ECOLOGY OF LABORATORIO ELETTRONICO POPOLARE

Txt: Marco Mancuso / Eng: Luisa Bertolatti
Area: Hacking

He won't have it, he really doesn't like me calling him “Master”. Peppo Lasagna is in principal a modest person, absolutely coherent in his being “ecological” and in his relationship with the world, the environment, the technology that surrounds us. In principal, he's one of those people that does not bask in compliments or in the awareness of his own knowledge, but prefers to act, to do, to create. Peppo Lasagna is one of the key elements of the relationships between the history of the hacker movement in the Milanese scene of the past 10 years: an atypical hacker at that, because he isn't very interested in digital technologies or the potential of codes, but rather the safe-keeping (and distribution) of analogical, electronic, electrical, and radio technologies (and if there must be a code, then it should be DOS: for everything else go somewhere else). The workshop that Peppo Lasagna held with Tonylight as a Popular Electronic Workshop on the 18 th of April at the C.S.O.A. Cox18 Calusca Archive during the audiovisual experimentation and research event Exploding Cave, was an almost unexpected public success in the era of digital interactivity, of open source hardware, of generative software. Creating sounds (and lights) by modulating audio signals coming from the overlapping of different radio equipment, playing with electromagnetic waves, exploring the determining effects of various types of electric circuits, understanding the physical phenomena that are behind the modulation of a signal, recalibrating pre-printed disks of old electronic equipment according to the creative demands necessary: this and much more was included in the workshop held by LEP in the Exploding Cave. A kind of knowledge for which there is no upgraded manual for contemporary creative requirements. A technology that if understood and known critically, brings with it possibilities for political and creative action, only comparable to those of great code developers. It also has a great environmental and economical impact, thinking of the possibility of re-using polluting technologies that most of us usually just throw away. A science that now belongs to the few, and that without a doubt should be shared further, like those recipes that are passed down from generation to generation

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THE NEO WORLD OF VIRTUAL LIFE

Txt: Marco Riciputi / Eng: Philippa Barr
Area: Virtual Worlds

Virtual constitutions, virtual nations, 3D environments, democracy, censorship, some of the keywords contained in a draft virtual reality 'to Second Life', funded by the European Union. The three-year project from 3.3 million euros, Virtual Life is a 3D environment that is the basis for a secure and reliable communication, to develop trade, educate and entertain. The study is entrusted to a European consortium made of French, Italians, Germans, Estonians, Lithuanians and Romanians working together. Both companies and universities are involved, for a sum of powers among the most varied: from the design company which produces 3D environments to a faculty of law, and companies that deal with the internationalization of small and medium enterprises. The idea was put in black and white by the business enterprise Panebarco & Co., together with the roman Nergal. “In January 2007 I entered on Secondlife to see if it was possible to expand the business there," recalls Marianne Panebarco, exploitation manager, 'and by chance I met the chairman of Roman society Nergal. Within a month er outlined the project and obtained funding through the Seventh Framework Program for Research and Technological Development of the European Commission. One of the aims of the project is to achieve the first Virtual Constitution, forthe administration of new Virtual Nations, which should protect the common interests of citizens and virtual privacy, in a ' organization governed by a common "jus gentium"'. The constitution is taken seriously because the diverse interests of the consortium are guarenteered by the the right of the University of Göttingen. What is the effect in practice? Firstly, more security in 3D immersive communication, in the form of tridimensional avatar, which movesin virtual worlds. This is no more centralised than the social network Facebook, which stores all personal data to create a huge database for unknown usesin the future, because with our computers we are the real base of our virtual nation.

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VISUAL MUSIC MARATHON

Txt: Monica Ponzini / Eng: Valeria Grillo
Area: Audiovideo

The idea that music and moving images were somehow connected dates back to Newton . But it is especially starting from the 1900s, and with experimental cinema, video and digital arts in the latest decades, that Visual Music (that is rendering music through images, mainly abstract ones), has developed considerably. The decidedly temporal dimension of music and video, seems to naturally tie these two media, and makes for endless experiments and combinations, from pure abstractism to more figurative patterns. The 2009 Visual Music Marathon, which took place in the Visual Arts Theatre in New York , presented a panorama of 64 videos selected among more than 300 works from 33 countries, together with historical videos, and two groups managed by Larry Cuba of the Iota Center and Bruce Wands of the School of Visual Arts di New York. The history of practices linked to the synesthesia between music and video...

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THE DISCREET CHARME OF ELEKTRA

Txt: Donata Marletta / Eng: Luisa Bertolatti
Area: Live Media

Elektra Festival is one of the most interesting festivals on the international scene dedicated to the avant-garde of experimental art and new media, that has taken place every year since 1999 in Montreal, a Northern American city with a European flavour, creative and lively, most of all when it comes to artistic production and promotion and distribution of art in general. This year Elektra celebrates its tenth anniversary with a 10-day program, where there will be a wide variety of audio-visual performances, and numerous exhibitions seeded in various art galleries in the city, creating a kind of artistic tour. On the 7th and 8th of May, the Marché International de L'Art Numérique (International Marketplace for Digital Art), will take place for the third year running, a meeting between professionals who work in the field of digital art, that wants to install a dialogue between producers, journalists, artists and event organisers...

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INFECTIOUS: STAY AWAY

Txt: Stefano Raimondi / Eng: Ali Ustun
Area: Art+Science

The magical capability of the director of the Science Gallery is owed to the exhibition "Infectious: Stay Away", if it's true, it's opening took place some days before the global alarm associated to the diffusion of the pork influence. We don't know if this correlation will bring light or cast shadow on the exhibition prepared in the fascinating space in the centre of Dublin. What's certain is seeing a building barred by a yellow-black cross banner, decompression chambers, and controls in the entrance make a great effect. Today, more than yesterday. Improvisationally, a real murderer gets around in the house of horror of the playground of periphery. The Science Gallery remains as an enigma for those who write. It's identity, even though very easily perceivable, slips. Not a scientific park, not interested in publication of the pure scientific editorial, not a museum or a contemporary art gallery. Probably the Science Gallery is the paradox of common sense, the charming valley that the rivers of private and public financing run toward. Playing is prohibited to those under 18. The Science Gallery is the terrain in the middle of art, science and entertainment, born thanks to the intuition of Professor Mike Coey, eager to make a project capable of to bring the public closer to the science and new technologies in parallel to the development of the field of research concerning nanotechnologies. For this reason, walking around the Science Museum, you can find a bit of everything: a designer who talks about science, an orchestra conductor which composes a viral music, a bar tender from Bassano del Grappa. During the visit to the exhibition, I am accompanied by Michael John Gorman, the director of the gallery situated inside the Trinity College of Dublin, a campus capable of involving more than 15.000 people. The exhibition Infectious is unveiled by reclaim of modernity: stay away.

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