GROUP EXHIBITION I SCREENING PROGRAM I PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS
LECTURES I WORKSHOPS I LIVE A/V PERFORMANCES
Upgrade! is an international, emerging network of autonomous nodes united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides. Its decentralized, non-hierarchical structure ensures that Upgrade! operates according to local interests and their available resources; and reflects current creative engagement with cutting edge technologies. While individual nodes present new media projects, engage in informal critique, and foster dialogue and collaboration between individual artists, Upgrade! International functions as an online, global network that gathers annually in different cities to meet one another, showcase local art, and work on the agenda for the following year. Upgrade! Brussels/Ghent is represented by Annemie Maes and Eva De Groote.
The 3rd Upgrade! International meeting Chain Reaction will take place in Skopje, Macedonia from September 11th to 14th, 2008. Growing from the Upgrade! International community, this event takes the form of a city-wide digital art and networked culture festival including exhibitions, screenings, live local and streamed performances and a program of critical and active lectures and workshops exploring numerous facets in the field of digital art. Continue reading →
A city is a construction in space over a long timespan.
All experiences are related, all senses are mixed. Stories, sounds and images are contextualised into a dynamic database. The growth of the city is a continuous succession of phases.
The city as a shifting entity: from the frantic movement of rush hour madness to the slow giant’s pace of urban development, movement is the defining feature of a metropolitan environment. Continue reading →
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Preparation of the Making Off Stand-Alone Nodes in Meshed networks
Scenario 1: Stand alone PhotoVoltaic-system
Step by Step description by Bartaku.
Date: 2007 12 22.
Vernacular Observation:
Setting up the system coincided with the moment the plants start growing
towards the sun again… winter solstice!
Set up location:
OKNO rooftop, center of brussels (50°50’13” North, 4°22’3″)
Set up time: from 11am to 5pm, with numerous interuptions
(normally feasible with 3 persons in 2hrs max).
Continue reading →
Some musings of Villém Flusser on the freedom of the migrant and new ways of building houses:
Flusser’s ideas about communication and identity have their roots in the concept of recognizing the other through self-determination and self-realization.
Becoming human is achieved through being thrown in an abyss of absurdity an then turning this devastating and painful experience into the liberating task of creating meaning by consciously connecting with self-chosen partners.
Architects must stop thinking geographically and begin to conceptualize topologically.
A house should be conceived of no longer as an artificial cave but rather as a bending in the field of interpersonal relations. A creative house would be a node in the network of interpersonal relations.
The weaving of a secret code, a transformation of adventure into habit and this hallowing of habit remains charged with excitement. The network being woven stays open.
The reversibility of network wiring: no bundled cables, no one-way information.
People would no longer be able to duck and hide, and they would have neither foundation nor support. They would have no other choice but to extend a hand to others.
These mutually open houses would spawn an unimaginable abundance of projects.
They would be networklike switched projectors for alternative worlds that all humankind would hold in common.
(Villém Flusser : The freedom of the Migrant)
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digital dada from buda(pest)
The Re:activism conference addresses what role social activism can play in the broad process in which emerging new media technologies transform existing structures of cultural, economic and political power.
The Sonic Tags project is to build small FM-transmitters and place a bunch of them in the public city-space. Supplied with a street-map, a small radio-receiver and headphones, the public can discover a city-center tagged with sound-messages, sometimes poetic, sometimes activist, sometimes just informative.