| oliver grau on Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:39:51 +0100 (CET) |
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| [rohrpost] An Archaeology of Imaginary Media |
Hier eine weitere interessante Intiative die zwischen MedienKunstGeschichte und Bildwissenschaften changiert... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An Archaeology of Imaginary Media Excavating mankind's dreams of the ultimate communication medium February 5 - 8, 2004, De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam http://www.debalie.nl An Archaeology of Imaginary Media is a mini-festival in De Balie in Amsterdam around the eternal return of mankind's desire for the ultimate communications medium. Will technological progress finally resolve the human communication problem? The mobile phone mania demonstrates a compulsively attempt to arrive at an affirmative answer to this question. Digging in the history of human communication and its media provides ample grounds for serious doubts. De Balie will bring together a distinguished selection of artists, filmmakers, authors, theoreticians, and especially media archaeologists, to undertake a thorough investigation of the utopian visions of the ultimate communications medium. In a variegated and highly diversified panorama, the visionary perspectives of technological dreamers throughout the centuries will be excavated and held up to the audience. Already for some years, cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling has been collecting dead media. Media that have withered and are mostly forgotten (much like Dutch tv comedians van Kooten & De Bie predicted the demise of phillips' cd-i many years ago). Erkki Huhtamo has been digging up the pre-history of interactivity from the caverns of forgetfulness. Edwin Carels discovers in the pre-history of cinema the bizarre concept that moving image and sound might be a medium to establish contact with 'those in the hereafter'. Siegfried Zielinksi also finds death in media in the (delusional) conceptions of the media-engineers. Edison created a machine to communicate with the "sprits", and Zoe Beloff made a film about it. She will cast a light on the matter. And wasn't cyberspace the ultimate means to abolish the borders of race and gender? Away with the body!!! Who still beliefs that today? What is it that inspires men time and again to believe in their own machines? Maybe literary scholar and media-sociologist Klaus Theweleit can shed some light in the dark? Peter Blegvad became famous as a musician because of his involvement with cult-bands such as Faust, Slap Happy and Henry Cow in the early seventies, after which he went through a remarkable solo career. As an avant-gardist he appeared in New York in the environs of people like John Zorn (Locus Solus). Simultaneously he established himself as an extraordinary cartoonist with his series Leviathan, widely regarded as an important innovation of the cartoon genre. Blegvad created a theatrical performance "On Imaginary Media" specifically for this program. A philosophical drama, a multi-layered collage of meditations on the sublimity and tragedy of imaginary media, of the dream for the ultimate communications medium. Musicians John Greaves and Chris Cutler, with whom he has previously realised many avant-gardistic music projects, and Dutch actor Kees Hulst accompany Blegvad during the performance. Richly illustrated lectures, films, discussion, a narrative space with works by cartoonists and artists, the philosophical theatre of Blegvad and an extensive film program, together paint the contours of an eternal dream that manages to hold people time and again under its sway, from Heinrich Suso's late-medieval Horologium Sapientae to the unfolding debacle of 3G**. (**3G: third generation mobile phones) ________________________ Biographical: Zoe Beloff is a film maker and media artist, originally from Edinburgh, she lives and works in New York. http://www.zoebeloff.com Peter Blegvad is cartoonist, musician, writer, and the creator of the cartoon series Leviathan. He also produces radio plays for BBC radio, and lives in London. http://www.leviathan.co.uk http://www.ibiblio.org/mal/blegvad/amateur.html Edwin Carels is a freelance curator and writer, who is especially interested in the relationship between visual arts and film, video, and photography. He writes a.o. for "Andere Sinema". http://www.debalie.nl/persoon.jsp?personid=10263 Timothy Druckrey is a curator, writer, and editor concerned with issues of media history, representation, and technology. He lives in New York. http://www.debalie.nl/dossierartikel.jsp?dossierid=10123&articleid=10430 http://users.rcn.com/druckrey/ Erkki Huhtamo is a Finnish Media Researcher, Curator, Writer and Professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?articleid=10104 http://www.mediamatic.nl/magazine/8_2/Huhtamo-Armchair.html Bruce Sterling is a writer, mostly renown for his cyberpunk fiction oeuvre. His publications include Schismatrix, The Hacker Crackdown en The Difference Engine (met William Gibson). http://www.debalie.nl/dossierartikel.jsp?dossierid=10123&articleid=10097 http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/ Klaus Theweleit is a writer, literary scholar, and cultural theorist. He is the author of a.o. the monumental series "Buch der Könige" (Book of Kings) and "Der Pochahontas Complex". http://www.debalie.nl/persoon.jsp?personid=10353 http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/~nideffer/Tvc/reviews/18.Tvc.v9.reviews.Mladek.html Siegfried Zielinski is a media researcher, the founding and former principal of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. He teaches and researches on the history, theory, and praxis of audiovision; his special field of interest is media archaeology, and he has published numerous books and articles on the topic. http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?articleid=10116 ________________________ Narrative Space The idea for a narrative space was developed together with Peter Blegvad: A visual space where the visions and conceptions of imaginary communication machines are presented. A number of cartoonists and artists have been invited to contribute their visual imaginations about imaginary media in the form of drawings or short cartoons. During the entire weekend these visions can be viewed continuously in a simultaneous three-channel projection in the public vide in De Balie. Participating artists: - Thomas Zummer - Jonathan Rosen - Peggy Yungue - Sasa, aka Aleksandar Zograf - Gary Panter - Dick Tuinder - Neal Fox - Les Coleman - Ben Katchor - François Ducat - Peter Blegvad ________________________ Further background information, essays, information about the presenters and web links can be found in the dossier "Media Archaeology" on the website of De Balie: http://www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=10123 ________________________ Film Program An Archaeology of Imaginary Media: - Main program 22:00 Thursday, February 5: My Browser A web browser imagined as a person's alter ego Orphee Modern translation of the Greek myth about Orpheus and his wandering in the underworld, where a radio becomes an indispensable device to communicate with the after-world. - Main program 22:00 Friday, February 6: Shadow land or light from the other side Stereoscopic film about the connection between technology and imagination, presenting a mental projector to communicate with the dead. In Absentia Many visual illusions in a hybrid animation film in which the thoughts of a woman writing a letter are visualised. Soundtrack by Karl Heinz Stockhausen. Out of the ether Handmade 16mm film, composed on an optical printer, tells about dark techno forces that attempt not only to invade or bodies, but also our minds. Gothic Aztecs A demonic reliquary of Medusa-Quetzalcoatl gives godly and demonic visions to a young woman. Gothic Aztects is a film in which the viewer is projected into the brain of the female priest, and in doing so experience her artificial mediatized delirium. - Late program 23:30 Friday, February 6: Anatomy of time The waving to the camera of filmmaker and time-traveller Arthur Dauphin, obscure contemporary of the Lumière brothers, who already knew a century ago that behind the seemingly lifeless machine of the camera a new secret future world was hidden. Out of the present Russian cosmonauts leave the Soviet Union for space station Mir. Meanwhile the Soviet empire collapses, leaving the cosmonauts in limbo. Out of the present contains the first breathtaking 35mm footage ever made of planet Earth. Due to technical problems the majority of that footage and a 35mm camera were set overboard before the last crew returned to earth, leaving the pictures of the earth encircling it forever. - Main program 22:00 Saturday, February 7: Conceiving Ada Programmer Emma wants to get contact with the long since passed away Ada Byron King, pioneer on artificial intelligence and daughter of the poet Lord Byron. Emma manages to establish contact by emerging her body into an experimental DNA memory-coding device. The narrative of the film is structured along the spiral of the double helix of DNA. - Late program 23:30 Saturday, February 7: More Clay-animation in which a lonely engineer invents an apparatus that makes live in the industrial age bearable again: 'Happy product', though without happy ending thanks to the management of the world. Quatermass and the pit London subway construction is immediately halted when bones and sculls are found. The well-known professor Quatermass discovers that the bones and sculls are enclosed within the rotten structure of an ancient spacecraft. - Main program 20:00 Sunday, February 8: Anamorphosis Esoteric illusions of the Quay brothers within an 'illustrated' reading about physical and mental perception. Eye like a strange balloon A drawing of the French Symbolist painter Odile Redon is taken as the surreal inspiration for a story about the triangle relationship between a father, his son and an orphan girl during a strange train travel. Retrospectroscope Like Plateau's disk, the 'retrospectroscope' can be seen as a procession of flickering phantasies and fragmented lyricism; its existence today lies hidden within the processes from which it has created itself. videØvoid Contemplation about the apparent void of time and space as communication vehicles for thought and matter. - Continuous screening of documentaries, 6, 7, 8 February 14:00 - 20:00 hrs, among others: The man who wanted to classify the world Documentary about Belgian visionary Paul Otlet, who, long before Ted Nelson claimed and invented the term hypertext, imagined the so called 'Mundaneum' as a kind of proto Internet, aimed at a worldwide information system to support and establish world peace, but obstructed by WWII. "Alle kennis van de wereld, het papieren internet" See description of 'the man who wanted to classify the world'. Archaeology of the moving Image Three issues of a Finnish documentary series about the archaeology of the moving image. (English subtitles) ________________________ Tickets and reservations Ticket prices: Lectures and film screenings: ¤E 8,- With reduction: E 7,- Opening hours ticket office: During working days from 13:00 till 18:00 hrs. or till the start of the program. During the weekend from 1,5 hour before start of the program. Reserving by phone: +31.20 5535100, during opening hours, till 45 minutes before the program starts. Address: De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 1017 RR Amsterdam Tel +31(0)20 5535151 Fax +31(0)20 5535155 Reserve: +31(0)20 5535100 Balie@balie.nl http://www.debalie.nl Accessibility - Tram 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, en 10 - De Balie is accessible for wheelchair users, and is equipped with audio systems for hearing impaired visitors. ________________________ COLOFON Editors: Eric Kluitenberg, concept and final editing Lucas Evers, coordination production, editing, film program Design: T(C), H&M, Felix Janssens. Book & DVD: Alongside the program a book and DVD will be published by Uitgeverij De Balie, including contributions by all presenters in this program. During the weekend of 5 - 8 February it will be possible to pre-order this publication. Special thanks: Edwin Carels, Carel Alphenaar, Elly Ludenhof, Peter van Hoof, Peter Sep Supported by: VSB Fonds, the Mondriaan Foundation, and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. ------------------------------------------------------- rohrpost - deutschsprachige Liste zur Kultur digitaler Medien und Netze Archiv: http://www.nettime.org/rohrpost http://post.openoffice.de/pipermail/rohrpost/ Ent/Subskribieren: http://post.openoffice.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rohrpost/