[spectre] Independent media conference, Manchester Oct 28th-29th.

[WILL BRADLEY]

>From Tomorrow On:
A conference on art, activism, technology and the
future of independent media
Friday 28th & Saturday 29th October 11.00-17.30
Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5NH. 

You are invited to join artists, activists, theorists,
experienced media practitioners and pioneers for two
days of presentations, discussions, screenings and
public debates on potential futures for the developing
independent and alternative media movement. 

Speakers include Agnese Trocchi (Candida TV;
Telestreet, Rome), Pit Schultz (Bootlab, Berlin), Ali
Tonak (San Francisco Independent Media Center), Seda
Guerses (De-Center Berlin), Simon Sheikh (TV-TV,
Copenhagen), Emma Hedditch (andiwilldo.net), Mick Fuzz
(BeyondTV, Undercurrents, Manchester IMC), Micz Flor
(Center for Advanced Media Prague; radio networking in
Indonesia and Nepal), Saul Albert (University of
Openess, London), Bjoernstjerne Christiansen
(Superchannel; Superflex, Copenhagen). See below for
bios of participants.

Open sessions 14.30-15.00 - introduce yourself and
your organisation/research/activities.

The conference will be streamed and archived online
via www.cornerhouse.org 
 
For more information and bookings contact
rebecca.keating at cornerhouse.org, 0161 200 1515.

Tickets include a copy of the From Tomorrow On reader
with texts selected by conference participants, and
admission to Thursday 27th screening of The Battle of
Orgreave (Jeremy Deller/Mike Figgis) at Cornerhouse
Cinema.

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Conference Programme:
 
Friday 28th
11.00
>From tomorrow on: current models and future
possibilities for independent media production and
distribution
How well do the existing models work,
technologically,artistically, economically,
politically? How can or should they develop or change?
The panel will present projects, set themes and ask
questions that will be returned to throughout the
weekend.
14.30 
Open session
15.00
Camcorder aesthetics and the articulation of protest:
debating issues of representation and ideology in art
& activism.
Whom do we speak for? Whose interests does our action
ultimately serve? This panel will present and discuss
different approaches to issues of art and propaganda,
activism and representation.

Saturday 29th
11.00
Virtual spaces, real networks: what can or should
differentiate new, independent media systems from the
mass media we already have? 
Do you serve a community or build an audience? Who are
these networks for? Do they really constitute a new
space for action?
14.30 
Open session
15.00
What is independence? Exploring the political economy
of knowledge production and distribution
In this final session the panel will ask what
independence might be in theory and make suggestions
on how to work towards it in practice, basing the
discussion in their own varied experiences.

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Participants:

Saul Albert
works with the University of Openness, The People
Speak, Twenteenth Century and Dorkbot London. More
info and links may be found here.
 
Bjoernstjerne Christiansen 
is a member of the Copenhagen-based artists' group
Superflex, www.superflex.dk
 
Micz Flor
is a media developer and training consultant at the
Center for Advanced Media - Prague, where he
initialised Campware. Over the past few years he has
been working with independent media institutions in
the south-east of Europe as well as Asia. Besides his
work in consultancy, training and development, Flor
has been organising a series of cultural events and
symposia, including the exhibition One Bit Louder in
Liverpool, Moneynations2 in Vienna and flashlights at
the Pandaemonium biennial of moving images, London. In
early 1999 Flor worked as content developer for Public
Netbase Vienna, where he also co-edited the web/print
publication 'period after' concerned with independent
media development. In 1998, while living in the uk he
founded and co-edited the online/tabloid publication
crash media. Living in manchester from 1998 to '99, he
initialised the structure and architecture of the
independent cultural server yourserver. Flor was
involved in the organisation of the hybrid workspace,
a collaboration between Documenta X and the Berlin
Biennial, 1997 in Kassel. In 1998 he organised the
temporary media lab 'revolting' in Manchester. Before
moving to the UK, he set up Berlin's content provider
art-bag.net and since then has contributed to and
worked with Berlin's net.radio programme convex tv.
 
Leigh French
is a co-editor of Variant magazine. Variant magazine
is an independent, critical arts and culture
publication, published three times a year with a
circulation of 15,000 copies per issue throughout the
UK & Ireland, and internationally through its
subscription base. Relaunched as a free tabloid in
1996, Variant aims to widen the involvement of its
readership in debate,discussion and awareness of
social, political and cultural issues which are
otherwise ignored,hidden,suppressed or censored. It
looks to its readership to provide,inform and generate
content for the magazine. As such,we address and
engage a wide ranging 'community of interest'. Variant
is a unique, innovative arts and culture magazine,
highly praised within the sector for its
cross-disciplinary approach to publishing. Variant has
proven there is a real need and desire for a magazine
with the independence to be critical that addresses
cultural issues in a social and political context. 
 
Mick Fuzz
is an internet activist who concentrates on
distributing video on the internet and organising
public screenings. He has worked with award-winning
social justice video production company Undercurrents
since 1999 and Indymedia UK since its formation in
2000. 
“Rather than maintaining an illusion of impartiality,
the kind of media we create contains blatant
incitement to get involved in positive campaigns and
make a difference. Mainstream media just can't do
that. Our real challenge is to create outlets and
distribution networks for this material.” Mick is
involved in creating and screening video for campaign
group including Manchester No Borders, the Dissent
Network and Rising Tide. 
He is currently working with the UK Indymedia video
collective to create a database of online films to be
downloaded for public screenings and promoting an
online toolkit for community video makers called
Ourvideo.org. 
 
Seda Guerses 
is based in Berlin. In recent years she has worked on
various topics in technology including the feminist
critique of computing, open source technolgies and
philosophies, security and, most recently, privacy and
ubiquitous computing. On and off she has also been
active in immigrant politics. In additon she is part
of a network of DJs from Berlin crossing Oriental,
Balkan and electronic music. Guerses recently involved
in starting a group initiative called de-center berlin
on the politics of representation in art and the
media. 
 
Emma Hedditch
is a visual artist and writer living in London. Her
productions include: 'A Pattern' (since 2000), an
ongoing collectively shot and edited video; 'This is
what we have done, and this is what we are doing'
(2005), animated drawings by persons in the context of
the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; 'Video home,
come on' (2004), a home-video viewing session and
archive, with Electra and Electric Studios, Brixton;
'A Political feeling, I hope so' (2004), Cubitt
Gallery, London, a social situation exploring
conditions of belonging; 'Parts of it are moving', an
ongoing collection of digital images with persons
engaged in or the results of anarchist thought and
social strategies, shown in 'Double Check. Re-Framing
Space in Photography: The Other Space, Parallel
Histories', Gallery of Contemporary Art, Celje,
Slovenia, 2004 and Camera Austria, Graz, Austria,
2005. Ongoing research into feminist thought and
writing has informed much of this activity, as well as
a desire to expose the economics of art production.
She has been engaged in collaborative dialogue with
The Copenhagen Free University since 2001, and has
worked for Cinenova Women's Film and Video distributor
since 1999. Her essays include: 'Stay Away, Don't Stay
Away, in 'afterthought: new writing on conceptual art'
ed. Mike Sperlinger, 2005; 'Now that we are persons:
an essay on the maternal subject', Mute magazine,
2004.
 
Pit Schultz
Born in Heidelberg, Schultz studied computer science
in Berlin. Since the late 90s, he has worked as an
internationally renowned organizer in independent
culture and media projects. He was co-founder of
"Radio Internationale Stadt" and Nettime, contributed
in 1997 to the "Hybrid Workspace" at the Documenta X
in Kassel and in 1999 founded Klubradio in Berlin. In
2000 he founded the Bootlab, an organization for the
support and development of electronic art and culture.

 
Simon Sheikh
is an art critic and curator, assistant Professor of
Art Theory and coordinator of the Critical Studies
Programme at Malmoe Art Academy, Sweden, guest curator
at NIFCA, Helsinki, Finland, and one of a loose
collective of artists and others responsible for the
independent broadcasting organisation Tv-Tv in
Copenhagen. Since 1996 he has been co-editor of
Oejeblikket, a danish magazine for visual cultures,
and since 1997 has been writing for the daily
newspaper Information. He has edited anthologies
including We Are All Normal (and we want our freedom),
Black Dog Publishing, London 2001, and In the Place of
the Public Sphere?, b_books, Berlin 2002. Sheikh lives
and works in Berlin and Copenhagen.
Hito Steyerl
is a documentary filmmaker and author living in
Berlin. She has published many filmic and written
essays centered around questions of globalization,
urbanism, racism and nationalism and her films
include: Germany and Identity, 1994, Land of Smiles
1996, Babenhausen 1997, The Empty Centre, 1998,
Normalitaet, 1999 and November, 2003. Steyerl is
visiting professor for Cultural and Gender Studies at
the University of Arts, Berlin and her recent
exhibition include the Berlin Biennial, 2004; Wiener
Festwochen, Vienna, 2004; and City of Women,
Ljubljana, 2003. 
 
Ali Tonak
is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Independent
Media Center, www.sf.indymedia.org

Agnese Trocchi 
was born as *macchina*, a digital entity, in AVaNABbs
(Bullettin Board System), and settled in Rome. She
grew up in techno organized disorder and created a Web
site focused on the illegal rave scene in Italy with
Francesco Macarone Palmieri: Ordanomade, Children of
The Noise Age (http://www.kyuzz.org/ordanomade). She
has developed counter-networks in Rome including
http://www.thething.it. She is also co-editor of
Torazine Magazine : Pills of Pop Counterculture. She
is also co-founder of Candida TV, a video project on
the infestation of mainstream television channels.
Since 1999, she has been collaborating with Diane
Ludin and Francesca Da Rimini in the net project
Identity_Runners

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Cornerhouse is Greater Manchester’s international
centre for cinema and contemporary visual art. It
presents a unique programme that challenges and
debates current film, art and cultural practice. The
cross-disciplinary programme of exhibitions,
screenings, commissions, publications and events, that
are international in scope, brings together artists,
critics, filmmakers and audiences to create a dialogue
on contemporary issues in art and culture.

>From Tomorrow On is a collaboration with the Research
Group for Art and Democracy at Manchester Metropolitan
University.