Everybody uses mobile devices and computers. Less people know you need a very rare mineral called “tantal” to fabricate microchips this size, soon making it more precious than gold. This very moment, cruel wars are fought over this metal in Congo, resulting in more than 3.6 million deaths to date. The tantalum memorial was created in rememberence of this wars´ victims. In a very unique way, ancient telephone technology, the congolese community in london and storytelling are combined, resulting in the extrordinary piece “tantalon memorial”. a living memorial in a way, through which stories can be told and peolpe are connected, reminging us of the blood dripping from our stylish new devices.
Archive for the ‘english’ Category
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Petko Dourmana is a media artist and organiser of interdisciplinary projects between art and information technology. He is co-founder of the InterSpace Media Art Centre, Sofia, which is a non-commercial combination of artists, computer scientists and media activists.
Post Global Warming Survival Kit consists of a two-channel projection and shows infrared images of the North Sea as a post-apocalyptic landscape that the observer can only see by using a night-vision device. Dourmana portrays a dystopian scenario: a “nuclear winter” initiated by political groups or governments in order to solve the problem of global warming and the melting of the polar icecaps.
The installation aims to be a believable, technological fiction of a future in which human sensory experience has adapted. Without the technology posited within the Post Global Warming Survival Kit, we would be blind. With this in mind, the project asks us to consider our approach to environmental pollution and ecological destruction.
With climate change we all become nomads.
Interview with Hermann Josef Hack. German version only.
Monday, January 26th 2009, the german artist Hermann Josef Hack arranged 200 small tents on the square in front of the Brandenburger Tor to build a miniature version of a refugee camp, the world climate refugee camp. Hack’s art refers to current political issues, for him there is no distinction between art and politics. Furthermore he wants to get in direct contact with the public audience instead of presenting his work in institutional art spaces like museums. That’s why he presents his work in public spaces and likes to watch the reaction of the pedestrians, “the very ones who caused the changes that made people refugees in the first place”.
Looking beyond the evolving alarmist scenarios of environmental catastrophe prevalent in the global warming debate, transmediale.09 shifts the focus of this challenge to the broader cultural, societal and philosophical consequences that the collapse of the northern ice barrier reveals.
the tagr.team at this years festival will be bigger than ever over ten peole are on their way from vienna to berlin to cover the exibition, write about the lectures, capture performances and provide an artist interview every day – it’ll be worthwhile to check tagr.tv for new post every day during the festival!
i did an interview with the artist mikhael a crest sator ArXeNeKrOHeN who is the creator of the bragophone – a roboter look alike distillator with an charming alchemic touch – creating secret sounds of braga. he did the final distillation on the closing day of roboexotica. watch the interview and parts of the final distillation….
we spent a couple of days at the cyberfest in st. petersburg. and now we spent a couple of days in vienna to recover from the massive alcohol consumption we were committed ;-) . the festival was a small event with very nice people. actually it was that kind of social happening i mostly miss on big media art festivals (no time left because of program overflow). to celebrate life and community is quite a russian way of life anyway i realized. what needs to be mentioned in this case is the griaznaya galleria (dirty gallery) operated by airvalie. we had the honour to resident there during our stay. check out some pictures. the gallery also hosts the artist mikhael a crest sator ArXeNeKrOHeN who is the creator of the bragophone – a roboter look alike distillator with an charming alchemic touch – creating secret sounds of braga. it was also part of the exhibition which took place mostly in the youth centre of the state hermitage museum.
Apart from works of the curator anne frants you could find some very interesting installation´s, like ryan wolfe´s poetic work “field of grass” or brose partington´s tide. but check out some impressions of the cyberfest…
the full frame festival is a small but powerful festival in vienna. the motivation of the founders was to bring art films (who are normally screened in exhibitions on video monitors) cinemas screens. astonishingly also that size was too little for the organisers so the last full frame festival took place in the vienna planetarium. in a cupola projection. wow! how titanic!
after the presentation we had the pleasure to stroll with felix kubin thou the prater. under a umbrella…how kubi(n)stic!
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