Joshua Davis and John Maeda talk about design, programming and the world that exists somewhere inbetween at the FITC Festival in Toronto in 2007.

Ho intervistato Luigi Ricuperati, che ha appena pubblicato un racconto nell’antologia di Minimum Fax ‘Il corpo e il sangue d’Italia‘. A maggio, da Minimum Fax, uscirà il suo romanzo ‘Il mio impero è nell’aria’. E’ editor di Abitare.
Ho sentito cosa pensasse sul tema del junkspace, come metafora di una nuova tipologia di spazio architettonico e mediale, di cui ha parlato l’architetto Rem Koolhaas nel suo ultimo saggio dal titolo Junkspace.

Luca Barbeni: cosa significa junkspace?
Luigi Ricuperati: il junkspace è l’idea fondamentale che lui ha sviluppato in questa prosa poetica semiautobiografica che riflette il suo stesso modo di muoversi ipercineticamente intorno al globo, lui è un uomo che passa sempre da un continente all’altro, fa una vita dove l’identificazione del junkspace è il riflesso di esperienza esistenziale che lo porta a attraversare continuamente differenti spazi.

LB: ma oggi è realtà per tutti anche al di là della vita personale di Rem Koolhaas
LR: si anche in Italia esistono grandi spazi di junkspace, dagli outlet ai centri commerciali, certo negli altri continenti ci sono manifestazioni più significative, è d’altronde difficile cercare di fermare questo processo, che porta ad una propagazione di questa mancanza di senso per accumulazione, o anche per sottrazione, o accumulazione di non senso, ecco questo per me è il junkspace, e oggi è una realtà: un’accumulazione di schifo, un pus.

LB: che non è solo spazio lo fisico dei rifiuti ma bisogna considerare anche l’inquinamento degli spazi mediatici?
LR:la cosa più drammatica è l’individuazione della convergenza di alcuni media che riflettono una parte dello spazio collettivo condiviso in occidente, ma anche in altri paesi nasce dal legame molto forte tra eccesso di informazioni, di immagini, di merci.

LB: quindi potresti legare il concetto di junkspace anche a quello di creatività allargata?
LR:in un certo senso si, poiché da questo punto di vista c’è una disponibilità che non si è mai avuta nella storia, disponibilità di materiali che si possono aggregare, legare creativamente ma sono tutti sensi che sono molto parziali, manca una visione dall’alto che porti un’organizzazione romanzesca, si parla appunto di morte dell’autore, manca una narrazione condivisa, junkspace è l’oggetto di libri come “La macchina morbida”, “Il pasto nudo” costituiti da un’accumulazione apparentemente e non di materiali che presi in se hanno bellezza, o bellezza nella bruttezza, non vi è però organizzazione di senso definitivo, concluso, si può sguazzare, si può combatterlo, cercando di creare dall’interno in queste zone senza forma degli agglomerati dove si produce un’organizzazione sensata illuministica, molto importante perchè è esattamente quello che si avverte in questi spazi…

LB: non si riesce più a decodificare la realtà
LR: non si riesce più a dare senso razionale, come diceva Koolhaas facendo una battuta “tutto ciò che è reale non è razionale,” difficile dare senso di razionalità al junkspace, tale eccesso di produzione, di clonazione, con tutti gli elementi che occupano uno spazio, non una immensa varietà ma identità ripetuta con variazioni minime che non generano la produzione di tanti sensi ma un unico senso ripetuto con varianti. Varianti stocastiche che possono generare opposte reazioni nei confronti del junkspace: durante una conferenza dove abbiamo avuto un dialogo pubblico tramite sms quando gli ho scritto riguardo al discorso della morte dell’illuminismo ha risposto “tutti vi hanno contribuito”.
La dice tutta sulla sua posizione personale riguardo all’illuminismo.

Vedi lo spam legato ai prodotti sessuale su internet che è un filone che ha una strada che porta anche verso la bellezza, esattamente come le micro poesie che ti arrivano nello spam erotico, queste sorta di micropoesie sono molto interessanti e difficili da studiare, ma in effetti produce una forma ci conoscenza, nel senso di comunicazione devastante.

LB: più che di reale conoscenza, è una sorta di comunicazione vischiosa, che ti si attacca
LR: si è proprio una cosa che si attacca e ti si lega addosso: sono poesie tutte uguali e ripetute che costituiscono junkspace di bit, poi il junkspace dei mall che sorgono dappertutto, senza identità precisa, non so se esattamente se tutto ciò corrisponda ad uno stato reale per quanto riguarda l’Europa dove città come Roma, Berlino, Londra dove esistono contemporaneamente queste forme di accumulazione di senso e all’opposto diverse forme di resistenza.
Secondo me è maggiormente un problema di classi, le classi più agiate avranno sempre grado di personalizzazione in più, spazi dotati di senso.
Ragionare in senso postmarxista su questo fenomeno è utile perchè il junkspace è uno spazio demandato per le classi subalterne, basta vedere di bassissimo profilo di uno spazio come il LIDL, dove ti stupisce percettivamente vedere la pubblicità di LIDL su Rainuno, e ciò crea spaesamento, poi se ci vai trovi un junkspace tramutato in cheapspace, anche gli aeroporti hanno aspetti di junkspace,

…anche se la storia dell’aviazione civile è un luogo significativo, una specie di filtro dove vedi la storia dell’occidente dell’ultimo secolo condensata in modo perfetto, tutti i prodotti che hanno definito modernità sono passati dalla clessidra degli aeroporti, costituita da un’elitè che negli anni venti erano migliaia, con un progressivo allargamento della base che ha portato negli anni’90 a milioni di persone la possibilità di viaggiare intorno al globo.

Tutti viaggiano per tratte piccole e con i lowcost, a proposito è interessante vedere come gli spazi aeroportuali sono significativi come junkspcesizzazione vedi salone TVA progettato da Eliel Saarinen negli anni ‘50 non ero un luogo spersonalizzato, aveva un pubblico ben definito, era per un pubblico che era elité economica e culturale, negli ultimi anni elité economica e culturale prendono strade differenti e hanno difficoltà nel dialogo.

c’è stato un momento in cui ovviamente c’è stata l’illusione, intorno agli anni ‘60 che con l’allargamento dell’istruzione si potesse progredire, così ora si vede il fallimento, l’allargamento dell’istruzione non ha prodotto elité economica che è conseguenza di un’elité culturale ma un’elité culturale che non sta al passo, che vive male, un precariato diffuso, in un decennio le due cose sono corse parallele, la storia aviazione civile è cartina al tornasole della corsa della storia.

Durante la realizzazione delle ricerche per il saggio sul Vietnam, Viet Now, edito Bollati Boringhieri, ho notato come la visione della storia circolare propria dell’Oriente collimi con l’anello circolare che l’Occidente crea intorno alla Terra tramite l’accorciamento dello spazio tempo dato dai viaggi aerei e paradossalmente la storia degli ultimi anni è costellata da aerei che passano sulla terra, un anello di metallo e corpi che viaggiano intorno al pianeta una struttura circolare che contrasta con l’idea giudaico cristiana, illuminista-marxista, focalizzata sulla linea retta che tende verso la salvezza, verso il progresso, quindi vedo la concezione circolare della vita legata al discorso degli anelli aerei, che oggi stanno subendo una divisione di classe, infatti solo le compagnie di basso profilo oggi hanno incidenti, la percentuale è bassissima, ma quando cade si spezza questa linea e la storia acquista verticalità, linea retta e progresso si riflettono nella caduta..,
D’altronde gli aeroporti hanno una componente di spersonalizzazione per non creare i il panico, uno smussamento degli anglo emotivi, ad esempio ho saputo che nell’aeroporto Charles De Gaulle negli anni 60 misero poltroncine circolari molto comode che sono però state sostituite negli anni 70 con sedie meno comode perchè attraevano troppo persone senza fissa dimora.
Adesso con aerei lowcost vi sono aeroporti che sono junkspace vedi Malpensa dove vi è differenza enorme tra terminal 1e 2, ora ai in Piemonte a Cuneo dove c’è un aeroporto che viaggia soprattutto verso la Romania, pochi voli, ed è in posto allucinate, molto interessante.

LB: potresti parlare del progetto Fucked UP?
LR: era un periodo che ero in crisi con l’idea di raccontare delle cose inventate, fiction, ho iniziato a cercare frugare nel junkspace delle comunità sui Internet, comunità virtuali che hanno niente di virtuale oltre alla rappresentazione scenica, un’idea di comunità che è virtuale ma relazione vere, ho cercato tra le lesbiche, tra i nerd ossessivi, tipici fruitori della rete, la prima che ha occupato la rete, oscillando tra varie situazioni di questi siti detti E/N, everything and nothing, tutto e niente…
sono entrato in questa comunità legata a un sito particolare nowthatsfuckedup.cpm, che già dal nome ha un’idea di marcio, a un certo punto è successo che mi sono molto interessato, era comunità di porno amatoriale in cui pagavi pochissimo e avevi grossa possibilità di interazione tra gli utenti e con la piattaforma, una sorta di youtube ante-litteram.
Cristopher Wilson, fondatore di questo progetto, ha capito che molti soldati della sezione in Afghanistan frequentavano il sito, inoltre il warporn è un genere del porno, e allora gli ha proposto di spedire immagini dal fronte in cambio di accesso gratuito, di vita quotidiana, c’era un costo basso tipo 10$ al mese tenendo conto che sito buono come Abbywinter che viene da 2 anni come miglior sito è 27$ dollari australiani acceso base, mentre loro si basavano più su un modello basato sulla condivisione.

LB: vedi l’idea di realcore di Sergio Messina
LR: si certo, video con i telefonini, foto usati come ricatto, infatti forte aspetto di maschilismo e nazionalismo, ma non è il trash preconfezionato della società dello spettacolo, vi è legame con il junkspace ad esempio nella De Filippi, ma è comunque spettacolo, il junkspace in tv non si sono ancora accorti ora che i reality mostrano corda, che vi sono prodotti culturali di livello non considerati tali, vedi Robert Jonhnson nel libro “Tutto quello che non ti male, ti fa bene”, dove presenta come videogiochi possono avere strutture cognitive e narrative più complesse di molti libri.
Dal punto di vista di junkspace dell’architettura devo dire che gli spazi fisici dove si fanno le selezioni per i programmi sarebbero molto interessanti da visitare, ho un’immagine precisa della serializzazione dello spazio, vedi Artissima, lo spazio della fiera è il modello del junkspace, che è diverso dello spazio disorganizzato del suk misto di organizzazione e tradizione.

LB: forse diffrenza tra junskapce e magazzino disorganizzato è che junskpace cade dall’altro mentre magazzino ha delle radici…
LR: si infatti, il junkspace si riflette nella fiera campionaria che è iperfunzionale ma porta all’angoscia, per certi versi Artissima ha elementi di junkspace per come è organizzata, il problema è la serializzazione degli stand …..
LB: tornando sul libro Fucked Up.
LR: beh allora ho raccolto alcune foto e ho trovato questo archivio dal valore politico e storico nel frattempo il proprietario aveva un processo in corso, Pentagono aveva scoperto questo traffico di immagini e lo ha perseguitato, nonostante Chris fosse patriotticamente a favore della guerra.

Ci sono delle foto molto interessanti anche di mall militari, spazi curiosi, ciò che è venuto è che visto che loro postavano le immagini degli utenti con attitudine nichilista adolescenziale commentavano le immagini, del tipo: “ecco il terrorista che si è fatto esplodere e andrà a trovare le 77 vergini”, insomma un junkspace emotivo dove anche un bit o cliche come quello delle vergini viene usato per commentare, una sorta di pornaccio che invece dovrebbe far scaturire solo pietas.
Da questo punto di vista interessante poiché tipico. Ho raccolto le immagini e i commenti e ho cercato di organizzarli secondo una struttura narrativa.

LB: come hai fatto per i diritti?
LR: la piattaforma web si basava sul fatto che nel momento in cui gli utenti inviavano le immagini, ne perdevano i diritti, per cui erano foto senza copyright.

Un annetto dopo è uscito un disco solista di Thom Yorke, la title track Black Swan, contiene il ritornello “this is fucked up this fucked up”, ma al di là dell’espressione comune ho sentito legame con questa atmosfera, con questo marciume morale, per morte dell’illuminismo intendo anche questo, che non c’è più alcun principio razionale e etico. In quella situazione vale tutto, ma ciò porta solo ad una situazione di junkspace.

George Alan O’Dowd, better known as Boy George (born June 14, 1961 in Eltham, London) is a rock singer-songwriter and Club DJ. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, since he was heavily influenced by Rhythm and Blues and reggae. Mainly O’Dowd is a essential part of the British new romantic movement which emerged in the late 1970s and was popularised in the early 1980s. He and Marilyn, born Peter Robinson were regulars at ‘The Blitz’, a highly stylised nightclub in London run by Steve Strange of the musical group Visage, and a place which spawned many early 1980s pop stars such as Spandau Ballet.

Publication date: 17/03/2005 • 304 pages • 242×161mm • ISBN: 1844133907 Order this book

From 1979 he worked as a DJ alongside Jeremy Healy until he joined forces with DJ Michael Craig and drummer Jon Moss in 1982 to form the 80’s super group Culture Club. Over the next four years, the group made history with their music including the huge hits “Karma Chameleon” and “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me”. The group split in 1986 and reformed in 1998.
http://www.culture-club.co.uk/

Dread-locked Boy George challenged the traditional boundaries of gender: wore makeup, exotic outfits and brought this androgyny to a mainstream market, which was later dubbed as gender bending.

Today Boy George is recognized foremost as a leading dance music DJ, a solo artist and for his Broadway musical Taboo.

Boy George Feb 2007 DJ Tour Press

Quick talk with Chris Paine, writer and director of the film-documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car“, where he investigates about the launch and the next removal of the battery electric vehicle from the market, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990.

LB: can you tell in few words the story of “Who Killed the Electric Car”?
CP: California regulators force car companies to make thousands of very cool electric cars cars. Despite their many advantages and technological success, cars are taken back and destroyed after five years on the road. FIlm investigates what happened as a ‘murder mystery’ to explore the challenges of change especially with the oil industry and the car industry used to making money with non-electric cars.

LB: how can green movement can win if politics is supported by corporations?
CP: Green movement depends on people power (whether motivated by ideals or fear) and simple economic facts of green being more efficient especially as oil runs out. Corporate power must be challenged and ultimately people run them so people to people contacdt is key.

LB: What about Cinemambiente, did you like it? Which documentary did stranged you more?
I liked China Blue. Cinemambiente was terrific.

LB: I know that you’ve been many years to Burning Man, can you describe the experience?
CP: A place for creative and radical self expression, experimentation, and community. My artistic “new year” and a lot of fun.

This is the definitive Turner Prize exhibition, featuring works by all the winning artists since it began in 1984. From Anish Kapoor to Damien Hirst, and Gilbert & George to Grayson Perry, it presents a snapshot of British art from the last 24 years.

Turner Prize – A Retrospective 1984-2006
@ Tate Britain, London, Until 6 January 2008

Gilbert & George: “We don’t want to be dead yet”

Interview with Susanne Jaschko, curator of Urban Screens Manchester 07, that will be in Manchester from the 11th since the 14th of October, with lectures, performances, conferences about the pixel surfaces of our future cities.

LB: What inspired you to think a project like Urban Screens? And how did you find people interested in it and infostructure to realize it?
SJ: The Urban Screens event in Manchester is the second of its kind. The first one took place in Amsterdam in 2005 and was produced by the Institute of Network Culture. The conference happened at a time when it became apparent that technological development, in particular the higher resolution of LED screens and decreasing costs will result in a massive change of the visual urban landscape. For the first time these urban and public screens were recognised as a phenomenon of post-industrial societies around the globe. Now two years later, the development has not come to a halt but has increased in speed. While the prices for LED screens are constantly dropping, contemporary architecture is increasingly embracing the concept of the media façade, turning whole buildings into screens. Due to their transparency new screen technologies like Mediamesh even allow to be applied to historic buildings, opening up completely new possibilities to architects.
At the same time, both China and the UK are setting up an armada of LED screens for the Olympic Games in 2008 and 2012. Urban Screens will address the challenges which arise from this new public medium. I would argue that most screen operators and city councils have not yet fully understood the potentials and conditions of this medium and the specific architectural and social context it is embedded within. The Manchester Urban Screens Conference and art and events programme will try to identify these potentials, but also discuss the cultural responsibility which commercial operators, architects, urban planners and cities have.
Interestingly the BBC is one of the initiators of the Urban Screens Manchester event. The BBC has pioneered in setting up a network of public LED screens in the UK which don’t show commercial content at all. This is unique and ground-breaking. But the BBC is a TV broadcaster, so they have used these screens as a broadcast medium fore-mostly. Being independent from income made by commercial advertising but also being internationally leading in the non-commercial implementation and use of public screens it is in their natural interest to explore the possibilities for culture and community life further e.g. through enabling the up-coming conference.

LB: Is the city of Manchester really interested in promoting this architectural and perceptual evolution?
SJ: First of all the City of Manchester is strongly supporting and co-funding USM, which already proves that they are really interested in the topic and aware of the challenges which inhere public screens, be it LED screens, large scale projection or animated building façades. As the world’s first industrial city, it has witnessed a quick transformation into a service orientated economy with new types of office and hotel buildings, Manchester was the first city in the UK to host a BBC Big Screen in the city centre back in 2003. Like many UK cities, which are doing well economically, the city grows constantly and is challenged to further improve the quality of urban life. I would wish that more city councils would become more proactive about urban screens. Giant posters, LED screens or media facades have a huge impact on the visual appearance of the city. Currently money seems to win over the aesthetics and the flood of commercial screens in our city centres seems unstoppable. To say it more clearly, I am not advocating the ban of public screens but I would argue that they have to be implemented aesthetically into the existing urban fabric. Also we have to find ways to avoid audiovisual battles for attention in the urban environment. Last but not least I would also like to see art funders and artists take a more active role in this development and to reclaim public space as cultural space.

LB: Are there any themes or commons tha emerge from the artists presented at Urban Screens?
SJ: Of course, the question on screen aesthetics is one that has been posed by artists working in the urban realm. The Austrian artist Guenther Selichar for instance has extrapolated his concerns with colored screen surfaces to the public realm in several public art “interventions” which he has staged since 1993 on display at venues in New York City, Boston, Shanghai, China and various European cities. He will speak about this at the conference and will contribute a video to the art and events programme, which by and by breaks common expectations for the pleasant screen experience in pubic space. Our keynote speaker Jochen Gerz is renowned for his strong belief that public space is a platform for a heterogeneous society, which is often forgotten. This will be further discussed within the conference panels, one looking at screens as community interfaces and the other one posing the question how publicly accessible urban displays can and should be.

LB: I think that urban screens it can be a great vehicle for social promotion and partecipation and I’d love to see the big audiovisual billboards of the cities full of creative content, but besides events like Urban Screens how do you think urbans screens can show cultural content against the profits of advertising?
SJ: There is not one way or one solution to this problem. In a neo-liberal world nobody would stop the visual pollution that comes with advertising. Fortunately we still have not arrived in this society in Europe. So what we have to explore here is new models of economy which could also facilitate the production of artistic and community orientated content.
Screen operators are not opposed to artistic content in principal. However, I personally wonder why there are not more directions and restrictions coming from the city council. Public space is a cultural and communal space, so I would argue that commercial screen operators should be urged to show non-commercial content. In the future prices for screens technology will decrease and refinancing of screens will get easier which will hopefully open up more non-commercial content. Slowly architects and building owners will take responsibility for the content on their facades too. In this regard Urban Screens Manchester sets an important sign by focussing on the content rather than on the new technological developments. This conference will hopefully open up a critical debate and come up with some really good concepts instead of celebrating urban screens unaware of the problems which they cause.

LB: I can say I do really like the big moving images of the big screens, but what do you think about the visual pollution of the cities of the future? Or do you think that being a interactive audiovisual platform is the future of some cities?
SJ: Although urban screens can be perceived as a global phenomenon, I think that we are only just starting to understand the cultural potentials which they bear. Due to economic limitations these screens today are mostly used for advertising or to broadcast other traditional screen content such as video art, short films or TV content. In the future I hope we’ll manage to liberate the urban screen from its rectangular TV like shape and to connect it to the physical space in meaningful and aesthetic ways. Hopefully this will go hand in hand with the development of new content formats. In Manchester we will present some interactive works with this aim, for instance the “2.4 Ghz homing pigeons” project in which the number of pigeons is controlled by the presence of pedestrians. The “15 x15” project opens up the screen for participation and show people’s video clips in a 15×15 square grid. But there is much more to see and experience and I hope that the Manchester weather will be favourable to us.

SOUND_BOX was born with the conceptual intention of creating a sound void inside a non-delimited space, an intention which was technically unfeasible with current instruments; Wollscheid has therefore re-elaborated this idea into the construction of an object, capable of picking up and transform the actual sounds of an environment, generating a range of sounds stacked to the ones it receives and processes. The recent development of a new micro-IC has allowed the SOUND_BOX to be realized in a portable format, thus making it technically feasible according to the artist’s original idea. SOUND_BOX has been developed in collaboration with Dirk Witschke, who curated the C++ programming, and Thomas Baumgart, who conceived and designed the hardware.

SOUND_BOX is to raise people’s awareness of their environment, through the object’s influences on the space. Yesterday I met him in Rome, to do a little (audiovideo)interview where he briefly describes it:

Achim Wollscheid is a media artist whose work over the past 20 years has been at the forefront of experimental music. He has performed and presented installation projects internationally. His work in sound has led to an interest in the relation between sound, light and architectural space, which he pursues through public, interactive and electronic projects. He is a founding member of SELEKTION.

The first edition of the SOUND_BOX is now displayed in RAM – Rome until October 31st.

Interview with Rosina Gómez-Baeza by Domenico Quaranta

It was difficult to be more promising. The LABoral Art and Industrial Creation Centre, opened in March 2007 in Gijon (Asturias), with its rich and gorgeous opening program seems to announce a serious engagement at the intersection of art, design and new technologies. In this short interview, Rosina Gómez-Baeza Tinturé, Director of the Center and former Director of Arco Art Fair, talks about her ambitions. The interview was conducted via email some weeks ago, while writing an article for Flash Art. In the meantime, LABoral appointed a Chief Curator (Austrian artist and engineer Erich Berger, the former Art Director and Curator of The Interface & Society Project of Oslo) and opened a new show, It’s Simply Beautiful.

DQ. LABoral opened in March with two big exhibitions, curated by international curators such as Christiane Paul (Whitney Museum), Jemima Rellie (Tate Gallery), Carl Goodman (Museum of the Moving Image). Why didn’t you involve Spanish curators? Are you going to do it in the future? And why don’t you have a stable curator?
RG. The LABoral mission is underpinned by diversity and a desire to be a true reflection of a global vision of the emerging trends in the art world and the creative industries. I want to generate a dynamic setting, capable of stimulating interaction between creators, technicians and scientists from different parts of the world. This engagement with the outside world (outside Spain, outside Asturias) had to be made explicit from the inception of our exhibition programming. Thus my choice of our very talented curatorial team. The name of our Chief Curator will be made public at the end of June.

DQ. What’s your relation with the territory? Do you want to be a window on the international scene of New Media Art or to help developing a local New Media Art scene (or both)?
RG. Both, naturally. I was actually born here, close to the Universidad Laboral complex which houses our Centre and most of the Universidad de Asturias technical schools plus a technological hub. There is political unanimity in considering the ICT sector as strategic sector for development of the origin. Asturias is also a region particularly focused on encouraging relations between groups of persons from different origins,promoting the exchange of ideas and technologies and the development of art practices based on shared experiences. These particularities of the region are highly conducive to creative vitality and innovation. As a resource centre we will of course also focus on facilitating the necessary resources for local artists.

DQ. The New Media Art world and the Contemporary Art world often act as two parallel lines that never cross. Coming from Arco – the only art fair that opened to New Media Art, by the way – are you trying to make LABoral kind of a bridge between those two worlds?
RG. Why not? This project will provide a platform for an intense and profound dialogue between different forms of artistic expression, providing room for the various disciplines, which must exist in harmony as essential parts of the innovative path through art and creation at the beginning of the 21st century.

DQ. LABoral is an art center, not a museum. Nevertheless, do you have in mind to start a collection of art works?
RG. Setting up a centre dedicated to production, education, exhibition and diffusion of art and technology and the creative industries, is a response to a need expressed by many creators, technicians and producers. The fact that there are no centres for research and experimentation in Spain means that LABoral has a practically unlimited potential. We hope to be able to enrich the current debates. That will be our priority but of course we would like to “anchor” our findings and be able to trace the first technological advances: light, camera, cinema, video, computer, and their use by the artist and industry. A collection that would reflect the work of both pioneers and emerging artists is of course at the back of my head.

DQ. What about your future projects?
RG. During the first phase of the programming at LABoral, we will outline a critical route through our historical-artistic legacy while underscoring the contributions of new technologies. We hope to reflect the truly overwhelming visual culture of the moment. “Emergentes” will
open in November. Curated by José-Carlos Mariátegui and coproduced with Fundación Telefónica, it addresses new forms of art in Latin America, mostly from the multidisciplinary research field. Research is indeed one of LABoral’s pivotal concerns, backing up
exhibition concepts but also paving the way for new exhibitions. I cannot understand the two separately. We are starting our workshops this coming month of July with a very interesting program focusing on videogames from a practical angle, tackling phenomena such as Second
Life, 8bit music, modding. In August we have put together our second series of workshops with Hangar, exploring new tools for creators from various perspectives: image, sound and hardware.

DQ. Can you tell me something about the show curated by Peter Doroshenko and Jèrôme Sans that will open at LABoral in July?
RG. It’s Simply Beautiful rethinks the concept of beauty in today’s world. It will have a very different feel to Feedback or LABcyberspaces, as it includes only five artists taking over approximately 3.000 square metres. I believe strongly in producing new work, and not just limiting the role of the institution to borrowing preexisting pieces going from one institution to another. Peter and Jérôme selected four artists from France (Fabien Verschaere), the UK (Mark Titchner), the US (Dzine) and Thailand (Surasi Kusolwong), but also visited local studios and chose to include Carlos Coronas, a very interesting artist born and based in
Asturias.

DQ. What’s your view on the future of New Media Art? There will be a sustainable market for it?
RG. Today´s art reflects the sea changes taking place in society. I think there is an enormous feeling of optimism in the art world in general and an intense and profound dialogue between different forms of art which certainly encourages and generates a dynamic setting, capable of attracting larger, younger audiences interested in those emerging trends which reflect today´s visual culture. These new art practices appeal to the new audiences, respond to their demands.

www.laboralcentrodearte.org
www.domenicoquaranta.net

Interview with Jaromil, founder of Dyne.org, rasta coder that trough his work try to “develop and distribute software to manipulate and broadcast audio and video, free as in free speech” and “mantain a GNU/Linux distribution for multimedia production, optimized to run well on old computers and game consoles, for the sake of ecology and accessibility.”
And if you want the T-shirt with the shortest fork-bomb ever, check the gadgets.

He’ll be performing with his HasciiCam at the Stream Fest, Salento New Media Festival, in Galatina from the 26th of july till the 28th.

ECO: the dyne can be defined as “the force required to accelerate a mass of one gram at a rate of one centimeter per second squared.“, in the open source world which is the force, what is weight and waht is lenght?
J: depends to which open source world you are referring
in mine (and i speak only for me)

- – the force is passion and injustice, curiosity and idealism

- – the weight is code

- – the length is how clean, readable and documented is what you write

ECO: Do you have any plans for the Chaos Communication Camp 2007?
J: sure, i’ll be there camping with my tent, but only after attending the zappanale.de

ECO: can you tell something about how the (H)ASCII CAM was born many years ago? in which context? why? with whom?
J: it was inspired by the typical hacker aesthetics in the early 2000 i was around in Austria, peeking in cyberpunk contexts as stadtwerkstadt / servus.at / sil.at / time’s up , as well regularly attending the yearly hackmeeting in italy which we started already in 1998.

when i wrote the software HasciiCam i was working at the Futurelab in the ARS Electronica Center and there was a camera left on the shelf coz the power cord was lost. i took it at home, found out the voltage needed and put it in action: that was the first time i ever made a video camera work on my screen!

then of course the idea came quickly out of Jan Hubicka’s AAlib, the coolest video hack ever done: i wanted to see it live and stream it on the web in the easiest way possible.

the concept was to have a video streaming system for slow networks and old computers, so that even people with a modem could stream something cool: even cooler than canonical videos produced by proprietary software. It was the case of the hackmeeting in Catania in year 2000, where we had a very slow connection from the Freaknet, the southern medialab of Europe.

as soon as i released the software, it quickly grew in popularity, to the point it was mentioned on Slashdot for being used by a department of Sun in California, pointed on a lava lamp, to produce a live random seed for encruption
i have to admit i had never thought of that while writing it..

among the people that contributed to development i’d like to mention Blended: we are friends since more than 10 years i knew him as the cook in the pizzeria Maruzzella in Pescara, now he is a coder and last year he updated HasciiCam’s code to support all USB webcams. big up \o/