Three Parisian organisations - Ars Longa, Confluences and Mains d’Oeuvres - have chosen to join forces with the Pixelache festival. On a day-to-day basis, they support digital artistic research, media and citizenship issues, by means of residencies and regular public events. Some of the artists that they promote participated in the previous and the present editions of the Pixelache festival in Helsinki. Ars Longa, Confluences and Mains d’Oeuvres, with the support of the Finnish Institute in Paris and Project 101, naturally unite with the Pixelache team in an effort to give visibility to experimental art forms, on-going research and social issues originating from various European countries. This is in order to encourage exchanges between the local and international artists and citizens communities.
The “Mal au pixel” festival consists of several equally important components: introductory workshops in creative tools aimed at knowledge and technology transfers; public debates dedicated to sharing questions and ideas emerging from new social and media practices; exploration of installations, prototypes, live evening events and performances for the pleasure to be found in artistic practices based on the reappropriation of communication technologies.
We hope the Festival “Mal au Pixel” develops into a platform for future international exchanges and dialogue, contributing to artistic, civic and participatory reappropriation of contemporary communication media and tools that increasingly govern our daily life.
On behalf of the Mal au Pixel team,
Vincent Guimas, Mathieu Marguerin
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:: Interferenze 2006 :: 3-5 August :: San Martino Valle Caudina, Italy :: www.interferenze.org
Theme for 2006: Naturalis Electronica.
With its 2006 edition, INTERFERENZE, international festival of sounds, new visual arts and media, is seated in the mountains of the Partenio/Valle Caudina (Southern Italy), which it will fill with live performances, installations, projections, seminars, free camping, artists and the public. Thus the international artistic vanguard will be fused with the splendid mountain scenes of Campania.
Although INTERFERENZE is tied to the land, electronic and multimedia arts are its driving force: performances, installations, events, workshops and conferences complete the event.
With edition IV INTERFERENZE confirms its dual spirit existing in the balance between digital provocation and tradition: digital arts and the arts of the past, sonorous vanguards and local values.
Pixelache festival director Juha Huuskonen has been invited to curate the interactive/software art section of Interferenze 2006.
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:: Piksel06 :: 12-15 October :: Bergen, Norway :: www.piksel.no
Piksel is an annual event for artists and developers working with free/libre and open source audiovisual software. Part workshop, part festival, it is organised in Bergen, Norway, by the Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK) and involves participants from more than a dozen countries exchanging ideas, coding, presenting art and software projects, doing workshops, performances and discussions on the aesthetics and politics of open source.
This years event - Piksel06 – continues the exploration of audiovisual code and it's myriad of expressions, but also brings in open hardware as a new focus area.
For the last two years we have collaborated with PixelACHE in parts of the program and last years collaboration with curator Isabelle Arvers for the Piksel05 exhibition proved very fruitful. At Piksel06 we will expand the exhibition part and build upon the open hardware theme, which represents a potential for a new paradigm shift of vital importance for independent artistic expression in the digital domain. Hopefully there will also be room for some interchange with the PixelACHE and Mal au Pixel program.
Piksel06 is done in collaboration with HKS art centre which will be the main location for this years events. Piksel is organised by BEK and a community of core participants including members of collectives dyne.org, goto10.org, sustainablesource.net, hackitectura.net, riereta.net, drone.ws, gephex.org and others.
The development, and therefore use, of digital technology today is mainly controlled by multinational corporations. Despite the prospects of technology expanding the means of artistic expression, the commercial demands of the software industries severely limit them instead. Piksel is focusing on the open source movement as a strategy for regaining artistic control of the technology, but also a means to bring attention to the close connections between art, politics, technology and economy.
The first Colombian edition of Pixelache, organised together with Intermundos and Bogotrax festival. Colombopixel // Pixeltrax presents VJ shows and workshops (with local and international VJ crews), exhibitions and conferences focusing on experimental electronics, audiovisual software and current political issues relating to development of media/technology.
Bogotrax is an independent festival that has been presenting electronic music and arts to the marginalized communities in Bogotá, Colombia. It is an alternative to the commercial and institutional events which have been too expensive for many locals to participate in. The festival consists of open air presentations, free concerts and club events, workshops, radio programs and presentations in universities and libraries. Bogotrax events take place in diverse locations around the city, including the suburbs. All events are open to the public and free. Each year there is an open call for proposals from which emerging Colombian artists are selected to participate in the event. Bogotrax 2007 will be the fourth edition of the festival.
In addition to organising the Pixelache festival edition in Colombia, the plan is to present work of Colombian artists in Pixelache 2007 in Helsinki as well as in other international Pixelache events.
