[spectre] Pixelache Helsinki 2008 programme preview + Nuage Vert in Helsinki in Feb 2008

[juha huuskonen]

Pixelache University
12-16 March 2008, Helsinki
www.pixelache.ac/university

* Pixelache Lounge: showcase of artworks and student projects
* Concerts and performances in Kiasma Theatre
* Pixelache club events
* Seminar on education (in the cross-roads of media, technology, art
and culture)
* Prix Möbius Nordica 2008 competition

A sneak preview of Pixelache 2008 programme:
* The Camera Lucida by Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand (Russia)
* v*i*d*a lab by Alejandro Tamayo (Colombia)
* Kitchen Budapest (Hungary)
* ANTIDATAMINING (France)
* NIP - New Interfaces in Performance (UK + Netherlands + Portugal)
* Video in Theatre seminar

>> More information at www.pixelache.ac/university

- - -

Nuage Vert / Vihreä Pilvi
www.nuagevert.org
www.hehe.org

Pixelache is helping HeHe (Helen Evans & Heiko Hansen) to realise
Nuage Vert project in Helsinki in February 2008.

Every night from the 22 to the 29 of February 2008, the vapour emissions of
he Salmisaari power plant in Helsinki will be illuminated to show the
current levels of electricity consumption by local residents. A laser ray
will trace the cloud during the night time and turn it into a city scale
neon sign. Nuage Vert is a communal event for the area of Ruoholahti, which
anticipates esoteric cults centred on energy and transforms an active power
plant into a space for art, a living factory. In tandem, as a reversal of
conventional roles whereby the post-industrial factory is turned into space
for culture, Kaapeli (the cultural factory) becomes the site of operation
and Salmisaari (the industrious factory) becomes the site of spectacle.

No other space, network, grid, community could better represent a city and
it's activity as a whole. The physical dimension of the Salmisaari site,
inhabits a special position in Helsinki; physically, visually and
metaphorically. The vertical vectors of the architecture connect the
underworld with the sky: the underground coal storage tunnels descend to
126m below sea level (the deepest point in Helsinki) whilst it's chimney
reaches 155m into the sky with its cloud disappearing into the lower
atmosphere. On the horizontal plane, the warm water tubes spread out like
veins to heat the homes and offices of Helsinki. Since hot water cannot
travel far, the factory is necessarily situated in the city centre, not in
the periphery. The factory IS the centre. The extended space, vertically and
horizontally, defines the sphere in which people live. In this sphere we are
slowly becoming aware of the material and nonmaterial analogy between
religion and energy. The factory gives us warmth, it is the provider of
comfort and our lives increasingly depend upon it. Energy and religion are
both visible and real, they shape our physical environment in the form of
the enormous buildings that we build, and yet they are invisible. Since
electricity cannot be stored, like religion, it is ephemeral and only exists
in the moment of consumption. In February 2008 we will herd around this
cathedral of energy and marvel.

>> More information at www.nuagevert.org

- - -