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. Read On »
For those of you who missed it, here’s the video of our March 22 event at UMASS Lowell. It has been made available by WGBH’s Forum Network. Thanks to UMASS Lowell for taping the presentation.
Richard The is a graphic and interaction designer. After studying at University of the Arts Berlin and working at Sagmeister Inc., he is now working at the MIT Media Lab with Prof. David Small, and is part of the design studio The Green Eyl in Berlin. Richard focuses on new forms of visual expression that utilize computation, and design for new social interactions and situations. His work has been shown at Ars Electronica, Design Museum London and Experimenta Design Amsterdam. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Honorary Mention at Ars Electronica, London Designs of the Year, Tokyo Type Director’s Club. Richard’s projects include:
The Whispering Table where one can explore similarities and peculiarities of different food ceremonies playfully. Four unique festivities celebrated by people of different cultures are assembled at a round table creating an archetypical scene of congregation.
Appeel is a virus spread by interacting individuals. Surfaces are covered by thousands of coloured stickers laid out in a grid. Peeling a sticker off leaves a white spot in the grid, people hence start individually and collectively changing its appearance. Once off the wall, the stickers ask to be sticked somewhere: people begin putting them on objects, walls, people, they collect them, they compose new images, they write messages. Slowly the little stickers spread, appearing further away from their source and occupying space.
Appeel inherits basic principles of interactivity and generativity applied to purely analogous means. Its immanent potential of penetrating regulated public and private space counterpoints its apparent plainness. The dot spreads with the promise to ironically mark its carrier as a symbol of sale and possession.
Digital media artist Jane D. Marsching will weave together an evening of storytelling, dancing, and conversation as part of her talk about recent projects that seek to translate abstract climate data and depressing climate news into sensory experiences.
Still from All my Vows, 2009; 3 minute video
Jane D. Marsching explores our past, present and future human impact on the environment through interdisciplinary and collaborative practices, including video installations, virtual landscapes, dynamic websites, and data visualizations.
Recent exhibitions include: the ICA Boston; MassMoCA; North Carolina Museum of Art; San Jose Museum of Art, CA; Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA; and Sonoma Museum of Art, CA. She has received grants from Creative Capital, LEF Foundation, Artadia and Artists Resource Trust.
Recent publications include: BiPolar (Cornerhouse 2008), Gothic (Whitechapel Press, London, 2008), and S&F Online: Gender on Ice (Barnard College, 2008.
With Mark Alice Durant in 2005, she curated The Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology, and the Paranormal, at The Center for Art and Visual Culture, Baltimore, MD; a catalog of the exhibition was published in June 2006 with essays by Marsching, Durant, Marina Warner and Lynne Tillman.
Jane is a cofounder and member of Platform2: Art and Activism, an experimental forum series about creative practices at the intersection of social issues. She is currently Associate Professor at Massachusetts College of Art in Studio Foundation. She received her MFA in photography from The School of Visual Arts, New York City, in 1995.
PLEASE NOTE: This event is at UMASS Lowell (details above and map)
Lily Xiying Yang and Honglei Li (杨熙瑛, 李宏磊) are new media artists from Beijing, currently based in New York City. Since 2005, they have been working under the collective name Lily & Honglei. They create new artistic expressions by integrating traditional and digital art forms. Utilizing online virtual world applications and digital animation, Lily & Honglei reinterpret Chinese folkloric traditions that metaphorically reflect current global cultures and societies.
Lily & Honglei have exhibited internationally, including: FILE (Brazil), SIGGRAPH, Jamaica Flux (New York), Museum of Art and Design (New York), Microwave New Media Fest (Hong Kong), Eyebeam Art + Technology Center (New York), Terna 02 Prize (Rome), and 404 international festival of electronic art (Argentina). Lily & Honglei both received their BFAs in Painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing) in 1997. In 2007, Honglei earned his MFA in painting from UMass Dartmouth, while Lily received her MFA in Digital Media in UMass Dartmouth in 2008.
Merry-go-around by Lily & Honglei [Video of Second Life Performance/ Installation; 3'3" with sound; 2009]
Since 2007, Lily & Honglei have launched several virtual environments in Second Life. Last year, they initiated the DSL Cyber Museum of Contemporary Art / DSL 虚拟当代艺术馆_中文网, based on the DSL Collection and their artwork Land of Illusion in Second Life. Cyber MoCA — built with virtual traditional Chinese architecture — houses a series of virtual installations, multimedia presentations and online performances accomplished through cross-continental artist collaborations (since 2007). Cyber MoCA is a cultural meditation engaging history, philosophy, and the Chinese diaspora. It examines the current economic development of China within the context of globalization, while simultaneously exploring the meaning of virtual online communities in terms of global dialogues as they relate to cultural roots and the “fantasy” of China.
Land of Illusion functions as a net-art platform that aims to fulfill the promise that the Internet is a continuation of Enlightenment thought, namely promoting cultural openness, decentralization, and independent thinking. As Chinese contemporary artists, Lily & Honglei consider these aspects extremely relevant to art-making.
The DSL Collection represents 90 of the leading Chinese avant-garde artists who have a major influence on the development of contemporary art in China today. It was started from a museum approach, which means that Lily & Honglei are collecting a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, video, and photography. They want to share the experience of contemporary culture and to make it more accessible and meaningful for a broader public. DSL Collection participates in conferences, seminars, and talks hosted by institutions or at special events. The DSL Collection has participated in seminars at Tsinghua and Shanghai Universities, ARCO Madrid, and New York University. To visit the museum in Second Life teleport here.
Upgrade International 2010: Soft Borders :: October 18-21, 2010 :: Sao Paulo, Brazil :: Call for Participation — Deadline: May 7, 2010.
Since 2007, Lily & Honglei have launched several virtual environments in Second Life. Last year, they initiated the 
This event is sponsored by 
