CARGO

First presentation during the ARTEFACT FESTIVAL from February 12 to 17, 2008. 

INSTALLATION ARENA & PUBLIC EXPERIMENT

As a public experiment, Warum 2.0 engages both visitors & artists into making and playing with media rather than just watching them.

As an installation arena, Warum 2.0 re-stages the Cargo Media Space, an experimental studio environment for artistic development, creation & critical research with connected and networked media.

HE SHE WE ARE MEDIA - 2.0

Central in the arena is a suspended 360° panoramic screen, from wich four long curved walls of also transparent textiles spread out from the centre into the whole space of the installation. Onto these screens videos are being projected, some by the initiators, others by the visitors themselves, either online or physically present.

In each of the four corners a host welcomes the visitors to operate a specific platform: one for uploading videos from the Web; another for operating a networked surveillance camra on-site; a third platformfor access to Warum 2.0 in Second Life via a game-like navigation tool for moving the avatar; and the fourth displays a human tetris, in which visitors can take positions, activate sensors and massage footage of soldiers in action.

With this installation arena ‘2.0′ is added to the questioning and treatment of the original themes of the tape ‘Warum wir Männer die Technik so Lieben’, of war, technology and men. What then will ‘2.0′ bring about, that isthe question. Will it bea manifestation of user driven content? Or will it just bring along hilarious forms of semantic kitch? If not so, will entropy then be the final outcome?

The main subject of Warum 2.0 is focused on our changing relation to the documentary image. For the occasion only videos by Daniel Demoustier will be included, enlarged and restaged that is. Unique news footage of Haïti, the Middle East, Darfu, former Yougoslavia and Afghanistan, specially shot by Daniel Demoustier in the past few years for ITN and BBC.

The original tape version of ‘Warum’ will not be part of the installation, but it will be shown during the festival. A new interview has been recorded with Paul Virilio.

Artists have been invited to add their technical skills to this arena.

The physical Warum 2.0 invites the visitors to handle the tools & scripts by

• Christian Decker, a 360° panorama video composer
• Edwin Uytenbroek, a dynamic distributed sound scape
• Chris Devriese, a sensor driven interactive platform
• Daniel Demoustier, original video news footage (ITN) http://www.myspace.com/danieldemoustier
• Johan Blaeke, labyrinthine structures of transparant surfaces
• Jonas Hielscher, game & mechanical tool for Second Life
• Sander Korebrits, dynamic stream upload webtool
• Students from TU Delft/Bouwkunde built a human tetris platform
• Joyce Portier, blogging.

TECHNIKFREUDE

This arena 2.0 stands for the tension between the consumer in us (wanting tools & services and wanting them cheap and fast) and the producer in us (wanting access, open source & content, upload capacity, privacy and personal freedom to move and set up as we please).

Here we are then, in between parts and values, midst the logics which determine our lives and those we try to disrupt; between us and the digital, between those who have the skills and those who don’t; in between that which happens without our knowledge and that we do know and succeed in changing.

The question is: do our actions with technology in the end realize the pessimistic views of Paul Virilio - as expressed two decades ago, and in excessive ways that is - or do they bring about a transmution out of them?

CONTACT

Warum 2.0 is an initiative by CARGO and STEFAAN DECOSTERE, in co-production with ARTEFACT Stuk/Leuven and thanks to the support by the Ministery of the Flemish Community and the Flemish Filmfund.

The ARTEFACT FESTIVAL takes place in Stuk kunstencentrum vzw, Naamsestraat 96, Leuven www.stuk.be.

From February 12 - 17 , 2008.

To view more on the activities of Artefact, www.artefact-festival.be.