HI Beverly, I thought I add some comments on the transmediale Festival. I had a film in the "power of images" screening. I still don't know how ended up there. The medialounge with its comfortable orange beanbags and the screenings were good. The exhibition felt like a all singing &dancing techno ghetto were the quite and calm non-interactive works like Wolfgang Staehle's "Empire" http://www.transmediale.de/en/02/exdetail.php?id=18 were for me the definate highlights. I missed most of the lectures because the Transmediale Club nights in the E-Werk were pretty good and long. Especially the Canadian night with a fantastic set of Akufen (watch out for him at Optimo/Glasgow end of may) and the intelligent audio-visual performances of the the nato.pilots from NY and Norway. Summing up..... http://www.transmediale.de (see you in Switzerland in august Bev?) Torsten
////cynicism that protects itself from being known as cynical by theorizing the cynical///// ----- Original Message ----- From: "Beverley Hood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 7:54 PM Subject: Re: <ambit> topic of the month - Festivals > Thought I should finally get around to sending something to the list about > the transmediale festival in berlin in feb, particularly with the current > topic. The others who were there may want to add to my comments - I think > maybe Saoirse wrote something for another list about it? > > Anyway, I went for 4 days which was plenty and the programme was never that > packed so I got to see most presentations, exhibitions, screenings etc and > left each day with my head spinning and realising I hadn't been outside in 8 > or 10 hours. > > The screenings and the media lounge were the best for me, not normally > having so much opportunity to see an intensive blast of short films/videos > and time to look at a selection of cd-rom works and web projects, although > the media lounge tended to get really really busy so you had to get there > early to see anything. The weakest point was the exhibition which was very > uninspiring with robotics for the sake of tech, although the robot dj's were > fun. I heard from one of the selectors that there were loads of robot dj's > entered for the exhibition programme and that at one point they had thought > about programming some sort of robot dj competition or event but that most > of them weren't up to this sort of event. Most of the work on show felt very > hollow and suffered from being absorbed in their own technological prowess. > An exception for me was a very simple video installation by Dagmar Keller & > Martin Wittwer panning a nifty combination of photos and models picturing > white picket fence urbanism to create a simultaneously natural and unnatural > representation. > > There were various lectures and panels running in programmes which I am > still confused about but some of which were quite good. The curator Thomas > Levin did a great talk about his show at ZKM 'Crtl Space', which included > George Michael's video 'Lets go outside' so I liked him for mixing high brow > and pop. He was also naturally a really good speaker so I'd recommend him > for anyone who comes across him in a programme or has a programme to invite > people for! > > I did a little 5min presentation as part of an open mic faces (mailing list) > event, which was a good opportunity to put faces to names and to hear > briefly about a wide range of projects. > > The funniest event had to have been what I thought was going to be a very > historical video art presentation by Ira Schneider and Peter Weibel but the > later couldn't make it and between Ira and Peter Weibel's substitute was an > hour and a half or so of drivel. That sounds harsh but I don't now how else > to describe it - Torsten? Video documentaries with live commentary from them > like 'that's bob, that's rex and look this bits great bob falls off his > chair'. > > I wasn't particularly interested in going to the award ceremony as these > things always seem so arbitrary (and for the person who mentioned the > importance of Ars Electronica for me it's because they give out big money > not because the projects they show are always the most interesting) but the > only performance that was on when I was there was on at the beginning of > this. I was appalled to find out that you had to have an invitation to go to > this and had resolutely decided I didn't give a shit anyway and was staying > in the bar with the rest who didn't have one until someone rustled me up a > ticket and next minute I was in with my ethics at the bar. The performance > went on to win the 'interaction' prize although I couldn't figure out where > the interaction was happening but supposedly it was through the dancers > costumes and a computer. There were cash prizes and those good old > honourable mentions (where does this tradition come from, I always think > this seems very antiquated for new media/media arts - what ever you want to > call it). Felt like a boys club with only two women in the prizes out of > about 15 people and those were part of collectives. Talking to one group who > were multiple prize winners after and in the bar on the way back to Basel > (those night train bars are great - highly recommended!) they were convinced > they won because one of the selectors was already strong supporter of their > work. Same old story but it is a good project too. > > Anyway time to stop blabbing. All in all it was one of the better festivals > I've been to, focused in one place so you could keep track of the programme > and also get to meet people and find out what folk are up to, which as ever > is often more interesting than the official programme. Documentation of the > event is at http://www.transmediale.de > > Bev > > > ------------------------------------------------- > a m b i t : networking media arts in scotland > post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > info: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > and write "info ambit" in the message body > ------------------------------------------------- > ------------------------------------------------- a m b i t : networking media arts in scotland post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] info: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and write "info ambit" in the message body -------------------------------------------------
