A video documentary that was commissioned by MU and was shot on location during STRP Festival 2011 and the Playful Post Digital Culture symposium. Timeless focuses on questions of identity and experience, time and place in a post-digital era. This video opens questions that sparkle our brain.

‘The digital settles in as background. We remember less and query more. Our identity play would be considered schizophrenic in the last century. We have more friends than ever before yet know new frontiers of isolation. The quantification of our experience haunts us in the form of a persistent history. And we are distracted more than we ever knew possible. These circumstances are paradoxically a description of the near future and a diagnosis of the current state of affairs. The truly timeless is redefined – it has transcended that which is classic; it has become that which is never finished.’

Interviews (in order of appearance)

Bernhard Herrmann herrmann-lehrmittel.de
Rafaël Rozendaal newrafael.com
Bruce Sterling en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Sterling
Peter Kirn pkirn.com
Jorien Kemerink foodlabeindhoven.com
Markus Kayser markuskayser.com
Elske van der Putten heyheyhey.nl
Vivian van Gaal strp.nl
Toby Barnes about.me/tobybarnes
Mary Flanagan maryflanagan.com

Keywords:
#timeless
#postdigital
#identity

The session is open to everyone, join us at The Ben Pimlott building, Goldsmiths College, Lewisham Way New Cross, London SE14 6NW.

The pick of this week supports the free and open internet. We join the protest against SOPA & PIPA, two U.S. bills that threaten online security and freedom of expresion. Watch the video to learn more about the Internet censorship bills (SOPA/IPA)

#OPENWEB

An exciting opportunity to contribute to the future of Alpha-ville, a fast-growing digital culture organisation.

Alpha-ville is a non-profit organisation that explores the intersection between arts, technology and society. Its main activity is Alpha-ville Festival, an annual event that has been running since 2009.

The 2011 edition attracted 5,000 live attendees and offered education, debate and participation through concerts, screenings, talks, workshops, open labs, symposium, interactive installations, online activities and urban interventions.

With a team of 2 full time members, 10 part time staff alongside a volunteer team of 40 people, Alpha-ville Festival has built a reputation for delivering a programme that is thought-provoking and innovative, covering a wide variety of fields. Alpha-ville has become a catalyst for digital innovation in London and a fast developing organisation with significant potential for the future.

We are now calling out for Non Executive Advisory Board Members to contribute to future development, continued excellence in digital culture and long term sustainability.

The Board meets every quarter. Agreements normally run for a period of one year and are unpaid. Suitable candidates must have a keen interest in digital culture and new technologies.

We are looking for specific areas of expertise in one or more of:

- business & financial management
- event fundraising and sponsorship
- marketing
- internet & technology
- voluntary sector
- new media
- digital social innovation

Responsibilities:

- attend 4 meetings per year (1 every quarter)
- be available for a maximum of 4 yearly calls/skype from staff seeking advice
- contribute your expertise and thinking to the current and future work of Alpha-ville
- act as evangelist/ambassadors
- provide advise on business planning
- assist in monitoring goals
- review financial plans and annual reports

In return:

- Alpha-ville provides dinner and drinks at each Board meeting
- get involved in a highly challenging environment
- contribute to the development of a start-up creative enterprise
- networking opportunities & potential to meet new partners, customers, collaborators and friends
- get new perspectives and ideas
- VIP package: free entrance to all Alpha-ville events + 1 guest including: private launches, festival opening and closing events

Deadline for applications: Friday 3rd February 2012. Interviews will be held during the week beginning Monday 13th February. New members will participate in the meeting at the end of Feb 2012.

Please apply by CV and covering letter to carmen@alpha-ville.co.uk, explaining how you have the essential skills and experience and why you would like to be part of the Alpha-ville Festival Advisory Board.

by Michael Rigley

Information technology has become a ubiquitous presence. By visualizing the processes that underlie our interactions with this technology we can trace what happens to the information we feed into the network.

A fascinating data visualisation animation that illustrates how personal data is used in the web. We live in the era of information technology. Our digital identities are stored and used in the web by different third parties, but how much do we know about this? how could we gradually own more our own identities?

Keywords: information technology, motion graphics, datavisualisation, digital identity

Michael Rigley is a graphic designer based in California, USA.

@ManBartlett

@alphavillefest

@v_and_a

Cymatics is a kinetic sound sculpture that expresses the artist’s vision of nature, harmonising a series of symbolic elements in a technological context. Sound waves act on substances such as water and non-newtonian fluid, moving them to create balanced environments.

Water is used like a canvas on which a highly technological system designs and creates geometrical shapes through sound sequences generated by the artist.
The non-newtonian fluid takes on different shapes in response to different musical frequencies, in a continuous shifting between solid and liquid states.

Suguru Goto is a Japanese artist based in Paris. He creates real spaces that are metaphysical and
spiritual at the same time. Those areas give a philosophical vision of art as a bridge between science and religion, between the material and the spiritual, between technology and nature, and between the humanities and science. He has performed in major festivals such as Resonaces/IRCAM, Sonar, ICC, Haus der Kultures der Welt, ISEA, NIME, AV Festival, STRP Festival 2009 & Venice Biennale.

Cymatics is the first of a series of installations exploring interactivity and participation in Media and Digital Art that Watermans presents as part of their International Festival of Digital Art 2012. Without doubt an event to take into account this year. You can see Cymatics from Saturday 7th January to Sunday 19th February at Watermans London.

Keywords: interactive, kinetic, sound

Grid is an Augmented Reality environment created by Sahar Fikouhi which provides a spatial configuration for real-time gaming at an architectural scale. This project showcases a prototype of the AR environment devised at one to one scale to test the possibilities of augmented reality in the built environment. The project uses a simple architectural maze which people can navigate through in real-time.

This project has really captured our attention as it opens the discussion about AR in the built environment and how we are going to interact with spaces using digital technologies. As the artists says “the project aims to explore new ways of inhabiting and interacting in social spaces. To enhance social activities in architectural spaces we can augment the space with interactions which merge reality with digital practices which occur on social networking platforms”. In 2012 we expect to see this and similar happenings in the cities.

Technical note:
The prototype was developed for the iphone using Qualcomm Augmented Reality SDK and Xcode.

Keywords:

Augmented reality, architechtural spaces, gaming, mobile apps

The September edition of Alpha-ville festival was an amazing experience for us and we have received positive feedback from the people who attended as well as our partners. At the moment we are working hard to plan the next edition in 2012 >>> READ MORE.