Pictures from the Conference can now be found here, or in this Flickr set

Here is some conspiracy theory about my own avatar lurking around in Amsterdam while I was fully occupied by trying to solve the connection problem….

http://wirxliflimflam.blogspot.com/2007/09/oslospace-audiospace-and-bibbespace.html

However it was great that the Orchestra could play in the end. Unfortunately, problem solving took so long that we could not discuss Second Life as a public space which was my intention. One nice thing about the performance besides the quality of the concert was that there were other avatars lingering around in virtual Amsterdam who did not have a clue what was going on. Lovely how the playing avatars were animated, jumping and flying around creating these swirls.

Find a short summery of 3 of the talks on the first conference day (including Drew’s) here:

http://jaywel.blogspot.com/

Public art is not necessarily about public space. Now public space is hybrid space.

It’s about art which reaches a public without asking for permission.

It’s about interference, but at the same time demands the artist’s responsibility for the public.

Interventionist art sometimes follows too easily the current design trend to create drama and event.

Curators and artists should be given a lot of money and time for public art.

Public art should not give politicians the chance to shift their responsibility to artists.

Public art should operate under the radar.

The artist has to reveal the ‘underground’, the ‘infrastructure.’

Public art is a process in society.

The deployment of public art for the sake of urban regeneration is doubtful.

Both artists and curators must be aware of their pimps.

A party is not public art.

Lev Manovich starting to talk.

Through the open call for the Open Forum we received a number of very interesting projects which will be presented and discussed on Saturday, 15 September between 14:45 and 16:00.

VISITOR beta by Silver & Hanne Rivrud
The project VISITOR is an intervention into social and public situations. What happens to the social games between people when one person is remotely controlled?
The project questions the role of simulation in our everyday lives, and tries to reverse the simulation back into reality. Hidden in the crowd, Visitor (the avatar) is attending a big social event. He is like anyone of us, but connected to him via mobile networks you can control his actions and influence the social game at the event. By using a mobile phone with the Visitor application, the player can send different commands to the avatar. When the avatar hears these commands, he has to do them, but still act natural. Connected to him via mobile networks, people can remain incognito and safe, while he experiences the true pain of life.
Production team: Martin Havnør, Hanne Rivrud, Petr Svarovsky, Johan Sæther, Christian Tviberg. Developed in collaboration with Vodafone GROUP R&D Germany and Atelier Nord, Oslo, Norway.

IKKELYD (NO-SOUND) and MASSELYD (ALL-SOUND) by NODE
Ny Musikk (Norwegian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music) asked NODE to do a purely visual project about sound in public space. For this project NODE co-operated with Felix Weigand to develop an alphabet that is playing with visual musical references. This alphabet was used to write sound-words in parks in Oslo, Berlin and Amsterdam — without announcing it or asking for permission.
“Masselyd” (Mass[ive]-sound) was initiated by Ny Musikk in cooperation with NODE and was run for two days in November 2006. A veteran bus with a massive speaker system mounted on the roof was driven around in the city centre of Oslo playing contemporary music for the masses. The sound being played ranged from Kurt Schwitters and Alvin Lucier to new and unpublished pieces by Norwegian contemporary composers.
www.nodeberlin.com

TILGIVELSE by Aase-Hilde Brekke
During Oslo Open in 2007 an outdoor installation and performance was placed in the park by Grønland Police Station, and Oslo prison near Grønland Park in the eastern side of the city. The project was called “TILGIVELSE”(no.), “Forgiveness”, and was presented as an installation with written texts about forgiveness, which was “planted” in the ground and hung from the trees in the park, and people could write in “The Book Of Forgiveness!”, in the interactive performance held. The park is a neuralgic spot in Olso where drugs are sold and openly used. The park is close to the biggest prison in Norway, which represents an official take on forgiveness. For the project, people were invited to write a text about forgiveness and send it to the artist.

ORCHESTRAL INVESTIGATIONS OF SECOND LIFE by Avatar Orchestra Metaverse
The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse is an orchestra within Second Life, a threedimensional virtual world populated by avatars - online representations created by people who acts in Second Life through the avatar. The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse is an intercontinental orchestra which counts among its members programmers, architects, visual, digital and performance artists as well as musicians and all the possible mixed breed. Its members are an ever changeing mix of backgrounds and generations shaping the orchestra at any time. It just started in early 2007.
To play live within Second Life means to play in a spatial sound environment. As a listener to inworld performance you will hear the music according to where you place yourself with respect to the performers, the performer close to you you hear better than you do the perfomer further away. This audience experience is essential to the performances of Avatar Orchestra Metaverse.
At the Open Forum, Avatar Orchestra Metaverse will play live “Fragula” by Miulew Takahe. The instruments are by Bingo Onomatopoeia. The project will be presented by Leif Inge.
See the documentation of other performances by Avatar Orchestra Metaverse at
http://www.youtube.com/v/yInQsAFBSMo
http://www.youtube.com/v/fRXQFjZlML8
http://www.youtube.com/v/oC85fNtUCPY
http://www.youtube.com/v/UTvU6jGRbZ8

At the end of the first UIO conference day, Emil Martin Krudøl will give an exclusive preview of the three new works commissioned for the motorway bridge in Drammen, Norway. Krudøl was a consultant to the project.
In connection with the building of a new motorway bridge, (a four lane bridge, almost two kilometres long, going through the centre of Drammen town), across the Drammen river, the Municipality (Drammen kommune) contacted the Norwegian Public Road Administration (Statens vegvesen), the County (Buskerud fylkeskommune) and Public Art Norway (Koro), with the aim of realising artprojects according to this situation.
Three projects came out of it: under the bridge – on the bridge – by the bridge

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AND ALSO THE OTHER PART SHOULD BE HEARD by Marit G. Arnekleiv
Arnekleiv’s project is a visual answer to the bridge as a construction, as well as it creates a dialog between the bridge and its surroundings. By the physical shaping of the park under the bridge, the focus is drawn away from the ambient noise and the attention is directed towards your own movements and the closer environment.

TEMPERATURE TIMEPROJECT by Gunnar H. Gundersen
Gundersen’s starting point is the continuous movement of the bridge. Through changes in temperature, the bridge, from cold winter to hot summer, can change its length up to two meters. The power of locomotion drives a big polished stone wheel that hangs on the bridge. On the top of the stone wheel there is attached a specially designed instrument of steel, with an edge covered with diamonds. This instrument, and its edge, is pressed against the stone, cutting its way down through the wheel towards its centre. Over the years we will be able to read the bridges movements in the stone and within maybe 60 – 100 years, the stone wheel will have to be exchanged.

LISTEN by Istvan Lisztes
Lisztes created an immaterial “bridge” across the two riverbanks, a metaphor for connection and contact. Two pillars are situated one on each side of the river, each one carrying a figure. These figures are facing each other, with a gesture as if they are shouting to each other from one bank to the other.

Fredag 14. og lørdag 15. september arrangerer Atelier Nord en konferanse om kunst i byrom som særlig problematiserer forholdet mellom det offentlige og det private. Konferansen har tittelen «The Porous City: Art claiming the urban void» og arrangeres på Fabrikken, Nedregate 7, Oslo.

Under konferansen skal det være et åpent forum. Vi inviterer kunstnere til å presentere prosjekter som tematiserer offentlig rom eller foregår i offentlig rom.

Hvis du er interessert må du skrive til urban_interface@anart.no innen onsdag 5. september. Dette må være med:
- en kortfattet prosjektbeskrivelse (skriv denne på engelsk)
- ditt navn og kontaktinformasjon
- hvilke teknisk utstyr du trenger for presentasjonen

Presentasjonene må foregå på engelsk. Hvis det blir stor pågang vil ikke alle få anledning til å delta. Vi bekrefter at du skal presentere senest fredag 7. september. Spørsmål kan rettes til urban_interface@anart.no eller på 23060880.

Konferansen er knyttet til utstillingen urban interface | oslo som er i bydelene Grünerløkka, Tøyen og Grønland fra 14. september til 7. oktober.

urban interface | oslo Exhibition 14 September – 7 October 2007 Conference 14 + 15 September 2007

Vacant shop in Grunerløkka

Conference The Porous City: Art claiming the urban void

Today’s city is a porous and dynamic terrain; the physical world constantly interfaces with the immaterial sphere of electronic and digital data which can easily and unobtrusively cross physical borders. At the same time, the complexity of the city and the widely undefined boundaries between private and public space create a variety of urban voids and grey areas calling for occupation and definition.

The Porous City is a two-day conference on contemporary art practices responding to the multivalent porousness of the urban environment. Artists, theoreticians and curators will discuss the constraints and potential of the urban voids and loopholes, contributing to a contemporary conception of art in public space.

The first day of the conference will focus on the impact of electronic, digital and mobile media on the city. The ubiquitous use of digital, networked and mobile technologies raises new questions about conditions of both private and public spaces. Imperceptible surveillance systems and spy bots, the semi-private on-line forums, the use of the cell phone in public space, easy-to-tap-in wireless data transmission in general – they all have a strong impact on our understanding of private and public space – demanding precise definitions and demarcations of these spaces.

Particularly the 70’s and 80’s celebrated the idea of new technology supporting an open, democratic and networked society. Although these optimistic expectations were not fulfilled, the potential of intercultural and intersocial communication still inhere in new media.

When it comes to public art, new media is capable of occupying physical, virtual and hybrid spaces, offering multiple points of access. In addition, the processual and audiovisual nature of new media results in multifaceted and time-based perception of this type of public art.

Building on the technology centred discourse of the first day, the second day will try to localise interventionist and process-based art within the public art field, the art market and art funding. We will look closely at how these works push the boundaries of the public art genre for its own good and the effect this has on the understanding of urban culture. Emphasis will be laid on the analysis of artistic strategies which invite the audience to interact, contribute to and become active voices in the public sphere.

On both days, the artists who created works for urban interface | oslo will introduce the audience to their artworks, thus illuminating practical and conceptual issues related to public art production and the specific terrain of Oslo’s public space.

In addition, the Open Forum on day two will provide a platform for artists and designers to present current, upcoming and past projects to the conference’s audience and speakers. The Open Forum aims to provide an interactive exchange of knowledge and perspectives on the topic of public art. It gives its presenters the opportunity to draw attention to their individual art practice and to benefit from responses by the target audience.

Confirmed speakers:

Laura Beloff

HC Gilje

Habbestad&Larsson

John Hawke

Drew Hemment

Susanne Jaschko

Vibeke Jensen

Lev Manovich

Martin Rieser

Florian Rötzer

Sancho Silva

Michelle Teran

Jeremy Wesh

More to come.