ecopolis

So Gogbot Festival has gone. It was really an experience being there and particularly living it so closely to the organizers. First of all a word about Kees de Grooot and Viola von Halpen who did so much great work in choosing sucha an inspiring theme and realizing it so well.

What was immediately clear to me was that this people don’t have to study or keep updated about “steampunk”, they’re steampunk!
And the whole festival showed it really well. It wasn’t about the classical new media art exhibition, gogbot festival was an experience, in a steampunk vein, but first of all an experience.

Connecting to the do-it-yourself attitude of punk they selected pieces not just for their esthetical value but also for their social role: there were many interesting installation, but surrounded by the “europe trash bar”, the steampunk coffe bar, the bubble bar and radio barkas.

Gogbot was a steampunk performance in a way, beacuse it stopeed time for thrre days in the little town of Enschede and brought there under a suggestive frame like steampunk a lot of creativity that usually has no space in galleries.
The curators dealt more with the user experience rather than on reflecting about art, and the whole festival had a general steampunk aestetich, they had no fear in presenting such a complex show that was appreciated both by tech artist geek and old local mittle europenas.

And due to all of this there was a really well atmosphear between all the people involved, that were really kind with everyone.

Yesterday night great performance by Mu-ziq at Atack.
Besides this msuical events i post here a video of the musical installation of Eric Groen.

Some photos of the exhibition at Medialab Enschede with Bill Spinhoven, Stepehn Rothwell, Stelarc, Saxion, Marieke Verbiesen, Der Wexel and Christian Zwanikken.
Personally i really appreciate the pieces of this artists, that reanimate the dead parts of animals trough kinetic machines.
Here some photos of these pieces:

Kees de Groot talking with some local people.

The steampunk coffee bar.

Jaromil explaining with cyberpunk matter today.

Psyberia è un festival di 5 giorni che si terrà dal 1 al 5 agosto 2008 in provincia di Asti in una collina di 160mila metri quadri immersa nel verde.

Possibilità di campeggio, ingresso consumazioni e mangiare in OFFERTA LIBERA
musica dalle 22 alle 10 da venerdì 1 a lunedì 4 agosto

Il Festival è dedicato alla musica e alla cultura digitale per la percezione dell’ Essere.
Da sempre la musica e l’arte sono sinonimo di espressione umana, oggi nell’era della tecnologia e della comunicazione diventano ancora più forti unendo sempre più individui di tutto il mondo. La teconologia al servizio dell’uomo e dell’ambiente e la musica e l’arte al servizio della tecnologia.
La cultura digitale è frutto di una costruzione collettiva che trascende le preferenze individuali e influenza le pratiche delle persone.Le pratiche creative trasmigrano sia a livello di linguaggio che di significato, verso nuove estetiche e nuovi valori che nascono dall’uso della tecnologia.
Nel Festival le espressioni della creatività digitale sono rappresentate dalla musica digitale:
psyberpunk,psytrance,chill-out all’ interaction tecnology. Riflessioni e dibattiti accompagneranno gli eventi con temi di confronto riguardo la dimensione ludica delle tecnologie e l’importanza della musica digitale nel definire i paradigmi dell’interattività.
Non è eccessivo dire che la cultura digitale possa rientrare in una sorta di neo-paganesimo inteso come conoscenza della natura propria e dell’ambiente che ci circonda, attraverso l’utilizzo delle nuove tecnologie, ripercorrendo in chiave odierna antichi riti tribali di comunione e glorificazione della natura.
La percezione della realtà circostante subisce così l’influsso della macchina che, attraverso la produzione di frequenze cromatiche e sonore, crea una vera e propria modulazione del segnale nervoso conducendo attraverso stati alterati di coscienza indipendenti dall’utilizzo di sostanze psicotrope.
” Sin dall’inizio dei tempi il genere umano ha usato la musica e la danza per creare una comunione tra lo Spirito della natura e lo Spirito dell’universo.Noi proviamo a usare la musica trance e l’esperienza della danza estatica per scatenare una reazione a catena nella coscienza.Attraverso l’esperienza della danza ho fiducia nel fatto che la gente divenga più sensibile e consapevole di se stessa, di ciò che la circonda, degli incroci dell’umanità, e dei bisogni del pianeta..
Con questa consapevolezza nasce Comprensione e Compassione che sono le necessità del momento, e il puro pensiero goa!!”
Goa Gil

Manifesta is one of the most important European Biennials of Contemporary Art and it takes place every two years in different cities. Being itinerant is its peculiarity, and as Documenta Kassel and the International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, it is one of the highlights for international contemporary art.

In the past years Manifesta has been hosted in Rotterdam, Luxembourg, Liubljana, Frankfurt, San Sebastian.

In 2008 for the first time Manifesta will take place not in a city but in a whole region: Trentino – South Tyrol, Italy, 19 july – 2 november. The area has been selected for its historical heritage, its artistic and cultural facilities and especially for its striking examples of industrial archaeology buildings, which are linked to the work history and the progressive industrialisation of the territory. This land has always been a bridge between Latin and German culture and it connects cultural developments as well as Southern and Northern habits.

Manifesta 7 will take place in several venues chosen amongst the most important examples of industrial archaeology existing in the Brenner axis, from Rovereto to Trento, from Bolzano to the fortress of Fortezza, to create a broad, multi-faceted event characterized as “100 miles in 100 days”.

Along with the various exhibitions, the whole territory itself can be seen as the catalyst for a series of collateral events, encouraging research and focusing on the relationship between different cultures.

A lot of people at an outdoor festival near Moscow last week have lost partial vision after a laser light show burned their retinas. Russian health officials said on Monday.

Moscow city health department officials confirmed 12 cases of laser-blindness at the Central Ophthalmological Clinic, and daily newspaper Kommersant said another 17 were registered at City Hospital 32 in the centre of the capital.

Attendees at the July 5 Aquamarine Open Air Festival in Kirzhach, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Moscow, began seeking medical help days after the show, complaining of eye and vision problems, health officials told Reuters.

via Reuters

Because of the rain, the organization installed some tents, so the laser directed to the sky were partly turned under the tents: the retinas of more than 40 people were burned because the laser were too powerful for a such a little space.

London’s Hyde Park plays host to 4 nights of incredible line-ups and cutting edge bands.
Gates will open at 14:00 on the Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th July with the music starting at 15:00. On the Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th July we will open at midday and the music will start at 14:00 to finish at 22:30 on all days.

O2 today announced the launch of O2 pedal power, enabling O2 customers and music fans attending this year’s O2 Wireless Festival to generate their own green energy on-site simply by peddling on bespoke BMX and Chopper bicycles.

The pedal power bikes offer a fun way to help provide an alternative energy source. Each of the ten bikes situated at various points across the O2 Wireless Festival site have been specifically designed to generate enough energy to help to recharge a mobile phone handset.

The initiative is backed by many of the artists lined-up to play this year’s O2 Wireless Festival, and is the first of its kind to be introduced to the UK music festival scene.

On its 15th anniversary, Sónar 2008 delves into one of the most significant exhibition ventures in the festival’s history. For the first time, a central theme will run through most of Sónar’s exhibition areas: Cinema.

Cinema Beyond Cinema is an unusual journey into the present and future of film. But it is a journey that begins on the edges of film, beyond film.

It frames the areas of SonarMàtica, Sonarama, Digital Art A La Carte and on of the SonarCinema’s menu. Two exhibitions, five showcases and three audiovisual shows come together to form Cinema Beyond Cinema, an unprecedented adventure for the eyes of visitors.

In the 21st century, new means of production –the tools for digital creation– and of distribution –the Internet– have revolutionised audiovisual culture in general and are starting to transform the possibilities of the art of cinema in particular, from the outside.

The exhibition areas of Cinema Beyond Cinema are as follows:

1. SonarMàtica – FUTURE PAST CINEMA
This year, SonarMàtica, the festival’s main exhibition area, presents Future Past Cinema, an extraordinary exhibition project that creates links between the past and the future of Cinema under a single vision.
SonarMàtica is an exhibition that transports the visitor to the fascinating universe of the moving image of the 19th century, as seen through the eyes of artists working with contemporary media. The display is complemented with the simultaneous exhibition of ten machines for creating moving images from the 19th century, from the Tomás Mallol collection at the Girona Film Museum.

2. Sonarama – LIGHT AND SOUND
Sonarama is on the one hand an exploration based around new forms of articulating film, focusing on light as a seminal element of cinematic art and on the other, it presents a selection of ideas with the potentialities of light as their constituent theme.

3. Digital Art A La Carte – LIVE CINEMA, YOUTUBE, SHORT FILMS AND VIDEO GAMES:
This presents some of the new areas of contemporary audiovisual production by means of four digital exhibitions:
- Homo Ludens On The Net deals with the History of Video Games.
- Live Cinematic Explorations In The Era Of Realtime takes a closer look at the most important recent audiovisual production areas: Live Cinema.
- All You Zombies shows that YouTube and GoogleVideo are the great collective participatory video library of the new millennium. The director Jonathan Caouette, a pioneer in the use of Internet in film, shows is his favourite online videos.
- Notodofilmfest.com and Bigas Luna present a selection of the best short films from the latest festival, showing the rude health of this film format on the Internet.

4. SonarCinema – CINE-MATERIA
The works selected for Cine-Materia are based on a common idea: the appropriation and manipulation of others’ material: silent films, educational films, Hollywood classics and advertising. Editing becomes a vital tool in all of them –the distorting (or creative) element that gives a new form and meaning to the footage encountered.

Press here. to see all the complete programme of Multimedia-Exhibition Area.