transmediale 2013 BWPWAP opens on January 29th 2013

Berlin - 23.1.2013

On January 29th, at 17:30, transmediale 2013, festival for art and digital culture gone BWPWAP, officially opens its doors at the House of World Cultures (HKW).

Per yearly tradition, Jan 25th to Jan 27th will serve as the official pre-festival weekend and teaser called reSource 003: P2P Vorspiel presented together with transmediale partner: CTM Festival. Aimed at promoting digital and post-digital culture among independent organisations, project spaces, galleries, and other venues across Berlin; 35 creative partner venues will offer discussions, installations, performances and workshops throughout the city, leading up to the festival week, or transmediale Pluto day.

With the opening on the 29th, so opens the three-part exhibition The Miseducation of Anya Major. The group show Tools of Distorted Creativity, the first European retrospective of Generative Art pioneer Sonia Landy Sheridan, and the Evil Media Distribution Centre by artist duo YoHa, will serve as a platform for reimagining the effects, uses and developments of contemporary media.

Simultaneously screening in the Theatersaal, will be Carsten Nicolai’s Alva Noto. Uni Acronym. Reducing your world to three letters with abbreviations from propaganda and marketing, the short film will break down complex names and circumstances into catchy formulas that are reminiscent of programmer language.

Alternatively, visitors can watch the repeating fax performance Memoblast by Raquel Meyers, Goto80, and Jacob Sikker Remin presented as a metaphor for the modern lifestyle, where personal expression is conditioned by technology more than we like to admit.

The official Opening Ceremony at 19:00 clock includes an introduction to this year's transmediale program by artistic director Kristoffer Gansing, and a rare planetary “revote” to challenge Pluto's demotion with planetary experts Michael E. Brown, the "man who killed Pluto" and Dr. Gerhard Schwehm of ESA as well as a commentary by anthropologist Lisa Messeri. Through this we consider how Pluto’s story is a metaphor for how technological and scientific discoveries may quickly change our cultural imaginaries and at the same time how a crisis of classification opens up a rich space of cultural negotiation and artistic interventions.

Following the opening ceremony, the first mail-art capsules will be sent through the pneumatic tube installation project: OCTO P7C-1. The "official transmediale 2013 miscommunication platform" is a social network translated into a 3D sculpture. Visitors will be able to interact with the special mail art project PNEUMAtic circUS by receiving one of the hundred performance instructions sent in by the international mail art network.

At 21:00 the performative ReFunct Media # 5 installation will (re)use numerous "obsolete" electronic devices such as French Minitels and re-combine them into a complex chain of elements, to make an ecological analogyof symbiotic interactions.

Collage and appropriation artist People Like Us, will conclude the evening in our BWPWAP Sound System, with a live DJ-set selection of the best and worst of collage music from her sound arts radio show "DO or DIY".

Timeline:
17:30 The Miseducation of Anya Major Exhibition opens
17:30 Screening | Carsten Nicolai, Alva Noto. Uni Acronym (feat. Anne-James Chaton)
17:30 Performance | Raquel Meyers, Goto80, Jacob Sikker Remin Memoblast
19:00 Opening Ceremony | Pluto Y U No Planet?
            Octo Presentation
21:00  ReFunct Media # 5-Presentation
22:00  BWPWAP Sound System with People Like Us

A reminder that the official transmediale 2013 BWPWAP press conference and preview, will occur on January 28th, 2013 at 11:00, at the HKW.

transmediale and CTM curators will present the festival programs, with the transmediale press tour and film program preview to follow.

More information about the program, our festival press counter hours, and press kit can be found online.