Dear friends & colleagues,
A brief newsletter this time, just to let you know that the Pixelache
Helsinki month has started!
We have three exhibition openings coming up soon (the first one already on
Friday this week!) and the festival taking place in one months time,
between 2-5 April.
Here is the calendar:
6 March - Expedition to the Total Eclipse exhibition opening
12 March - Signals from the South exhibition opening
1 April - Artkillart exhibition opening
2-5 April - Pixelache Helsinki 2009
Below you can find more info about the two first exhibitions. More
information also on Pixelache Helsinki site at http://2009.pixelache.ac.
All the best,
Juha.
.: juhuu@juhuu.nu :: www.juhuu.nu :: www.pixelache.ac :.
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Capsula / Pixelache 09 / HIAP
6 March – 7 June 2009
Mediatheque, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art
Expedition to the Total Eclipse
Agnes Meyer – Brandis, Mireia C. Saladrigues, Tommi Taipale
Curated by: Ulla Taipale / Capsula
Opening on Friday, March 6
6 pm Presentation of the expedition in Kiasma Theatre
7 pm Exhibition opening
Capsula’s cross-disciplinary expeditions, straddling the borderline
between art and science, study and marvel at natural phenomena through
personal experience. The first expedition was made in summer 2008 to
Siberia, where the total eclipse of the Sun could be observed. The base of
the expedition was set up at the Novosibirsk Zoo, from which it continued
on to the Altai wilderness and all the way to the Moon. Travelling slow,
using methods of transport that only moderately burden the environment, is
a key aspect of the expeditions.
Could the natural phenomenon and the spectacles of the nature still
fascinate a major quantity of people in the modern world, saturated by
entertainment like video games and action movies? And, could these
splendid and thrilling emotions lived within the nature, shift the
attitude of people to more respectful and caring direction concerning
their environment?
More information:
Capsula Expeditions: http://capsulaexpeditions.com
Pixelache 09: http://2009.pixelache.ac
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Signals from the South
MUU gallery, 13 March - 5 April 2009
Opening 12 March 2009, 17.00-19.00
'Signals from the South’ is an annual Pixelache showcase of projects from
‘the South’ (South America, Africa, Asia). This year’s
exhibition organised in collaboration with MUU Gallery features work by
Venzha Christ / Yogyakarta New Media Art Laboratory (Indonesia), Geraldine
Juaréz (Mexico), Annemie Maes (Belgium), Vanessa Gocksch & Juan Carlos
Pellegrino (Colombia).
** Venzha Christ: Chronicle_Therapy!
Chronicle_Therapy! is a sound installation that explores the
electromagnetic spectrum. The audience can walk inside the installation
and test how their presence affects the sound environment. In addition to
television, radio and mobile phone signals, all other electronic devices
send out and can be affected by electromagnetic signals. The same is true
for humans and other living beings - we are always immersed in the
electromagnetic spectrum.
The installation has been created in the context of the Education Focus
Programme (EFP) initiated by Venzha Christ. The Education Focus Program
(EFP) is a project conceived of in terms of a developing country where New
Media art is currently not widely available. The main goal of the project
is to build a modern conception of a future between technology and
people. It thus includes activities and research focusing on people,
technology, communities and beyond. The EFP challenges people to approach
their everyday environment differently.
** Geraldine Juárez: Tools for the End of the World
During the period of colonization in America, the Catholic Church used
different methods to dismantle the traditions and beliefs of the native
cultures, to establish Catholicism as the dominant religion in Latin
America. The process involved death, slavery, trusteeship and the
resignation of the natives’ beliefs, by means of destruction of their
idols and temples, to force them to adopt the new religion. They would
battle and resist by hiding their symbols behind the imposed ones and
pretending their faith and devotion. This collision of cultures and
beliefs produced a religious syncretism that is still tangible to these
days.
Learning from these acts of resistance during the time of colonization and
inspired by the sacramental aspect of religion, these tools for the end of
the world have been created by hacking religious scapulars in order to
subvert their original meaning. In the context of this project, they are
repurposed to increase service and commitment towards the act of
resistance. They remind the wearer to combat with generosity, anarchy,
ambiguity and copyleft respectively.
** Annemie Maes: Politics of Change (PoC)
Annemie Maes has initiated Politics of Change, an ongoing artistic
research project driven by grassroots activism, eco-technology and
networks of women. PoC wants to research and build integrated and
sustainable relationships between people, their environment and
technology.
As artists, filmmakers, activists and policy-makers whose practice
incorporates ecological thinking, we have to enrich the public debate
around ethical living, environmental sustainability and eco-technology. We
have to think about the kind of future in which we want to live and work.
What lifestyles, what social and economic systems can we envisage beyond
the usual? Is there anything that we can learn from existing (non-Western)
social experiments to help us make our economic and political systems less
fragile and unstable?
The case study of the Barefoot College project in India is a good example
to start with. Their appropriate, distributed and DIY approach towards
technology is worth the attention of a larger public. The target group
(local and international) is a public that is aware of the actions and
solutions needed to build on the construction of a more balanced society,
contributing sustainable changes to social and ecological structures. A
public with a critical view on the use of technology in our wasteful
consumer-society, a public open to the sharing of knowledge.
** Vanessa Gocksch & Juan Carlos Pellegrino: Poporo Luminoso
A poporo is a pre-Colombian sacred apparatus which all men of the
indigenous Kogui, Arahuaco, Wiwa and Kankuamos tribes carry with them all
the time. It is a symbol of a woman which also carries a practical
purpose, as it is a container for the lime made from crushed sea shells
that the indigenous men use when chewing coca leaves. They constantly
rotate a lime covered stick around the top of the poporo, which over the
years creates a thick shell – this action is considered as a way of
“writing” thoughts. This is a daily routine of meditation for the
indigenous tribes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region.
The Poporo Luminoso is an interpretation of a poporo that includes a hand
winded flashlight integrated into it. It is intended as an alternative to
the battery flashlights that indigenous people buy to use in their
territories, and which is an important source of pollution. It is an
invitation for indigenous people to learn how to fabricate electronic
everyday objects themselves and in accordance with their own way of life.
The Poporo Luminoso will also serve as the starting point for dialogue
with indigenous people about ideas such as ‘civilized cultures’ versus
‘millinery cultures’ or technology within the context of indigenous
cultures. We assume that it will be perceived as a polemic object by the
indigenous people who use the original poporo. Their opinions will be
collected to a blog called Muldsigaba (“to communicate” in Kogui
language’) that will act as a discussion forum about indigenous people and
contemporary communication practices including art.
More information:
http://2009.pixelache.ac/events/signals-from-the-south
http://www.muu.fi/signalsfromthesouth
http://2009.pixelache.ac/festival/press