ElectroSmog International Festival for Sustainable Immobility

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.
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The  webcast of the discussion on ‘Designing for (sustainable) Immobility’, at De Balie in Amsterdam, January 21 is now available in the video archive of De Balie.

Please find below the link to this video – the link will open up a new window that  starts the video in a seperate player.

Designing for Immobility, De Balie, January 21, 2010

This rather informal local discussion, with remote participation by John Thackara from France and Costas Bissas from Scotland, was organised as one of the preliminary events leading up to the ElectroSmog festival in March. The set-up is simpler than what will be created for the festival but some relevant questions are already charted here that need to be explored further in the festival debates.

enjoy!

Wellington / London / Amsterdam

Saturday June 27, 2009:
Matthew Fuller (London), talks with Su Ballard (Wellington) and Eric Kluitenberg (Amsterdam) and guests.

As part of:
Critical-Digital-Matter: The 6th Aotearoa Digital Arts Symposium
June 26-28th, 2009

Time(s):
SL:               02:00 to 03:45 PDT
London:       10:00 to 11:45 GMT(UTC)+1
Amsterdam: 11.00 to 12:45 CEST
Wellington:   21:00 to 22:45 NZST

Venues:
* Goldsmith College, London, UK
* De Balie, Amsterdam, NL
* Victoria University School of Design, Wellington, NZ
* Wellington Railway Station, Second Life (SL)

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This blog is set up as a news channel for ElectroSmog – International Festival for Sustainable Immobility, which will take place on-line and in a variety of localities around the globe from March 18 – 20, 2010.

In the run up to the festival and the launch of the official festival website  we will use this newsblog to provide news and information about the preparations and the program as it takes shape.

The ElectroSmog Festival adresses urgent questions around the encounter of technology, ecology, mobility and spatial and urban planning. The festival atempts to develop a critique of the growing crisis of mobility by creating an international event that is conducted entirely without physical mobility between the participating locations. Instead, the festival will be an experiment in creating a stimulating and rich connected experience, linking globally distributed locations and international audiences with on-line means.

Obviously ElectroSmog is a potentially risky experiment – but this experimental and ‘risky’ character is what we consider the charm of our undertaking.

We hope that you will join us in our quest for sustainable immobility.

The preparations of the festival are co-ordinated from the festival office located at De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam. For specific enquirties you can reach us via our general e-mail address: info@electrosmogfestival.net.