ElectroSmog International Festival for Sustainable Immobility

We have just made a series of seven short video’s available via our Vimeo account. The video’s contain impressions, interviews and short excerpts from the ElectroSmog festival program. Please feel free to use, share, republish these video’s as you please.

If you so so we greatly appreciate it if you mention us as the originators of this material.

Enjoy!

What is the ElectroSmog Festival about? from ElectroSmog Festival on Vimeo.

TELE_TRUST @ ElectroSmog – a participatory performance and installation by Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat from ElectroSmog Festival on Vimeo.

Designing for (im)mobility part 1: Martin Butler, The Girlfriend Experience from ElectroSmog Festival on Vimeo.

Designing for (im)mobility part 2: John Thackara and a meeting in the Land of NoR from ElectroSmog Festival on Vimeo.

Designing for (im)mobility part 3: Interviews with Caroline Nevejan, Dirk van Weelden, and Kay Politowitz from ElectroSmog Festival on Vimeo.

Energy and Information from ElectroSmog Festival on Vimeo.

Food and Global Mobility – Tracing the path of food to our kitchen-table from ElectroSmog Festival on Vimeo.

The ElectroSmog festival is over. We thank all participants and partners who worked with us on realising this impossible project. There s a lot to consider after conclusion of an event that went so far beyond regular festival conventions. However, our first priority after getting some rest will be post-production. Where possible all festival events have been recorded, and a number of short video reports have already been produced. These recordings will be processed in the coming few weeks and progressively made available via this website and other sources.

Announcements will be posted here, as well as on relevant news sites and international mailing lists, as these resources become available.

Thank you all for your interest and involvement!

The ElectroSmog festival team.

In the opening panel yesterday we gathered some really interesting, if not baffling statistics about the world-wide evolution of mobility.

From our friends of Sasahivi media in Nairobi we heard that it now takes them two to three hours every day to go from home to work, and they often leave very early or very late to avoid rush hour traffic. We then asked them what distance they had to cover and they explained that it was just under 3 km (!).

Architect Daan Roggeveen then connected with us from Xi’an international airport and explained that in their recent studies of Wuhan more than 500 new cars hit the streets in China. We asked him how many cities of comparable size exist now in China, and he thought about 30. Simple calculation then tells us that about 15.000 new cars hit the road every single day in China.

Then we talked to filmmaker Aarti Sethi in Delhi, and she explained that in Delhi similar things are going on, especially since the introduction of the Tata, the Indian equivalent of the Volkswagen. In Delhi the estimate is that about a thousand new cars hit the road each day.

We can be brief – this is not sustainable.

We are in the middle of a fascinating discussion on how cities like Madrid, Amsterdam and New York are branded and sold as products in aggressive marketing campaigns that actually contradict all ecological common sense.
www.electrosmogfestival.net/program/#branding

But Beka Economopoulos explains how actually these same campaigns can be used to create visibility for voices of difference and local communities that usually remain invisible in these campaigns.

.

After a slightly rocky, but nonetheless fascinating panorama of global mobility this morning, where we learnt that in China there are now about 15.000 new cars hitting the road every single day, while in a city like Delhi alone the count is around 1.000 cars a day! Mind boggling…

Then take into account that in Nairobi our friends from Sashivi media spend 2 tot 3 hours travelling from home to work, every day, while the distance they need to cover is about 3 km(!).

Quite clear that we have a problem here.

We are now into the second session, on the Witnessed Presence research of Caroline Nevejan.
www.electrosmogfestival.net/program/#witnessedpresence

Excitement is growing – we are about to go live in less than half an hour!

We start of with an intimate and yet almost globally distributed conversation on the perils of hyper-mobility, with invited responses from Delhi, X’ian, Dhaka, Nairobi and London.
Global perspectives on hyper-mobility

But first up is the short guide to ElectroSmog n which I will tell a little about what we will be doing in the coming 3 days, and we haer also from Su Ballard in Dunedin New Zealand about the activities that will happen at the other end of the planet (with exactly 12 hours time difference the most extreme distance we cover).

Enjoy the program the next few days – we certainly will!

Eric

Food and Global Mobility
Tracing the path of food to our kitchen-table
Saturday, March 20, 16.00 – 18.00 CET (GMT+1)
Venues: De Balie, Amsterdam / Remote: Barcelona / Berlin

You can participate directly in this debate by contributing your ideas and questions, discuss, vote and engage in collaborative deliberation on incoming contributions, promoting the best contributions for inclusion in the final live event:
Join the on-line discussion on food and global mobility in the run up to the festival here:
www.electrosmogfestival.net/discussions

Background

What does food mean for us today? There is a growing understanding that food is not only a fuel to keep our bodies working, a source of pleasure, and for some also a source of income. It is also an important link between us and our environments, natural and social, local and global. More and more people are trying to rethink our relationships with the world through food and different forms of engagement with it. The issue of sustainability in the age of hyper-mobility is one of the most urgent ones. Questions on the table can be different as well as the answers to them. Should we reduce global food mobility and start buying more local products? But what then about farmers and communities in the developing countries for whom supplying us with fruits and vegetables is of great economic significance? What exactly would we like to know about the pre-shelf life of our food in order to make an informed responsible choice? How can we access this information? What alternative ideas for sustainable food strategies are out there? Is urban farming a promising way to reconnect to your food? And what does it actually mean – “sustainable food strategies”?

This panel will bring together people involved in practical and theoretical research related to sustainable food strategies. The idea is to present and discuss highly diverse perspectives on the issue where environmental, social, ethical, technological, scientific and aesthetic aspects can be interrelated in an interesting, insightful, creative, and even challenging way.

With:

Tania Goryucheva, editor of the Food and Global Mobility theme for ElectroSmog and co-founder of the Cool Mediators Foundation.
www.coolmediators.net
Artist Esther Polak will present findings from her project under development NomadicMILK
http://nomadicmilk.net/?page_id=2. NomadicMILK is a unique project which combines poetics, research and creative use of technologies, such as GPS and a mobile robot. It tracked the daily routes of two milk related economies between January and December 2009 in Nigeria.

Ir. Toine Timmermans, program manager sustainable food chains of Wageningen UR (University & Research centre), will provide expert insights into the recent developments in supply chains research. As for consumers the pre-shelf life of products is still quite a mystery,  it is useful to learn how supply chains management deals with the sustainability issue and how it can be improved.
www.wur.nl

Hernani Dias, “Refarm the City” project: open software and hardware tools for urban farmers.
In his hands-on project Hernani Dias develops, in collaboration with Medialab Prado and others, open software and hardware tools, low-tech practical ideas for urban farmers. At the project website one can explore and discuss ideas how, for example, water shortage can be resolved or hydroponic system can be built.
www.refarmthecity.org

Fairfood International, is a non-profit campaign and lobby organisation, which encourages the food and beverage industry to increase the level of sustainability of its products. In their critical investigations of modern supply chains, issues of social responsibility and fair treatment of producers are among the highest priorities.
www.fairfood.org

Dr. ir. Frank van der Hoeven, Associate Professor, Chair of Urban Design at Delft University of Technology.
Food in the city is a complex reality: transportation, shops, markets, eating places, etc. A lot of these practices and experiences are up to urban designers to rethink and determine. What can we expect in this area from urban science and technology?
http://urbandesign.bk.tudelft.nl/

Michiel de Lange, (moderator) researcher at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, involved in the Playful Identities research program and co-initiator of the Mobile City platform.
www.bijt.org/wordpress

About the online discussion channel

The discussion channels as well as the interfaces for live audience participation during events are powered by the open source Cool Mediators platform, which provides tools for connecting participatory deliberative discussions with live public events. You can also use the Cool Mediators interface to follow the festival live-streams and submit your contributions during the actual event.
www.electrosmogfestival.net/discussions

Information about tickets:
 www.electrosmogfestival.net/tickets

“Food and Global Mobility” program online:
  www.electrosmogfestival.net/program/#food

Venue: De Balie, Amsterdam

Discussion hosted by Merijn Oudenampsen and Ana Méndez

On Thursday March 18, starting at 21.00 hrs, Merijn Oudenampsen and Ana Méndez will host a debate on city and country branding strategies, which contribute disproportionally to increased travel and mobility, both for touristic purposes as well as for professional travel and conference-mania (the thing that the ElectroSmog festival-format is a practical critique of).

The strategy of promoting cities, or as in the case of a country such as New Zealand after the Lord of the Rings trilogy an entire country, in international systems of circulation to attract visitors of various kinds makes a lot of sense from a short term economic point of view. The reasons for doing it for individual cities and countries are obvious. From an ecological point of view, however, the branding strategy is highly questionable.
In a broader sense the critique of city branding addresses the question of whether it is a good idea to profile a cities as products (in an international market) instead of living environments for its inhabitants?
Is an ecologically more responsible approach possible?

With contributions by:

Daniel van der Velden, designer and writer, Meta-haven, Brussels / Amsterdam

Beka Economopoulos, Not An Alternative, New York

Jason Jones, Not An Alternative, New York

Ana Méndez, Observatorio Metropolitano, Madrid

Isidro López, Observatorio Metropolitano, Madrid

Eva Ramos López, Town Planning and Housing Area, Madrid City Council

Merijn Oudenampsen, Amsterdam

Damoclash, Amsterdam

Invited responses from the ADA network, New Zealand

You can find all program details in the program overview:
http://www.electrosmogfestival.net/program/#branding

Research presentation with Caroline Nevejan and guests

On Thursday March 18, starting at 13.00 hrs, Caroline Nevejan will present the extensive research she has been developing on witnessed presence and system engineering since the Fall of 2008, together with members of the Autonomous Systems group at Delft University of Technology, artists and professionals from a variety of disciplines.

Caroline Nevejan is a researcher and designer focusing on the implications of technology on society, who has been involved with interdisciplinary projects for over 20 years. Currently she works with internationally with professionals, academics and artists on Witnessed Presence. Witnessed Presence deals with question such as: How do human beings bear witness to one another? Can manmade systems and infrastructure bear witness to us? How can we be witness and bear witness to each other when so often presence is mediated by technology?

A scientific site has been set up where the research design, academic publications as well as the source material of 21 interviews and work of 4 artists can be accessed:
www.systemsdesign.tbm.tudelft.nl/witness

With Mediamatic Lab an experimental site is under construction to unfold knowledge from academia, the professional realm and the arts in relation to one another.
This work in progress can be accessed at:
http://witness.being-here.net/index.php

The program includes guest presentations by artists and researchers who were involved in the project: Debra Solomon, Dr. Satinder Gill, Ronald Ophuis and Martijn Warnier.

You can find all program details in the program overview:
www.electrosmogfestival.net/program/#witnessedpresence

The preliminary program of the ElectroSmog festival is now available on-line at this website, and will be continuously updated as new program details become available.

About the festival
The ElectroSmog festival is a critique of the worldwide explosion of mobility, and an exploration of the new forms of connectedness with others offered to us by network and communication technologies.
Our question is if these new forms of connectedness can help us to develop a viable new lifestyle less determined by speed and constant mobility, which is both ecologically and socially more sustainable.

Bringing together a broad coalition
The ElectroSmog festival brings together a broad coalition of designers, environmentalists, urban and spatial planners, technologists, artists, theorists, and engaged and concerned citizens, to explore and ‘design’ sustainable immobility.

Zero travel
ElectroSmog is a truly international festival, with everything you might expect: international debates and discussions, performances, art projects, exhibits, site specific projects, screenings, a design competition, and more.
ElectroSmog stakes its claim for a radical break with the current systems of hyper-mobility not simply by discussing the issue, but by actually implementing it.

A few basic ground rules apply for all the festival events listed there:
• No presenter will travel beyond their local or regional boundaries to participate in this event.
• All festival events will always take place in at least two locations connected in real-time.
• A crucial dimension of the festival will be its on-line presence, where audiences from basically anywhere with an internet connection can follow events on-line, join in discussions and debates, visit virtual theatres in metaverses such as second life, and contribute to the program.

Going beyond the broadband enclaves
ElectroSmog acknowledges from the start that bandwidth is not equally distributed across and within societies. Therefore remote connection to lower bandwidth spaces, do-it-yourself telematics, and information technologies for the majority world will be central concerns the festival will address.

Thematic discussions, presentations and connected debates
The ElectroSmog festival-program is organised around a series of  interlocking thematic programs, connected discussions and debates all transmitted live over the internet.
Themes covered by these events include:
• Global views on the crisis of mobility
• Witnessed Presence
• Hyper-mobility and the urban condition
• City & regional branding debate
• e-mobility versus immobility
• Designing for (im)mobility
• Public media art projects and sustainability
• Energy and information
• ElectroSmog is Good for You!
• Food and global mobility
• Deep local and remote technologies

Satellite events
Around the main program a host of satellite events is organised locally and translocally.
These include:
• Art projects and local interventions, including original works by Bureau des Etudes, Karen Lancel & Hermen Maat, John Cohrs, Sean Kerr, Kevin McCourt & Bartolo Luque, and others.
• Special events, screenings, book launches, and more.
• A program of connected and localised workshops
• On-line projects and environments designed specifically for the festival.
.