[aha] [Reader-list] ElectroSmog - International Festival for Sustainable Immobility, March 18-20, 2010 - First General Announcement

[Antonio?]

A  N  N  O  U  N  C  E  M  E  N  T

ElectroSmog

International Festival for Sustainable Immobility

Amsterdam / New York / Madrid / Helsinki / Riga / London / Banff  / New
Zealand / Munich / & on-lIne

March 18 – 20, 2010

www.electrosmogfestival.net


About the Festival:

ElectroSmog is a new festival that explores the concept ‘Sustainable
Immobility’ in theory and practice. Sustainable Immobility is first of all a
critique of the growing global crisis of mobility. Current forms of
hyper-mobility of people and products in travel and transport are
 ecologically increasingly unsustainable. The will to slow down, however,
seems thoroughly absent. The economic crisis may have temporarily slowed
matters down, long term projections still point towards exponential growth
of worldwide mobility and exploding energy needs.  Alternatives for the
current state of hyper-mobility need to be designed urgently.

The exploration of Sustainable Immobility is a quest for a lifestyle less
determined by speed and constant mobility. A lifestyle that celebrates
stronger links to local cultures, while at the same time deepening our
connections to others across any geographical divide by means of new
communication technologies, instead of physical travel.

The ElectroSmog festival will engage one of the main promises information
age: that communication technologies can replace the need for physical
mobility and thereby contribute directly to ecological stability. Our
increased tele-connections would lead to a more rewarding deep local
lifestyle (homework in the electronic cottage) and to richer connected
experiences with the rest of the world (the global village). While these
promises have existed since the dawn of the information age, they were never
fully realised. The  expanding mobility and energy crisis requires us,
however, to re-examine these promises and find out how to turn them into
viable life-style choices.

ElectroSmog will not take the underlying premises of the information age for
granted. We want to ask questions such as:
Are increased electronic connections truly more energy efficient and
ecologically sustainable?
Do they lead to new forms of  electromagnetic pollution (electrosmog)?
How can the revitalisation of the local be combined with a responsible
global consciousness?
How can remote connections become a truly rewarding experience in and of
themselves?

Technology alone is never the answer. We are looking for both technological
and non-technological solutions to the central question of the festival: How
can a sustainably immobile way of life be achieved?


Bringing Together a Broad Coalition:

The ElectroSmog festival brings together a broad coalition of designers,
environmentalists, urban and spatial planners, technologists, artists,
theorists, and engaged and concerned citizens, to explore and ‘design’
sustainable immobility.

ElectroSmog is a truly international festival, with everything you might
expect: international debates and discussions, performances, art projects,
exhibits, site specific projects, screenings, a design competition, and
more.  ElectroSmog stakes its claim for a radical break with the current
systems of hyper-mobility not simply by discussing the issue, but by
actually implementing it.


No Travel Allowed!
Connecting the Local Off-Line with the International On-Line:

The very concept of an international festival and its traditional
conventions has been rethought and redesigned from the ground up. This has
lead us to a few basic ground rules that will apply for all festival events:
- No presenter will travel beyond their local or regional boundaries to
participate in this event.
- All festival events will always take place in at least two locations
connected in real-time.
- A crucial dimension of the festival will be its on-line presence, where
audiences from basically anywhere with an internet connection can follow
events on-line, join in discussions and debates, visit virtual theatres in
metaverses such as second life, and contribute to the program.

A network of accomplished cultural and new media centres, labs, theatres and
other public venues work together to create the local ‘hubs’ that will
inter-connect on-line for the festival.


Beyond the Broadband Enclaves:

ElectroSmog acknowledges from the start that bandwidth is not equally
distributed across and within societies. Therefore remote connection to
lower bandwidth spaces, do-it-yourself telematics, and information
technologies for the majority world will be one the central concerns the
festival will address.


Themes explored during the festival include:

- Global Views on the Crisis of Mobility
- The Promise of Ubiquity: Being everywhere at once, while staying home
- Designing for Immobility
- The Changing Path of Food to our Kitchen Table: Food and Global Mobility
- Do-It-Yourself Telematics: Technologies for everybody else
- Aesthetics of Distributed Space
- ElectroSmog is Good for You!
- Tyrannies of the Real-Time
- Going Slow: Private Agency Towards a Sustainable Immobility

The preliminary festival program will be published on February 1st.
Updates on festival preparations and news will be published at the festival
news-blog and website at:
www.electrosmogfestival.net


International Design Competition

ElectroSmog has initiated its own design competition for young designers,
artists, students, and professionals to come up with design scenario’s,
life-style proposals, prototypes or demo-designs for sustainable immobility.

The competition invites proposals, scenario studies, demos, prototypes or
other innovative ideas to in response to the question: How can we design
sustainable immobility?

The winner will be awarded eternal fame and a fully equipped residency,
generously hosted by the Banff New Media Institute, to execute her or his
ideas.
For details please refer to:
http://electrosmogblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/electrosmog-international-design-competition/


Technology Transfer and Content Follow-up:

ElectroSmog will make extensive use of existing and open source technologies
that will be integrated in a re-useable web environment, developed in
collaboration with the Cool Mediators Foundation and De Balie in Amsterdam.
The technical processes will be documented in a post-festival documentation
workshop organised with the innovative Floss Manuals organisation, resulting
in a freely downloadable manual and a print on demand publication available
from the Floss Manuals website.
The outcomes of the discussions, debates and theoretical seminars will lead
to an international follow-up publication, currently under negotiation and
planned for the Fall of 2010.


ElectroSmog Partner Organisations

De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam
ADA – Aotearoa Digital Arts Network, New Zealand.
Eyebeam – Art + Technology Center, New York.
Banff New Media Institute, Banff.
Medialab Prado, Madrid.
RIXC – Centre for New Media Culture, Riga.
Chelsea College of Art and Design, London.
m-cult- centre for new media culture, Helsinki.
REFRAMES, Munich
Hivos – Humanist Institute for development Cooperation, The Netherlands.
Floss Manuals – Free Manuals for Free Software, (international network).
Engage! Tactical Media, Utrecht.
Cool Mediators Foundation, Amsterdam.
Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

________

Further enquiries can be directed at: info [AT] electrosmogfestival.net

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