SLUM TV: Biki Kangwana, Alexander Nikolic
SLUM-TV is a youth-run media cooperative in the Kenyan slum of Mathare. SLUM-TV members document the lives of the people in Mathare and facilitate a process of self assertion/definition through regular community screenings. Tackling the negative stereotypes developed in the mainstream media, SLUM-TV has fast become a hotbed for empowerment.
Biki Kangwana (SLUM TV) in Berlin, online with Alexander Nikolic (Nairobi), Sam Hopkins (Nairobi)
slum-tv.info
Project Discussion: Esther Polak, nomadicMILK
Esther Polak discusses her project NomadicMILK, which compares the distribution and sales strategies of two very different milk product merchands in Nigeria.
nomadicmilk.net
Eléonore Hellio, Dicoco Boketshu (Kinshasa), Dominique Malaquais, Thomas Lucas (Berlin) / MOWOSO - Mikili Way
In times of a world-at-war, dominated by ignorance, postcolonial policy and prejudice there may be little room on Planet Earth for exchange. Mikili is a live videosonic interface, a space wherein identities defragment in unexpected ways as means of survival. Our purpose? To connect Berlin's transmediale to bits, pieces, (de)fragments of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Condensed bits through which MOWOSO, a Kinshasa based transmediatic art collective, will become, for a time, manifest by way of a screen, fictitious and fictionmaking, defying the global satellites that orbit 'our' world via a brief moment of human interaction.
eternalnetwork.org/mowoso
Special guest: Jaromil discussing Coltan and Blood (see award)
Tantalum Memorial
The installation is a memorial to the more than 3 million people who have perished in the complex wars that have gone on in the Congo since 1998.
(See exhibition and award)
Hehe BERLINPOL
Contemporary understanding of air pollution is no longer felt nor experienced, although it remains potentially lethal. It is now less common to see pollution directly. By presenting only knowledge that is measurable, the model is disconnected from the local context and the specific social-economic conditions on the ground that created the pollution in the first place. With their projects hehe involves the audience in a process of monitoring localised pollution at the same time it is produced. A work like Nuage Vert is based on the idea that public forms can embody an ecological project, materialising environmental issues so that they become a subject within our collective daily lives.
hehe.org.free.fr
Laboratory Planet - Ewen Chardronnet, bureau d'etudes, Michel Tibon-Cornillot
The Laboratory Planet is a periodic journal of philosophy, science and critical writing on technology. The editor Ewen Chardronnet and Bureau d'études work with artistic researchers and activists. Its online platform discusses geostrategic and tactical media issues lurking behind the ambiguous headlines of the mainstream press.
laboratoryplanet.org
Extreme Green Guerilas - Michiko Nitta
The project The Extreme Green Guerillas reflects on the collaboration between high tech and green movements.
Circle of Satan / HONF
Circle of Satan is a platform for exchanges, meetings, sharing, discussions and common thinking. It expresses the struggle and disadvantage of a developing country. Whenever opportunity arises, another obstacle defeats progress, in either the form of natural disaster or human corruption. Indonesia still remains one of the poorest nations, with a substantial lack of technology for the public. Is there still a dream possible in the face of chaotic infrastructure, corruption, deforestation, illegal loging, the Pacific ring of fire, sweatshops and globalisation.
natural-fiber.com
Atteqa Malik and Nameera Ahmed (MAUJ)
We are a group of media artists working in Karachi as a collective by the name of Mauj. Our initiatives use open technology, art and culture to empower society and people. Our projects engage regional and international participants and audiences. MAUJ explores the phenomena of new media arts and the impact of technology within the context of the city. You're invited to discuss with us some new projects!
maujmedia.blogspot.com
Margarita Dorovska and Kathy Rae Huffman:
Archive of Video Art from Eastern Europe
Collaborative effort, aiming at the research and selection of 100 video art works produced during the transition period of post-communist Eastern Europe. ...
Peter Zorn: European Media Art Network (EMAN)
EMAN Coordinator Peter Zorn presents the partners, the structure and the aims of the network, that creates a backbone of Media Labs and Festivals.
Time's Up has been developing large scale interactive situations since 1996 with a tendency towards large steel and pneumatic devices. 'Luminous Green' is a series of workshops that explores the possibilities of living well and sustainably in the world. In this short presentation Time's Up will explain some of the points that were of importance in the workshop: local actions, utilising regional assets, in our case industrial waste and the body of water, social organisation, 're-importing' developing world technologies to 'the west', and many others.
With the worldwide largest mobile growth rates and promises of being connected to the global fibreoptic network soon, new possibilities are dawning on Africa's horizon. Digital cultures in African countries are developing now. How do today's digital developments impact on every-day life? Has the course been set by foreign companies' emerging commercial interests and are donors' preferences leading the way? Or are African countries creating their own visions and realities of digital cultures and societies? Digital islands are emerging, offering innovative, adapted solutions to specific local needs as alternatives to the mainstream. The session will explore some of these initiatives working towards self-determined, relevant, economically sustainable, and change-making paths into Africa's digital future.
Online Intervention a.o. with James Wire Lunghabo
(Uganda), Evans Ikua (Kenya), Alex Gakuru (Kenya)
While FLOSS is still keeping artists and curators busy with ways that digital art can be produced and distributed in a connected society, a new artistic and conceptual challenge has recently surfaced: open source hardware. What is open about open source hardware? In much the same way as open licenses define the freedom of FLOSS software, open source hardware will need to be defined, and this definition needs to be developed further at an industrial and economic level. Many artists embraced FLOSS for political reasons, and are beginning to do the same now with open source hardware. But is it that simple? It is time to shed some light on the dark side of open source hardware.
Youtube-Videos are society's mirror and vox populi within the climate change discourse. On Youtube you find numerous amateur videos showing catastrophes like Katrina or earthquakes in Sichuan and their impact. Tourists are booking trips to the arctic glaciers filming the elapsing ice and creating documents like 'Hubbard Glacier Alaska Sightseeing' and 'Glacier falls on tourists'. Natur becomes Hollywood becomes spectacle. I Saw Disaster examines the sites of fracture between amateur clips, footage and documentary by analyzing, commenting and discussing content and aesthetic of these clips.
