On Friday, 22 May 2015, KIBLA hosted the final meeting, which was attended by partners from Spain, Portugal, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Latvia. The topics under discussion were project activities and coordination in terms of preparing the final report.

The programme comprise sound and bioart workshops by Slovenian artists Maja Smrekar and Monika Pocrnjic. In turn, the following week (May 20–24, 2015) part of “Virtuosi” artworks by artists Paula Vitola and Rihards Vitols as well as “Talk to Me” installation by RIXC artists Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits and Martins Ratniks will be exhibited in Maribor, Slovenia.

“Virtuosi” symposium offers rich programme of lectures, presentations and workshops around the topics – sound art and experiments, alternative food resources, collecting and archiving, communication technologies and bioart. Participants of the “Virtuosi” symposium are “Virtuosi” exhibition artists Rihards Vitols, Paula Vitola, Maija Demitere, Krista Dintere and Kristaps Biters, RIXC artists Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, artist Gints Gabrans, biologist Janis Liepins. Established Latvian composer Rolands Kronlaks and sound artist and composer Voldemars Johansons will lecture about data sonification in art and data manipulation in musical compositions.

During the 2-day workshop “Audio.holic” Slovenian artist Monika Pocrnjic will suggest that any object that produces sound can also be a musical instrument. The workshop will provide an opportunity for developing experimental musical objects, made up of various materials and used for the purpose of manipulating sound.

The participants of the “YogHurt” workshop led by Maja Smrekar will have an opportunity to produce yoghurt enriched with genetically modified organisms that contains enzymes of the artist’s body. As the food prices keep growing due to reduction of products amount and increase of world’s population, the artist is looking for new solutions and alternatives for food production in the future.

As in the previous years, Spajalica relates to our struggle with the rapid changes and elimination of public space from common horizons and it addresses the issue of idleness, which has been labeled lately as undesirable, inefficient and lazy behavior.The repertoire includes exhibitions, art interventions and workshops, by the following artists: ARCHIsquad, Lara Badurina, Filip Cenek,Laura Llaneli, Miron Milić, Damir Žižić and Kristian Kožul.

Rijeka’s main promenade will temporarily receive a new sculpture – Inflatable Realities (Žižić/Kožul), while the atrium of Mali salon gallery and Radio Rijeka will get a modular living room (ARCHIsquad). The windows of Mali salon will become new icons of light (Badurina) and the ruins of Rijeka’s old town will provide a setting for street art (Milić). Rijeka’s music bands are also involved, but outside of the ambiance of clubs. Finally, a provision of a 95-year old charter that designates music as the
main governing principle will come into effect again (Laura Llaneli and Filip Cenek).
This year’s Spajalica will take place from February to April 2015, in a somewhat smaller range than before. While exploring the ways to continue with this project, we decided to tackle with the issue of rush and its effects on everyday life. The rapid flow of time, where success is measured with an IT-wise and quick feedback, with a clear message of irreversibility, is indeed astounding.  Tapping out the rhythm of accelerating changes of technology and innovation loops, neoliberalism acts as a pensée unique, as a monopolizing language of irreversibility, indebtedness and loyalty to a single way of life, instructing us to keep the pace or back out of the race. Too much democracy is seen as spoiling a good work; public sector is viewed as inert and afraid of changes1. And if we reflect on our own status, we may say that museums seem like dinosaurs
in today’s world.

The ticking synonym of our times can be found in traffic jams, in the frantic haste and mad pursuit of  deadlines and commitments, in a widespread confusion of memory and information…  Rush hour is the painful image of the super-speed that actually results in a deadlock, in an over-heated state; it ends up with deviation and black hole effects. A hole usually signifies a weak point full of emptiness and absence, a point where we lose our ground. The question is: how does this hole manifests in urban landscapes. Is hole necessarily a negative word, or it connotes a switch that leads to different views on the dominant picture? The map of this year’s Copula shows alternative gravitation forces that elude the principles of the new economy and promote deceleration, temporal dislocations, iconography of ruins, pensiveness… In this hole we may found ourselves, at least from time to time.

More info and programme:
http://www.mmsu.hr/Default.aspx?art=871&sec=2

Protocol for Interdisciplinary Research
One of the goals of the workshop “Synergies” is the implementation of a first draft of a protocol for interdisciplinary research. The draft is the result of the exchange of experience and the theoretical discussions among the participants of the workshop.

The protocol document for interdisciplinary research aims to provide useful references and guidelines for institutions, funding bodies, individual researchers and interdisciplinary research groups. The document takes into account a wide number of experiences and visions on interdisciplinary work. It is an open document under ongoing reviewing and discussion.

Here is the latest version of this document.

Read more / Grid Sponoza

The duration of the residence will be three weeks, from the 20th of April to the 10th of May 2015.

After reviewing all the applications we have received, the jury of Soft Control – Grid Spinoza – Spring Sessions # 3 programme has selected the
project “EXOglands radical dynamics: fluid, tissues & bloody self-aware enhancement bionicLAB” by Klau O.jamett.

Short description of the project:

Extreme own-body cognition, Anarchagland (female eyaculation) & male prostate, decolonial anatomy of pleasure. Unveil taboos with DIY biolab
techniques, DIT science & medical hacks reverse engineering. A transdisplinary collaboration based on health issues of colectives who have been marginalized by the desensitized treatment of anything deemed promiscuous & contentious. Grassroots sexual politics empowerment.

This residency is part of the project Soft Control funded by the European Commission through the programme Culture 2007 – 2013.

Thanks to attendance of Mr.Diosi (CYNETART Award 2014), we can broaden the scope of the discussion far beyond only BCI systems to anthropological conditioning…

PROGRAMME
17:00 dr. Aleksander Väljamäe – brain waves recording, use in medicine, marketing, and control
17:30 Ivor Diosi – Molding the Signifier – bio-logy and un-humanistic considerations of  human
18:00 Pavel Smetana – Room of Desires – fulfilled desires in VR
18:30 panel discussion

Host: Ondřej Cakl (CIANT)
Language: ENG primarily, Czech friendly
Entry: free, capacity limited, we strongly recommend to book the seat at info at ciant dot cz email address
—

Funded by/Podpořeno programem: EC Culture Europe 2007.
Realization/Realizace: CIANT
Project/Projekt: Soft Control

http://pipes-project.net/iconuu/

GUESTS:
Michael Bielicky – media artist, author of concept
Štěpán Kleník and Jan Patawa – digital studio BRAINZ, interactive design
Kamila Richter – visual artists, icons creator
Betka Siruckova – visual artists, icons creator

October 8-10, 2015, Riga

The Renewable Futures is a new conference series in the Baltic Sea region that aims to invent new avenues for more sustainable and imaginative future developments. It will shape new contact zones between traditionally separated domains – art and science, academic research and independent creative practices, sustainable businesses and social engagement in the 21st century.

The 1st conference edition will take place in Riga, from October 8-10, 2015, and it will primarily focus on exploring the transformative potential of art in the post-media conditions. Today, according to several voices – Rosalind Krauss, Lev Manovich, Peter Weibel and Domenico Quaranta – we have entered the post-media age; there is no any single medium anymore that dominates in contemporary media art practices that are rather engaged with contemporaneity and critical thinking. The huge diversity of “post-media art” was profoundly explored also in the Fields exhibition  (Riga 2014, fields.rixc.org), curated by Raitis Smits, Armin Medosch and Rasa Smite. The Fields showed that art in post-media conditions contains highly transformative and visionary potential. However, symbolic and aesthetic qualities, as well as critical, investigative and confrontational aspects also proved to be just as important for “post-media art” to maintain a line between physical and mental, realities and utopias.

CALL FOR CONFERENCE PROPOSALS:

We welcome proposals by artists, curators, theorists, academic researchers and other lateral thinkers to share their ideas and research with regards to the following themes:
• post-media art, avantgarde practices and theories
• ‘slow’ media art – preservation challenges for the museums
• art and science – for building techno-ecological perspective
• technopolitical investigations into the informational paradigm
• Big Data and media visualizations
• post-media architecture, sustainable design and open businesses
• culture for sustainable development in the Baltic Sea and North European region

DEADLINE: March 20, 2015

Please submit your conference proposal (abstract 250 words, biography 200 words) via http://openconf.rixc.lv 

In a case of any problems with the openconf system, please don’t hesitate to contact us: rixc@rixc.lv

CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR THE FESTIVAL & EXHIBITION:

The conference will be complemented by a broad programme of the RIXC’s annual Art+Communication 2015 festival, which in its 17th edition will manifest the post-media situation by changing its title and a shift – it now takes a turn from the festival’s initial focus on information & communication technologies paradigm to the broader and more contemporary discourse on art and science, culture and sustainability, with particular interest on exploring and building techno-ecological perspective.

This year’s festival exhibition will also contribute in building post-media perspective. We invite artists to propose their works that by blurring the boundaries between different disciplines are developing visions for more sustainable and imaginative ways of life.

* Keynote speakers:

John THACKARA
Lev MANOVICH

* Plenary session keynotes:

Dieter DANIELS
Katja KWASTEK
Armin MEDOSCH
tbc.

* Conference International Advisory board:

Dieter DANIELS, Douglas KAHN, Katja KWASTEK, Armin MEDOSCH, Regine DEBATTY, Gediminas URBONAS, Misko SUVAKOVIC,
Rob VAN KRANENBURG, and others – tbc.

* Conference chair: Rasa SMITE
* Exhibition curator: Raitis SMITS

* Conference Regional (BSR/North Europe) Organizational Board: Chris HALES, Hege TAPIO, Vytautas MICHELKEVICIUS, Kristin BERGAUST, and other partners of Renewable Network – tbc.

Contact: rixc@rixc.lv

You can also follow the RF conference news by subscribing Renewable list:
http://db.x-i.net/mailman/listinfo/renewable

More information: http://rixc.org

Organized by RIXC in collaboration with Art Research Lab of Liepaja University

Partners: Renewable Network, NORTH Creative Network Project, Culturability BSR
Support: State Cultural Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, Latvian 
Ministry of Culture, Creative Europa, EEA/Norway grants

Centre for contemporary art DOX
Poupětova 1
Prague, Czech Republic

Conceptual frame:
Art and new technologies are becoming more and more connected together. Within the VETLICAT project a special module will take place – Future of Art & Science Collaborations. This module will focus on future of connecting these two fields, especially from theoretic point of view. Every third Thursday you can visit the lectures and listen to interesting speakers from Czech Republic and abroad who are specialized on the field of connecting art and new technologies, and obviously discuss the related topics with them.

KEY SPEAKERS

Doc. Ing.
Ivan M. Havel, CSc., Ph.D.
Ivan M. Havel graduated in 1966 from Czech Technical University in Prague. During 1969-71 he attended the University of California at Berkeley, earning his Ph.D. in Computer Science. For several years he worked as a research scientist with the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. His fields of interest are theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive sciences, and related philosophical issues. Presently he is a docent (associate professor) at Charles University and director of the Center for Theoretical Study, an international cross-disciplinary institution affiliated with Charles University and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Since 1990 he is the editor-in-chief of Czechoslovak scientific journal Vesmír (The Universe). He is a member of Academia Europea and serves on boards of several academic institutions and educational foundations.

PhDr. Jaroslav Anděl
Jaroslav Anděl studied photography at FAMU and history of art at Faculty of Arts Charles University in Prague. In 1996-1998 Anděl became a director of Modern and Contemporary Art Museum of National Gallery in Veletržní palác. He is the author of numerous publications and exhibitions on modern and contemporary art. Worked as a curator, consultant, museum director, and educator; currently holds the position of artistic director at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague. Recently initiated the series of public debates 12 Hours of the Future (2013, 2010) and DOXagora (2012) and authored the exhibitions Cartographies of Hope: Change Narratives; Jonas Mekas: …As I Am Moving Ahead.. Glimpses Of the Past Linger…; The Lucifer Effect (2011); Thinking Without Limits: Inspired by Rudolf Steiner (2011); and The Future of the Future (2010).

Louis Bec
Louis Bec is a biologist and zoosystemician who extends hisscientific field with a fabulatory epistemology based on Artificial Life
and Technozoosemiotics. He became known through his efforts related toextending biological evolution and simulating new life forms, emphasizing
in particular how these ‹could› bring forth evolution. In 1972, Bec founded the Institut Scientifique de Recherche Paranaturaliste, where he studies the incapability of living beings tounderstand their own existence. Bec is both artist and scientist in the field of artificial life and 3D technologies. He is as much a biologist, artist, curator and educator, and has been a ministry officer for new technologies in arts. Bec is Director of CYPRES (Centre Interculturel de Pratiques et Echanges Transdisciplinaires) in Marseille. He has presented his ideas in many exhibitions, such as Alife II and From Animals to Animats, and articles.

Bacteria Battery / Biotricity is an innovative art and science collaboration project by Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits/ RIXC and Martins Ratniks together with sound artist and composer Voldemars Johansons and young biologists from University of Latvia. The project experiments with new generation “green energy” technologies and sonifies the process of generating electricity from bacteria living in water. The installation consists of a cell network altogether creating a ‘bacteria battery’. The performance of „bacteria battery” not only discovers the great possibilities of the collaboration of science and art, but also increases the awareness of importance of sustainable living.

The Bacteria Battery performance programme and exhibition took place in a special spherical tent, constructed particularly for the event. The geometric planes of the tent were later used as a platform for extraordinary media visualisations. The evening programme included five different audiovisual performances, among them – „bacteria battery” in action interpreted in sounds (by sound artists Voldemārs Johansons and Mārtiņš Roķis) and visualisations (by media artist Rihards Vītols.)

All together the exhibition, performances and workshop Bacteria Battery / Biotricity were attended by 3000 local people of different age groups (starting from families with kids during the day in the framework of workshop programme till students and elderly people in the evening performance programme.

Location: Spikeri Creative Quarter, Riga
Links:
http://www.rixc.org
http://renewable.rixc.lv/?s=bacteria+battery
https://www.facebook.com/rixcriga

SET 2
Composting the city | Composting the net. Performance
By Shu Lea Cheang (FR) & Martin Howse (UK) at the opening programme of Save As exhibition.
Dates: October 8, 2013

Composting the City | Composting the Net examines the parallel degenerative process of fermentation and fragmentation of our daily food scraps and shared digital commons. While Composting the City investigates urban food waste management systems, Composting the Net sources net cultures’ accumulated data. Food scraps dumped onto a compost heap are layered and turned until all traces of labeling are erased. On the net, the abundance of info-data sinks into a deep “reservoir” with tags attached.

Location: Spikeri Creative Quarter, Riga
Links:
https://www.facebook.com/rixcriga
http://festival.rixc.lv/13

LECTURES RIXC, RIGA, LATVIA 2013
Dates: 07/09/2013 – 12/10/2013

SET 1
Bacteria Battery/ Biotricity – public workshop & lecture
Dates: September 7 – September 8, 2013

The public workshops & lectures introduced wider public with the technology of the installation “Bacteria Battery” – a unique technology in creating alternative translated into sounds, both, discovering the great possibilities of the collaboration of art and science and promoting the awareness of importance of sustainable living, giving a special attention to the many possible alternative energy sources and technologies.

Location: Riga, Latvia

SET 2
Techno-ecologies Panel B lead by chair Shu Lea Cheang in the framework of the 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology RENEW
Dates: October 11, 2013

Techo-ecologies panel thematically approached resillient networks and emerging ‘techno-ecological’ art practicies.

Panel speakers:
Helene von OLDENBURG, Claudia REICHE. THE MARS PATENT – a living fossil
Kuai Shen AUSON. 0h!m1gas: biomimetic stridulation environment
Takis ZOURNTOS, Marjan VERSTAPPEN, Caroline LANGILL, Dot TUER. Speculative Realist Media Art Technologies: Probing into the Nature of Things
Conor McGARRIGLE. Locative Histories: exploring the continued influence of early Locative Media art
Claudia ROSELLI. Resilient networks through art practices. Old Delhi – New Media. The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology – RENEW, was hosted by RIXC Centre for New Media Culture in Riga in partnership with the Art Academy of Latvia, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and Danube University’s Center for Image Science. RENEW hosted three days of keynotes, panels and poster sessions on the histories of networked digital, electronic and technological media arts.

Venue: Stockholm School of Economics in Riga
Link: http://renew.rixc.lv/days/october11.php

SET 3
Techno-ecologies Participatory Session 1 – Playing Fields lead by Armin Medosch in the framework of the 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology RENEW
Dates: October 10, 2013

Techo-ecologies panel thematically approached resillient networks and emerging ‘techno-ecological’ art practicies. Main themes of the Playing Fields session was: Collaborative mapping, curating and tagging as a social game: which expanded fields of artistic practices offer the greatest potential for desirable social change? Playing Fields Session particularly was organised as pre-event of the huge international Fields exhibition held from May 15 to August 3, 2014.

Artistic committee:
Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits, and other invited participants.

Study visit, networking, collaboration, dissemination, presentations, 2013 the public event – installation / performance as well as workshop “Bacteria Battery / Biotricity”

On January 28 – February 3, RIXC representatives Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits as curators went to ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany, to do a research and choose art works that could potentially be included in the exposition of the most grandiose initiative of this project for RIXC – the international media art exhibition “FIELDS” which will take place in Riga, 15.05.2014 – 03.08.2014 as one of most noticeable events of the Riga 2014 (Riga – European Capital of Culture 2014) special programme.

In framework of this study visit RIXC representatives Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits and Daina Silina also went to the annual international festival for art & digital culture “transmediale” in Berlin, where they met with co-curator of the extensive exhibition “FIELDS” – media artist, writer and curator from Austria Armin Medosch. Together they elaborated the first call for the potential participants of the exhibition which was sent out to international mailing lists, newsletters, diverse virtual platforms etc.

On September 2013 RIXC representative Raitis Smits, Rasa Smite and sound artists and sound artist Voldemars Johansons went in a Study Visit to the internationals “ARS ELECTRONICA” festival in Linz. It was also artistic visit for set up the installation “Bioticity” in Ars Electronica Center, which will be hosted there until September 2014.

Photo Gallery

With its thirteen-year-long tradition in Maribor, this year’s edition of the international festival KIBLIX, entitled KIBLIX 2014 – Parallels, addresses and concerns an array of research perspectives that pervade the field of contemporary interdisciplinary production. It is not limited to a specific niche, nor does it concern only the narrow field of authorial approaches, but accepts the heterogeneity of contemporary production and presents it with an exhibition, audio-visual performances, lectures, workshops, round tables and artist talks, appealing both to the professional, i. e. academic, as well as the wider public. Despite its seeming eclecticism, the KIBLIX 2014 – Parallels festival is in search of a hidden pulse that vibrates inside all its participants. The presented works re-question the foundations of the modern world and tackle the issues, which are becoming detected by all of us – what is the post-digital era and what are its consequences; can the combined efforts of artists and scientists hack up a free future; the uses and misuses of the enormous amounts of data; electronic and technological pollution and waste circulation; strategies of surviving in a world with only illusory privacy; the internet black market; the fragmentation of contemporary identity to the real and the virtual. The questions and issues perceived by the presented works and the festival participants are crucial to our present, and even more so to our future. Fundamentally, they represent the momentum that has been present throughput our history – what does swift progress mean for the human race? Are new technologies a way out of the gutter or just wool over the eyes of the already illusory freedom? Following the tradition of past editions, the basic goal of the festival is to act connectively and to create an open space for a common, unburdened consideration of the paths that we choose. KIBLIX joins scientists and artists, researchers and gamers, computer experts and biologists, hackers and musicians, producers and random visitors. The intertwinement of guests and visitors from most diverse directions is the soul of the festival platform – the format of the festival enables spontaneous connections between people of different professions but kindred interests, which creates an intellectual surplus and a tremendous creative potential that stands as a purified vision of interdisciplinary activity, which is almost inevitably the core upon which it is sensible to build a future.

Some of this year’s participants:
Tania Candiani • Miha Ciglar • Nataša Teofilović • Olaf Val • Ghislaine Boddington • Bojan Gagić & Cameron Bobro • Ida Hiršenfelder & Saša Spačal • JUNEsHELEN • Matej Končan, Gregor Purgaj & Črtomir Just • weAREmedienkuenstler • Mind Machines • Oliver Pietsch • Monika Pocrnjić • Luka Prinčič • Ana Rajčević • Random Logic • Vlado Repnik • Yann Leguay • Justin Thyme• Maja Smrekar, Robertina Šebjanič & Miha Tomšič • Rasa Šmite, Raitis Šmits & Voldemars Johansons • Žiga Pavlovič • Lection.7 •

Image: Ana Rajčevič

25.10
Opening visit / Visita inaugural
Inês Moreira
Curator / Curadora Technical Unconscious / FBAUP

01.11
The place and the projecto / O local e o projecto
Gonçalo Leite Velho IPT / Technical Unconscious / FBAUP
Joel Cleto Historian / historiador / PortoCanal

08.11
Cooperativism and the city / O cooperativismo e a cidade
Fernando Martinho Cooperativa dos Pedreiros
Adriano Vasco Rodrigues Historian / Historiador

15.11
Stonemasonry and work / A pedra e o trabalho
Luís Silva President / Presidente Cooperativa dos Pedreiros
Álvaro Silva Factory manager / Diretor da fábrica da Cooperativa

Contacts:
Faculdade de Belas Artes Universidade do Porto
225 192 400
softcontrol@fba.up.pt
www.softcontrol.fba.up.pt
www.facebook.com/technicalunconsciousproject

Iztok Kovac and guests / Iztok Kovac e convidados

Oficina, Cooperativa dos Pedreiros

18h15
Auditório Fernando Pernes
Pavilhão Carlos Ramos, FBAUP

23 Set
Project Presentation / Apresentação do projecto
Daniele Sambo, photographer (Italy / UK)

25 Set
Joana & Mariana, designers (Portugal)

30 Set
Máquina de Pensamento Pós-Industrial (Portugal)

2 Out
Iztok Kovac, performer / choreographer (Slovenia)

7 Oct
Manuel Granja, designer (Portugal)

9 Oct
Linda Brothwell, artist / crafts (UK)

14 Oct
Relli De Vries, artist / landscape arch. (Israel)

16 Oct
Cora Piantoni, visual artist (Swiss / Germany)

21 Oct
Tomaz Furlan, visual artist (Slovenia)

23 Oct
Moisés Mañas, multimedia artist (Spain)

COOPERATIVA DOS PEDREIROS
Monday and Thurday / Segunda e Quinta
18h15
Auditorium, Cooperativa dos Pedreiros

27 Oct
John Grzinich, sound artist (USA / Estonia)
(Monday / Terça)

30 Oct
Guidi & Racco, visual artists (Canada and Italy)
(Thursday / Quinta)

Contacts:
Faculdade de Belas Artes Universidade do Porto
225 192 400
softcontrol@fba.up.pt
www.softcontrol.fba.up.pt
www.facebook.com/technicalunconsciousproject

26.09.2014 – evening*

Performative visit to the stone quarries and the backyards of Cooperativa

Daniele Sambo, Cooperativa dos Pedreiros

*depending on weather conditions

RIXC Centre for New Media Culture has turned Café Europa containers into Riga Innovation Lab by offering 6 weeks long extensive and manifold programme of exhibitions and workshops focused on art and science, and 3D printing. The RIXC Innovation Lab programme together with artists and scientists from Latvia, Belgium and Baltic-Nordic countries particularly will host workshops exploring the themes such as urban ecosystems, fog and the future of water, 3D printing of sound (and other intangible and intuitive properties), food as energy in overpopulated future world, as well as visual perception and sensor/responsive technologies.

* We announce SHORT-NOTICE CALL FOR PARTICIPATION in two of the most exciting RIXC Innovation Lab events:

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Lab No 1: September 2-7
Urban Ecosystems by Annemie MAES and Fog workshop by Edwin van der Heide

September 2-5 (Part 1)
URBAN ECOSYSTEMS AND CITY HONEYBEES
Exhibition and workshop by Annemie MAES (BE).

The 4-day will continue to explore the complex world of honeybees, which artist and workshop leader Annemie Maes has extensively investigated for some years. The 4-days workshop will be started with an introduction on Urban OpenGreens project and the role of the honeybees within this ecosystem. Following, the participants will study the bees’ behaviour and architecture based upon insights from biology, art, design and materials science. The participants will explore specific structural patterns present in physical and biological environments (city/nature walk), from macrostructures to biological microsystems. Starting from the collection of gathered organic materials, the participants will develop novel, bio-inspired designs for bee houses. Participants are expected to collaborate in the discussions, with drawings and by creating objects.

BIO: ANNEMIE MAES has studied a masters in fine arts, a masters of cultural studies and a specialisation in anthropological documentary film. By founding the organizations Looking Glass and OKNO she has played a major role in organising the multi-media art scene in Brussels, bringing together artists and art spaces from different European countries to engage in workshops and open research labs. The current line of her artistic work focuses on ecological issues, as in the ongoing Open-Greens project: http://opengreens.net/

Saturday, September 6 (Part 2)
WHITE NIGHT 2014: Fog – art and science workshops and performance
1-day art and science workshop (that will follow Urban Ecosystems lab) will be conducted by artist Edwin van der Heide and scientists from the Institute of Solid State Physics of Latvian University (the partners of RIXC), who will experiment and show different ways how the fog is generated (in natural and artificial environments).

The workshop will be followed by the FOG – environmental sound and light performance by Edwin van der Heide that will take place in Spikeri quartier, in the framework of WHITE NIGHT – annual forum for contemporary culture.

BIO: EDWIN VAN DER HEIDE is an artist and researcher in the field of sound, space and interaction. He extends the terms composition and musical language into spatial, interactive and interdisciplinary directions. His work comprises installations, performances and environments. The audience is placed in the middle of the work and challenged to actively explore, interact and relate themselves to the artwork.

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Lab No 2: September 23-28

September 23-28
HABITUS: SEEING AND BELIEVING, LIFE AS AN IMAGE.
Exhibition and workshop on visual perception psychology, real-time mapping and “shadow” projections by Hanna HAASLAHTI (FI).

The workshop will start with a presentation of Hanna’s research and her art work – Habitus , with notes about the body painting tradition of the Hain people and introduction of the Gestalt laws of perception. She will continue with a lecture and workshop on “Seeing and Believing, Life as an Image”. Cameras connected to computers yield many applications, which has become necessary feature of contemporary life. In this lecture the participants will be looking at how the computer vision techniques have transformed from the malevolent all-seeing eyes of big brother to ubiquituos vision systems that feed our pleasure of being constantly watched. The participats will also take a look at the Gestalt laws of perception and how it can map the invisible space of connections between individual things. In the practical part, the participants will explore the kinect 3D sensor and will go through the principles of realtime mapping.

BIO: HANNA HAASLAHTI is a media and installation artist working and living in Helsinki. She explores structures and methods which connect individuals to communities. In her work, the balance between individual freedom and communal rules takes shape as interactive installations or photographic experiments. The basic elements of her minimalistic installations are light, shadow and interaction. She researches computer vision technology, generative and volumetric graphics in the development process of interactive spaces. She has graduated from Medialab, University of Art and Design Helsinki.
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DEADLINES:

Please apply for workshops by sending short motivation letter and your short biography to email: rixc@rixc.lv
The Deadline for the Lab No 1 – August 28 (Urban Ecosystems + Fog),
and the deadline for the Lab No 2 – (on Visual Perception) – September 9, 2014.
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PARTICIPATION AND TRAVEL

Participation is free
Plus: We can cover travel costs and accomodation for 2-3 participants from Baltic and Nordic countries, and 2-3 participants from other European countries

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The Exhibitions at Cafe Europa Riga Innovation Lab are open: Tue-Sun 12.00-18.00, Mon – closed.

Café Europa Riga is the project organized by RIXC Center for New Media Culture in collaboration with Riga 2014 and Mons 2015 – European Cultural Capitals.

Follow information about the Cafe Europa Riga prject and RIXC Innnovation Lab events on Riga 2014 portal: http://riga2014.org/riga_mons
and RIXC Facebook page: http://facebook.com/rixcriga

Support: Foundation Riga 2014,  Riga City Council, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, EU programme Culture, the State Culture Capital Foundation, Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium in Riga, Wallonia-Brussels Delegation in Warsaw, Wallonia-Brussels International, ABLV Charitable Foundation, Nordic Culture Point, Soft Control, Renewable Network, Laboratory of Hydrogen Energy Materials of the Institute of Solid State Physics of University of Latvia, Art Research Lab of Liepaja University.

Stevan Kojić – User Interface Art
Actively consuming contemporary technology through a graphical user interface [1], we partly control the flow of information and its safety As a result of limited control over user interfaces, we often find ourselves confronted with information overload. We don’t find the time for processing-thinking, nor time for our own reflections. Thus, we automatically consume information without understanding its wider context and truthfulness. Our virtual copy, which is born in the graphical user interface, becomes our “new reality”, easy for manipulation and control.
Through art, science and technology, Stevan Kojić points to everyday life in a graphical user interface. His planned out systems-experiments transform the gallery space into a laboratory. Here, the visitor is actively participating, partly influencing the changes in the signals-information.
Kojić’s new “Self-sustaining” system continues his previous research based on the flow of signals through various media and examines the possibility of transforming the visual impulse into an audio or motor signal. The central part of the system is the electroencephalograph (EEG). It registers brain activity from the visitor’s scalp with the help of electrodes. Obtained values of brain activity are then passed to Arduino (open-source software and electronics) and a computer, transposing them into sound and video animation, and using them for controlling vibrating motors. The visitor sees, hears and feels the changes that are a direct consequence of his brain activity. During the process of watching, new changes occur in brain activity, which the system registers and continues to transform signals that control the visual, audio and motor parts of the system. Signal values are more balanced while not registering brain activity, and more dynamic when the visitor is an integral part of the system. Brain waves intersect with radio waves received by radio receivers available on the Internet. They receive signals from meteorological satellites orbiting around the Earth. The first type of waves we broadcast ourselves, while the second type surround us. Signals circulating in this hybrid system mutate, disappear and reappear, trying to convince us that the system is self-sustaining. Caught up in this electronic “vicious circle”, we often aren’t sure what the purpose of the obtained information is, what the system is used for, besides us partly influencing it, i.e., that which it produces. Since a self-sustaining system is not possible, we realize we are brought into an absurd state, similar to the one we fall into every day with information overload. The absurdity is highlighted by the idea that the system emulates an organism “whose only purpose is its own existence [2]”.
Even though it reminds us of a science laboratory, Stevan Kojić’s hybrid installation does not serve to discover a scientific truth, it exerts its impact through the domain of comprehension of art by a visitor. It points to a contemporary position in a user tailored interface system in which we create our virtual identities.

[1] Graphical User Interface – GUI (colloquial: GUI is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation.
[2] Taken from the interview with Stevan Kojić “Početak ne leži u tezi, već u dilemi”, for the webzine www.supervizuelna.com.

STEVAN KOJIĆ (1973, Kikinda) received a B.A. and an M.A. degree in sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. He is an associate professor at the Department of New Fine Arts Media at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad and the Academy of Fine Arts in Trebinje. His main interests are researching relationships between art, society, science and technology through relations between the analog/digital, biology/technology, ecology/economy, low-tech/hi-tech, open/closed systems, time/space, the virtual/real, etc.

Contact: kojicstevan@gmail.com, www.stevankojic.com

ABOUT STEVAN KOJIĆ:
Remember those infinite machines from cartoons, where one action leads to another, the second to the third and so on? Stevan Kojić constructs something similar, but he uses contemporary technological methods and gadgets in combination with objects from everyday life. We will be talking in regard to the recently held exhibition “The Self-sustaining System of Absurdity – еco-technological-bio-social habitat” held at the 12Hub Gallery.
An introduction to an interview led by Žolt Kovač for www.supervizuelna.com

…The technological meets the biological in an altogether new way in Stevan Kojić’s installation “The Self-sustaining System of Absurdity” (2010). Here, through the cyclic travel of information between bonsai trunks and electronic devices, he asks (maybe rhetorically) if there is a purpose to the constant recycling of meaning and knowledge, and the infinite reinterpretations of cultural, social, political and economic information.
Ena Hodžić, from the catalogue “Device Art 4.012 – Machines, Robots and Boiled Eggs”, Kontejner, Zagreb, 2012

… we see Stevan Kojić’s need for creating a system that doesn’t strive to discover great scientific ideas and truths that real science laboratories insist on, but strives to enable freedom to act,  to simplify and repurpose existing, traditional socio-artistic systems. Here we see a noticeable orientation of the artist toward utilizing open source hardware and a do-it-yourself philosophy. This practice is characteristic for artists in the West known as makers, whose basic concepts of work are experiments in multidisciplinary projects.

Sanja Kojić Mladenov, for the exhibition: “Stevan Kojić: Unstrategic intelligence”, the Fine Arts Salon of the Cultural Centre of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, October 2012

This “laboratory” with its absurd “experiments”, that is conceptually mostly based on the principles of ecotechnology, indirectly points to the absurdity of today’s relations in society and makes one think if man should break loose from the system, return to himself and his dignity and reestablish his union with nature by recognizing the potentially mutual positive relationship between nature and technology, for mutual benefit, and a wellbeing for mankind. As long as art is in favor of consciousness, the more artists cross boundaries — the better. Stevan Kojić’s exhibition “The Self-sustaining Systems of Absurdity” does just that, and in an unobtrusive and very constructive way.

Sunčica Lambić – Fenjčev, for the exhibition “The Laboratory of Absurdity” held at the Contemporary Gallery in Zrenjanin

About the SOFT CONTROL Project (www.softcontrol.info)

SOFT CONTROL – Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious (EU)
Dom omladine Belgrade is part of the wide range European project “Soft Control — Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious” that will be realized during 2012–2015 through the cooperation of 9 partners from 7 countries. During this period there will be more than 8 symposiums, 16 solo art exhibitions/installations, over 40 talks with artists, 7 big residency programs for artists and scientists, 4 group exhibitions, 8 workshops, over 30 lectures, 12 group exhibitions, 7 performances, and many artist and project exchanges which will result from basic project activities. The goal is to make Soft Control a multi-annual cultural project with the mission to introduce science labs to a wider audience, starting from artists and experts, to various educational entities, going further to include the widest public. Through this project and the cooperation with its European partners, Dom omladine Belgrade will present to the domestic public the most important Belgrade artists from this field. www.softcontrol.info
Partners and co-organizers of the Soft Control project: Multimedijalni centar KIBLA, Maribor, Slovenia (project leader and coordinator); Hangar (Fundació Privada Associació d’ Artistes Visuals de Catalunya), Barcelona, Spain; Muzej suvremene i moderne umjetnosti, Rijeka, Croatia;
Galerija O3ONE, Belgrade, Serbia; Media Space RIXC, Riga, Latvia; CIANT (International Centre for Art and Technology), Prague, Czech Republic; Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; KGLU, Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia; and DOM OMLADINE BELGRADE, Belgrade, Serbia.

The Project Team:
Dušana Nikolić Radošević, project editor
Ivan Stanić, curator of the exhibition, art historian
Milica Ševarlić, public relations
Jakov Ponjavić, design
Marko Radojković, executive producer

This exhibition is part of the SOFT CONTROL project. The project was realized with the support of the European Commission. Sponsored by: the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Serbia, and the Assembly of the City of Belgrade. Associate partner in the field of technology:  the Computer Center of the University of Belgrade. We thank the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Applied Studies in Belgrade for our cooperation.

This year’s episode of Spajalica/Copula keeps its current focus – a collective appropriation of urban space and acknowledgment of its public purpose accompanied by artistic goals and community ideas, deliberating the possibilities the city currently offers or hides. However, in the omnipresent hustle with swift changes that elude the majority’s will and impose physical and symbolic distances, this year we are additionally motivated by a subject closely connected to the issue of pushing public space out of the community horizon. We are referring to the trap of the ever more rapidly subjective clock ticking, we look eye to eye with the decay of unplanned entertainment that becomes a derogatory word and a sign of an unwanted worldview – inefficiency and sloth.

Around 30 local and foreign artists, researchers and theorists will implement projects as solo or collaborative initiatives between 8 April and 31 May 2014, in the zone from the main pedestrian area – Korzo – to the edge of Sušak and Delta parking lot, over Karolina Riječka Pier, to the industrial zone near the railway station. As one-day or several-day events, workshops, lectures and public actions, the project will contribute to the idea of a city as a place of creating social alternatives. The generator of temporary art projects will this year step out of the close proximity of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, stretching over the museum boundaries and entering the specifics of particular urban toponyms, for and to the purpose of exchange and mutuality among people.

Copula #2 is a continuation of the current cultural practice related to the reactivation of public and urban space. Additionally, it refers to the lack of adaptation (positioning) of people in social and economic aspirations that channel the global capital flow. These are followed by dilemmas related to wishes for a better future that could be fulfilled by conscious redirection of individual desires and needs. Therefore, the project is still nurturing informal relationships in order to create a situation of mutual trust and empowerment.

Participants: Kreativni Kolektiv Kombinat, ARCHIsquad, Holger Pohl, Tanja Vujasinović, Rino Efendić, Tajči Čekada,  Luiza Margan, Dunja Tišma, Marija Kajapi, Una Rebić, Kruno Jošt, Maja Kohek, Lucija Ukić, Sanja Gergorić, Čiko i dokoličari, Mateja Bučar / DUM, Stéphane Querrec, Josip Pino Ivančić, Katze und Krieg, Nika Rukavina, Petra Mrša, Ivana Lučić and Igor Eškinja.

Participants in talks and lectures: Andreja Kulunčić, Raumlabor – Axel Timm,  Siniša Labrović, Valentina Zrnić Gulin, Zona 00 – Nina Sindičić, Aaron Schuster, Archisquad, Tina Peraica, Kruno Jošt, Maja Kohek and Suzana Marjanić.

PROGRAM

http://spajalicacopula.wordpress.com/

Curators: Ksenija Orelj & Sabina Salamon
Project manager: Nataša Šuković

Copula is a part Soft Control project http://www.softcontrol.info/

Supported by: EU – Kultura 2007. – 2013., Ministry of Culture, City of Rijeka, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Institut Francais , Zagreb, Goethe institut, Zagreb

Media Partners: Kulturpunkt, Novi list, Moja Rijeka, RiTv

  “With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union”

Muzej moderne i suvremene umjetnosti
Dolac 1
Rijeka 51000
Croatia

the FIELDS Opening Programme will include Art+Communication Festival programme and RENEWABLE FUTURES – International conference on art, science and cultural innovation
Riga May 15-18, 2014

Renewable Futures is new conference series, the launch of which will take place during the FIELDS exhibition opening weekend on May 15-18, 2014 in the framework of Riga – European Cultural Capital programme. In a response to recent quests for a more sustainable future and overcoming the crisis of the present, the conference aims to invent new avenues for future developments by bringing together traditionally separated domains. Inspired by Fields exhibition approach, which does not just look at art in the narrow sense but takes into account all kinds of creative practices that brings together new thinking, scientific knowledge, aesthetics, technologies and social practices, the conference will shape new contact zones between academic research and diversity of contemporary art practices, art and science, sustainable businesses and social engagement in the 21st century.

FIELDS PROGRAMME.pdf

Photo Gallery

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Production:
RIXC, Centre for new media culture, Riga, Latvia
http://fields.rixc.lv

http://renewable.rixc.lv
http://facebook.com/rixcriga
http://vimeo.com/rixcriga
http://twitter.com/rixcriga

The Folio platform is 50% dedicated to visual reproductions and enables reproductions of visual materials/photographs of up to 578 mm in width and 420 mm in height (double the A3 standard format). Artists and creators are invited to publish their artworks, photographs and visual works in high resolution (300dpi). We will welcome all narrative forms, from articles, commentaries, critiques, essays, contributions to the new vocabulary, drawings, reproductions, photographs, posters…

The FOLIO platform is a part of the European project Soft Control between 2012 and 2015, which provides the financial coverage of the quality printing of 1000 copies and promotion and distribution across Europe. We sincerely hope that Slovene public tenders in 2014 will provide the necessary funds to support the contributions, translations, proof reading, editing, design and national promotion and distribution of Folio magazine, which amounts to a 50% co-financing.

Folio is intended as a means of promotion of the ideas and aesthetics of contemporary artists; their work and artistic contexts in itself may not be considered as an earning instrument.

Previous editions are available at:
www.kibla.org/en/sections/folio/folio-online/

The final deadline to submit your contributions for the 2013/2014 edition is June 1st 2014. Texts in Slovene and English will be considered, and exceptionally also contributions in other languages, in case the editorial board should recognize an outstanding quality of such writings.

Please send any potential questions and/or materials (up to 50 MB) to the following e-mail address:

Aleksandra.Kostic@kibla.org
kibla@kibla.org

NewMedia art exhibition

Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti / Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška
Curator: Andreja Hribernik

Exhibition opening: FRI, 24 January 2014 at 6 pm
Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti, Glavni trg 24, 2380 Slovenj Gradec

The exhibition entitled Temporary Objects and Hybrid Ambients concerns the unveiling of creative space established between art and technology. As an artist, Marko Batista is difficult to situate within a specific artistic direction for his works are created at the intersection of performative intermedia practices, sound and visual installations, and physical-sensorial experiments.
The basic principle of operation followed by the artist is the exploration of intermediate spaces both in the physical sense, where electronic signal – acoustic or visual – are produced via home-made interfaces, as well as in the ideational sense, where human perception is explored in a world suffused with electronic communication, digital devices and technology. Namely, human perception is adapted to a certain kind of use of technology and, therefore, it is limited to a certain type of experience. By creating hybrid technological, electromagnetic or chemical systems, Marko Batista challenges the mystification of technology while he also opens up new ways of thinking about it. With his experimental systems, which bring together various fields, he expands the field of human sensorial perception and the phenomenology of unstable audio-visual systems in space and time.
The exhibition responds to the exhibition space of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška and it works as an integral work of art, which makes it possible for the viewer, depending on his position in space, to get an audio-visual impression of the whole or of the individual modular objects. As regards content, the projects are divided into three exhibition clusters distinguished by the basic principle of “operation”.
The experimental systems of electromagnetic radiation and transfer of information deal with the exploration of visual and sound images, be it sound interventions in space or the fragmentation of media images in the transfer of information.
The cluster entitled Electro-Chemical Systems is based on the interweaving and the mutual impact of electric and chemical processes, in which electric impulses travel through a series of fluid matters, converge in spatial sound stimuli and produce unpredictable effects.
In the final, third cluster entitled High-Voltage Experimental Systems, the author explores the impact of high voltage, which enables the creation of specific architectonics of signals, whose mapping, manipulation and distribution with the system are manifested in the visual and acoustic field of the spectator confronted with real-time projections and a synchronous acoustic backdrop. The repetitive, mutating structures of audio and video elements trigger unpredictable effects at various psycho-sensorial levels of the spectator’s perception.
The artist’s installations reveal his specific relationship to technology, which, on the one hand, he demystifies by using “low-tech” elements and by visualising its processes, while on the other hand, he introduces the element of the unknown and he moves on the cusp between controlled and chaotic modular systems.
The artist’s intermedia practice also introduces the concept of time. By situating the event – the operation – in the museum space, he renders his objects permanent (for the duration of the exhibition) in their existence in the museum space and because they exist only through process – they are temporally limited, while the museum space loses its timelessness.
Nine projects will be presented at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška; they were created over the past six years and they offer and insight into the artist’s creative work.
The projects Error Trash, Hybrid Audio-Mechanical Machines and Bentronix were produced by the K6/4 Institute – Kapelica Gallery. The projects Parallel Digital Structures, H220, Time Diagrams, CHEM:SYS:REACTOR and Optolyth were produced by the Aksioma Institute. The project SIPHON:SYS:APPARATUS was produced by the author.

The exhibition is co-produced by Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška.
http://www.aksioma.org/temporary.objects/
Curator: Andreja Hribernik

Technical support: Maja Brezar, Urška Batista, Žiga Palčar, M7 Grafiks, Dejan Kastelic
Partners for technical equipment: Zavod K6/4 – Kapelica gallery, Zavod Projekt Atol

Supported by:

The realisation of the exhibition is funded by the European Commission in the frame of the project Soft Control.
The content of communication is the sole responsibility of the author and in no way reflects the views of the European Commission.

This is an open call for participating in the second edition of Spring Sessions at Hangar art production and research center based in Barcelona (Spain). The Spring Sessions are intensive and interdisciplinary meetings between artists and other professionals for developing a specific part of a larger research project.

The Spring Sessions provide the opportunity to an artist to invite a professional from another discipline to work together in the development of part of a larger research project within the framework of a one month residency in Hangar. One participant will be based in Barcelona and the other somewhere else. The person based elsewhere will be able to live in Hangar’s guest house during the development of the residency (one month).

This year’s edition seeks to support projects that address the issue of transferability in the ACT (Art, Science and Technology) field. We understand by transferability:
- The applicability of a result, knowledge or methodology in other contexts.
- Extension / transfer of the meaning of some concepts to other disciplines
- The process by which a sector assimilates an aspect, property, an attribute of another process and it is partially or completely transformed.
Some terms related to transferability are: socialisation, transmission, data, empathy, identification, protocol, community, hypertext or glossary, among others.
This call is addressed to those projects resulted from collaborations between artists and other profiles that carry out theoretical and / or practice research while contribute to the transfer of knowledge among heterogeneous areas.

More information:
http://gridspinoza.net/en/node/1047

Within the frame of:
Grid Spinoza & Soft Control

With the support of:
European Comission / Culture Programme 2007 – 2013

Welcome to our open call for an art residency in Porto, Portugal, at the Fine Art School of University of Porto (FBAUP) for the year 2014. The participant — whether a single author or a collective — shall develop a new work in Porto and follow the curatorial lines of the Technical Unconscious Project. The residence (one month) shall consider a dialogue with students and researchers from FBAUP. The new work is to be exhibited in 2014 at the collective exhibition of Technical Unconscious Project (part of SoftControl European Culture project).

Porto is a City in the North of Portugal whose contemporary reality links with an Industrial and Commercial past with a strong axis in Technical knowledge. Technical Unconscious project focuses in this particular condition and explores it as a XXI century practice: how to review the analogical condition in a technological society? How does a digital epistemology (XX century) inform our relations with the analogical apparatus (XIX century)? And today, how can we suggest a new dialogue revisiting the analogical? These three questions frame a critical position to conceive practical research within an academic context. The program explores different artistic practices so to expand on the potential of the artifactual. A special concern will be given to technique as human agency, namely through the recovery of authors like Simondon, linking the thrill with the modern and the technological of both XIX and XXI century societies.

The residency is curated by researcher and curator Inês Moreira, who has a long history in interdisciplinary and research based art projects.

Eligible projects:
New or ongoing art, or design, project exploring applied research on “obsolete” technical materials exploring it for a new creation. The project shall explore a conceptual dimension as well as material and technical skills, as the notions of repair, reuse, and transformation.
It is expected from the project to be developed at FBAUP that it includes the access and the use to wood, stone and/or to metal workshops; and it may include a collaborative processes with art and design students.

Eligible authors:
Artists and designers, whether individually or as a collective, with a relevant artistic portfolio and/or research experience, willing to spend one month in Porto so to explore the guide lines of Technical Unconscious Project. Open to artists of all ages, based in Europe. Portuguese artists are eligible and must complete the same application process.

Duration:
The residence lasts one month, any month from February till September 2014.

Conditions:
1. The artist, or collective, has to be based in Porto for the duration of the residence.
2. Technical Unconscious Project will contribute with (amounts before taxes):
— Artist fee: 1.500 euros.
— Accommodation in Porto for a month and work space at FBAUP.
— Production costs: 1.000 euros.
— Use of FBAUP equipment and some technical assistance (to define).
3. Travel costs up to 450 euros..
4. The author(s) selected from this open call will give a Master Class open to FBAUP students during the residency period.
5. The new work will be exhibited in Porto at Technical Unconscious exhibition during Fall 2014.

Selection procedure:
The application must be presented in a single .pdf and must include:
1. Artist´s biography and academic curriculum (up to 1000 words).
2. Description of previous research projects (500 words + up to 10 images).
3. Description of the proposed artistic project, with technical description (500 words + up 10 images).
4. Non-mandatory: catalogues, books or other material considered necessary shall be shipped to FBAUP/Softcontrol Project. After the selection process, all the application materials will be offered to the school´s library for future consultation.

IMPORTANT: Applications must be submitted in English, for review by selection committee.

The Selection Committee is composed by:
— Gonçalo Leite Velho, Technical Unconscious/SoftControl project coordinator at FBAUP
— Inês Moreira, Technical Unconscious/SoftControl project curator at FBAUP
— Franciso Laranjo, Diretor of FBAUP
— Marta Gracia, research project coordinator at Hangar, Barcelona
— Ksenija Orelj, curator at MMSU — Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka

Calendar:
Deadline for applications: 30th of December 2013 at 23:59h (GMT).
Announcement of the results: 15th January 2014.

For further submitting the application, please contact:
SoftControl/FBAUP: softcontrol@fba.up.pt

Application deadline: The call for entries closes on 15 December 2013, participants will be notified by the end of January 2014 via the Museum website http://www.mmsu.hr. The selected participants will be contacted personally via e-mail. Applications will be discussed by the five-member jury: Alen Floričić, Anja Bogojević, Branka Vujanović, Ksenija Orelj and Sabina Salamon.

Remarks for applicants:
1. The right to participate extends to individuals or collectives from the Republic of Croatia and other countries in EU.
2. Both already existing and new works are eligible for application. The applications are to be mailed to the following address: MMSU, Dolac 1/II, 51000 Rijeka, or by e-mail: mmsu.rijeka@gmail.com with a subject header ‘SoftControl Call for Entries’. Contact persons: Ksenija Orelj, ksenija.orelj@mmsu.hr, 385(0)51492619 and Ivo Matulić, ivo.matulic@mmsu.hr, +385(0)51492621.
3. Not more than two works can be submitted for the competition.
4. Applications without required documentation will not be considered by the jury and will be deemed incomplete.
5. Competition application form is available at HERE
6. Selected artists transport the works at their own expense.
7. Materials submitted alongside the application form (CD, DVD, photographs) are not returned to the applicant.
8. Fee per project amounts to EUR 400.00 (gross), while the maximum amount for the production of individual projects amounts to EUR 900.00 (gross).
9. Travel expenses and accommodation in the duration of maximum three nights are covered by the organiser.

Remarks for foreign artists:
The call for entries envisages two residencies for foreign artists who wish to realise their projects in public space. Residences are available in the duration of maximum 20 days in two periods between 1 April and 30 May. The application should be mailed to the following address: MMSU, Dolac 1/II, 51000 Rijeka, or by e-mail:  mmsu.rijeka@gmail.com with a subject header ‘SoftControl Competition – artist-in-residence’. APPLICATION FORM for residency

Remarks for the educational programme:
A separate educational programme (in association with Milica Đilas, senior museum educator) will be conducted on a public space intervention proposed by the artist and elaborated and realised in collaboration with a group of high school students.
The target group are high school students (age 16 and 17) who participated in 2013 in the research project High School Students in Public Space, which concerned public spaces and how young people use them, Default.aspx?art=571&sec=4
Individuals or collectives interested in entering can send a proposition by mail to the address: MMSU, Dolac 1/II, 51000 Riijeka, or by e-mail: mmsu.rijeka@gmail.com with a subject header ‘SoftControl – Educational Programme Call for Entries’.

APPLICATION FORM for Spajalica>Copula should contain:
1. A filled application form
2. A description enabling the jury an insight into the submitted work through appropriate documentation (sketch, photo, video etc).
3. A technical description of the executed work with location and duration (how the work is mounted and dismounted and the list of technical equipment)
4. A bill of costs for project realisation (with the included author’s fee and insurance fee, if needed)

Project description: Spajalica#2 / Copula#2
Starting from the often mentioned detachment of the museum zone, displacement from the public space as a consequence of involvement in programmatic tasks of collecting and safekeeping, this project raises the question of the manner of reactivating the public space and art’s presence in it.
In the wake of the initiative for different regulation of social space and leisure time, this project is interested in contemporary art practices which disturb the status quo and underline concealed, transposed or neglected contents in urban environment, regardless of the approach or medium the artists use.
This call for entries is open for proposals which will mark the Museum’s presence in its neighbourhood, abandoning traditional commemorative approaches and permanent sculptural solutions, transforming ‘passive’ narratives into physical and symbolic presence, by concentrating on current social issues and relations or connecting with everyday life practice on the borderline between public and private, facts and fiction. In the sense of media, the project supports performative and participatory works, urban interventions and outdoor installations whose audience – users or participants – cannot be predetermined. We seek approaches that open up the public space and address the audience that does not belong to the standard circuit of art-based events. The basic guidelines of the project are strengthening the presence of contemporary art in public space and communication between the Museum and its urban environment, especially in its close neighbourhood. We are particularly interested in how to open time in its social and public nature. As controversial points in today’s experience of time we see the lack of leisure time and lack of time for private relationships and sociability. This relates to the ever growing occupation with duties and work, marked as flexible working hours which engulf the meaning and existence of other forms of temporality. The dominant model of time becomes ‘the endless day’, the one in which we are fully busy, constantly on the move and already strained, and thus also restrained from the reality of time and current environment. In Copula we are interested in approaches that could oppose this accelerated experience of time and its subjection to the global capital race. Since the time to encounter art is primarily determined by the institutions’ or galleries’ fixed working hours and the audience’s disappearing free time, the overwhelming question is: can we extend our time for art in the open conditions of public space. What practices and which formats can highlight the feeling of mutual flow of time, mutual connection and creating attention? Relying on the model of a copula, by connecting utopian and practical scenarios, this project is trying to gather alternative models of utilising time and creating attention.

Application form_eng.doc

Application form for residency_eng.doc

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COPULA#2 OPEN CALL RESULTS

Within the open call for temporary art projects in public space – Copula#2, a five-member jury (Anja Bogojević, Alen Floričić, Ksenija Orelj, Sabina Salamon i Branka Vujanović) chose twelve art projects that will be realized in April-May 2014 in the close surroundings of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The jury has also chosen two residencies for foreign artists and two educational programmes.

Pre-invited artists participating at Copula#2 are the following: Stéphane Querrec, Igor Eškinja and Josip Pino Ivančić.

Selected artists / interventions:

Kreativni Kolektiv Kombinat
Waiting Room for Brightening
intervention, passage of the Mali salon gallery

ARCHIsquad
UrgentArchitecture
open office for citizen’s counselling, MMSU zone

Holger Pohl
87 hours of Sculpture
installation, MMSU

Tanja Vujasinović
Mr. Lacković‘s Undelivered Neons
installation, MMSU zone

Rino Efendić
Out and About Rijeka
idling, roam

Tajči Čekada
What is Performance and What Do Performers Actually Do?
performance, stairs at the Hotel Bonavia

Luiza Margan
Eye to Eye with Freedom
performance, Delta

Dunja Tišma, Marija Kajapi, Una Rebić
Parkplayground
urban picnic, Delta

Kruno Jošt
Platform for Transdisciplinary Practices
urban lab, MMSU zone

Lucija Ukić and Sanja Gergorić
Traces
interventions, MMSU zone

Čiko and Flaneurs
What’s our life / If full of care / You have no time /To stop and stare?
interventions, Mali salon gallery zone

Mateja Bučar / DUM
The Unnoticed
performers and co-authors: Aja Zupanec, Martina Ruhsam, Ales Zorec, Ivan Mijačevič, Maja Kalafatič, Nina Pertot Weis
urban choreography, MMSU zone
Residencies / Interventions:

Katze und Krieg
Gold Everywhere
performance, MMSU zone
Educational programme:

Nika Rukavina
Sušak action
in collaboration with the pupils of the Technical School of Civil Engineering and mentors Branka Batričević and Asja Rukavina Bikić

MršaPetra
Street (as) Art
public space intervention in collaboration with teenagers

SUTRA / TOMORROW

Belgrade Youth Centre as part of the European project Soft Control initiates a restart of SUTRA (TOMORROW) festival. The Artist Talk Symposium SUTRA will try in two days to present artists, concepts and projects that explore the relationship of art, science and technology through interviews with artists, presentations and interactive workshops. At the same time SUTRA is the initiative and support of the Belgrade Youth Center to re-launch this Arts and Science Festival in Belgrade.

Sutra programme.pdf

More about SUTRA / TOMORROW

Photo Gallery

26.12.2013

27.12.2013

Worskshop for kids: ” My First DiscoKosmačBot ” by Monica Pocrnjić (27. 11. 2013)

Production:
DOB, Dom omladine Beograd, Beograd, Serbia

The name for the joint festival platform MFRU-KIBLIX2013: When Worlds Collide was inspired by the 1951 science fiction classic. The symbolism of the movie highlights the split and the paradox of the gap between the developed and the underdeveloped third world. In this context, the MFRU-KIBLIX2013 festival symbolizes live nature, the reality which we live in, which is intertwined and dependent on the swift development of science, technology and consequently art and new forms of creativity.

Contemporary interdisciplinary forms of creative conceptions are intertwined inside complex junctions of different worlds and approaches, in the tension between the natural and the bio-technological, the virtual and the hybrid, the fake and the genuine principle, which – in an abundance of dialogs, contradictions and junctions – becomes visible in the form of artistic installations, digital records of process works, performances, lectures, presentations, workshops and audio-visual pleasures.

For the first time this year, the MFRU-KIBLIX2013 is taking place at Maribor’s KIBLA Portal, an old textile factory hall spreading on over 2000m2, thus joining the dispersed festival units on a single location in a get-together of artists, people working in the field of arts&culture, researchers, scientists, educators and anyone willing to receive additional knowledge about the theoretical and research work, as well as anyone willing to share and experience the creative forms of artistic experimentation and interpretation; willing to discover, work, discuss, listen and share their ideas and findings.

The MFRU-KIBLIX2013 includes interaction with various target audiences and encourages an active collaboration by everyone, especially young people, students and people with long-time professional experience… Culture and science intertwine as disciplines, constructively exchanging cultural models of critical thinking, activism and experimentation with scientific methods, research and knowledge.

Program curators: Aleksandra Kostič and Nina Jeza.

Selectors: Aleksandra Kostič, Nina Jeza, Jože Slaček, Franc Vrbančič, Maja Smrekar, Saša Spačal, Robertina Šebjanič, Ida Hiršenfelder, Marianne Wagner.

Exhibited artworks:

TANIA CANDIANI (MX), KATHY HIGH (US), MAŠA JAZBEC (SI), KARL HEINZ JERON (DE), MAJA SMREKAR (SI), OSCAR MARTIN (ES), TIAGO MARTINS, R. O’NASCIMENTO, A. ZINGERLE (PT), YURI KLEBANOV, ROI RONN, YONATAN BEN YA’KOV (IL), TIAGO MARTINS, VESELA MIHAYLOVA (PT), RICARDO O’NASCIMENTO (ES), VISUALISING PALESTINE (LB), DORON SEGAL, JENNY BAHAR, ITAY KURGAN, SHAHAR YACOBY (IL), DRAGANA SAPANJOŠ (HR), THERESA SCHUBERT (DE), SAŠA SPAČAL, MIRJAN ŠVAGELJ, ANIL PODGORNIK (SI), ZORAN SRDIĆ JANEŽIČ (SI), ROBERTINA ŠEBJANIČ, ALEŠ HIENG – ZERGON (SI), NITSAN HOORGIN, JULIAN RUIZ, INBAL COHEN (IL), EVA PETRIČ (SI), VOJKO POGAČAR (SI), ORTOTIP (SI)

Supporting program:

MFRU ARHIV, Jože Slaček (SI), HIPER FILM MFRU, Uja Irgolič, Marko Batista, Jože Slaček,

Miroslav Ničić, Marko Ornik, son:DA (SI), FEMINA (SI)

AV performances:

ELECTRIC INDIGO, MALAVENTURA, RICARDO O’NASCIMENTO, JOHNSMITH, ELISABETH SCHIMANA / NOID, ANA PEČAR / LUKA PRINČIČ, ROBERTINA ŠEBJANIČ,

ALEŠ HIENG ZERGON, OSCOFF, C-DRIK, ŽIGA PAVLOVIČ, GROOVY CARTOON SESSIONS, NEAGUSHI™, VJ POSTARTLAB & DJ DAMIR P. f.k.a. D’SUN, JOŽE SLAČEK, PRIMOŽ OBERŽAN, JAN STERNIŠA, ORTOTIP, YOANN DURANT, SAMO PEČAR, BENO SORŠAK, CAMERON BOBRO

Lectures and presentations:

William Myers, Angelo Vermuelen, C-drik, Peter Tomaž Dobrila, Christopher Fiorello, Jessica Anderson, Jerneja Rebernak, Tina Dolinšek, Zoran Poznič, Dejan Pestotnik, Jože Slaček, Djino Šutić, Monika Pocrnjić, Robertina Šebjanič, Luka Frelih, Žiga Kranjec, Stella Venciana, Vojko Pogačar, Tomaž Grušovnik, Arne Korsika, študentje FERI, študentje PF, Dušan Zidar, Natalija Premužič, Suzana Uran, Franc Vrbančič, Gregor Krušič, Ladies of the press

Workshopolgy:

Music composition and improvisation from a single sound source – Open Lab, [rdxs]:__x=e and generative systems – Open Lab, Synto-duino-beeper, Ladies of the press, My secret: Pleasure bpm, Biotweaking work_SHOP, Revaluating Memory, Q:aRt, Game today, job tomorrow, FIRST®LEGO®League, Robotics for girls, Magic Cube, Robocup – dancebot workshop, DIY Theremidi Orchestra, ShapSounds, Smilefection, Design your city, Print GREEN, Gaming Lounge: relaxation and play, MariborScore, Student Campus

More info: http://www.mfru-kiblix.si

CONTACTS

———————————–

visitors:

Nina Jeza

phone: ++386 31 330 275

e-mail: ninajeza(at)gmail(dot)com

————————————

workshops:

Tanja Grosman

phone: ++386 31 682 579

e-mail: tanja(dot)grosman(at)kibla(dot)org

——————————————

press:

Sonja Gregorn

phone: ++ 386 2 300 29 95, ++386 41 849371

e-mail: sonja(dot)gregorn(at)mkc(dot)si

Dejan Pestotnik

phone: ++ 386 59 076 376, ++386 40 895 194

dejanx(at)kibla(dot)org

——————————-

4th to 8th November

This workshop’s aim is to create an experimental and collective publication from the assets of “Cooperativa dos Pedreiros” (Porto 1014–). Several ways of generating editorial contents will be created in order to develop a portfolio, from analyzing documents, materials and other information from Cooperativa.

This portfolio will be built upon formal and technological elements inherent to the production of a whole family of artifacts which now belong to the museum of the “Cooperativa”. And, as well, from elements gathered from its  architectonic heritage, which still today defines the landscape of the city, both suit as a teaser for the creation of this edition.

The goal of the workshop is to edit and reproduce a collective publication from an iconographic and particular universe with technical assistance of Catarina Marques. Publication with 24 to 48 pages, format 17.5 × 25 cm. Each participant will make two double pages (2 × 35 × 25 cm).

Technical Unconscious Mariana

Oscar Martin [Noish] Experimental artist and independent researcher and programmer working in the fields of sound art, installations, interactive and generative systems, performances and net radioart. A firm opensource advocate, Martín is also behind the MetaminaFNR streaming project, a generative on-line radio, and editor of UrsonateFanzine, a publication focused on the Spanish experimental sound and music scene. He implements independents workshops about puredata, arduino and others FLOSS tools.

noconventions.mobi/noish
metaminafnr.hotglue.me
www.minipimer.tv

C-drík aka Kirdec (BE/DE) begun to study declamation, orchestral drums and music theory in 1985, started to compose music in 1989 in the project Crno Klank. Later on he studied electro-acoustic/acousmatic music at the conservatory of Mons, Belgium. He currently produces different music genres ranging from electro-acoustic music to minimal wave, digital punk to industrial, dark ambient to electronica, etc. He is the owner of Syrphe, a label partly dedicated to alternative electronic and experimental music from Africa and Asia.

Cedrik Fermont is an academically educated musician and composer who embarked on the path of experimental sound (noise) right after finishing his studies. His solo and collaborative performances include sound projects in the genres of experimental, industrial, noise and ambient music. He has worked alongside musicians like Mick Harris, Mark Spybey, Yan Jun, Aluviana, Goh Lee Kwang, Contagious Orgasm, Itta, Pei, Le Diktat, Naofumi Ishimaru, Alok, David Thrussell, Error (2), Choi Joonyong, Lau Mun Leng, Hùng Nguyễn Mạnh and many others, mostly from Asia. He is founder of Syrphe Records. During his extensive world tour he has met artists and creators from around the globe. Syrphe has published numerous albums featuring performers from African, Middle East and Asian countries such as Iran, Tunisia, Algeria, Singapore, China etc. http://www.minipimer.tv/

“Raablabs” is the first collaborative project resulted from the workshop Synergy organised by Hangar and Grid Spinoza in the framework of the European project Soft Control.

The theme of interdisciplinary synergy will structure the workshop itself, which will have two complementary and concurrent aspects, one practical and one theoretical  –
1. the development of several interdisciplinary project proposals, including formation of working teams, establishment of key resources and an ongoing development plan.
2. the development of a draft “interdisciplinary research protocol” document. This document is intended for international circulation as a guide for policy makers, government agencies and funding bodies.

These aspects will develop in parallel during and after the workshop. The theoretical deliberations will draw on the process of project development for examples etc, and those involved in project development will profit from input of theorists. Workshop participants may elect to concentrate on either or both aspects.

This interaction will be ongoing after the workshop is over. Projects and protocol will be hosted on the Grid Spinoza website. Development and cooperation will continue on this platform. Release of a first protocol document is planned for december 2013.

Presenters
Simon Penny is director of the workshop and of ongoing theoretical development. He is an artist, theorist and professor in media art, interactive installation and robotic art with a long history in interdisciplinary research and teaching internationally. Previously professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon, currently professor of Art at University of California Irvine and visiting professor in the Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media master at UPF.

Roc Parés is an artist and researcher in interactive communication. Currently Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and codirector of the University Master in Digital Arts, Idec/UPF.

Mara Balestrini has a background in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media and is currently pursuing her PhD at the Intel Collaborative Research Institute on Sustainable Connected Cities, University College London. Her work lies at the intersection of urban informatics and behavior change, an interdisciplinary approach blending cognitive sciences, technology and arts.

More:
http://hangar.org/en/news/taller-sinergies-teoria-i-practica-interdisciplinaria/

After going through 39 project proposals, the Soft Control – Grid Spinoza – Spring Sessions #1 Jury has selected the project “Mixing-Up the Library” by the artist Dan Norton.

During his residency in Hangar, Dan Norton is going to carry out an investigation that brings together creative practice with Information and Library Science.

The study examines the value of creative methods for interacting in digital collections, and archives.
The research stems from an artistic interest in the relationship of the reader to the writer through technology (viewer to artist). This has been examined recently through Norton’s thesis, where the Disc Jockey’s creativity centers upon the use of the personal digital library.
In Information Science, a number of models have been developed to analyse user-system interaction in information seeking and retrieval. For example; Ellis (1989), Ingwersen (1996), Saracevic (1996), Belkin (1995). These models support development of information systems that are responsive to user needs.

However, a knowledge gap exists in these models; none are developed by observing creative practice. No creative information behaviors exist in the models Makri (2007) is an exception).
Disc Jockeys reappropriate pre-authored media. Content is reused throughout their process, and because of this it is relatively simple to observe individual creative behaviors, which allow innovation and newness to enter the process.
These two behaviours are: Selecting and mixing. I.e., the choice of material, the sequence by which it is shown, and the manner by which it is combined. This is sufficient to produce novel information.

The residency will be used to explore the value and potential application of the DJ’s creative model of information interaction, by discussions within the field of Information and Library Science.

Multimedia Centre KIBLA offers a residential program

An art residency in Maribor in Slovenia is an opportunity for artists, curators and theorists of Europe who wish to explore their practice in a interdisciplinary field combining art, science and technologies – aimed at actualising culture phenomena which are emergent when art, science and public awareness are interconnected.

The invitation is targeting artists/cultural workers/theorists to explore science and technology researching combining creative forms of artistic experimentation and construction. A residency of three weeks of researching, working and exploring will be finalised with a result presented at the festival KIBLIX 2013 – leading to discussing, listening and sharing ideas and findings.

The gap between science and society has been shown to still exist, although surveys reveal a very positive and optimistic perception of what science and technology can actually do for humanity in terms of medical research, improvement of life quality, and opportunities for future generations. A better understanding of what is going on in our bodies, environment and society can be achieved by sharing knowledge on how to communicate with different target groups, opening closed scientific circles, displaying complex problems with creativity and simple practical methods.

Focuses/offers of a residency in Maribor:
- places adopted to working conditions for a focus research and a production using interdisciplinary artistic-scientific-technological models, methods and knowledge
- a honorarium, travel expenses (EU) and daily subsistence (accomodation and food)
- public presentation in a gallery space of an art-science-techno work, art-science-techno idea etc. at the festival KIBLIX 2013: Un_natural
- acceptable: urban social interventions and installations
- acceptable: models for a non-formal education connected to formal educational bodies

Contents frame of KIBLIX 2013: Un_natural:

Un_natural describes a substantive framework, which through a post-anthropocentric view overcomes the natural/social dualism. It expands the perspective that deconstructs the norms of participatory understanding of the various forms of life, thereby within the many constructed cultural imperatives evoking reflection on interdisciplinary opportunities for the
(co) existence of bios and techne.

The Wider Context – broadening the categories

The unfolding of the categories of the feminine, and with them the masculine as well, is not an isolated phenomenon; it opens much more. The perception of women as connections to nature, much more wild and unruly than civilized men that therefore less worthy, less capable of entering into society, more in need of control, etc., is merely an outline of the
framework which has started its journey of awareness of a broader society, a society which has yet to recognize it in all its manifestations and yet to develop new conceptualizations, social and practical tools for overcoming it.

But what happens when this wildness, this naturalness, begins to knowingly transform, changing technology and biotechnology? A plurality of forms will happen, but in
their social perception nature will become an outdated idea with lost meaning. The incidence of forms shows itself in a diversity which leaves behind sexual categories, which widens and redefines reproductive systems and learns anew comprehension/communication/coexistence. The wealth of phenomenon diversify not only sexual categories, but ways of
identification, communication, reproduction, visualizing, audiation, perceiving,politicizing, organizing, consuming… while at the same time raising complex questions about the regulation of new phenomena.

A residency is supported by European Union in a frame of a project Soft Control and it will last for 3 weeks.

An aplicant needs to provide a short bios with a list of most important projects done (with possible links to the on-line material) and a short concept for the residential proposition with possible visual material (drawings, photos, videos etc.).

Deadline for applications: 20th September 2013

The Selection Committee:
1.) Aleksandra Kostič, art historian and curator
2.) Lidija Pačnik Awais, producer, programme coordinator
3.) Žiga DObnikar, curator
4.) Dušana Nikolić Radosević, programme editor at Dom Omladine Beograd

A contact:
resident@kibla.org

Welcome to our open call for an art residency in Porto, Portugal, at the Fine Art School of University of Porto (FBAUP) in Fall 2013. The participant — whether a single author or a collective — shall develop a new work in Porto and follow the curatorial lines of the Technical Unconscious Project. The residence (one month) shall consider a dialogue with students and researchers from FBAUP. The new work is to be exhibited in 2014 at the collective exhibition of Technical Unconscious Project (part of SoftControl
European Culture project).

Porto is a City in the North of Portugal whose contemporary reality links with an Industrial and Commercial past with a strong axis in Technical knowledge. Technical Unconscious project focuses in this particular condition and explores it as a XXI century practice: how to review the analogical condition in a technological society? How does a digital epistemology (XX century) inform our relations with the analogical apparatus (XIX century)? And today, how can we suggest a new dialogue revisiting the analogical? These three questions frame a critical position to conceive practical research within an academic context. The program explores different artistic practices so to expand on the potential of the
artifactual. A special concern will be given to technique as human agency, namely through the recovery of authors like Simondon, linking the thrill
with the modern and the technological of both XIX and XXI century societies.

The residency is curated by researcher and curator Inês Moreira, who has a long history in interdisciplinary and research based art projects.

Eligible projects:
New or ongoing art, or design, project exploring applied research on “obsolete” technical materials exploring it for a new creation. The project shall explore a conceptual dimension as well as material and technical skills, as the notions of repair, reuse, and transformation. It is expected from the project to be developed at FBAUP that it includes
the access and the use to wood, stone and/or to metal workshops; and it may include a collaborative processes with art and design students.

Eligible authors:
Artists and designers, whether individually or as a collective, with a relevant artistic portfolio and/or research experience, willing to spend one month in Porto so to explore the guide lines of Technical Unconscious Project. Open to artists of all ages, based in Europe. Portuguese artists are eligible and must complete the same application process.

Duration:
The residence lasts one month, during November 2013.

Conditions:
1. The artist, or collective, has to be based in Porto for the duration of the residence.
2. Technical Unconscious Project will contribute with (amounts before taxes):
— Artist fee: 1.500 euros.
— Accommodation in Porto for a month and work space at FBAUP.
— Production costs: 1.000 euros.
— Use of FBAUP equipment and some technical assistance (to define).
3. Travel costs up to 450 euros..
4. The author(s) selected from this open call will give a Master Class open to FBAUP students during the residency period.
5. The new work will be exhibited in Porto at Technical Unconscious exhibition during Fall 2014.

Selection procedure:
The application must be presented in a single .pdf and must include:
1. Artist´s biography and academic curriculum (up to 1000 words).
2. Description of previous research projects (500 words + up to 10 images).
3. Description of the proposed artistic project, with technical description (500 words + up 10 images).
4. Non-mandatory: catalogues, books or other material considered necessary shall be shipped to FBAUP/Softcontrol Project. After the selection process, all the application materials will be offered to the school´s library for future consultation.

IMPORTANT: Applications must be submitted in English, for review by selection committee.

The Selection Committee is composed by:
— Gonçalo Leite Velho, Technical Unconscious/SoftControl project coordinator at FBAUP
— Inês Moreira, Technical Unconscious/SoftControl project curator at FBAUP
— Franciso Laranjo, Diretor of FBAUP
— Marta Gracia, research project coordinator at Hangar, Barcelona
— Ksenija Orelj, curator at MMSU — Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka

Calendar:
Deadline for applications: 21st of July 2013 at 23:59h (GMT).
Announcement of the results: Week of the 31st of July 2013.
Residency: From the 1st to 30th of November 2013.

For further submitting the application, please contact:
SoftControl/FBAUP: softcontrol@fba.up.pt

 TU _ v4_maio14

Which Fields act as catalysts and underpin those artistic practices which offer the greatest potential for social change towards more imaginative and sustainable ways of living? Which pre-cursors in the last 30-40 years did exist and what can we learn from those often untold stories? Areas that we will be looking at include but are not restricted to
* real fields, fields as in agricultural fields, works relating to fields, food growing, water, seeds, plant ecologies and communications; eco-activism, agro-socio-political projects
* field as metaphor, semiotic field theories and meta-field theories; work as decoding and recoding of cultural patterns of social use of images;
* electromagnetic fields: and their experimental epistomologies (quantum field theory); notion of relational field (Burnham 1968); the epistemological implications of quantum theory in art
* gendered fields, field as a psychological relation, psychological and psycho-analytical field theories
* field theories of perception
* social field theories, theories of masses and of emotional ‘contagion’; relational field  theories, notion of culture as a relational field

If you have an art or artistic-research project that fits one of those categories or where you feel that it extends this concept, please send a short description to: fields@rixc.lv

This is a first round call, the deadline is 31st of May, 2013.

In 2013 we aim at organising a number of workshops and event, beginning with Transmediale 2013, where the initial matrix of Fields gets jointly developed. This work is a step to the launch of the final exhibition Fields from May 15 to August 03 as part of Riga Culture Capital 2014, at Arsenals Exhibition Hall of National Art Museum in Riga. Fields is co-curated by Armin Medosch, Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, and will get produced by RIXC in collaboration with a growing number of networks and partners.

22nd–24th April 2013
coord. Pedro Tudela (FBAUP)
At Cooperativa dos Pedreiros, Porto
Free Registration

In this workshop we will discuss, analyze and implement various ‘techniques of the body’, as Marcel Mauss put it, in specific regard to how we as humans sonify our existence through the very movements and gestures we make. This pertains to the sounds of our most routine everyday (subconscious) actions such as walking or writing to more active responses and interactions with spaces, objects and other people. We will also look at how we possibly embody elements of the past in the existing technologies and architecture that surrounds us. Our primary context is the former manufacturing facility of the ‘Cooperativa Dos Pedreiros’ and the spaces, materials and people we find there. The aim is not only to enhance our awareness of listening and technique but also to develop a more performative means of expression as artists and designers of experiences.

No experience is necessary, only an open mind, open ears.
Please wear comfortable clothing.
Recording devices are welcome. A pool of recorded materials (sounds, photos) can be created and shared afterward.

Some material from this workshop will be used for the final presentation/performance of my residency which will happen on May 3rd at FBAUP. Participants of the workshop will also be encouraged to collaborate.

+ workshop in the context of the Technical Unconscious Project / Softcontrol FBAUP
+ info: softcontrol@fba.up.pt
+ facebook

Participants:
Nicole Tsangaris, Ricardo Nogueira, Anabela Veloso, Pedro Huet, Sara Graça, Fernando Sebastião, Horácio José Cunha Frutuoso, Inês Abrunhosa Santos Ferreira, Igor Matos Almeida Silva, Ricardo Daniel Novais Pereira, Mariana da Silva Carrilho, Marta Rodrigues, Teresa Arede, Diana Teixeira, Ana Alícia Moreira

Media Art Histories: RENEW

The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology
in collaboration with the 15th International Festival for New Media Culture “Art+Communication”
Riga, October 8–12, 2013

The Media Art Histories: Renew conference will host three days of keynotes, panels and poster sessions on the histories of networked digital, electronic and technological media arts.

The conference will be complemented by the Art+Communication festival programme, featuring media art exhibition, experimental film and video screening programme, live performances and workshops.
The conference will be organized by The Center for New Media Culture RIXC, in collaboration with Art Research Lab of Liepaja University, Stockholm School of Economics, Latvian Acadamy of Arts, Contemporary Art Center kim? and other local partners

http://www.mediaarthistory.org
http://twitter.com/rixcriga/
http://www.facebook.com/rixcriga/

April 4–7, 2013

Exhibitions | Performances | Lectures | Debates | Workshops | Screenings

Organized by CIANT

Enter 6: Biopolis calls for theory and practice based proposals addressing uncertainty of the division between natural and artificial, novel approaches in interaction between body and data.

Let us ask questions about future of life, ethics of scientific intrusion into exclusivity of the nature. Least but not last we will examine entanglement of our bodies and technology.

Keywords: Artificial vs. Natural, Bacteria, BCI, Bio-signals, Bioart, Bioethics, Biotechnology, Body, DNA, EEG, Genetics, Implants, Mutation, Nature, Neolifism, Next nature, Perception, Prosthetics, Science, Synthetic life, Transgenic, Wetware

Among the artists and researchers pre-negotiated to participate there are: Darina Alster (CZ), Tomáš Černý (CZ), Veselina Dashinova (BG/UK), Jalila Essaïdi (NL), Jakub Jansa (CZ), Pavel Karafiát (CZ), Jakub Ludma (SK), Martina Michalíková (SK), Jan Nálepa (CZ), , Marie Polákova (CZ/AT), Michal Pustějovský (CZ), Tomáš Suchan (CZ), Petr Šourek (CZ), , Tomáš Vavříček (CZ), Frederik de Wilde (BE) and others…

http://festival-enter.cz/2013/open-call-announcment/

http://hangar.org/en/news/soft-control-convocatoria-oberta-per-a-projectes-interdisciplinars/

Deadline for applications: The 21st of April 2013 at 00:00h (GMT +1).
Announcement of the results: Week of the 29th of April 2013.
Residency: From the 1st to 30th of June 2013

Hangar OPEN CALL FOR SPRING SESSIONS #1.PDF

–
Contact:
*Marta Gracia*
Programes de recerca
*HANGAR.ORG* | marta@hangar.org
T: 0034 93 308 40 41 ext 26
Passatge del Marquès de Sta. Isabel, 40 08018 Barcelona

MutaMorphosis is a conference on mutant futures and a platform for sustained mutalogues.
The first MutaMorphosis conference subtitled Challenging Arts and Sciences took place in Prague in November 2007 within the 40th anniversary celebrations of Leonardo | Journal of Arts, Sciences and Technology. It was a successful event thanks to the participation of a large number, diversity and quality of interdisciplinary experts, the themes discussed, the issues they raised, and last but not least the coherent and efficient organisation by CIANT | International Centre for Art and New Technologies.

Feel free to browse 2007 on-line proceedings (ISBN 978-80-254-0691-5) with over 70 papers and introductory texts with focus on extreme and hostile environments.

Here we are now, in 2012, five years after the first conference, ready to re-visit its intriguing themes and to introduce new ones while reflecting on recent and near future transformations at the intersections of arts, sciences and social change with a new subtitle: Tribute to Uncertainty (explore the theme!) and connect with conference Attractors.

Main partners for 2012 are the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic | Centre for Science, Technology and Society Studies at the Institute of Philosophy (also to publish selected papers in Theory of Science | Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies of Science) and Planetary Collegium, an international platform for research in art, technology and consciousness, with its hub and president Roy Ascott based in the University of Plymouth. Part of the MutaMorphosis II conference will be a composite session of the Planetary Collegium and selected papers will be published in the Technoetic Arts Journal.

As in 2007, there will be conference proceedings with ISBN published on-line.

Main host venues are the New Stage of the National Theatre, home of the first multimedia theatre ever, the legendary Laterna Magika, and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Prague December 6-8, 2012!

http://mutamorphosis.org

Preparatory Committee (alphabetical order):
Roy Ascott | Artist and educator | Planetary Collegium
Louis Bec | Biologist, artist and educator | Associated Researcher at CIANT
Roger Malina | Physicist, astronomer, editor | University of Texas at Dallas
Pavel Sedlak | Producer, curator, editor | Deputy Director of CIANT
Pavel Smetana | Artist and educator | Director of CIANT

Multimedia Centre KIBLA, Maribor and Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti (KGLU), Slovenj Gradec announce the international contemporary art project – entitled “SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious” – to be held from November 14 to December 15, 2012.

SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious
exhibition, conference, workshops, lectures
Dates: November 14 – December 15, 2012

Venues for the project:
KIBLA Multimedia Centre in Maribor, Slovenia
Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti (KGLU), Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia

Opening day at KGLU, Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti, Slovenj Gradec:
November 14, 2012
Opening day at the KIBLA Multimedia Centre, Maribor:
November 15, 2012

Participants: 30 artists from more than 11 countries
Curator of the project: Dmitry Bulatov

The international contemporary art exhibition SOFT CONTROL is being held as part of the Maribor – European Capital of Culture 2012 programme. The project will be presented at two sites: at the KIBLA Multimedia Centre (Maribor) and the Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti (Slovenj Gradec). SOFT CONTROL will be curated by DMITRY BULATOV, artist, new media theoretician and curator of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Kaliningrad branch, Russia). The exhibition will feature the work of thirty artists from eleven different countries.

The status of European Capital of Culture provides a powerful impulse towards the realisation of new ideas and projects. This helps to draw in both local experts and internationally renowned professionals to participate in the cultural life of the city. Devoting special attention to contemporary readings of culture and the exchange of innovative ideas, the KIBLA Multimedia Centre (Maribor) and Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti (Slovenj Gradec) have initiated a large-scale international project focused on the latest forms of artistic creation that have emerged at the intersection of art, science and technology. “The KIBLA Multimedia Centre is one of the most important organizations involved with contemporary art in Slovenia and Europe today”, remarked MMC KIBLA president and project director Aleksandra Kostič. “For the past fifteen years we have built up a great deal of experience in conducting various art projects and festivals.” The current project seeks to analyse the impact of the development of advanced technologies on the modern individual, and to elaborate cultural strategies for re-establishing people’s sense of engagement in the technological processes under way.

The capacity of an enterprise to both make a memorable impression on the audience and become a significant cultural event is largely determined by the cooperation of major curators, artists, philosophers and art theoreticians. In order to impart a universal format of artistic expression to the collective efforts, MMC KIBLA and Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti Slovenj Gradec invited Dmitry Bulatov to curate the exhibition. Aleksandra Kostič commented on the choice: “Dmitry Bulatov is a well-known expert in the field of new media. As curator of the National Centre of Contemporary Arts (Russia) he has brought about more than twenty major international exhibitions and publishing projects devoted to various aspects of the interactions between art and high technology.”

INTERNATIONAL EXIBITION – ARTISTS
“SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious” will demonstrate various patterns of the use of new technologies in the current artistic process, and also present works of art that subject the role of technology and the media in contemporary civilisation to critical analysis. “When choosing the theme of the exhibition”, notes Bulatov, “we proceeded from the idea that science and technology are not merely tools that we use to achieve designated goals. On the contrary, technologies are raising new invisible boundaries all around us, penetrating into and transforming all spheres of human activity”. This raises the question of how we ought to understand the nature of control, of the compulsion that forces each and every one of us to participate in the formation of technological systems. In Bulatov’s opinion, “the task of the exhibition can be summed up as follows: to show how artists create new forms and new identities, not, however, as the protagonists of a historically determined technological narrative, but as the creators of that narrative”. Artists including Marina Abramović (Serbia/USA) with Suzanne Dikker and Matthias Oostrik (The Netherlands), Bill Vorn (Canada), Stelarc (Australia), James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau (United Kingdom), Polona Tratnik (Slovenia), Leo Peschta (Austria), Seiko Mikami (Japan), David Bowen (USA), Tuur Van Baalen (Belgium), Stefan Doepner and Lars Vaupel (Slovenia / Germany), The Tissue Culture & Art Project: Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr (Australia), Maja Smrekar (Slovenia), Kuda begut sobaki (Russia), Andy Gracie (United Kingdom / Spain), Brandon Ballengee (USA), Louis-Philippe Demers (Singapore), Ursula Damm (Germany), Guy Ben-Ary and Kirsten Hudson (Australia), Boredomresearch: Vicky Isley and Paul Smith (United Kingdom), Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha (NL) and others were invited to participate in the exhibition for this very reason. All in all, the SOFT CONTROL exhibition is projected to show more than twenty technological art installations, some of which are being promoted as both international and European premieres.
Commenting on the project’s format, Bulatov emphasises: “The foundation of our exhibition lies in works of art that were created using the latest 21st century technologies: robotics, information technologies, biomedicine and nanotechnology. Artworks like these are the ideal way to convey a sense of time, which combines signs of life (like a living organism) with those of a technically reproduced artefact. This is of utmost importance when we are dealing with the approach of a new post-biological age – a stage of our human existence when the technological constituent of one or another organism will not only become inseparable from the biological, but in the long run will even overtake it”.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME
Along with the exhibition programme, the SOFT CONTROL project will involve other noteworthy events, all distinguished by this synthesis of artistic disciplines and scientific/technological research. Throughout the month, MMC KIBLA in Maribor and Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti in Slovenj Gradec will host educational lectures and discussions, seminars and master-classes given by well-known experts in the field of contemporary technological art, as well as video screenings from major international media-art festivals such as: PRIX Ars Electronica (Austria), VIDA: Art & Artificial Life International Competition (Spain), MediaArtLab Centre for Art and Culture (Russia), Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) (USA), IMPAKT (The Netherlands), The Prometheus Center (Russia), and others.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
The showpiece event of the educational programme will be an international conference involving theoreticians and artists from Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and Singapore, to be held 16–17 November 2012. Conference participants invited include recognised experts in the field of contemporary art and new technologies such as Dr Roy Ascott (Plymouth University, UK) – one of Europe’s pioneers of cybernetic and telematic art; Dr Erkki Huhtamo (University of California Los Angeles, US) – well-known for research in media archaeology; Professor Andy Pickering (University of Exeter, UK) – an internationally-known figure in science and technology studies; Dr Pier Luigi Capucci (NABA International Academy of Arts and Design, Milan, IT) – a leading expert in art, science and technology. The conference will place special emphasis on the presentation of new strategies in contemporary technological art and training and education in the field, as well as practical presentations. Famous artists and practitioners including Stelarc (Australia), Polona Tratnik (Slovenia), Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr (Australia), Louise-Philippe Demers (Singapore) will enjoy the opportunity to express themselves in the papers, lectures and discussions.
Technological art today is a site for the testing of various artistic innovations. However, it is clear that this research into the New should not be seen merely as narrowly-specialised technical or aesthetic experiments, but first and foremost as cultural utterance and cultural activity. Only then can the results of the artists’ investigations have a significant influence on thought and social life. This is the sort of goal set by the “SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious” project – it aims to provide visitors with an opportunity to learn to relate to technology not as our slave or as a simple extension of ourselves, but as a mysterious construct with which we enter into creative unions and conclude cautious agreements.

The project will be realized with the support of The European Capital of Culture Maribor 2012, The Slovenian Ministry of education, science, culture and sport, Slovenj Gradec Municipality, Maribor Municipality and The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).

Organized and produced by Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti Slovenj Gradec and MMC KIBLA

Production:
ACE KIBLA
http://www.kibla.org

More about the project:
http://kiblix.org/kiblix2012/softcontrol/

SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious was performed within Maribor European Capital of Culture 2012
www.maribor2012.si
http://www.maribor2012.info/

Enter 6: Biopolis calls for theory and practice based proposals addressing uncertainty of the division between natural and artificial, novel approaches in interaction between body and data.

Let us ask questions about future of life, ethics of scientific intrusion into exclusivity of the nature. Least but not last we will examine entanglement of our bodies and technology.

Keywords: Artificial vs. Natural, Bacteria, BCI, Bio-signals, Bioart, Bioethics, Biotechnology, Body, DNA, EEG, Genetics, Handicap , Implants, Mutation, Nature, Neolifism, Next nature, Perception, Prosthetics, Science, Synthetic life, Transgenic, Wetware

Among the artists and researchers pre-negotiated to participate there are: Darina Alster (CZ), Veselina Dashinova (BG/UK), Jalila Essaïdi (NL), Jakub Jansa (CZ), Pavel Karafiát (CZ), Jakub Ludma (SK), Martina Michalíková (SK), Jan Nálepa (CZ), Marie Polákova (CZ/AT), Michal Pustějovský (CZ), Tomáš Vavříček (CZ), Frederik de Wilde (BE) and others…

We invite your participation too!

Extended submission deadline for artworks, papers, posters:7th of March 2013

Submit your artwork here!

Organized by CIANT in partnership with NTK | National Technical Library.

Contact: info@ciant.cz

www.ciant.org

ENTER: BIOPOLIS | 6th Art-Sci-Tech Biennale | April 4-6

http://festival-enter.cz/2013/participate-2/opencall/

CATCH FORUM | Symposium on Art, Tech & Handicap | April 6 | part of ENTER

http://catch.ciant.cz/forum/

MEDIA ART HISTORIES 2013: RENEW
The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology
October 8 – 11, 2013, Riga, Latvia

The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, Renew, will be hosted by RIXC and held in Riga, Latvia, October 8 – 11, 2013, coinciding with the international festival for new media culture Art+Communication. It will host three days of keynotes, panels and poster sessions on the histories of networked digital, electronic and technological media arts.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Prof. Dr. Peter WEIBEL / ZKM,
• Prof. Dr. Erkki HUHTAMO / UCLA,
• & t.b.a.

Besides general topics of the call, the theme of Renew, Media Art History 2013 addresses current tendencies in sustainability quests from various perspectives. As media art is based on increasingly out-dating technology and it is dependent on energy (electricity) the conference will discuss sustainable approaches towards the issues of producing, preserving and representing media artworks – how to ‘renew’ them through both – tools and histories. By focusing on networked media arts, the Renew conference will cover a broad range of topics to include early communication art (mail, fax, radio, satellite, etc.), net.art and net.radio, open source and network culture, locative media and wireless communities, hybrid networks and electromagnetic art, and last but not least – artistic investigations in sustainability, and future visions of art within the convergence of information and energy technologies.

Proposed topics:

• Histories of networked art and media technologies
• Archiving, preserving and representing new media art
• Media archaeology
• Paradigm shift – from new media to post-media conditions in art
• Writing histories of media art across Eastern Europe and the Baltics
• Revising the geospatial aspects – for writing comparative media art histories
• Resilient networks and emerging ‘techno-ecological’ art practices
• Multifarious potential of expression in media art – ‘new imagery’ of our times

* * *
EXTENDED DEADLINE for abstracts: February 15, 2013.
Notification of acceptance will be announced by March 25, 2013.
Individual proposals should consist of a 250-word abstract with title and brief biography/CV.
Proposals and inquiries regarding submissions should be made on http://www.mediaarthistory.org  web-site.
Call for papers SUBMISSION PAGE: http://moodle.donau-uni.ac.at/renew/openconf.php

* * *
Selected papers from the conference will be published in Acoustic Space and other venues. Founded in 1998 by E-Lab as artistic journal for sound art, networked audio experiments and new media culture, since 2007 Acoustic Space comes out as peer-reviewed journal for transdisciplinary research on art, science, technology and society, published by RIXC & Art Research Lab of Liepaja University.

* * *
The conference will be complemented by a variety of affiliated events, including the Art+Communication festival, with a thematically related media art exhibition, experimental film and video screening programme, live performances, concerts and workshops.

* * *
MAH 2013 Renew Conference Chairs: Rasa SMITE and Raitis SMITS
Honorary Board: Jasia REICHARDT, Itsuo SAKANE, Peter WEIBEL, Douglas DAVIS, Robert ADRIAN
Renew Conference Advisory Board: Eric KLUITENBERG, Armin MEDOSCH, Inke ARNS, Andrey SMIRNOV, Jussi PARIKKA, Edwin van der HEIDE, Mark TRIBE, Gediminas URBONAS, Marko PELJHAN, Nishant SHAH, Edward SHANKEN, Darko FRITZ, Tatiana BAZZICHELLI, Frieder NAKE
MAH Conference Series Board: Erkki HUHTAMO, Tim LENOIR, Machiko KUSAHARA, Gunalan NADARAJAN, Oliver GRAU, Douglas KAHN, Linda HENDERSON, Sean CUBITT, Martin KEMP and Paul THOMAS

http://rixc.lv/2013

This open call for a residency requires an intensive and interdisciplinary research on a field of art and science theory, researching artistic works and other related theoretical, scientific and artistic works for developing a specific theoretical expertise/analises connected to a specific niche of the Technological Unconscious.

A residency opportunity is going to be announced on March 1, and is going to happen in Maribor in March 2013 (it is negotiable).

The project Soft Control is a platform where artists, scientists and other cultural operators open their laboratories and their research projects to a specialised and non-specialised audience. At the same time the project is a framework for artist and scientist constructively sharing knowledge and cultural models of critical thinking, activism and experimentation.

Selection procedure
The application must be in  pdf format (sent by e-mail) and must include:
1. A brief biography of the artist (2500 characters including spaces).
2. Curriculum vitae (2500 characters including spaces).
3. Brief description of the research field (2500 characters including spaces).
4. Description of the research project including (2500 characters including spaces):
- description of the main frame of an idea and a description of a part of the project to be developed in Maribor
- work plan for the development of the project in Maribor

The Selection Committee:
1.) Aleksandra Kostič, art historian and curator
2.) Dejan Pestotnik, multimedia producer
3.) Stjepan Mikec, project manager at Project manager at INTK – Institute
of Advanced Technologies and Communications
4.) Žiga Dobnikar, curator
5.) Pavel Sedlak, arts manager, curator, editor, freelance journalist
IMPORTANT: applications which do not include the required information and/or exceed the extension limits will not be considered.

For further information and submitting the applications, please contact
Lidija Pačnik Awais
lidija@kibla.org
Tel.: +386 – 059-076-372

Soft Control (SC) opens scientific labs and theory to artists and different educational entities to a wider audience. Soft Control is a multi-annual cultural performance, an European showcase where artists/cultural workers/others willing to learn what researchers are doing and thinking, and researchers, willing to share and experience creative forms of artistic experimentation and construction, come together in European locations to explore, work, discuss, listen and share ideas and findings. SC entails interacting with and inviting to active participation different target audiences, especially youngsters, students, older people. Culture as a branch and science as a branch can intertwine, constructively sharing cultural models of critical thinking, activism and experimentation with scientific methods, research and knowledge.

Above, the Greek goddess of poetry unveils the goddess of nature

Europe faces major structural challenges – globalisation, climate change and an ageing population. The economic downturn has made these issues even more pressing. The gap between science and society has been shown to still exist, although surveys reveal a very positive and optimistic perception of what science and technology can actually do for humanity in terms of medical research, improvement of life quality, and opportunities for future generations. SC encourages active interest in public issues of science and technology and the complementary: science’s active interest in culture.

There is a high percentage of women working in the cultural sector and there are many children, youngsters, students and elderly people involved in public cultural programs throughout Europe. A better understanding of what is going on in our bodies, environment and society can be achieved by sharing knowledge on how to communicate with different target groups, opening closed scientific circles, displaying complex problems with creativity and simple practical methods.

In Woody Allen’s Sleeper (1973), the protagonists appear as doctors performing human cloning. They fudge a cloning of a dictator, who has been reduced to a lone nose. The question of What is science? is answered “ You know, science is an intellectual dead end.” Is this critical (and humorous) thought necessarily true?

Show case: Sleeper, 1973, reflections on futuristic society and scientific practices

Science and technology is a visible incarnation of our ability to discover and use the laws of nature. A special significance is gained by artistic strategies aimed at shaping a new human right: the right to re-invent and rewrite the very basics of technological myth. This right implies a potential to create new forms and new identities in a fully independent, artistic, creative manner—although not in the capacity of protagonists of a narrative determined by history, but rather as its creators. Such practice goes to show the ability of the artist—and ultimately, of the spectators themselves—to become the authors of their own engineered past, engineering the living future as opposed to a lifeless mechanistic future which is being built without our involvement.

Showcase an art&science&technology work of 21. Century: Bill Vorn

Everyday life has become so intimately interwoven with complex technological ecologies that we can no longer consider technology as the alienating other. The idea that we ‘inhabit’ technological ecologies emphasises our connectedness to our environment (material, natural, technological) and our dependence on the resources available there (material, energetic, biological, cultural). Mastering these conditions is vital to our survival on this planet.

Solar sandals/mobi battery

Objectives of Soft Control

• transformation of the public view of art, technology and science from that of closed circles to open fields
• international, regional artists, thinkers, hackers, scientists, philosophers, educators, social scientists, engineers, writers and others as active participants of residencies
• SC aims to have long-term impact on each partner’s local and regional society
• aims to organise workshops and real and improvised laboratories for sharing of specific knowledge and hands-on collaborative creation
• SC emphasises collaboration and network of international artists/scientists/other experts and regional community.
• SC will have a strong focus on education, hands-on creation, collaboration and sharing of knowledge.
• SC partnership’s network (and networking other networks) will support dissemination of ideas, awareness of science as a cultural and society paradigm, stimulating citizens, common people and different target groups to the active participation.
• to strengthen the pan-European collaboration, common production and interdisciplinary approach to art.
• to create art-works ready for touring
• to focus activities in sustainable mobility around media art centres, galleries, residence centres, youth cultural centres, universities, festivals, biennials, institutes, places and initiatives in Europe.
• to embrace the European urban territory (9 partners in 7 countries + additional countries through study visits and collaboration with X-OP association/network)
• to further develop interdisciplinary environment in relation to ICT, science and art creation
• to put a landmark of contemporary interdisciplinary arts and education practices in the ongoing 21st century, which may be also named as a interdisciplinary century
• to encourage intercultural dialogue, active ageing and inter-generational solidarity, cross-culture platforms and mutual collaborative approaches
• to highlight the importance of new technologies for the political and cultural integration of Europe, in particular of the future new EU members (R Croatia, R Serbia)
• to keep the human-social interplay real and direct experience for creation
• to provide open source mapping of production and presentation venues transformation of unipurpose venues into multi-purpose production and presentation spaces revitalization of one brand venues into production facilities;
• to connect, compare and make visible European interdisciplinary art production transcontinental: to Canada, USA, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Russia, Manama, Brazil
• to stimulate cultural policy making from bottom up
• integration of private sector and public entities
• collaboration with ECC, Arab (Bahrain 2012, Baghdad 2013) and American Capitals (Sao Paolo 2012) of Culture in a promotion /dissemination sustainability

Activities structure of the project

A range of highly sophisticated art&science&technology works of 21. Century installed and displayed on core exhibitions, festivals, conferences and symposia during the project (venues: Maribor, Slovenj Gradec, Guimaraes, Porto, Rijeka, Riga, Prague, Belgrade, Barcelona). Exchanges, productions, mobility of artists and other experts and circulation of artworks as ongoing process, appearing at large- scale events and dispersed into smaller exhibitions, artists talks and other activities during the project on each partner’s location and connected through networks to other organisations and institutions in Europe and transcontinental locations.
Each co-organiser of SC declared its package of public presentations and involvements. This will result in numerous events, exhibitions, presentations, workshops, performances, lectures, debates, workshops, discussions, social activities etc. Presentations in virtual as well as real space.
SC network map of activities also connect KIBLA’s EU Culture and other projects’ networks, European media-art centres and European Capitals of Culture directly and Arab and American capitals of culture indirectly.

Node: highlights 2012

• symposium/artists talks/space installations by Porto University connected with ECC Guimaraes 2012
• festival KIBLIX (KIBLA) in November – Maribor’s umbrella of a group exhibition, conference, lectures and workshops – a title Technologically Unconscious in a frame of the SC- connected to ECC Maribor 2012 (in this ECC is included Slovenian city Slovenj Gradec as well)
• KGLU, Slovenj Gradec will organise a group exhibition at the same time as KIBLA – a local and regional interconnection (and international as well) to visit, explore and study both exhibitions
• symposium Metamorphosis by CIANT in December
• folio magazine

Node: highlights 2013

• Porto University group exhibition, February
• festival Enter, group exhibition, symposiums – CIANT Prague, April
• festival Limit in Belgrade, November, toward ECC Belgrade 2020
• group exhibition, talks and interventions, MMSU Rijeka, September-December
• folio magazine

Node: highlights 2014

• group exhibition, conference in Riga, RIXC, September-November, connected to the ECC Riga 2014
• group exhibition, artists talks and public interventions, MMSU Rijeka, Februar-April
• folio magazine

Node: highlights 2015

• group exhibition MMSU Rijeka, Februar-April
• Enter Festival Prague, organised by CIANT, April, connected to ECC Plsen 2015
• launching of a representative book

Workshops:

• sustainability and energy efficiency in human life
• low power computing, rechargeable batteries, conversion of local renewable resources
• self-organized open workshops for artists, scientists and others to meet and discuss their interests, open to and involve a wider audience to active participation -focus on new models of production and distribution, e.g. web tv;
• environmental/community development, building sustainable architecture, everyday equipment, permaculture
• open source – open space – open energy

Symposiums:

• bridging artists and scientists, theory and practices
• bridging NGOs, traditional institutions (galleries, museums, foundations), educational bodies, academics and non-academics
• bridging humans past and future cultural paradigms
• start-up initiatives for funding new projects in non-traditional settings
• interdisciplinary models: culture – education, technology – ecology, art – science
• strategies for social engagement, highlighting inclusive rather than confrontational practices

Website: http://www.softcontrol.info/

Press: We share resources for announcement of all events, actions, topics and dissemination of the information and results. We’ll communicate through all channels and media, internet, phone & fax, leaflets, invitations, posters, booklets, catalogues, press conferences, press releases, special communiqués such as web tv.

Publications: A theoretical book, three magazines (Folio) on annual basis and partners booklets series covering: SC contents/texts and illustrations of SC concepts partners’ profiles artists and scientists profiles Registration for Creative-Commons will be discussed.

Research/residencies/workshops models: educational program involves emerging artists in professional / advanced workshops and exhibiting output, reaching out to the public and youth with lectures, artists talks, discussions and various workshops on creative and playful technology&art projects – activities as alternative means of self-education. Focuses: establishing a net of laboratories at the universities, independent institutions etc finding ready made places adopted to working conditions for research and production inventing open source mobile public interventions and installations building small urban permaculture gardens for a sustainable future mobility and exchange coordinated by an experts’ and partners’ consortium developing models for a non-formal education connected to formal educational bodies residencies for focused artistic research using scientific models, methods and knowledge

Study visits in distinguished European and trans-European art festivals – a must – tasked to update knowledge in a specific field, do presentations, contact artists, experts and others, to firm previous networks, upgrade present networks and establish new ones: to disseminate and collaborate; each partner preselected study visits according to the interest and a budget. Ars Electronica in Linz (2013) Festival Transmediale in Berlin (2014) Kinetica in London- to exhibit a selected artwork from the SC container (2015) Venice Biennial (2013) Smart City, Paris (2014), art-science-technology works integrated in urban space Netherlands Media Art Institute (2013), an educational digital entity Production School Hvidovre at Copenhagen, Denmark (2013), a school for socially problematic teenagers – an excellent educational model of integration of a specific social group into art production – show case for other E regions

Partnership of Soft Control

Slovenian coordinator KIBLA builds and shares the concept of SC, coordinating a consortium of partners. Kibla positions art in interdisciplinary fields, combining science and technology, connecting artistic research with university labs, connecting universities with ECCs, using existing networks (X-OP & other EU projects), building new ones. Conceptually and actively connecting promotional channels of SC with ECC (Maribor/Slovenj Gradec 2012, Guimaraes 2012 through University of Porto, Riga 2014 through Rixc, Plzen 2015 through CIANT and ECC Belgrade 2020 through 03ONE and Dom omladine Beograd). Organising exhibitions, artists talks, symposia, discussions and educational program of SC, dispersing artworks and artists to the partners places and also to other cities and similar organisations in Europe. Builds open public platforms and a wider audience to the cultural field. KIBLA will integrate new “virgin” partners into EU projects (KGLU, O3ONE, Dom omladine Belgrade) – to implement according to SC timetable all obligations, research and professional development activities undertaken by all co-organizers and artists. It will work on the marketing, promotion and dissemination strategy, and finding and fostering links with other European projects, networks and consortia. Chiefly responsible for quality of all outputs.

Portuguese partner Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto will network and foster the exchange between European art education institutions – for SC – in terms of artists, experts, scientists, students and teaching staff mobility. It will host 14 artists in residencies in Porto (the highest number of residencies in the project SC). It will organize exhibitions, artists talks, symposium in Guimaraes and other events in Porto. The good relationship between the Faculty of Fine Arts and art galleries in Porto also ensures a dissemination of SC output, ideas, art-works. It will encourage and develop fundamental and applied research. It will support and implement SC cultural extension activities. It will encourage the cultural, scientific and technical exchange with SC partners consortium. High numbers of workshops (14) resulting in exhibitions are an important part of the SC activities as well.

RIXC, Riga will develop a discussion between artists, theorists, designers, environmental scientists, technologists, responsible entrepreneurs and activists. Diversity, social and ecological sustainability and a much deeper understanding of technology will build a content perspective of the SC. RIXC will organising of public events (exhibitions, workshops, performances, etc.), will co-product video, audio and web, will build specific target groups, educational and social programmes and research into the fields suitable for SC. It will share NICE network (Nordic-Baltic-North-East European network) and other international and cross disciplinary networks, co-projects and mailing-lists in Europe, Canada…

CIANT has supported the application with conceptual inputs making the potential impact of the SC and network better suited to needs of local audiences in Central-European countries: Czech and Slovak Republics. It will contribute to the development of curatorial strategies and will support dissemination processes and will host SC in Prague three times: a symposium, and twice the Enter biennial festival with exhibitions and workshops. It will contribute to the overall visibility of the project through concrete media outputs and ensure that local audiences learn about all events, especially those implemented in Prague. It will carry out research and production activities making significant contribution to the knowledge exchanges with SC network. CIANT hopes to bring together cultural creative communities in the Czech Republic for a lasting collaboration.

Fundació Privada Associació d’ Artistes Visuals de Catalunya will offer residencies to art researchers to work within SC areas, working in collaboration with long-term users of SC. It will offer workspaces, accommodation and stipends which will be used by artists in residences. There will be three 1-month residencies. Resident artists will present publicly their results – they’ill open studios and do workshops. Events (exhibitions, performances, artists talks, discussions and symposia…) will be organised. Fundació offers open-source software to enable shared archive systems between partners in the consortium SC.

MMSU Rijeka will develop the idea of interconnectivity between art and science; through SC, MMSU will gather artists and researchers who radically analyse the notion of public monuments, their past and contemporary formations as well as their relations to power, knowledge and representational systems. During three years the contents will be exposed through events; exhibitions, artists talks, discussions, symposia, workshops etc. MMSU will provide public interventions and exhibitions dealing with extended platform of Quadrilateral Biennial. The consortium brings applicants for residencies, art productions and collaborations.

KGLU Slovenj Gradec will offer its up-to-date renovated gallery space of 900 m2 ideal for contemporary art-science-technological exhibitions, especially in a frame of 2012 exhibition, where a big group exhibition of global artists (Europe, USA, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia) will take place. Professional organisational know-how, PR and contents-providing will be offered through the whole project. KGLU’s connections and networks with Austria are of an extreme importance, especially with Graz (ECC 2003). KGLU has a well organised audience’ structure and networking channels to Balkan. KGLU has a high national and regional importance in Slovenia.

Dom omladine Beograd (DOB)/Cultural centre of the City of Belgrade will promote SC contents through DOB’s youth programs in the fields of contemporary art and culture. Educative and debate programs have for decades been DOB’s trademark, so it will provide lectures, workshops and symposium. DOB will provide an ideal know-how platform for organising exhibitions, screenings, artists talks and others. DOB organises the annual festival LIMIT, which will be thematically dedicated to the Soft Control in 2013. DOB will promote new artists, ideas and initiatives, being also a platform for connecting institutional and non-institutional culture. DOB will provide local and regional target audiences. DOB will share numerous local, regional and international networks.

O3ONE is an exclusive Belgrade private gallery providing connections with a scene of intellectuals, artists, experts etc. and will offer to the SC an environment with target audiences, local networking – for a symposium of the SC. It will share ideas on the field of web production, and a graphic design as well.

Quality of partnership will be achieved through coordinated research, production, presentation and dissemination. The implementation will involve a balance between research and production, with periodic public events during various stages of the project. Public events will be designed for different cultures, local contexts and presentation formats encouraging artworks circulations. All partners will research contemporary art/science/ICT production in their country and will be involved in public events. All partners will share a knowledge base and skill-sets in the process. All partners will be responsible for professional development activities. All partners will collaborate on designing and developing artworks and technologies for public events, situations, creations, disseminating acquired knowledge through public presentations. Partners will encourage access to project creations youngsters, elderly people and socially disadvantaged groups with no or low access to new and emerging art-forms.
All organisations will be involved in documentation of the project. Folio magazine and a book – materials collected, edited and designed by Kibla. The whole SC network will also work closely with a number of organizations and institutions throughout Europe to evaluate outcome of the program. Continual documentation and evaluation of the processes, events and results will be available online.

International Conference MutaMorphosis, Prague, Czech Republic, December 6–8, 2012

MutaMorphosis: Tribute to Uncertainty

International Conference

December 6–8, 2012, Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Abstracts
Deadline: July 1, 2012
http://mutamorphosis.org/2012/important-dates/call-for-abstracts/

We invite you to respond to the Tribute to Uncertainty theme and/or to address one of the 21 streams of interest led by 28 conference Attractors.

http://mutamorphosis.org/2012/tribute-to-uncertainty/
http://mutamorphosis.org/2012/attractors-streams-of-interest/

Submission page: http://mutamorphosis.org/2012/submit

Do you have something original to say about our world that is increasingly fuzzy, unstable and chaotic? Are you interested in how crisis, uncertainty and complexity can come together in order to question the known as well as predict and/or model yet unknown? Do you want to share projects intrinsically linking domains of scientific, artistic and technological research and creativity that can be introduced as relevant tools for better understanding of our common future?

The aim of this Call for Abstracts is to provide opportunity for community of interdisciplinary practitioners to get engaged in a transformative conversation on mutant futures.

Feel free to address conference Attractors and respond to a specific stream of interest in order to get involved with other interested individuals and collectives in structured collaborative efforts before, during, and hopefully also after the conference. Research groups formed by the Attractors -who serve as the Reviewers- will be expected to elaborate on the general theme Tribute to Uncertainty while turning attention to concrete research objectives as defined by the streams.
The results should be curated panels, roundtables, workshops as well as publications.
Priority will be given to innovative and challenging proposals.

For more information about MutaMorphosis conference (planned publications, preparatory committee, partnerships) please visit mutamorphosis.org.

For updates join also these channels:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/mutamorphosis.mutalogues/
http://www.facebook.com/MutaMorphosis
https://twitter.com/MutaMorphosis

On behalf of the MutaMorphosis Preparatory Committee,
Pavel Sedlak | CIANT | http://www.ciant.org

Association for Culture and Education KIBLA

Maribor, Slovenia
http://www.kibla.org

Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto

Porto, Portugal
http://sigarra.up.pt/fbaup/web_page.inicial

Centre for new media culture RIXC

Riga, Latvia
http://www.rixc.lv/

International Centre for Art and New Technologies CIANT

Prague, Czech Republic
http://www.ciant.cz/

Hangar,  Centre for research and production for the visual arts

Barcelona, Spain
http://hangar.org/en

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka

Rijeka, Croatia
http://www.mmsu.hr/

KGLU Slovenj Gradec

Slovenja Gradec, Slovenia
http://www.glu-sg.si/

Dom omladine Beograd

Beograd, Serbia
http://www.domomladine.org/

O3ONE

Beograd, Serbia
http://www.o3one.rs/