Hack the Barbican is now running over the next four weeks at London’s Barbican Centre, from August 5 to 31. Open daily during regular opening hours the London institution will be a hive of activity throughout its theatres and foyers as artists, entrepreneurs and technologists look to their boundaries and stretch them as far as they can with experiments in post-apocalyptic Beekeeping, “barbicoins“, arcade games of the future and much more.
See Lanyrd.com for the full schedule. **
The event will feature author of The Spectacle of Disintegration: Situationist Passages out of the Twentieth Century, McKenzie Wark and the person responsible for one third of the organisational work behind Auto Italia’s exhibition Immaterial Labour isn’t Working. See the ICA website for more details.**
Originally created by Chuck Poynter and championed by net art progenitor to the likes of aqnb interviewee Jennifer Chan, Olia Lialina, REAL_DANCING_GIRL has been updated to suit the new era. Originally appearing in 1999 on the Rhizome splash page, the new look dancing girl can be found on her own tumblr where she’s joined by a male companion and a manifesto of sorts that goes as follows:
“I’ve been dancing ever since I was created back in the days. With the arise of the internet I became a vernacular symbol of freedom among the net, and a source of inspiration for countless users in the pre-history of the web. The advent of social networks brought a severe, consequently change in the aesthetic of the internet; that’s why I felt the need to renew my look, giving myself a more “topical” appearance. But don’t be fooled by this: my ‘hula’ remains the same ;-)”
It also ends with a generous “feel free – as you’ve always been – to make me dance among your web universe!”**
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From Friend Fracker to Constant Update, Dabit and Giphnosis, the focus of yesterday’s sold out Rhizome ‘Seven on Seven’ conference was on social media and its power for both good and evil. Simulating what they define as the “data dread” of media bombardment, Fatima Al Qadiri and Dalton Caldwell simulate the anxiety and overload of Constant Update, while Paul Pfeiffer and Alex Chung harnessed the mesmerising powers and bizarre juxtapositions of gif-sharing culture with Giphnosis.
Hitting a more pragmatic note, Harper Reed and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer offered some relief through the random Facebook friend deletion app for the over-acquainted with Friend Fracker, while assistance came in dollars signs from Matthew Ritchie and Billy Chasen with their charity website, Dabit, that “gives back” by randomly allocating 50% of all donations to one donor. It’s an inclusive attitude that bore Cameron Martin and Tara Tiger Brown’s real-time crowdsourced learning with 3DHelper. Meanwhile, Jeremy Bailey and Julie Uhrmann stole the show by transferring the inherent narcissism exposed by social media into creating a new form of self-presentation, while illness and conflicting visions saw Jill Magid and Dennis Crowley come up with not very much at all.**
It’s a month of first editions in new media art with São Paulo’s The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennale weighing in on the great land grab for what’s to be a significant movement toward transdisciplinarity in contemporary art. The festival itself runs from November 1 to December 31 and they’ve opened submissions to the public for ‘Homeostasis Lab’.
Anyone who isn’t already involved in any other pavilion can apply and submissions, in a long list of “internet friendly” digital art, will be selected and curated up to and throughout the festival. See the The Wrong Biennale Facebook page for more information.**
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Digital Shoreditch has is calling for proposals for The Great Digital Exhibition for 2013. The event will be held in London’s Shoreditch Town Hall from Monday, May 20 to Friday, May 31 and showcase the latest interactive digital creations within art, apps, gaming, websites and more.
Celebrating innovation from East London’s ‘Tech City’ -chiefly based across Clerkenwell to Stratford, Old Street to Bethnal Green and Dalston to the City -the event will feature the outstanding creative, technical and entrepreneurial talent from the area and beyond. There’ll be a global perspective for the first week, while the community programme will run the following. See the website to apply and for more information.**
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At the entrance of No one lives here, the latest exhibition by MA Curating students from the Royal College of Art, is a research display focused on the Pionen White Mountain Data Centre based near Stockholm, Sweden. Three-dimensional renderings, alongside a short film, show how unique this converted bunker space appears, juxtaposed as it is with plants, geometric glass offices and whirring computer servers. It’s everything a James Bond villain could wish for and as the architect Albert France-Lanord explains in an interview, deliberately so. Its over-sized doors made to look secure, its sci-fi aesthetic designed to draw clients in closer to a vision of the future.
Continue reading ‘No one lives here’ @ RCA reviewed
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Geoffrey Lillemon‘s online campaign for Bernhard Willhelm’s Women SS 2013 brings to mind a picture of Stelarc‘s younger, crazier brother. Using Faceshift and 3D Studio Max, Lillemon creates a colourful, vivid bunch of virtual models with an elfin appearance; resembling 1980’s Troll toys as much as they do Future Sound Of London. Each project in the collection is represented by different custom-designed creatures, which, paired with intensely patterned, vertigo-inducing design and the shape-shifting cut of the clothes themselves, create an atmosphere of digital, GIF-based sensory overload. Back in the day, the psychedelic gurus of the 60s sought a new frontier for their mind-broadening pursuits in the digital world; works such as this seem to be their distant, less ideological echoes.
Continue reading Geoffrey Lillemon explored.
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A short film festival, another one? Yep, this one is digital though! (so…?). So it’s OnedotZero, nothing new about them… more than a decade of pure crazy digital extravaganza!
And even if the 2011 edition won’t be taking place until next November they first have to select which works they’ll be showcasing right? That’s why they’re now calling for all world digital creatives to submit their works you see….
Over fifteen years the programme has expanded to embrace a wide range of digital motion arts and is acclaimed by artists, audiences and creative industries alike for providing a platform to explore new ideas and fresh innovation through curated compilation screenings, features, exhibitions, live av performances, club nights, presentations and panel discussions.
This year OnedotZero are once again looking for the best short films, installations, interactive work and live performances around the globe… the best will be showcased during their 5-day festival at the Shouthbank centre next autumn.
Whats exactly they’re after?
– animation + short form: progressive and impressive work of under 30 minutes across music video, animation, motion graphics, narrative shorts, artists moving image, documentary and generative art.
– feature films: feature-length work with an alternative aesthetic and distinctive directorial approach for the big screen.
– live audio-visual performances: narrative driven live cinema, original vj sets and unexpected collaborations between musicians and artists. onedotzero can only schedule a limited amount of live shows at the London festival, but also curate live av projects year round as part of the international tour.
– and installations: engaging audiovisual installation and compelling interactive experiences. both existing work and proposals for new projects will be considered. please provide details of the technical delivery in your ideas.
So if your work matches one of the above categories (and many other rules like being less than 3 years old, with subtitles if not English… etc) and fancy being showcased at one of the most influential digital festivals …. submit (for free)! You have until the very end of May, and it’s this way.
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