ADDITIONAL PROGRAM RELATED TO THE SEMINAR
DURING FRIDAY 30 MARCH + SATURDAY 31 MARCH

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FRIDAY 30 MARCH

Architecture for Participation: In The Presence of Networks
11.00 – 13.00
Goethe Institut Seminar Room (Mannerheimintie 20 A)
Free Entrance

In the ubiquity of networked media spaces where we distribute our wireless lives, what happens to our creative processes? Presentations by John Hopkins (Remote Presence: Streaming Life Workshop) and Eléonore Hellio (ESP - Extra-Sensorial Perception art collective)

* John Hopkins (Iceland/US)
www.neoscenes.net
Presentation + workshop by John Hopkins, an active network-builder in the media art scene (and beyond), especially in the Nordic/Baltic region. ‘As an active networker-builder with a background in engineering, hard science, and the arts, Hopkins practices a nomadic form of performative art and teaching that spans many countries and situations.’

’This workshop starts from concepts of the formation and creative sources of grassroots networks to the actualities of a sustainable creative practice involving remote presence mediated by networks. Online collaborative visual/sonic events succeed when facilitators understand the dynamics of human network-building as well as the possible technologies involved. The politics of collaboration underlie much of the potential of technologically-mediated social interaction. In all my workshops, I address the complex social politics of technology, providing a powerful model for the critical engagement of media.’

* Eléonore Hellio (FR)
www.eternalnetwork.org
ESP is the acronyme for Extra-Sensorial Perception. It is a fluctuating art collective associating students, teachers and artists. Since 1999, we have developped a continual activity in the sphere of media art based in the Network Art Laboratory of the school of visual arts of Strasbourg (ESAD). ESP explores online cooperative systems and performative virtual shared spaces as a possibility of establishing dialogue between different social contexts, cultures and countries through local and distant interplay. ESP also extend its activity outside academic world for special projects. Network art is not only using modern technology but a way of rethinking art through a critical study of digital globalisation in regards to its rapid emergence, transformation and complexity. Furthermore, ESP attemps to investigate news interzones between past, present and future in the midst of tensions between tradition and modernity. In 007, ESP explores the impact of technology in places where media and/or infrastructures are highly unstable by developping new projects in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Karosta (post-sovietic ghetto in Latvia).

Pixelache Lounge exhibition presentations
17.00 – 18.00
Kiasma Seminar Room :: Free Entrance

With Placard headphone festival (FR), UVA - Sound Interactives installation (UK), Jodi Rose - Transit Radio Lounge (AU), Gunnar Green - Living Letters + Parasite (DE)

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SATURDAY 31 MARCH

‘the DIY art + tech day’

Nordic VJ Meeting: Generative Art and VJ Software presentations
11.00 -14.00
Kiasma Seminar Room :: Free Entrance

A series of presentations by individuals or groups who have developed their own tools for audiovisual performances, featuring a keynote speech by Marius Watz about generative art:

“Intrigued by the power of computation and the realization that all digital media are in fact software, a new generation of artists and designers are turning to code as a means of new expression and a way to better control their medium. They have realized that software is not the transparent interface it has conventionally been thought to be. Instead, software is a material that both limits and permits personal expression.

True literacy means being able to both read and write. If to use pre-existing software is to “read” digital media, then programming is the equivalent to writing. The Generator.x project focuses on artists and designers who embrace this new literacy not as a technical obstacle, but as a way to redefine the tools and the media they work in.”

Participants: Marius Watz (NO) // Generator.x project, Samu Bence & Peter Gyenei (HU) // Animata live animation software, Bertrand Gonduin (FR/SE) // Scramble software, Nuno Correira (PT/FI) // nGrid & B10 softwares, Jaakko Tuosa (FI) // Hamara, Marita Liulia & Jacke Kastelli // creative misuse of Macromedia Director.

Dorkbot Helsinki / Association for Experimental Electronics
14.00 -16.00
Kiasma Seminar Room :: Free Entrance

Dorkbot event network presents “people doing strange things with electricity”. Dorkbot Helsinki at Pixelache 2007 features experimental instruments and electronics.

Open networks discussion
16.00 -18.00
Kiasma Seminar Room :: Free Entrance

Bandwidth, wired or wireless, was originally seen as a ‘commons’. Through market-driven regulation it has been made into an object of consumption by the creation of artificial scarcity and asymmetric models of access. The discussion on open networks, organised by m-cult and pixelACHE, compares experiences of civic and DIY network initiatives which aim to reclaim bandwidth as a shared resource. The aim is to open the black box of bandwidth and to place it in a political, social and cultural context.

Discussants:
Armin Medosch is a writer / artist who has engaged with and researched open wireless initiatives in London and Vienna. http://theoriebild.ung.at/view/Main/FreeWavelength

Petri Krohn is an activist engineer who has developed fiber optic community networking in the Helsinki area. www.helsinkiopen.net

Moderator: Minna Tarkka is director of m-cult, currently involved in making space for public access media in Finland. www.publicaccess.fi

Remote Presence: Streaming Life event
20.00-00.00
MUU Gallery (Lönnrotinkatu 33)
Free Entrance

Live event with global participation following a 10 days workshop reflecting on variety of practical and conceptual topics that address the core issues of remote collaboration.

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