Digimag 28 - Ottobre 2007 - Net Art, Hacktivism, Software Art, Video Art, Electronica, Audiovideo, A.I., Design, Performing Art, New Media

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Monthly magazine:
Digicult Produzioni

Redazione / Editing:
Marco Mancuso

Photo editing / Cover:
Arianna D'Angelica

Contents:
Isabella Depanis, Alessio Galbiati, Tiziana Gemin,
Luigi Ghezzi, Alessandro Massobrio, Loredana Menghi, Claudia Moriniello, Bertram Niessen, Eleonora Oreggia, Monica Ponzini, Motor, Barbara Sansone, Silvia Scaravaggi, Massimo Schiavoni, Francesca Valsecchi

Translations:
Claudia Contino, Ornella Pesenti

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NETWORKING
//Alessio Galbiati

QOOB. CREATIVITA' AL CUBO

Txt: Alessio Galbiati
Area: Networking

“Qoob is a digital channel produced by MTV Italia that transmit alternative music”. This is what Wikipedia says for ‘Qoob' . But everyone that experienced its shows or its website perfectly knows that it is something more complex. ‘User-generated content', ‘social network' and ‘snack culture' are some neologisms used to describe the absolute novelty build by a project that has different souls on the inside. We could say it is a TV channel like MTV, a site like Youtube, but also a little Flickr, iTunes and even Myspace. Well, we're now in web 2.0 linked with the “old” television and opened to the mobile technology. Qoob is now produced by MTV Italia, that is 51% Telecom Media Broadcasting and 49% MTV Network Europe . This networking phenomenon is getting more and more known in the audio/video/net electronic art through participation at reference festival such as Sonar, Electrowave, Neapolis of Love Muzikfestival, MUV, even at Authors' Days during last Venice Cinema Festival . We therefore interviewed Lucia Nicolai, Editorial Manager of Qoob , that kindly answered to our questions deepen and focusing the peculiar aspects of her creature, born as an Italian project and now spread internationally.

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SUSTAINABLE NON-PROPERTY, THE ANSWER BY EL

Txt: Eleonora Oreggia
Area: Hacktivism

One of the innovations brought about by digital world is the reorganization of the process of creation/production according to an open system whose functionality is represented by the free software. The free software is the basis of the first free and widespread non-property net in history. Thanks to the overcoming of the binomial producer/consumer and the transformation of the product into process, an open and interactive relation between developer and user is created, with its potential of infinite new opportunities of production and creation. Those are, in short, some of the concrete and theoretical concepts of ' Estúdio Livre ', a Brasilian network of artists and developers of instruments and works which is based on knowledge sharing and open source. The project's structure is a network of people sharing the same goals and methods as far as creative work and its development is concerned...

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GAME ART
//Monica Ponzini

WE ARE THE...STRANGE MEDIA FOR STRANGE PEOPLE

Txt: Monica Ponzini
Area: Game Art

Stop motion, 3D, videogames, animes, 8-bit culture. With the Internet as distribution platform. The final product is We Are The Strange , an elusive and indefinite 90 minute film, where the author, M dot Strange , gathered everything that appeals to him visually, all his universe of images and styles. What characterizes this new way of narrating through images – that the author himself called “ Str8nime ”, are the characters created with different media, short dialogues and a plot that can be hardly recounted. Shot with a very low budget and a basic equipment, M dot Strange's film was presented at Sundance Festival , where “classic” filmmakers did not show particular enthusiasm. It was obviously on the Internet that, on the contrary, the extremely original work became widely known, thanks to the word passed by all the “strange people” who admired its completely different visual approach. The work has been created by a very young artist with no technical or theoretic background, no art or cinema education, no support of a real production, as one can expect by a 90 minute film. We Are The Strange is rather the result of present times, created from a spontaneous and intuitive mix&paste of a son of the Internet and videogames who was born and raised with softwares and codes hidden in a drawer, daily nurtured by a visual aesthetics made of different messages and languages. A revolutionary work, from several points of view, though almost ignored by mass media and traditional culture: a work really in the middle between media and aesthetics, created by a non-artist in the traditional sense of the term, who nevertheless was able to create a shortcircuit among the ganglion cells of contemporary art and communication...

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VIDEO ART
//Isabella Depanis

EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA
//Motor

DIAS E RIEDWEG: POLITICS AND POETICS

Txt: Isabella Depanis
Area: Video Art

Dias and Riedweg's works (Brazilian and Switzerland artists) are an “experience”. They absorb spectators inside lives of people they've worked with. It's a political and sensorial work. They make people feel emotions. They make people participate. And this is their strong point. This way, their works put together different social realities, of those who lives unsafe situations at the margins of the society, and of those who are perfectly integrated with the capitalistic system. They want to make this two worlds communicate, so that one enter the other to create a brake-through in the system. That's the reason why Dias and Riedweg doesn't direct only to the artistic public, rather try to penetrate society with their message as much as they can, so that it can have a huge echo and can be perceived by a bigger public. For example their first work: Devotionalia (1994). It is a project realized inside the Rio de Janeiro favelas, where Brazilians social non-governor organizations and associations have been drawn in.

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DEATH 24X, DEATH AND FETICISM OF IMAGE

Txt: Motor
Area: Experimental Cinema

The link of all the thoughts I would like to give to you is related to the fact that the deconstruction of new media, the non-linearity of digital arts simply are coherent with a perception/concept of our contemporary reality. So, if we want to make an artistic research, if we want to make some experimentation, we must go further, we must think at them as fixed point, even if not sufficient. We must think at them as generative art concepts, as art as deconstruction, art as remix of the post-modern. A work that is interactive to a presence or that answers to the criteria of post modernity is not enough to achieve an artistic value. Obviously it's not enough to state some basic declarations, but we rather go beyond the boundaries. How? The same questions are typical of some expression areas similar to the new media...

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ELECTRONICA
//Claudia Moriniello

ANKERSMIT, SIDE BY SIDE

Txt: Claudia Moriniello
Area: Electronica

Just imagine a desk with an EMS Synthi A and a laptop, a sax laying on the floor inside its open case, just waiting for being awaken…and a tall, fair-haired guy, with a very young face, and a serious and concentrated gaze. Just meet this gaze for a second, before everything starts, to see immediately in his eyes the flame revealing all the arriving joyfulness. Suddenly an explosion of sounds, only accompanied with Thomas Ankersmit's stiff movements of hands on his EMS synthi A. This instrument, original of the 70s, gives a special poetic tension to the live performance. Chaos and raptures skilfully orchestrated by a real genius! And suddenly, again: silence! Mr. Ankersmit stands up and gives up the apparent movement stiffness. He slowly unwinds gently “hugging” his sax, as he was dandling his baby. He starts to breathe softly awaking the saxophone and so the sound spreads filling all the place. At this time you are already deep in the new long and intense sound flux, orchestrated by the seducing swinging of the musician and his instrument. They are now a only creature standing between the wall behind the artist's back and the public spellbound by the sound flux. As he wanted to have his privacy and remain alone with his music, Thomas turns his back on the public and goes on playing. Everything is great, passionate and intense despite his easy and spontaneous approach. Thomas Ankersmit is a skilled saxophonist and an electronic musician from the Netherlands. He can combine the abstract sound of his saxophone with hyper-kinetic analogical synthesizers and can give birth to electronic improvisations thanks to computers. He's able to realize installations where sound, infrasound and “sound feature modification of space XX” melt and turn upside down the normal space perception of the hearing public and even his presence in that place. So guys, if you have the opportunity to see his live performance don't miss it!

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AUDIOVIDEO
//Marco Mancuso

THE TRUTH-CINEMA OF PIERRE BASTIEN

Txt: Marco Mancuso
Area: Audiovideo

To be at a Pierre Bastien's live show is always a special event for any lover of contemporary music. And the other condition to appreciate the French multi-instrumentalist's music is to esteem a slightly poetical and joyful audiovisual dash. This is a feature of this artist so dear to Aphex Twin who has realised Bastien's production with his own Rephlex Records. Indeed, as many people know, Pierre Bastien is not used to play music with computers and is not at ease in the cold digital aesthetics. Actually, Pierre Bastien plays mechanical instruments, mechanisms, objects and not with electricity, nor flow of electrons nor circuits nor information nor complex robotics instruments and finally nor software. None of all these things, no. Pierre Bastien plays DIY mechanical miniatures and it seems there is an invisible fat oiling them: do you know the game Meccano? Perhaps the thirty-year olds have in mind it, while the others could have found evidence of it in Internet and Second Life. Meccano is a model construction kit comprising metal strips, plates, angle girders , wheel, saxles and gears , with nuts and bolts to connect the pieces. In other words it is a tool able to trigger percussions, movements, rotations, rubbings in space in order to create the sound in two main ways: exerting a physical force on an organic instrument, that is to say: playing it, or acoustically amplifying its same movement. This is what happens in the mechanical orchestras of the genial French musician: the Mecanium, the Mecanology and the newest Mecanoid.

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ART&SCIENCE
//Silvia Scaravaggi

TECHNOLOGY
//Luigi Ghezzi

SCALI & GOODE: NAN°ART

Txt: Silvia Scaravaggi
Area: Art&Science

From October 1 st to the 21 st 2007, Palazzo Frizzoni in Bergamo present NAN°ART inside Bergamo Scienza, managed by Stefano Raimondi , with works of Alessandro Scali, Robin Goode and Grit Ruhland . The exposition represent the first occasion to reflect on the usage of nanotechnology inside the Italian art, and the duo Scali-Goode surely represent one of the first Italian cases, if not the only one, where nanoart finds its own and personal space to evolve and show. As Raimondi underline, the proposition of this type of works means make a “fidelity pact” between public and artist. Works are exposed in a little hall where the space is minimal and they are visible only through microscopes. The visitor must approach them with curiosity and desire to discover a new world, searching what's beyond. There's no doubt, all the merits are of the manager and the scientific commission that support this initiative...

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THE KNOWLEDGE OF A FRAGILE FUTURE

Txt: Luigi Ghezzi
Area: Technology

On 27th September Helga Nowotny ( http://www.helga-nowotny.at/ ) took part in the seminar Scienza Tecnologia e Società (Science Technology and Society) organized by the University of Trento . The topics have been mainly those analyzed in her book Insatiable Curiosity. Innovation in a Fragile Future , which has been recently translated into Italian but which was first published in Germany in 2005 with the title Unersättliche Neugier, Innovation in einer fragilen Zukunft . Nowotny iso ne of the most famous living science sociologists: she is both Vice-president and founding member of the European Research Council (ERC) , and she was Chair of the European Research Advisory Board of the European Commission (EURAB) in 2005 and 2006. The core of Nowotny's notion is clear: the current age is characterized by a high level of uncertainty which has been caused by the extraordinary...

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MEDIA ARCHITECTURE
//Monica Ponzini

AUDIOVISUAL DESIGN
//Bertram Niessen

LOZANO-HEMMER: RELATIONAL ARCHITECTURE

Txt: Monica Ponzini
Area: Hyper Architecture

Mexico, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's homeland, made its debut at the 52nd edition of the Venice Biennale with the artist's work exhibition. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is well-known for his big installations used by the most various media and for his custom-made interfaces. In other words this artist loves the active interaction of the public. Robot installations, computers, video projections, sensors, lights (and shadows) and sounds, these are the means used for the creation of works. His works are famous because all around the world they can temporarily change space perceptions and their relations with people living there. Or they can draw attention to important issues such as the continuous control we are subjected. ‘It is wide the range of interests and means inspiring Lozano-Hemmer's creativity during the years' said Marco Mancuso, lover of Lozano-Hemmer's works and interested in the new frontiers of...

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ATOM: FLOATING AUDIOVISUAL DESIGN

Txt: Bertram Niessen
Area: Audiovisual Design

Sometimes things happen, a bit by chance. It is true, though, that in some cities by chance things happen easier than somewhere else. So it may happen to go for a walk to the Tesla Culture Centre in Berlin on a Friday rainy evening, maybe feeling a bit bored, just to take a look around at the installations, not all of them interesting, and then to come across the rehearsal of one of the best performances/audiovisual installations one have seen long since. The performance we are talking about is ATOM by Christopher Bauder (already known by hardware geeks for his midiGun) and Robert Henke (a.k.a. Monolake , a.k.a. one of the main developers of Ableton Live software, and I would say that is enough for an introduction), created with the help of Till Beckmanne e Holger. It is difficult, as for any really successful performance/installation, to explain why it is such an interesting experience. Let us try and simply describe it...

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PERFORMING ART
//Massimo Schiavoni

LIBERI PROTOTIPI PER LE VIE

Tx: Massimo Schiavoni
Area: Performing Art

Il nostro tempo è questo. Non più “movimenti” generazionali o de-generati, non più pesi disciplinari conformati da tradizioni drammaturgiche, non più corpi intrisi da addomesticamenti in superficie e già visti insostenibili. Non più cliché s'il vous plait. Qualcosa è cambiato, evoluto e schiuso dagli anni ottanta fino ai novanta con le cosiddette compagnie “Invisibili” – come si facevano chiamare (e venivano chiamate) - a sottolineare il totale disinteresse e abbandono delle istituzioni teatrali nei loro confronti, per fortuna solamente agli inizi della nuova cultura performativa che stava sconvolgendo le “basse” platee italiane. Ma purtroppo siamo in Italia. E così dai Motus passando per i Masque Teatro e la Raffaello Sanzio fino ai Teatrino Clandestino si arriva a questa nuova generazione iniziata con prepotenza e coraggio solo agli inizi del nuovo millennio. Sto parlando di realtà giovani e libere, colte e sensibili, come Cosmesi, Kinkaleri, OOFF.OURO, MK, Nico Vascellari, Corpicrudi, Teatro Sotterraneo, Dafne Buggeri , Orthographe o Anna De Manincor , realtà che toccano diversi ambienti e diverse discipline artistiche, a volte mescolate, a volte integrate; esasperate o poeticizzate. E i Festival finalmente si fanno sentire, crescendo sia di qualità sia di quantità, veri e unici luoghi dove apprezzare e degustare le nuove tendenze teatrali; ed ecco il Signal di Cagliari, il Festival Santarcangelo , Drodesera nella splendida Centrale Fies, il Coreografo Elettronico di Napoli, OrienteOccidente , Zip Festival, Tramedautore, Romaeuropa Festival, quello delle Colline Torinesi, TTV di Riccione, Crisalide, Ipercorpo fino ai vari Inteatro , Contemporanea e il giovane VIE Scena Contemporanea Festival che dal 12 al 20 ottobre ospiterà alcune tra le realtà più interessanti della scena contemporanea europea e italiana a Modena, Carpi e Vignola. Ritorno quindi all'Emilia Romagna, fucina storica di compagnie e movimenti teatrali, anche se questa volta protagonista di un Festival innovativo e libero da ogni tendenza più o meno remota.

segue...

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NEW MEDIA
//Tiziana Gemin

NEW MEDIA
//Mancuso Marco

ARS ELECTRONICA 2007: GOODBYE PRIVACY?

Txt: Tiziana Gemin
Area: New Media

As every September, the 2007 edition of Ars Electronica took punctually place in Linz. Since 1979 the Austrian festival dedicated to digital art and new media has tried to draw the lines that link art, technology and society together. The event has surely always been an appointment that cannot be missed as well as a firm reference point in international digital culture scene. This year's subject has given emphasis to an aspect of contemporary life which directly involves any of us: the loss of privacy. In everyday life we unawarely are deprived of our privacy, as security systems and mobile technology devices can watch and record many of our actual and virtual actions. At the same time we awarely give up our privacy every time we surrender to Web 2.0 facilities, which, thanks to the development of special platforms, make us turn our private life into public. The subject of this year's...

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TODAYSART 2007, THE HAGUE INTERNATIONAL ART

Txt: Mancuso Marco
Area: New Media

The Hague , The Netherlands, is a little city with no more than 1million inhabitants and 1hour and half from Amsterdam . A grey sky as scheduled, avant-garde buildings, cycle facilities and the hundred-year-old Royal Art Academy . This Academy pays attention to anything artistic or modern. The weekend of 21 st - 22 nd September was dedicated to the Todaysart Festival. I'm coming from a couple of days in Amsterdam and the impact with the political capital of The Netherlands is completely different. Here you can find the politicians' chairs and the noble room of the royal family, one of the richest in the world, as it is said. And this is due to its trade and a politics of marriages with the most important and wealthy European royal families. Here the guys walking on the streets show a different mood and who lives in Milan can understand what I mean. There are just few tourists round the streets of this city which...