[spectre] Direct Digital | a new media art event

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Digicult presents:

Direct Digital | a new media art event
Modena | Carpi (Italy) - 30th May > 28th June 2009

presented by: Artegenti
in collaboration with: Movimenta
with the precious contribution of: Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena

www.directdigital.org | www.digitaldirection.org | 
http://www.digicult.it/En/2009/DirectDigital.asp

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Direct Digital
Exhibition | Live media | Workshop | Cinema | Contest

Direct digital is a new media art event presented by the cultural 
association Artegenti, which will take place from 30th May 2009 to 28th June 
2009 in Modena and Carpi (Italy), in the Ex-Ospedale Sant'Agostino and in 
Palazzo Pio, under the conception and artistic direction of Gilberto 
Caleffi. Direct Digital will be presented in preview on Saturday the 8th of 
May with a live exhibition of the visionary musician Dm Stith at the Circolo 
Zuni in Ferrara.

Direct Digital proposes a thick calendar of five sections, Exhibition, Live 
Media, Workshop, Cinema, Contest in order to show a detailed perspective of 
the most recent developments of art and creativity linked to the use of 
digital technologies. The event, at its first edition, aims at becoming a 
benchmark for those who are interested in knowing, proposing and creating 
moments of meetings between contemporary art and digital innovation.

In the last years the spread of informatics has brought to a revolution that 
is still in progress, both regarding the instruments and the ways of making 
art, and the modalities of production and display of the creative act. A 
constant contamination and reprocessing of the languages is destroying the 
boundaries among the different forms of artistic expression and, at the same 
time, is perceiving the viewer as an active character, involved in multiple 
forms of participation: live media, networking, interactive exhibitions, 
interaction, urban design. Direct Digital puts together in a 
multidisciplinary platform the most interesting expressions of these 
creativity forms, in order to allow to an heterogeneous and full of artists, 
fans and thinkers audience, to meet and exchange views about making art in 
the digital age.

THE EXHIBITION

Exhibition is the section dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary and 
digital art Il canto del corpo elettrico (The singing of the electrical 
body), organized by Gilberto Caleffi, that will take place in Modena at 
Ex-Ospedale Sant'Agostino and in Carpi at Palazzo dei Pio from 30th May to 
28th June, and that will be presented to the journalists 29th May.

The title of the exhibition is based on a verse by Walt Whitman, rearranged 
by Ray Bradbury,  dedicated to the relationship between art and new 
technologies applied to the fields of animation, video, music and design. 
The "digital" wants to stimulate a language commixture which is shown in  a 
selection of artworks divided into two major sections, video art and 
interactive art, hosting some of the most relevant names of the contemporary 
artistic experimentation: Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Andy Warhol, Douglas 
Gordon, Philippe Parreno, Sam Taylor-Wood, Tony Oursler, Chris Levine, 
Julian Opie, Gina Czarnecki, Heinrich Gresbeck, Golan Levin, Rafael 
Lozano-Hemmer, Takahiro Matsuo, Jin-Yo Mok, Kenichi Okada, Agostino Di 
Scipio, Mimmo Rotella.

The video art section puts together authors that come from different periods 
and spheres, comparing them through their works in order to find a common 
interest in time, memory, perception and duplication, elaborated through the 
electronic languages. They analyse the relationship among human beings, art 
and metaphysic dimension through the handling of languages and materials. By 
altering time and space notions, the artists succeed in modifying the 
original organization of the communicative flow, and transform the consumer 
object in artistic experimentation's matter. The artist feeds his own 
imaginary of atmospheres, suggestions and quotations taken from mass 
communication, and re-edits them in his own artwork that becomes, in this 
way, remainder of his individual experience and mirror of his own time.

The exhibition also includes a section dedicated to the relationship between 
interactive art and pop culture. Interactive art analyses the relation 
between human beings and technology, studies the relationships among the 
available technologies, combining them with human necessities and desires in 
the contest of everyday experience. The exhibition path Il canto del corpo 
elettrico does not want to come to a conclusion, but it wants to create a 
chance to make questions about the interaction between human beings and 
technology, and between human beings and communication means, throughout the 
questions and the reflections stimulated by the artworks.

The exhibition catalogue, by Marco Mancuso and Claudia D'Alonzo and realized 
with the support of Nuova Grafica, is a further instrument of this analysis, 
thanks to its critical texts and inedited interviews of the artists of the 
exhibition.

LIVE MEDIA SECTION

The section Live Media presents a series of performance events, located in 
different places in Modena, Carpi and Ferrara, all of which are dedicated to 
the several expressions created by the meeting between music and digital 
technology, from the clubbing scene to the experimentation, with the 
participation of international artists such as: Agf + Delay, Pantha Du 
Prince, Hauschka, Ben Frost, Murcof + Francesco Tristano, Dm Stith, Thomas 
Fehlmann + Eraldo Bernocchi, A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Telefon Tel Aviv, Badge 
and Talkalot, Giardini Di Mirò.

First appointment of the event is the celestial folk of David Michael Stith, 
who will perform on Friday 8th May at 21.30 in at the Circolo Zuni in 
Ferrara during the Direct Digital preview. Electronic pearls of the duet 
Agf/Delay and the oneiric dance of Pantha Du Prince, will fill the spaces of 
Teatro delle Passioni of Modena with sound matter, on Friday 29th May, from 
21.30. The interbreeding between electro music and acoustic instruments of 
Hauschka aka Bertlmann meets the experimental Icelandic music of Ben Frost 
in the live of Saturday 30th May, at 21.00, in Carpi at the Cortile d'Onore 
of Palazzo del Pio, while on Monday 1st June at 21.30 again Cortile d'Onore 
will host the spiritual resonances of Murcof and Francesco Tristano. The 
euphoric atmospheres of the old European East enliven the spaces of 
Auditorio San Rocco in Carpi, thanks to the music of A Hawk And A Hacksaw on 
Wednesday 10th June at 21.00.

On Wednesday 17th June, at the Teatro delle Passioni in Modena, Thomas 
Fehlmann, Eraldo Bernocchi and Petulia Mattioli will perform in a live show 
totally inedited, commissioned on purpose by Direct Digital for this event, 
whose recording will be edited by the label Rare Noise. The warm and 
wrapping sound of Badge and Talkalot and Telefon Tel Aviv will be the 
protagonist on Friday 19th June, from 22.00 at Vibra, in Modena; while 
Saturday 27th June Giardini di Mirò present their live Il fuoco, in Carpi at 
Piazzale Re Astolfo.

WORKSHOP

Workshop section is developed in three meetings, 28th May, 5th June and 26th 
June 2009, dedicated to the crucial themes of the new media art with the 
presence of international speakers, such as Golan Levin, Marco Mancuso, 
Paolo Rigamonti, Boris Debackere, Lucredia Cippitelli, Emidio Clementi, 
Paolo Nori, Emiliano Colasanti. A series of moments dedicated to the 
presentation of projects, to the production of ideas and to reflections 
about creative software and about the relationship among art, interaction 
design and audiovisual design.

The Cinema section presents a wide overview of the audiovisual 
ever-developing forms of art, that follow the quick developments of the 
society and the technologies. The appointments will talk about these 
mutations, trying to find, in the multiplicity of aspects and languages, 
shared themes such as: the creation of new narrative settings, new links 
between the concepts of time and space allowed by the digital world, the 
experimentation of senses and perceptive boundaries. The artwork selection 
will include: feature films, short films, video clips, digital animations, 
live cinema.

CONTEST

Finally, Direct Digital proposes the contest Digital Direction, opened until 
the 10th May 2009, addressed to the young under 35 artists. The project is 
based on the loan of four contemporary artworks by Mimmo Rotella, an artist 
directly connected with the theme of the event, and who is recognized as a 
maestro for a new generation of digital artists. Sorprendente Marilyn 
(2004), Pazzo per le donne (2004), Gioventù bruciata (2004), Marlon Brando 
(2004), will be a source of inspiration for the creation of original and 
unpublished works of new media arts. The contest winners will see their 
works/projects exhibited in Direct Digital 2009 alongside the originals by 
Mimmo Rotella.

________________________________________

Direct Digital is organised by Artegenti in collaboration with Movimenta. 
The event is possible thanks to the precious contribution of Fondazione 
Cassa di Risparmio di Modena. | Under the patronage of Comune di Carpi, 
Comune di Modena, Provincia di Modena, Regione Emilia Romagna. | The 
technical sponsor of the event are Nuova Grafica and Santimone. | Event 
Partner: IED-Istituto Europeo di Design, Artivive Festival, Node Festival, 
Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, San Rocco Arte e Cultura, Arci Modena, 
Arci Ferrara, Vibra, Mattaoio, Kalinka, Cookies. | Media Partner: Digicult, 
My Space, Next Exit, Kult.
________________________________________

Marco Mancuso
New Media Culture and Digital Arts
Critic, Curator and Journalist
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Digicult Director & Founder
Naba Academy & Ied Teacher
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Ripa Porta Ticinese 39
20122 Milano - Italy
Mob: +39.340.8371816
Skype: sostakovich
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