[spectre] transmediale 2014 afterglow - Call For Works

[Tatiana Bazzichelli]

transmediale 2014 afterglow
Call For Works, Deadline 31 July

THEMATIC FRAMEWORK: afterglow
The digital revolution is over again and this time “YOU” lost.
In the wastelands of its aftermath, what is still burning?

With the theme afterglow, transmediale 2014 suggests that in a world 
where resources (human, bodily, material, environmental, economic ...) 
are more and more used up, the digital does not any longer stand up to 
its promise of antiseptic high-tech worlds and opportunities for all. On 
the contrary, digital culture is more and more becoming a 
post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by a few powerful clan leaders. Still, 
digital culture is full of things that shine and glow, both promising 
and uncanny: from social media to big data. On the one hand, this 
afterglow can be seen as an extreme expression of the wasteful state of 
digital culture (excess, overload, endless repetition, pre-emption of 
meaning, exploitation), but on the other hand, as “one man’s trash is 
another man’s treasure”, this afterglow is also providing the transition 
to new forms of being. If we are living in a post-digital culture, then 
afterglow is what characterises its aesthetics and politics during the 
transition to new cultural forms that are still unknown to us.

In the 2014 edition of the transmediale festival, the idea of an 
afterglow of digital culture is taken as an opportunity to speculate on 
positions that lead beyond the digital: not beyond the digital in a 
literal sense as in doing away with digital technology, but beyond the 
digital as a metaphysical character that overcodes all forms of 
existence. Even a supposedly critical term like “post-digital” is in 
this sense only promoting an idea of the contemporary and of the future 
as predetermined by the digital. Instead of revelling in the hypes of 
the post-digital, we invite the contributors of transmediale 2014 to 
reflect on this afterglow: to exploit our nostalgia for the pre-digital 
through the use of trashed technologies, ideas and narratives and/or to 
imagine new modes of existence and new modalities of critical 
intervention, by junking the afterglow of digital culture.

SUBMIT YOUR WORK
transmediale 2014 afterglow will take place from 28 January to 2 
February at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. The programme will 
feature a diversity of different types of work in a thematic exhibition 
as well as film and video screening, workshop, performance, and 
conference programmes. transmediale is always interested in works 
exploring our complex relation to technology, be it through new or old 
media. The exhibition programme is particularly oriented towards 
artworks that explore ambiguous relationships to technologies and their 
associated cultural paradigms, proposing both speculative and inventive 
positions. The video programme is devoted to contemporary artistic video 
works and experimental film screenings with historical points of 
reference. The performance programme ranges from live audiovisual work 
and interventions to performative lectures. The conference and workshop 
programmes explore the critical dimension of networking, hacktivism, 
media theory and the politics of technological development.

SELECTION PROCESS
Even though the themes of the transmediale are set by the curatorial 
team, the focus of the individual programmes is developed further in 
relation to the works submitted for this call. In this way we strive to 
create a dialogue between the thematic ideas and current artistic 
practice. The final programme of the festival eventually consists of a 
mix of invited participants, projects of our all year platform (reSource 
transmedial culture berlin) and contributions selected through the call. 
Notification about the inclusion in the programme of the festival may 
take up until November 2013.

For more information on this call for works, how to submit and the 
conditions of entry go to:
http://www.transmediale.de/content/transmediale-2014-call-for-works

transmediale — festival for art and digital culture
Klosterstraße 68, D-10179 Berlin, Germany
tel +49 (0)30 24 749 761, fax +49 (0)30 24 749 763
call[at]transmediale.de
transmediale.de

-- 
Tatiana Bazzichelli // programme curator
reSource transmedial culture berlin // http://www.transmediale.de/resource
transmediale festival // http://www.transmediale.de
http://twitter.com/transmediale

transmediale | festival for art and digital culture berlin
Klosterstr. 68 10179 Berlin, Germany | fon +49 30 24749 761 | fax +49 30 
24749 763
Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH
Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender Volker Heller | Geschäftsführer Moritz van Dülmen