Holmes with Jan Engelmann (Heinrich Boell Stiftung) 1200 hrs: Confronting Consumerism 1500 hrs: Coltan, Congo and Consumer Mobility We're meeting here both as artists and as consumers. Our diverse methodologies link us in explorations that critically reflect upon us, exposing the ecological consequences of our own actions. Individual consumer freedom is a myth, just as much as the seemingly pragmatic but not at all sustainable prescriptions for crawling out of the global financial crisis. With our salon we will look at the concepts behind our practice and propose tools for sustainability ... and in doing so, likely find an unexpected sense of freedom. A critical dialogue into artistic practice with hehe.org and the transmediale Award nominees Ewen Chardronnet and Michiko Nitta. In the second session we will link the Congolese arts organisation MOWOSO (Eleonore Hellio and Dicoco Boketshu performing live online in Kinshasa) with Dominique Malaquais, jaromil and Award nominees Graham Harwood, Richard Wright and Matsuko Yokokoji, authors of the Tantalum Memorial project.
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6. Networking Creativity - Regional Strategies for Art and Digital Culture Wed, 28.01. 1600 hrs Panel discussion (in German only, please see description above) Chaired by Andreas Broeckmann Guests: Barbara Kisseler, Head of the Senate Chancellery of Berlin Floor van Spaendonck, Virtueel Platform NL Susanne Ackers, Medienwerk NRW Bernd Fesel, RUHR2010 / Creative Industries Eva Emenlauer-Bloemers, Projekt Zukunft Berlin
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7. Salon Microevent: 'light, sweet, cold, dark, crude - LSCDC' Fri, 30.01. 1900 hrs Sat, 31.01. 1800 hrs In this series of process-oriented audiovisual microevents the artist unit AElab delve experientially into the human perception of what is waste. The research and production of LSCDC is informed by the realities of grey water in its various states of composition, decomposition and recomposition, using moving image, drawing and custom-designed software for LED lights, accompanied by an immersive soundscape. The work reflects physically and emotionally on the states of being transduced by water, the 'light sweet crude oil' of the 21st century. Hosted by AElab: Gisele Trudel and Stephane Claude
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transmediale.09 DEEP NORTH festival for art and digital culture berlin http://www.transmediale.de info@transmediale.de
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