Festival Programme Sat, 5.2.2011 - 01:00

We are currently witnessing an increasing biologisation of the media. Our action and reaction patterns in this environment of biomedia have sensory, tactile and emotional integration – computer and brain as a synthesis. 
The participants in this debate on the one hand the impact of such processes on our biological and social body, and on the other hand, the kinds of artistic-experimental self-empowerment strategies such re-modelling has already brought about.

In this keynote conversation (Track 2) the philosophers Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi and Maurizio Lazzarato, investigate the new dimension of bioeconomy, that is the economy of life in the realm of digital networks.

One of the annual festival highlights is the Award Ceremony, which honours internationally outstanding artists, artworks and projects from the realms of digital art. As in the past the transmediale Award will be given to visionary artworks addressing our technologically defined society and the Vilém Flusser Theory Award for artistic research and discourse. In 2011 for the first time transmediale additionally presents the Open Web Award. This prize supports Free and Open Technologies and possibilities for participation and collaboration on an Open Web.

Vilém Flusser and Marshall McLuhan were arguably two of the most important thinkers of the early Internet Age who forsaw a cultural change in the emergence of electronic images. Unfortunately both left us before many of the changes they foresaw had come to be. What would they have thought of our current age of ubiquitous networked computing? This screening will feature selections of rare historic video and film documents where each thinker describes his fears and hopes for an age of  technical images.

Presenting rarities from the Federal Film Archive this programme gives insights into the history of German TV culture. The films from the 1930s and 40s illustrate society's gradual progression towards going 'live' and the associated new possibilities of surveillance. A discussion with expert Joseph Hoppe will ultimately round out the evening.

In the 1960s, television was plainly the dominant medium against which all others had to align themselves. At the same time, an intense debate began that continues until today. This programme presents eight examples of works on the subject.

The supposedly infinite freedom of the Net is a permanent online participation, communication and live switching between real and virtual life. The resulting unspoken fear of turning away from the Network has led to increasingly loud calls for a way out. The focus panel Exit Lab discusses and provides perspectives on the ‘right to exit’, which is not only an absolute rejection but a reversal of the Net’s power structures and scaffolding.

In recent years, the free culture movement has been very much focused on the development of alternative rights and licensing systems. Appropriate economic benchmarks outside traditional business models are only now starting to gain traction: crowdsourcing, micro-funding and shared economy – new watchwords of a society that no longer wants to rely solely on capitalist principles. Nevertheless, there are many questions – how to convert ‘free’ cultural services into an economic currency, for example, or how a long-term culture of worth that is based on free access rather than supply and demand can be achieved.

The decision of Hans Flesch to transmit recorded vinyl instead of live music on the radio sparked heated discussion among many of his famous contemporaries in 1930’s. In the 1950s, ‘liveness’ was discovered by the mass-media as an artistic material for an aesthetic of ‘Indetermancy’. In the 1960s, both Nam June Paik and Umberto Eco were devoted to the ‘liveness’ of television. “Today media-based live performances or online services (such as Second Life) mix ‘liveness’ with pre-generated and real-time elements. This gives the question ‘What is Live?’ a new relevance.”

Calling the game input the “controller” was the first lie. In fact, games control us – and we like it.
Controlled Invasion is a vehicle for drawing attention to the liberating, enthralling, gratifying and, yes, dangerous power of interactive games. The workshop leaders will engage their guests and distant collaborators to build a framework of game design ethics that recognises the equal measures of pleasure and peril inherent to this persuasive medium. Thorsten and Heather will interview experts in art and technology about the human body, spirituality, and social philosophy.

This book examines ideas of the virtual of the ancient world, the modern era and the 20th century. Linked to this, it reconstructs how mobile media came into being as successor technologies of optical telegraphy, electrical telephony and radio technology.

Dorothy of the Day is a solo vocal loops project by Australian singer Rachel Holmshaw. Inspired by Hollywood musical films from the 1930s, she weaves multi-layered, slow and repetitive soundscapes that send their listeners into a hypnotic, nostalgic dream world.

This is how Resom describes her sound: Dark elektro robodisko to uplifting breaks or poppy minimal freakel techno or chain reaction-dub – everything works, but please don't be nice – be spooky, be bad, be dark. Just be good to her!

Daito Manabe has created a 'face instrument' that uses electric shock waves to artificially move people's faces in synch with music. During the workshop, participants have the opportunity to “hack” one another's faces and experience a sensation beyond natural human facial expression.

live performance by Ei Wada
Braun Tube Jazz Band

In this solo performance two overhead projectors function as an analogue VJ tool. From a combination of analogue and automated sound production, subtle, polyrhythmic sounds grow. Image and music merge thanks to the brilliant colour and light display on the illuminated surfaces of the projectors.