Saturday, October 22, 2011
Multiple Formats for the Embroidered Digital Commons
Embroidered Digital Commons: Zone from Sophie McDonald on Vimeo.
The Embroidered Digital Commons is slowly taking shape, and we are working out how to collate or show each term in an appropriate format. After they are photographed, some people are keen to stitch the patches into a quilt. Other terms might form a string of bunting or a digital slide show. The fabric patches can also be pinned on a design board as a work in progress. In keeping with the spirit of the Digital Commons, it is important that the works are freely available online (although please note that this requires several hours of voluntary labour to co-ordinate and is a slow process). Although the main focus of the project is the experience of making and discussing the digital commons, and all the political contentions that this raises; it is also important for all the hundreds of individual contributions to come-together into a coherent whole.
Most importantly, the Embroidered Digital Commons examines the reproducibility of a text as an image. The project is transcribing the digital text file into textile, and then back into a digital image and digital film. This lengthy process of copying and reproducing the text is a form of close reading and close listening examining the nature of the digital commons in theory and practice. Whilst there are multiple reiterations of display, perhaps one of the most interesting is the flexibility and reproducibility of the digital format.
Sophie McDonald has been making beautiful films, which bring together the individual phrases into the complete definition of the term. They can be viewed online, or projected in galleries. The projections can be life-size (25x25cm) or large scale. The term 'Zone' is shown above.
This Autumn people are stitching in Vienna, Chawton House Library, Sunderland, Sheffield, London and contributing to the term 'Web' through the Embroidered Digital Commons Face Book Group from as far afield as Texas!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Heterogeneous: All My Independent Women
The Embroidered Digital Commons term 'Heterogeneous' will be hosted by 'All My Independent Women' at the Austrian Association of Women Artists event, November 3rd - December 3rd, 2011. Information below:
AMIW@VBKÖ:
What Can Words Do? / Oder vielmehr, was können Wörter tun?
Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs – VBKÖ
Maysedergasse 2 (4 Floor), 1010 Vienna
The international network of feminist artists 'All My Independent Women' (AMIW) from Portugal will host an exhibition in Austria, invited by the Austrian Association of Women Artists (VBKÖ).
The exhibition will present artworks by: André Alves, Catarina Carneiro de Sousa and Sameiro Oliveira Martins, Laura García and Said Dokins, Alice Geirinhas, Risk Hazekamp, Roberta Lima, Ana Pérez-Quiroga, Suzanne van Rossenberg, Ângelo Ferreira de Sousa, Yan María Yaoyólotl, and performances by André Alves, Stefanie Seibold and the duo Projecto Gentileza. The video lounge will screen works by: Miguel Bonneville, Mónica Faria, Risk Hazekamp, Anna Jonsson, Cristina Mateus, João Manuel Oliveira, Rita Rainho, Flávio Rodrigues, Evelin Stermitz and Lenka Vráblíková. http://amiw-vbkoe.blogspot.com/
The exhibitors take passion as an excuse for engaging the world. At the core of their works they question how the desire for visibility can be transmuted into a different experience of equality and accountability to evoke feminist practices that functions a a ‘counter-hegemonic intervention’ in the arts in particular and in society in general.
November 3
Performance “A READER” by Stefanie Seibold.
The very way in which “A READER” is constructed activates its performative energies. The pin-board becomes a poster made of images, which can be read like an image-atlas – a visual archive which not only stores and collects, but which also activates its elements and connects them.
“Biting Song” by the duo Projecto Gentileza“Biting Song” is a concert/performance “on the relation of perception and physicality, reflecting on suppression and existence in a state of permanence around abstract mental places.”
November 4
Collective activity 'The Embroidered Digital Commons'
A project by Ele Carpenter, moderated by Carla Cruz, is an internationally distributed embroidery of the text 'A Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons' written by the Raqs Media Collective (2003).
November 5
How can AMIW be, simultaneously, an exhibition and a platform for relationality?
Presentation of the publication: AMIW: New Portuguese Letters with Carla Cruz and Filipa Alves
Performance “Deprived Meanings” by André Alves.
The performance is interested in the translation of the tension between the will to say/act and the capacity to do so.
How can the desire for visibility be transmuted into a different experience of equality and accountability?
A round table on the importance of the arts to convey feminist struggles and on strategies from a feminist and antiracist perspective, based on equality and responsibility, that intervene in the dominant discourses in the arts and society. With an editor of 'Migrationsskizzen' (2010), Stefanie Grünangerl (collaborator of grassrootsfeminism.net) and Lisa Bolyos (feminist and anti-racist activist and artist).
AMIW@VBKÖ:
What Can Words Do? / Oder vielmehr, was können Wörter tun?
Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs – VBKÖ
Maysedergasse 2 (4 Floor), 1010 Vienna
The international network of feminist artists 'All My Independent Women' (AMIW) from Portugal will host an exhibition in Austria, invited by the Austrian Association of Women Artists (VBKÖ).
The exhibition will present artworks by: André Alves, Catarina Carneiro de Sousa and Sameiro Oliveira Martins, Laura García and Said Dokins, Alice Geirinhas, Risk Hazekamp, Roberta Lima, Ana Pérez-Quiroga, Suzanne van Rossenberg, Ângelo Ferreira de Sousa, Yan María Yaoyólotl, and performances by André Alves, Stefanie Seibold and the duo Projecto Gentileza. The video lounge will screen works by: Miguel Bonneville, Mónica Faria, Risk Hazekamp, Anna Jonsson, Cristina Mateus, João Manuel Oliveira, Rita Rainho, Flávio Rodrigues, Evelin Stermitz and Lenka Vráblíková. http://amiw-vbkoe.blogspot.com/
The exhibitors take passion as an excuse for engaging the world. At the core of their works they question how the desire for visibility can be transmuted into a different experience of equality and accountability to evoke feminist practices that functions a a ‘counter-hegemonic intervention’ in the arts in particular and in society in general.
November 3
Performance “A READER” by Stefanie Seibold.
The very way in which “A READER” is constructed activates its performative energies. The pin-board becomes a poster made of images, which can be read like an image-atlas – a visual archive which not only stores and collects, but which also activates its elements and connects them.
“Biting Song” by the duo Projecto Gentileza“Biting Song” is a concert/performance “on the relation of perception and physicality, reflecting on suppression and existence in a state of permanence around abstract mental places.”
November 4
Collective activity 'The Embroidered Digital Commons'
A project by Ele Carpenter, moderated by Carla Cruz, is an internationally distributed embroidery of the text 'A Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons' written by the Raqs Media Collective (2003).
November 5
How can AMIW be, simultaneously, an exhibition and a platform for relationality?
Presentation of the publication: AMIW: New Portuguese Letters with Carla Cruz and Filipa Alves
Performance “Deprived Meanings” by André Alves.
The performance is interested in the translation of the tension between the will to say/act and the capacity to do so.
How can the desire for visibility be transmuted into a different experience of equality and accountability?
A round table on the importance of the arts to convey feminist struggles and on strategies from a feminist and antiracist perspective, based on equality and responsibility, that intervene in the dominant discourses in the arts and society. With an editor of 'Migrationsskizzen' (2010), Stefanie Grünangerl (collaborator of grassrootsfeminism.net) and Lisa Bolyos (feminist and anti-racist activist and artist).
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Ada Lovelace Film Screening
Film Screening
To Dream Tomorrow: Ada Byron Lovelace
National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park
Saturday 8th October
2.30pm
To celebrate Ada Lovelace Day 2011 the
National Museum of Computing is proud to present Flare Productions film about
Ada Lovelace, followed by a discussion with the Directors John Fuegi and Jo
Francis.
‘To Dream Tomorrow’ is the story of Ada
Byron Lovelace (1815-1852) and her contribution to computing, a hundred years
before the start of the computer age. Daughter of a mathematically gifted
mother and the 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know' poet Lord Byron, Ada was 17
when she began studying a prototype mechanical calculator designed by
mathematician Charles Babbage. By the time she was 27, she had moved beyond her
famous contemporaries and predecessors such as Leibniz & Pascal, to describe
universal computing much as we understand it today. Alan Turing, who also
worked at Bletchley Park, was familiar with Lovelace’s work.
The screening is kindly made possible by a
grant from the School of Humanities, Kingston University, London. Curated by
Ele Carpenter, Goldsmiths College, University of London.
The National Museum of Computing
Block H
Bletchley Park
Milton Keynes
MK3 6EB
On Saturday 8th October the
Museum will be open 1-5pm.
Entrance £5 / £2.50 concessions.
To Dream Tomorrow:
Ada Byron Lovelace, Color, 52 minutes.
Directed and
Produced by John Füegi and Jo Francis, 2003.
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Vector at the V&A
On Saturday 10th September I'll be hosting an Embroidered Digital Commons workshop in the Power of Making exhibition at the V&A Museum in London.
The workshop will be held around the Tinkerspace table in the middle of the exhibition, the show and the workshop are both free, and all materials are provided. Drop-in anytime between 1 - 4pm to get stitching!
The text we will be embroidering is by the Raqs Media Collective, and reads:
"Vector: The direction in which an object moves, factored by the velocity of its movement. An idea spins and speeds at the same time. The intensity of its movement is an attribute of the propensity it has to connect and touch other ideas. This gives rise to its vector functions. The vector of a meme is always towards other memes, in other words, the tendency of vectors of data is to be as ubiquitous as possible. This means that an image, code or an idea must attract others to enter into relationships that ensure its portability and rapid transfer through different sites and zones. The vectors of different memes, when taken together, form a spinning web of code."
The term 'Vector' seems appropriate for an exhibition where the vectors of objects and ideas connect and touch, porting through different sites and zones. The Power of Making exhibition brings together digital, analogue and physical material making and crafting as both process and object.
The V&A Magazine will feature an article about skill and making, based on a round-table discussion between a number of the writers in the catalogue and artists in the exhibition. The most interesting part of the discussion, for me, was the controversy of drawing analogies between computer coding and physical making, a hang-over from the utopian/dystopian technology division so clearly articulated by Ensensberger, and expanded upon by Alex Galloway and Eugene Thacker in their book 'The Exploit' (2007). There seems to be a correlation between the demise of teaching woodwork and computer coding in schools. Where education focuses on end user products rather than the skills to make and mend, invent and innovate. It seems we have a lot of tools, but no-one knows how to use them. At least the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park recognizes this, and introduces kids (small and large) to the joys of programming.
If you're interested, I've also written a short text called 'Social Making' for the Power of Making Catalogue.
The workshop will be held around the Tinkerspace table in the middle of the exhibition, the show and the workshop are both free, and all materials are provided. Drop-in anytime between 1 - 4pm to get stitching!
The text we will be embroidering is by the Raqs Media Collective, and reads:
"Vector: The direction in which an object moves, factored by the velocity of its movement. An idea spins and speeds at the same time. The intensity of its movement is an attribute of the propensity it has to connect and touch other ideas. This gives rise to its vector functions. The vector of a meme is always towards other memes, in other words, the tendency of vectors of data is to be as ubiquitous as possible. This means that an image, code or an idea must attract others to enter into relationships that ensure its portability and rapid transfer through different sites and zones. The vectors of different memes, when taken together, form a spinning web of code."
The term 'Vector' seems appropriate for an exhibition where the vectors of objects and ideas connect and touch, porting through different sites and zones. The Power of Making exhibition brings together digital, analogue and physical material making and crafting as both process and object.
The V&A Magazine will feature an article about skill and making, based on a round-table discussion between a number of the writers in the catalogue and artists in the exhibition. The most interesting part of the discussion, for me, was the controversy of drawing analogies between computer coding and physical making, a hang-over from the utopian/dystopian technology division so clearly articulated by Ensensberger, and expanded upon by Alex Galloway and Eugene Thacker in their book 'The Exploit' (2007). There seems to be a correlation between the demise of teaching woodwork and computer coding in schools. Where education focuses on end user products rather than the skills to make and mend, invent and innovate. It seems we have a lot of tools, but no-one knows how to use them. At least the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park recognizes this, and introduces kids (small and large) to the joys of programming.
If you're interested, I've also written a short text called 'Social Making' for the Power of Making Catalogue.
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