[spectre] transmediale.10: FUTURITY NOW! - opening Tuesday!

[stephen kovats]

FUTURITY NOW!
transmediale.10
2 - 7 February 2010
House of World Cultures (HKW) and other locations across Berlin
www.transmediale.de

But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of  
madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity.'
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, 1895


Dear spectrites!

Last night, as part of Berlin's 'Long Night of the Museums', we  
opened two exhibitions by transmediale.10 award nominees, [The User]  
<http://www.transmediale.de/en/coincidence-engines> and Felix Luque  
Sanchez <http://www.transmediale.de/en/chapter-i-discovery>. Both are  
exceptional works, which are now open to the public daily through the  
festival. With these pre-openings almost all of transmediale 15  
Satellite events and locations are in full swing now! See all the  
Satellite events at <http://www.transmediale.de/en/festival/satellites>

The festival officially launches tomorrow February 2, 2010, and we  
hope to see you at our Opening Gala <http://www.transmediale.de/en/ 
node/11385>. Doors to the HKW open at 1700, and the Opening Ceremony,  
featuring an appearance by science-fiction author and technology  
pioneer, Herbert W. Franke will be followed by a special live  
performance out on the HKW terrace (yes ... in the fresh snow!) by  
the pioneering sound artist and composer Charlemagne Palestine  
playing Berlin's Tiergarten carillon, next to the House of World  
Cultures <http://www.transmediale.de/en/tintinnabulations-tomorrow- 
and-tomorrow-charlemagne-en>. Simultaneously we will 'switch on'  
Yvette Mattern's installation "From One to Many" - a rainbow of seven  
laser beams, slicing through Berlin from the HKW, past the glass dome  
of the German parliament to the TV Tower at Alexanderplatz <http:// 
www.transmediale.de/en/node/11344/>.

Back inside the HKW the Salon, Free Culture Incubator and  
transmediale Award nominee works will be on display and we'll be  
opening the transmediale.10 exhibition, Future Obscura curated by  
Honor Harger <http://www.transmediale.de/en/transmediale10-exhibition- 
future-obscura>. Performances by our special guests aaajiao, Byetone  
(raster-noton), and Benjamin Laurent Aman complete the evening! (and  
a special thanks here to the Ferchau Engineering GmbH for making a  
reception possible this year!!)

Full announcements, programmes and schedule on the transmediale.10:  
FUTURITY NOW programme are available online, with some of the main  
programme segments highlighted below.

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transmediale.10
FUTURITY NOW!
2 - 7 February 2010
House of World Cultures (HKW), Berlin

1] Introduction
2] Conference
3] Exhibition
4] Performance
5] Film & Video
6] Salon

1] Introduction

Between 2 - 7 February, with FUTURITY NOW!, transmediale.10 presents  
a unique and intensive programme of lectures, screenings,  
performances, exhibitions, concerts and much, much more!
We are thrilled about the participation of such great artists,  
writers and researchers including Ryoji Ikeda, Bruce Sterling,  
Gabriella Giannachi, Michael Khaimzom, Charlemagne Palestine, Feng  
Mengbo, F.A.T. Lab, Regine Debatty,  Steve Lambert, Joy Tang, Jem  
Finer, Alan Shapiro, Yvette Mattern, Rasha Salti, raster-noton ...  
and also especially about welcoming you!


2] Conference

"The fact that you have no interest in the future, does not mean that  
the future has lost interest in you."
[Bruce Sterling]

Have we caught up with our notions of the future? This is the  
principle question posed at Future Observatory, the transmediale.10  
conference, taking place from 5 - 7 February 2010 in the iconic House  
of World Cultures in Berlin.

Thinkers from various fields will discuss the epistemologies,  
limitations, ruptures and malfunctions of the future as an object of  
cultural projection. It brings together designers, media artists, net  
citizens, critical thinkers and researchers in order to create a  
network to lens the future. It will be anchored by keynotes from  
renown writer and futurologist, Bruce Sterling; technology pioneer  
Conrad Wolfram (co-founder of Wolfram Alpha); and writer and critic  
Richard Barbrook (author of "Imaginary Futures").
Future Observatory examines the, ways of perception and patterns of  
behaviour that are inscribed into our contemporary media cultural  
society. What is the code that performs the operation future?
 From the perspective of modernity the 21st century served as an  
object of projection for innumerable exuberant visions of future  
societies and techno-utopias. 2000, 2001, 2010 are emblematic as  
appointed dates for futuristic notions of social and economic  
progress to come true. Until now however this is neither the case  
regarding the utopian, nor the dystopian predictions. We have neither  
arrived in the kind of future that was foreseen for us, nor have we  
left this very future behind altogether. Paradoxically today we find  
ourselves in a future that belongs to the past - and which  
simultaneously contradicts our present. What we are currently  
experiencing above all are the limitations, ruptures and malfunctions  
caused by this temporal superimposition.

The conference will open on 5 February 2010 with the special Futurity  
Long Conversation relay event. 21 guests will discuss projects,  
ideas, technologies and utopias that are already determining our  
future. In The Long Conversation the dialogue as an aesthetic,  
analytical and collaborative process expands into a special timezone  
in which the participants and the audience oscillate between the  
disciplines of art, science and industry. The format of the Futurity  
Long Conversation was inspired by the work of The Long Now Foundation  
and the Longplayer Trust, international organisations crafting ways  
with which to perceive time and durational process in radically  
different and perhaps media technologically appropriate ways.

Keynotes:
Richard Barbrook (UK) / Imaginary Futures
Conrad Wolfram (UK) / Wolfram | Alpha
Bruce Sterling (US) / Atemporality!

Participants in the Futurity Long Conversation and Conference panels  
include:
Susan Neiman (US), Jem Finer (UK), Drew Hemment (UK), Andy Cameron  
(UK), Joy Tang (TW), Tim Edler (DE), Trebor Scholz (US), jaromil  
(IT), Julian Oliver (NZ), Maja Kuzmanovic (HR), Gustaff Harriman  
Iskandar (ID), Denisa Kera (CZ), Juliana Rotich (KE), Florian Rötzer  
(DE), Mercedes Bunz (DE), Alexander Rose (US), Sascha Lobo (DE),  
Tiziana Terranova (IT), Steve Lambert (US), Siegfried Zielisnki (DE)
In addition, transmediale.10 Award nominees Sosolimited will unveil  
an entirely new work, a tandem live coding performance of the The  
Long Conversation.

Further information on the conference including all participants can  
be found on:
<http://www.transmediale.de/en/future-observatory-en>
(With special thanks to the support of the BpB - the German Federal  
Foundation for Civic Education!)

3] Exhibition

We make our journeys out there in the low light of the future, and  
return to the bourgeois day and its mass delusion of safety, to  
report on what we've seen. What are any of these 'utopian dreams' of  
ours but defective forms of time-travel?
Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day (2006)

Future Obscura brings together a group of diverse artworks which  
explore the complex condition of futurity through the lens of image- 
making. Clear boundaries of the time continuum are broken down by  
artists whose work allows us to peer into the 'low light of the future'.
As her curatorial departure point, guest curator Honor Harger  
explores the camera obscura, the historical apparatus in whose  
interior the image of an exterior scene can be projected. The  
exhibition presents the work of artists who re-work this mechanism  
artistically by appropriating the materials, mechanisms and machines  
of image-making. It features a large-scale audiovisual installation  
by pioneering Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda, who is presenting at  
transmediale for the first time. Other highlights include the German  
premières of White Noise, a major installation by rising star  
Zilvinas Kempinas, who represented Lithuania at the 2009 Venice  
Biennale and A Parallel Image, an electronic camera obscura by  
Gebhard Sengmüller, previously known for his striking work Vinyl  
Video. transmediale.10 will also stage the world premières of  
important new site-specific pieces by Julius von Bismarck, Julien  
Maire, Yvette Mattern and Julian Oliver. Together the works in the  
exhibition meditate on how futurity is an obscured notion of what we  
used to think of as the future.

Exhibition artists:
Julius von Bismarck (de), Ryoji Ikeda (jp/fr), Zilvinas Kempinas (lt/ 
us), Julien Maire (de/fr), Yvette Mattern (de/us), Alice Miceli (br),  
Julian Oliver, Clara Boj, Diego Diaz and Damian Stewart (nz/es), Ken  
Rinaldo (us), Gebhard Sengmüller (au), Bengt Sjölén, Adam Somlai- 
Fischer & Usman Haque (se/hu/uk), TeZ (it/nl)
Further informations concerning the exhibition can be found on
http://www.transmediale.de/en/transmediale10-exhibition-future-obscura


4] Performance

The transmediale.10 Performance programme presents a range of  
concerts and events acting as auditory and performative  
interrogations of FUTURITY NOW!.The highlight: six concert evenings  
in collaboration with CTM featuring some of the most important  
figures working within music and sound today. Each night new, and  
often rare, performances by Ryoji Ikeda, artificiel, Jurgen Reble &  
Thomas Köner and AtomTM  will represent the most experimental  
intersections of audiovisual culture and digital art. A special  
performance evening co-hosted by eARTS Shanghai on Sunday February 07  
featuring Feng Mengbo, aaajiao, FM3_Zhang and Dj set by Ben Huang  
will wrap-up transmediale.10!

At 19:00 each evening, the Cafe Global Stage at the House of World  
Cultures will be brought to life by a series of performances.  
transmediale is proud to present the world première of La Chambre Des  
Machines by Nicholas Bernier and Martin Messier, plus unique  
interpretations of works featuring Matthias Fritsch, Rachida Ziani  
and Dewi de Vree, and Andrea Lange. Some of Berlin's finest talent in  
the form of Pe Lang, Benjamin Laurent Aman and Lord Cry Cry will  
close each evening with a special sound landscape exploring the post- 
avant-garde of audio culture.
More details about the Highlights of the performance programme can be  
found on
http://www.transmediale.de/en/performance-highlight-transmediale-ctm- 
col...


5] Film & Video

The film & video programme of transmediale.10 consists of eleven  
programmes with a total of 54 films of all genres. Feature,  
documentary, animation, experimental films and video art from 20  
countries will be shown, with a special focus on the selections from  
the 600 submissions from 30 countries. The films look at FUTURITY  
NOW! in terms of failed utopias and illuminate various sub-topics  
such as the role of the media, the future human body or the post- 
socialist era.
Guest curator Rasha Salti from Beirut is going to present the online  
platform ArabShorts.net and discuss the relevance of digital media  
for the Arab world. Two additionally curated programmes will approach  
the theme of transmediale.10 from a historical perspective: Man &  
Machine is about the conflicts between man and the technologies  
created by he himself. Short Fictions presents science fiction shorts  
made by artists.
In 1957 Hugh Stubbins designed the utopian architecture of the HKW as  
a conscious counterpart to the Stalin Allee in East Berlin. In the  
matinée on Sunday the plot of the GDR's first science fiction film  
will unfold in this very building: Der Schweigende Stern (1959) by  
Kurt Maetzig pictures the dark vision of a failed civilisation.
More informations about the film&video programme can be found on
http://www.transmediale.de/en/transmediale10-film-video-programme

6] Salon ... Talks, Workshops, Art
The transmediale.10 Salon consists of three interdisciplinary strands  
exploring FUTURITY NOW!. With a specific focus on free culture and  
process-based projects, the Salon will engage cultural thinkers and  
makers into conversations and actions that lay down future strategies  
for a global network age. The Free Culture Incubator curated by Ela  
Kagel and the Phuturama sub-conference on Speculative and Fictive  
Design curated by Gregor Sedlag are two of the main highlights of the  
Salon programme!

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Festival and Day Passes, as well as the special Conference Pass, and  
individual concert/performance tickets with reductions for students  
are available online!
http://www.transmediale.de/en/tickets

With best regards, and looking forward to seeing you in Berlin at  
transmediale.10,

Stephen Kovats

artistic director
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FUTURITY NOW!
transmediale.10 |  2 - 7 feb 2010
festival for art and digital culture berlin

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klosterstr. 68 - 10179 berlin - germany
fon +49 30 24749 761 fax +49 30 24749 763
http://www.transmediale.de
http://twitter.com/transmediale (#tm10)
facebook: transmediale

kulturprojekte berlin gmbh
aufsichtsratsvorsitzender volker heller
geschäftsführer moritz van dülmen
amtsgericht berlin charlottenburg, HRB 41312 B
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