Saturday January 20

Aggregates of Information and Communication

An aggregate is formed by the combination of two or more objects -
machines, instruments, etc. - into a larger, more complex whole. Media are
frequently constituted as such aggregates, in which electronic hardware,
production cycles, distribution systems, etc., work together to form
productive and powerful machines. The examples in the N5M exhibition at
V2_Organisation, the MediaFilter room, the installation DWTKS, the Alien
Staff project, each illustrate possible aspects of such dispositions.

If critically understood, these aggregates can be built and used to support
artistic and social strategies. The aim of this day's programme is to provide
a series of analyses of such media aggregates, to describe their structure
and to explore their productivity. Calin Dan will be describing intermediatic,
'referential environments', while padeluun will present the concept of the
Media Cafés which he wants to see introduced in many cities. Media Cafés are
public workspaces where people have access to various communication
tools and where individual media work is combined with training and
information facilities. In the same context, Herwig Turk (HILUS) will present
a new data base project for media art developed in Vienna.

A mediatic aggregate of a completely different type, the installation Dialogue
With The Knowbotic South, will be presented by the artists of the
group Knowbotic Research in the second half of the afternoon. The
installation forms an investigation into the constitution and mediation of
knowledge and experience, both in an abstract, scientific sense, and as
concrete, physical and subjective experience.

The discussion of the role of such aggregates in contemporary culture will be
continued during the evening programme in the Zaal de Unie which will be
dedicated to Krzysztof Wodiczko's Alien Staff project that has been
realised in Rotterdam before and during the N5M. The Alien Staff is designed
to facilitate communication between migrants and people in the country
where they live. It is a specific example for the tactical intervention by
means of a medium at the intersection between public and personal. Beside
a video presentation of the results of the project in Rotterdam, its
impact will be discussed by the artist, by operators, and by
professionals familiar with the cultural and psychological problems of
migrants and refugees.

V2-Exhibition space
14.00-16.00
Presentations of Media Cafés and other Referential Environments by
padeluun (Bielefeld) media artist with the group FoeBud and Calin Dan
(Berlin) of the artists group SubREAL, Herwig Turk (HILUS, Vienna):
Information system ART+NT (archive and database about Austrian media art)
Vuk Cosic, Marjan Kokot (Very Cyber Indeed, Ljubljana)

16.00-18.00
Christian Hübler and Yvonne Wilhelm of Knowbotic Research explain
their installation DWTKS and talk about the characteristics of knowbots as
tentative, associative, reflective devices.

Moderator: Timothy Druckrey (New York)

Zaal De Unie
20.00 - 23.00
Presentation of the Alien Staff project by Krzysztof Wodiczko. Video screening, interviews and discussion.

Moderator: Patrice Riemens (Amsterdam)