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

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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

VIDA 11.0


Deadline:
Mon Oct 06, 2008 00:00

Location:
Spain

VIDA 11.0 - FINISHED PROJECTS
VIDA 11.0 rewards works of art developed with artificial life technologies and related disciplines: robotics, artificial intelligence, etc. We are looking for works of art with emerging behaviours, which evolve over time, react with their environment and seem to have a life of their own. VIDA 11.0 is searching for projects that relate technology with biology and that research the synthetic characteristics of modern life.

In previous editions, prizes have been awarded to artistic projects created with robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user interaction, interactive architectures, augmented reality pieces and works that explore the social aspects of A-life.

A total of €40,000 will be awarded to the three projects selected by the jury: First prize: €18,000(*), Second prize: €14,000(*), Third prize: €8,000(*). The winning pieces may be exhibited at Fundación Telefónica´s Virtual Museum and in the exhibitions related to art and new technologies it organises or takes part in.

Works of art submitted must not be more than two years old. This enables the Competition to keep updated and aware of the last technological trends in the field of artificial life.

VIDA 11.0 - ARTISTIC PRODUCTION INCENTIVES FOR LATIN AMERICA, SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
The second category of the VIDA 11.0 International Competition aims to help fund artistic A-life projects (and related disciplines) that have not yet been created. The competition is open to participants from Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

With prize money totalling €40,000 (*)., this category will reward from one to three projects that deal with a relevant A-life concept and demonstrate the artist's capacity to produce the piece. The jury will also value outstanding quality of previous work.

ENTRY
To enter both categories (“Finished Projects” and “Artistic Production Incentives”), carefully read TERMS AND CONDITIONS and complete the ENTRY FORM.

ALL material should be submitted on electronic media (CD or DVD) before the 6th of October 2008, to any Fundación Telefónica office in Spain (Madrid) or Latin America (Mexico D.F., Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Lima). The addresses are included in the documentation. Entry forms can also be sent via email to vida@telefonica.es, provided that the applicant enables a url containing the rest of the audiovisual material required.

DATES
Dates for submitting projects: from the 15th of June 2008 to the 6th of October 2008.

JURY
The submitted pieces will be examined by an international jury.
The members of the jury are: Mónica Bello Bugallo (Spain), Daniel Canogar, (Spain), Sally-Jane Norman (France/New Zealand), José-Carlos Mariátegui (Peru), Simon Penny (USA/Australia), Nell Tenhaaf (Canada).

ENQUIRIES
Applicants may view the projects that won previous editions of the competition on the VIDA website (PREVIOUS EDITIONS), in order to check whether their projects adapt to the philosophy of the award.
If you have any questions, you can check the FAQ section. You can also contact us by sending an email to vida@telefonica.es or calling (0034) 91 584 23 00.

. (*) The prize money will be subject to the corresponding deductions.


DISCUSSION

Thank you, Patrick May


Patrick,
It was great to work with you! My best wishes in your new projects.
Hope to see you in Spain soon.

.ana

OPPORTUNITY

Disonancias


Deadline:
Mon Jul 07, 2008 00:00

Location:
Spain

The international call is open for artists to develop research projects with companies and organisations located in the Basque Country (Spain) between October 2008 and July 2009.

Deadline for applications: 7 July 2008 (9am, local time). Open to artists of any age, nationality or place of residence.

Fee (including travel and lodging expenses): 10,000 euros (up to 12,000 euros in accordance with the geographical origin).

Budget to develop the research work: max. 6.000 euros (to be negotiated with the host entity).


To who is the call directed to


DISONANCIAS gives priority to the involvement of artists who: are committed to their environment; are interested in stimulating interaction between different cultural and social systems; and who can contribute to collective work. The programme is open to artists working with any type of medium and in any discipline.

The selection process is open to artists of any age, nationality or place of residence, either presented individually or as a group. Candidates can present themselves before a maximum of three bodies, and must send one candidature dossier per body, specifying that they are presenting themselves to other bodies/another body in each dossier.

It is essential that the artists accept the fact that they will not be developing an autonomous creation project, but rather one related to and based on certain concepts and prerequisites defined by each participating entity, and that the main objective is research into and/or development of a prototype, procedure or idea that complies with these conditions.

Selection process

The artists will be selected after an international call to which they have to present at least one preliminary project that adapts itself to the research fields previously defined by the participating companies and centres. All the details about the selection process are in the Rules and Regulations document.

Candidates must fill in the registration form (either as individual, or as a group), and write a document in PDF format, containing the following information (in this order), in English, Spanish or Basque (no more than 10 A4 pages and 3MB):

- a brief description of their view of the role of the artist in society today, and their motivation for participating in the project;
- preliminary plan (s) (maximum of two by entity), in relation to the investigation formulated by the organisation;
- résumé of their artistic career (if possible, in a literary style; avoid CV format); specificying activities carried out in similar contexts (companies or equivalent), the degree of collaboration and the lessons drawn from the experience.
- availability during the collaboration period and work schedule.

The registration form and PDF document should be sent by email to izenematea[at]disonancias.com before 09.00 (Spanish time) on Monday 7 July, 2008. For enquiries or additional information, the DISONANCIAS organisation will answer by email (izenematea[at]disonancias.com) from28 April to 3 July, 2008.

A jury composed by Jorge Luis Marzo (curator and cultural investigator, www.soymenos.net, Barcelona), Juan Freire (biologist, university professor and entrepreneur; explorer of the role of innovation, strategy and technology in social networks, organisations and cities. www.juanfreire.net, A Coruña), Ana Betancour, (Head of Exhibitions at Stockholm Architecture Museum, Sweden) and Conxita Oliver (Responsible for the line of Investigation and Creation within the Projects Area of the Departament de Cultura i Mijans de Comunicació de la Generalitat de Catalunya) will make the selection of artists from the dossiers presented.

The DISONANCIAS organisation will personally communicate the jury’s decision to the authors pre-selected in mid-July 2008. The telephone interviews with the host bodies will take place in the third and fourth week of July 2008.


Economic conditions


Each artist or artist group selected will receive a minimum sum of 10,000 euros, not including tax, up to 12,000 euros in accordance with their geographical origin. This amount covers the fees for the work carried out, travel expenses, lodging and subsistence allowance, and the economic compensation for the exploitation rights, without prejudice to the amounts that the artist may eventually receive from the host body deriving from the commercial exploitation of the project, which will be agreed case by case.

The costs that may be generated in the development of the research work and associated with external companies and suppliers (costs relating to working hours of the technicians of the participating entity or materials used are not included here) must not exceed 6,000 euros + VAT, and they must be previously approved by the participating entity.

Attendance conditions

The artists agree to be present on:
- 21 and 22 October 2008 for the methodology meeting that will bring together all the participants and the first visits of the participating entities;
- the dates agreed upon with the participating entity, agreeing to be present a minimum of 20 working days (not necessarily consecutive);
- the dates agreed upon with the company and the DISONANCIAS organisers to present a talk that will be open to the public about the artist’s career and research project;
- the dates agreed upon with the organisers to participate in the party/event at the end of the project.


OPPORTUNITY

Disonancias


Deadline:
Mon Jul 07, 2008 00:00

Location:
Spain

Call for artists to collaborate on joint research projects with companies and organisations located in the Basque country, Spain.

Deadline for applications: 7 July 2008, 9 am (local time).
Collaboration period: from 15 October 2008 to 15 July 2009 (9 months).
Fields of research: mainly associated with urban dynamics, creative environments, technologies (data visualisation) and materials (glass, wire).
For more information: http://www.disonancias.com

DISONANCIAS is pleased to announce the call for proposals from international artists who wish to participate in its third annual edition.

DISONANCIAS is a platform that promotes relationships between artists and companies, research centres or public organisations in order to foster innovation in all its aspects and transmit to society the importance of developing creative environments.

Artists are asked to develop, in collaboration with a team, a prototype, procedure or idea based on a framework predefined by one of the participating entities: either companies (BULTZAKI, EZARRI, PROIEK, SEGUROS LAGUN ARO), public organisations (Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council, EiTB) or universities (Tecnológico Fundación Deusto, Mondragón Unibertsitatea).

The concepts they wish to investigate can be grouped within three main fields:

- investigations related to urban dynamics: social and commercial dynamics for the city centre (Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council), an encounter point based on urban furniture and on the concept of urbanotics (PROIEK), and new uses for a branch network (SEGUROS LAGUN ARO).

- related to the development of creative environments, in this case for the different users of a Faculty of Engineering (Mondragón Unibertsitatea).

- investigations related to technological or material application/developments: visualisation of Artificial Intelligence techniques (Tecnológico Fundación Deusto - S3Lab), new applications for recycled glass or glass mosaics (EZARRI), new applications for wire and metal tube (BULTZAKI).

In the special case of EiTB (Basque Radio and Television), the artist(s) is requested to research into the documentary format using documentation reflecting the processes developed within the
collaboration projects.

The submitted proposals will be examined by a jury including Jorge Luis Marzo and Juan Freire. The pre-selected artists will be informed in mid-July, and will get a chance to defend their project during a conference call with the hosting organisation. The final decision will be taken by the hosting entities and will be communicated at the end of August 2008.

DISONANCIAS gives priority to the involvement of artists who: are committed to their environment; feel that art can be a factor of social transformation; are interested in stimulating interaction between different cultural and social systems; and who can contribute to collective work.

The call is open to artists working with any type of medium and in any discipline, either individually or as a group. There is no limit on age, nationality or place of residence.

The selected artists or group of artists will each receive a minimum amount of 10,000 euros - up to 12,000 euros, depending on their geographical origin - as a fee for the work carried out and for their travel and accommodation costs. Costs that may be generated in the development of the research work and associated with external companies and suppliers should not exceed 6,000 euros + VAT, and they should be previously approved by the hosting entity.

Full information regarding the participating organisations, the teams that will be involved, the concepts they wish to investigate, and the rules for participation is available at http://www.disonancias.com

For more information you can also send us a message to info@disonancias.com , or call on
+34 943 27 85 01.

DISONANCIAS is sponsored mainly by the Basque Government (Industry, Trade and Tourism Department), is supported by Innobasque, and is promoted by Grupo Xabide.
DISONANCIAS is member of artsactive.net.


EVENT

PhD or not to PhD?: How to improve research based art practice


Dates:
Thu Mar 06, 2008 00:00 - Thu Mar 06, 2008

A discussion on the YASMIN list
March 3--14, 2008
To join the discussion register at: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Oguzhan Ozcan, Director of PhD in Art and Design at Istanbul Yildiz Technical University (http://oguzhan.ozcan.info) and YASMIN corresponding editor.

Respondents will include: Ken Friedman, Kristina Niedderer, Deirdre Barron, Chris Rust, John Zimmerman, Basak Senova. All interested persons are invited to participate.

Dates: March 3--14, 2008

"To PhD or not to PhD?: How to improve research based art practice"

Like scientists, artists are engaged in research activities. However research is carried out in different ways when comparing artists to scientists. During the last 20 years, a number of academic institutions have created PhDs in Art as well as a Practice Based Research Degrees. For a thorough report on this question, please refer to the one written by Professor Stuart Lain, University of Brighton available at:

http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/research/euindia/knowledgebase/brightonpg/laing.htm

We would like to invite Yasminers to discuss the broader question of how research education in art should be designed today.

Respondents will include:

Prof. Dr. Ken Friedman, Swinburne University of Technology
Dr. Kristina Niedderer
Dr. Deirdre Barron, Swinburne University Faculty of Design
Prof. Dr. Chris Rust at Sheffield-Hallam University
Dr. John Zimmerman, School of Design Carnegie Mellon University
Dr. Basak Senova, School of Communication, Kadir Has University