reSource 002: Out of Place, Out of Time
reSource 002: Out of Place, Out of Time
August 22-24, Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin
U-Bahn Kottbusser Tor
reSource 002: Out of Place, Out of Time is the second event of the reSource transmedial culture berlin, the new year-round initiative of transmediale festival, a project of networking based on the inter-connection of genres & practices, curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli and developed in cooperation with the reSource partners (CTM/Disk, Kunstraum Kreuzberg /Bethanien and the Post-Media Lab/Leuphana University of Lüneburg).
reSource 002: Out of Place, Out of Time presents open discussions, panels, workshops and performances, shedding light on the practices of artists, activists and hackers rethinking critical interventions in the field of art and technology. The three-day event gives both attention to analogue processes of networking (networks out of time) and the idea of shifting of cultural paradigms via network technologies (networks out of place).
reSource 002: Out of Place, Out of Time aims to reflect on modalities of artistic production in the framework of digital culture and network economy, while generating a collective insight into the themes of the upcoming transmediale and CTM festivals. BWPWAP - Back When Pluto Was a Planet is the thematic framework of transmediale 2013 (29.01.-03.02.), which explores the simultaneous displacement and invention that takes place in cultural processes mediated by technology. Alongside, The Golden Age, the theme of the next CTM festival (28.01.-03.02.), draws attention to the increasing abundance of material in the digital era, just waiting to be sourced and reprocessed by generating pastiche, paradox, fusion and morphing. Inspired by these themes, and following the conceptual thread initiated by the previous reSource initiatives, reSource 002: Out of Place, Out of Time reflects on the issues of re-contextualisation, recombination, montage, displacement, reinvention of socio-cultural paradigms, appropriation, and transformation of an eclectic range of resources through network practices. Such topics are addressed to artistic and activist communities within (and beyond) digital cultural production, with the aim to develop a distributed network of activities in the city of Berlin, as a platform for sharing and visibility for the local and translocal communities working in the field of networking hacktivism and politics.
Programme Overview
Wednesday 22 August:
15:00-19:00: Open discussion with cultural producers based in Berlin
19:00-late: Composting the City | Composting the Net Launch & presentation (Shu Lea Cheang)
Thursday 23 August:
10:00-16:00: Workshop 36 15 Circuit Bending [Minitel Hacking]
Break
17:00-17:45: Public presentation 36 15 Circuit Bending [Minitel Hacking]
18:00-19:00: Thematic Introduction of the next transmediale and CTM festivals
19:15-21:00: Imaginary Networks Panel Discussion
Friday 24 August:
10:00-15:00: Mobile Device Forensics Workshop
Break
15:30-16:15: iPhone Live Public Presentation
16:30-18:30: Networks Out of Hands? Round-table
Dinner Break
20:00-22:30: Gr-exit: A Speculative Archaeology for the Greek Economy
20:00: Performative Lecture (Georgios Papadopolous & Carsten Lisecki) / Performance (Margarita Tsomou)
21:30: Book Launch & drinks
Programme Details
Open discussion with cultural producers based in Berlin
Introduced by Stéphane Bauer and Tatiana Bazzichelli (moderator)
22 August: 15:00 - 19:00
This plenary discussion follows the collective meeting held during reSource 001: Trial Crack (11.-12.05., General Public), this time focussing on the creation of collective artistic strategies and networking practices related to delocalisation, displacement, and increasing commercialisation of cultural and artistic production in the urban landscape of Berlin. This meeting is a starting point to collectively rethink the meaning of critical and oppositional practices in art, hacktivism and cultural production, by proposing distributed artistic initiatives able to intervene within the current economical and political framework of the Berlin art scene.
With: Kristoffer Gansing and Tatiana Bazzichelli (transmediale), Stéphane Bauer (Kunstraum Kreuzberg /Bethanien), Oliver Baurhenn, Jan Rohlf, Remco Schuurbiers (CTM/Disk), Clemens Apprich and Oliver Lerone Schultz (Post-Media Lab, Leuphana University of Lüneburg), Reboot.fm, ArtLaboratoryBerlin, Panke, Citizen Kino, C-Base, Supermarkt, LEAP Gallery, Platoon, Visual Berlin, Ausland, AVnode Network, Share Festival, a.o.
Please rsvp via email to confirm your attendance: resource[at]transmediale.de.
Composting the City | Composting the Net
Launch and presentation of the project by Shu Lea Cheang (tw/fr)
19:00 until late
Composting the City/Composting the Net examines the parallel process of fermentation and degeneration of our daily food scrapes and our shared digital commons. Our daily consumption in the city and on the net guides our navigation through the merged actual/virtual zones where cybernetic organism expanded and exploded. While Composting the City checks in on discarded food scrapes and leftovers; Composting the Net sources the immaterial wealth/junk of net data. The food scraps thrown onto a compost heap are layered and mingled until all traces of identities are erased. On the net, the abundance of info-data sinks into a deep ‘reservoir’ with tags attached.
As a reSource project, Composting the City (Berlin edition) proposes to build a large size composter (made out of recycled wood pallet) in the outside area of Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien during reSource 002. Adopting the worm composting method, the composter is installed with electronic sensors to monitor its temperature/moisture variation activated partly by worm action. Working with Kreuzberg’s residents, restaurants and food shops, Shu Lea Cheang develops mobile collection and collective dumping mechanisms, which ‘invest’ in the content-growth of the reSource composter. Working with local urban gardens the artist will deposit the mature compost (six month later, in February 2013) at the local garden to fertilise the seeds in springtime.
Composting the Net proposes a hopeful version of reprocess the toppled digital landfill of the online list communities, which contain years/tons/bytes/pixels of collective contributions and knowledge sharing data threaded by date, author and/or subject. These open archives of announcements or ongoing debates are both ephemeral and substantive. They are the legacy of our networked culture with its accumulated data debris that is to be re(dis)covered in the future by net archaeologists or post-net bomb defusers. Composting the Net scramble the texts, turn over the leaves, trust that there are some references or relevance to our digital existence. The net composted generates fresh sprouts that crack through the compost-enriched soil.
Composting the City/Composting the Net joins together as a visual/sonic live performance during transmediale 2013 by Shu Lea Cheang (tw/fr). Composting the City was developed during a joint TAQ#8 residency with Refarm the City and Green Rush at Gaite Lyrique, Paris in May 2012.
36 15 Circuit Bending [Minitel Hacking]
Workshop by Benjamin Gaulon (fr/ie) and Karl Klomp (nl) for selected participants (max. 10 participants; participation fee: 10€).
23 August:
10:00-16:00: Workshop
17:00-17:45: Public presentation
During this workshop participants become familiar with basic hardware hacking and circuit bending, by hacking very iconic devices: the French Minitels. This summer is the death of the Minitel, a Videotex online service accessible through the telephone lines, as the network as been closed for good. Deconstructing readily available, cheap electronic devices into creative tools is more than a lot of fun; the process offers the same visible, hands-on learning and understanding acquired through dissection. By re-purposing second-hand hardware or cheap toys, a commercial, mass-produced technology is transformed into a unique device, with potential for new and original means of expression or communication. Mobile phones, communication devices, game consoles and PCs have short lifespan. The complexity of computer chips doubles every 18 months. This causes a rapid decrease in the value of existing electronics. Thus, the dark side of technological progress is the production of endless amounts of electronic waste: e-waste. Although the economic value of obsolete electronics approaches zero, the electronic components themselves can still be useful in other contexts. Hence we need to seek ideas and inspiration for how we can rethink technology and, in particular, communications and ICT technology, from sources that are outside traditional engineering domains. The boundaries of a device are set by the manufacturer (planned obsolescence); those limits can be redefined by such creative recycling.
This project will be part of the ReFunct Media project exhibited at the transmediale 2013. ReFunct Media experiments and explores unchallenged possibilities of 'obsolete' electronic and digital media and our relationship with technologies and consumption.
You can now register for the workshop here.
> recyclism.com/refunctmedia.php
Thematic Introduction of the next transmediale and CTM festivals
18:00-19:00
Presentation of upcoming themes and common initiatives.
With: Kristoffer Gansing (transmediale festival) and Jan Rohlf, Oliver Baurhenn (CTM/Disk).
Imaginary Networks
19:15-21:00 Panel Discussion
This panel is part of the next transmediale thematic framework, as the recollection of a poetic imagination rendered obsolete by new technological knowledge paradigms. It focuses on the technological network development on the one hand and social and political effects of network communication on the other. It reflects on the creation of networks out of place and out of time, and at the same time integrates different modalities of creating network architecture, from postal art to social media. Specifically, by reflecting on the history of networked art, the objective is to point out interferences within existing network structures and new techno-cultural imaginations, finding unpredictable and unexpected outcomes. Furthermore, it aims to highlight situations in which networked collaboration and participation have become compulsory components of a new cultural industry, exploring possible critical inventions derived from the “pressure” of being involved in a social network.
The experimental reconstruction of the Rohrpost system, conceptualised by several members of the Mail Art network and of the Telekommunisten network, will be presented as an upcoming project for transmediale 2013.
With: Dmytri Kleiner (ca/de) & the Telekommunisten; Simon Worthington (uk/de), Lutz Wohlrab (de). Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (it/de)
Mobile Device Forensics Workshop
24 August: 10:00-15:00
15:30-16:15 iPhone Live Public Presentation
Berlin-based artist Johannes P Osterhoff publishes everything he does on his iPhone as a live stream of screenshots on the web. The performance is called iPhone live, and was launched on 29 June 2012, the iPhone's 5th anniversary.
The artist presents his new project iPhone live and a workshop connected to it. During the event, an ongoing installation of the live performance will be visible for the public.
Mobile Device Forensics Workshop by Johannes P Osterhoff (DE) for selected participants (10 max.; no participation fee)
This workshop it is a tool for artists who want to access their data directly, for designers who are interested in information visualisation with genuine data sources, for future hackers who seek to go beyond the common usage of this technology and for anyone who is interested in what is happening on a mobile phones below its surface. In this seminar, participants take a look at our data behind the shiny iOS interface and examine the data structures below. They extract their data and visualise, remix it and publish it in other contexts. They extract screenshots of opened apps and browser windows, contacts and call history data, recent search engine queries, geo coordinates etc. Today more and more personal information is stored on mobile devices. Due to simplicity on the user interface and in the name of a holistic user experience, the technology is kept behind glossy surfaces and thus as far from its users as on no other device. Recent examples like the installation of trojans via faked iTunes updates on the iPhone or the logging of location or keystrokes without knowledge of users show the deep gap between the actions performed by mobile devices on root level and the dazzling representations on their interfaces. In addition to that, it has become more and more difficult to extract data for purposes that go beyond the ones imagined by the manufacturers of these devices. Mobile Device Forensics is relating to the recovery of digital evidence or data from a mobile device by forensic means - and thus the police.
You can now register for the workshop here.
Networks Out of Hands?
16:30-18:30 Round-table
Since the 1990s networked electronic communication has risen to become an indispensable fact and resource of all social and political spheres. Alongside the spread of the Internet, we witnessed a dual and paradoxical sense of the post-medial condition: we saw the empowerment generated by easy access to 'crowd communication' alongside a simultaneous realisation of a loss of autonomy and integrity in regard to 'our' communication systems. Where 'the Net' was once envisaged as universal infrastructure for democratic emancipation by emancipatory visionaries and early contestants of net-culture, a new disillusionment has arisen in the light of proprietary platforms, inter-state governance and sophisticated surveillance technologies put in place by private-state-conglomerates. Some declared 'We lost the War' some time ago, while others - like telecomix or ZaMir - extended infrastructural help for networked communication in moments of criticality to social actors on the move. In the light of this, we want to (re-)assess questions and initiatives of providing reSources (infrastructural complements, hacks, supplements or alternatives to 'The Net' ) in view of social movements recently seen - or still to come.
With: Christopher Kullenberg/Stephan Urbach from Telecomix (se/de); Rena Tangens from FoeBuD (de); Lonneke van der Velden/Daniel Reusche via Unlike Us (nl/de); Alejo Duque from labSurlab (co/ch).
Moderated by Oliver Lerone Schultz (de)
Gr-exit: A Speculative Archaeology for the Greek Economy
20:00: Performative Lecture by Georgios Papadopolous (gr/de) and Carsten Lisecki (de), introduced by Kristoffer Gansing (se/de). Performance by Margarita Tsomou (gr/de).
21:30: Book Launch & drinks
The performative lecture by Carsten Lisecki and Georgios Papadopoulos will launch the book Grexit. Grexit investigates the contribution of the Drachma in the constitution of the Greek and of the European identity, considering how specific icons and symbols have been employed to support the rituals of accumulation and exchange. The analysis is contained in the larger question of how visual and symbolic material contribute to the legitimisation of economic and political institutions, and of how a new kind of discourse is regulated through the combination of such material. The choice of the Greek banknotes as the focus of the research is suggestive of the importance of this relation between iconographic and symbolic elements. The performance will rehearse the argument of the book and present some of the visual-textual elements that are included in the publication. The analysis will be expanded and contextualised through interviews, media reports about Greece and readings from Grexit. Grexit will be followed by a performative installation by Margarita Tsomou, that re-enacts the slogans shouted by protesters in the occupied Syntagma Square in Athens.
About the Drachma Project:
The Drachma project was inaugurated in October 2010 at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, as part of the MarathonMarathon Project curated by Hans-Ulrich Orbist and Nadja Argyropoulou. Currently the Drachma Project is developed at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, as part of the Vilém Flusser Residency for Artistic Research of the transmediale festival and the Vilém Flusser Archive. The idea for the residency and also for the Drachma Project is to reflect on the meaning of visual and non-verbal representations of economic and social interaction. The intention is to address and interrupt affective investments in the dominant social ideology, in consumption and production, and this intention has led to experiment not only with theory, but also with negotiating a contested space between image and word, between language and art. Banknotes provide a pre-eminent example of such an 'inter-mediation'. Read more.
Installations
The aim of the reSource transmedial culture berlin is to generate a local and translocal network of artists, hackers and activists working critically with technology, politics and digital culture before, during and after transmediale festival. Coherently with the reSource’s methodology of developing reflection and exchange all year round, during reSource 002: Out of Place, Out of Time, three art projects are initiated and launched, whose production will lead to transmediale 2013.
Composting the City | Composting the Net join together as a visual/sonic live performance during transmediale 2013 by Shu Lea Cheang (tw/fr), processing the data accumulated in the DIY composter.
The outcome of 36 15 Circuit Bending [Minitel Hacking] workshop by Benjamin Gaulon and Karl Klomp will be part of the ReFunct Media collaborative project exhibited at the transmediale 2013.
The experimental reconstruction of the Rohrpost network, conceptualised by several members of the Mail Art network and of the Telekommunisten network, will be presented as a site-specific installation at the transmediale 2013. Materials from the three projects are exhibited during reSource 002 in a room of Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, to symbolise the ongoing production of the reSource.
Image: The Laboratory of Manuel Bürger