Berlin, 29.01.2021, http://transmediale.de In this cinema and gender studies talk, Honig takes up elements from three movies (A.R.Holmer, C.Chaplin, L.v.Trier) to show how the body reacts with movements to being fixated by norms and violent gazes. Especially the female body. She sketches a historical arc from the Greek “Bakchantes” to contemporary incarnations of the same…
Berlin, January 29, 2021, http://transmediale.de Lewis talked about computer game workshops he conducted with indigenous Hawaiians. He talked about the importance of creating one´s own questions and narratives, instead of accepting the generous help of caretakers, who unfortunately also impose their own worldviews in the caretaking process. He pleaded for a digital emancipation of indigenous…
Berlin, Embassy of Canada, 19:00, January 29, 2020 The Marschall McLuhan lecture is a one of the traditional events opening the lecture program of transmediale. Mél Hogan is an assistant professor in Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary. Her research is on server farms and data centers – their social implications and…
Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, January 31 – February 3, 2019, http://transmediale.de Day 1 At HKW visitors were welcomed by a pinkish illumination both on the outside and inside of the building. It felt like a butchers shop display. Inside the air smelled a bit funky. The combination of architectural shapes, color and smell…
Berlin, Feb 4, 2018, https://transmediale.de This was the concluding panel of transmediale. I was expecting some references to Norbert Wiener and Roy Ascott. Instead panelists stubbornly kept invoking Marshall McLuhan and Friedrich Kittler. Of course not only. I found Eva Majewska’s introduction of the concept of counterpublics at least interesting (a social group delimiting itself…
Berlin, 12:30, Feb 04, 2018, https://transmediale.de A freeform conversation between Heidenreich (art theory lecturer) and O’Dwyer (digital/blockchain researcher). Heidenreich’s main thesis was to abolish money and think about other forms of “matching” supply and demand. Nevertheless in his examples he kept falling back on some systems of ranking and recording that again used numeric form,…
Berlin, 16:30, Feb 3, 2018, https://transmediale.de Eric Snodgrass: Affect is the capacity to be affected, it is what happens before describable and communicate-able “feelings” emerge. Hard Feelings is a title taken from Lorde’s album. A moment when the future collapses upon you. Shaka McGlotten: Manipulation of affect has become a data driven industry today, but…
Berlin, 19:30, Feb 2, 2018, https://transmediale.de Ruth Catlow: Finance is the coordination of large amounts of money and capital. Destruction of indigenous lifestyles, replaced by capitalism. We are all indigenous. Brett Scott (Book: Heretics guide to Finance) worked in finance as an “undercover anthropologist”. Zachary Formwalt: Representation of stock exchange building architecture. Existing stock exchanges,…
Berlin, Feb 2, 2018, https://transmediale.de/ Matteo Pasquinelli moderated the discussion / keynote lecture of Jonathan Beller. I value Beller for his work on the cinematic mode of production: the thesis, that media “consumers” are actually not consumers at all but cognitive workers creating value through the allocation of their quantifiable attention. In his talk, Beller…
Berlin, February 2 – March 5, 2017, http://www.transmediale.de This was a very nice new media art exhibition. Everything was perfectly set up, with theatrical spot lighting in a dimly lit spacious hall. There was a perfect balance of different media, as well as artwork sizes. There were some screens with videos, but not too many,…