Squatting Supermarkets – reports and next steps

Just recovering from the enormous effort put in setting up, performing and taking down the Squatting Supermarkets at the Piemonte Share Festival 2009, “Market Forces”.

Several thousands visitors, hundreds of customized food cans, hundreds of QRCodes printed to link products’ stories, dozens of hours of live Shoptivist TV, 3 workshops, a ShopDropping action in the city centre of Turin, an augmented reality tour at Eataly (a big shopping centre focused on organic foods), hundreds of questions and the relative answers.

These are the numbers. Read on for the details…

Equilibrium. Squatting Supermarkets focuses on the possibility to reinvent reality.

We are all immersed in complex dynamics: simple, daily gestures hide global effects, complex consequences, and we all are the target of planetary strategies that are never clear enough. Turn a light switch on, buy a can of tomatoes, watch TV, drive your car. We constantly are part of global interests producing information that is far from complete.

Squatting Supermarkets enters the supermarket with this idea in mind. Shopping, buying, paying, choosing products are common tasks. When we enter supermarkets we instantly become the center of multiple interests: labels, signs, sounds, voices, aisles, shelves all tell messages suggesting our choices and hiding the whole story.

The Installation

Three experiences.

First.

An iPhone is held in front of a package of coffee, its viewfinder framing its logo and showing a microdocumentary creating a 3 minute narrative on the global situation of coffee production. Percentages, stories of distribution, revenue, profit, communication, social responsibility, sustainability. Recipes for your eco-sustainable cup of coffee. This is just one of the informations that shoppers can experience while choosing their buys at the supermarket. The idea is centered around the iSee application by FakePress.

Take a picture of a logo using your mobile phone and, if it has already been added to the database, the logo gets recognized (about 80% accuracy for this operation, if you have a steady hand… and getting better): information sources are shown on the device’s screen, allowing you to choose from social responsibility, sustainability, ecology, finance.

Attention is towards producers, and to the global policies and strategies that are designed and enacted through the products filling our daily lives.The objective is to show the part of the story that is seldom told, and to tell it right there, just-in-time, when you are there, choosing your product.

Second.

An Oracle. A big eye watches you, awaiting. Products sit on their shelves, ready to be bought.

The first experience told stories about manufacturers, distributors, marketers.

The second one tells the stories of people, of families, of individuals making choices, producing food, objects.

Grabbing products and placing them in the Oracle revealed stories that will never be written on the labels: an anonymous package of olives told the tale of a man from Palestine, cultivating olive trees under the bombs of Israeli warfare; a transparent bag of salt allowed you to enter a deep valley among the mountains of South America, where people dig, dry, carry enormous quantities of salt in the most incredible manners; a pack of multicoloured candy brought you to a peculiar assembly chain in Bangladesh, in an industrial complex that is barely more than a straw barrack, and people live their daily lives among flies, heat and humidity, wore-down machinery, hazards and a few coins in their pockets.

The other part of the story. Embedded into the products.

Third.

First there were the companies, then it was the people. The third experience is all about the shoppers.

The supermarket is a process. Its architecture, its sound, its shape and volumes are designed for people to enter, choose their merchandise, proceed to the cashiers, pay and leave as fast as they can.

No space for expression, for sharing informations and points of view. Only the marketable survives.

We thought we could change that. We tried with the third experience.

Shoptivism TV is a digital TV channel designed to be recorded and viewed inside supermarkets. It is produced by the people. Grab your mobile phone, scan a product and start recording: happy people telling recipes, angry people telling unsatisfaction, informed people telling how things are, creative people telling stories.

Augmented Reality

Stepping aside frm the hype, Augmented Rality (AR) can mean many things. It can mean dinosaurs walking down your favourite street. But it can also mean to augment ordinary reality with new possibilities and opportunities.

We wanted to do just that: have a chance to reinvent the present, the real, adding new sensorial spaces, new sensibilities that can be achieved through digital media and contemporary devices.

Computer vision, location-based media, wearable and pocketable technologies, gestural and natural interfaces can turn complex tasks into simple ones.

Squatting Supermarkets is just that: augment ordinary reality with new possibilities; invade, squat, occupy time and space with expression and different voices; recontextualize, reappropriate, redesign strategies. Squatting Supermarkets’ intent is to recode the present.

Installation Setup

The three parts of the installation have been built with the fundamental help of many students from the Albertina Arts Academy of Turin and from the MultiDAMS. Arts, Crafts and scenographic support, as well as an incredible deal of conceptual and dialogic exchange, were the key factors that brought to the definition of the final installation. Choosing materials, lighting, assemblage strategies and space design was really fun and it was a chance to dig into the themes of the installation. While our fingernails were breaking and our clothes getting dirtier, we had a chance to tell and discuss stories, bulding an augmented reality of our own.

On the technical side, the three experiences were built using software components implemented using multiple technologies.

The iSee iPhone application was built using Objective-C and Apple’s standard SDK. Some peculiar technologies were used as well, causing the application to be rejected from distribution on the Apple Store: this is the effect of an incredibly harassing strategy Apple is using against its international community of developers. But this is another story that will be told in just a few days.

The image recognition engine is built in two stages. Captured images of logos and products are first pre-processed on the iPhone (image colour adjustment, thresholding and basic feature recognition algorithms are applied in this phase) and the result is sent to a server for comparison with the items already added to the database (a feature comparison process is applied, where the presence of angles, straight lines, regular curves, areas of solid colors or juxtaposition of them all become parameters that are used to compare images coming from mobile phones with the ones of the stored logos and products). Once a logo is eventually recognized, standard SQL procedures allow for association of various information sources.

We currently are integrating:

• Corporate Watch
• CorpWatch
• NASA’s Earth Observatory
• MIT’s SourceMap

Custom contents are also progressively being produced and used, such as microdocumentaries, interviews, researches.

The Oracle is completely done using Processing. Many parts of the processing framework have been used. Efficient and error-free functionalities could not have been achieved without the help of Rolf van Gelder whose enhancements to our little QRCode library for Processing were of fundamental importance.

Two pieces of software were used on the third part of the installation. The main one was a webTV application integrating the streams coming from the LiveStream account we created to distribute the contents live (well.. almost live :) ) to the audience of the Share Festival with the streams coming from the interviews and visitors interactions with the installation.

The second component of this part of the installation was, again, made using Processing. An infovisualization gathered in realtime the communications arising in social networks (on Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook) about the products we used in the other parts of the installation. This visualization was used whenever nothing was going on in the Shoptivism TV channel.

All was coordinated through a simple software layer built using Processing that took care of the generation of the sound environment (featuring triggered hypnotic loops of pure supermarket sound-madness) and the automatic live direction of the various software components, handled through locally networked control messages.

Workshops

Three workshops were performed.

The first one was done with the students of the MultiDAMS in Turin. Here we explained the mechanisms running the Shoptivist TV: how is a TV channel made for supermarkets structured? What technologies can be used? What does it mean to direct, edit and manage a multi author, free access, distributed, ubiquitous TV channel? What are the legal implications of letting people freely record a TV channel inside commercial spaces?

The students were wonderful and immediately activated, learning to use interfaces and grabbing visitors explaining them the wonders of free expression.

The second workshop saw me together with Luca Simeone and Federico Ruberti from FakePress detailing the multiples perspectives involved in Squatting Supermarkets. I introduced the artistic concept, Luca did a beautiful presentation of the anthropologic and interaction design strategies we are researching on to build FakePress and Federico thoroughly presented and explained impressive data collected with the collaboration of Cary Hendrickson on the economic, financial, social and ecological opportunities brought on by these practices.

The third was a continuous state of workshopping we happily embraced with the groups of MultiDAMS students coming in with professor Giulio Lughi. He brought in wave after wave of students, providing us a wonderful and enthusiastic audience to deal with and also allowing us to face questions, doubts and unthought perspectives in a wonderful way (many thanks professor!).

A more peculiar form of workshop was also performed, but it deserves a specific section.

So here comes:

ShopDropping!

Possibly the most exciting and replenishing thing happening for us during the Share Festival, we got several students involved in a creatively subversive action.

Starting from the concepts explained in the Squatting Supermarkets project, we decided that it would be of fundamental importance to get bodies involved in the critical assertions we were making: let bodies reclaim spaces and possibilites through creativity and action!

On Friday morning we gathered the students in front of the Museo Regionale delle Scienze Naturali. After a short explanation we were off for the action.

Three supermarkets, the FNAC and La Rinascente stores in Turin city centre were invaded with narratives and detournments.

The action included two parts.

1) invasion

The cans coming from the Squatting Supermarkets installation were placed among regular supermarket products. These out-of-place products proved to be quite powerful: their aesthetics, together with the fact that they were not part of the shops’ information systems, created multiple bugs in the processes of the commercial premises. The unexpected and unaccounted for turned into a tool for breaking down the daily processes ruling our lives.

2) free narratives

Microstories were distributed to the students under the form of stickers with urban haikus printed on them. They were to be attached on commercial products, over the barcode defining their prices and inventory identification. When people eventually bought the “processed” products none of them would pass the barcode reader, forcing both the clerk and the consumer into reading our little stories. Free form expressions telling tales of ecology, of carelessness, of reconsidering our lives, of applying critiques to our daily gestures.

This was a fantastic experience, both for us and for the students. The possibility to create our own narrative spaces in the places where no such thing is usually allowed was a powerful experience. We had to actually pull students out of FNAC, as they were enjoying the process too much :)

Connections

During the festival we leveraged the TV Channel to connect to other interesting events and people, further promoting the possibility for innovative forms of expression in symbolic spaces.

We first connected to San Francisco with Jonathon Keats. Jonathon told the audience the story of his incredible artworks, and in the clever ways in which the constantly manage to break down the schemes of markets and other complex global forces we are surrounded by. The audience particularily enjoyed the story of the Antimatter Bank Jonathon is bringing up in San Francisco: antimatter against global crisis!

We then connected with the inauguration party of the Hub in Rome. The Hub started in Egland and it turned out to be a really good idea: accessible spaces all over the world to start dialogues, actions, enterprises, between technology, culture, sustainability, social strategies. The Hub Roma just opened up its premises and, if the attitude and excitement they show in what they’re doing don’t lie, we’re set to see some truly interesting things going on over there.

Squatting Supermarkets @ Eataly

We’ll tell you more in the next post about this, so this is just a starter.

We agreed with the management of Eataly to create an event in which the people from the Share festival could have enjoyed visiting the beautiful supermarket dedicated to organic, local, sustainable foods, using Augmented reality techniques. We had an incredible time doing it, and people were delighted to see stories coming directly out of the producst they bought daily. The experience has been both interesting and critical, as people were truly enlightened by the possibility to learn more about the things they eat and drink, in such a direct way.

More on this and on its evolutions in the next post.

The Prize

On the last day of the Share Festival we also had a truly nice surprise.

Squatting Supermarkets won the “Green Prize” offered by Turin’s Environment Park for the most ecologic approach.

Thanks to everyone!

We really need to thank a lot of people. We couldn’t have made it without all of you. So here go the credits:

for the Squatting Supermarkets installation:
Concept, software and artistic direction: Salvatore Iaconesi (aka xDxD.vs.xDxD)
Arts, Crafts & Scenography: a fantastic group of students of the Accademia Albertina of Turin with the direction of Oriana Persico

the iSee application was produced by
Fake Press

for the “Squatting Supermarkets: introduzione pratica e teorica allo Shoptivism” workshop
Concept & Direction: Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico
The group of participants: Silvia Aimone, Roberto Brogi, Eleonora Cappai, Federico Manassero, Barbara Raimondi, Riccardo Rea, Federico Trovarelli, Salvatore Tuscolano.

for the “Complex Shopping Narratives” workshop
Artistic Statement: Salvatore Iaconesi
Antropological introduction & Interaction Design Theory: Luca Simeone
Strategic Marketing & Communication Research: Federico Ruberti
Eco-sustainability & Alternative Economic Models Research: Cary Hendrickson

for the Shopdropping action
Salvatore Iaconesi, Oriana Persico, an incredible group of students from Multi Damd and Accademia Albertina, Collettivo Aut Art (Milan), a student from Accademia of Venice

Photography & video:
Gianfranco Mura and Maya

Augmented Reality Tour @ Eataly
Concept & Direction: Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico
Contact & Coordination: Simona Milvo (Eataly)
Interview: Dino Burri (Eataly)

Special Thanks to
Tone and is dog, Maria, Davich, prof. Giulio Lughi, Massimo Melotti, Gadda, Lo|bo, Aut Art, Les Liens Invisibles, Maya, Gianfranco Mura, Stefan, Mirella, Marie, Franca Formenti, Dario Carrera, Conny Neri, Ivan Fadini, Jonaton Keats, Anna Masera, Dario Migliardi, Roberta Bosco, Alessio Oggioni, Filippo Giannetta, Kathryn Weir, Luca Giuliani, Pete Ippel, Stefano Sburlati, Rolf van Gelder, Silvia and the team of students of Multi D@MS and the all organisation of Piemonte Share Festival (Simona Lodi, Chiara Garibaldi, Luca Barbeni, Chiara Ciociola and the guest curator Andy Cameron) for the beautiful hospitality and work.

All the people that spent time with us during the Festival

Shoptivism

We’re set!

Squatting Supermarkets is all installed and it is about to start.

There will be a continuous interaction with the people at the Share Festival, both friends and visitors, and all the technical and curatorial crew.

Shoptivism Logo

It will be part documentary, part interviews, part performance, and it will take the shape of a web TV called Shoptivism

you can watch it here

Squatting Supermarkets (italiano)

Squatting Supermarkets I

Comprare, indossare, mangiare, usare. Le nostre vite sono piene di oggetti di cui sappiamo realmente poco.
Gli scaffali di negozi e supermercati raccontano storie parziali, fatte di aziende, di produzioni efficienti, di contadini felici che poggiano sacchi di caffè su camion con il logo della Nestlè, di pannelli solari in mezzo alle campagne e sui tetti delle fabbriche, che sembra proprio che abbiano smesso di versare nei fiumi e nell’aria i loro maleodoranti rifiuti chimici, sostituiti da nuovi prodotti collaterali della produzione, dall’odore di fieno e paglia.

iSee, Augmented Reality for complex shopping narratives

Questo guardando in una direzione, quella della produzione. Ma anche dal lato del consumo le corsie del supermercato mostrano famiglie felici (e, mi raccomando, un uomo, una donna e dei bambini; o, al massimo, l’alternativa della persona in carriera, che sostituisce nell’immaginario la famiglia con il business e il fitness), che acquistano con la carta di credito, che si fidano della spiga di grano che, in maniera rassicurante, spicca dalla confezione del prodotto che lanciano nel carrello, proprio come si fidano delle parole “biologico“, “sostenibile” ed “ecologico” che figurano su prodotti di ogni genere.
I grandi punti di distribuzione portano la narrazione a livelli architettonici, progettando la nostra esperienza fin nei minimi dettagli: la sequenza di espositori, scaffali, temi, suggestioni, colori, svolte, strettoie; i suoni rassicuranti che ci annunciano opportunità imperdibili; i temi sociali, ecologici ed economici, per cui tutto il pane è “quello di una volta“, tutti gli shampoo sono “a basso impatto ambientale“, ogni automobile “riduce le emissioni dannose” e ogni sacchetto di caffè è prodotto dai contadini locali su ridenti montagne, dove tutti sorridono tranquilli.
Una visione parziale, progettata, unidirezionale. Non sempre, c’è da dirlo, in malafede: possiamo, per fortuna, scegliere tra migliaia di produttori che hanno oramai scelto la via della sostenibilità, dell’ecologia e del rispetto delle diversità e delle popolazioni deboli. C’è anche da dire, però, che per quel che riguarda questi temi la possibilità di accedere a informazioni e conoscenza diventa un elemento di primaria importanza.

Molte volte l’arte e la creatività hanno affrontato questa suggestione. Vengono in mente i Supermarché Ferraille, e le loro vetrine improvvisate, i loro cartelloni pubblicitari surreali, i loro prodotti distorti. O AdBusters, e le loro campagne di comunicazione sovversive e detournate. O ancora le performance di Banksy, del National Cynical Network. O, in Italia, di Candida TV, di Serpica Naro, di Anna Adamolo, di Luther Blissett, di Liens Invisibles. (… e, per fortuna, di moltissimi altri. Tanto che sarebbe realmente interessante elencare tutte le azioni di questo genere.)

Supermarché Ferraille

In tutte le loro azioni uno strato narrativo si aggiungeva alla realtà “ordinaria“, creando spazi liberati per l’interpretazione personale. Il “fake“, il “detournato“, la “distorsione“, il “surreale” e il “rumore” diventano in questo senso possibilità di informazione, di riflessione e di coinvolgimento per corpi e soggettività che, scoperto il “re nudo” tramite una risata o un sincero stupore, si aprivano all’opportunità di dubitare, di discutere, di informarsi, di creare dialoghi, di condividere informazioni, conoscenze ed esperienze.

AdBusters @ Nike

La Rete

In questo momento siamo di fronte ad una serie di possibilità aperte ed accessibili, ma di cui ancora stentiamo a definire grammatiche, pratiche, strategie.

La rete porta con sè e rende accessibili una serie di tecnologie e di pratiche che, potenzialmente, rimettono in discussione diverse questioni.

Creare informazione in maniera virtuosa e collaborativa. Produrre e disseminare liberamente conoscenza. Rilevare ed utilizzare la progressiva smaterializzazione della merce creando nuovi strumenti di produzione peer to peer, localizzata. Invadere spazi prima “intoccabili”, grazie alle tecnologie mobili, ubique. Creare ovunque ed in ogni momento spazi di discussione e collaborazione.

Sintetizzare intelligenza, competenza, conoscenza e opportunità secondo un uso contemporaneo della tecnologia. Spostandosi, quindi, dai linguaggi “dell’azienda” e della “tecnocrazia“, per riportare tecnologie e protocolli a destinazioni più umane, corporee, fisiche. L’intelligenza artificiale non è più da cercarsi in quei mostruosi risponditori automatici cui ci ha abituato il cinema e certa fantascienza, ma piuttosto nelle possibilità di sintetizzare contenuti grazie alla rete e alle possibilità di partecipare a processi e ragionamenti. I robot prendono le distanze da quei “cosi” che tentano di replicare comportamenti umani, diventando adesso oggetti invisibili, integrati nell’ambiente, pensati per un uso artificialmente-naturale sul corpo e nelle dimensioni relazionali. Le interfacce stesse scompaiono, rimpiazzate da gesti, da manipolazioni, attraversamenti, sguardi.

In tutto questo, la tecnologia “scompare“, diventando un pezzo consolidato del mondo, una sorta di terzo paesaggio in cui accanto ai ciuffi d’erba che crescono tra le crepe del cemento troviamo informazioni, comunicazioni, emozioni e sensazioni digitali, ad aumentare lo spazio, la realtà.

Aumentare la realtà. Aggiungere spazi interpretativi, espressivi e critici, usando le tecnologie.

Lo stiamo già facendo: sui social network, sui blog, con i telefoni cellulari, con gli SPIMEs.

Candida TV

Corporate rush

E’ interessante in questo senso osservare l’atteggiamento delle corporation.

Non esiste più un marchio a livello internazionale che possa permettersi di non curare la propria presenza sulla rete. Curatori di reputazione online e di presenze sui social network. Creatori di campagne di comunicazione non convenzionale. Crowdsourcers, viral marketers, SEOs, product placers, aggregatori, creatori di false folle di operai digitali che, travestiti da persone digitali ordinarie si infiltrino in grafi sociali, in forum di discussione, in stream, twit, feeds per diffondere mesaggi e suggestioni.

Queste stanno diventando prassi per i colossi e, adesso, sono già gli strumenti con cui i meno grandi riescono ad ottenere margini di vantaggio nello scontro delle comunicazioni di marketing.

Scandali nati sul web e trasformati, sempre sul web, in promozione e profitto. Piece di teatro digitale ospitati nei siti di user generated content, in cui soggetti falsi (o veri.. cosa importa?) denunciavano fatti veri di aziende vere con video falsi, a cui seguivano smentite vere, fatti falsi, promesse false e falsi cambiamenti di atteggiamento da parte delle reali corporations.

Le quali seguono comunque la pratica dell’adozione e dell’assunzione.

Le pratiche libertarie della rete diventano così territorio di conquista, con le corporation che diventano improvvisamente fautori e sostenitori delle licenze aperte, della possibilità di espressione delle persone (degli utenti, in realtà), delle possibilità di comunicare, partecipare, condividere.

E’ un’esplosione di twit, di post, di commenti, di concorsi, di cause, di eventi. E’ un vertiginoso aumentare di termini che “passano dall’altra parte“. Se fino a ieri i dirigenti erano pronti a spezzarti le gambe se osavi commentare o anche semplicemente suggerire, oggi ti mettono a disposizione almeno una mezza dozzina di luoghi digitali in cui raccontare cosa ne pensi del loro operato, di che colore vorresti la prossima confezione del loro prodotto, di quale pettinatura e stile di abbigliamento apprezzi in un dirigente e, soprattutto, di quanto ami internet e la possibilità di colloquiare così apertamente con la tua corporation preferita.

Questa è, naturalmente, una dimensione puramente narrativa utilizzata non per adottare una reale apertura, quanto per operare ulteriore controllo.

Non vengono mai condivise governance e strategie, e il web e le comunicazioni digitali diventano un salotto in cui narrare le gesta del corporativo positivista, un luogo in cui eliminare di fatto ogni possibilità di critica reale, ridotta a scambi di massimo 140 caratteri. Oltretutto assumendo posizioni di forza garantite dall’esprimere filosofie positive e possibilistiche, di origine californiana, che suggeriscono immaginari ben lontani da quelli del controllo e del potere abbraciati dalle realtà corporative.

Tutto viene inglobato nel linguaggio aziendalista, infarcito di “innovazione“, “cambiamento” ed “apertura“.

Nulla, in realtà, cambia.

What’s up?!?

Situazione disperata?

Un po’ sì, naturalmente. Nel pieno del paradosso della crisi globale ecosistematica sono ancora le corporations a poter disporre e distribuire fondi e risorse, grazie a pratiche oscure (almeno per noi “assenti” dai vertici delle corporazioni stesse) e al fatto che, semplicemente, possano accedere ai fondi “finti” ed “inesistenti” creati grazie a pratiche finanziarie piuttosto che produttive.

L’attacco è sistematico, e vede le corporazioni invadere le città con aperitivi tecnologici, meeting della creatività, serate per l’innovazione. Sorgono centri per i creativi, fondazioni per i giovani imprenditori, incubatori per i geni usciti direttamente da Twitter. Le amministrazioni locali e i reali produttori di cultura ed innovazione si piegano, cercando di attingere alle risorse. Anche in buona fede, magari, pensando di riuscire a promuovere punti di vista critici o culturali. Ovviamente nulla di ciò accade, e tutto viene fagocitato dai linguaggi e dai processi dell’azienda per cui i giovani imprenditori si ritrovano “incubati“, i produttori di cultura diventano “innovators“, i ricercatori diventano “R&D“, i filosofi diventano “strategists“, gli antropologi diventano “market strategists“, gli artisti diventano “creativi“, eccetera, eccetera, eccetera.

La magia si applica ancora: i margini si allontanano ancora sempre di più. Solo che, con internet, si possono parlare molto di più.

Squat!

Cosa/Dove/Quando/Perchè.

Siamo in un mondo pieno di codici, pieno di immagini e di simboli che il potere veste di significati, visioni, aspettative, desideri, politiche, strategie. L’appropriazione, ad opera del potere, di codici, linguaggi e pratiche è volta ad estendere il proprio controllo, e a fornire alle persone interpretazioni preconfezionate, desideri in scatola, valori sintetici e ambizioni di plastica.

Da minaccia ad ex-minaccia, le comunicazioni e le tecnologie digitali si stanno trasformando in ulteriore spazio per la codifica. Coniare nuovi spazi pubblici, delimitare quelli privati, stabilire le politiche dell’accesso e della fruibilità offrendo infrastrutture e servizi. E, soprattutto, formalizzare i processi di critica: dal call center a twitter. “Non parlare più con l’operatore 428! Da oggi puoi parlare direttamente con il nostro Amministratore Delegato! Hai 140 caratteri per farlo! Pensa che, addirittura, risponde...”.

Subvertr by Liens Invisibles

La critica si deve spostare.

Cambiare linguaggi, luoghi, metodologie, pratiche. Deve tornare nello spazio, nel corpo, sugli oggetti, dentro le architetture, nei percorsi e nei luoghi del nostro quotidiano. Deve creare e disseminare codici e simbologie, toccando i domini viscerali, comportamentali e riflessivi.

Il mondo, fortunatamente, non può ricondursi a codifiche rigide e predefinite e, quindi, sono e saranno sempre presenti spazi, varchi, interstizi tra un codice e l’altro. E’ stato vero architettonicamente, con i palazzi dimenticati dall’industria. Psicologicamente, con le TAZ. Fisicamente, con i centri sociali, i rave, gli squat, le occupazioni. E nei contenuti, con il subvertising, il detournement, il surrealismo.

Agire tra i codici, in mezzo alle crepe tra le codifiche, e creare segni, parole, forme e flussi. Ricontestualizzare tutto, sovrapporci significati, interpretazioni e spazi per aggiungerne ancora altri, al di fuori del controllo. Perdere il desiderio di dialogare con il potere, per parlare e agire sopra, di lato, sotto.

La tecnologia può offrire adesso opportunità di generalizzare tutti questi approcci, e di trasformarli in strumenti diffusi e accessibili.

Adottare lo squat come metodologia: identificare spazi non codificati, renderli accessibili, usarli come piattaforma di comunicazione, azione ed espressione.

Realtà++

Possiamo aggiungere elementi al reale. E reinterpretarne altri.

Le tecnologie mobili, gli SPIME, le tecniche di computer vision consentono di creare collegamenti tra il mondo fisico e quello dell’informazione.

Queste tecniche, utilizzate fino ad ora dall’industria e dai militari, portano l’informazione direttamente su corpi, oggetti ed architetture. Il riconoscimento di pattern e immagini, la realtà aumentata, i GPS, i sensori, gli smart tag permettono di marcare cose e luoghi, creando un ponte tra questi e i dati che li riguardano. Usando applicazioni ubique, magari implementate sui telefoni cellulari e i dispositivi mobili di nuova generazione, è possibile avere esperienza di questi collegamenti, di “vederli” attraverso i dispositivi che, di fatto, portano nel reale delle nuove sensibilità, dei sensi aggiuntivi che non sono reattivi a luce, suono o odori, ma all’informazione, alla comunicazione, alle correlazioni.

E’ possibile creare una scrittura nello spazio, sopra di esso, sovrapposta e coesistente al mondo ordinario. E fuori da ogni controllo, in virtù della propria immaterialità. Posso scrivere dovunque, e leggere dovunque. Posso rivendicare nei palazzi del potere. Posso criticare nei luoghi del commercio. Posso sussurrare alle orecchie delle persone negli spazi urbani. Posso urlare dentro i luoghi a me inaccessibili.

Squatting Supermarkets II

iSee

Svoltare l’angolo della corsia. Freddo. Prodotti surgelati. Rumori di carrelli, suoni di bottiglie, plastiche, buste, cartone, rotolar di pasta e cereali. Luce completamente bianca. Scompaiono o si appiattiscono completamente i rossi e rimangono le luci riflesse sulla plastica delle confezioni seriali di alimenti standard dalle forme geometricamente accettabili.

Freddo e parole dietro e davanti, richieste di informazioni, chiamate verso altre corsie, richieste di consensi, smarrimenti.

Mentre sollevo il pacco scelto tra tanti tutti uguali, un piccolo incidente dietro di me: si scontrano due carrelli; vomitano parallelepipedi di cartone, reti in fibra sintetica con dentro arance tutte lucide ed uguali, bottiglie dalle etichette geometricamente psicoattive. La piccola burocrazia dello scontro finisce e tutto riprende nell’ordine: le persone ricominciano a seguire i propri vettori direzionali, dettati dalle abitudini e dalle offerte speciali.

Riafferro il pacco ed estraggo al contempo il cellulare dalla tasca, facendo scorrere il controllo di sblocco con un rapido quanto automatico e calibrato strisciare del mio pollice sullo schermo tattile.

Icone colorate in una mano, una busta fredda e molle nell’altra, piena di mozzarelle dozzinali. Scorro le icone e ne trovo una con un occhio, insistente, bianco su nero. Attivo l’applicazione e subito inquadro con lo schermo del cellulare il logo sulla busta. Premo sul touch screen un pulsante che, nuovamente, raffigura un occhio. L’immagine si ferma, immobilizzando il centro della busta, i suoi colori e le sue forme: rosso, bianco, contorno blu, carattere spesso, leggibile. Una breve attesa. “Prodotto riconosciuto: Mozzarella XYZ”. Le opzioni sullo schermo: “Sono disponibili informazioni su Impatto ecologico, Responsabilità sociale e sostenibilità, Prodotti alternativi. Oppure accedi alla discussione.” 4 icone.

Squatting Supermarkets III

Squatting Supermarkets è una piattaforma. Mentale e tecnologica. E’ un atteggiamento che suggerisce l’uso di diverse tecnologie per creare spazi aggiuntivi alla realtà ordinaria: spazi per la critica, per l’espressione, per l’azione.

L’idea nasce dalla congiunzione di percorsi differenti.

Alcuni estremamente fisici, come quelli che si incontravano all’interno di Superfluo, il supermercato di Roma il cui primo piano è stato a lungo invaso da una gioiosa azione fatta di musica, cose inutili e performance queer, riscoprendo relazioni umane e forme di economia creativa e sostenibile.

Superfluo, (Valeria Guarcini, Dr.Doom, Chiba)

Altri estremamente immateriali in cui le tecnologie venivano usate per reinterpretare il web, i motori di ricerca, i flussi di informazioni offerti da governi e siti di social networking.

Altri ancora a invadere corpi e menti con nuove forme di sensazione e comunicazione, creando identità completamente nuove per forma e sostanza, o riportandone in vita di vecchie, reimmaginate nel surreale mondo delle realtà virtuali.

E’ il NeoRealismo Virtuale, la creazione di spazi immateriali digitali sovrapposti a corpi ed architetture, come luoghi della narrazione, della performance, del flusso di conoscenza e coscenza.

Squatting Supermarkets IV

Squatting Supermarkets combina diverse piattaforme: iSee, una applicazione iPhone per la creazione di sistemi di informazione e comunicazione localizzati su loghi e simboli; Ubiquitous Publishing, un insieme di tecnologie usate per creare contenuti territoriali ed architettonici, fruibili direttamente dai luogi attraversati usando dispositivi mobili e realtà aumentata; architettura rel:attiva, DpSdC e OneAvatar, una serie di piattaforme tecnologiche in grado di collegare corpi e architetture ad internet e ai mondi virtuali.

Squatting Supermarkets

L’obiettivo è duplice.

Da un lato, mettere a sistema pratiche e tecnologie, per creare un framework aperto per creare spazi di realtà aumentata, per collegare corpi e informazioni, per realizzare forme di interattività tecnologica accessibili e naturali.

Dall’altro lato attuare azioni e avviare narrative multiautoriali, diffuse, emergenti.

Squatting Supermarkets @ ToShare 2009, Market Forces

Squatting Supermarkets sarà presente al Piemonte Share Festival, come special project nell’ambito della mostra “Market Forces“, a Torino dal 3 all’8 Novembre 2009.

Squatting Supermarkets

Una installazione permanente ed un worshop esperienziale esporranno in varie forme i concetti e le pratiche descritte in Squatting Supermarkets.

Una trama narrativa mirerà a raccontare il retroscena del mercato, della vita dei prodotti, dei loro produttori, dei loro spostamenti, accoppiamenti, accorpamenti.

L’obiettivo è oltrepassare la visione del mondo offerta dai poteri globali e raccontare l’altra parte della storia, fatta di persone, città, ambienti naturali, risorse energetiche, povertà, ricchezze, differenze.

Tre sono i movimenti della narrazione.

1) l’Ambiente. Un iPhone è disposto in modo da permettere ai visitatori di guardare uno scaffale di un supermercato attraverso il visore. Nell’inquadratura, tocando sullo schermo i prodotti sullo scaffale, appaiono informazioni sul loro impatto ambientale, sulle politiche ecologiche e di responsabilità sociale dei loro produttori, sulle statistiche globali della loro produzione, assemblaggio, trasporto. I suoni del supermercato si miscelano a quelli di voci narranti, che raccontano le statistiche e le informazioni.

2) le Storie. Lo scaffale di un supermercato prende vita. Avvicinandosi ai prodotti le voci, i suoni e le immagini dei loro produttori si animano, a stabilire un rapporto con i frequentatori del supermercato, a cui raccontano la propria storia e quella delle loro famiglie, le loro abitudini, le condizioni in cui producono i prodotti che vanno a finire lì, sullo scaffale.

3) i Corpi. Dopo aver dato la parola ai prodotti, la terza parte è dedicata all’espressione delle persone che attraversano gli spazi del supermercato. I percorsi, il movimento delle mani e di altre parti del corpo, e i suoni e le parole di soggeti, carrelli, oggetti, diventano una colonna sonora e una ambientazione visiva generative per l’ultima parte dell’installazione.

Il workshop esperienziale (il 5 Novembre 2009) ci permetterà di raccontare i dettagli tecnici e concettuali dietro la realizzazione del framework e dell’installazione e di sperimentare dispositivi ed applicazioni.

Bluetooth Wars @ AHACKTITUDE

AOS wil be at the AHACKTITUDE meeting in Milan, on November 27-28-29 in Milan.

We will present a really simple, but effective, project, called Bluetooth Wars

We will analyze Bluetooth, a technology that is mostly used to connect devices to our mobile phones, but that can be transformed into a powerful tool for local, pervasive and independent communications.

We will create an open source bluetooth media server and do some experimentations in media distributions, experimenting the aesthetics of mobile media and the practices of pervasive communication.

As a side issue, we will also use our media server to research on the possibilities offered by mobile technologies to observe people, their habits, their movements. We will try to wear the clothes of the Big Brother for once, to investigate just how observed we can be while using our mobile phones and other electronic devices.

Angel_F's new Blog

Angel_F has a new blog, and a wikipedia entry:

Angel_F on Wikipedia

the child AI is also now on Facebook: you can chat with it, and contribute to its growth and evolution.

Angel_F on Facebook

Angel_F

Angel_F

REFF, RomaEuropaFAKEFactory was featured in an article on Wired Italia, October 2009 issue REFF on Wired

REFF, RomaEuropaFAKEFactory was featured in an article on Wired Italia, October 2009 issue

Success!

Great News for REFF, RomaEuropa FakeFactory!

REFF logo, RomaEuropa FakeFactory

RomaEuropa Web Factory’s second edition is about to start up.

REFF attended the press conference held at the Opificio Telecom in Rome, on Wednsday September 16h 2009, to check out the informations that were being diffused on the web about the innovations of this year’s edition of the Fondazione Romaeuropa’s networked competition.

While watching the press conference, it seemed as if we were looking in the mirror. Because RomaEuropa WebFactory 2009/2010 edition is actually indistinguishable from last year’s RomaEuropa FakeFactory!

• Open licenses.
  
• The works are remixes of existing ones.
  
• Democratic voting.
  
• Experts and academics evaluating the submitted works through their reviews

All of these things are going to be included in this year’s RomaEuropa WebFactory, whose structure, thus, becomes indistinguishable from the FakeFactory!

And there’s more.

Beatpick. Beatpick is part of REFF, and they are the main partner form the music section (100Samples). Beatpick has been called to manage RomaEuropa WebFactory’s music section for this year’s competition.

Summing up: same rules, open lincenses adoption, same practices, and even our main music partner handling the music section.

:)

We think that this is a great victory.

RomaEuropa WebFactory adopted all of the instances suggested by REFF’s critique. And we’re happy about it.

And we even got proper credit for the effectiveness of our action: REFF was mentioned multiple times during the press conference as the main factor bringing on this year’s change.

It’s not over, yet.

REFF project goes on by producing about 3 minor events by the end of the year, with one to present the publication that includes the academic productions of our scientific committee.

And then, in 2010, we’ll have an enormous initiative. But we’ll leave it as a little suspence for the next few days. :)

Stay Tuned!

FakePress at Dulp 2009, presenting Ubiquitous Anthropology and Saperi p2p

We will be at the DULP 2009 meeting at the Tor Vergata University on September 14th and 15th, 2009, to present FakePress and, specifically Ubiquitous Anthropology (presented by Luca Simeone) and Saperi p2p (presented by Salvatore Iaconesi).

The DULP is an international meeting focused on innovative approaches to learning and education practices: Design Inspired Learning, Ubiquitous Learning, Liquid Learning Places, Person in Place Centered Design. Mobile technologies, cultural ecosystems, design applied to learning and culture will be among the main subjects for discussion among the many international researchers that will contribute to the event.

We will present two projects of our FakePress cross-media publishing house:

ubiquitous anthropology

Ubiquitous Anthropology, using mobile applications with a location based approach to create a narrative environment through which anthropologists will be able to represent the multiplicity of voices that are present in their ethnographic observations, thus building interactive, polyphonic, multiauthor narratives;

saperi p2p

Saperi p2p is a mobile-enabled digital ecosystem that allows for ubiquitous collaboration among research projects. Usable through web and iPhone, it allows for the creation of research teams (or education, or professional, or any other kind…) that can collaborate cross-medially: places, times, contents, communication… the p2p system allows for a realtime connection between the participants. It is like a hyperlocal social network that can be used to create a digital context for collaborative groups. Groups can be connected, forming operative, p2p onthologies that allow for knowledge sharing and multidisciplinary approaches to culture and science.

Salvatore Iaconesi and Luca Simeone will present the projects for FakePress, and will provide a demo platform throuh which you will be able to try the systems out.

ToShare website, Market Forces

The new ToShare website is up!

the new ToShare website

You can check it out here on http://www.toshare.it
We’re particularly happy both because it was a joint effort between Art is Open Source and because it is yet another beautiful collaboration that we’re bringing up with them.

The website has been in design for quite a while, as we planned for the creation of quite a complex setup. What we had in mind was to create a platform in which people could contribute to the contents of the website by enabling a re-blogging environment.

The ToShare team is currently getting people involved in the areas of design, new technologies, contemporary arts, circuit bending, robotics, and more. If you think you have something interesting to say, and can expose it through a RSS feed from your blog or website, write them a line or two explaining what you’re up to and chances are that you could join in the platform.

More info on the ToShare website.

And, if you don’t already know about it, get ready for Market Forces, the 2009 edition of the ToShare Festival. Guest curator Andy Cameron joins the Share team to explore the contemporary world through complexity and crisis. And we’ll have something to say about that, too. But we’ll leave it as a surprise, for the near future.

In the meanwhile, we leave you with just a hint on what we’ll be collaborating on together with the Share Festival team: Squatting Supermarkets.

Stay tuned.

interaction design on Disegno Industiale n.39

Disegno Industriale 39

The new issue of Disegno Industriale is out, , focused on Interaction Design.

You can check it out here. There’s also an article I wrote about John Maeda and the great influence he had on creativity through computing.

Hope you enjoy it.

Here is a short summary and the index:

“From designing the shape of objects to shaping the design of behaviours: next issue will explore interaction as a form to design in order to shape a world which can be more intelligent and friendly. After high-tech, technology hides itself within our artificial world, in order to become ane everyday presence.”

Tonino Paris
Dipendenze tecnologiche
Technology Addiction

Derrick de Kerckhove | Donald Norman | Bruce Sterling
Augmented Design

Lorenzo Imbesi

DESIGNing interACTIONS

Troy Nachtigall
TechnoFashion

Salvatore Iaconesi
MaedaMedia

Silvio Cioni
L’Oggetto dell’Interazione

The Object of Interaction
Luca Simeone
Oltre l’interazione naturale
Beyond Natural Interaction

Lorenzo Imbesi

Is This Your Future?

Loredana Di Lucchio
La fabbrica dell’ingegno

The mind factory

Carlo Ratti | Assaf Biderman | Eugenio Morello | Francisca Rojas
WikiCities

Federico Casalegno
Pervasive and Mobile

Patrizia Scarzella

La dimensione invisibile del design
The hidden dimension of design

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

Mighty Mouse

(courtesy of Disegno Industriale)

Art is Open Source xDxD.vs.xDxD, art, opensource, technology, body, architecture, design, artificial intelligence, digital ecosystems, emotion, relation, hacking

Art is Open Source xDxD.vs.xDxD, art, opensource, technology, body, architecture, design, artificial intelligence, digital ecosystems, emotion, relation, hacking

delicious poetry, once again

delicious poetry

I once again reactivated the delicious poetry piece. It hasn’t been working in a while because delicious.com’s website had changed its web page structure, but now it’s back up.

You can see it by clicking this [ LINK ] (WARNING: it may hang your browser!)

delicious poetry grabs internet’s faourite links in realtime and uses their contents to visually build a chaotic poem. An everchanging complex composition built on people’s wishes, desires, tastes and emotions.

delicious poetry

Generative art has been known to research on multiple subjects: from reconsidering the role of artists and authors, to researching into the structures of language, to the analysis of natural phenomena, to deep diving into code, chaos and complexity, up to the uplifting experiences brought on by discovering noise and randomness as primary creative energies.

delicious poetry grabs handfuls of enjoyment from all of this, and adds to it a little joke i constantly try to play to internet service providers and to search engines. A small, playful critique to the mechanisms they use to scan the web to provide us with the things we constantly are looking for. And, obviously, a small critique to the trust that we tend to put on them, as well.

In fact, something funny happened in the past with delicious poetry. The generative poems composed by the work produce pages that are a dynamic assemblage of the things that internet users deem as being interesting at a certain time. This is why search engines and content aggregators seem to find these chaotic poems so interesting, finding them completely filled with the “hot” keywords of the moment. So much that they tent to spider, cache, index, rate and categorize them.

delicious poetry

The first time I released delicious poetry I was actually amazed. A few days after it started out, it began to generate thousands of human and not-human visits per second! And aggregators started to categorize it under the most incredible topics, ranging from pornography to gadgets to cars… and on.

I guess there are hundreds of automatic mechanisms people use to fool search engines. And this has helped me to take interest on more than one issue related to search angines and to the accessibility of web content: the invisible web, the Dark Internet.

On one side, the tons of useless results that we get when we search for stuff on the web. On the other side, the fact that “Internet” does not mean “automatically accessible”, for reasons that go beyond the power of single individuals, and referring to the fact that search engines do not index a lot of things, or that censorhip exists, and more like that. (note: entire web search engines are dedicated to the deep web. DeepDyve and DeepPeep, to name two).

Even web statistics and analytics are affected by delicious poetry, getting referral codes, analytics codes and statistics application hooks used in ways that are different than the ones they were intended for, hijacking entre websites’ access statistics.

I naturally meant no harm or damage in doing this, but knowing that it is possible to fake, to mock-up, to reinvent what we know about the web, its accessibility, its control, is just plain interesting in itself.

http://www.artisopensource.net/2009/06/10/ubiquitous-publishing-fakepress-frontiers-of-interaction-v/

Back again. After the overview on Frontiers of Interaction V in the previous article we’ll present our contribution to the event.

Fake Press. Ubiquitous Publishing.

Ubiquitous publishing and Ubiquitous Anthropology. The next-step in publishing practices and platforms, united with a research on the possibilities offered by location based technologies and by novel approaches to knowledge dissemination, communication and expression. We (Luca Simeone and Salvatore Iaconesi) presented our research at Frontiers of Interaction V in Rome (June 2009), together with the first two applications and an open call.

Everything starts off from the idea of a contemporary evolution of publishing practices. Technologies, the possibility to create platforms to enable relation, expression and emotion and the availability of tools to share, disseminate and interact on knowledge and cultural productions, are all factors that made us feel the fundamental importance of designing new concepts and practices.

The scenarios described by location-based media, by the possibility to mix and cross the borders across different media, and the infinite spaces created by augmented reality were the influences that shaped our research.

Fake Press, Ubiquitous Anthropology

We investigated on how technologies and new forms of interactions with other people and with places, time, architectures and objects would change the ways in which information can be created, communicated, shared and distributed. From an anthropological point of view we asked ourselves where would faces and voices emerge from, the self-expressions and representations of people and of their identities. And we also questioned the destinations for these informations, observing the fluid, mutating scenarios that surround us, with wireless, localized, immaterial, augmented layers of reality stratifying on top of the merely-physical one, creating totally new worlds in which information can become part of bodies, of architectures, of spaces, walls, trees, objects.

Displays, interstices, coordinates, tags And gestures, natural interfaces and moving, walking. Using the body to move through space as in an action of reading. We were truly intrigued by the transofrmation of space, by its augmentation with new narratives, new possibilities for the expression of the multiple voices and points of view that constitute the world.

So we designed our very own interpretaton for the idea of Ubiquitous Publishing. Cross-device, cross-medial, multi-author, emergent narratives.

The first idea was iSee, an application that allows for the creation of narratives on logos and brands. The application allows people to use their mobile phones to extract information directly from logo images: take a picture of your favourite detergent and, if the logo is already part of the collaborative database, you can get information from it.

Logo identifies brand, identifies company.

We suggested some possibilities, showing informations on social responsibility, on environmental policies, on the pollution rates connected to product manufacturing. Products come alive and communicate, in a simple, accessible form of augmented reality in which information is embedded into objects.

The second idea was Ubiquitous Anthropology.

A location-based platform allows for the positioning of the expressions, emotions and perspectives of multiple voices. These can be accessed through mobile technologies directly from the geographical locations, allowing people to experience and come in contact with other’s points of view and ideas.

In this form the world itself becomes “readable”. Reading by crossing spaces and architectures.

Reading other people’s texts, watching the images and videos they captured with their cameras, observing their evolution through time an through relations with other people.

The first application shown on this theme, was created by positioning onto the territory the results of a foundamental research by professor Massimo Canevacci and several students and researchers, who travelled many times to Mato Grosso, Brasil, and performed researches on the Bororo. Videos and images created by the Bororo were positioned onto the geography, thus creating a layer of interpretation of land, events and relations that is not covered in any way by classical media, and that allow us to “read” directly on the territory how the members of these populations interpret their land, the other populations they interact and relate with, their culture.

The system has provided as a incredibly useful tool to communicate these population’s political instances. The Bororo are not represented in Brasil’s institutions, allowing for unlimited exploitation of their lands and people. The possibilities offered by the platforms allowed us to write Bororo’s political instances, their desires and expectations, directly in the “places of power” of Brasil’s government. In Brasilia, several institutional buildings have been tagged with the videos and texts of their political demands, thus creating the only form of institutional presence that is currently allowed and accessible for them. In the idea that giving people the control on media and on their own expression and communication is possibly the only viable way to freedom and auto-determination.

The two examples constitute real applications that will be made available and downloadable online on the FakePress website in just a few days from the date of creation of this post. They are currently being enhanced to form functioning frameworks that can be used for these and other projects.

Some of the application’s content is already available on FakePress, and the full applications for web and iPhone will be available for download in a couple of days.

We are curently promoting the call for participation to the project, stimulating the discussion on the next products to publish with Fake Press.

So, if you have a book, research or other content you are going to publish, and you want so explore with us the possibilities to publish it in these ways, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Frontiers of Interaction V, June 2009

today we’ve been at Frontiers of Interaction V

Frontiers of Interaction

probabily the most interesting interaction design event in Italy. It’s the most interesting (and only one :) ) in Rome, for sure.

We’ve been there to present FakePress, our next-step publishing house, with two “ubiquitous” projects: iSee, interstitial narratives for shopping centers, and Ubiquitous Anthropology, location based technologies for ethnographic research.

But more on that later. First of all: the meeting.

Frontiers of Interacton V took place in the beautiful Acquario Romano. We’ve been there from the day before, setting up screens, projections, sounds and kilometers of cables.

The meeting originates from idearium.org, a community in which designers, technologists, anthropologists and creatives of all sorts meet sharing points of view on contemporary society, and on the ways in which it is shaped and mutated through technology and its practices.

The meeting shares the same conceptual setup: people come there and, basically, show what they’re up to. People of all sorts: from international superstars of interaction design to students and younger innovators ready, energetic and willing to showcase their creations.

This year (it is the fifth edition), there have been several interesting highlights.

Complexity, visualization, the emergence of natural interfaces, gestuality. And an ever more focused awareness on the needs to integrate a deep understanding of the world that is around us, ecologically, socially and politically.

The hybridization of practices and the idea of human awareness were recurring concepts in the contributions.

As Daniele Galiffa of Visual Complexity, showing the ways in which data visualizations can rise the level of awareness, by communicating in expressive ways environmental impacts, cause-effect relations, world mutation. And describing the frontier for infovisualizations and infoaesthetics, which is the representation of social data, and the delegation of the tools for visualization to the “social”.

Or the wonderful Adam Greenfield, with his “Elements of a networked Urbanism“, which managed to perfectly avoid the declaration of yet another manifesto of some kind, and instead presented an observation of the emergence of new patterns in cityscapes. A series of “before” and “after” scenarios, highlighting some really interesting points of view. Entirely new ways of using cities, unthninkable even just a few years ago. From wayfinding to wayshowing, Adam showed many mutations in which social dynamics truly materialize themselves, allowing people to actively share their views on the world. Even bypassing the idea of “optimization”, typical of previous designs. The ideas, for example, of systems telling you the “best” way how to get from point A to point B cuts off several parts of your experience of cities, which are also composed of several “inefficiencies” that are far from being “bad”, providing you social experiences, enjoyment and rythms, feelings and well-being. “Noise” as not being a negative experience, but a creative, cultural one.

David Orban also presented a truly interesting point of view with his Consciousness Panopticon, introducing the Singularity University and showing the trends in which various people are getting ready for the progression through which we are living, in technological evolution, to our own ability to understand what is happening around us.

Or professor Liam Bannon, demoloshing the idea of “intelligent” devices, or the romantic suggestions coming from artificial intelligence, and promoting the perspective of technology that supports creative and critical thinking, in the development of an etherogeneously positive and (sociallly) interactive world.

Andrea Gaggioli presented in his “Ecologia Partecipativa” a set of ecologic scenarios and the tools through which we all can research, observe and react to our impacts on the environment.

Then Carlo Maria Medaglia of Rome’s CATTID multi-faculty center, presenting some stunnig projects on mobility, technological approaches to disabilities and, in general, several forms of open source approaches to create functional enviroments that are embedded in the natural, urban and social environment, from infrastructure, to hardware, to software.

And other, many things which you will find documented of FoI’s website.

and, in the next upcoming article, we’ll describe our own personal contribution: Ubiquitous Anthropology, by Luca Simeone and Salvatore Iaconesi.

More info at Frontiers of Interactions

Here some videos

report: RomaEuropaFAKEFactory @ LPM 2009

We’re just back from the intense 4 days of the Live Performers Meeting 2009 where REFF (RomaEuropaFAKEFactory) held its new showcase.

LPM2009 really has been full of surprises, and we were more than happy to share the spaces of the Brancaleone with over 300 video artists from all over the world. From live video to electronic modding, up to incredible workshops and performances.

REFF curated the first day of the meeting, focused on “Digital Freedoms“.

Many people, groups and associations joined in the event.

Starting from Russel Carrens of myRMX, which we invited as an example of an effective business model enacted through smart usage of open licenses for music. This young startup (it didn’t exist 6 weeks ago) is creating quite a stir with its mobile application, allowing users to create remixes starting from the musics and samples of young artists, who get regularly paid and wonderfully distributed. “We want to make music an open process” is what Russell says about the project.

And then Brett Gaylor and Perpetual Art Machine.

Brett is a film maker up to really exciting projects. His OpenSource Cinema allows people to collaboratively create movies and that’s what he’s doing with his documentary “RiP: a Remix Manifesto”, telling the tale of mashup artist Girl Talk and describing the worldwide situation on creativity and intellectual property. RiP was shown during a workshop that explained how video artists could join in and submit their content to the project, contributing to the final version of the movie and getting their name and art shown around the world. (and for all of you videomakers reading: the process’s still open, and you’re all invited to join, here

Perpetual Art Machine was invited as a beautiful and effective example of the ways in which open processes for cultural promotion can turn into forms of art. PAM, founded by Chris Borkowski, Aaron Miller, Raphaele Shirley and Lee Wells, is an art project that created an online platform through which artists could promote and showcase their video productions. All the works are collected into a complex installation that, when exhibited, allows visitors to browse and live mix all the videos, creating one enormous and emotional performance.

“As a pam member who’s work has been accepted in to the project we encourage you to list these exhibitions on your artistic resume”

This statement, written under the impressive list of PAM exhibitions, says it all: an open, cared-for, project, actively promoting videoarts and creating beautiful emotions.

[coverage on national television]

We invited PAM at the REFF roundtable, and we were trying to get their installation here, but no money and time were available, so we agreed on getting the installation here on November, at REFF’s final event. PAM’s videos were showcased at the LPM2009 on a simpler dedicated setup for the whole duration of the meeting, attracting quite an interesting audience.

REFF’s roundtable was quite hard to organize. A series of problems with our internet provider made the network practically unusable, so we had to give up trying to get the remote guests connected to the conference (Brett Gaylor, Raphaele Shyrley, Marco Fagotti of Anomolo Records and Simona Lodi of Piemonte Share Festival). But the live discussion proved quite interesting, seeing a lively debate rise up among the invited guests: Jaromil, Leo Sorge, Rossella Ongaretto, Russel Carrens, Lorenzo Imbesi, and Alessandro Ferrante, coming to the festival to bring us the voice of the Cultural Department of Rome’s City Administration. The debate turned out to be quite intersting, effectively expressing the tension among the need for access to resources needed to promote and sustain arts and creativity, and the surge of energy coming from the opportunities offered by new media and technologies: administrations trying to find the best ways to provide infrastructures and support, enterpreneurs leveraging new ideas and practices, creatives looking far ahead, with design, peer to peer practices and radical approaches providing fresh ideas to the whole ecosystem. A tough situation, with the parties involved having somewhat of a hard time talking to each other, seen their different backgrounds and perspectives, but a truly significative encounter opening up dialogues and confrontations.

The meeting went on, and REFF’s info point was visited by hundreds of people. In the exhibit, all the works currently submitted to the competition have been showcased, using a dedicated computer on which people could navigate the website and see/read/hear the submissions and ask questions to the ones of us that constantly attended the exhibit.

We also created a small installation, for the delight of the people at the meeting. TCDTT (Throwing Copyright Down The Toilet) featured a toilet and a simple interaction mechanism: when you flushed it, thousands of copyright protected images were mixed automatically together, creating totally original new works. Thus proving the point of the inadequacy of current intellectual property laws and practices.

Some of REFF’s partners also performed live at LPM2009, such as Nephogram, with their beautiful REFFlex Animazon, or as the guys from MuVideo.

The last day of the festival saw the AHA network meet at the LPM for the preAHACamping, the meeting on Art Hacktivism. Another pre-meeting will take place at the Hackmeeting in Milan, to prepare an event in November/december 2009.. but you’ll hear about that really soon. :)

And that’s all! :)

Rome, Tram #8, before the earthquake

tram #8 rome, before the earthquake

Tram #8, before the earthquake

RomaEuropaFAKEFactory - REFF.erence report

REFF.erence

Mar. 20th, Italian Senate - Senato

REFF, RomaEuropaFAKEFactory, was presented at the Italian senate through an intense series of panels dealing with art/culture/creativity in the contemporary era, with the issues of cultural politics from the points of view of institutions and cultural operators, with the possibility for the enactment of innovative business and legal models for art, creativity and culture. the conference launch the proposal of a digital table of discussion with the Senator & vice president of the Cultural Commission Vincenzo Vita, who hosted the event.

REFF, RomaEuropaFAKEFactory, è stata presentata al Senato Italiano attraverso un’intensa serie di panel che hanno trattato temi quali arte/cultura/creatività nel contemporaneo affrontando nodi quali le politiche culturali dal punto di vista degli operatori e delle istituzioni pubbliche e private, orientando il dibattito all’ideazione di nuovi modelli di produzione. La conferenza lancia la proposta di un tavolo sulla cultura digitale con il Senatore Vincenzo Vita vicepres. della Commissione Cultura, che ha ospitatol’evento.

REFF.ternoon

Mar. 21st, Flexi Bookstore

REFF, RomaEuropaFAKEFactory, hosts the second part of REFF.ERENCE at the Libreria Flexi with the title REFF.ternoon. The presentation of Luca Neri’s new book “La Baia dei Pirati - Assalto al Copyright” is the occasion to discuss the issues of intellectual property, cultural change, and innovative practices, at the basics of REFF’s concept.

REFF, RomaEuropaFAKEFactory, ospita la seconda parte di REFF.RENCE alla libreria Flexi con il titolo REFF.ternoon. La presentazione del libro del giornalista Luca Neri “La Baia dei Pirati - Assalto al Copyright” diventa l’occasione di affrontare tematiche sulla proprietà intellettuale, trasformazione culturale e pratiche innovative che sono alla base del concept del REFF.

REFF.jected Mar. 21st NEO Club

In a wonderful collaboration with the Rejected collective, REFF, RomaEuropaFAKEFactory, arrives at the third part of its traversal of the contemporary metropolis, with REFF.jected, a party themed on the “remixing people” attitude. Bodies-desires-sexualities-..aesthetics-faces-ideas are remixed by accessing Rome’s underground attitudes and mindsets: Djs. Vjs, Liv acts, dance floors, installations, performances promoting happiness.

In splendida collaborazione con il collettivo Rejected, REFF, RomaEuropaFAKEFactory, arriva alla terza parte dei suoi attraversamenti nella metropoli contemporanea, con REFF.jected; un party con l’attitudine “remixing people”. Corpi-desideri-sessualità-..estetiche-facce-idee sono remixate penetrando nelle frequenze e nei mind sets della Roma underground con Djs, Vjs, Live Sets, Dancefloors, installazioni, perfomances alla volta della felicità.

REFF.erence - RomaEuropa FAKEFactory conference and launch event

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PROGRAM

REFF.erence romaeuropa fake factory flyer

REFF.erence romaeuropa fake factory conference and launch party

[ ENGLISH ]

RomaeuropaFAKEFactory [REFF]

presents

[ REFF.erence ]

Friday 20th and Saturday 21st, March 2009 @ Rome

The international competition RomaEuropaFAKEFactory re-lauches in Rome on March 20th and 21st with two dense days dedicated to the theme “Freedom to Remix“: at the Italian Senate, at the Libreria Flexi and at the Neo Club, with a triple event crossing the borders between different spaces and contexts of the metropolis, from institutional ones to the night clubbing scene of via Libetta.

The Italian Senate, it its “ex Hotel Bologna” (via di S.Chiara 4), hosts, on March 20th, 10:00 to 14:00

[ REFF.erence ]
“Cultural politics and management of intellectual property in the contemporary era” (*)

a coference-debate in which the competition becomes the trigger to start up a dialogue on the meanings of art, culture and creativity, on the management of cultural politics, on the relationships between new business models and the law for what concerns copyright, patents and intellectual property, starring REFF promoters, featuring video interventions by Derrick de Kerckhove, Massimo Canevacci, Carlo Infante, with senator Vincenzo Vita summing up and drawing conclusions and perspectives.

Among the others: councillor Giulia Rodano, councillor Cecilia D’Elia, Luca Neri, casaluce/geiger synusy@cyborg, Simona Lodi, Arturo Di Corinto, Francesco Monico, Stefano Coletto, Francesco “Warbear” Macarone Palmieri, Gianluca del Gobbo, Valeria “Jemma Temp” Guarcini, Alex Giordano, Davide D’Atri, Guido Scorza, Marco Scialdone, Valerio Mattioli, OtherehtO, Marco Fagotti, Rosella Ongaretto, Francesco Magnocavallo.

On March 21st starting at 18:00 let’s meet for a

[ REFF.ternoon ]

at the Flexi Cafè Library, in the heart of Rione Monti, for the presentation of the book “Assalto al Copyright” (Assaulting Copyright) (Edizioni Cooper), introduced by Arturo di Corinto; after that the author, Luca Neri, will meet the guests and host a meeting-debate. The evocative ex factory will be animated with the “Flight SynEp” new media art installation by OtherehtO.

Following up, starting at 23:00 and into the night,

[ REFF.jected ]
RomaEuropaFAKEFactory Launch Party

In the invisible space of the Neo Club, Rejected invites its rejects to the continuous pirate remix of identities, playing on the concept of inclusion/exclusion and on musical remix, digital, human, experiential, in a series of performances, installations, live VJ sets and DJ sets.

in the Red Room:

“Empty Mirror“, live performance by Global Groove, a couple of visionary unfair artists that have been working on the idea of the noise of fragments for 20 years;

“Remixing People” by xDxD.vs.xDxD, the inventor of [A]rt is [O]pen [S]ource and creator of cyber bodies and robotic and software arts, and Kevin Pistone, historical figure of Rome’s independent photohraphy scene and founder of the MyJemmaTemp workshop, joining forces with an installation and a photographic set challenging each other disassembling and reassembling people’s bodies.

All in the frame of ATOMIC, the new qeer party that will instantiate its imaginaries built on indie disco and obscene pop with Bebop on the controls, the exhibits and performances by Martin Dee vs Industria Indipendente.

In the Caveau:

an environmental interzone running from Zanzibar to William Burroughs, with a 4 DJ squad, 3 VJs and a videoart installation:

Opening set with the tech house by Jason K, Neo Resident and promoter of the Bootleg and Fonia parties.

Following up, a part of the history to come of the subversive Rome penetrating the world thrugh the paths of D.I.Y. , party culture and the Queer imaginaries of the Phag Off project. Warbear connects plots and configures libertarian dancefloors with a set of Incredibly Strange Techno, mashing up spoken words and vocal samples to 4-quarters narrative structures.

Then Bit_Repeat, Rejected resident Djs, with a techno and minimal set.

The video setup is curated by LPM, the global meeting of live video performances, providing the best performers from the roster of Flyer Visual Agency.

Infidel (Phag Off, L-ektrika,Loaded, Anarchy in the Club), Nikky (Phag Off, Sick Marylin) and Aira (L-ektrika, Kitchen) will alternate at the video controls creating umoral un-pop visions.

The BEAT-ify installation will allow you to loose yourself in the extasy of the synesthesia created between berzerk generative cut-ups and the beats of the dancefloor, under the cures of the FLxER team and xDxD.vs.xDxD

Kanu, party shooter and Rejected promoter, will be the witness of the party.

And the news are not yet over.

RomaeuropaFAKEFactory adds two new sections and a new deadline (May 15th 2009)

100Flash, dedicated to GIF art

and

100Spaces, dedicated to design, architecture and landscape

Starting from March 20th, the new web site will be available: a brand new Open Source platform to manage competitions and a social network. By using it artists will be able to register their remix artworks to the literary (100Quotes), music (100Samples), video (100Cuts), LawArt (legal remix of legislative texts on copyright and patents), and to the two new sections: 100Flash and 100Spaces.

More information on the official website of the project

www.romaeuropa.org

RomaeuropaFAKEFactory is a project by

[A]rt is [O]pen [S]ource

in collaboration with

Torino Share Festival - DegradArte - Istituto per le Politiche dell’Innovazione - BeatPick - ComputerLaw 2.0 - LPM, Flyer Communication - PerformngMedia - FLxER - ShockArt.net - NeRVi - Digicult - Associazione Partito Pirata - Nephogram.net - Les Liens Invisible - A.H.A. - Francesco “Warbear” Macarone Palmieri - Superfluo - Deliriouniversale - My Jemma Temp - ArtsBlog.it - CodiceBinario - PEAM - Artificialia - Biodoll - Ninja Marketing - Arturo di Corinto - Linux-Club - Guido Vetere - The National Cynical Network - NoemaLab - Free Hardware Foundation - Collettivo Nove - Yesmoke - IPJustice - Rejected - casaluce/geiger synusy@cyborg - Fake - Liber Liber - Domenico Quaranta - ESpace paRtout - creActive commUnity - Metromorfosi - Descentro – Anomolo – Giovanni Ziccardi – Wilfied Agricola de Cologne – Isotype - aStronza - Ramallah Underground - Uqbar - Luisa Valeriani - SIFIR - m-node - muvideo - E32 - Leo Sorge - myMedia - Derrick de Kerckhove - OtherethO - netBehaviour - Milano in Digitale…

…

(*) to attend the coference write to:

info@romaeuropa.org

————————————————————————–

Program Detail

.: Friday March 20th, 2009

REFF.erence - 10:00-14:30

conference-debate - Ex Hotel Bologna , Senato della Repubblica via di S. Chiara 4

“Freedom to Remix”. Cultural politics and intellectual property management in the contemporary era: presentation of the international competition RomaEuropaFAKEFactory

[ ore 10:00 - 10:30 ]

REFF Opening: “origins of RomaEuropaFAKEFactory”

Salvatore Iaconesi (aka xDxD) Art is Open Source

[ ore 10:20 - 11:20 ]

Panel 1 “art, culture and creativity in the contemporary era”

moderator: Rossella Ongaretto

video-intervention by Massimo Canevacci

introduction: Francesco “Warbear” Macarone Palmieri

roundtable: casaluce-geiger synusi@cyborg, OtherethO, Gennaro Francione, Valerio Mattioli

[ ore 11:20 - 12:40 ]

Panel 2 “the management of the politics of culture, art and creativity”

moderator: Valeria “Jemma Temp” Guarcini

introduction: Simona Lodi

roundtable: Francesco Monico, Gianluca del Gobbo, Stefano Coletto, Arturo Di Corinto, Ass. Giulia Rodano, ass. Cecilia D’Elia

Video-intevention by Carlo Infante

[ ore 12:40 - 13:00 ] coffee break

[ ore 13:00 - 14:00 ]

Panel 3 “economic models and innovation: business and management models for contemporary intellectualproperty”

moderator: Luca Neri

introduction: Alex Giordano

roundtable: Davide D’Atri, Guido Scorza, Marco Scialdone, Marco Fagotti, Francesco Magnocavallo

[ore 14:00 - 14:15 ]

REFF Perspectives

Oriana Persico (NeRVi)

video-intervention by Derrick De Kerkove

[ ore 14:15 - 14:30 ]

Conclusions/greetings

sen. Vincenzo Vita (vice president of the Cultural Commission of the Italian Senate)

.: Saturday March 21st, 2009

[ ore 18:00-21:00 ]

REFF.ternoon

Aperitif , presentations, installations

Flexi Libreria Caffè - via Clementina 9 Roma

presentation of the book “Assalto al Copyright” (Assaulting Copyright)

introduces: Arturo di Corinto

following up, meeting and debate with Luca Neri, author of the book

video-installation “Flight SynEp” by OtherehtO

[ Ore 23:00-4:30 ]

Rejected & Neo Club present REFF.jected Launch Party

Via degli Argonauti 18 (corner with Via di Libetta)

Red Room Live:

Live: Global Groove presenting “Empty Mirror”

Djs, Perfos & Exhibit : ATOMIC - Mashing the waste (bootlegs/Mash Ups/Nu Disco) - BeBop/Martin Dee/Sabine Jay & The Atomic Kids

Media Art: “Remixing People” by xDxD + Kevin Pistone

Foto: Kanu

Caveau:

Djs: Jason K - Phonia/Bootleg (Tech House) - WARBEAR (Incredibly Strange Techno) Bit_repeat (Minimal Techno)

Vjs: Infidel (FLxER/LPM) Nikky (FLxER/LPM) Aira (FLxER/LPM)

Media Art: “BEAT-ify” xDxD.vs.xDxD + FLxER Team

Foto: Kanu

[FREE ENTRY]

Orson Welles - rejected from the RomaEuropaWebFactory Prize

“I am Orson Welles.
I never really wanted to join Roma Europa Web Factory.
I understand the beauty and significance of a fake.
As for my style, for my vision of the cinema, editing is not simply one aspect; it’s the aspect.
Fake is as old as the Eden tree.
Today I believe that man cannot escape his destiny to create whatever it is we make:
jazz, a wooden spoon, or graffiti on the wall.
All of these are expressions of man’s creativity, proof that man has not yet been destroyed by technology.
But are we making things for the people of our epoch or repeating what has been done before?
And finally, is the question itself important?
We must ask ourselves that.
The most important thing is always to doubt the importance of the question.
I am Orson Welles.
I never really wanted to join Roma Europa Web Factory.”

Orson Welles is one of the most influential artists of the contemporary era, touching the domains of cinema, theatre, fiction, radio in a continuous research that trespasses the borders between art, communication, psychology, performance.
His works gave us the chance to perceive art’s transformation, in a form in which art and falsificaion are divided by boundaries that are ethereal and fluid, eventually overlaying and touching.

Orson Welles’ “the War of the Worlds” radio performance was rejected by the RomaWuropa Web Factory competition.

“This is not original work!” was the scream of the Jury.

Orson Welles now joined RomaEuropaFAKEFactory, here:

http://www.romaeuropa.org

RomaEuropaFAKEFactory: REFF: say what?

REFF RomaEuropa FAKE Factory

Say what?!
RomaEuropaFAKEFactory at the Italian Senate?!?

www.romaeuropa.org

Andy Warhol - rejected from the RomaEuropaWebFactory Prize

Andy Warhol - rejected from the RomaEuropaWebFactory Prize



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfm-ATAsPug

-----

http://www.romaeuropa.org


"I am Andy Warhol.
I could not participate to RomaEuropaWebFactory.
A fake, a fake, what is a fake, anyway?
Nothing is real, the only real things are the ones
that you can reproduce, and make millions of them.
Take a thing everybody knows, change it a bit, and claim it as yours.
This is what our world is about.
We can do it! This is what we should do.
I am Andy Warhol.
I could not participate to RomaEuropaWebFactory.
Noone cares about originality. Originality is just too hard to define.
Go to a supermarket, buy one of everything, and expose it in a gallery.
This is what we should do.
I am Andy Warhol.
I could not participate to RomaEuropaWebFactory."

Andy Warhol's appropriations of the images and of the media, performed by mechanically reproducing commercial products and celebrity images in silkscreens, smooth paintings and facsimiles, poetically expressed some of the most striking and relevant approaches to art of the 20th century. Andy Warhol's video was rejected from the videoart section of the RomaEuropa Web Factory.

"This is not original work!" was the scream of the Jury.

Andy Warhol now joined RomaEuropaFAKEFactory, here:

http://www.romaeuropa.org

William Burroughs - rejected from the RomaEuropaWebFactory

http://www.romaeuropa.org

"I am William Burroughs.
I could not participate to RomaEuropaWebFactory.
Damn those bloody suckers couldn't tell art if it hit them in the forehead.
Deep shadows, close down over culture when culture is not able to catch up with the world it lives in.
I could not participate to RomaEuropaWebFactory.
I could not participate because I am an old man, cutting up pieces of paper, lookig for hidden poetry, forgotten literatures in things that have been thrown away, forgotten, put away, stashed in the trash.
I am William Burroughs.
I could not participate to RomaEuropaWebFactory."

William Burroughs, famous for his cut-up technique, allowing for the creation of beautiful literature compositions by remixing pieces of existing works, was rejected from the literature section of the RomaEuropa Web Factory.

"This is not original work!" was the scream of the Jury.

William Burroughs now joined RomaEuropaFAKEFactory, here:


http://www.romaeuropa.org

Interviewing the Crisis - second phase

“I see this crisis in a continuous way, the world is constantly in a crisis, I formulate this as ‘cultural epileptiscm’ [3], that is that humans tend to loose themselves into extremes, whether these being emotional or rational. The last century is exemplary for this.”
Andreas Jacobs
[ITALIAN]
http://www.interviewingthecrisis.org/?p=47
[ENGLISH]
http://www.interviewingthecrisis.org/?p=45

“Something that was widely expected is happening, even is the acceleration of the economic crisis (and not only financial) is pressing everything against a striking evidence. Resources for culture are about to be drastically cut. And a large part of the professional setups based on public sibsides risks disappearance.”
Carlo Infante
[ITALIAN]
http://www.interviewingthecrisis.org/?p=40
[ENGLISH]
http://www.interviewingthecrisis.org/?p=42

“lifestyle is in itself a part of the unavoidable speculative process of turbocapitalism, in which cool hunters understand the languages of the scenes to transform them into a banal aesthetization that can be sold for a couple of years. A lemon squeezer for cultural production where the experience of the sublime, the sense of disaster, the impact of deflagration, the elimination of the roots, the collapse of the future, disperse themselves in a sterile pantomime that is constructed in a laboratory, and makes me throw up.”
Francesco “Warbear” Macarone Palmieri
[ITALIAN]
http://www.interviewingthecrisis.org/?p=35
[ENGLISH]
http://www.interviewingthecrisis.org/?p=38

The second phase of “Interviewing the Crisis” begins with the interviews with Francesco “Warbear” Macarone Palmieri, Andreas Jacobs and Carlo Infante.

Three different points of view on the international crisis, engaging innovation, new media related practices, network culture, research on bodies, genders, social relations, empathy and connectedness. From public institutions to our bodies, in the globally evolving scenario.

http://www.interviewingthecrisis.org/

Interviewing the Crisis is a project promoted by

Art is Open Source
http://www.artisopensource.net

with the collaboration of ArtsBlog

And the support of lots of friends, partners, institutions, concerned with the future of arts, culture and of our lives.
Please check the websites for the full lists of partners.

Spread and participate.

Art & Love VI

Art & Love VI at Villa Capriglio

While keeping busy with the launch and communication of the RomaEuropaFAKEFactory and keeping the interviews on the international crisis going with Interviewing the Crisis we will get relaxed a bit at the Art & Love VI that will be held at Villa Capriglio on February 14th

more news soon…

RomaEuropaFAKEFactory

Participate! Spread!



[English version - Italian below]

>>>> RomaEuropaFAKEFactory
international videoart, music, literature and legislative art competition

http://www.romaeuropa.org
info@romaeuropa.org



GENERATION>>
The RomaeuropaFAKEFactory competition originates from the Freedom to Remix initiative, promoted by [A]rt is [O]pen [S]ource (Salvatore Iaconesi/xDxD and Oriana Persico/penelope.di.pixel] and Marco Scialdone, with the support of DegradArte, ComputerLaw 2.0, NeRVi and Valeria Bochicchio.

PROCESSING>>
RomaeuropaFAKEFactory draws on the Romaeuropa Web Factory competition to embrace a series of reflexions and practices focused on the issues of digital rights and information ownership.

DISTORSION>>
RomaeuropaFakeFactory is an international competition allowing its participants to do everything that is forbidden by the rules of the Romaeuropa Web Factory competition, subverting its logics.

CUT, COPY, PASTE>>
According to the rules of the Romaeuropa Web Factory competition , produced by the Romaeuropa Foundation and by Telecom Italia SpA, participation is not allowed to those artists creating their works using remix, mash-up and manipulative techniques on pre-existing content. Furthermore, to participate, the artists have to sign a legal disclaimer making them give up all the rights on their artworks: indefinitely, exclusively, for free, and also allowing the contest producers to freely edit, remix, mash-up, commercialize.

The Romaeuroma Foundation and Telecom SpA can remix. Artists can not.

CUT-UP>>
The overcoming of originality as space for production and its circumbscription in terms of multinational property - more than the real protection of the author's rights - is used in this context as a critique to a conservative practice of cultural promotion that is not able to grasp the possibilities offered by the intersections of the technological, cultural, social and economical-political planes, enabled by contemporary technologies.

MORPHING>>
This competition is addressed to all forms of creative profiles and to the experts of legislative disciplines with a specific predilection for intellectual property related subjects, inviting them to submit their artworks on the theme "Freedom to Remix".


>>HOW-TO<<
The four categories in the competition:

- 100Cuts: videoart [ http://www.romaeuropa.org/videoart.html ]
- 100Samples: electronic music [ http://www.romaeuropa.org/music.html ]
- 100Quotes: literature [ http://www.romaeuropa.org/words.html ]
- LawArt [ http://www.romaeuropa.org/law.html ] , a brand new creative discipline dedicated to law experts and jurisprudence amateurs, whose works will be constituted by remix and production of legal texts regulating intellectual property

The works will be the object of a research, of public debate and will be collected in a catalogue together with the critical and legal texts. Furthermore, they will be supported by RomaEuropaFAKEFactory's communicational apparatus. A public voting system will also be set up on ArtsBlog.it [ http://www.artsblog.it ] so that the general audience will be able to vote its favourite work in the 4 sections, thus declaring an audience-proclaimed winner.

RomaEuropaFAKEFactory will be finalized into a public happening during which the exhibition of all the generated content will take place.

RomaeuropaFAKEFactory is an initiative conceived by

[A]rt is [O]pen [S]ource

with the promotion and the support of

Torino Share Festival - DegradArte - Istituto per le Politiche
dell'Innovazione - BeatPick, ComputerLaw 2.0 - LPM, Flyer Communication -
PerformngMedia - FLxER - ShockArt.net - NeRVi - Digicult - Associazione
Partito Pirata - Nephogram.net - Les Liens Invisible - A.H.A. - Francesco
"Warbear" Macarone Palmieri - Superfluo - Deliriouniversale - My Jemma Temp
- ArtsBlog.it - CodiceBinario ...



General info

www.romaeuropa.org

The current group of promoters is open to new collaborations. It is possible to collaborate to the management of the website and of the communication, to the implementation of the researches and of the texts published on the catalogue, and to the organization and logistics of the final event. An open system will be set-up shortly to support the collaborative development and management of the whole project.

To collaborate and for any further information please contact us at this mail address:

info@romaeuropa.org

we will answer as soon as we can!



---> ITALIAN <--------

>>>> RomaEuropaFAKEFactory
concorso internazionale di videoarte, musica, letteratura ed arte legale



http://www.romaeuropa.org
info@romaeuropa.org



GENERAZIONE>>
Il concorso RomaeuropaFAKEFactory nasce da Freedom to Remix, iniziativa promossa da [A]rtis[O]pen[S]ource (Salvatore Iaconesi/xDxD e Oriana Persico/penelope.di.pixel] e Marco Scialdone, con il supporto di DegradArte, ComputerLaw 2.0, NeRVi e Valeria Bochicchio.

ELABORAZIONE>>
RomaeuropaFAKEFactory prende spunto dal concorso RomaEuropa Web Factory per avanzare una riflessione ed una pratica su temi quali i diritti digitali e la proprietà dell'informazione.

DISTORSIONE>>
RomaeuropaFakeFactory è una competizione internazionale che consente ai suoi partecipanti di fare tutto ciò che il regolamento del concorso Romaeuropa Web Factory vieta loro, invertendone le logiche.

TAGLIA, COPIA, INCOLLA>>
Secondo le regole del concorso RomaEuropa Web Factory, prodotto da Fondazione Romaeuropa e Telecom Italia SpA, non è consentito agli artisti di partecipare con opere frutto di remix, mash-up, manipolazione di contenuti pre-esistenti. Questi, inoltre, sono obbligati a cedere, tramite liberatoria, tutti i diritti sulle loro opere, a tempo indeterminato, in esclusiva e a titolo gratuito, oltretutto garantendo agli organizzatori ogni diritto di remixare, manipolare e commercializzare le opere.


Fondazione Romaeuroma e Telecom SpA possono remixare. Gli Artisti no.


CUT-UP>>
Il superamento dell'originalità come spazio della produzione e della sua circoscrizione in termini di proprietà multinazionale - più che la tutela reale dei diritti dell' autore - vuole essere qui proposto come critica ad una attività di promozione culturale conservatrice, incapace di cogliere le possibilità offerte dalle intersezioni dei piani tecnologici, culturali, sociali ed economico-politiche, che le nuove tecnologie hanno abilitato.

MORPHING>>
Il concorso si rivolge quindi a tutte le figure creative ed agli esperti di discipline legali con una particolare predilezione per il diritto d'autore, invitandoli a creare e ad inviarci le loro opere sul tema "Freedom to Remix ".


>>HOW-TO<<
Quattro le categorie in gara:

- video-arte (100cuts)
- musica elettronica (100samples )
- letteratura (100quotes)
- LawArt , una disciplina creativa tutta nuova dedicata agli esperti e agli amatori del diritto, le cui opere saranno costituite dal remix e dalla produzione di testi legali per le regolamentazione della proprietà intellettuale


Le opere saranno oggetto di studio, di pubblica discussione, verranno raccolte in un catalogo comprensivo di testi critici e giuridici, e saranno sostenute dall'apparato di comunicazione del RomaeuropaFAKEFactory. Su ArtsBlog.it , inoltre, il pubblico potrà votare la sua opera preferita nelle 4 sezioni, stabilendo l'autore del remix più bello (Premio del Pubblico).

RomaEuropaFAKEFactory confluirà inoltre in un happening durante il quale sarà organizzata l'esposizione pubblica di tutti i contenuti generati.

RomaeuropaFAKEFactory è un'iniziativa ideata da

[A]rtis[O]pen[S]ource

con la promozione e il supporto di

Torino Share Festival - DegradArte - Istituto per le Politiche
dell'Innovazione - BeatPick, ComputerLaw 2.0 - LPM, Flyer Communication -
PerformngMedia - FLxER - ShockArt.net - NeRVi - Digicult - Associazione
Partito Pirata - Nephogram.net - Les Liens Invisible - A.H.A. - Francesco
"Warbear" Macarone Palmieri - Superfluo - Deliriouniversale - My Jemma Temp
- ArtsBlog.it - CodiceBinario ...



General info

www.romaeuropa.org

L'attuale gruppo di promotori è aperto a nuove collaborazioni. E' possibile collaborare alla gestione del sito e della comunicazione, alla realizzazione dello studio e dei testi pubblicati nel catalogo e all'organizzazione dell'evento finale: appronteremo un sistema aperto che consentirà lo sviluppo e la gestione del progetto in modo collaborativo.

Per le collaborazioni e per qualsiasi informazione inerente il concorso potete scrivere a:

info@romaeuropa.org

e vi risponderemo il più presto!

Interviewing the crisis, Marc garrett (FurtherField.org, NetBehaviour.org) and Simona Lodi (Share festival, Share Prize, Action Sharing)

We finally managed to get the next two interviews of the series “Interviewing the Crisis” ready in both English and Italian.

The next two on the lineup are Marc Garrett and Simona Lodi

Simona Lodi

Marc Garrett

Their points of view are quite interesting.

I got to know (digitally, up to now) Marc by reading and writing on the NetBehaviour mailing list. It always amazed me about the openness of the approach that can be found on all the things he does, working together with the Furtherfield crew.

His interview is an incredible text that shows more than “art”, accessing dimensions that show how new practices can create a physical and networked-to-a-human-scale critique to the world that is around us. A use of networking that is centered on human beings that need/want to act/react. A form of life. Technology, network, sociality and positive attitudes as the necessary set of tools to confront the contemporary era.

I met Simona indirectly, as I used to playfully hack the ToShare website every year they made the call for submissions for the Share Prize. The yearly prank was called “IHackedTheTorinoShareWebsiteBecauseINeverWin”.

I loved doing that :)

Then I met her in Venice at the ahaCamping where I, together with penelope.di.pixel, presented a digital ecosystem and DegradArte, and she was coordinating an open roundtable on the possibilities for collaboration and networking between italian and international arts and cultural groups and organizations. Again, great openness, an incredibly smart attitude towards innovation and on the possibility to adopt new models for just about everything. And she was also the only one that laughed at my and penelope.di.pixel’s metaphysical jokes :)

Her interview scans the current situation from the point of view of a successful and truly innovative new media arts festival, and on the incredible initiatives that were born from it.

here you go:

Marc Garrett’s interview on ArtsBlog.it

and Simona Lodi’s interview on ArtsBlog.it

we are also starting to collect everything up on the Interviewing the Crisis website. Sorry it’s a bit untidy right now. We’re aiming at the most important things first: to collect all of these contributions, translating them, organizing them.

In the next few days we’ll have the next interviews. Stay tuned.

Interviewing the crisis

from Art is Open Source

together with my beloved penelope.di.pixel we are doing a project called “Interviewing the crisis”.

29, the symphony, by Luca Bertini

A series of articles hosted on artsblog.it in which we analyze some of the issues of the rising financial crisis through a sequence of reports and interviews.

The focus is on art: the crisis’ impact on art and, specifically, on new media art disciplines, organizations, artists.

We wanted to research on the models involved. People dealing with art tend to work in dramatically different ways: public funding, art market, art systems, communication and marketing oriented practices.

And, fortunately and significantly, employing new operative, theoretical, strategic and business models that employ practices that are explicitly enabled by digital technologies: collaboration, participation, experimentation, innovation. A new form of activism that sits across several disciplines: design, science, narrative, business, engineering, architecture. It’s not easy, but it’s the way to go: fast, significative, on the edge.

These people are creators and communicators of meaning.

The project starts out with an introduction:

http://www.artsblog.it/post/2749/trilogy-of-crisis-intervistando-la-crisi-unintroduzione

in which Luca Bertini’s twentynine, a wonderful performance on the financial crisis of 1929, is used as an introduction to the interviews happening in the next few says.

The first in the lineup was published yesterday, a nice cristmas gift for all of you crisis enthusiasts:

http://www.artsblog.it/post/2748/intervistando-la-crisi-helen-thorington-e-jo-anne-green-di-turbulenceorg-part-1

Turbulence.org

Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green of Turbulence.org describe a scenario that is really upsetting, presenting a condensed history of how the various governments of the USofA designed their strategies to support arts, starting at contnuous cuts in budgets, continuing through specific laws created to limit the same possibilities for funding, ending up to the illiterateness of governments and their representatives towards what is being called New Media Arts.

Furtherfield.org

The next in the lineup will be Marc Garrett, of Furtherfield , NetBehaviour and loads of other astounding projects with an incredibly lucid attitude towards new media arts, collaborative and participative practices and, in a word, in sharing, the new frontier of business, technology, art.

Simona Lodi @ ToShare

The third interview will be done with Simona Lodi, of the Torino Share Festival. The ToShare is a truly innovative experience, as it interacts with art, science, businesses, institutions to perform a significative research on the evolutions of these incredible scenarios that are at the contemporary crossroad that we are living: art meets production, meets marketing, meets science, meets business, meets philosophy, science fiction, design. Last year’ festival was entitled to “Manufacturing”, this year’s festival will be themed “Market Forces”, with a wonderful quote by Theodor Adorno: “No theory, today, can leave out the market”.

True innovation with an active attitude towards participation and sharing (check out the websites to find incredible projects such as the Orchestra Meccanica Marinetti, Action Sharing and loads more).

So we’re set! Wath out for the series of interviews and articles, I’ll keep you posted and updated.

O emotional bluetooth gadget

“O” an emotional bluetooth gadget

December 19th, 2008

O, an emotional bluetooth gadget

“O” is finally ready.

A bluetooth gadget with an emotional approach. It can be used to communicate with your friends, lovers and relatives with a gesture of your hand.

Squeeze it. Watch it vibrate and light up. Know that they love you :)

Check it out :)

The Life of Things

barcodes come to life

the Life of Things lets you peek into the secret lives of products and objects by transforming their barcodes into generative digital lifeforms.

done with Processing

there also is a small library i wrote to integrate in processing sketches the ZXING barcode decoding library.

See the little gadget here:

http://www.artisopensource.net/productslife/index.php

download the library and documentation here:

http://www.artisopensource.net/productslife/library.php

OneAvatar more pictures from Milano in Digitale

http://www.artisopensource.net/2008/11/22/oneavatar-more-pictures-from-milano-in-digitale/

just a quick update, ad the wonderful organizers of the Milano in Digitale event just sent me the official pictures. Which, of course, are way better than mine, as I’m a lousy photographer.

OneAvatar installation

You get to see more of the OneAvatar performance. If you want to read more about the OneAvatar project read here.

by the way, thanks to everyone that contacted me about the performance and the project, your comments have been really interesting and useful. We will have a couple of surprises coming up in the next few months, as the OneAvatar will probabily become a product that you will find in the stores, next to the Playstation3 or the XBoX. Critical performative consumism? ;)

keep in touch!

Here they are, with little old me getting electrified in much higher visual quality :)

the Milano in Digitale exhibition space

OneAvatar installation at Milano in Digitale

another view of the exhibition space

OneAvatar installation without me inside the suit

OneAvatar installation without me inside the suit

the exhibition space with lots of people around the OneAvatar installation

lots of people around the OneAvatar installation

people checking out the OneAvatar installation

the OneAvatar suit and installation

the participants of the exhibition

the participants again

group picture for Milano in Digitale

we're selling the OneAvatar boxes :)

Domenico Quaranta at the exhibit waiting for his turn to torture me

blurry me wearing the OneAvatar suit

me smiling before I start getting electric shocks

blurry me again, getting the shocks from the OneAvatar game

explaining people how to use the game to electrocute the OneAvatar

playing the OneAvatar game, escaping from other players

playing the OneAvatar game

playing the OneAvatar game

getting the OneAvatar electrified

hanging around, waiting to be tortured :)

OneAvatar installation

OneAvatar installation

Milano in Digitale

OneAvatar @ Milano in Digitale

We took OneAvatar at Milano in Digitale.

OneAvatar - the Game and the packaging

The third edition of the Milano in Digitale competition was held at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, an industrial complex restored by Milan’s public administration to host artistic and cultural projects. Organized by the Fondazione D’Ars Oscar Signorini onlus, it is a competition created to investigate the evolution of the artistic research performed by young artists in the fields of digital and new media arts.

The competition is really interesting as it features a great level of openness towards the proposed works: both the organizing team (composed by Cristina Trivellin, Morena Ghilardi and Martina Coletti) and the jury (Paolo Rosa, Pier Luigi Capucci, Antonio Caronia, Francesco Monico, Domenico Quaranta and Franco Torriani) carefully analze all of the works selecting the ones that use digital technologies in the most significant ways.

It was, thus, a pleasure to be selected.

Me and penelope.di.pixel chose a hardcore approach to present OneAvatar in this occasion.

I designed a multi player game using IDSoft’s Quake 3 3D engine that allowed the players to hunt the avatar of the person (me! :) ) wearing the OneAvatar suit through a three dimensional environment. [Note: look at the end of the post for the links to download the source code of the game]

When the players eventually hit the OneAvatar character, the software activated the circuit connected to the game server’s serial port (I connected through a simple circuit to the USB port of one of the laptops) sending the electric signals used to flash all the LED lights that were placed all over the suit and to send a stronger electric shock to a voltage multiplier circuit that was taped to the hands of the performer, actually hurting (a bit ;) ) him.

the installation before I started to get electrocuted

The installation features the results of the research coming from the OneAvatar project: technology, emotion, identity, relational dimensions in the digital domains are ome of the fundamental topics analyzed.

In this research we focus on the re-connection of the physical body to the digital identities of the persons using digital technologies and networks. In the OneAvatar project this approach produces a short circuit between the physical and immaterial dimensions, forcing the former to interact with the latter.

What results is an explicit layering of realities, entangling material and immaterial domains together. Game players are forced to thing about the physical effects of their actions when they shoot the game characters, ad the other players get physically hurt by the electric shocks.

A narrative metaphor for immaterial economies, cognitive capitalism, for the relationships established in social networks.

This is the approach that we are calling Neo Realismo Virtuale ( NeRVi )

penelope.di.pixel finishing up the packaging

For the event a complete marketing and communication strategy was produced to create a fictional, but realistic and produceable, product to establish the narrative level of the performance: the performer was displayed as in a shopping center showcase, with the product and the related gadgets available for sale. A further analysis on the evolution of art in the contemporary era, in its hybridization wth communication, marketing and ethnographical practices.

The results were amazing, with people happily embracing thei sadistic roles, and merrily torturing me for several hours on the first day of the show.

The other works at the exhibition were quite interesting.

IO Cose Yes we Spam

IO Cose’s Yes We Spam featuring a massive spam action in the occasion of Italy’s elections.

nOne and three chairs

nOne and three chairs

nOne and three chairs, by Alessio Chierico, featuring a beautiful metaphor on an old game and on a symbol.

To-gather together n.11

To-gather together n.11, by Cosimo Cappagli, Daniele Grosso and Lea Landucci, where Maestro Daniele Lombardi’s music and artistic practices come to a new life with the help of a Wii remote.

Poetry Machine - Change, Daniela Calisi, Shadi Lahham

Poetry Machine - Change, by Daniela Calisi, Shadi Lahham, featuring an analysis of the process of writing.

this message will self destruct

This message will self destruct, by Marco Brianza, researching on the replicability of digital contents.

SpaceWindows

spacewindows.com, by domenico rubino, where a random picture browser becomes a tool for an interaction and aesthetics analisys.

Dancing with my Tuzki

the lovely Dancing with my Tuzki, by Valeria Ferrari, where a MSN chat becomes the occasion for a reflection on digital iconographies.

Flight SynEp

Flight SynEp, by OtherehtO, featuring a suggestive clash/encounter between Wetecho, the moist bio/technologic world, and Virtù-algorhythm the dry virtual reality.

Lacuna

Lacuna, by Marta Roberti, a non linear narrative exploring the concept of the double.

Non io

Non io, by Matilde De Feo, a nevrotic and torrential monologue by S.Beckett, reinterpreted through digital media

Alter Ego

Alter ego, by Roberta Peveri, analyzing the concept of the alter ego through the use of digitally produced perspectives.

Compound Field

Compound Field, by Patrick Tabarelli, a sythtetic video discussing the relationships running between nature and artifact.

An incredibly BIG thank you to all of the organization and to all of the incredible friends that we found/re-found at the event.

Read below for the details of the software used in the OneAvatar installation.

The OneAvatar Game

The game uses the IRRLICHT C++ libraries and the FMOD C++ libraries to handle the 3D sound effects and music.

Click this link (below) to download the game sources (only .h and .cpp files included: you do need to link the other libraries; also check inside the source code for the names of the required sound and graphic files)

OneAvatar 3D game sources

Here is a gallery of the pictures:

OneAvatar - the Game and the packaging

penelope.di.pixel finishing up the packaging

the installation before I started to get electrocuted

IO Cose Yes we Spam

nOne and three chairs

nOne and three chairs

To-gather together n.11

this message will self destruct

Flight SynEp

Lacuna

Non io

Alter Ego

Compound Field

the packaging

Fabbrica del Vapore before the show

the videos

setting up

the winners of the workshop

Spamming the floor :)

Here are some links:

Milano in Digitale

Fondazione D’Ars Oscar Signorini onlus

Fabbrica del Vapore

Some pictures by Cecilia Brianza

rel:attiva presenza in Mexico City

rel:attiva presenza

November 8th, 2008

while in Mexico we did quite a few things.

possibly the most difficult one was the creation of an architectural installation called rel:attiva presenza.

rel:attiva presenza in Mexico City

the installation constituted a practical example of the theories we exposed at this congress and it was created in the beautiful cloister of the Italian Cultural Institute in Mexico City, in the colonia Coyoacan.

The concept behind the installation was a contextualization of an architectural intervention we designed by the same name, transforming a public square into an interactive location for mixed-media urban dialogue.

The installation show/performance took place together with the inauguration of the exhibit “El viaje en la mirada: dibujos italianos de dos arquitectos mexicanos” from which some drawings were taken and virtually re-interpreted for the installation’s components.

The installation was built using the openframeworks programming libraries, and it featured 2 network synchronized computers handling the sides of the visuals and the spatialized sound.

A narrative was created by juxtaposing 7 scenes projected on a cylindrical artefact hanging on top of teh cloister’s fountain.

Each of the 7 stages featured a methodology for layering virtual and physical domaind of reality.

The sounds from other spaces/times that were recreated in spatialized form in the environment.

The images from various locations of Mexico that were morphed into each other together with their localized sounds, to form new, virtual places.

The drawings exhibited, taht were used to create narrative voyages that superimposed the palces that inpired teh drawings with fantastic, non-existing ones.

Virtual architectures that were projected onto real ones, creating hybrids.

Interaction was assured by means of teh environental sound and by a simple cloister-wide motion capture system that used people’s movement to generate sounds and parameter values for the various algorithms involved in the software.

A special thanks must be given to the people at the Italian Cultural Institute, especially to Franco Avicolli, the institute’s cultural expert and responsible for inter-universities relationships, appointed by Italy’s Ministry for Foreign Relations, and to his assistant Valeria Ricci Apiròz: their enthusiasm was probably the most enabling technology that we used for this installation. :)

An enormous “thank you” goes to the Institute and to its director, prof. Marco Bellingeri, and to Felice Scauso, the Italian Embassador in Mexico, who gave us an incredibly warm hospitality.

check out the review on ArtsBlog

rel:attiva presenza in Mexico City

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

rel:attiva presenza

architettura rel:attiva

architettura rel:attiva

November 8th, 2008

just back from Mexico where me and penelope.di.pixel performed quite a few activities: a congress on the revitalization of the historical centers, a panel on virtual, participative and interactive architectures and on innovation, and an installation performance called rel:attiva presenza.

architettura rel:attiva in Mexico City

The Seventh International Meeting on the Revitalization of the Historical Centers (27-28-29th of October 2008) was organized by the INAH in collaboration with the Spanish Cultural Center in Mexico, with the Italian Cultural Institute in Mexico and with the Italian and Spanish embassies.

This year’s edition of the congress focused on the theme “today’s architecture as mediator of the historical and contemporary city“.

Many illustrous and international participants attended the meeting: Guillermo Vázquez de Consuegra (Spain), Teodoro González de León (Mexico), Felipe Leal (Mexico), Mario Coyula (Cuba), Maria Elisa Costa (Brasil), Augusto Quijano (Mexico), and an incredibly significative Carlo Aymonino, a central figure of Italy’s and international’s architectonic neorealism, providing for an incredible set of professional competences and personal histories.

We were infiltrates, just as usual, and were the only not-architects making a presentation. :)

The congress took place at the beautiful Franz Mayer Museum, with its incredible cloister, showing the evident signs of 1985’s earthquake.

What emerged from these intense 3 days of discussion was a really live debate on the conception of the city.

While most architects had no problems in conceptualizing a definition of architecture that includes the concepts of form and function, the impact of a our “little” semantic shift proved out to be quite a surprise, provoking deep interest and deep oppositions. It sure didn’t leave people unresponsive.

Our architettura rel:attiva discussed the point of view of the hybridization of practices and of disciplines, of the integration of the immaterial domains of reality brought on by the digital technologies and cultures, on collaborative practices applied to urban design and intervention, and on a general conception of a live metropolis, built from concrete and steel just as it is built on people, relationships, emotion and an active, collaborative way of life.

What we proposed, thus, was the idea of an architecture that was not only about the shapes of buildings and about their historical values, but also about the possibility for them to become tools, mediators and enablers of new social, anthropological, economic, relational, sensorial and emotional practices enabled in the contemporary era by digital technologies.

We talked about an anthropological, communicational, interactive, relational architecture. Which, for most of the classically architects was a shock.

In most cases the immaterial and virtual domains of reality enabled by technology are perceived just as tools to reconstruct and re-enact historical artifacts, to virtually rebuild, for example, the Roman Forum of the Templo Mayor in Mexico city so that people can walk through them and see/hear the “things of the past”.

Which is, by the way, a perfectly honest and interesting thing to do :) but it leaves out all of the other possibilities in terms of social, business and relational models that could be enabled by the metropolis itself if spaces integrated technologies to create a truly ecosystemic environment in which interaction possibilities could turn into instruments for politics, culture, inspiration and expression.

architettura_rel_attiva_definitiva

THIS is the PDF of the architettura rel:attiva theories. It is only in italian for now: we will translate it into English, Spanish and French in a bit, stay tuned.

check out the rewiew on artsblog.

here below are some pictures from the event. Stay tuned for the report of the installation of the rel:attiva presenza, coming up next.

architettura rel:attiva in Mexico City

Centro Cultural de Espana

Centro Cultural de Espana

Centro Cultural de Espana

Centro Cultural de Espana

Centro Cultural de Espana

Centro Cultural de Espana

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

the exhibit beside the Zocalo and the Cathedral

Angel_F and SuperAvatar at Freedom Not Fear in Rome

a visual reportage from the “Freedom not Fear” event in Rome.

angel_f

SuperAvatar

here is a report on ArtsBlog

and here are the pictures

Angel_F and SuperAvatar at “Freedom not Fear”

Angel_F and SuperAvatar are scared.

The lives of the young artificial intelligence and of the avatar who escaped from virtual worlds have been endangered more than once by the control, that is constantly perpetrated on people’s information, habits and identities.

Forms of surveillance that are progressively and obsessively expanding through continuous control of our lives (and not only of the ones of our beloved digital beings). Along the streets, in supermarkets, in public spaces, and even in our homes, through telephones and internet connectivity. An enormous amount of resources are wasted to control people’s lives in multiple ways: from cameras to armed forces, passing through data retention systems spying on people’s personal information.

Angel_F e SuperAvatar are feeling annoyed, alarmed and outraged by all of that and, therefore, decided to publicly show their dissent, together with their human friends.

The two digital beings will join the “Freedom not Fear“ event, and they will attend the conference that will take place at the “Provincia di Roma” building on saturday, starting at 9:30am.

Who: Angel_F and SuperAvatar
When: Saturday, October 11th 2008, from 9:30am to 13:30am
Where: “Freedom not Fear”, palazzo Valentini (Palazzo della Provincia di Roma, via IV Novembre n. 119/a, Roma

_________________________________________________________________

“Freedom not Fear“: International action day for democracy, free speech, human rights, civil liberties; against censorship, mass-surveillance, mass-data retention.

http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Fnf08

Angel_F is the young artificial intelligence son of Derrick de Kerckhove and the Biodoll.
It was born on February 2007. Since it started interacting with humans’ physical world it has been deeply interested about the international dialogue on digital rights. After a peculiar case of censorship, little Angel_F managed to attend the UN’s Internet Governance Forum held in Rio de Janeiro all by itself.

Angel_F is a project by xDxD.vs.xDxD and penelope.di.pixel
http://www.artisopensource.net/2007/12/10/angel_f/

Fatherboard - the SuperAvatar - is an avatar that escaped from virtual worlds when its owner’s computer exploded in a short circuit. It looks like a cyborg, but it isn’t, as its body is built from the hardware parts of the computer from where it materialized.
Its relations with human beings are contradictory and intermittent: the SuperAvatar is a fugitive living a constant conflict with institutional control, either the virtual and the real ones!

Fatherboard is a project by Luigi Pagliarini
http://www.artificialia.com/Fatherboard/

Art is Open Source and DegradArte at the AHACamping

We are just back from the AHACamping, the first meeting of the AHA mailing list.

The event was took place at the SALE Docks and it featured talks and performances on art, hacking, activism and critical theories on technology and on the ways in which they are transforming our lives in the contemporary era.

Here are some pictures

we will upload some videos in just a few days, together with a more detailed report.

This:

s1_s2_doc_v1

is the PDF of the research we presented at the AHACamping: S1/S2 a peer to peer (p2p) social network built on a parallel internet, implementing a true relational ecosystem assessing the issues in terms of privacy, control, user exploitation currently found in classic social networks such as Facebook, Youtube and the others like them.

You can find a first, fast report in the rest of the post, below.

Special focus was put on the critical approaches to social networking.

We (xDxD.vs.xDxD and penelope.di.pixel) presented S1/S2, the first phase of an experimental project featuring a social network built on the Netsukuku network: a meshed network that redefines the classical internet protocol stack to create a new network that is piggy-backed on the internet. This technique allows users to escape the control operated by service providers and by governments, as the parallel network is peer to peer and encrypted, and it is separated from the providers’ areas of control.

Or, to say the least, Netsukuku makes monitoring users a real tough job (practically impossible).

S1/S2 is a social network that is being implemented on the Netsukuku network. It has been presented at the AHACamping for a specific case study dealing with the possibility to implement a collaborative History of the Arts, but it really is a more generalized project.

S1/S2 approaches two main issues:

- infrastructural squatting

- the relational ecosystem

By infrastructural squatting we designate all those techniques through which an internet user can use the physical connectivity in ways that guarantee users autonomy, privacy and self-determination in terms of the posibility to define who can what/when/where a person can do something on the network, and in terms of being able to decide who can observe our informations, our relations, our interests and, in the end, our lives. Netsukuku has been chosen as the base platform to perform infrastructural squatting.

By relational ecosystem we describe the lives of the users on the S1/S2 environment. Everything is oriented to create the tools to enable people to freely define their own identities and to establish relationships, processes, services, information and content exchange. S1/S2 deeply differs from classic social networks: there is no “profile”, no authentication, no centralized service. There actually is no website, as S1/S2 is designed as a set of tools through which people can define their own data, store it on their computers or servers, and connect and communicate with others by using a peer to peer network built on Netsukuku. Identities are self-defined (even for everything that concerns the structure of data), as is content. Both can interact and be integrated, creating structures and relationships described by networks of identities, concepts, multimedia, informations, communication channels.

S1/S2 also introduces the concept of networked welfare, defining the tools through which the network can collaboratively enact processes whose aim is to create services that can be used by the collectivity, with specific concern for the weaker components of the ecosystem: content persistence, high availability and reliability, communication facilities, distributed, co-hosted stored facilities, virtualized systems to serve specific purposes and internet gateways that will allow for publication of people-selected contents on the “regular” web.

S1/S2 is currently under development, and our estimates indicate that there will be a first usable release of the environment in about 3 months.

We are currently looking for support. If the you find the concepts behind S1/S2 and Netsukuku interesting, and if you feel like contributing in any way you can (develop, execute beta installations and tests, explore the nexts steps…) you are truly welcome to do so, and you can contact me at:

xdxd.vs.xdxd [at] gmail [dot] com

Here is the document (only in italian for now: check back in a week or so for the english version) presented at the AHACamping for a case study of an S1/S2 application: a social network created to support a collaborative Art History.

s1_s2_doc_v1

Degradazione per Sovrapposizione di Corpi - the theory

an article explaining how emotional approaches to technology can access socio-political dialogue dimensions

we just published the article presented at the (re)Actor3 / HCI2008 conference/event in Liverpool.

you can find it here:

http://www.artisopensource.net/2008/09/24/dpsdc-degradazione-per-sovrapposizione-di-corpi-the-theory/

Abstract:
"Degradazione per Sovrapposizione di Corpi (DpSdC) investigates on interaction mechanisms created using low cost DIY technologies, aiming at the creation of emotional environments that can be used to break the users’ inhibitory barriers to narratively access dialogue on socio-political issues."



- (re)Actor3
http://www.digitalliveart.com/

- HCI2008
http://hci2008.org/

- Degradazione per Sovrapposizione di Corpi
http://www.artisopensource.net/2008/05/29/dpsdc-degradazione-per-sovrapposizione-di-corpi/

- some videos and a report
http://www.artisopensource.net/DegradazionePerSovrapposizioneDiCorpi/index_liverpool.html

Degradazione per Sovrapposizione di Corpi back from Liverpool

Just back from Liverpool where we attended the (re)Actor3 and HCI2008 events presenting Degradazione per Sovrapposizione di Corpi.

check out how it went with full video coverage here:

website

Abondanza

Abondanza is part of the iconology cycle done with Bruno Menei. An iconic view on Aboundance.


Abondanza from salvatore iaconesi on Vimeo.

Guerra

This is an old video I did for a cycle on iconology.
more info can be found at

[Art is Open Source]


Guerra from salvatore iaconesi on Vimeo.

mashinima

.: _ mashinema _ :.

mash-up chinema , a live tool for online non linear video narratives



An interface that can be used to create live mesh-ups of YouTube videos, to create non linear narratives. And quite a little A/V chaos.

Hello, world!

I am on the intarweb!

One Avatar - Neo Realismo Virtuale - NeRVi

NeRVi - OneAvatar

OneAvatar connects your body to your Avatar in virtual worlds. You and your Avatar will be finally one, sharing the same experiences even at physical level. You get hurt, you Avatar gets hurt. Your Avatar dies, you die. (available for Second Life, World of Warcraft, contact for pricing information) info [at] artisopensource [dot] net

the GoM - the God of Music

a generative software art work creating a digital universe in which the god of music brings to life software automas generating music with their lives

[ the GoM @ AOS ]

the ChakraPuter

a software art work, and installation, in which a computer is interpreted as a living being and its body is studied using Chakras

[ the ChakraPuter on AOS ]

Urbana Polifonica

urbana_polifonica on AOS

CR9 Reframed

Consciousness Reframed 9 di Vienna.

Titolo "New Realities".

Sottotitolo: "Being Syncretic".

Consciousness Reframed

In tre parole, da espandere qui di seguito con qualche paragrafo:

"Consciousness"?

"Reframed"?

"Syncretic"?

La qualità del convegno è stata generalmente di ottimo livello. Spaziando dai tanti "giocattoli" (nel senso più che buono del termine), ai lavori storici o filosofici, fino ad arrivare ai report sullo stato di avanzamento "tecnico" di alcuni progetti, ho trovato tanti contenuti interessanti e, spesso, mi dispiaceva non poter esere in più posti contemporaneamente per poter seguire le presentazioni che andavano avanti in parallelo nelle tre sale disponibili.

Vi invito, infatti, a dare un'occhiata all'elenco delle presentazioni per rendervi conto di qualità e quantità dei lavori presentati.

I temi principali? La dialettica inter-disciplinare tra tecnologie e neuroscienze. L'analisi storica (e, ahimè, un po' pseudo-storica in alcuni casi). L'uso e l'interpretazione delle tecnologie in modalità che, nelle conferenze, veniva definito "sincretico", ovvero in maniera fluida e integrata attraverso varie discipline.

Quindi, a livello qualitativo, un gran bell'incontro cui partecipare.

Ad una analisi di tipo differente, però, emergono alcune note negative.

Prima tra tutte un atteggiamento che tende ad abbracciare le dimensioni elitarie del sapere, delle pratiche scientifiche ed artistiche.

L'università e l'arte son due ottimi esempi, storicamente, di modelli elitari. Su questo non c'è dubbio. Solo non riesco proprio a capire come siano conciliabili queste modalità con i concetti espressi nella gran parte dei contributi dei presentatori.

Il Planetary Collegium ha, comunque, una dimensione elitaria marcata. A partire dai costi che sono necessari per sostenere, una volta accettati, il percorso di questo dottorato molto particolare e (da qualche anno) anche per partecipare alle conferenze.

Sono rimasto scioccato, in realtà. Se, in un qualche lontanissimo modo, potrebbe anche essere "parzialmente accettabile" che chi presenta qualcosa ad una conferenza debba sostenere dei costi (magari per mettere su l'evento stesso ed una conseguente pubblicazione che siano di buona qualità), mi risulta completamente estranea l'idea di tagliare fuori completamente giovani e pubblico, imponendo biglietti di entrata che vadano oltre le poche unità di euro! Al convegno, infatti, non era presente nessuna forma di "pubblico".

Questo, immagino, dovuto ai 300 euro che costituivano il biglietto di ingresso per i comuni mortali.

(per i presentatori si parlava, invece, di 250 euro a cranio che, seppur destinati alla realizzazione di evento+pubblicazione, son sempre tantini.. non ci dimentichiamo che al giorno d'oggi, se ti dice bene, quando un editore ti accetta un libro, se sei fortunato ti becchi 500 euro di anticipo.... e che chi lavora nell'università, spesso, guadagna assai pochino.... )

Parlare di concetti così "elevati" come quelli espressi dai contenuti del convegno e, poi, tagliare completamente fuori il pubblico mi sembra assai... beh, criticabile.

altra forma di "distacco" è espressa, in alcuni casi, tramite i contenuti. Si sa: come in altri domini, anche nella conoscenza ci son argomenti, parole e tematiche che sono "di moda". Semplicemente, tante (troppe) volte, il semplice citare un vocabolo piuttosto che un altro è causa di successo/fallimento. Che non è una affermazione banale, naturalmente.

Diventa, oltretutto, bizzarro, quando, ad analisi su aree specifiche non corrispondano le relative aperture mentali.

Ad esempio mi è sembrato grottesco che, proponendo domande sensate (e, tra l'altro, sincere) su varie tematiche relative ai porno studies a persone che presentavano studi a più livelli sul corpo, sulla sessualità/sensualità, sulle teorie e pratiche connesse alle teorie dei feticismi visuali eccetera, spesso ti beccavi risposte supponenti o, addirittura, battute grossolane e volgari sul come le orge siano faticose, a me piace fare l'amore così e colà e toni di questo genere.

Lo stesso discroso vale per tutti i tentativi di aprire discussioni su possibili forme differenti di "università", di "sapere", di "formazione": tabù completo, spesso corredato da risatine supponenti.

Quindi: innovazione e ricerca, sì, ma solo se "accettabile" e se non "troppo radicale".


Come dire: carucci. :)

Ultima cosa: una nota di curiosità. Era incredibilmente presente, attraverso relatori e contenuti, un approccio profondamente connesso a varie forme di misticismo e spiritualità.

Se, da un lato, questa modalità è assai interessante (esteticamente, romanticamente e, volendo, anche su livelli narrativi e di riscoperta di spazi dialettici), dall'altro lato rappresenta una enorme barriera.

E' chiaro, ad esempio, come l'uso dell'ayahuasca rappresenti per alcuni insiemi di esseri umani un approccio scientifico allo studio della conoscenza, della consapevolezza e, in termini un po' "generalistici", all'analisi della realtà. Ma il partire dalle concezioni tecno-etiche (e un po' freak, se posso permettermi di aggiungere questo termine senza nessuna cattiveria o malizia... come espediente estetico "per capirci") e, alla fine, morali che ne derivano è ben altro discorso.

Sempre per capirci: una cosa è rilevare come, studiando il buddhismo, lo zen e quant'altro, si trovino delle eccezionali modalità di interpretazione per i concetti di onda, energia, spazio, tempo e identità, per come questi sono descritti dalla scienza contemporanea; un'altra cosa, ben differente, è la creazione di una dimensione di aspettativa e di tensione romantica che nel misticismo trova fondamento e spiegazione.

Non sto parlando di bene/male, naturalmente: ognuno è libero di appoggiarsi alle proprie idee e aspettative. Mi sembrava curiosamente narrativa tutta l'architettura concettuale basata sul misticismo che ho trovato rappresentata in diversi contenuti di questa, alla fine enormemente positiva, serie di conferenze e presentazioni.

a broken duchampian mnitor

IMG_4042
Originally uploaded by =Φ=

part of Degradazione per Sovrapposizione di Corpi [xDxD]

@ LPM 2008

DpSdC

IMG_4045
Originally uploaded by =Φ=

Degradazione per Sovrapposizione di Corpi [xDxD]

@LPM2008

DpSdC

IMG_4041
Originally uploaded by =Φ=

Degradazione Per Sovrapposizione di Corpi [xDxD]

LPM2008

DpSdC

IMG_4044
Originally uploaded by =Φ=

Degradazione Per Sovrapposizione di Corpi

LPM2008

Degradazione Per Sovrapposizione di Corpi

What do a broom and the last 300 years of Art History have in common?
Degradazione per Sovrapposizione di Corpi (DpSdC) transforms household gestures into creative interactions.
On the industrial floor of Rome's ex Slaughterhouse (il Mattatoio), during the Live Performers Meeting 2008, an interface allowed the visitors to remix the paintings of the last 300 years of Art History, by simply brooming the floor.
The simple and familiar physical iteraction allowed to knock down the inhibitory barriers tipically found in audiences. Evolving from the state of mere observer, laughing visitors broomed away the dust from the passive experience of arts in museums.
DpSdC offers infinite possibilities for interaction: the public was not restrained in any way by the authors. Lighters, lights, aluminum foil, balls, hands and rolling bodies have been autonomously used by the visitors, delighted by the possibility to be creative and physically present in the artistic space.
The household iconology represented by the broom and by simple common objects - such as light bulbs and lighters - made the mechanisms of the interface immediately understandable. A simple gesture, such as the one of brooming the floor, instantly became an exstraordinary one, full of charm and visionary appeal. Under the strokes of the broom, the masterpieces of the last centuries of painting and fine arts lived a new life, abandoning the distant perceptive sphere of the museums and elevating the visitor to the level of creative author of the remixed works, through interaction and by establishing emotional bonds to the interface.
DpSdC deeply criticises the concepts of "copyright" and of "Classical Arts". Aknowledging the contemporary evolutions of visual commodities and merchandises, of immaterial production, and on the deep evolution of the concept of Art (starting from Burrough's cut-up, passing through the mutations caused by Conceptual Art, and taking into account the sismic impacts inflicted by the avantguardes of the '900s to the "classical" concepts of art) DpSdC proposes a creative, distributed process, endowed with aura, but reproducible.
In the contemporary era, from Warhol to street art, from architecture to remix-culture, from conceptual art to software art, from readymade to generative, re-use, re-cycling, adaption, de-contextualization and destructuralization have become fundamental tools for the creative process.
DpSdC establishes a form of art, aesthetics, and content that are alive because they are processable, distributable. In DpSdC content and aesthetics can be the object/subject of debate, of clash/encounter: information, aesthetics and "the object" exist as distributable and accessible.
Art really becomes universal because it is universally usable, accessible, operable.

Paul Slocum?

Eddo Stern?

Domenico Quaranta?

Hans Bernhard?

Dead on Second Life

"Dead on Second Life" ironically explores the possibilities offered by virtual worlds.

The Second Life virtual universe is used to give a second life to famous characters of the past,
questioning, on one side, the ways in which we use these environments to extend our lives
and social relationships, and, on the other side, analyzing the scenarios opening up
with the possibilities for interaction with digital life forms.

Special attention has been put to the creation of synthetic living entities
that mimic existing ones. The digital characters' essence is created through
the analysis and synthesis of their real-world counterparts: the traces they
left in our world (their texts, language and aesthetics) are used to deeply
shape their digital second lives.

The narrative level is used to offer a simple paradox

Particular focus has been put on the concept of identity
on sociological and anthropological levels.

Virtual platforms such as Second Life are not really
suitable to express diversity and individuality on
anthropological levels:

language limitations, avatar definitions, social acceptance
promote standards and stereotypes, more than identity.

Experiments have been performed and documented: trying to create
characters from specific cultural and geographical origins have
proven a failure.

Representing peculiar languages (such as aincent ones), body shapes
and capabilities, for example, have deeply suffered from the limitations
of the platform.

Talkers Performance

this is an art performance in which a latex suit is connected to the internet through several interfaces. The people act on the dancer by using interfaces that create stimulations on the dancer's body. One of the interfaces is connected to a netart project called Talker (hence the name of the performance)

[the TALKER]


in which a collaborative system allows internet users to feed text into a linguistic artificial intelligence. In the performance people feed text live into the Talker and the sentences synthesized by the artificial intelligence are pronounced by a sound system implanted on the latex suit and, thus, on the dancer's body. The dancer's movements control the videos on stage, creating a complete synesthesia.
During the performance the audience can interact by using two terminals in front of the stage.




More info at:

[AOS]

degradarte

A work of 'Degradarte' is a work of art (images, music, poetry...) created in conformance with the Italian proposed law S1861

[ http://www.interlex.it/testi/s1861.htm ]

This new law, formulated with the consulency of a permanent advisory committee on copyright (composed by politicians, academics, rights management companies such as the italian SIAE and FIMI, and, for the first time, members of the panorama of the digital associations, represented by members of the Frontiere Digitali network), states, at the article 2 comma 1-bis:

'The publishing of low resolution or degraded versions of protected images and sounds is allowed in the Internet Network, free of charge, for scientific and educational use, as long as this use is not aimed at profit'

The legislator states, in this way, a principle of 'negative aesthetics': the degrade is the constraint to bear for the free diffusion of a work of art.

But the degrading process imposed by this law can be used as a euristic creative process, giving life to freely avaliable works of art:

from degrading art, to the art of degrading!


And it's not all. The only apparently simple statement affirmed by the italian legislator is a truly problematic one.

On one side the problem is the evaluation of the level of 'degrading' of contents, keeping an eye on the technological evolution (eg.: what was, only a few months ago, 'high resolution', can easily be, today, in 'low resolution'), the compression technologies, the possibilities offered by the new media in terms of reproduction of digital contents, and in video, image, sound and text processing.

On the other side we need to look at artworks in their essence: music, image, and text require specific degrading processes, and each of them is connected to specific aspects of their communicative and informational processes.

This reform attempt performed by the italian institutions puts us in the conditions to start a debate on the 'degradability' of a digitally reproduced work of art. A work of art that is digitally distributed is, as a matter of fact, 'degraded' in nature (compressed, sampled, scannerized...)

A brand new aesthetic and semiotic research movement is born. We want to investigate on the methodologies, techniques and theories to create and/or re-elaborate works of art to produce new ones conformant to the requisites for degradation needed for their free circulation on the Internet.

As required by the law.


Art is Open Source
http://www.artisopensource.net

Guido Vetere
http://guidovetere.nova100.ilsole24ore.com/

Degradarte
www.degradarte.org

Writing ElEctronic Poetry

Writing Electronic  PoetryLoss
Pequeño    Glazier's  "Digital
Poetics.  The   Making  of   E
-Poetries"by             Janez
Strehovec(Download  für   PDA
-  11KB)"The  stagnation   and
repetition  of  already   past
contents   and   forms  within
contemporary            poetry
accompanies  the  absence   of
inventive  literary  criticism
and    theory,    which     in
encountering
contemporarypoetry  does   not
seem  to know  how to  develop
new  concepts  and paradigms."
Glazier  -  scholar  and poet
- seems to be an exception. In
his  book  Digital  Poetics he
discusses           hypertext,
visual/kinetic  text,  and   e
-poetry pieces in programmable
media  - useful  not only  for
poetsof the e-medium, but  for
all poets today.     1.Writing
poetry-as-we-know-it, which is
meantfor being published inthe
printed  media  and   is,above
all,      thematicallydirected
towards           forminglyric
atmospheres,  is  byno account
self-evidentat  the  beginning
of      the21st       century.
Poetryremains  a  problem  and
achallenge  for   today'spoets
and  readers.  Itappears  that
numerouspoets     of     today
(perhapsthere   are    already
morepoets than  trulycompetent
readers     wellversed      in
contemporarypoetry)        are
lessinventive             than
contemporary artistsworking in
the  fieldof  the  new   media
andthe       visual        and
performingarts.   Within   the
visualarts,    painting     is
perhapsrepresented   only   by
tenper   cent   at  largetrend
-setting      exhibitions(e.g.
Documenta   11,Kassel   2002),
meanwhilepoets   to   a  large
extent,cling                to
poeticstructures     developed
inthe     middle     of    the
19thcentury and altogetherpush
the  advances  of  theliterary
avant-garde andneo-avant-garde
to   theedge.The    stagnation
andrepetition  of  alreadypast
contents    and    formswithin
contemporarypoetry accompanies
theabsence                  of
inventiveliterary    criticism
andtheory,               which
inencountering
contemporarypoetry  does   not
seem  toknow  how  to  develop
newconcepts  and  paradigms.It
is   no   coincidence   thatin
comprehensive Readers&  Guides
within       the       fieldof
contemporary   literarytheory,
there      are       hardlyany
contributions  on  theanalysis
of contemporarypoetry. In  the
middle  ofthe  last   century,
MartinHeidegger    formed    a
wholeset of basic paradigmsfor
his       philosophicalthought
through          hisencounters
withHölderlin's            and
Rilke'spoetry.           Also,
WalterBenjamin's          most
strikingconcepts in his essays
onParis as  the capital  ofthe
19th century weredeveloped  by
analysingBaudelaire's   poetry
andBaudelaire's       attitude
tolife in big cities. Canwe at
all   imagine   today'sleading
theoreticians inphilosophy and
culturalstudies        finding
anyinspiration    of     worth
fortheir   theoretical    work
inthe field of  today'spoetry?
In           a           world
ofmulticulturalism,globalism,
post-colonia-lism,     dot.com
society,new   media,    techno
scienceand                 new
languageencouraged    by    on
-linecommunication,      poets
arenot asking  themselvesabout
authentic    formsof    poetry
-making   today.They   do  not
posefundamental      questions
onsubjectivity          within
theexpanded            concept
oftextuality,       creativity
oflanguage in dialogue withthe
trendy  netspeak  andwith  the
language          ofcommercial
messaging.They     are     not
familiarenough    with     the
question:"Why  have  the lyric
todayand    not    only     in
trendyloops      of       self
unwindingmessages           of
musicvideos?"     Alternately,
istoday's  poetry  still atall
concerned         aboutforming
lyricalatmospheres?   Is    it
notperhaps, more appropriateto
look for the creativelayers of
language,   withthe   help  of
differentparadigms,   let   us
say,     inthe     form     of
digitalwriting  stimulated  by
thetrendy      "mix,      cuts
andscratches" culture?Lyrical,
distinctlysubtle  atmospheres,
todayundoubtedly         still
exist,however,     we      are
perhapslooking  for  them   in
thewrong places, for itappears
that    the    lyric   isbeing
deteritorialised.This  is  why
it seems thatauthentic  poetry
occursonly      when       the
authorplaces  the  institution
ofpoetry itself underquestion,
writes evenagainst its  canons
andcreatively looks foranswers
also  in  theinteractions   of
poeticlanguage    with     the
newmedia.        It         is
absolutelyclear   that    such
subtlecreativity as poetrywill
probably alwaysremain, as  far
as    readersare    concerned,
condemnedto  the  "the   happy
few".All respect is also dueto
the  very  esotericnature   of
poetry,however,   this    does
stillnot mean, that it needsto
definitely   lock   itselfaway
into an  ivory towerand  leave
out         theexperimentation
andinteraction              of
"unpoeticreality".In his  book
on    thelanguage    of    new
media,Lev    Manovich    finds
thatthe      tradition      of
theprinted                word
isdeteriorating in thepresent,
as    themainstream     within
modernsociety               is
directedtowards     presenting
asmuch information  aspossible
in   "the   form  oftime-based
audiovisualmoving        image
sequences,rather    than    as
text"(Manovich       2002:78).
Thelanguage      of      film,
ratherthan    that    of   the
printedtext,    is    becoming
morepopular                 to
youngergenerations.       Does
theauthor of this notionhave a
point?   He   does,   ifhe  is
thinkingexclusively      about
printedtext,  however,  todaye
-textuality  also   existsthat
takes  into  accounttime-based
moving  textsequences,   which
meansthat        we        are
encounteringfilm-text that  in
itsarticulation   oftenfollows
the paths  andprocedures of  a
filmaesthetic and poetics.(For
example,   suspense   inClaire
Dinsmore's  kineticpoem,   The
Dazzle AsQuestion, which works
onthe  reader's  uncertaintyas
to   where   the   new  unitof
kinetic text willappear on the
screen,which    means     that
thereception   of   this  poem
isnot  a  "safe ride".)Besides
poetry-as-we-know-it, by which
we   mean,metric    textuality
inprinted                verse
(books,journals)           and
Concreteand   Visual   Poetry,
aswell  as  other  neo   avant
-garde forms of  poetry-making
tied  to  theprinted   medium,
whichtake into account alsothe
spatial syntax  anddestabilise
thetraditional    medium    of
theverse,   e-poetry    alsoco
-exists today, which istied to
the   developmentof   the  new
media     and     itsadvances,
especially    thecomputer.This
type  of  creativity  (at  the
moment  it  has  an altogether
marginal  status)  is  a   big
challenge   for   both   poets
-programmers and theoreticians
since,    for    e-poetry,   a
programmable     nature     of
textuality  is  essential,  as
well as, text displayed in the
computer window (with its  own
specificity),   digitalisation
and   also   new   forms    of
perception that  are based  on
"reading with the mouse" as an
activity,  which  is  far more
complex    than    traditional
reading,  which  in  turn,  is
based on  following the  noted
syntax in a linear fashion and
turning pages. In English  and
Spanish   writing,   poet  and
scholar Loss Pequeño  Glazier,
otherwise  also  director   of
Electronic  Poetry  Center  at
SUNY in Buffalo, has  accepted
the challenge of this emerging
new  field and  has tried,  in
his Digital Poetics, to define
the specificities of  e-poetry
from  the poet's,  as well  as
scholar's  viewpoint.  In this
book, Glazier discusses  three
principal forms of  electronic
textuality:         hypertext,
visual/kinetic  text,  and   e
-poetry pieces in programmable
media.   He   considers  avant
-garde    poetics    and   its
relationship  to  the  on-line
age, the relationship  between
Web    "pages"    and     book
technology,  and  the  way  in
which  certain  kinds  of  Web
constructions  are  in  and of
themselves    a    type     of
writing.2.The  first  question
in  e-poetry,  which  in   its
kinetic, animated and  ergodic
poetry,   hyperpoetry,    code
poetry  and  poetry generators
variations,  falls  into   the
expanded concept of textuality
and new media, is the question
connected with  the nature  of
the  medium  itself,  which is
something that  the author  of
this   book   (that   was  not
actually written in one go but
predominantly links essays and
papers  which  were previously
published  in  various e-zines
and  journals)  was  aware  of
himself. Certainly this is why
already      his       opening
definitions and  illuminations
dealing  with  the  code  of e
-poetry and its perception  as
well as with  the spaces of  e
-writing  in  general,  are of
importance   to   this  field.
"Writing in electronic  media,
whether simple Web pages, text
generated by an algorithm,  or
pages       that       display
kinetically,  is  writing that
exists     within     specific
conditions of textuality. Such
writing     has      different
properties than the writing to
which   we   are   accustomed"
(2).Amongst these  properties,
it is important that the  word
does not take on the  function
of physical object but  rather
is  displayed  and programmed.
We  meet  with  "smart"  parts
that function as writing about
a subject and at the same time
also about a medium, with  the
help  of  which  they   become
mediators, for  we write  with
words but at the same time  we
must  also  take  into account
grammar  and  the  politics of
code.    Electronic     poetry
expands  the  space  of poetry
and   also    that   of    its
perception.  It  is  here that
the eye is clearly active for,
in   this   type   of  reading
-looking-decoding, more effort
and attention is required than
in  turning  pages  during the
reading of a book or magazine.
An  important  quality  of   e
-texts    is    also     their
malleability     and      this
malleability's         related
characteristics,  which  arise
due  to  the  flickering   and
fragile   signifier.   We  are
meeting a text that  functions
as  a   body,  which   can  be
manipulated with  a series  of
programme    commands.Glazier,
who  in  the  field  of theory
quotes  a  lot  from  McGann's
text The Textual Condition, is
certainly    not    only     a
theoretician   but   also    a
practician  in  the  field  of
writing   and   programming  e
-poetry,  even   one  of   the
pioneers   within   electronic
kinetic poetry (in the book he
often asks  himself about  the
role of  poet as  programmer).
This  is why  the chapters  in
Digital Poetics devoted to the
programming of e-poetry and  e
-textuality  in  general,  are
undoubtedly   important,   for
example,      in       chapter
Hypertext/Hyperpoesis/Hyperpoe
tics  in  which  he  discusses
also  the  alphabet  of coding
and    largely    looks   into
applications   in   the   HTML
language  in  the  field  of e
-poetry.   In   this,   he  is
discovering  the  richness  of
poetic language  on the  basis
of including signs that do not
have  the  characteristics  of
the alphabet  but function  as
visual  tropes  and  also have
rhythmical qualities. Here  we
should also mention a  special
chapter of this book in  which
Grazier    talks    of     the
importance   of   the   "grep"
command in e-poetry; otherwise
he has expressed his  affinity
for meaningful code in writing
poetry,  by  saying  that also
"writing a  'href' is  writing
"(3).What  kind  of  book   is
Digital Poetics? Is it  merely
a  specialist  book  meant  to
raise questions about the pure
theory  of  e-poetry?  Not  at
all. In terms of genres,  this
book is by no account  united,
including literary-theoretical
writing      and      approach
influenced by theories on  the
new  media  intertwined   with
poetics    as    the    poet's
(self)reflection   on   poetry
-making  under  conditions  of
digital  code.  A   noticeable
part  of  this reader-friendly
book   (there   are   lots  of
examples and illustrations) is
also    dedicated    to    the
historical   overview   of   e
-poetry,   followed   by    an
overview     of      important
international  studies  in the
field of e-poetry. At the same
time the author also dedicates
special      attention      to
reflections    on     possible
perspectives of  this type  of
creativity.  One  of  the more
important  chapters  in   this
book is therefore dedicated to
the historical overview and  a
genuine  inventory  of digital
poetry between the years  1970
and 2001, in which the  author
shows much  attention to  also
considering   digital   poetry
from    outside    the   Anglo
-American  territory.  Here he
justifiably     draws      our
attention  to  the   important
contribution  of  French   and
Brazilian   e-poetry.Glazier's
book  opens  up  a  series  of
questions on poetry-making and
the conditions inside which  e
-poetry is  written/programmed
and distributed,  as well  as,
questions  on  its  perception
and institutionalisation.  The
author's      surveys      and
chronologies  are  exhausting,
even  though  he  leaves   out
certain authors and  phenomena
(for   example,   text   based
electronic installations,  web
poetry objects and projects by
Mez, Alain Sondheim and  Simon
Biggs) that have an  important
place, especially in the field
of   introducing   programming
languages into e-poetry. Also,
some  of  the  more  prominent
theoreticians   within    this
field have  been omitted  (for
example,  the  German  authors
Florian  Cramer,  and  Roberto
Simanowski  and  Central   and
Eastern  Europe   scholars).In
the     USA     predominantly,
hypertext  was  (especially in
the genre of hyperfiction) for
a  long period  accepted as  a
basic model for writing in the
electronic medium, even though
the  specificity  of  the  new
medium comes to the fore  more
in    other,    more    often,
minimalist  and  within  coded
language  intertwined   forms.
One  of  the  most   important
things in  Glazier's book  is,
for exactly  this reason,  his
critical  "dialogue"  with the
hypertextual medium, in  which
he  has, even  with regard  to
Mary-Laure  Ryan's  standpoint
towards    this    problematic
topic,  written:  "We  need to
ask  ourselves  what  is   the
actual  advance  of  the   new
medium,  in  order  to  define
writing  that  will  put  that
medium  to  task.  The   basic
defining feature of hypertext,
its   ability   to   link,  is
operationally identical to the
codex   with   its  footnotes,
index, table of contents,  see
also's,    lists    of   prior
publications,    parenthetical
asides,  and  numerous   other
devices   of   multilinearity"
(4).  The  author  of  Digital
Poetics is therefore closer to
a textual  experience that  is
"less  about  telling  a story
and  more like  a plunge  into
pure   textual    possibility"
(5).Important   is   also  his
notion that poetry, not prose,
is the arena for the  e-medium
to be explored and that poetry
needs   to   be   active    in
inventing  the  future  of the
word. As examples of  creative
searching in this direction he
mentions some works of  poetry
by John Cayley, Jim Rosenberg,
Eduard   Kac   and   his  own,
leaving out many, let us  say,
pioneers  in  the  fields   of
poetry generators, text  based
electronic  installations  and
code    poetry.Glazier    also
directs our attention  towards
the  widest  conditions  of  e
-poetry for he is dealing with
questions  of  architecture of
Web     pages,     with    the
specificity of the World  Wide
Web, and with questions on the
nature   of   the   electronic
medium itself, even though, we
must emphasise, he does not go
into      any       particular
philosophical depth of writing
or   writing   stimulated   by
cultural   studies   of    new
technologies     (also     his
possible dialog with  striking
notions   and   devices   from
state-of-the-art      literary
theories,  e.g.  by   Wolfgang
Iser    is    lacking),    but
predominantly remains with the
medium of  poetics, even  with
the history of e-poetry, which
does  actually  constitute for
an  important  contribution in
this book.  E-poetry is  a new
field,   similarly   to    its
theory, which  is only  slowly
placing  itself  into academic
institutions.   (Between   the
Academy and  a Hard  Drive, is
ironically named the  Epilogue
of Glazier's book.)3.Glazier's
Digital  Poetics,   pioneering
the  striking  and   provoking
field of e-poetry, would  make
useful  reading  not  only for
poets of the e-medium, but for
all  poets  today.  The   more
demanding   reader    however,
would  find  it  difficult  to
find any  consistent and  pure
(literary) theory of  e-poetry
in  this  book.  On  the other
hand,  with  this  book,   the
genre     of     poetics    is
excellently    affirmed    and
justified, which is due to its
close    intertwining     with
contemporary art and theory  a
very logical field, proper for
the    conceptualisation    of
contemporary  poetry.  How  is
poetry possible today? What is
poetry that is extended beyond
the lyric? Why poetry and  not
a   condensed,   macdonaldised
textuality   of   comics   and
placed in clouds  commentaries
featured    alongside    music
videos? How  do the  lyric and
its  subject  function  today?
These   are   questions   that
should be considered and  used
more often by poets especially
in  view  of  today's   little
inventive  situation  in  this
field.Is our note too critical
toward   contemporary    print
based poetry  and does  it try
to sway  towards preferring  e
-poetry, which  is more  often
generated  by  powerful visual
special effects?  Not at  all.
E-poetry  is  only  among  the
genres  of  poetry  today that
belong to the expanded concept
of  poetry. It  is a  practice
which is  undoubtedly only  at
the  beginning  and  is   more
often closer to new (above all
visual)  media  than poetry-as
-we-know-it.    (Brian     Kim
Stefans finishes his statement
on  his   kinetic  e-piece   A
dreamlife   of   letters  with
"Thanks for watching" and  not
"Thanks   for   reading".)   A
series of theoretical  devices
for   it   yet   need   to  be
invented; let us just think of
perception     of     e-poetry
objects, which includes, among
others,    "mouse    reading",
perception   of   the    whole
mosaic-like   screen   in  one
quick   snapshot   and   jumpy
reading,   full   of   forward
glimpses and backward glances.
With this  note we  have tried
to  draw   attention  to   the
complex  position  of  today's
literary/poetry          coded
textuality, for  which it  can
undoubtedly be  said, as  T.W.
Adorno has written on art: "It
is self  evident that  nothing
concerning art is self-evident
anymore, not  its  inner  life,
not  its relation to the world,
not  even  its right to exist".
(6) Poetry  is also no longer a
self-evident field but an area,
which must constantly strive to
rescue   the   word   from  the
mainstream of verbal triviality
and  banalness  and  creatively
preserve  its  authority in the
face  of  macdonalisations  and
MTV-fication.  This is the task
for both, poets working in print
-based    poetry   and    poets-
programmers  of   e-poetry. Loss
Pequeño     Glazier:     Digital
Poetics.     The    Making    of
E-PoetriesTuscaloosa and London:
The University of Alabama Press.
2002ISBN 0-8173-1075-4Notes: (1)
Lev Manovich ,   The Language of
New       Media,      Cambridge,
Mass.:The  MIT    Press,   2002,
p.78(2)    Loss       P.Glazier,
Digital Poetics.The   Making  of
E-Poetries,     Tuscaloosa   and
London:   The     University  of
Albama      Press,         2002,
p.20 (3) ibid.       103(4)ibid.
94  (5)ibid         21(6)Theodor
W.Adorno,    Aesthetic   Theory.
Minnesota:      University    of
Minnesota  Press,    1997,   p.1
posted:      January,        24,
2003      dichtung   -   digital
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