[spectre] PixelACHE 2005 : The Dot Org Boom!

[juha huuskonen]

PixelACHE 2005 : The Dot Org Boom
Festival of electronic art and subcultures

14-17 April 2005, Helsinki
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art
www.pixelache.ac

- - -

The main theme for PixelACHE 2005 is the Dot Org Boom.
Dot Org Boom is the non-profit version of the Dot Com Boom (RIP).
The essential ingredients of this rapidly growing phenomenon
are open source community, open content initiatives, media
activist networks and myriads of NGOs around the world.
PixelACHE Festival will bring together a diverse group of
artists, engineers, activists, architects and designers to discuss
and develop the future of Dot Org Boom.

In addition, PixelACHE 2005 features the following program sections:

* VJ Culture and Audiovisual Performances
* Experimental Interaction and Electronics
* Interactive & Participatory Cinema
* particle/wave hybrid radio workshop

- - -

"...the Net is not Yet a monolithic broadcast medium. I remain wildly
optimistic about it's potential. The recent ascent of peer-to-peer
networks, weblogs and free software could be a sign of a coming
Internet renaissance"
- Geert Lovink, My First Recession (2003)

"In United States and Canada, for example, almost everyone
knows about the explosion of the dot-coms - a much smaller
phenomenon - but millions have not heard the big story:
the worldwide explosion of dot-orgs. It is a story with
far-reaching implications: By sharpening the role of
government, shifting practises and attitudes in business
and opening up waves of opportunity for people to apply
their talents in new, positive ways, the emerging citizen
sector is reorganising the way the work of society gets done."
- David Bornstein, How to Change the World (2004)

"a browser is also an editor
  a desktop is also a server
  a user is also a producer"
- Sarai media lab, free media lounge (2005)

- - -

###   The Dot Org Boom program   ###

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia which can be read and edited
by anyone. Wikipedia currently has independant editions in 190 languages,
sponsored by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia contains
approximately 1.3 million articles, 500,000 of which are in its English
language edition, over 200,000 in the German language and 100,000 in
the Japanese language. Wikipedia is one of the most popular reference
sites on the Web, receiving around 50 million hits per day. It has spawned
numerous conceptually related sister projects such as Wiktionary,
Wikibooks and Wikinews. Florence Devouard (France) will be the
official Wikipedia ambassador at PixelACHE 2005.
www.wikipedia.org

Streamtime (Netherlands/Iraq/international) is an international crew of
journalists, poets, artists and software developers, dedicated to assist
local media to get connected. Openness, free publishing (copy left),
easy access, low-to-no literacy and multi-linguality are guidelines.
Streamtime uses old and new media for the production of content and
networks in the fields of media, arts, culture and activism in crisis areas,
like Iraq, where the project is setting up independent communication
links between Iraq and rest of the world. Streamtime is collaborating
with dyne:bolic linux cd installation project, which can be used as an
instant toolkit for media production and transmission.
www.streamtime.org - www.dynebolic.org

Naeem Mohaiemen (US) will give a presentation about independent Muslim
media networks and their role in shaping up the "Globalized Islam". Naeem
Mohaiemen is a digital-media activist and filmmaker specializing
in Political Islam. He is editor of shobak.org ("Outsider Muslims"), and
Associate Editor of altmuslim.com. He is also director of VISIBLE, a
collective of Muslim and Other Artist-Activists. VISIBLE premiered
DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA, a film trilogy and multimedia installation
about detention of American Muslims after 9/11.
http://www.shobak.org - http://www.disappearedinamerica.org -
http://www.altmuslim.com

Dodo.org a Finnish environmental organisation. Dodo.org will present a
project about ideas of how the world could be saved. The ideas have been
collected from the visitors of the Dodo.org website (the page about the
project is unfortunately available only in Finnish). Dodo will also present
their NGOphotos.org project, an image bank for NGOs where all images
are made available under Creative Commons licence.
www.dodo.org - www.ngophotos.org - www.creativecommons.org

Vanessa Gocksch and Walter Hernandez have initiated the Intermundos.org
grassroot organisation in Bogotá, Colombia. The goal of Intermundos is to
inspire local cultural activities and connect them to global movements
through various media projects. Website keywords: Intermundos, hip hop,
indigenous, Colombia, Columbia, afro, community.
www.intermundos.org

Used in India presents media devices and narratives of their use throughout
the 20th century in India. From the cyclostyle machines of the sixties to
the telephone meters of STD/PCO booths, this hyper-textual inventory
refers to applications, technologies, and services that constitute the
heterogeneous world of Indian media culture and design. Used in India has
been created by Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS) and is shown for the
first time at the Doors of Perception Conference 8 in New Delhi, India.
www.ict4d.info - doors8delhi.doorsofperception.com

PixelACHE 2005 will also host the launch of a new project,
digitalopenandfree.org. It is a project for exploring the digital open and
free which is more than just open source and content - open networks,
open access, open search, etc...
www.digitalopenandfree.org

Dot Org Boom theme also features a WebCamTalk with Trebor
Sholtz (www.newmediaeducation.org) and a presentation by
Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (www.rekombinant.org). The theme is
explored in other PixelACHE program categories as well : open
source audiovisual performance tools, Kino film-maker community,
etc...

###    VJ Culture and Audiovisual Performances   ###

SF&L and Drifter TV are the winners of Visual Sensations, the first national
VJ competition in Netherlands and Belgium. PixelACHE features a performance
by SF&L, which combines live video mixing with mixing of liquids, light and
transparent plastic sheets... the result is a mix of two narratives, one
based on the video footage and one on real-time typographical experiments
with texts.
www.visualsensations.nl - www.studiofrank-lisa.nl

Machinista 2004 festival in Glasgow explored and questioned the ideas
of 'artificial intelligence in the arts' and 'wo/man-machine interaction'.
PixelACHE 2005 presents a screening of the Machinista 2004 dvd
and PERM 36 ROBOVISION performance by Pointless Creations,
a Glasgow based collaborative video art project.
www.machinista.org.uk - www.pointlesscreations.co.uk

PixelACHE 2005 features a screening of the soon-to-be-released RELINE2 dvd.
"RELINE2 artists investigate modern mythology, examine environments, explode
form, and play with similes between machine and body. From buildings ripping
apart by unseen forces to characters on strange journeys in wild imagined
spaces, these videos explore the integration of technology into every strata
of our lives."
www.reline.net

PixelACHE 2005 premieres re:spam inbox, a performance by Timothy
Jaeger (US) and Alex Dragulescu (US/Romania). Re:spam explores
'unwanted, abject data in the form of solicitous messages' aka spam.
The re:spam performance straddles the line between a traditional
VJ performance and newer generative coding practices.
www.respam.com

VJ Pillow & VJ Mademoiselle and Christelle Franca (Dj Chrys de Nice) &
Patrick Watson from Montreal have been invited for a two-week long artist
residency to work on A Day on Earth performance. The first version of the
performance will be premiered and PixelACHE 2005. The Montreal crew
also includes Ben Bogart, who will present his Volume Curvature performance
and the pixelTANGO software which he is developing at SAT (Society for
Art and Technology, Montreal).
www.ekran.org/ben - www.sat.qc.ca

Piksel (www.piksel.no) is an annual workshop dedicated for the developers
of open source audiovisual software tools, organised by BEK in Bergen,
Norway. PixelACHE will present some of the current Piksel software
projects and results of the Piksel04 workshop from November 2004.
www.piksel.no

Also in the VJ Culture program: TEMPEST performance by Erich Berger
(www.randomseed.org, Norway), a performance with sound, video and odours
by RYBN (www.rybn.org, France), a collaboration between Selfish Shellfish
(Finland)+ video performance collective Amfibio (www.amfibio.org, Finland),
Malfunctionalism dance performance prototype by Mikko Kallinen & Llare
(Finland), PIKU audiovisual performance by Visual Systeemi and Tuomas
Toivonen (www.visualsysteemi.com/piku, Finland), VJing show by Intermundos
(www.intermundos.org, Colombia), Midi control workshop by Dag Engström
(Sweden) + several discussions and workshops (seminar on using VJ
performance in theatre, workshops on VJ tools and software, etc.)...

###   Experimental Interaction and Electronics   ###

MusicBox by Jin-Yo Mok (US/Korea) is an exceptionally well designed
interactive instrument. It is an electronic version of a traditional music
box, where the composition is presented as dots of light on a wooden
cylinder. MusicBox also contains an online component which can be used
for trying out compositions and sharing them with others.
www.playmusicbox.com

PixelACHE 2005 is proud to present home-made electronic instruments and
a performance by one of the Finnish pioneers of the field, Mika Rintala /
Verde.
www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue14/verdegal.html

Also in the Experimental Interaction and Electronics program: Four Ophones
by Erik Sandelin & Magnus Torstensson (www.unsworn.org, Sweden), Skisser
och rutiner performance by Daniel Skoglund (Sweden), Elf - Electronic Life
Forms by Pascal Glissmann & Martina Höfflin (www.electronic-life-forms.de,
Germany), Chamber Music for One performance by Teemu Kivikangas (Finland),
Kick Ass Kung-Fu by Animaatiokone Industries (www.animaatiokone.net,
Finland), workshops by Jürgen Scheible and Tuomo Tammenpää + more...

###   Interactive and Participatory Cinema   ###

Do well with nothing, do better with little, and do it right now! This is
the motto of Kino 00, a non-profit organization composed based in Montreal,
Canada. Kino concept has been designed to drive film-makers to create quick
and rough sketches of ideas. These experiments are viewed by enthusiastic
audiences every month, in Montreal and other Kino collectives around the
world. PixelACHE 2005 arranges a Kino Kabaret session (an intensive
workshop for creating films) and also aims to revitalize the Kino
Helsinki chapter...
www.kino00.com

Also in the Interactive and Participatory Cinema program: One Day Video
concept by Anttu Harlin & Osmo Puuperä (Finland) which will meet and/or
challenge the Kino Kabaret, interactive cinema projects by Mariina Bakic &
Jean-Michel Géridan (www.webdrama.net, France), interactive cinema projects
by Robert Brecevic (www.banananose.se, Sweden), experimental film project by
Markus Renvall (Finland), discussion about community tv and radio hosted by
Robert Stachel (Austria) and more...

###   particle/wave workshop   ###

particle/wave hybrid radio workshop explores the interface between the
creative traditions of terrestrial radio broadcasting and emerging practices
of internet radiomaking. particle/wave rethinks community radio practices
through distributed and participatory networks of sonic exchange, open
content models and new radiomaking tools. particle/wave examines the dual
nature of radio as wave and packet... network and sound... transmission and
reception...
http://aura.siba.fi/particlewave

###   PixelACHE 2005 artist residency   ###

Image: Light Brix & Nuage Vert, hehe.org

Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen are artists and interaction designers based
in Paris, France. They have been selected for the PixelACHE 2005 artist
residency which is organised in collaboration with NIFCA - Nordic Institute
for Contemporary Art. During their two-month long stay in Helsinki, Helen
and Heiko will develop a new prototype of their Nuage Vert (Green Cloud)
project. Nuage Vert proposes using gas emissions of industrial plants as
surfaces for interactive projections.
www.hehe.org

###   PixelACHE clubs and concerts   ###

The first PixelACHE night features a particle/wave concert at Sibelius
Academy concert hall and a live radiomaking session at m-bar. The PixelACHE
club night on Saturday 16th of April at Umo Jazz House features Peerspex
(France), Memnon (Finland) and more... On Sunday 17th of April there will be
a concert of Hecker (MEGO) and Blutleuchte (Finland). More information about
clubs and concerts coming soon!

###   PixelACHE international   ###

PixelACHE is organising several small events together with international
partners and we are also involved in several more informal collaboration
projects....

Dot Org Boom media seminar in Stockholm on Tuesday 12th of April will
explore the relationship between grassroot media and mainstream commercial
media. What are the possibilities of the currently emerging new models for
media production and distribution? There are currently millions of amateurs
producing content which is freely available for all, how should the main
stream media and policy makers react to this? The presenters in Stockholm
include Naeem Mohaiemen (US, topic: independent Muslim media), Florence
Devouard (France, topic: Wikipedia), Robert Stachel (Austria, topic:
community tv and radio), Kai Kuikkaniemi (Finland, topic:
digitalopenandfree.org), Juha Huuskonen (Finland, topic: electronic
subcultures). The seminar is organised in collaboration with Finnish Embassy
in Stockholm.

PixelVÄRK in Stockholm on Saturday 23rd of April is a collaboration project
between The Nursery and Fylkingen. The Nursery is a Stockholm based
organisation promoting experimental culture which has produced close to
100 concerts, performances, lectures and club nights since the inception in
1996. Fylkingen is a society devoted to the production and promotion of new
music and intermedia art. Since its foundation in 1933 Fylkingen has been
committed to experimental, new and unestablished forms of contemporary arts.
PixelVÄRK will gather together audiovisual artists from Sweden, focusing on
the visual side of the experimental music scene. The festival will present a
broad spectrum of artists who all represent different aspects of this scene.
www.nursery.a.se - www.fylkingen.se

Mal au Pixel in Paris in May 2005 will be a small one day mini-festival
which brings together some of the Finnish and French PixelACHE artists and
collaborators. The event is organised in collaboration with Mains d'Ouvres
and is a preparation event for a larger Mal au Pixel festival which is
planned for spring 2006.
www.mainsdoeuvres.org

###   Organisers and supporters   ###

PixelACHE is organised by non-profit organisation Piknik Frequency in
collaboration with Kiasma Theatre. PixelACHE 2005 program is designed
in collaboration with katastro.fi electronic art and subcultures network.
PixelACHE is supported by Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, AVEK,
Arts Council of Finland, NIFCA - Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art,
Goethe-Institut Helsinki, Centre Culturel Français, British Council,
Mondriaan Foundation, UCSD Visual Arts Department, CRCA
(Center for Research in Computing and the Arts) and Experimental
Game Lab (UCSD).

Particle/Wave is a co-production of Centre for Music & Technology,
Sibelius Academy and Piknik Frequency. Particle/Wave is supported
by Arts Council of Finland and Australia Council for the Arts.

Concert by Hecker is organised in collaboration with Charm of Sound
and the lecture of Franco 'Bifo' Berardi in collaboration with
Tutkijaliitto.

###   More information   ###

You can find the preliminary program schedule of PixelACHE 2005
at www.pixelache.ac. See you in Helsinki in April!

- - -