TWO LOCATIONS – URBAN AND RURAL / RESIDENCY PROGRAMS – EUROPEAN MEDIA ART, NORDIC-BALTIC, INTERNATIONAL / RIXC OPEN AiR – APPLY ALL YEAR ROUND
Colette TRON. Toward An « Art Of Hypercontrol » ?
The French philosopher Bernard Stiegler develops the concept of « hypercontrol ». Up to his thought, we are entered in the societies of hypercontrol, and the formula is inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s one about « societies of control » : this hypercontrol is made possible by digital technologies, the big data, and all systems of tracks and their automatic treatment, present in the functioning of these technologies, into their industrial conception, development and applications. These apparatus follow and guide people in their behaviors, cause of the informations let into their data, when catched by any power, economic or political. And this kind of process destroys privacy as well as public sphere, individual and collective freedom, but also cultural and social diversity rather than composes the « social networks ».
In this proposal, it would be made an historical and conceptual interpretation in order to understand the question of control and surveillance : as the term was used by William Burroughs, the American writer, from whom the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze found the reference and then conceptualized « the societies of control », and with the differences of disciplinary society described by Michel Foucault. Then it would focus on Bernard Stiegler’s concept of hypercontol and its technologies, their threat for democracy and peace in the global village.
Colette Tron is a poet and an independent critic. She explores mediapoetry and theories of digital medias, specifically the relation between languages and media. Founder of Alphabetville (www.alphabetville.org) she has created a laboratory where to articulate practices and theories of art and culture, art and technology, technology and culture. She has directed two books and publishes many papers.
Mitch GOODWIN. Mechanised Ecologies – The Atmospherics Of Automation And Emergent Systems Of Control
The machine sees the machine knows but the mechanics are invisible. Algorithms lean into human spaces, mimic conscious thought, adapt modes of seeing and render virtual replications.
Through a post-Snowden prism, are we witnessing the permanent synthetic overlay of corporate, political and government systems of control? Technologies of deep learning, machine vision, automation are no less tools of science as gateways to a new global order of things. The stakes have never been higher, as increasingly convergent interests, via a clever act of subterfuge, impose a new reality of automation and algorithmic determinism. Concepts such as spidergrams and kill lists, drone swarms and pre-crime, bot-nets and A.I. avatars, gait recognition and geospatial oversight are riddled with ethical conundrums that are rarely discussed in mainstream media discourse yet haunt the background atmosphere of the contemporary experience.
The systems themselves however are ambiguous in both their design and their function. The manner in which they intersect with privacy and freedom of movement, labour and love and notions of truth and reality are evidence of a new complexity – systems of control that are at once personal and global in their reach. What are the conditions of automation and machine learning that underpin this new black-box version of control that is at once imposed by force, and mostly government sanctioned, and those imposed by stealth for market advantage and political expediency?
This paper will seek to unravel this a double-image game of virtuality by unpacking these competing and often messy ecologies that define our emergent datafied society. A society that is seemingly at the mercy of a surveillance apparatus that has become emboldened by a confluence of technical innovation and political instability.
Raivo KELOMEES, Stacey KOOSEL. Privacy Experiments In Public And Artistic Spaces
This presentation focuses on the comparison of two phenomena: Memopol (2010), an interactive installation by Estonian artist Timo Toots (1982), and the National ID Card and Public Transport Card system currently in place in Tallinn, Estonia. These geographically specific examples are a small part of a larger global discourse on questioning the line between what is public and what is private. Artistic projects such as Memopol have reframed problematic issues that characterize our modern age of a surveillance society and digital technology, while raising pertinent questions about the blurry line between what is considered personal information versus public information. Increasing advances in surveillance technology in both the public and private sector, as well as social and cultural shifts brought about by digital media have created more accepting paradigms about privacy. This perception shift has been communicated in artworks, which is one of the ways how the topic has entered the public sphere.
Raivo Kelomees (b.1960) PhD (art history), artist, critic and new media researcher. Presently working as senior researcher at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn. He studied psychology, art history, and design at Tartu University and the Academy of Arts in Tallinn. He has published articles in the main Estonian cultural and art magazines and newspapers since 1985. His works include the book “Surrealism” (Kunst Publishers, 1993) and an article collection “Screen as a Membrane” (Tartu Art College proceedings, 2007), “Social Games in Art Space” (EAA, 2013). His Doctoral thesis was “Postmateriality in Art. Indeterministic Art Practices and Non-Material Art” (Dissertationes Academiae Artium Estoniae 3, 2009).
Stacey Koosel, PhD, writer, curator. Her doctoral thesis “The Renegotiated Self: Social Media’s Effects on Identity” explored digital identity, digital culture and media ecology. Her projects include editing “Estonian Art” magazine (published by the Estonian Institute) and curating exhibitions of contemporary art, such as: “Eastern Omen” (Düsseldorf, 2013), “The Hypnotist Collector” (Barcelona, 2014) and “TL;DR” (Tallinn, 2015).
Vincenzo SANSONE. The Cultural And Artistic Goals Of Urban Screens And Media Facades: The Betrayed Promises
Since the early 2000s one has spoken about Urban Screen, Media Facade, etc. to refer to something born in the urban space and linked to digital technologies. Amongst the advocates of this new research we can quote Mirjam Struppek that in 2005 coined the term Urban Screens, underlining how these screens were controlled by market forces but wondering if their use could be culturally extended to transform public spaces in spaces of creation and exchange. From Struppek’s reflections several ideas have been formulated and some practical experiences were realized to bring out the cultural side of the urban screens, even if the watchwords for these objects are still today information and advertising. In particular, the commercial content — linked to international brands — and the urban screens — as physical objects, built following a common design standard — create a disturbing phenomenon. Urban spaces begin to lose their identity, aesthetics and architectural styles move towards homogenization and cities begin to become each other’s copy. The market has taken over global control of urban spaces. How did we come to this result? Is there any hope yet to keep the promises that artists and researchers made to redefine urban screens?
Vincenzo Sansone, master’s degree in Digital Performance (Sapienza University of Rome), is PhD in European Cultural Studies (University of Palermo). He was visiting scholar at Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona and Polytechnic University of Valencia with a research about video projection mapping and performing arts. The focus of his research concerns these areas: performing arts, new media, AR technologies, urban design. He is actor and digital set designer and since 2015 he has been working with Teatro Potlach, realizing performances and site-specific projects both in Italy and abroad (US, Iran, Hungary). He took part to some international conferences: “Bodies on Stage” (Paris 2015), “IFTR 2016” (Stockholm), “Open Fields” (RIXC-Riga 2016), IFTR 2017 (São Paulo), “Virtualities and Realities” (RIXC-Riga 2017).
Elke REINHUBER. Surveillance – Outsmarting the Algorithm or Leaving the Grid?
2018: Cameras are everywhere. In each mobile device, also in lampposts, vehicles, lobbys, hallways, satellites, lenses watch us, follow our movements, perceive our features, and the focus broadens.
2020? Cameras are ubiquitous. In every mobile device – the watch, the glasses, the phone, the pad – also in bedposts, seats, walls, pillars, pillows, lenses recognize every step we make, anticipating my next decisions, so it is time to get invisible.
Currently living in Singapore, I feel like having become transparent, from the moment the fully automated border control opens the gate. Everytime I order my coffee, I wonder again why the barista asks for my wishes, for she should already know. The public transport system tracks my journeys, the telephone company my calls and my internet requests, my loyalty cards, my online shopping and my Uber habits leave even more dots to connect, from which to draw a picture of me. And my instagrams, my tweets, all the data I collect for the purpose of self-tracking and auto-quantification flesh out this image of me I never get to see.
To tackle this dilemma that the future, which was promised to me in the canon of the Western cinematic mythology, looks and feels exactly like many of those Science-Fiction-movies rolled into one, like »Star Wars« and »Blade Runner«, like »Star Trek« and »Alien«, like »2001« and »Matrix« simultaneously, I approach my paper like handling a double-edged lightsaber: exploring strategies to outsmart the algorithms, to bug the system from outside and, at the same time, investigating into different modes of existence, withdrawing from the world of electricity and its manifold constraints. When secretaries of the interior speak the same language as the Borg, something feels wrong: “Resistance is futile” and “there is no alternative“ sound not only similar, both are a diminution of basic human rights.
My inquiry will address artistic perspectives and procedures to handle the upcoming total control of the surveillance state, but concurrently the option, to leave the grid, to become a media artist without a palette, without any current.
The meshes in the network are drawn nearer and tighter, ready to strangle everyone.
With her background in applied photography, media artist Elke Reinhuber has experienced a wide range of cameras, of the analogue and digital realm. While being fascinated, but also scared by the omnipresent camera lenses which are pointing at each and everyone nowadays, she is curious to explore other aspects of photography such as stereoscopic imaging, panorama photography, and further aspects of recording light and other electromagnetic radiation, even beyond the visible spectrum. Elke teaches currently at the School for Art and Design at NTU in Singapore as an Assistant Professor. Her artwork was presented internationally.
Dani PLOEGER. Frontline (360-video immersive installation)
‘frontline’ combines uneventful 3D 360 video documentation of a frontline position in the Donbass War in East-Ukraine with a spectacular battlefield soundscape produced in a movie studio. The work intertwines the documentary and the fictional in a representation of warfare that unsettles the promises of realism commonly associated with both documentary practice and virtual reality technology, and undermines the expectations of spectacle that often surround representations of warfare.
Dani Ploeger combines performance, video, computer programming and electronics hacking to investigate and subvert the spectacles of techno-consumer culture. Re-purposing, misusing, and at times destroying everyday devices, his work examines seemingly banal and taken-for-granted aspects of digital culture as objects of both physical beauty and political power.
He has worked with traditional metal workers in Cairo to encase tablet computers in plate steel, made a VR installation while embedded with frontline troops in East-Ukraine, and travelled to dump sites in Nigeria to collect electronic waste originating from Europe. He is a Research Fellow at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London, and an artist-researcher at the University of Leiden, Netherlands.
Cultura Plasmic Inc. Personality As Artwork: The Personal Is Political In Online Surveillance Culture – tbc.