| Tagline: | international media art festival |
|---|---|
| Venues: | Podewil |
| Date: | 05.02 – 11.02.2001 |
| Organisation: | Berliner Kulturveranstaltungs-GmbH |
| Website: | https://pastwebsites.transmediale.de/01/en/diy.htm |
transmediale.01 wanted to turn passive media consumers into active producers: visitors should get the opportunity to experience artistic and media-technological strategies in order to give them the opportunity to create art by themselves, in situ. Thus, DIY [do it yourself!] reflected the emancipatory and self-empowering tendency of the digital era in media-artistic practices.
festival theme
The introduction of new electronic and digital media has regularly gone hand in hand with the promise that their users will become active producers. This applies to Brecht's radio theory as much as it does to the development of video as an alternative to expensive film and television productions in the 60s and 70s, and to the camcorder and Internet revolutions of the 90s.
While these hopes have only ever been fulfilled in part in society as a whole, the availability of new, affordable digital equipment has fostered a lively DIY scene over the past 10 years. This has provided a growing number of people with an opportunity to develop, present and distribute their own media productions themselves and even to create their own media tools.
The transmediale.01 focuses on media developments and artistic projects in which visitors become users or producers even. The pioneers of this active appropriation of digital technology are the DIYers and hackers who open up, convert, extend and misuse computers, projectors and all sorts of electronic household equipment as well as software packages. This DIY approach is now increasingly assuming the form of a cultural movement in which small artistic groups put their video clips on the Internet, fans of computer games design their own levels, and DJs and VJs develop software in international networked groups and through an open exchange of material. The exhibitions, presentations, workshops and live events at the transmediale.01 concentrate on artistic projects which are concerned with the DIY development and construction of creative tools and which are designed to foster creative media competence.
festival catalogue preface
In its 14th year the transmediale is searching for new directions - the festival theme and the restructuring of the programme provide the clearest signal of this. The theme DIY [do it yourself!] serves as the leitmotif and runs as a hypothesis through the festival: today, digital media have the potential to turn passive media consumers into active producers. The programme has been shortened to a week and divided into clearly structured blocks, including two concentrated conference days with numerous international guests and the one-day highlight of the competition with artist presentations and a special award ceremony. In addition there is a series of video screenings, special events and workshops.
The transmediale has not been exempt from the difficult financial situation facing culture in Berlin. The planned media art exhibition could not be realised and, instead of presenting several video projections at low cost, we decided to leave this painful gap and note that an appropriate exhibition with interactive installations was impossible this year. The catalogue will not be produced until after the festival; we are making a virtue out of necessity and promise a comprehensive documentation of the festival and the DIY theme.
Thanks to the generous support by several companies, the festival nevertheless fulfils its claim to be an international meeting place and platform for the latest developments in the field of media art. We have specifically sought the cooperationof a whole series of institutions that are engaged in specific aspects of media culture. A high-class competition, pioneering interactive projects and the focus on software as a social and aesthetic phenomenon provide a dear picture as towhere the transmediale will develop in future.
Andreas Broeckmann, Susanne Jaschko
On the level of visitor-artist the exchange started and was further developed in the discussions of the conference: communication software, labelled as social software, as well as artistic software – software art were topics explored in the context of new forms of distribution and net.based participation. The nominated artworks were located in hybrid areas oscillating between the understandings of people and machines, between collaboration, blockage, and invention. They offered new ways of constructing reality and new forms of identification. Appropriate, participate, produce, and distribute were the requests to visitors and artists alike at transmediale.01.
Emphasising the emancipatory, self-empowering tendencies of digital culture, the festival catalogue includes information of all events and artworks of transmediale.01 DIY. The documentation evolved into a book as the project descriptions, texts, discussions, and illustrations were collected.
Interactive
With jury Alex Adriaansens, Dr. Söke Dinkla, and Prof. Michael Saup. The winners were Herwig Weiser and Albert Bleckmann with their project zgodlocator.
Artistic Software
The jury was composed by Florian Cramer, Ulrike Gabriel, and John F. Simon. The winners were Adrian Ward and Signwave with Auto-Illustrator, and Netochka Nezvanova with Nebula.M81 - Autonomous
Video
With Catrin Backhaus, Angela Melitopoulos, and Gereon Schmitz as jury. Istvan Kantor won with the piece BROADCAST, and Sylvie Laliberté with L’Outil n’est pas toujours un marteau.
team
transmediale.01 DIY Team Wilhelm Großmann (Berliner Kulturveranstaltungs-GmbH Director), Dr. Andreas Broeckmann Festival Director, Susanne Jaschko Curator/Deputy Director, Marian Bichler Festival Coordination, Katje Gessner Festival Coordination, Dirk Volke (Podewil) Festival Coordination, Anke Hoffmann Programme Coordination, Sabine Alpers Programme Coordination Assistant, Website Editing, Dr. Wolf Siegert Promotion & Sponsoring, Flóra Tálasi (Fundraising, Podewil) Promotion & Sponsoring, Christine Sievers Press, Gabriele Miketta (Podewil) Press, Manja Buschewski Press Assistant, Götz Dihlmann Technical Director, Andreas Harder Technical Director, Maximilian Stelzl (Podewil) Technical Support, Hans Hübner Networking, B VIER Exhibition Design, aroma Print & Webdesign, Karin Schyle Print Editing, av.f Medienprojekte Festival Trailer, Thomas Munz Website Editing; Text by Andreas Broeckmann, Susanne Jaschko, Anke Hoffmann; Translation Robert Bryce, Tom Morrison, Nigel Prosser, Alisa Kottmair, Jürgen Scheunemann, Laura Schleussner
transmediale.01 advisory board Stefaan Decostere, Anne-Marie Duguet, John Hanhardt, Wulf Herzogenrath, Joachim Sauter
supporters
Patron: Eberhard Diepgen, Mayor of Berlin
Funded: Hauptstadt Kulturfunds, SenWissKult (Berlin Senat), Media Plus (European Union), Filmboard (Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg)
In cooperation with: bqnm, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V., Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Mikro, Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
Awards sponsors: av.f medienprojekte gmbh, CONGA Communications, PLEX
Supporters:Das Kulturbüro von Quebec in Berlin, Auswärtiges Amt, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildnug, The British Council, Bundesinisterium für Wirtschaft und Technologie, Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, Österreichische Botschaft Berlin, Apple Center, Art Com, AVM, Barco, B Vier, Contrib.Net, Fujitsu, Fux Data, gate5, Games Academy, Gate O, LEGO, Lucent Technologies, LOEWE, Siemens, Volkswagen Art Foundation
Media partners: B1. Das Berlin Fernsehen vom SFB, De:Bug, flyer, InfoRadio auf 93.1, Springerin, I-D Media, Cycosmos.com, die tageszeitung, zitty
Special thanks to Hansa Computer, Studio Berlin