transmediale 2014 explores the afterglow

 

Press release
transmediale explores the afterglow
Berlin, November 13th, 2013

 

Between shiny high-tech, e-waste dumps, big data businesses and mass surveillance schemes:

Under the title afterglow, the 27th edition of transmediale, for the third time with artistic director Kristoffer Gansing, will explore our present post-digital moment as one in which former treasures of our mediatised life are turning into trash.

 

The moment of afterglow describes both the positive and negative mental after effects of drug use as well as the moment of deep twilight when the dust that has risen from the earth into the atmosphere is temporarily lit up.

 

transmediale 2014 afterglow adopts this psychedelic twilight moment as a symbol of today’s ambivalent condition of digital culture – leaving behind the digital revolution and looking towards a future in which media technologies have become part of daily life, turning into physical and immaterial waste.

 

International thinkers and cultural producers use the post-digital condition between trash and treasure as a starting point to deal with some of the burning issues of today and to invent new speculative practices through exhibitions, performances, screenings and panels.

 

On the opening night, right after the ceremony, the second part of Art Hack Day Berlin will be made open to the public. Roughly 70 hackers from 15 countries will create a flash exhibition within 48 hours.

 

The performances and presentations of this edition will respond to the outcomes of the first round that was produced by transmediale in cooperation with Berlin-based Lab for Electronic Arts and Performances (LEAP) in October this year.

 

Under the title Going Dark, it focused on the impacts of information overflow and possible reactions to it. With reference to the festival theme afterglow, the second part engages with the current abundance of data and hardware to develop critical reactions to the traces left by these

phenomena in our post digital life.

 

Working within a new artist in residence programme by transmediale, supported by the Media Arts Section of the Canada Council for the Arts, Jamie Allen and David Gauthier are developing the installation CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE in workshops and public events.

 

Among the live performances experimental musicians Luke Fischbeck and Sarah Rara a.k.a. Lucky Dragons will show their multi media work Actual Reality. Beginning with a simple Google search on the words “Actual reality”, the performance includes several intermedial elements like software, text, audio recordings and videos. In this piece, the duo will collaborate with Berlin-based guest musicians.

 

The screening programme features American film artist Luther Price who creates unsettling collages made out of old films, hair and scratches. Beside the opening installation Utopia, a dual slide projection, there will be a special screening giving an overview on his oeuvre.

 

Moreover, film collector Jack Stevenson will show an eclectic mix between “trash” and “treasure” from his collections, entitled Trash from Hell. From the thematic call for works, Louis Henderson’s Lettres du Voyant will be presented, thematising the reuse of e-waste and its connection to internet frauds in Ghana.

 

Maha Maamoun’s Night Visitor shows the storming of the Egyptian State Security during the revolution that was extensively documented on YouTube.

 

As part of a special series of late night talks, James Bridle who coined the net culture term “The New Aesthetic,” will talk with net artist Olia Lialina about the interaction between analogue and digital in temporary politics and aesthetics. Within the scope of the same series, American artist Trevor Paglen together with British academic Ryan Bishop, will address the trash that is being produced by generations of discarded military technologies.

 

During the symposium, guest speakers will approach the afterglow phenomenon in panels and talks. Among them are philosophy, art and design theorist Benjamin H. Bratton with the design duo Metahaven and the American documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, who has chronicled America’s drift from 9-11 to surveillance state. Together with Glenn Greenwald, Poitras brought to light the documents of the NSA affair.

 

The 15th anniversary edition of our partner festival CTM – Festival for Adventurous Music & Arts – will take place from 24 January to 2 February 2014. Under the title Dis Continuity, CTM 2014 will focus on maverick music pioneers and the further development of their heritage in the current experimental and pop music scene.

 

Accreditation applications for press and professionals are accepted until 15 January 2014. You can now download our Press Kit containing further information about this year‘s theme, the festival in general and the biographies of the curators. A detailed festival programme will be released in December.

 

More information about our all-year activity in the form of the reSource platform and residency, the
history of transmediale and the contents of our archive is available online.

 

transmediale is a project by Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH in collaboration with Haus der Kulturen der Welt. It is funded as a cultural institution of excellence by Kulturstiftung des Bundes.

 

Tabea Hamperl

press[at]transmediale[dot]de
tel: +49 (0)30 24 749 774
http://www.transmediale.de/

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