Upgrade! Zagreb: Crtić za laku noć Pajama Party :: November 26, 2009; 7:00 - 10:00 pm :: Nano Gallery, Gajeva 26, Zagreb, Croatia.

Projekcije kratkih filmova koje je izabrala kustosica Basak Senova. Radovi su djela mladih umjetnika i studenata novih medija iz Munchena, Vancouvera, Istambula i Zagreba. Teme selekcije su: Priče, Tragovi i Mjesta. Crtić za laku noć su dio Upgrade! Zagreb ciklusa događanja za promociju novo-medijske umjetnosti.

‘Crtic’ for good night: Projection of short movies made by young artists and students of new media arts from Munich, Vancouver, Istanbul and Zagreb.

Upgrade! Tennessee: Performance - Discussion by Sound Artist Aaron Doenges :: November 19, 2009; 7:00 - 8:00 pm :: Austin Peay Downtown Gallery, Clarksville, TN :: Free and open to the public.

While influences ranging from J.S. Bach and Arnold Schoenberg to John Cage, Edgard Varese’, Jonty Harrison, Radiohead and Sigur Ros are present in Doenges’ approach to music, he blends his unique electro-acoustic style through a collage of aural pictures. He searches his surroundings for sounds and samples, pieces them together like a puzzle, and waits to see what the picture looks like. Continue reading

Upgrade! New York: Crowdsourcing Labor – Distributed Democracy or Centralized Sweatshop? :: November 11, 2009; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: The Change You Want To See, 84 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn, NY.

Upgrade! NY continues its series on open source as it relates to activism and creative practice. Within activist and creative practice there is a range of models for mobilizing the labor and creativity of the crowd (aka “crowdsourcing”). Both practices experiment with a spectrum of autonomy and control within those models. From distributed design to distributed fundraising, MoveOn to Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcer issues a call and creates structure for participation. Continue reading

Upgrade! Tijuana: Tamiko Thiel - Virtuelle Mauer/ReConstructing the Wall :: November 13, 2009; 6:00 - 8:00 pm :: Protolab, Blvd. Agua Caliente # 10535 Edificio Gallegos, Planta Baja. Fracc. Aviación, Tijuana, B.C. Mexico.

Virtuelle Mauer/ReConstructing the Wall es una pieza de realidad virtual que investiga el impacto del muro de Berlín, el cual dividió a Berlín Occidental y Oriental durante la Guerra Fría de agosto 13 de 1961 a noviembre 9 de 1989. Una reconstrucción digital de un segmento del muro de Berlín y sus vecindarios circundantes, diseñado para crear un lugar de memoria donde los usuarios pueden explorar con el fin de experimentar y reflexionar sobre esta época histórica. Continue reading

Upgrade! Boston: Susan Kozel + Nell Breyer :: November 17, 2009; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute for Technology N51-390, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, 3rd Floor, Cambridge, MA (map).

Susan Kozel works across dance and philosophy in the context of digital technologies. Working in England, Europe, Scandinavia, and Canada, she collaborates with digital artists, software engineers, architects, and composers to create performances and installations. She is the director of Mesh Performance Practices and is Principal Researcher with the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute at the University of East London (UK). She is currently working on a new book called Social Choreographies: Corporeal Narratives with Mobile Media. Continue reading

[Image: A real train compartment placed in the hallway of the newly built wing of a nursing home for demented elderly. A work by Lino Hellings and Yvonne Dröge Wendel Delft the Netherlands. Photo by Gert Jan van Rooij] Upgrade! São Paulo: P.A.P.A Participating Artists’ Press Agency: Lino Hellings :: November 18, 2009; 7:30 pm :: Ateliê Unicentro Belas Artes de São Paulo, R. Dr. Álvaro Alvim, 76 - Vila Mariana.

P.A.P.A. participating artists’ press agency will manufacture news by taking action. P.A.P.A. is in development. The Public process can be followed on www.papaplatform.com

Two years ago I had decided to transform my work as an artist into a press agency. It took some time but from summer 2008 I have started to develop the concept. My idea is to establish an international press agency with a word wide network of artist correspondents that makes news in the most literally sense of the word. Continue reading

Upgrade! Berlin: FAT Lab presentation & Artzilla “Skate the Web” Opening :: October 31, 2009; 8:00 pm :: BETAHAUS Berlin, Prinzessinnenstrasse 19-20, directly at Moritzplatz, Berlin.

On our Upgrade! Helloween edition Aram Bartholl and Tobias Leingruber will present The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab.

FAT Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. Release early, often and with rap music. This is Notorious R&D. The entire FAT network of artists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, musicians and Bornas are committed to supporting open values and the public domain through the use of emerging open licenses, support for open entrepreneurship and the admonishment of secrecy, copyright monopolies and patents. Continue reading

Upgrade! New York: Free as in what? A debate on open source vs. free culture :: October 29, 2009; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: Eyebeam, 540 West 21st Street, New York City :: Live streaming and chat.

Upgrade! NY continues its program series on open source as it relates to activism and creative practice. Join us for a discussion and debate on what constitutes freedom within the Open Source and Free Culture movements. We will examine the strong ideological differences through a provocative panel discussion with Gabriella Coleman and Zachary Lieberman. Continue reading

Upgrade! Boston: Transnetworks: A Talk by Nicholas Knouf :: October 13, 2009; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: Center for Advanced Visual Studies | MIT N51-390 :: 265 Massachusetts Avenue, 3rd Floor, Cambridge, MA.

The rhetoric of networks has entirely infiltrated contemporary discourse about digital media. Nevertheless, there is a lack of focus on the actual infrastructure of the networks themselves: how different networks function as a result of different infrastructures, and what role contemporary cultural production has in conceptualizing alternative network designs. We need to focus on the proverbial (by now) “lines of flight” that makes the links between heterogeneous networks visible, but additionally breaks the networks open through acts of resistance, of the unexpected link to an alternative network. Continue reading

Upgrade! Boston: China Blue + Joseph Butch Rovan :: September 22, 2009; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: DIFFERENT VENUE: Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute for Technology N51-390, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, 3rd Floor, Cambridge, MA (map).

Joseph Butch Rovan is a composer and performer on the faculty of the Department of Music at Brown University, where he co-directs MEME (Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments @ Brown) and the Ph.D. program in Computer Music and Multimedia. Continue reading