DEEP NORTH – Climate Change as Global Cultural Change
Publishing date: 14 October 2008
Looking beyond the alarmist scenarios of environmental, social and economic catastrophes to be expected in the wake of global warming, the essential question isn’t that of how to avoid these processes, but to examine the need for a fundamental shift in cultural perception with respect to nature, culture and technology. With DEEP NORTH transmediale.09 focuses on the impact and unavoidable consequences of this pending global transformation - the crossing of a point of no return akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. Germany’s largest and internationally significant festival for art and digital culture opens on January 27, 2009 at the House of World Cultures (John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin).
905 artistic works from 53 countries responding to transmediale’s DEEP NORTH call were submitted for the festival’s award competitions. The deliberations of the international jury composed of Annick Bureaud (Paris), Bronac Ferran (London), Juha Huuskonen (Helsinki), Pooja Sood (New Delhi), and Christoph Tannert (Berlin) ended the past weekend with the selection of eight works being nominated for the transmediale Award 2009 (see reverse side).
For the second year in a row artistic works submitted for the club transmediale (CTM) have also been taken into consideration by the jury for the prize, which is endowed with a total of 8,000 euros. The nominees list reflects the broad creative, diverse and conceptual range of the submissions, artistic excellence and strength of expression being primary criteria for the jury.
The Vilém Flusser Theory Award, introduced at transmediale.08 in order to honour and support outstanding theoretical or critical research based practice, is being further developed in collaboration with the _Vilém _Flusser _Archiv at the Univer¬sität der Künste in Berlin. The nominees for this prize, endowed with 2,000 euros, will be announced at the end of October on the festival’s website (www.transmediale.de). The prize winners of both the transmediale and Vilém Flusser Theory Awards will be announced at the Award ceremony on January 31, 2009.
transmediale is funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes
presse@transmediale.de
Annette Schäfer: +49-(0)30-61 65 11 55 | Miriam Bax: +49-(0)30-24 749 765
transmediale Award 2009 - Nominations:
Perry Bard (us) – Man with a Movie Camera: The Global Remake (2008)
In this global participatory work, people are invited to upload shots and images interpreting the original script of Vertov’s masterpiece and upload them to this site. Software developed for the project archives, sequences and streams the submissions creating a worldwide montage, in Vertov’s terms “decoding of life as it is”.
Ewen Chardronnet and Bureau d’études (fr) – The Laboratory Planet (2008)
Chardronnet with a team of artistic researchers and activists produces the “Laboratory Planet” as a journalistic multimedia piece: the thematic tabloid and its online platform discuss the geostrategic, tactical media and speculative issues lurking behind the ambiguous headlines of the mainstream press.
Petko Dourmana (bg) – Post Global Warming Survival Kit (2008)
The multi media installation, featuring a two-channel infrared projection of the North Sea visible only with high-tech equipment, such as night-vision goggles, is set within a virtual post-apocalyptic landscape akin to that of a possible “nuclear winter".
Graham Harwood, Richard Wright, Matsuko Yokokoji (uk) – Tantalum Memorial (2008)
This telephone “exchange” installation is a memorial to the people who have died in the wars in Congo over the metal tantalum, which is used in cell phone components and has become more valuable than gold. The work also references a “social telephony” network used by the Congelese diaspora to remain anonymous and avoid state censorship.
Hiroshi Matoba (jp) – Overbug (2008)
“Overbug” is a performance tool designed to compose Minimal, Dance and Pop Music. Through looping and newly arranging sound patterns, called “Bugsounds”, the programme creates complex, polyrhythmic sounds.
Michiko Nitta (uk) – Extreme Green Guerillas (2007)
Nitta’s project takes current green trends to the extreme: The “Extreme Green Guerillas” are a network of amateur self-sustaining people who have shortened their lifespan to the ultimate green lifestyle, e.g. rejecting the usage of the Internet or mobile phones as this will tie them to big corporations.
Rudolfo Quintas (pt) – Burning The Sound (2008)
The interactive sound performance is about the nature of rituals, power and control. It uses fire from a regular lighter to subvert patterns of rhythm, thus using technological mediated computer sound to exorcise the sound as a spiritual strategy.
Reynold Reynolds (us/de) – Six Apartments (2007)
The two screen video projection loop shows six isolated occupants of six different apartments living their lives unaware of each other, accompanied the by very same sound track from radio and television news. A poetic document of decline and deterioration in times of dramatic change.