PIRAT PARTIET AT RIKSDAG

Txt: Maria Molinari
Area: Hacking

A series of initials are menacing our future. They would seem sounds without sense but they are “laws and directives” by the debatable content ( dmca, eucd, dra... ). They regulate the behaviours in the use of the information through the electronic means, they harmonize some aspects of the author right in the media society, they protect and guarantee us in the digital era. But they restrict and impose controls, they limit the sharing and obstruct the growing of the culture. It would be difficult believe it's for the goodness of everyone and the don't surely believe this, that in Sweden mobilized to create the PiratPartiet . When laws should defend and protect us, but in reality harm and menace us, we shouldn't amaze if pirates wrestle for our fundamental freedom, more than our government. But who really are the pirates? Here in Italy , the distinction between pirate and criminal is thin and imperceptible, maybe inexistent. here's who fight to make the difference between haker and criminal clear and who opposes itself to the equation haker=computer pirate. In Sweden, next 17th September , the hakers will present with the Greens at the election of the Swedish parliament ( riksdag ).

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DRAGULESCU, L'ACHITETTURA DELLO SPAM

Txt: Valentina Tanni
Area: Software Art

At first glance they seem experimentations of a young visionary architect, who attended the international modernism school but obviously influenced by the three-dimensional aesthetic of modelling software, more than by gloomy and threatening sceneries of the new videogames. But the architectonic creations by Alex Dragulescu , Rumanian artist who lives in the U.S., have been generated by a program based on a unique input: the junk mail. The project Spam Architecture , part of a research with Spam Plants (vegetal forms generated by the junk mail) and Respam (net.art project who tries to map and collect the junk mail), is a fascinating attempt to give visual life to the huge flow of data generated every day by spam mail in our mail boxes. The textual analysis of data (the recurrence of a word, the date of the message, the IP number of the sender) allows the author to select parameters that generate automatically architectonic forms. The result are grey and geometric building, characterized by aggressive and pointed shapes, by alternate floors with dark and deep cavity. Even if the shapes don't remind of the data used for their generation, they clearly evoke the underhand and violent nature of the spam...

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Ryoichi Kurokawa is a young audio-visual artist from Osaka . He declines vibrant and refined universes through clips, albums, installations, and performances, where glitch minimalism breaks up and re-assembles in more complex and vertiginous structures. Some people think he's a visionary and genial artist while others consider him to be formal and technicist. You're forced to confront with his work: the continuous concentration on synaesthesia, the ability to make imagination fly and the scrupulous attention to landscapes and definition made Kurosawa's works a sort of official standard for the ones who wants to get closer to audio-video world. We saw his works in national première at Mixed Media festival, which was held in Milan last May (after a pleasant preview of his works at the video exhibition at the Dissonanze 2006 festival) and we appreciated his unique talent - notwithstanding...

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HISTORIA VJING: ANNET DEKKER

Txt: Claudia D'Alonzo
Area: Vjing

You have to be keen to historically and critically approach current vjing world. You must – at least theoretically - know what are the most used equipments and technologies, the real original artists of this crowed artistic scene, and, last but not least, you must have the historical sense. The historical sense often lacks in many theoretical persons involved in art and new technologies because they are too interested in the hic et nunc scene. Dutch scholar Annett Dekker is an exception. She's part of Montevideo staff and she has been publishing numerous articles on vjing in the last years with the intent to historically define the movement also building up a network of connections among 80s and 90s video experimentations, aesthetic imposed by MTV, and the club scene. Between 2004 and 2005 she collected the material of her researches on vjcultuur.nl web site, which offers crew and software links and contains articles...

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FULL STEALTH, DIRECTOR VJING

Txt: Elena Vairani
Area: Vjing

Nate Taylor aka Full Stealth is 30 and lives in New York. He's an eclectic artist, he's worked for the professional film industry for the past 11 years and some years ago he's founded his own label: Full Stealth Films. He's a well known director and a famous vj, who describes himself saying: 'If a picture speaks a thousand words...And video runs at 30 frames a second...Then the following are all 30,000 words-per-second descriptions of me'. His background as director clearly emerges from his vj set, where he use contemporary both the live video mixing approach and the filmaking art in his performances. He's always dreamt to direct a movie and today the Full Stealth Films is raising funds to produce an independent movie. The shooting is going to start at the beginning of 2007.

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ARTHUR CLAY, ARTIST OR SCIENTIST?

Txt: Bea Bonfanti
Area: I.A.

NArthur Clay was born in New York and lives in Basilea , Switzerland . He's a multifaceted artist using music, video and performances and assembling acoustic and electronic media to create original works - for dance and theatre also. He participated in international festivals in Europe, America and Japan , where his works were unanimously appreciated. Arthur Clay is an artist, a composer, and an inventor/scientist, he's not interested in assembling media only, he actually conceives and designs new and very original musical instruments also such as Air Bow (a virtual Chord Instrument), Mirrorum (an optical sound generator) or Spaceball (a live video and electronic controller). They are perfect examples of integration among art, technology and new forms of AI the user can directly connect with showing possible directions and moral and artistic contaminations of the future to come. The same kind of...

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BRIAN ENO: 77 MILLION QUESTION MARKS

Txt: Elena Ravera
Area: Generative Art

Milan is always the same. It's got potential but it doesn't buckle down. It's the Italian cities pupil: the one which could, but doesn't ply. The one which does the needful, that impresses, but has little new to say. The phlegmy and lazy Milan showing itself doesn't betray its character. It uses well-known artists as a screening to the lack of will to experiment (or to risk) setting itself against that underground humus made up of individuals, professional people and artists working to overturn this discouraging trend. The 7 th edition of Milanesiana , festival promoted by the province and held at the Triennale, was a clear example of this deep gap between appearance and quality. It opened with 77 Million Paintings, a Brian Eno's audio-video installation presented as an “exceptional artistic/video event”. The only exceptional thing was the money they spent.

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