ana otero
Since 2003
Works in Barcelona Spain

BIO
Ana Otero holds a M.A. in Museum Studies by the New York University, a Postgraduate Degree in Curatorial and Cultural Practices in Art and New Media by MECAD/ESDi and a B.A. in Audiovisual Communication by the Universistat Autonoma of Barcelona.

During seven years Ana was the multimedia art director for the broadcasting company based in Barcelona Media Park (now Teuve). Simultaneously to her professional career, Ana co-founded the collectives J13 (1998-2000) and no_a (2000-05) focus on the experimentation of art and new technologies.

In NYC, Ana worked on art education through new media for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, as part of Rhizome where she curated the online show “Google Art, or How to Hack Google” and participated in the site redesign, collaborated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art in the online curatorial-educational project Museum as Hub and as web manager for Art21, a non-profit organization focus on contemporary art.

Jeremy Blake, 35, Artist Who Used Lush-Toned Video, Dies


Jeremy Blake, an up-and-coming artist who sought to bridge the worlds of painting and film in lush, color-saturated, hallucinatory digital video works, has died, the New York City Police said yesterday. He was 35 and lived in the East Village in Manhattan.

[More...]

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Call for Projects VIDA 10.0


VIDA 10.0 is an international competition created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the fields of Artificial Life and related disciplines, such as robotics and Artificial Intelligence.We are looking for artistic projects that address the interaction between "synthetic" and "organic" life". In previous years prizes have been awarded to artistic projects using autonomous robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user participation, and works that highlight the social side of Artificial Life.

Please find the call for projects here http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/at/vida/english

READ ON »


TEXT a::minima Feature on Molleindustria


Download PDF file

Molleindustria is a project that takes aim at starting a serious discussion about social and political implications of the videogames. Using simple but sharp games we hope to give some starting point for a new generation of critical game developer and, above all, to test pratices that can be easly emulated and virally diffused. So far we have published nine games (four of them are available only in italian), some theoretical essays and other web-based project like Mayday NetParade or where-next.com.

A spectre is haunting the net: the spectre of political games. Small and viral online games able to spread dissonant messages. They emerge and disappear in the ever-changing world of the blog, forum and mailing lists. Sometimes they are blended into the undeground gamedesign scene, sometimes they pop in the glossy pages of popular magazines, sometimes they are disguised as works of art.

I’m talking about a spectre because political games don’t exist, or better, they have always existed: every video game - as every cultural product - reflect author’s ideas, visions and ideologies. Every video game is essentially political.

Why super Mario is a plunder? Has anybody ever seen him fixing a pipe? He probably fit better into the shoes of a rampant Wall Street broker, a social climber who attack every being that comes across his path. His eternal dissatisfaction, his continuous run, his orderliness in killing enemies sounds suspicious. In the typical level-based structure of arcade games we can recognize some qualities of the yuppie ideology: success is like a ladder that gets harder and harder to climb. There are many partial achievements but the whole plan is often difficult to understand. Individualism, competition an accumulation of useless points are constant. It's the neo-liberal short-sightedness, the means that becomes the ...

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Philip Ross, nature networks


Philip Ross was one of the artists featured in Rhizome’s Networked Nature exhibition earlier this year. His work consists of designed and constructed controlled environmental spaces which:

nurture, transform, and refine a variety of sculptural artifacts much as one might train the growth of a Bonsai tree.

Two works which look particularly spectacular on his website and employ ideas of networks are Junior Return and Jarred In.

Junior Return

Junior Return (image above) is:

a self-contained survival capsule for one living plant. Four blown glass enclosures provide a controlled hydroponic environment; one holds the plant, another the water reservoir for the plant, the third holds the electronics and pump that control the plant's resources, and the last for the rechargeable battery that gives the energy required to keep the plant alive in this container. An air pump goes off for a few seconds every minute, supplying air to the plant and to the water reservoir. A digital timer counts down from sixty to zero, displaying the time left until the pump will activate. Then, with little notice, a few bubbles appear in the water, the only indication that anything is actually going on.

The latest 'version' of Junior Return is titled Clone Army which consists of ighteen of the small hydroponic units networked together in different formations.

Jarred In

Jarred In (image above) is a sixteen feet tall and twelve feet wide hanging garden installation.

In this garden pairs of plants are housed in life support pods suspended from a chandelier like armature. The roots of the plants swim in illuminated, water filled boxes. Water is pumped up from tall Plexiglas reservoirs resting on the ground. The reservoirs are attached to a central pod on the ground, referred to by the folks at The Exploratorium as "mother ship" and housing six Dwarf ...

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Discussions (26) Opportunities (30) Events (90) Jobs (2)
OPPORTUNITY

V EDITION OF THE "404 FESTIVAL"


Deadline:
Thu Dec 20, 2007 00:00

Location:
Argentina

ASTAS ROMAS" CALLS AUTHORS TO SUBMIT WORKS FOR THE V EDITION OF THE "404 FESTIVAL" / 2008

"ASTAS ROMAS" CALLS INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS AND THEORISTS TO SUBMIT THEIR WORKS FOR THE FIFTH EDITION OF THE "404 FESTIVAL - ART & TECHNOLOGY" 2008 ON THE FOLLOWING DISCIPLINES:
- NET-ART
- STILL IMAGE
- ANIMATION
- VIDEO
- MUSIC
- AUDIO-VISUAL SET
- THEORY
- PERFORMANCE
- INSTALLATION

PARTICIPATION IN THIS FESTIVAL IS OPEN AND FREE FOR ALL.

TERMS AND FORM HTTP://WWW.404FESTIVAL.COM


EVENT

International Forum Fastforward: ON NEW MEDIA ART


Dates:
Thu Nov 22, 2007 00:00 - Sat Nov 17, 2007

Location:
Italy

SECOND INTERNATIONAL FORUM
11.22.07 - 11.24.07 -- Meetings, debates and performances from 10.00 am to 10.00 pm

PAN | Palazzo delle Arti Napoli

Via dei Mille 60
80121 Napoli

The second edition of the INTERNATIONAL FORUM FASTFORWARD: ON NEW MEDIA ART includes a number of events and debates designed to explore the analysis of the relationship between new media art documents and works. The commitment of the PAN Documentation Centre to set up an art archive -- and in particular to establish a collection of digital art works -- is combined to the goal of promoting a reflection on the variety of experiences and on the subjective nature of research in the field of new media. Today, manifestations of digital arts concern disciplines, works, museum institutions, research and documentation centres, but also methods and instruments for communication and education to art. This year the INTERNATIONAL FORUM widens its scope and becomes one of the cultural initiatives promoted by the city in the framework of participation in the Universal Forum of Cultures of Monterrey. The venue has not changed, but the contents have grown and look fast forward, indeed FASTFORWARD: ON NEW MEDIA ART, to 2013, the year for which Naples has submitted its candidature to host the major event promoted by the Unesco.

It is a choice which goes hand in hand with the will to record informed experiences and opinions on the development of production processes, archive systems, curators' approaches and exhibition projects dedicated to the new media arts. In particular, in this edition contemporary art merges with other art languages and touches the most urgent issues of the contemporary world, mixing its experimental and multimedia languages and collecting contributions distributed across the four themes which constitute the conceptual core of the Universal Forum of Cultures: peace, sustainable development, cultural diversity and know-how.

The working sessions on the agenda at the SECOND INTERNATIONAL FORUM FASTFORWARD ON NEW MEDIA ART relate the four lines of research of the PAN with the four themes of the Universal Forum of Cultures:

PEACE / NARRATIVE STRUCTURES

"love is a better teacher than duty" Albert Einstein
It is necessary to keep a constant thread, to carry out research on the function of Art in contemporary society, on the artist's role in social formations, on the ability of works and documents to communicate the 'common good', to re-create the positive conditions of individual and collective experience, in a language that uses visionary tools to express feelings, stories, emotions completing the rational sharing of will and ethics. About art creations, one may say what Jacques Monod said about science "the candour of a new look (the look of science always is) can sometimes shed new light on
ancient problems"

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / PROSPECTIVES AND LIMITS OF PRODUCTION

"They would saw the branches on which they were sitting and shout out their mutual experiences on how to saw faster, and they hit the ground with a crash, and those who saw them shook their heads while sawing and carried on sawing" (Bertold Brecht)
In modern debate, the role of technologies in bringing about transformations into our present is widely recognised: material conditions of everyday life, political and social relations, cultural exchanges between different subjects and contexts -- they are all simultaneously structured and de-structured as a consequence of the massive introduction of variable instruments and media. The deep involvement of the institutions working in the different fields of contemporary art becomes thus evident. The challenge is a major one, as it concerns above all the possibilities of spreading and circulation offered by technology (thus possibilities which involve creation, use, preservation) and, more in general, the visions which can make a cultural medium relevant and devastating in a media-saturated world!

CULTURAL DIVERSITY / MAPPING AND NETWORKING
"A landscape is made up of processes more than of places. The true essence of the landscape entails interaction and integration" Frederick Steiner
New media art is the expression used to define works which are created, related and, however, used through innovative and unstable technologies since the mid- 20th century. The disciplines usually included in the expression new media art are: cell phone art, computer art, digital art, electronic art, finance art, generative art, hacktivism, information art, interactive art, performance art, robotic art, software art, sound art, video art, video game art.

KNOW - HOW / SHARING KNOW-HOW
"Latent meaning becomes the expression of a more general cultural and cognitive process, in which objects gain significance through the association with know-how rather than with sensitivity" Masao Yamaguchi
Even art expressions give rise to aesthetic forms which can be referred to the potential and varieties of the so-called new media. As in a response to these transformations, the very approach to art history and criticism changes due to the appearance of new forms of 'global and cyberspace culture' and to the impact of digital media on the very concept of intellectual property. The whole range of art expressions identified by the new media is among those effects of technological innovation which is based on the application of contemporary scientific research.

Contributors include:
Alex Adriaansens, V2 - Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam
Paul Brown, Computer Art Society, London
Mario Costa, Artmedia, Salerno
Geoff Cox, University of Plymouth, Plymouth
Amanda McDonald Crowley, Eyebeam, New York
Dieter Daniels, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media Art Research, Linz
Kelli Dipple,Tate Modern, London
Michele Emmer, Leonardo - ISAST, Roma
Rosina Gómez-Baeza Tinturé, Laboral - Centro de Arte y Creacion Industrial, Gijón
Jon Ippolito, University of Maine, Orono
Yael Kanarek, Upgrade!, New York
Simona Lodi, Share, Torino
Barbara London, MoMa Museum of Modern Art, New York
Emma Quinn, ICA - Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Wonil Rhee, Curator, Seoul
Yuliya Sorokina, Curator, Alma-Ata
Christine Van Assche, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Valentina Valentini, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Roma

Scientific committee
Laura Bardier, Julia Draganovic, Marina Vergiani


EVENT

NOW


Dates:
Thu Nov 29, 2007 00:00 - Sat Nov 10, 2007

Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB)
Montalegre, 5 (Barcelona)

This fourth edition of NOWexplores three dimensions of the new urban condition: the conquest of the radio-electric space, the recovery of the public space and the city as an ecological challenge. Imminent changes in the way digital society is managed, resistance to the depoliticised city and the challenge of sustainable urban development are three interconnected processes that require greater knowledge, creativity and commitment from more and more citizens.

DEBATES
CYBERSPHERE AND OPEN SCIENCE
The Invisible Conquest: a Social and Cultural History of Hertzian Space
Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Honor Harger, Armin Medosch and William J. Mitchell

Coordinated and moderated by José Luis de Vicente
Thursday, November 29 at 7 pm, Hall

NEW ACTIVISM
Reclaiming the City: Street Art, Graphic Dissidence and Counter Advertising
Richard Sennett, Steve Lambert and Pierre Humeau.

Coordinated and moderated by the RiSc Observatory
Friday, November 30 at 7 pm, Hall

THE ECO FACTOR
Neurotica: Habitat. The contemporary Habitat Faced by Climate Chaos.
Herbert Girardet, Alex Steffen and Joan Rieradevall with the special participation of Vandana Shiva

Coordinated by Capsula
Saturday, December 1 at 7.30 pm, Hall

+ DOCUMENTARIES and WORKSHOPS.

For more information go to: http://www.cccb.org/now/ang/index.htm


EVENT

Visualizar symposium


Dates:
Mon Nov 12, 2007 00:00 - Sat Nov 10, 2007

Medialab Prado
Plaza de las Letras, C/ Alameda, 15
Madrid

At the start of the 21st century, the generation of endless masses of data has become one of the primary scientific, economic, and social activities. Those masses of data are such vast, complex structures that perhaps the best way to make everyone understand the relations and see the meaningful patterns hidden among them is not to use words. Maps, signage, and statistical graphs have been traditional ways of showing the relationship among specific items visually. However, now that we generate and gather much more data practically in real time, we need systems that represent them dynamically and the answers they hide. Thus, the art and science of data visualization was born.

Data visualization is a cross-discipline which uses the vast communicative power of images to offer a comprehensible explanation of the relationship among meaning, cause, and dependence that can be found among large abstract masses of information generated by scientific and social processes. Arising from the field of science two decades ago, InfoVis and DataVis combined strategies and techniques from statistics, graphic design and interaction and computer analysis to create a new communication model more suitable for clarification in the emerging Age of Complexity.

Enter Visualizar Forum http://forommm.intermediae.es/viewforum.php?id=1

-----------------------------

PROGRAMME

12 de noviembre

10:30 - 14:00 Presentation of selected papers
· Sheila Pontis - La historia de la esquemática en la visualización de datos
· Manuel Sánchez-Gestido - Information Visualization and Structured Knowledge
· Daniel Rojas - Acerca de la visualización topológica de redes

17:00 José Luis de Vicente: VISUALIZAR presentation

18:15 Ben Fry: Computational Information Design

19:30 Santiago Ortiz y Andrés Ortiz (Bestiario): presentation of Bestiario projects


13 de noviembre


10:30 - 14:00 Presentation of selected papers

· Paloma López - Investigación para la visualización experimental interactiva de conocimientos etimológicos
· Domenico di Siena - Imaginario
· Marcela Alejandra González - Information tools for Ethical Consumers
· M Luz Congosto - Barriblog

17:00 Ramon Guardans: From the Nippur School to EMEP: 4,000 years of data representation

18:15 Mark Hansen
19:30 Fernanda Viégas: Many Eyes: Democratizing Visualization

-----------------------------
PARTICIPANTS

Benjamin Fry: Computational Information Design
The ability to collect and store data continues to increase, but our ability to understand it remains unchanged. In an attempt to gain better understanding of data, fields such as information visualization, data mining and graphic design are employed, each solving an isolated part of the specific problem, but failing in a broader sense: there are too many unsolved problems in the visualization of complex data. As a solution, I propose that the individual fields be brought together as part of a single process that I call Computational Information Design. I'll be showing examples of work developed as part of my Ph.D. dissertation, and as a researcher at the Eli & Edyth Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard addressing the visualization genetic data.

Bestiario: Bestiario Proyect Presentation
For two years now, Bestiario has been developing interactive information spaces. An interactive information space is a digital environment where information can be accessed and transformed.
More than just visualizing, the aim is to generate a spatial and interactive experience. And more than just information, the goal is knowledge. What turns data into information is the relational structure between them. And what turns information into knowledge depends on how the information relates to people.
Bestiario works in both relational contexts. For the first, it develops data management infrastructure technologies primarily aimed at handling networks. For the second, it develops interaction technologies: browsable, visual spatial metaphors. We will demonstrate aspects of both types of technologies and how they can be structured. www.bestiario.org

Ramón Guardans: From the Nippur School to EMEP: 4,000 years of data representation
The clay tablets unearthed in Nippur and recently published by C. Proust constitute an extraordinary example of mathematical texts from over 4,000 years ago, represented on clay. From studying these representations, information can be gleaned about their authors’ mathematical knowledge and learning, reading, and calculation procedures.
The models of long-range transmission of air pollutants (www.emep.int) are examples of data representation of massive calculations based on emissions data and large-scale meteorological measurements.
These examples help us to consider the problem of representing knowledge, and the objects and processes involved in the task.

Mark Hansen
Es profesor de estadística de UCLA y miembro del departamento de Media Art de esta universidad. Sus colaboraciones con Ben Rubin en proyectos como "Listening Post" son algunos de los ejemplosmás poderosos del uso de las técnicas de minado de datos en el contexto de las artes digitales.

Fernanda Viégas: Many Eyes: Democratizing Visualization
Data visualization has historically been accessible only to the elite in academia, business, and government. But in recent years web-based visualizations--ranging from political art projects to news stories--have reached audiences of millions. Unfortunately, while lay users can view many sophisticated visualizations, they have few ways to create them. In order to "democratize" visualization, we have built Many Eyes, a web site where people may upload their own data, create interactive visualizations, and carry on conversations. The goal is to foster a social style of data analysis in which visualizations serve not only as a discovery tool for individuals but also as a means to spur discussion and collaboration. This talk will provide an overview of Many Eyes, patterns of usage on the site, and what those patterns suggest about the future of visualization.


EVENT

Pecha Kucha Night Brussels 20/11


Dates:
Tue Nov 20, 2007 00:00 - Wed Nov 07, 2007

Location:
Belgium

Pecha Kucha, which is Japanese for the sound of conversation, is a series of show-and-tell evenings for designers, architects, artists and creatives, started by Klein Dytham architecture in Tokyo in 2003.

Since then, groups have sprung up in cities across the world (over 80 so far) and adopted the Pecha Kucha format: each presenter has 20 slides which are displayed for 20 seconds each.

Pecha Kucha taps into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown. With the 20x20 format, presentations are concise, the interest level goes up, and more people get the chance to show their ideas.

The Brussels format includes designers, architects, artists, scientists, fashion designers, photographers, musicians, and creative entrepreneurs.

When
Tuesday 20 November at 20:20
We recommend that you arrive half an hour early.

Where
Rue Alphonse Dewittestraat 18, 1050 Elsene-Ixelles
Brussels (Belgium)

Blog, Updates, Partners, Information
http://pechakucha.architempo.net/brussels

Speakers on November 20, 2007
Bud Blumenthal - choreographer & dancer
Salvatore Bono - architect Buro2networks
Thierry Brunfaut - BaseDesign
Bart Cardinaal & Nadine Roos - HunkDesign Rotterdam
Walter De Brouwer - Pajama Nation
Aureia Harvey & Michael Samyn - Tale of Tales
Jan Kriekels - JAGA
Maja Kuzmanovic - fo.am
Giovanna Massoni - independent curator
Francis Metzger - Ma² / Metzger et Associés Architecture
Kristof Michiels & Peter Schelkens - Living Lab Brussels
François Pachet - CSL Sony Lab Paris
Paolo Pellizzari - photographer
Peter Scholliers - historian on everyday life and food
Diane Steverlynck - designer

Speaking in a future Pecha Kucha Night
Just contact us via the form on http://www.architempo.net

See you at 20:20 pm, on
November 20 2007
January 20 2008
March 20 2008
May 20 2008