For the first time in the UK, Phoenix Square in Leicester will be hosting an international
conference for artists, musicians, students and teachers to explore software which enables the
development of unique sounds, stunning visuals and engaging interactive media.
Running from the 13-14th January from 10am – 6.30pm, the M4 Users Convention will bring
together users of the popular programming software MAX, and its related programmes MSP,
Jitter and Max for Live. The conference will be the first convention of its type held outside
the US and will feature a keynote address by David Zicarelli, founder of Cycling ’74, the
Californian company behind the software, as well as presentations and workshops from a
range of international speakers. There will also be exhibitions and performances open to the
public. Full details of the event are at http://maxuk.wordpress.com/

With its straightforward building-block approach to programming, MAX software enables
people across a wide variety of disciplines to create exciting new work – musicians can create
unique sound-making tools and instruments; artists can build installations which respond to
viewer interaction; and exhibition designers can create educational exhibits which engage
museum customers.
“We want to bring together the growing MAX community outside of the US to share
knowledge and raise awareness of the software’s potential,” comments Sean Carroll,
organiser of the M4 User Convention. “But this is not just a convention for programmers –
Max enables ordinary people to create amazing work – limited only by their imagination.
With its focus on digital arts, Phoenix Square is the ideal venue for the event.”

Tickets for the Convention are priced at £40 for the full two days or £30 for one day. There
are also concession prices and early-bird discounts.

About Phoenix Square Film & Digital Media
Based in the heart of Leicester’s Cultural Quarter, Phoenix Square Film & Digital Media
houses state of the art cinemas, digital gallery spaces, a cafe bar and film production
facilities. It is an educational charity with a remit to enhance moving image and new media
work. www.phoenix.org.uk

Photo Credits: Gareth Goodison
View all images on Flickr

We are all digital

The digital revolution has changed culture, society and business models, driving a fundamental shift in how humans live, communicate and interact. Today digital is everywhere, it means everything. Digital is not new anymore, it has become part of our everyday life without many of us even noticing it. Our culture has fully integrated digital and the internet to the extent that the majority of the rich (or maybe not so rich) countries have access to smartphones and fast broadband connections.

Entering the post-digital age

With this year’s theme, Alpha-ville wants to address the transition from a digital to a post-digital culture, that looks beneath technology at how human behaviours such as collaboration, participation and interaction have redefined the creative practice and society itself, and at how the physical boundaries between reality and online are being blurred. Alpha-ville joins the discourse about post-digital initiated in 1998 by visionary, thinker and founder of the MIT Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte who pushed the edges of information to predict the future of our culture.

http://www.alpha-ville.co.uk/

Today, people have started to look beyond digital to think about post-digital and what it means to be in an interactive, collaborative, participatory and hybrid era. In this context, Tom Uglow, Director of Creative Labs at Google notes, “The idea that digital is something new and transformative is now quite old. So the question for most creatives is not about going digital – it’s about making it feel less digital, about making participation and interaction feel post-digital; making the tech less techy.”

The festival and more specifically the symposium will provide a forum to exchange knowledge and inspire discussions about the humanisation of digital technologies and about the future of digital culture. During 4 days Alpha-ville will create environments where visitors will experience the cross over between digital and analogue, between technology and art, between science and culture.

Our aim is to showcase, document and make known the work of creative coders, designers, architects, artists, researchers and professionals who explore the frontiers of technology, art, computing, philosophy, technology and media. The festival also provides a platform whereby participants and festival goers can exchange ideas, discover new trends and network at the London event.

The term post-digital encompasses new conceptual models, behaviours, and practices that will be examined throughout the festival.

“I am interested in looking beneath the technology itself at how we communicate with other human beings, and how that is changing as a result of social networking,” Man Bartlett, New Media Artist.

Our programme brings together Live music and AV shows, film, social media and interactive art, workshops, meet-ups, open labs and a one-day symposium.

This is just an example of or our Live music and audio-visual

Pantha Du Prince, Rough Trade, DE (Live)

Kangding Ray, Live AV, Raster Noton, DE (Live AV)

Jon Hopkins, Live AV, Domino Records, UK (Live AV)

Jennifer Cardini, FR

Jacasezk, Gosthly, PL (Live)

Svarte Greiner, Miasmah, NO (Live AV)

Max Cooper, UK, Traum Schallplatten (Live)

Illum Sphere, Tectonic, UK (Live AV)

Truss, Perc Trax, UK (Live)

Emptyset, Tectonic, UK (Live AV, London Premiere)

+ more tba

This is just an example innovation programme:

AARON KOBLIN us

DAITO MANABE de

MORITZ STEFANER de

KEIICHI MATSUDA uk

JAMES ALLIBAN uk

MAN BARTLETT us

VVVV LAB

MODUL8 ch/de

+ Installation & live/online performance connecting with the V&A Digital Design Weekend

+ more tba

1st LONDON SYMPOSIUM ON POST-DIGITAL CULTURE with:

FILIP VISNJIC, Creative Applications Network

TOM UGLOW, Google

BILL THOMPSON, BBC

DREW HEMMENT, Future Everything

KEIICHI MATSUDA, Designer and film maker

PATRICK HUSSEY, Arts & Business

MARTIN HAYE, Sticktu

MORTIZ STEFANER, Information designer

CHARLES BECKETT, Arts Council England

And Screening and open film submission

Press Pause Play

Alpha-ville screening Programme:

The External World, David O’Reilly

Future Past Perfect, Carsten Nicolai

Unit 15 Bartlett School of Architecture Showcase

Alpha-ville International Moving Image Competition

with Ars Electronica Lins, Warp Records, Little White Lies, Hackney Film Festival

Alpha-ville Online Cinema

Nobody Here, Cory Arcangel and Seth Price

http://www.alpha-ville.co.uk/

We would like to invite artists, researchers, geeks, and such like to take part in a weekend of collaborative co-exploration of long known or newly to be discovered aspects of media art. Unleashed will take over Apiary Studios in East London and create the opportunity to host or participate on a artistic research projects. In the spirit of D.I.Y, free, and local community we want to help to kick start new or refine existing projects, meet other interested parties, and engage in valuable exchange of knowledge, critique, and experiences.

We are looking for people who are interested to propose and host a project at this event. All projects should use some sort of technology, be situated in the field of media art, and focus on an open and inclusive approach. We are especially interested in projects that either conceive new tools for making art or make use of existing open source/open technology solutions (such as openFrameworks, Arduino, Processing, PD) to create new pieces or performances. Whilst allowing people to access its underlying technology but also engage in a critical reflection on its political, sociological, or art historical contexts.

Each project host can specify his/her own timeline and use of the space for that weekend as well as expected outcome.

We are happy to receive your short proposal (250 words with a suggested time line), no matter how obscure it might be, by the 29th of May to info@tintarts.org.

Location: Apiary Studios , 458 Hackney Road, E2 9EG London

Date of the event: 25.06 and 26.06 2011, 10.00-19.00

Thanks a lot and hope you get involved!

Please consider adding your support and signing this open letter to the Arts Council England regarding their future policies of funding the digital arts and culture. The letter begins:

“This letter, jointly drafted by a constituency of organisations, artists and practitioners who have been engaged in digital arts development in England, concerns digital culture and its importance to the wider UK arts ecology and economy. We the undersigned believe that clear national policies need to be developed to ensure that the UK can remain at the forefront of digital culture, globally, and that these must take account of the key role creative practices play in driving digital innovation.

Whilst we appreciate that digital technologies have created exciting opportunities to engage with audiences, and to disseminate and distribute arts programmes in new ways, it is critical that funders and policy-makers understand that this is not the extent of digital culture. If we are to make the most of the digital opportunity, it needs to be recognised at a national policy level that digital culture is about more than extending the reach of existing arts practices. It is about entirely new forms of production, expression, practice and critical reflection that digital technologies have made possible.”

To read the whole letter and sign please go to: http://www.coda2coda.net

Digital Stages is a new festival of digital technology and performing arts. Taking place from 22 to 27 of April 2011 at five East London venues, the festival brings together exciting dance, theatre and live art projects from US, Canada, Brazil, Germany, Russia and the UK. The programme also features talks, panel discussions and practical workshops.

You can help support Digital Stages Festival at: http://digitalstagesfestival.co.uk/support-the-festival/
Visit the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Digital-Stages/176776712337059

For full info about the series (concept, working frame, etc) please see www.mataralgato.panz4.com and watch the performance’s trailer at http://vimeo.com/21029370. Matar al Gato 2.0/2.1: Ekpyrotica, will be held on Wednesday April 27th 2011 at 19:00 & 22:00 hrs ( GMT -6)

Marc Interviews Penny Travlou and Irini interviews Karsten Schmidt & Daniel Hirschmann.
Every Wednesday – 7-8pm, Listen live: http://resonancefm.com

This week the tables are turned, and special guest Penny Travlou will be asking Marc Garrett questions about Furtherfield.

Penny Travlou is a cultural geographer and ethnographer and works as Lecturer and Research Fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art. Penny’s research is interdisciplinary with a special interest on the politics of public space, urban critical theory and digital ethnography. As a co-investigator at ELMCIP, Penny conducts an ethnographic study of networked creative communities. At the moment, Penny is doing her fieldwork on Furtherfield, spending time at the Furtherfield Gallery with the current crafters and residency artists (AOS) and setting up interviews with different crew members, crafters and visiting artists. Since ethnography is “a decoding operation”, Penny is learning the language, verbal and symbolic, of the Furtherfield community and, hopefully, to acquire an insider’s perspective.

Karsten Schmidt & Daniel Hirschmann, will be discussing their project ‘Technology Will Save Us’ with Irini Papdimitriou & Jonathan Munro. A haberdashery for technology and alternative education space dedicated to helping people to produce anth d not just consume technology. www.technologywillsaveus.org

Karsten Schmidt (aka toxi) is a London based computational designer merging code, design, art & craft skills. Originally from East Germany and starting in the deep end of the early 8-bit demo scene, for the past 2 decades he’s been adopting a trans-disciplinary way of working and been laterally involved in a wide range of digital disciplines. Daniel Hirschmann is a South Africa born artist who uses technology, relationships and spontaneity to enable his artistic practice.

Also showcasing music and noise, providing a rolling lineup of experimental creative adventures for your amusement.

http://www.furtherfield.org/radio/230311-penny-travlou-karsten-schmidt-daniel-hirschmann

Marc Interviews Jake Harries and Irini & Jonathan will be interviewing Felicie d’Estienne d’Orve.
Every Wednesday – 7-8pm, Listen live: http://resonancefm.com

This critically acclaimed broadcast is every Wednesday evening at 7-8pm, a series of hour long live interviews with people working at the edge of contemporary practices in art, technology & social change; discussing events and controversies, exhibitions, artworks and their social contexts

Jake Harries has been making music in Sheffield since the 1980s and is a sound artist, musician/producer, composer and field recordist with a strong interest in media art and the practical use of Open Source audio-visual software. He was a member of electronic funk band Chakk which is best known for building Sheffield’s first large recording studio, FON Studios, in the mid 1980s. He is currently one of “freestyle techno” trio Heights of Abraham and The Apt Gets, a band which uses guitars and only Open Source software on recycled computers to create songs from spam emails. He is Digital Arts Programme Manager at open access media lab, Access Space, and the current curator of the LOSS (Linux Open Source Sound) a website dedicated to music made with FLOSS. http://audiotools.lowtech.org& http://www.access-space.org
Felicie d’Estienne d’Orves is a French installation artist who explores the meaning and impact of light through her work. She uses light and sound technologies to create a mysterious art of beauty and power, challenging the boundaries of her materials and our own perceptions of them. The resulting kinetic work appears frameless and seems to possess a life of its own. Her audience is invited to engage in both the works’ seductive simplicity and delve into their complex layers of mystery. Key examples of her work include ‘Gong’, a resonant, pulsating, often frightening work from her Cosmos Series in 2009, and ‘Monolithe’, 2008, which stands like a futuristic needle-point purity surrounded by ancient spiritual drama. Felicie has had several public commissions in France, and has shown at the Nuit Blanche in Paris and at the Pierre Berge Yves Saint Laurent Foundation.
http://www.feliciedestiennedorves.com and http://in-visible.fr/

Also featuring 2 tracks from ‘Explorations in Sound, Vol. 4 The Sound of Live Performance – Various Artists’ by Furthernoise (www.furthernoise.org). Violin Plucked and Bowed – Alan Sondheim & What Is The Past But A Dream Of The Future? – Sara Ayers.

The live sound and music performance is like no other medium for expression and unpredictability, frequently yielding interesting sonic results, both on, and off stage. Sound checks, sound failures, the misassigned patch, unintended playing outcomes, FX overloads / calibrations and pinnacles of performative exploration can all create sources for eclectic new material.

http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/radio

Ruth Interviews Simon Poulter and Irini & Jonathan will be interviewing Ellie Harrison.
Every Wednesday – 7-8pm, Listen live: http://resonancefm.com

This critically acclaimed broadcast is every Wednesday evening at 7-8pm, a series of hour long live interviews with people working at the edge of contemporary practices in art, technology & social change; discussing events and controversies, exhibitions, artworks and their social contexts.

Simon Poulter is a practising artist with a live folio of commissions and projects. Much of his work crosses over from exhibiting and creating projects as an individual as well as working with others. He has facilitated creative technology labs working with over 200 artists nationally and internationally through his work with PVA MediaLab (http://www.pva.org.uk). And has recently been working with architectural design teams. Was artist in residence at Metal (http://www.metalculture.com), in Southend – on – Sea, Essex, and continues to work with them and other artists working on socially contextual and technological projects. http://simonpoulter.co.uk

http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/radio