VARIOUS LOCATIONS - BERGEN

04 - 07 DECEMBER 2008

How does code dream? What are the dreams of code? Piksel08 examines the other side of code, an alternative side to a hard-coded reality of work and play. Open hardware and free software project a utopic vision, yet exist within economies of capital, the dream factory of mainstream technology. Within the chance meeting of sewing machine and umbrella on the dissecting table, hardware and software are flattened.

Piksel08: code dreams, explores the dreams of this soft machine; bachelors coding for pleasure, reverse engineering paranoiac constructs of the real, automatic coding practice, soft hardware, and everyday magic.

Piksel is an annual event for artists and developers working with free and open source software, hardware and art. Part workshop, part festival, it is organised in Bergen, Norway, and involves participants from more than a dozen countries exchanging ideas, coding, presenting art and software projects, doing workshops, performances and discussions on the aesthetics and politics of free and open source software.

The development, and therefore use, of digital technology today is mainly controlled by multinational corporations. Despite the prospects of technology expanding the means of artistic expression, the commercial demands of the software industries severely limit them instead. Piksel is focusing on the open source movement as a strategy for regaining artistic control of the technology, but also a means to bring attention to the close connections between art, politics, technology and economy.

The first Piksel event was arranged in november 2003, and gathered around 30 artists/developers from all parts of the world. It consisted of artistic/technical presentations, coding workshops and live performances. All activities were documented in a daily blog: http://www.piksel.no/log.html. Piksel is organised by a community of core participants including members of collectives dyne.org, goto10.org, ap/xxxxx, apo33.org, hackitectura.net, riereta.net, drone.ws, gephex.org, openlab and others.
Piksel is a member of the Pixelache network of electronic art festivals - pixelache.ac

EXHIBITIONS @ Galleri 3,14, Volt, Lydgalleriet & USF
http://www.piksel.no/piksel08/p08_exhibition.htm

Anaisa Franco (BR), Aymeric Mansoux (FR), Marloes de valk (NL), Voldemars Johansons (LV), Daniil Umanski (NL), Federico Sangati, Pall Thayer (IS), Oyvind Mellbye (NO), Gijs Gieskes (NL), Jan Carleklev (SE), Ben Bogart (CA), Martin Aaserud (NO), Loud Objects (US), Jo frgmnt Grys (DE), Seamus O'Donnell (IR), Julian Oliver (NZ), Bjorn Magnhildoen (NO), Ana Buigues (ES), Danja Vasiliev (RU/NL), HC Gilje (NO)

PRESENTATIONS @ StudioUSF
http://www.piksel.no/piksel08/p08_presentations.htm

Animata, Jelly, Wind-up birds, Data Jockey, Fritzing, LevelHead, pure agents - augmenting live patching, Gmerlin Audio Video Decoder, G.I.S.S. 3.0, exist.pl, BOT : virtual networked lab, Hexaclock, Sprocket, Caligraft, print "soapbox", Free Software from a writer's perspective

LIVE PERFORMANCES @ StudioUSF
http://flux.bek.no/piksel/piksel08/p08_live.htm

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, Derek Holzer (US), Agoston Nagy (HU), Gabor Papp (HU), Julien Ottavi (FR), Jenny Pickett UK), Yves Degoyon (FR), Alejandra Perez Nunez (CL), Bureau d'Etudes (FR), Malte Steiner (DE), Federico Bonelli (IT), Robert Fischer (NL), Iohannes M Zmolnig (AT), Adam Parrish (US), Benjamin CADON (FR), Ryan Jordan (UK), Jessica Rylan (US), One Man Nation (SG), Christopher McDonald (US), Canetoad Orchestra (UK)

WORKSHOPS @ StudioUSF
http://www.piksel.no/piksel08/p08_workshops.htm

*Sound production made Easy
*Realtime animation with Animata
*Hands-on web development with Jelly
*Software + craft+ art = fonts

Real Code:

real code [xxxxx_at_piksel_2008] aims to begin construction in Bergen of a new world operating system making use of material, language and descriptive means (aka. software). code relates both to a necessarily hidden communication system (world revelation, rationalism as an island) and to a novel way of examining the world. reflection is encouraged in both directions. sample activities, such as measurement of intensities, cutups, practical endophysics, real world disaster
analysis and biologic intervention are proposed below for an event which builds and defines itself to some degree in isolation. Bergen thus becomes an island of magic composed of smaller islands (a fish farm, for example).

Otto Roessler (AT), Jonathan Kemp (UK), Martin Howse (UK), Eva Verhoeven (NL), Oswald Berthold (AT), FoAM (BE), Graham Harwood (UK), Eleni Ikoniadou, Grzesiek Sedek, Vincent Van Uffelen, Beatrice Fazi, Caroline Heron, Joao Wilbert

Abstract code:

Abstract code is software whose results can be invisible, a software implementing different layers of action at the same time. Abstract code is a connection to parallel worlds, a poetic formula dealing with outer forces. Code is art, its action is subtile, effective, magic. procedural text, maledictions, oracles, iambi, hymn, formula, refrains, hypnotic sentences, prayers, and other. A night for writers, sorcerers, magicians, bots, pichadores, psychonauts, sex texters, scientists, coders, poets and intelligent agents.

Eleonora Oreggia (IT), Nancy Mauro-Flude (AU), Gaia Novati (IT), Goto80 (SE), Simon Yuill (UK), Alex McLean (UK), Glerm Soares (BR), Junior Isjtar (BE), Cristina Ekman (BR), Pixa Babel (XY)

www.piksel.no