East & West
Chair: Prof. Lorenzo Taiuti
The great developement of digital media in Far East and more generally in the non/western (Europe/USA) cultures challenges the early asset of the digital cultures.
What’s happening today?
What’s the “state of the art” of relationships, exchanges between East & West, and differences in the digital global society?
The panel wants to bring people together to interrogate the actual activities, create new ideas and collaborations, incite creativity, new dialogues and try to foresee what’s happening in a new global digital culture where geographic definitions are changing but cultures maintain their singularities.
Contact email: Md3169@mclink.it
Papers
Digital Art in Turkey
by Ekmel Ertan
I will try to give a brief vision of the digital art scene in Turkey. I will talk about the reflections of social and cultural current state on the digital art scene in our local and the region. I will try to explain why the state of the consumption and usage of the current digital technologies in daily life does not have a corresponding effect in the art scene.”
Open Lab Egypt
by Dia Ahmed
OLE
As abbreviated “OLE”, Open Lab Egypt is a long-term project meant to establish a laboratory for the development of digital arts in Egypt, promoting the use of Open Source tools in audiovisual creation. It aims to raise a local community in Cairo of autonomous people that can start a support for production of interactive environments and electronic interfaces in the future, using all the accessible technologies that might be necessary. The project is intended for art students, artists, designers, educators, engineers, and scientists contributing to the development of cultural production in local communities of the Arabic speaking regions.
Medrar for Contemporary Art
“Medrar” is a nonprofit organization that started running activities since 2005. It represents a common cultural corporate and philanthropic platform for young emerging artists in all means of communication, developing experiences and financial support. Considering the necessity to document the ongoing Contemporary praxis in Egypt and critique based methods, Medrar aims to drive the interest of emerging artists with providing chances of accession and experimentation. We believe we can stimulate the artistic scene in Egypt by focusing on the organization of workshops and festivals that would encourage participation of new faces, locally and internationally. As an artist running based initiative, we are always seeking the upcoming potentials of creativity.
Cos
by Venzha Christ
Circle of Satan 3.0 / HONF
Circle of Satan is a platform for exchanges, meetings, sharing, discussions and common thinking. It expresses the struggle and disadvantage of a developing country. Whenever opportunity arises, another obstacle defeats progress, in either the form of natural disaster or human corruption. Indonesia still remains one of the poorest nations, with a substantial lack of technology for the public. Is there still a dream possible in the face of chaotic infrastructure, corruption, deforestation, illegal logging, the Pacific ring of fire, sweatshops and globalization. http://www.natural-fiber.com/. circle of satan / COS have been presented in slovenia, finland, rumania, hong kong, japan, malaysia, singapore, germany, france, netherlands, austria, czech republic, canada, australia, taiwan, china, hungary, lithuania, spain, n so on and (of course) (especially) in lots of universities n communities in indonesia.
http://www.natural-fiber.com/
“Why we love Aliens”
by Willem Velthoven
Mediamatic’s core focus is on art and new technologies. Yet a recurring theme in our programming is non-dutch / non-western exchanges. Velthoven will demonstrate how this is a logical combination.
Bios of the Participants
Lorenzo Taiuti lives in Rome. He’s been teaching Art and Media since mid 80’s in several Art Academies and Universities in Turin, Milan and Rome. He published several books on art and media: “Art and Media-Avantgards and mass comunications” 1996, “Dreaming Bodies – Art in the age of digital” 2001, “Multimedia- The cross over of comunication languages” 2005.
Essays in several books and catalogues: “From Videoart to Interactive Art” 1999, “E-Learning- Art and Didactics on the Net” 2004, “From Land Art to Bioart” 2007- “Art from presentation to rappresentation” 2010 – Academy of San Luca, “Art and Digital” Encyclopedia Treccani 2010. Writings on art and media on several italian art magazines and webmagazines, “Art and Critic”, “Juliet”, “D’Ars”, “Drome”,”Digimag”, “Noema”, “Exibart”, “Artribune” etc… Organization of media shows and meetings in Torino, Milan and Rome. Creative works on video and conception of interactive installations and websites, “ImmagineRete”, “Dorkbotroma”, “Jasmine Memory”.
Editor’s website: http://www.feltrinelli.it
Ekmel Ertan works as an artist, curator and educator. Ertan is the founder and artistic director of Istanbul based BIS, Beden-İşlemsel Sanatlar Derneği (Body-Process Arts Association), which is a research and production platform – also known as amberPlatform – on art and new technologies. Ertan has been the curator and director of the annual “amber Art and Technology Festival” since its inception in 2007 in Istanbul. He is the initiator of amberConference, the only Science, Technology and Art Conference in Turkey. He has curated many local and international exhibitions and performances. Ertan is also working as the site coordinator of several international projects based in Turkey and Europe in the field of art and technology.
Ertan has exhibited his photography work at La Mama Gallery in 1997, in 2003 in New York and Turkey. He has also exhibited his new media installations and cooperative performance works in several local and international venues.
Ertan received his BSc degree in Electronics / Communication Engineering from Istanbul Technical University and his MA degree on Interactive Media Design from Yıldız Technical University. He worked as a design and test engineer on telecommunication systems in Turkey, Germany and Belgium. He started a multimedia design company in 1997 in Istanbul. Between 1999 and 2006, he taught multimedia / visual communication design at Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul Technical University, Yıldız Technical University and since 2006 he has been teaching at Sabancı University.
Dia Hamed was born in Cairo, studied Art Education in “Helwan University” and lives and works in Cairo as an artist. Instead of being devoted to a certain discipline, he kept exploring through wide variety of praxis like theater (performing, creation and scenography), and then realizing creation of his projects within the context of Egyptian contemporary art. During studies, he practiced acting, dancing and percussion for theater in university festivals and other cultural events till 2006. Later on he took part with live performance art works in “Salon El Shabab” 17th & 18th as well as Sabeel performance meetings in the Townhouse gallery 2007/08, subsequently redirected to experimenting interactivity in public spaces with his latest projects “situation-complication” & “Native Tourists”. He cofounded Studio Moroni theater group, Sabeel project and Medrar for contemporary art in which he currently working as its projects’ director, also with Berlin based Company “Rimini Protokol” for documentary theater production as an assistant director.
Venzha Christ (1975), male, Indonesia, 1996 graduated from interior design faculty (BA), Indonesia Institute of the Arts (ISI). Focus on new media art since 1999, and built HONF, yogyakarta new media art laboratory’ www.natural-fiber.com, that was produced and organized lot of projects such as public art installation, media performance, media art festival, technology research, videowork festival, workshops, discussion, DIY gathering, electronic and media culture movement, etc. Venzha is founder of HONF, Education Focus Program (EFP) platform, and electrocore sound project. He and community were presenting media art projects in many places and country worldwide. Venzha is a conceptor and director also for YIVF (Yogyakarta International Videowork Festival) and CELLSBUTTON (Yogyakarta International Media Art Festival), which produced by HONF every year.
Willem Velthoven (1958) studied art history and visual communcation in Groningen, NL, where he also was one of the founders of Mediamatic. He is still leading this organisation that is now based in Amsterdam.
For more information: http://isea2011.sabanciuniv.edu/panel/east-west