| Tagline: | festival for art and digital culture |
|---|---|
| Venues: | Akademie der KĂŒnste |
| Date: | 03.02 â 07.02.2006 |
| Organisation: | Berliner Kulturveranstaltungs-GmbH |
| Website: | https://pastwebsites.transmediale.de/page/home.0.3.html |
REALITY ADDICTS demand more than the seclusion of multimedia: they are interested in the real human being, in words and images, in nature and culture.
transmediale.06 was devoted to REALITY ADDICTS and the artistic strategies with which they subvert the technological paradigm of reality. Reality Addicts demand more than the smooth surfaces of a medialised world. Reality Addicts celebrate technical defects, play with the almost possible and commit themselves to nonsense seeking to multiply reality by means of exaggeration, rupture, distance, and ever new diversions. Their favourite means of social commentary and criticism is witty humour; it helps to pinpoint contradiction, communicate and challenge social understandings of technology and reality in a digital culture.
festival theme
transmediale.06 REALITY ADDICTS is interested in real human beings, in words and images, in nature and culture. It is devoted to subverting our reality - produced through means of media-technology - with the help of artistic strategies.
Reality Addicts love reality. They can't get enough of culture and nature, of music and machines, images and words and people. They are dependent on and addicted to the manifold realities.
Reality Addicts demand more than the smooth surfaces of a medialised world, more than the total CCTV illusion of security, the closed spaces of computer games, or the immersive soundscapes of MP3 players. They enjoy the paradoxes, celebrate technical defects, and play with the almost possible.
Reality Addicts don't attempt to understand or evaluate the world. They install little traps, commit themselves to nonsense, and seek to multiply reality by means of exaggeration, rupture, distance, and ever new diversions.
The conference investigated the longing for ever more real world and understood humour as a positivistic and affirmative approach towards reality. The jury sought for art works that showed awareness of the difference between the production and reception side favouring those pieces that possessed a conceptual rigour combined with artistic strategies that challenge the borders between fiction and reality. The exhibition housed so-called SMILE MACHINES which break in a at times teasingly ironic manner into the routines of everyday life: They mirror the paradox technological reality exhibiting failure and dysfunction.
festival catalogue preface
The 19th transmediale festival again explores how art and society are changing under the influence of media and technologies which become more and more dominant in our everyday lives. In contemporary art, digital media like video and electronic networks are now so wide-spread that a strict definition of what constitutes âmedia artâ seems no longer possible. We have therefore decided to alter the subtitle of the festival: transmediale is no longer called 'international media art festival', but âfestival for art and digital culture'. This name is supposed to demonstrate the step away from the niche of âmedia art', yet still points to the field of tension between culture and digital technologies, which continues to form the main driving force of the festival.
The longterm funding by the German Federal Cultural Foundation makes it possible that we present a large exhibition this year which extends beyond the festival week. Under the title 'Smile Machinesâ, the show deals with the interplay between humour, art, and technology. It has been conceived and curated by Prof. Anne-Marie Duguet whose proposal for a project about humour won the immediate acclaim of the selection committee in the autumn of 2004. As a variation of the exhibition theme, we have coined the title 'Reality Addicts' for the transmediale.06 festival which will also deal with the power of humour to define alternative realities.
When the size and duration of the exhibition became clear, we decided to move the entire festival to the splendid building of the Academy of the Arts on Hanseatenweg where we received a most friendly welcome by the directors and the team of the Akademie. The new cooperation and the new spaces have inspired us, after four exciting years at the House of World Cultures, to rethink the pro gramme structure of the festival - with interesting and fresh results, as we hope. We continue the close and successful cooperation with our partner festival Club Transmediale that this year presents its programme in a separate catalogue.
The festival receives its main funding from the German Federal Cultural Foundation. It is a project of the Berliner Kulturveranstaltungs-GmbH in cooperation with Akademie der KĂŒnste. Important parts of the programme are realised in cooperation with the Federal Agency for Civic Education, and with Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. We are very grateful for the continued involvement of our funders, sponsors and partners who support the presentation of the festival, especially SAP as a generous sponsor, FORK Unstable Media for the splendid website, BTL for the comprehensive hardware support, and AVM Computersysteme as the sponsor of the Award Competition.
Andreas Broeckmann, artistic director
'Reality Addiction' is a positive, affirmative attitude towards reality, faithful to the power of humour as a form of critique and social practice. Being addicted to reality means to long ever-more for it, always contradictory to and inconsistent with what we already know. The transmediale.06 programme is divided up into several sections through which reality addiction may unfold. The transmediale.06 conference runs under the title 'Reality Addicts' and deals with artistic and social ideas that don't stop at the borders of mediatised reality. The film and video section consists of ten programmes, relating thematically to the motto of the festival. Works range from feature-length documentaries, to a series of compilation programmes with short artistic video works. The Salon programme presents artistic projects and panel discussions about current issues in art and digital culture. Likewise, the Reality Market opens up for five international projects to involve visitors in the communicative exchange of ideas.
The transmediale award is dedicated to current positions in digital arts and media. It is an open competition, where artists are invited to enter with their current work. The jury of this year's award competition consisted of Kazunao Abe (Yamaguchi/Japan), Marcos Boffa (Belo Horizonte/Brazil), Nuria Enguita (Barcelona/Spain), Honor Harger (Newcastle/Great Britain) and Christian HĂŒbler (Zurich/Switzerland).
The transmediale.06 shied away from awarding work which displayed the overt clichés of interactive art (mainly determined by the technology of the interface), favouring pieces which possessed a conceptual rigour. An acute dread of what some of us referred to as 'New Mania' permeated our considerations, and impelled us to seek works which transcended their medium and spoke: to us simply, powerfully, and with intelligence.
Nominees: ROERMOND-ECKE-SCHĂNHAUSER, Markus Kison, DE, 2005; -./, AndrĂ©s Ramirez Gaviria, CO/AT, 2005, 6:10; SGM-Eisberg-Sonde, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, DE, 2005; GWEI - Google will eat itself, UBERMORGEN.COM feat. Alessandro Ludovico vs. Paolo Cirio, AT/US/IT, 2005; Vexations - Composition in Progress, Yuko Mohri, Soichiro Mihara, JP, 2005; Burn Station - Mobile Free Copy Station, Platoniq, ES, 2004/05
The festival catalog includes information of all events and artworks of transmediale.06 REALITY ADDICTS. The exhibition Smile Machines presented works which reflect on the relationship between art, humour and technology and which expose the power of the media by derision and critique, and information related to the works can be found in the catalog.
team
Andreas Broeckmann Artistic Director, Thomas Munz Editor & Program Curator, Anne-Marie Duguet Curator Exhibition, Vera Tollmann Assistant Curator, Magdalena Rothweiler Festival Management, Silvia Keller Project Management Exhibition, Achim MĂŒller Development & Sponsoring, Annette SchĂ€fer Press & PR, Laleh Torabi Design, Coordination Print & Web, Grit Schönfelder Assistant Program, Conference, Anna-Sophie Springer Assistant Program, Market, Silvia Anna BarrilĂĄ Assistant Program, Video, Anja Klaus Assistant Editor, Print & Web, Sebastian Völker Assistant Festival Management, Sylvia Arnaout Assistant Exhibition, Mandy Ouw Assistant Development, Christiane Lötsch Assistant Press, Jan MĂŒggenburg Assistant Coordination PR, Ulrike Roesen Coordination tm-AdK, serve-u, Phillip SĂŒnderhauf, Andreas Buchholz Technical Directors, Ludmila Demke Assistant to Technical Director, Maaskant/Ruth M. Lorenz Interior Festival Design, David Linderman, Silke Krieg, Nancy Bachmann, David Schmidt, Leo Merz Web Design & Video Trailer, Alex Adriaansens, Wulf Herzogenrath, Joachim Sauter, Yukiko Shikata, Siegfried Zielinski Advisory Board
supporters
Main funders: Kulturstiftung des Bundes
Sponsors: Bundeszentrale fĂŒr politische Bildung, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, SAP, Fritz! by AVM, BTL Die Technie fĂŒr Veranstaltung, 4RK
Media partners: Telepolis, die tageszeitung, radioeins rbb, arte, Berliner Fenster, zitty, DE:BUG Macwelt
Partners: IN-Berlin, Art+Com, AuswĂ€rtiges Amt, Spanische Botschaft, Botschaft von Kanada, Botschaft von Finnland, Ambassade de France, Ăsterreichische Botschaft, Botschaft der USA, Botschaft des Königreichs der Niederlande, Vertretung der Regierung von QuĂ©bec, Pro Helvetia Schweizer Kulturstiftung
Supporters: Institut Français, Australische Botschaft, Bionade, Tschechisches Zentrum, Werkleitz Gesellschaft, Viña Albali Reservas