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transmediale.07: Technocalyps: Frank Theys Interview
Wednesday, 07 February, 2007 - 16:19
Having now returned and recovered from our intense 4 day coverage of transmediale.07, I figured it was about time I posted some of my thoughts.
There were several pieces that impressed me whilst I was there, and Technocalyps by Frank Theys was definitely one of them. A three piece documentary that deals with Transhumanism. I managed to see the first and the last of these, since the second documentary tape had apparently become damaged and the back up copy was Dutch spoken with French subtitles.
Of the two that I saw, I was most intrigued by the first, as it dealt with the development and ultimate transition of the human species into beings that incorporate technology into their very being. The idea of humans becoming 'Borg', a very Star Trek idea, was covered well. It was amasing to see what areas had already been reached by science so far. From keeping the brain alive after it had been removed from the body to grafting neurones onto silicon chips to form neural networks. Most angles seemed to be covered, even the slightly disturbing video footage of a monkey's head being transplanted onto another body.
The premise that one day we could design our own bodies to out-perform existing physiological boundaries was both powerful and frightening.
You can watch an interview with the director Frank Theys on his own thoughts on Transhumanism and his production... Click here to watch>
Frank Theys talks to Claudia
Still image captured from Technocalyps
To view and listen to IPE's other videos and podcasts of transmediale.07...Click here>
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transmediale.07: Podcast 4: IPE interview Arthur Kroker
Tuesday, 06 February, 2007 - 00:38
Arthur Kroker agreed to speak to us about some of the themes raised in his Keynote at transmediale.07. Kroker is Co-Editor of CTheory, which Le Monde dubbed 'one of the three leading intellectual electronic reviews in the world'. CBC describes Kroker as 'Jack Kerouac meets cyberpunk'.
Hear a podcast of our interview with Kroker...Direct download>
You may also like to listen to the audio recording of Kroker's Keynote 'Born Again Ideology'...Click here to listen>
Kroker's lecture is named after his forthcoming book, Born Again Ideology. An online version of the book is now available on CTheory.net...Click here to read>
To view and listen to IPE's other videos and podcasts of transmediale.07...Click here>
IPE RESEARCH & PRODUCTION TEAM:
CLAUDIA VIEIRA; JOE FLINTHAM; JAMES JORDAN; MARK SHUFFLEBOTTOM
We'd like to thank Andreas Broeckmann, Artistic Director, Transmediale.07 for allowing us to video podcast from the festival directly.
Transmediale 07, Berlin: Unfinish: Roots
Sunday, 04 February, 2007 - 00:14
Roots
Roman Kirschner
'Roots' is based on the model of a chemical computer coneived by Gordon Pask in the early 1950s.
View our video of 'Roots'...View>
Transmediale 07, Berlin: Unfinish: Against God By Water Pistol
Sunday, 04 February, 2007 - 00:10
Against God By Water Pistol
Moon Na
'Against God By Water Pistol' is a strong statement about not accepting given values, including the force of gravity, and a poetical defiance concerning one's place in the world.
View our video of 'Against God By Water Pistol'...View>
Transmediale 07, Berlin: Unfinish: Proof of Life
Sunday, 04 February, 2007 - 00:04
Proof Of Life
Herman Asselberghs
'Proof of Life' is a sound movie with empty images which testify to their own, problematic redundancy.
View our video of 'Proof of Life'...View>
Unfinished Cities: Transmediale.07, Berlin
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 23:01
Unfinished Cities: a keynote with presentations from Orhan Esen, author of Self-Service Cities: Istanbul and AbduoMaliq Simone, Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College. In keeping with the premise of this year's Transmediale theme of Unfinish they discussed aspects of the modern city and the tensions between formal and informal space, cities as works in progress or as 'finished' environments, and contrasts between urban cultures in Europe, the near East and Africa.
Orhan Esen presented a history he had constructed about the development of gated communities in Istanbul - specifically the North-Western development at Gokturk. Not only have gated communities arisen as a form of pre-built (and hence pre-finished) environment as a bulwark against the ephemeral nature of the city, but they arise as part of a substitution for failed ideologies. The informal city is rejected by middle classes who wish to aspire, and yet in places like Gokturk, members of gated community nevertheless are forced into contact with the 'old villagers' in order to engage in commerce. Places in gated communities are aggressively marketed using discourses of inner peace and a return to nature to attract those alienated from modernity; meanwhile applicants undergo a mutual interview process - it is not possible just to purchase apartments and houses in these communities - you must be 'negotiated into' the culture of the community you wish to enter, ensuring you find yourself among people who share your values, tastes and aspirations. The "excluding city" is a neo-liberal ideal.
AbdouMaliq Simone did not dwell on detail as did Esen, but spoke rather poetically, in the context of Urban Europe and Urban Africa, about the necessary hybridity of the city, pointing out that people will live anywhere regardless of risk if they have to in a post-colonial world... but against this is the very colonial sense of urban intensification and non-integration. The mobile and the immigrant populations enter into wilful anonymities, where 'misrecognition' is desirable, rather than to be avoided. "The poor and the strange must never stop proving their innocence". Simone talks about the technologies which turn every shop-front into a monument, and which introduce heterogenities into the urban spaces, but which also destabilise the environemnt and the social relationships within. There is a constant process of change, in which temporaneities and instability dominate. We must see possibilities, rather than simply condemn cities for their problems.
Transmediale.07 Jan-Peter Sonntag - Borders and the Infinite
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 21:42
Jan-Peter E. R. Sonntag's presentation, Borders and the Infinite, was unusual in that he sat, mostly motionless on stage, and did not speak until the end of the session. Sonntag is an artist and composer, whose recent work concentrates on electricity research, video, installations and performance, but his presentation was profoundly about the sound as a form, phenomenon and 'fluid' medium.
His presentation began with a prerecorded female voice reading, we assume, Sonntag's own words, acknowledging that those words, written one month before, served to draw attention to the gaps in space and time that media open up and close down. Interstices remained a constant theme in a presentation which touched on the relation of sound to the body, Einsteinian relativity (again), and misapprehensions of Walter Benjamin and the Aura, and an acknowledgement of John Cage's attention to the musical pause.
Sonntag's sat for 55 minutes during his presentation, isolated on the panel, occasionally showing his enjoyment of the malaprops his voice artists committed, and which he evidently left in as a pleasure of the nature of human sound and breath, rather than deliver a sanitised production. Significantly his presentation argued that art need have no purpose - has no purpose - can be meant not to mean. An interesting performance.
Transmediale Interactive Art - Podcast 2
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:42
Our second podcast from Transmediale.07 in Berlin. Even though it's late at night and its been an action-packed day, we've recorded our thoughts on three of the pieces of interactive art we encountered in the exhibition hall.
Taken, David Rokeby
Death Before Disco, Herwig Weiser
Random Screen, Aram Bartholl
The previous three entries also have some video and descriptions of the pieces we discuss if you want visual stimulation to reinforce the delights of the commentary from Mark, James, Claudia and Joe.
tranmediale.07: Unfinish!: Random Screen
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:39
Random Screen
Aram Bartholl [de]
'Random Screen' is a mechanical, thermodynamic screen working without electricity. Conventional tea candles illuminate and generate the changes on the 5x5 pixel screen.
View our video of 'Random Screen'...View>
Hear us chat about 'Random Screen' and two other exhibits we saw today at Unfinish!...More>
View our photos of 'Random Screen'...
View a slideshow of a selection of photos from the festival....View>
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tranmediale.07: Unfinish!: Death Before Disko
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:33
Death Before Disko
Herwig Weiser [at]
Herwig built a machine which confronts us with its technical elements in a particularly clear and alienating way. 'Death Before Disko' uses an online data stream from space observation and translates it into simple yet spectacular sound and light events.
View our video of 'Death Before Disko'...View>
Hear us chat about 'Death Before Disko' and two other exhibits we saw today at Unfinish!...More>
View our photos of 'Death Before Disko'...
View a slideshow of a selection of photos from the festival....View>
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transmediale.07 Unfinish Taken
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:24
Taken
David Rokeby [ca]
'Taken' is an interactive video installation which allows for readings and interpretations of the activities in the gallery space with the help of surveillance cameras.
View our video of 'Taken'...View>
Hear us chat about 'Taken' and two other exhibits we saw today at Unfinish!...More>
View our photos of 'Taken'...
View a slideshow of a selection of photos from the festival....View>
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Arthur Kroker - Born Again Ideology
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:02
Arthur Kroker is Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory and Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria, Canada. Co-editor of CTheory and Director of the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture (www.pactac.net).
Today he gave a keynote lecture at Transmediale.07 in Berlin based on his latest book, Born Again Ideology. His talk examined the rise of the technocratic society, and its intersection with the rise of religion and the resurgence of God, notwithstanding His long-proclaimed death.
This podcast records the fascinating talk he gave.
We also managed to interview him after his keynote speech. To hear the podcast of our interview with Kroker...Click here>
We have arrived!
Friday, 02 February, 2007 - 09:50
We arrived in Berlin late afternoon Thursday and decided to go to the aiff.tiff interactive sound and visuals exhibition at M13, in East Berlin.
For the enhanced iTunes podcast...Go To>
WE ARE PODCASTING TRANSMEDIALE.07
Saturday, 27 January, 2007 - 02:05
As many of you couldn't join us at Transmediale art & digital culture festival in Berlin this year, we thought we'd bring the festival to you...
We have created videos and podcasts for you of all the interesting and bizarre things we experienced at Transmediale.07. "The 20th Transmediale festival again explores how art and society are changing under the influence of media and technologies which become more and more dominant in our everyday lives" (Intro, transmediale.07).
>We attended the festival as part of our teaching and research activities in IPE (Research Centre in Interactivity, Personalization & Experience). Beyond being fun, these podcasts are free to use as teaching and research resources for all of you interested in what's happening at the cutting-edge of interactive and digital media.
VIEW OUR PODCASTS:
PODCAST 1: We have arrived!
AUDIO: Arthur Kroker: Born Again Ideology - Keynote
VIDEO: David Rokeby - Taken
VIDEO: Herwig Weiser - Death Before Disco
VIDEO: Aram Bartholl - Random Screen
PODCAST 2: Interactive installations
AUDIO: Jan-Peter Sonntag - Borders and the Infinite
AUDIO: Orhan Esen & AbdouMaliq Simone - Unfinished Cities
VIDEO: Herman Asselberghs - Proof of Life
VIDEO: Moon Na - Against God By Water Pistol
VIDEO: Roman Kirschner - Roots
PODCAST 3: Interactive installation and keynotes
PODCAST 4: IPE interview Arthur Kroker
VIDEO: Technocalyps: Frank Theys Interview
View a slideshow of a selection of photos from the festival....View>
VIEW THE FESTIVAL PROGRAMME... more>
Highlights from the festival we'll be checking out include:
- unfinish! exhibition, dedicated to "open-ended artistic approaches to technology";
- film & video screenings, ranging from "feature-length documentaries to a number of compilation programmes with short artistic video works";
- audio-visual live performances, involving artistic and musical experiments reflecting this year's topic unfinish! "Diverse methods of production are being interwoven and combined";
- unfinish! conference, dealing with "the phenomenon of finiteness in art, science, architecture, computer science and politics"; and...
- ...the after-hours club transmediale CTM, presenting "outstanding international productions in electronic music and audiovisual performance", as well as some inebriated fun (...we hope).
HERE ARE A COUPLE OF OTHER EXHIBITS FOR YOU...
Tim Shore (UK) - Cabinet
transmediale.07 - video
nomination for transmediale Award
Seiko Mikami (Japan) - Desire of Codes
transmediale.07 - installation
courtesy: all images are for press use and copyright of transmediale.07
IPE RESEARCH & PRODUCTION TEAM:
CLAUDIA VIEIRA; JOE FLINTHAM; JAMES JORDAN; MARK SHUFFLEBOTTOM
We'd like to thank Andreas Broeckmann, Artistic Director, Transmediale.07 for allowing us to video podcast from the festival directly.
