[spectre] transmediale 2014 afterglow

Tue Jan 14 10:39:02 CET 2014

Dear Spectre,
(sorry for any cross-posting)
The transmediale festival is coming up at the end of the month, this 
month heading into and hopefully beyond the "afterglow" of digital 
culture. Accreditations for professionals and press ends on Jan 15. Read 
the programme announcement below and full details at www.transmediale.de
Hope to see you there.
/Kristoffer Gansing, artistic director, transmediale festival for art 
and digital culture, Berlin.

transmediale 2014 afterglow, 29 Jan - 2 Feb 2014
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///The revolution is over. Welcome to the afterglow.///
///////////////////////////////////////////////////

The digital revolution was a dinner party but its afterglow is not. The 
once utopian promises of high-definition audiovisuals, real-time 
electronic communication and infinite storage possibilities are just 
some of the digital culture perspectives that are now widely 
disseminated. At the same time as these phenomena are still shrouded in 
the glossy aesthetics of the digital, their tarnished appeal cannot be 
denied in a world where 'big data' is also the 'big brother' of mass 
surveillance and where the 'cloud' is made of the metals and minerals of 
the 'earth' on which data centers are built. Far from immaterial and 
neutral, our post-digital culture is one where tech is deeply embedded 
in the geophysical and geopolitical. This is evident at the significant 
'other sites' of digital culture such as e-waste dumps, mines, 
mass-digitisation companies and security agencies.

transmediale 2014 proposes the post-digital moment of 'afterglow' as a 
diagnosis of the current status of the digital hovering between 'trash 
and treasure'. afterglow conjures up the ambivalent state of digital 
culture, where what seems to remain from the digital revolution is a 
paradoxical nostalgia for the futuristic high-tech it once promised us 
but that is now crumbling in our hands. The challenge that this moment 
poses is how to use that state of post-digital culture between trash and 
treasure as a still not overdetermined space from which to invent new 
speculative thought and practice. Are there means of renewal in the 
excess, overflow and waste products of the digital afterglow?
http://www.transmediale.de/content/afterglow

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Conference programme
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The conference of this year’s transmediale, curated by Tatiana 
Bazzichelli and Kristoffer Gansing in collaboration with Ryan Bishop, 
Jussi Parikka, Francesco Warbear Macarone Palmieri und Katrien Jacobs, 
takes afterglow as a metaphor for the present condition of digital 
culture, examining the geopolitical, infrastructural and bodily 
consequences of the excessive digitalisation that has taken place over 
the course of the last three decades. Central motifs are mass 
surveillance, excessive big data schemes, whistleblowing, the corrupt 
ecology of technological resources and the effects of digitalisation on 
identity and sexuality.

Japanese artist Sputniko! will thematise technology’s impact on everyday 
life in a performative keynote, the panel The Chinese Dream: The 
Doctrine and the Sexy will feature a discussion about attitudes towards 
patriotism, surveillance culture and body politics in the Chinese sphere 
with Sufeng Song and recorded interventions by Ai Weiwei and Ai Xiaoming.

Independent security analyst Jacob Appelbaum and documentary film 
director Laura Poitras reflect with artist and geograph Trevor Paglen on 
upcoming frontiers of action and awareness for hackers, activists and 
artists in the present context of geopolitical surveillance and control.

Sean Cubitt and Denisa Kera will talk about the effects of electronic 
and synthetic waste on geological and biological bodies, Bill Binney and 
Annie Machon deal with the question how the ethics of cypherpunk, 
whistle-blowing and investigative journalism are evolving into a hybrid 
form of civic resistance.

The conference programme is supported by the Federal Agency for Civic 
Education and one of its streams is presented in collaboration with the 
Winchester School of Art.

Among the participant highlights are:
Sputniko!, Laura Poitras, Trevor Paglen, Jacob Appelbaum, Jeremy 
Scahill, Douglas Coupland, Benjamin H. Bratton, Metahaven, James Bridle, 
Sean Cubitt, Olia Lialina, William Binney, Fabiane Borges, Salvatore 
Iaconesi, Geraldine Juarez, Denisa Kera, Khan, Annie Machon, Shaka 
McGlotten, Sufeng Song, recorded interventions by Ai Weiwei and Ai Xiaoming

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**KEYNOTES**
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Art as Evidence
Participants: Trevor Paglen, Jacob Appelbaum, Laura Poitras,Tatiana 
Bazzichelli (moderator)
Location: Auditorium
Thu, 30.1. 20:30h - 22:30h
http://www.transmediale.de/content/keynote-art-as-evidence

The Black Stack
Participants: Ryan Bishop, Benjamin H. Bratton, Metahaven
Location: Auditorium
Fri, 31.1. 17:00h - 18:30h
http://www.transmediale.de/content/keynote-the-black-stack

DoRadical Futures
Participants: Sputniko!, Katrien Jacobs,Tatiana Bazzichelli
Location: Auditorium
Sun, 2.2. 18:00h - 19:30h
http://www.transmediale.de/content/keynote-doradical-futures

Space Junk - transmediale Marshall McLuhan Lecture 2014
by Douglas Coupland
Location: Embassy of Canada
Tue 28.8, 18:30 - 20.00
http://www.transmediale.de/festival/programme/network/mcluhan
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Exhibition Programme
#################
This year’s exhibition programme comes together through a hackathon 
inspired methodology where the works are developed on site during the 
festival: In collaboration with Berlin-based Lab For Electronic Arts And 
Performance (LEAP) and Art Hack Day/Olof Mathé, transmediale presents 
the second part of Art Hack Day Berlin. Following the first edition at 
LEAP, Going Dark, roughly 70 artists and hackers will create an instant 
exhibition within 48 hours according to the afterglow theme. In 
addition, artist talks, workshops and performances will take place in 
the framework of the resulting exhibition.
http://www.transmediale.de/content/art-hack-day-berlin-afterglow

Among the participants:
Brenna Murphy, Birch Cooper, Justin Blinder, Kim Asendorf, Phillip 
Ronnenberg, Julien Oliver, Rachel de Joode, Dani Ploeger, Jonah 
Brucker-Cohen, Exonemo, Geraldine Juárez, Niko Princen, Nancy 
Mauro-Flude, Katerina Undo.

Connected to Art Hack Day is Yami-Ichi an Internet Black Market 
organised by the century-old Japanese secret society of the Internet, 
IDPW. After several successful editions in its home country, this market 
which trades in banned curiosities from the backstreets of the Internet 
is making its European premiere with 50 vendors from Japan and Berlin.

In addition, we present several installations, among them Critical 
Infrastructure, a a media-technical landscape survey by Jamie Allen and 
David Gauthier.
http://www.transmediale.de/content/critical-infrastructure

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Further transmediale exhibitions produced in cooperation with partners:
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***** AN ECOSYSTEM OF EXCESS / PINAR YOLDAS (in cooperation with Ernst 
Schering Foundation in Berlin)
***** http://www.transmediale.de/content/an-ecosystem-of-excess-installation

***** SCHIZOPHRENIA TAIWAN 2.0 (curated by I-Wei Li, Pierre Bongiovanni, 
Chin-Wen Chang, Chien-Hung Huang in cooperation with .CHB)
***** 
http://www.transmediale.de/content/partner-exhibition-schizophrenia-taiwan-20

***** FUTURE PAST - PAST FUTURE (curated by Sandra Naumann, in 
cooperation with ArtUP! and Supermarkt)
***** 
http://www.transmediale.de/content/partner-exhibition-future-past-past-future
**********************************************************************************************************************************************

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Performance Programme
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transmediale 2014 afterglow’s performance programme focuses on 
audiovisual and inter-media pieces where technology is not the main 
focus, but rather the often intangible space between humans, objects, 
and systems.

Nurturing a longstanding partnership with CTM – Festival for Adventurous 
Music and Art, together the two festivals constitute the world’s largest 
annual platform for reflection on the cultural significance of new 
technologies and digital culture.

Among the participant highlights are: Robert Henke aka Monolake (in 
cooperation with CTM- Festival for Adventurous Music and Art), Dinos 
Chapman (in cooperation with CTM - Festival for Adventurous Music and 
Art), MSHR, Lucky Dragons (in Zusammenarbeit mit CTM - Festival for 
Adventurous Music and Art), Jelili Atiku, Nancy Mauro-Flude, Dani 
Ploeger, Geraldine Juárez

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** PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS **
*************************************************************
DINOS CHAPMAN: LUFTBOBLER
Location: Auditorium
Fri, 31.1. 21:00h - 22:30h
http://www.transmediale.de/content/luftbobler

LUCKY DRAGONS: ACTUAL REALITY
Location: Auditorium
Sat, 1.2. 21:00h - 22:00h
http://www.transmediale.de/content/actual-reality

ROBERT HENKE: LUMIÈRE
Location: Auditorium
Sun, 2.2. 21:30h - 22:30h
http://www.transmediale.de/content/lumi-re
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Screening programme
#################
The films and videos featured in transmediale 2014 focus on subjects 
such as the internet, surveillance, and Big Data as well as electronic, 
digital and analogue trash. The afterglow theme is seen as gloomy 
visions of the afterlife of images and technologies in which na ve 
dreams of a digital revolution, free exchange and equal participation no 
longer have a place. A total of 53 films, videos and slide shows from 
1931 to 2013 are to be shown in eight programmes and seven 
installations, each programme with its own sub-theme. The programme is 
curated by Marcel Schwierin.
http://www.transmediale.de/festival/programme/screenings

Present artists are
Adriana Ferrarese, Martha Colburn, Karin Fisslthaler, Louis Henderson, 
Maha Maamoun, Bjørn Melhus, Luther Price, Jack Stevenson, Cordelia 
Swann, Elizabeth Vander Zaag, Ivar Veermäe, Andy Weir

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** SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS
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*** Utopia
*** Participant: Luther Price
*** Location: Auditorium
*** Wed, 29.1. 21:30h - 23:59h
*** http://www.transmediale.de/content/utopia

*** Wasteland Poetries
*** Participants:  Cordelia Swann, Louis Henderson
*** Location: Theatersaal
*** Fri, 31.1. 18:00h - 20:00h
*** http://www.transmediale.de/content/wasteland-poetries

*** Luther Price Lost and Found
*** Participants: Luther Price
*** Location: Theatersaal
*** Sun, 2.2. 18:00h - 20:00h
*** http://www.transmediale.de/content/luther-price-lost-and-found
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