A workshop proposing an artistic investigation into electromagnetic substance within the city of Oslo and its surroundings.
Workshop Tuesday 29th of May - Saturday 2nd of June
Where: Atelier Nord, Lakkegata 55D, N-0817 Oslo
Directors: Erich Berger and Martin Howse
Guest: Armin Medosch and Honor Hager
Resources:
Artists and Projects
Bibliography, filmography and links
Electromagnetic glossary
Workshop resources
Image above of Tryvann Tower, Oslo © 2005 J. P. Fagerback
In 1864 the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell presented a set of mathematical equations to the Royal Society. These equations which are now known as Maxwell’s equations describe the behaviour of electric and magnetic fields and their interaction with matter - Electromagnetism. Maxwell showed that his equations predict waves of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that travel through empty space, so called electromagnetic radiation or electromagnetic waves.
Almost 150 years later, the practical applications of Maxwell’s mathematics are deeply and indispensable entwined with our everyday lives. Radio, Television, Mobile phones or wireless networks, all are based on wireless data and information transmission utilizing electromagnetic radiation as a medium. On the other hand every wire, cable and electrical device produces electromagnetic fields during operation. The electromagnetic spectrum which is the range of all possible electromagnetic radiation is a hotly fought over private, commercial and political territory.
Every city with its uncountable electric facilities, devices, senders and receivers has an unknown and invisible man-made twin, the Maxwell City. It is an alien kind of architecture and landscape composed out of the electromagnetic emissions of its substantial sibling.
The project Maxwell City is an artistic investigation into electromagnetic substance within the city of Oslo. The workshop will be 5 days with about 10 participants and 2 workshop leaders and guests. Public lectures will also be held during the workshop.
The workshop:
The project undertakes artistic investigations into an invisible part of Oslo. Naturally these investigations will happen in the city itself, including possible originating artworks or interventions. Short lectures, presentations and discussions within the group will provide the workshops with the necessary theoretical and practical background.
Topics for investigation will include: theory and praxis of electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves as artistic material, the city as public and private space, artistic strategies in the urban environment, politics of technology and the electromagnetic spectrum.
During the workshop the participants will develop means to reveal formerly unknown views and sights within the city. The workshop aims to find both unknown centres of power and oases of quietness, and the means to reveal places of beauty and menace of diverse aspects, from pure aesthetic to hard core politics.
Directors and guests:
Erich Berger
Berger currently works as artist, independent researcher and educator and lives in Porvoo/Finland. He is interested in information processes and feedback structures which he investigates with installations, situations, performances and various interfaces. His work is shown internationally in media-festivals, exhibitions and galleries. Together with the sound artist PURE he founded the audio visual impro duo TERMINALBEACH (2002). He received a Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction together with the Telezone-Group for the project TELEZONE (2000), the Intermedium2 Award, Bawarian Broadcasting Station / ZKM together with the group 92v2.0 for A SOPHISTICATED SOIREE (2002) and a Honorary Mention from VIDA 5.0 Art and Artificial Life international Competition together with Laura Beloff for the installation SPINNE (2002). His collaborators include artists like Laura Beloff, Martin Pichlmair, and PURE. Berger directed the “Making Sense” project -physical computing for artistic purpose and was artistic director of the “Interface and Society” conference and exhibition at Atelier Nord in Oslo. http://randomseed.org
Martin Howse
Programmer, theorist and explorer of open hardware Martin Howse founded ap in 1998 to implement a truly artistic operating system (OS) in its most expanded sense and within a free software context. Martin Howse has performed and collaborated worldwide using custom software and hardware modules for audible/visible code/noise generation. ap projects have included the ap02 distributed environmental code-creation software and an environmental computational work, entitled ap0201 installed deep within the Mojave desert which received first prize within Art & Artificial Life VIDA 8.0, 2005. xxxxx was initiated by Martin Howse (in collaboration with Jonathan Kemp) in 2006 with the xxxxx event series and acclaimed xxxxx [reader] compendium publication. Current projects include an ongoing series of open workshops towards the establishment of a research institute in Berlin, the coding of promiscuOS, a totally untethered and highly promiscuous computer operating system, and implementation of a mobile flaneur/scrying data platform.
Armin Medosch
Armin Medosch is a writer, artist and curator. From 1996 to 2002 he was co-editor-in-chief of the award winning international online magazine Telepolis (www.telepolis.de). He has published, edited and contributed as a writer to many publications. His latest written works include “Freie Netze” (2003), a monograph about wireless free commnity networks .org) which conducted a two year R&D project Commons | Tales | Rules, whose results were presented at the NTTICC exhibition OpenNature, Tokyo, in 2005 and led to the event PLENUM at Node.London, March 2006. Currently he is doing research for a new book on the relationship between media art, net art and the free software and open source movement. Based in London since 1997, he is Associate Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at Ravensbourne College Postgraduate Programme.
Honor Hager
Honor Harger was born and educated in New Zealand and has lived in Europe since 1999. She is an artist and curator with a particular interest in artistic uses of new technologies. She is currently a PhD researcher at Z-Node a facility based at the University of Plymouth, and the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Zürich in Switzerland. She is currently director of the AV Festival in Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough in the UK. From 2000 – 2003 she was curator of Webcasting for Tate, and curated events and concerts which focused on art and technology at Tate Modern. She has worked as a freelance curator on many exhibitions and events, including art.net.uk/now for the British Council in India in 2002 and Dots & Lines for the BBC in 2005. She has lectured widely including at the European Space Agency, the Centre Pompidou, the National Museum of South Africa, California Institute of the Arts, the University of Westminster and the American Film Institute. Honor’s artistic practice is produced under the name r a d i o q u a l i a together with Adam Hyde. Their work has been exhibited at festivals, museums and galleries around the world. In August 2004 they were awarded a UNESCO Digital Art Prize for the project, Radio Astronomy.