Saturday April 30
Version>05 NFO EXPO and Kunsthalle
Zhou B. Center
1029 W. 35th St.
noon - 8pm
VERSION NFO EXPO
Version>05 has invited spaces and projects that straddle definitions
and are pushing experimental formats seeing culture as art + social + political
practice. The NFO EXPO is a trade show for experimental artists, info agitators
and organizers of cultural interference and part of the final program thread
for Version>05. Members of artist-run spaces, alternative institutions,
galleries, cultural and social spaces, co-ops, and individual artists and
activists will present their work and mission within a booth, installation
or on a table
at this two day event. Over 50 organizations and individual projects will
be participating. The NFO EXPO is open from noon to 8pm Saturday April 30
and
noon to 8pm May 1, 2005. See NFO EXPO exhibitors for participant
listings.
Conference
For two days we will discuss, demonstrate and present and
share ideas and projects that are assembling for this year’s version.
Two locations in the Zhou B. Center will host the conference program: the
Media
Lounge and Chat Room.
11am Brunch
MEDIA LOUNGE PROGRAM
Noon The Security Environment:
Terrorism + Architecture
by Benjamin H. Bratton
A free society depends on free space. The openness that makes democracy
function is not just a metaphor, it is a necessary criterion for successful
architectural
and urban design. Architecture is one way that society organizes the public
body, channels it, contours it, enables it, envelopes it. Architecture is
also symbolic, at the most fundamental level, of what that society is and
what it means. To imagine a new architecture is to imagine a new society,
and vice versa. Likewise to attack a society is to attack its symbols and
its armatures, its architecture. Today that political tenor of architecture,
both productive and destructive, reemerges as an almost overwhelming set
of complications, and it is clear that conventional political heuristics
are not much help. They relegate architecture to an economy of empty icons
or to martial strategy of incarcerating the city. This presentation will
examine what architecture has to say and do with such complications and how
it can
drive agendas instead of being driven by them.
1pm Ira Murfin
Arcology
The northern Arizona desert, 1970: construction begins on Arcosanti,
a showcase of Paolo Soleri’s conception of ‘architecture as human
ecology’. Planned as a city of 7,000 occupying only 25 acres of a
4060 acre natural preserve, the design mixed the cultural wealth of a condensed
urban environment with ready access to wilderness. Solar/wind power, energy
efficient structures, greywater recycling, and urban planning on a pedestrian
scale were the order of the day – yet 35 years later only a fraction
of the city is complete. Murfin here considers Arcosanti as place, idea,
experience, & possible model.
2pm Heidi Brush
Spinning the Spectrum: Bicycles, Wireless and the Recycling of Urban Spaces
This conceptual piece addresses the relationships between communication
and transportation in radical democratic politics, specifically in the
convergence
of bicycles and wireless technologies. The project itself invites connections,
both 2-wheeled and wireless, to retooled psychogeographic explorations – one
of which may follow the presentation.
3pm Scott Rogers workshop/demonstration
On the possibility of ANI spoofing (aka CPN spoofing)
ANI (automatic number identification) spoofing is the practice of providing
a fake source phone number and related street address to the telecom
network when placing a phone call – significantly more sophisticated
than simply tricking a caller ID unit. Obviously there are many applications
for ANI/CPN
spoofing, and with the advent of voIP the possibilities are endless.
4pm Diamond Jack
Turn on, tune in, drop out AND DON'T DROP BACK IN
Veteran activist and long time Lumpen contributor Diamond Jack has been out
of the Matrix for 30 years. He will give a presentation on sustainable living
strategies in 21st century urban western civilization.
5:30 pm dinner
6pm FLIP
IT 180
Media Design Program, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, California.
Flip It180 is a complete trans-media, interventionist, political campaign
dedicated
to activating and energizing American Baby Boomers to affect constructive social
and political change. It was created by 13 graduate students at Art Center College
of Design’s Media Design Program in Pasadena, California, over a period
of one year and took place July 15-22, 2004.
The project employs a broad variety of media forms including video messaging,
co-opted retail spaces, interventionist mobile vehicle units, interactive print
collateral, a comprehensive community building web site and a participatory installation
event.
7pm Erika Mikkalo
MK3: Ceding the Commodification of Desire
MK3 offers herself as a living example of and experiment in the inescapable
abasement of market metaphors applied to human relations, an apparent
inevitability for those courting in the context of consumerist post-capitalism,
a milieu
in which ‘pimp’ has become a standard and positive term in the
vernacular. She proposes a moderated target market focus group to direct
the rebranding of Erika Mikkalo from "scary poetess with day job at
law firm" to a more palatable product for the dating market – MK3.
Participants will be drawn from advertisements in ‘Personals’ media,
as well as word of mouth and interested attendees of Version>05.
Chat Room Program
Noon Bob Sweeny
Between the Devil & Detournment: Artistic Responses to Surveillance
Bringing theory to practice, Sweeny highlights the relevance of concepts
like Michel de Certeau's ‘Practice of Everyday Life’ and
the work of Michael Serres to tactical media projects by the Surveillance
Camera
Players, the Institute for Applied Autonomy, and Steve Mann. A discussion
of these issues as they relate specifically to art education will ensue.
1:30pm Paul Sargent
Electric Lolita: Love and Hate in the Age of Surveillance
Like others raised on John Hughes films and literary tragedies of courtly
love, I have my own long list of embarrassing, Say Anything-type
moments that in reality are less like romance and, well, more like stalking.
But
those were simpler times - no email, IM or Google searches, no cell
phones, Caller ID, night vision camcorders, yourexgirlfriends.com, or x10
2.4GHz
wireless Nanny-cams. Surveillance and privacy are common points of
discussion today, but - police/corporate-state worries aside - what must
it be like
to be young and in love in the Age of Instant Information?
2:30pm Participants TBA
Alt.Space Panel
Spaces are on the frontlines of the culture wars. We look to these counter-institutions
as breeding grounds and emerging models for parallel communities
worldwide. Invited speakers from different alternative spaces will each
give short presentations
on the origins, current situation, mission and future plans for their
respective space projects. It is our hope that a discussion on survival
strategies will
highlight some of the best practices in cultural reclamation, giving
birth to a new media distribution network and artist touring circuit.
4pm Digital Disobedients
Digital Disobedients is a DVD/Magazine of Net Art and New Media. This presentation
features selected works for the upcoming Digital Disobedients magazine,
Electric Dreams. Participants include Conglomco media net web, Barbara
Lattanzi, Jason
Van Anden, Robert Praxmarer & ShangPing Lee. After the presentation
will be discussion and questions.
5:30pm dinner
6:30 pm Recipe For A More Effective Movement
Smartmeme
This panel looks at the void between grassroots organizing and tactical
media activism. Sharing long term vision is the challenge this panel
seeks to address.
Can each practice bridge together to create more effective tools
for activists and movements?
Sunday May 1
Noon Brunch
MEDIA
LOUNGE PROGRAM
1pm Mike Pocius
Walking Tour of Bridgeport
This renowned Bridgeport historian will give two walking tours of
the Community of the Future, beginning at the Bridgeport Coffee House (31st & Morgan)
and ending at the Zhou B Center.
1 – 4 pm Terry
Plumming summit
Frequency
ATTN ALL MEDIA PERVERTS - final lecture clusters followed by a
second series of performances by employees of worldwide et al capped by
a laser guided bomb dropped from two miles up by tossed / including distractions:
pervert podium: 10 typists (typewriter chorus): famous summit photograph
reenactments / lecture cluster: people who have been somewhere tell you
about it; a perversion of television / that one dood who invented synthetic
blood, some spiritual person, personal messages, an older lady, somebody
into politics, another artist from some different weird place, a writer
who's really difficult to understand but everybody thinks is way deep,
and a zookeeper looking foreigner who's way into animals but in a cool
way / if it really is about you and what you have done with all your history
then come for fuckedup show and discussion / if you have found a niche
stay there stay arise about a summit for discussion and fuckedup show bring
yer babies the gloves are off: a moment is television thought spyplanes
more! more! more! undo the war weather sports social and commercial programming
as far as the eye can see / terry plumming summit an opportunity to participate
in a perversion of television perversion of documents
3pm Mike Pocius
Walking Tour of Bridgeport
(see 1 pm)
4pm Jack Bratich
'If All Else Fails, Try Fairy Tales' - On Swarmcessions and Defacings
After the over-inflated Kerry balloon burst, the left behind sent
a few trial balloons up. What can we make of these new balloons? Among
these humorous and serious proposals were calls for Secession and Exodus.
How can we understand the desire to withdraw, move, and disappear as a
productive one (and not selfish, opportunistic, cowardly, a betrayal)?
Using recent autonomist theory, this presentation explores notions of movement
and withdrawal outside of territory, and into the domain of fluid and chaotic
dynamics.
5pm Randall Packer, Secretary-at-Large, US
Dept. of Art & Technology
A Season in Hell
The US DAT was created in 2001 as an artist-led, virtual government
agency for facilitating the need to extend aesthetic inquiry into a social
sphere where ideas become action. During Version>05 Packer will conduct
a live daily blog broadcast from Washington, DC; an underground reportage
on the invisible activities of politicians using only a cell phone and
laptop to transmit live imagery, audio and commentary. His multimedia transmission
will be made freely available to artists in Chicago for incorporation into
any project. Today Packer will present the week’s mobile blog as
a springboard for dialogue and critique.
6pm dinner
6pm Volatile Shorts: A program of short films by Volatile Works 26min
From ghosts to monsters to the ambient fear generated by our neoliberal,
militarized nuclear age, the Volatile Shorts program is a collection of
films that offer a taste of the styles, themes and genres (from found footage
to animation, from scratch video to experimental horror) explored by members
of the Volatile Works media arts collective of Montreal, Quebec.
with We Are Here To Stay by Allard Klok 2005 (The Netherlands) 25 min
`We Are Here To Stay` is a documentary about the former "Hole in
the Voorstraat" in Utrecht. This squatted complex, with its turbulent squat
history, has been bought in 1997. Thanks to an unique cooperation between the
squatters and a commercial real estate developer, this complex could be bought
and grown until it is now a political cultural centre The ACU and a low budget
hostel Strowis.
CHAT ROOM PROGRAM
1pm Neighborhood Public Radio
DIY: The History and Future of Neighborhood Public Radio
Years of broadcasting nomadically throughout the San Francisco
Bay Area have taught ‘NPR’ a great deal about transmission
methods, community organizing, the myth of PUBLIC radio, and attempts of
corporate media to exclude localized voices. DIY is a presentation drawing
upon this experience, relayed via conversation between a low power radio
proponent and a low-level corporate radio hack. Followed by a hands-on
workshop on how others might duplicate their methods.
2pm alt.space summit
We are pleased to announce the formation of a global alternative
space, artist collective and nomadic projects alliance. A collaborative
process has been in process to establish a framework for the formation
of this alliance and the results of this will be discussed at the Alt
space summit. Some of the ideas include the creation of a distribution
network, artist touring circuit, website and mailing list. Members of
artist run spaces, alternative institutions, galleries, cultural and
social spaces, co-ops, and individual artists and activists invited to
participate in the NFO EXPO will take part in the Alt space summit.
4pm Obtainable Solutions panel
Marshall Preheim is the co-founder of Open End gallery, Ideotech
imaging, & DEPART-ment; Nance Klehm is a professional garden designer,
permaculturalist, urban farmer, ecologist, and artist. The two will lead
a discussion on ingenious invention, reuse & recycling, neighborhood
orchards, guerilla seeds, & urban permacultures for the landless
many. Klehm will also guide a city foraging tour during the festival.
5:30pm James John Bell, J Cookson, Doyle Canning, & Patrick
Reinsborough
smartMeme strategy,
communications, & training project
Movements are made of stories. The power of stories shape our
understanding of the world around us. The stories of power that are told
and retold, and reinforced in our minds everyday, create and perpetuate
the frames by which we interpret our relationship to power. Whose stories
are you telling and how are you telling them? Using a provocative multi-media
presentation, smartMeme project trainers will share strategy models for
applying the power of narrative, image, and meme campaigning to successful
social change work.
