view by Wim de Jonge & grabs by visitors

Image – War – Impact

Come and see. Stop the violence of impact.

Let the image reach out.

V2 – International Film Festival Rotterdam between January 21 and February 1 (12:00-19:00).

Warum 2.0 is an installation arena dedicated to the victims of war in Darfur, Afghanistan, Haiti, Gaza, Iraq and Kosovo; to Daniel Demoustier who filmed them, and to Paul Virilio who relates these media with techniques of impact.

Warum 2.0 is a production by CARGO and Stefaan Decostere, with Christian Decker, Edwin Uytenbroek, Jonas Hielscher, Chris Devriese, Johan Blaeke, and with students architecture TU Delft/Media Studies.

Thanks to V2­­­_Institute for the Unstable Media for presenting Warum 2.0 during the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and to VAF/Flemish Film Fund, the Ministry of the Flemish Community and Artefact/Stuk for their original support.

Location, opening times and more information on www.v2.nl

WARUM 2.0 in 4 dvd’s with interviews with Paul Virilio and cameraman Daniel Demoustier; a visual and sound tour through the installation arena & ‘the unbearable lightness of doom’ sequence as bonus. The dvd package is for sale (50 euro plus shipment costs).

Contact cargoweb@pandora.be

Here under and previous: texts, images and videos as they were posted during the first instalment of the installation arena. More information in pages and links.

Beside being an installation arena, experienced and approved by the first visiting public during the Artefact Festival in Stuk/Leuven/Belgium, WARUM 2.0 is also a metaphor and a concrete realized example of the kind of platform we all need for being actively involved in media today. The physical part of Warum 2.0 is nothing less than the Media Studio that Cargo, the initiator organization, built last year (now in containers, on the move, in search for its next possible destination), in its attempt to offer and construct the media tools necessary today for artists and makers and critics interested to engage with work processes in and directed towards the media.

A pen, candle and paper are not sufficient any longer. We need to enlarge and equip our working table. Neither an internet connection nor some hard & software are sufficient any longer. We need more of this, as well as a solid network of kindred spirits deeply involved, technically that is, and in content (critically I mean), and engaged somehow, actively that is  local, and thinking broad.

Are you one of them/us? Do you have suggestions? Please do post here, then.

Installation arena WARUM 2.0 by Stefaan Decostere,
with Paul Virilio.

Images : Daniel Demoustier
Sound : Edwin Uytenbroek
360° panorama programming & visitor detection : Christian Decker
Robot & hand teleport into Second Life : Jonas Hielscher
Human Tetris construction : Rene Kroondijk, Aydin Koyuk, Ayhan Aygun, Rik de Ruiter; with interactive animation programmming by Chris Devriese
Online upload module : Sander Korebrits.

Produced by CARGO and presented at the 2008 Artefact Festival Stuk / Belgium.

Support : Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Artefact Festival, Stuk, Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds, TU Delft/Bouwkunde

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The WARUM 2.0 arena closed down, before yesterday night, in Artefact Festival/Stuk/Leuven/Belgium. The installation hardware (lots of it, mostly wires & connections that is) is packed. Cargo is now just cargo. Heavy. Slowly on the move, in search for a new destination.. No more tickering data however; no more neuronal activity in the machines, in the human bodies nor in-between. Of course we tried hard to put this event on tape, and we will edit it. & soon, new little films will be posted on this blog.

Why is no crime. Come and see again this blog, from time to time. Cargo is a cargo lost, ah indeed, but not so the people it carries (makers and co-travellers alike), as they don’t stop engaging and questioning.

DEDICATION

Johan Blaeke was the person, of whom I wished he was my father. Together we started to develop Warum 2.0 last August, the physical part of it that is, the materials that would catch the images in the space of the installation arena. Johan died unexpectedly, soon after this week of very intense discussion, joy and testing. I never succeeded in replacing him with somebody else. I miss him. And I miss him so much. Out of the open space of his absence, an energy started to grow, that became the case of Warum 2.0.

It was my son Oszkár who showed me the way to connect to the visitors in Warum 2.0.. He, a very special boy of 10, and my great love, caring that is, being his father, was the reference, all the time. The openness of Oszkár, being a new fresh individual human to the world, as it is given, was conditional, yes, but without warning of accident, of hurt feelings, of possible and to be anticipated wrongdoing by others of any kind. Why, for Oszkár, has never been the question.

IN OUR HAND

The intermedia space of Warum 2.0 may be understood as an arena of struggle, far from impact. As long as we question the logic of war (the war of media and technology) we succeed in keepng that certain critical distance. Impact then, as an issue of prime interest in how war, men and technology are interrelated.