ElectroSmog saves the planet with txt only.
International Festival for Sustainable Immobility
Two weeks before the first installment of Electrosmog will happen, it is still very hard to find a nice picture on their website. Mediamatic loves txt but these people are really stretching it!
The new festival is avoiding physical travel by a strong use of media and multi–geography. We are curious whether these good intentions will meet good attendance. At the moment they still seem to be in the way of the clear and attractive communications that are so well used by the competition.
-
Rush Hour in Scotland taken from the Electrosmog website.-
1 if the 2 photographic images on the festival website.
Eric
NereaThis events is heading for a frontal collision with all the rules that make up a good festival. It feels more like an academical conference on second life. Without the sex that is.
Anyway: a highly laudable and interesting experiment. I'll try to not watch it from home but go to the Balie in Amstedam, still hoping to meet some new people over a beer and maybe dance a bit:-) For a full list of participating orgs, see their web site.
Further text quoted from the Electrosmog website
The ElectroSmog festival is a critique of the worldwide explosion of mobility, and an exploration of the new forms of connectedness with others offered to us by network and communication technologies.
The question is if these new forms of connectedness can help us to develop a viable new lifestyle less determined by speed and constant mobility, which is both ecologically and socially more sustainable.
Bringing together a broad coalition
The ElectroSmog festival brings together a broad coalition of designers, environmentalists, urban and spatial planners, technologists, artists, theorists, and engaged and concerned citizens, to explore and ‘design’ sustainable immobility.
Zero travel
ElectroSmog is a truly international festival, with everything you might expect: international debates and discussions, performances, art projects, exhibits, site specific projects, screenings, a design competition, and more.
ElectroSmog stakes its claim for a radical break with the current systems of hyper-mobility not simply by discussing the issue, but by actually implementing it.
A few basic ground rules apply for all the festival events listed there:
• No presenter will travel beyond their local or regional boundaries to participate in this event.
• All festival events will always take place in at least two locations connected in real-time.
• A crucial dimension of the festival will be its on-line presence, where audiences from basically anywhere with an internet connection can follow events on-line, join in discussions and debates, visit virtual theatres in metaverses such as second life, and contribute to the program.
Going beyond the broadband enclaves
ElectroSmog acknowledges from the start that bandwidth is not equally distributed across and within societies. Therefore remote connection to lower bandwidth spaces, do-it-yourself telematics, and information technologies for the majority world will be central concerns the festival will address.
Thematic discussions, presentations and connected debates
The ElectroSmog festival-program is organised around a series of interlocking thematic programs, connected discussions and debates all transmitted live over the internet.
Themes covered by these events include:
• Global views on the crisis of mobility
• Witnessed Presence
• Hyper-mobility and the urban condition
• City & regional branding debate
• e-mobility versus immobility
• Designing for (im)mobility
• Public media art projects and sustainability
• Energy and information
• ElectroSmog is Good for You!
• Food and global mobility
• Deep local and remote technologies
-
'Failed mobility' image from the Electrosmog festival website-
It illustrates the workshop announcement by John Thackara
Contributions
WillemComments (2)
Comments (2)
Rens
Elena
Dido
Paul
Mayke
Arjen
Bert
Abel
Re: ElectroSmog saves the planet with txt only.
Willem,
"No presenter will travel beyond their local or regional boundaries to participate in this event"
I may as well 'fess up now, rather than wait for you out me at deBalie: I will be there and not here - and I will have traveled in a airplane to reach you.
But I hope our Doors' session at E-smog is not academic. I'm looking for practical, implementable advice on the design steps I need to take to make my presence there, on another occasion, unnecessary. I don't want more bandwidth. That's not the problem. I'm looking for enhanced-by-art POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) or skype.
As for the other rules on what makes a good conference: I'm sure if you are there, and dancing, the sex will follow....
John
Re: ElectroSmog saves the planet with txt only.
i live in Leiden but decided to stick to the not travelling outside of my region rule, and... it was such a blast for me to communicate with 3 people in New Zealand (admittedly chatting on skype along side listening to the web-stream, but with one on a canoe in river, one in a city and another on a farm) so for me, the festival is a good start. For me it was wonderful that the NZ group chose not to gather together in one spot in a lab somewhere (not that that is a problem either), but that they did this and it worked. Yes, agree Willem, kinda of a pity that electrosmog's website is so uninteresting image-wise.