Upgrade! East Midlands — Austerity vs Autonomy: DIY Funding :: November 17, 2010 :: One Thoresby Street, East Midlands, UK.

Times are tough! In the UK, the coalition government’s ‘austerity package’ has outlined unprecedented budget cuts across all sectors with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport headlining a 25% cut to spending on culture as of 2011. In these troubling times institutions, organisations and artists are being told to look to philanthropy from private investors, become more industrious and ‘pull together’ to sit out the storm.

This first network gathering during Sideshow, the independent fringe to the prestigious British Art Show 7, will explore the challenges surrounding funding arts practice in the era of austerity. Continue reading

Upgrade! Johannesburg Remote No 2: Lagos Soundscapes — Emeka Ogboh (based in Lagos, Nigeria) :: September 21, 2010; 6:30 – 7:00 pm (South African Time) :: Digital Arts Seminar Room, Digital Arts Convent Building, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (directions) + streamed live.

Lagos Soundscapes is an ongoing sound project that explores Lagos as a vibrant African Mega city. As the name suggests the project is invested in acoustics, however, what is central here is that the accumulated sound defines the character of the city of Lagos. The amalgamation of these sounds and more, defines the city Lagos as the economic, commercial and cultural capital of Nigeria. Continue reading

Upgrade! Paris, Éditions MF and RYbN present: POLITIQUE 0 :: October 1-3, 2010 :: French Communist Party Headquarters, 2, Place du Colonel Fabien - Paris, M° Colonel Fabien + Conference/Performances streamed live on selfworld.net room #44.

October 1; 6:00 - midnight :: Screening “R.I.P. in Pieces America”, by Dominic Gagnon, followed by a discussion with the author :: ubermorgan.com, “Media Hacking vs. Conceptual Art” :: Franco Bifo Berardi :: Jodi, performance :: Pierre Bongiovanni and I-Wei Li, “Squirt Without Barrier.” Continue reading

[Image: Daniel Rozin "Circles Mirror" 2005] Upgrade! Boston: Spectral Analogies: Casey Reas and the Art of Programming. A talk by Meredith Hoy :: September 28, 2010; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: MIT Media Lab, Lecture Hall (6th Floor, Room ), 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Abstract: Incorporating the work of Daniel Rozin, Casey Reas, and Sol LeWitt, Spectral Analogies places the notion of the digital in an expanded field, framing it as a mechanism, a process, and a constructive method that operates well beyond the boundaries of computational technology. Continue reading

Upgrade! Berlin & MMX present: Media Facades Festival 2010 :: July 22, 2010; 8:00 pm - 12:00 am :: MMX Open Art Venue, Linienstr. 142/ 143, 10115 Berlin-Mitte.

Upgrade! Berlin is glad to present the makers and a selection of the artworks of the Media Facades Festival Europe 2010: From August 27 - September 12, 2010, seven European cities will be connected through the medium of urban screens and media facades. Media Facades Festival Europe 2010 is a pilot project for artists and media designers. It will employ the networked urban screens infrastructures in ‘Joint Broadcasting Events’ throughout Europe for transnational circulation of artistic and cultural exchange. A project initiated by Public Art Lab Berlin, in cooperation with Ars Electronica Futurelab / Linz, FACT / Liverpool, iMAL / Brussels, m-cult / Helsinki, Medialab-Prado / Madrid and Kitchen Budapest. Continue reading

Upgrade! Paris: A reality by 1.0.3 (Adelin Schweitzer & Benjamin Cadon, Géographies Variables Residents) :: May 26, 2010; 4:30 - 6:3o pm :: Le 104, Paris, Atelier 11 (Part of “The Common Factory”)

The project “A reality” builds on an initial premise: there is not a reality but rather a set of paradigms that make consensus any time in history, territory, and for a specific social group. These systems of representation submit our perceptions and define our relationship to the world. Is human being capable of perceiving the world beyond the representation he makes? And if it is exempt from this illusion, even temporarily, would enable him to reclaim the real so sensitive? The instrument developed in this project, the prototype takes 01 more as the symbolic element of this utopia, a utopia in which a machine would avoid the constraints imposed by our senses to reality. Continue reading

Upgrade! Eindhoven: Jodi interviewed by Walter van der Cruijsen :: May 27, 2010; 8:00 - 10:30 pm :: Temporaty Art Centre (TAC), Vonderweg 1, 5611 BK Eindhoven.

Jodi is 2 internet artists, Joan Heemskerk (NL) and Dirk Paesmans (BE). In the mid 1990s, they established a visual language for artwork created specifically for the web. Their background also includes video and photography, which can clearly be seen in their “Screen Grab” period during the early 2000s. They have since progressed to software art and installations involving web based technologies, such as Google Earth combined with video game aesthetics. They are without doubt among the most significant artists working with the internet as their primary medium.

Walter van der Cruijsen, an internationally renown digital art initiatives pioneer and digital artist himself, is the perfect person to contextualize Jodi’s groundbreaking artistic contributions.

Upgrade! Joburg: Remote Lectures Series: Call for Proposals — Deadline: May 31, 2010.

Upgrade! Joburg will Skype anyone anywhere to give a one hour lecture, demonstration or performance to an audience in Johannesburg. Each session will be streamed live and recorded to our podcast album for anyone to download and watch at anytime after the event.

Why: Being literally at the bottom end of the African continent, the Johannesburg digital and new media art scene needs connection and inspiration to grow, develop and learn to have a little fun.

What you get: A great opportunity to access an African audience; and if you like we will organize a lecture from Joburg to you too. Continue reading

Upgrade! Chicago: Kurt Hentschlager :: May 11, 2010; 7:00 pm :: The Nightingale, 1084 N. Milwuakee, Chicago, IL.

Internationally recognized Austrian artist Kurt Hentschlager creates large-scale performances and immersive environments reflecting on the metaphor of the sublime and the human condition. Working with video, computer animation and sound since 1983, Hentschlager was also a founding member of the the duo Granular-Synthesis. Granular-Synthesis created massive events which literally overwhelmed audiences with intensely processed digital video and soundscapes, confronting viewers on both a physical and emotional level from 1992 and 2003. Continue reading

DEADLINE EXTENDED Upgrade International 2010: Soft Borders :: October 18-21, 2010 :: Sao Paulo, Brazil :: Call for Participation — Deadline: May 7, 2010.

We invite proposals of papers, posters and workshops for Soft Borders - the 4th Upgrade! International Conference & Festival on New Media Art, that will take place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from Oct 18th to 21st.

All the information about submitting proposals and the event can be also found online at the conference official website.

A brief summary only is required for the selection process. This should be submitted electronically via the online submission system, by 30/April/2010. You will be asked to create an account with the system before uploading your summary. Continue reading