:: Friday, August 05, 2005 ::

Transitio_mx 2005 International Video and Electronic Arts Festival is a place for the expression of contemporary artistic creative practices through electronic media. The main focus of this festival is showing the current production and research in the field, in function of the constant mobility of its epistemological, technological, cultural, aesthetic and social boundaries.
These dissolutions invite us to explore the nature, scopes and conflicts between, art, technology, sciences and humanities making the Festival a permanent site for the expression and reflection of the above mentioned relationships.

This first edition of the Festival has chosen the "Imaginaries in transit: poetics and technology" as its main theme. The thematic proposes to go deep into the paradigm that provides of contents and expands technology right from the poetics or signal's site, rather that emphasizing the research concerning technological support itself. "Imaginaries in transit: poetics
and technology" seeks to explore the aesthetic and cultural re-signification modes that accompany electronic art production and research, inviting the participants of the contest to reflect about production within this context.


Transitio_mx will count with the presence of well known personalities such as Marina Grzinik, Rafael Lozano Hemmer, Arlindo Machado, Jorge Laferla, PrÖamo Lozada, José Luis Barrios, among others. The jury for the First Video and Electronic Arts Contest will also be made up of important artists and theoretitians in the electronic arts field. Three prizes will be awarded: first prize consisting in N$120,000.00, second prize consisting in N$90,000.00 and third prize of N$75,000.00. The previous amounts are in Mexican pesos.

The National Culture and Arts Council, through the Center for Multimedia of the National Center for the Arts, invites all artists of this field to participate in the First Video and Electronic Arts Contest that will take place within the framework of this
Festival from December 6 to 11, 2005.

The deadline for the contest is September 30, 2005. For information on the required documents, and in order to complete the entry form visit: http://transitiomx.cenart.gob.mx
or write an email to: Ana Villa (concursoae@correo.cnart.mx)

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Turbulence Artists' Studios: "kanarinka projects"
http://turbulence.org/
studios/kanarinka/
index.html

kanarinka's recent collaborations include opening a nail salon at the Boston Center for the Arts, walking with her head in a bucket of Coke in Canada, staging a taste test with teenagers in a parking lot in Roxbury, podcasting interviews with residents of Boston's South End, launching an international, public database of Corporate Commands, and rolling around on the ground in a white lab coat. kanarinka's research interests include public space, performing cities, experimental urbanism, social cartography and infinitely small things. She is working on new definitions for "psychogeography" and "microperformance" (feedback is encouraged).

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Make sure to read the Weekly Features this week, which contitnues with the thematic of Art and Globalization. Contributing Editor Molly Hankwitz writes on Hacktivism and its potential effects in global social movements. (Weekly Features are directly below this section.)

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A note from Empyre:

This month on -empyre-, we venture into the world of wearable technologies in the context of social and public art practice. Katherine Moriwaki (US) is an artist and researcher investigating clothing accessories as the active conduit through which people create network relationships in public space. Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (AU) designs interfaces that deliberately require intense physical effort to facilitate social connectedness between remote participants. Heidi Kumao's (US) incisive feminist practice currently investigates the RFID tags that industry is adopting for product tracking, the government for border control and public libraries for automatic checkout.

Join us at
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

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README 100: Temporary software art factory
http://readme.runme.org

Call for proposals: Deadline August 8, 2005

What:
Readme festival in the year 2005 aims at supporting the production of software art projects and texts critically engaging with software art. Readme 100 will support up to 6 projects and up to 6 articles on the competition basis. Each project will get a budget from 500 to 3000 euros (depending on the project complexity) and each article - 500 euros. The completed or close to completion works and texts will be presented at the off-line event scheduled for November 4-5, 2005 in the State and City Library of Dortmund, Germany. Completed works will be honorably published at Runme.org repository.

How:
Proposals for projects and texts should be sent to og {at} dxlab.org and inke.arns {at} hmkv.de no later than August 8. Readme 100 only supports new projects and texts. The decision will be publicly announced on August 15, 2005. Please prepare the material in whatever format you see fit. Make sure you include the concept / outline (around 1 page of text -approx. 1.800 characters), a short CV, links to your previous projects, the estimate budget, and any material you find
appropriate.

Focus:
Different ways of software art production, including self-employing, hiring, using open source solutions, interfacing with IT economy sector and educational/cultural institutions.

Outsourcing:
Besides ways of production common for art and open source, we suggest to consider outsourcing solutions (more details on Readme website) as they are proven to be efficient and adequate for the modern globalized economy.

Factory - idea and location:
Readme 100 wishes to use the potential of the idea of production. Software art is often produced using conventional software production models; sometimes pragmatic software tools get regarded in terms of software art and vice versa: software art projects get used and sold as tools. One could hire an Indian programmer to code a piece of software art; one could get rich from selling well-advertised unconventional software, one could discover that an author of a conventional software piece always felt it was something "different". Readme temporary software art factory would like to focus not only on the product itself, but on the way of its production, and experiment with different models of production in relation to art, including outsourcing, work within IT companies or self-production.

Readme 100 regards texts as essential parts of the production process; critical texts are welcome to be produced at the temporary software art factory.

What makes Dortmund particularly interesting as a venue for Readme 100 is the fact that the city and the whole region of the Ruhrgebiet is in full transition from a former heavy industrial city (coal, steel) to a city/region focusing on new technologies.
This setting symbolises exactly the transition from a fordistic / industrial production model to a post-fordistic / post industrial one. The fordistic production model is represented by, e.g. Hollerith calculating machines, machine processing, "mechanization takes command", batch processing. The post-fordistic, globalization-related model which started to evolve in the 1970s, is characterised by upcoming concepts of timesharing, offshore outsourcing, borders transparent for capital but not for human resources, the introduction of object oriented programming languages, the increasing networking of computers and the first multimedia computers. The "temporary software art factory" as a concept relates both to the originally fordistic calculating machine, the networked, interactive medium that emerged from it, and globalized modes of
production.

Who:
Readme 100 is hosted by Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, Germany, and is organized by Inke Arns, Olga Goriunova, Francis Hunger and Alexei Shulgin. The organizers will also form a selection committee together with Amy Alexander and Alex McLean from Runme.org.  

Readme is a travelling media art festival with a focus on software art. Its mission is software art development and critical contextualisation. Readme is closely related with Runme.org, the software art repository.

Readme festival history:
2002, Moscow. Beginning of formation of self-reflecting scene. Generating the first definitions of software art.
2003, Helsinki. Launch of Runme.org, the software art repository. Introduction of software art categories. Accumulating projects in the database. 2004, Aarhus. Further development of critical discourse: Software Art and Cultures Conference. Runme-Dorkbot city camp - a face-to-face meeting of "people doing strange things with software".

Why is the festival called "Readme 100" if it is just the forth edition: 4 equals 100 in the binary numeral system; we use this system here for the reason of beauty of the title.

Readme 100 is supported by:
-Ministerium fuer Staedtebau und Wohnen, Kultur und Sport des Landes NRW, "OffScene"
-Stadt- und Landesbibliothek, Dortmund
-LesArt Literaturfestival, Dortmund
-Kulturbuero Stadt Dortmund
-Runme.org

URLs:
Readme
http://www.readme.runme.org

Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund
http://www.hmkv.de

Runme.org
http://runme.org

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Raquel Herrera Ferrer reflects upon the recent events at InteractivA 05:

I was surprised, from my let's call it "barcelonian" point of view, of the constant debate articulated around "postcolonial" issues, and of how a biennal like Interactiva wasn't considered only as an "act of faith" but as a "political act" too. However, I have the impression that this double approach vertebrating the possible interpretations of the sense, survival and sustainable quality of Interactiva towards its future would put aside a very important reverse: independence as a choice, as a preference, as a "relief" from a pressing and suffocating art "Establishment".

Heidi Figueroa, Ph.D. professor specializing in Psychology and communication in the University of Puerto Rico has uploaded a set of photographs from some of the different events at InteractivA 05.

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Some resources which have recent updates include:
New Geographies: http://www.laberintos.org/
newgeographies/

and

Net Art Latino has added the following artworks/resources:

.ar.

sitios de Indira Montoya (artista muy interesante que conoci en cordoba),
Leonardo Solaas (otro artista trabajando sobre el tema de lo 'onirico') y
update al sitio de un 'novisimo artista' llamado gustavo romano (;-). (lo
tenia solo por findelmundo, ahora esta enlazado tambien a su sitio personal)

.cl.

Santiago city urban caos / Paulo Fernandez & Sebastian Parada, muy buen
trabajo sobre la ciudad de santiago de chile, espora (un colectivo
multidisciplinario de artistas) y augias amena.

.br.

imagem lenguagem / Marcus Bastos, metaphsk / colectivo muy interesante
(sincretic, moradi, tossin, dimitre lima), apostando fuerte al glitch esta
iman moradi.

.sv.

GOOBALIZATION / Eduardo Navas

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A note from Christina McPhee:

August on -empyre- soft-skinned space: Wearable Technologies
with guests Heidi Kumao, Katherine Moriwaki and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller

This month on -empyre-, we venture into the world of wearable technologies in the context of social and public art practice.
Katherine Moriwaki (US) is an artist and researcher investigating clothing accessories as the active conduit through which people create network relationships in public space. Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (AU) designs interfaces that deliberately require intense physical effort to facilitate social connectedness between remote participants. Heidi Kumao's (US) incisive feminist practice currently investigates the RFID tags that industry is adopting for product tracking, the government for border control and public libraries for automatic checkout.

Join us at

http://www.subtle.net/empyre

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DRUNKEN BOAT’S FIRST ANNUAL PANLITERARY AWARDS
Deadline Extended to: August 15th, 2005
Judges: Annie Finch, Sabina Murray, Alexandra Tolstoy, Talan Memmott, David Hall, and DJ Spooky

Drunken Boat, , international online journal for the arts, announces its First Annual Panliterary Awards in Poetry, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Web-Art, Photo/Video, Sound. Submit up to three works, either via email to or via physical mail to: Drunken Boat, 119 Main St., Chester, CT 06412. A $15 entry fee must accompany all submissions, either via check or money order, else submitted electronically at: http://www.drunkenboat.com/db7/donate.html. Winners in all categories will be featured in a subsequent issue of Drunken Boat, and will be invited to perform at future multimedia events and performances with all expenses paid. All other entries will be considered for publication.

Submissions must be received no later than August 15th, 2005. Awards will be given in the following genres: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, web art, photo/video and sound. The judges for the Panliterary Awards are:

Poetry— Annie Finch, Poet, translator, and librettist and Director of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Maine, http://www.users.muohio.edu/
finchar/

Fiction— Sabina Murray, 2003 PEN/Faulkner Award Winner
http://www.groveatlantic.com/grove/wc.dll?groveproc~book~4236 

Non-Fiction— Alexandra Tolstoy, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society,
http://www.alexandratolstoy.com/

Web-Art— Talan Memmott, 2000 trAce / Alt-X New Media Writing Award Winner and Creative Director for the literary hypermedia journal, BeeHive,
http://www.memmott.org/talan/

Photo/Video— David Hall, Video art pioneer, TV interventionist, installation artist, sculptor and filmmaker. http://www.davidhallart.com/

Sound— Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, Musician, writer, producer, editor-at-large of Artbyte, and conceptual artist whose work has appeared in the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennial for Architecture,
http://www.djspooky.com/

Works will be accepted as URLs of work online, as attachments (MSWord files or .jpg/.gif/.zip/.swf/.html/.mp3/.mov/.wav files), or else as hard copy, disk, or CD/DVD. Please include the phrase Panliterary Awards in the subject line of any email submission and do not paste text submissions into the body of the email. Email editor@drunkenboat.com or shankarr@ccsu.edu for more information.

+-+-+ Drunken Boat is a non-profit organization that depends on public
assistance for its sustenance. Please see http://www.drunkenboat.com
/db6/donate.html to make a tax-deductible donation.+-+-+

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CALLS FOR VIDA 8.0 - ART & ARTIFICIAL LIFE - DEADLINE 30th September

http://www.fundacion.
telefonica.com/
at/vida/


VIDA 8.0 is the seventh edition of this international competition, created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the field of artificial life.

In previous editions, prizes have been awarded to autonomous entities able to bring us pleasure (Tickle 2.0, Tickle Salon 5.0), engage us in irrational conversations (Head 3.0) or invade our social space (Cour des Miracles 2.0); virtual ecologies that evolve with user participation (Autopoiesis 3.0, Electric Sheep and Remain in Light 4.0), autonomous systems that use the feedback obtained as a mechanism and metaphor for transformation (Appearance machine 3.0, Levántate 5.0) and works highlighting the social side of artificial life (Novus Extinctus 4.0, The Relative Velocity Inscription Device 5.0, The Central City 6.0 and Spore 7.0).

Other themes are addressed in works that have been given honourable mentions: avatars and players in their unique worlds (Iconica 2.0, Life Spacies II and Unconscious Flow 3.0), new interpretations of the roots of artificial life, such as cellular automatons (Sandlines 3.0, Dadatron 5.0) and system feedback or autonomy translated into simple familiar media (Breathe and Autistic-Artistic Machine 4.0, The Responsive Field of Lattice Archipelogics 5.0).

We are looking for art that reflects the panorama of the possible interaction between 'synthetic' and organic life, e.g.
- Autonomous agents that shape and perhaps interpret the data-saturated environment we have in common.
- Portraits of inter-subjectivity or empathy shared between artificial entities and ourselves.
- Intelligent anthropomorphisation of the datasphere and its inhabitants.
- User-defined exploration and interaction designed to reduce fear and stimulate interest in the emerging phenomena which, by definition, are beyond our control.

An international jury will award prizes to the most outstanding projects in electronic art which use techniques such as digital genetics, autonomous robotics, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, computer viruses, virtual ecosystems and avatars.



There is a total of EUR20,000 in prizes for the three projects selected by the jury:
First prize: EUR10,000
Second prize: EUR7,000
Third prize: EUR3,000

There will also be special mentions for a further seven projects chosen by the jury.

Each project must be submitted as a 5-10-minute video with voice-over narration describing the artistic concept and the technological realization of the project presented. The project must be post-September 2003. The jury's decision will be based essentially on the video.

Participants must provide a VHS tape (PAL, NTSC or SECAM format) or DVD for the jury. If your work is awarded a prize or a special mention, you will be asked to provide a video on professional-quality format (Dvcam, Betacam, ?" U-Matic, MiniDV) for inclusion in The Best of VIDA 8.0 .

The competition is open to participants from all over the world; however, each participant may present only one project. To register, read the competition rules, complete and sign the application form and submit it together with the tape to Fundación Telefónica before 30 September 2005.

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