calendario eventi  :: 

X

1/2/2010

Transmediale.10

Different venues, Berlin

'But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity.'
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

FUTURITY NOW!

2010. It is a year which has been synonymous with past images of the future. Writers and commentators throughout the 20th century strove to depict 2010 as a shining example of a future framed by technological progress and social harmony.

But as 2010 draws nearer it is clear that global society is neither the utopia nor the dystopia traditionally presented in these fictions, architectures and theories of the future. Rather, it is an increasingly complex web of economic, political and cultural systems dependent on the convergence of rapidly evolving technologies. With the ubiquity of digital practices and social media firmly entrenched as an intrinsic part of our cultural code, we have caught up with our own notions of the future. The future is experiencing an identity crisis.

Futurity is a concept that examines what the 'future' as a conditional and creative enterprise can be. At its heart lays the intricate need to counter political and economic turmoil with visionary futures. With FUTURITY NOW! transmediale.10 explores what roles internet evolution, global network practice, open source methodologies, sustainable design and mobile technology play in forming new cultural, ideological and political templates. transmediale.10 invites artists, scientists, media activists, thinkers and visionaries to ask not what the future has in store for us, but what do we have in store for the future?

We make our journeys out there in the low light of the future, and return to the bourgeois day and its mass delusion of safety, to report on what we've seen. What are any of these 'utopian dreams' of ours but defective forms of time-travel?
Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day (2006)

transmediale.10 Exhibition – Future Obscura

curated by Honor Harger

Future Obscura brings together a group of diverse artworks which explore the complex condition of futurity through the lens of image-making. Clear boundaries of the time continuum are broken down by artists whose work allows us to peer into the "low light of the future".

As her curatorial departure point, guest curator Honor Harger explores the camera obscura, the historical apparatus in whose interior the image of an exterior scene can be projected. The exhibition presents the work of artists who re-work this mechanism artistically by appropriating the materials, mechanisms and machines of image-making. It features a large-scale audiovisual installation by pioneering Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda, who is presenting at transmediale for the first time. Other highlights include the German premières of White Noise a major installation by rising star Zilvinas Kempinas, who represented Lithuania at the 2009 Venice Biennale and A Parallel Image, an electronic camera obscura by Gebhard Sengmüller, previously known for his striking work Vinyl Video. transmediale.10 will also stage the world premières of important new site-specific pieces by Julius von Bismarck, Julien Maire, Yvette Mattern and Julian Oliver.

Future Obscura explores how the machines and materials of moving-image making capture, retain and reproduce our reality and so alter our sense of temporality. Some of the works, such as those by Sengmüller and Maire, refer to the way that optical devices, such as the camera obscura and the film projector, manipulate light and temporality. Other works by the likes of Kempinas and von Bismarck show how mediums such as tape and film can act as both mechanisms of memory in the form of data-storage, but also as formal artistic materials.

Together the works in the exhibition meditate on how futurity is an obscured notion of what we used to think of as the future.

Exhibition artists:
Julius von Bismarck (de)
Ryoji Ikeda (jp/fr)
Zilvinas Kempinas (lt/us)
Julien Maire (de/fr)
Yvette Mattern (de/us)
Alice Miceli (br)
Julian Oliver, Clara Boj, Diego Diaz and Damian Stewart (nz/es)
Ken Rinaldo (us)
Gebhard Sengmüller (au)
Bengt Sjölén, Adam Somlai-Fischer & Usman Haque (se/hu/uk)
TeZ (it/nl)

Press contact:
Sally Below
Antje Materna
Christine Florack
Thomas Deittert
Schlesische Straße 29 / 30 - 10997 Berlin Tel. +49 30 6953708-0 presse@transmediale.de - http://www.sally-below-ca.de - kontakt@sally-below-ca.de

Begin your festival with the special opening gala, which starts with a ceremony featuring a rare appearance by celebrated author and futurologist, Herbert W. Franke, plus addresses by Stephen Kovats and Hortensia Völckers. Following the ceremony, Charlemagne Palestine will announce the commencement of the festival by ringing the bells of the Tiergarton Carillon, and Yvette Mattern's latest Global Rainbow laser installation, From One to Many, will be switched on spectacularly illuminating the path between the House of World Cultures

Opening ceremony
Tue, 2.2.2010 - 17:45 to 19:00
Location:
Auditorium and the Alexanderplatz.
1730: Doors open
1800: Opening Ceremony, Auditorium
1900: From One to Many by Yvette Mattern, HKW Terrace
Tintinnabulations For Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Charlemagne Palestine
2000: Future Obscura Exhibition opens, Exhibition Hall
2030: aaajiao & Byetone + Beyond the Rest by Benjamin Laurent Aman, Café Stage

The evening is free of charge and the building freely accessible to the public. No tickets needed for the performances nor the exhibition. Only the Opening Ceremony at 18:00 requires guests to have received an official invitation.

Admission: Exhibition: 5 EUR / 3 EUR, Day Pass: 20 EUR / 15 EUR, Festival Pass: 70 EUR / 40 EUR
Festival: 2 Feb 17:00 – 23:00, 3 – 7 Feb, 10:00 – 23:00
Exhibition: 2 Feb, 20:00 – 23:00, 3 – 7 Feb, 10:00 – 20:00
CTM (club transmediale): 28 Jan – 7 Feb, 19.30 – late

stampa

permanent link