[spectre] Newstweek at Aksioma Project Space, Ljubljana

[Aksioma]

Aksioma -- Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, presents:

*Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev*
/*Newstweek*/
/Media-hacking intervention/
www.aksioma.org/newstweek <http://www.aksioma.org/newstweek>
http://vimeo.com/23075736

*Aksioma **|**Project Space*
Komenskega 18, Ljubljana
11 - 26 April 2012
*
Opening of the Newstweek Bureau Slovenia: Wednesday, 11 April 2012, at 7 
p.m.
**
*
" /Media is the nervous system of a democracy. If it's not functioning 
well the democracy can't function."/
(Jeff Cohen, Director of the Park Center for Independent Media)


/Newstweek/ is a device for manipulating news on major news portals in 
the country. In public places with free wireless access to the Internet, 
the artists will build a small device into a wall plug, making it appear 
as part of the local infrastructure. During the public intervention, the 
gallery will be turned into a press center where visitors and agents 
will remotely edit news read on laptops, phones and tablets without 
their users knowing. Hotspots manipulable by /Newstweek/include cafes, 
libraries, hotels, universities and city-wide wireless networks. In the 
Ljubljana edition of the project, wireless hotspots with 
/Newstweek//transmitters built in them will be at the //Bi-Ko-Fe//bar 
(Z(idovska steza 2, Ljubljana) and //Kavarna SEM | Slovenski etnografski 
muzej//cafe (Metelkova ulica 2, Ljubljana)./

/Newstweek/ /is one of the most insightful socially-engaged hacking 
projects of the year. Last year it won the authors the prestigious 
Golden Nica Prix in the Cyberarts category at the /Ars Electronica 
festival in Linz, Austria. This year the authors will install the device 
into the Ars Electronica Center as part of its festival collection, and 
before that they will perform their public intervention in Ljubljana.

/Newstweek/ emerges as a symptom of our increasingly corporatized and 
mediated democratic reality. While news is increasingly read digitally, 
it still follows a traditional, top-down distribution model and thus 
often falls victim to the same political and corporate interests that 
have always sought to manipulate public opinion. /Newstweek/intervenes 
in this model, providing an opportunity for citizens to have their turn 
at manipulating the media, "fixing facts" as they pass across a wireless 
network. In this way /Newstweek/can be seen as a tactical device for 
altering public reality on a per-network basis.

/Newstweek/also signals a word of caution, that a strictly media-defined 
reality is always a vulnerable reality; that along the course of news 
distribution there are many hands at work, from ISP workers, numerous 
server administrators and wireless access point owners. Moreso, with the 
increasing ubiquity of networks and their devices comes greater 
ignorance as to their function, offering a growing opportunity for 
manipulation of opinion, from source to destination (from server to 
screen).

*Julian Oliver*is a New Zealander based in Berlin. He has been active in 
the critical intersection of art and technology since 1998. His projects 
and the occasional paper have been presented at many museums, 
international electronic-art events and conferences, including the Tate 
Modern, Transmediale, Ars Electronica and the Japan Media Arts Festival. 
His work has received several awards, ranging across technical 
excellence, artistic invention and interaction design. Julian has given 
numerous workshops and master classes in software art, augmented 
reality, creative hacking, data forensics, object-oriented programming 
for artists, virtual architecture, artistic game-development, 
information visualization, UNIX/Linux and open source development 
practices worldwide. He is a long-time advocate of the use of free 
software in artistic production, distribution and education. Find out 
more at: _http://julianoliver.com <http://julianoliver.com/>_

*Danja Vasiliev*is a Russian born computer artist currently living 
between Berlin and Rotterdam. Working with diverse methods, technologies 
and materials Danja ridicules the contemporary affection for digital 
life and questions the global tendency for cyborgination. Works of the 
artist often described as /technological interventions/, be those 
hardware, software or conceptual pieces. Famous recent works include a 
mechanical web-server that is accessible over the Internet ("m/e/m/e 
2.0", 2009), Linux distribution that joins and questions the concepts of 
Turing machines and Singularity ("RE:buntu", 2009), human-puppetry 
installation that disconnects bodies and consciousnesses of its users 
("Master/slave", 2007). Network and Internet technology, especially in 
regard to the /Network as the new World/, is the latest affection of 
Danja Vasiliev. He is currently developing several special devices that 
will become the new tools of a digital interventionist. Find out more 
at:___http://k0a1a.net/_


*In partnership with: *
Kavarna SEM, Metelkova ulica 2, Ljubljana
http://www.etno-muzej.si/sl/muzejska-kavarna

Bi-Ko-Fe, Z(idovska steza 2, Ljubljana
_http://www.facebook.com/pages/BI-KO-FE/195564620484096_

*Acknowledgements: *Ljudmila - Ljubljana Digital Media Lab 
www.ljudmila.org <http://www.ljudmila.org/>


*Production: *Aksioma -- Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2012
_www.aksioma.org <http://www.aksioma.org/>_

Artistic Director: Janez Jans(a
Executive Producer: Marcela Okretic(
Assistant Production: Sonja Grdina
Public Relations: Mojca Zupanic(
Technical Director: Valter Udovic(ic'


/*The programme of Aksioma Institute is supported by the Ministry of 
Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.*/
/Sponsor: Datacenter d.o.o./



*Contact:*
Marcela Okretic(, 041 250 830, _aksioma4 at siol.net 
<mailto:aksioma4 at siol.net>_
*Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana*
Neubergerjeva 25, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
_www.aksioma.org <http://www.aksioma.org/>_
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