ADA Mesh Cities Christchurch will be a series of events held over 2013-14 addressing the role of media arts in the city – exploring key issues such as urban space, social engagement, memory and speculative futures.

Over the two-year period the ADA Network will host two major symposia and a series of workshops and speaking tours in various locations throughout New Zealand.  A beginning reference point for Mesh Cities Christchurch is the role of media arts in the rebuild of the city. The project proposes a third symposium drawing together the strands back in Christchurch in September 2015

Mesh Cities Christchurch symposia will take place annually during the project and will be held in Dunedin, Auckland with the proposed event in Christchurch. Parallel to Mesh Cities symposia, the ADA Network will run satellite programmes of events such as screenings, exhibitions and performances.

The symposia will allow artists, designers, educators, researchers, curators and other interested parties to engage in critical dialogue exploring various aspects of the role of media art in the city:

•  Space : Network : Memory will be held in Dunedin on 13-15th of September 2013 and explore media art and public space: public artworks and installations using media technologies.
  • See the Call for Proposals for submission details & background information.
  • The programme and registration details will be available here soon

• The Auckland Symposium – centred on media art and social space – will take place in September 2014 and consider media art projects that involve audience participation and emphasise the density of connectedness.

• The final Mesh Cities symposium is proposed for Christchurch 2015, five years after the September 2010 earthquakes. The Christchurch symposium will focus on the role of media art in reimaging and remembering the past and future city while drawing upon three years of activities and discussion.

Each symposium will include a mixture of innovative discussion and presentation formats, featuring invited keynote speakers, panel discussions, open-idea work-shopping sessions, work presentation sessions for artists, and new formats specific to diverse locations, venues and communities.

ADA Mesh City workshops will be distributed throughout the Mesh Cities project. Workshops in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch will include practical instruction where audiences and practitioners may learn new skills as well as participating in discussions about various aspects of media art practice.

• 2013 New Zealand artist Janine Randerson Neighbourhood Air – details coming soon
• 2014 proposed tour and workshop series by UK artists Blast Theory.

The ADA Mesh Cities Christchurch project was launched with a one-day event in Christchurch – 30 March 2013 at the Physics Room. More information about the roundtable/launch event here and contribute to the conversation Why Mesh?

ADA Mesh Cities Christchurch will receive substantial support in 2013-2014 from Creative New Zealand through the Kahikatea scheme.

Hosted by the Physics Room  30^th March 2013
Second Floor, Old Central Post Office Building, 209 Tuam Street

Link to google map

= = = Outcomes

The research project Mesh Cities Christchurch begins in the post-quake city and looks outward to the possibilities and implications of this transitional state for urban, public, and social space in Aotearoa New Zealand. Through the idea of the ‘Mesh City’, The ADA Network asks, how can networked media artists respond to the conditions of contemporary Aotearoa? What opportunities arise here? What does the ‘smart city’ mean for media art practice? How can nimble processes respond to public spaces as creative venues and their importance for future community development?  And how can media art contribute to reimagining, remembering, reinvigorating, reconnecting with, or indeed resisting, urban and social space?

Mesh Cities Christchurch references the ‘sustainable, intelligent city‘ of ubiquitous mobile networking, in Robert Oullette’s MESH concept, but contextually positions the ubiquitous cyclone fence as a metaphor for interconnectedness in Aotearoa – in which the strength of the fence lies in its interwoven strands. The wireless networks of a ‘smart city’ however carry inevitable inequities of access and exclusion; like the modular fencing that surrounds so many broken buildings and empty sites, the technological mesh delineates ownership and regulates access. However, spaces between the wires enable other meanings and possibilities to slip through. In Christchurch, for example, a palpable disjunction emerges between the top down approach driving government designs for the city’s rebuild, and the highly social, bottom up and collectively imagined future. The city is rich in creative responses to resident experience, which emerge through the telling of stories, the co-creation of new experiences, and constant negotiation between the co-located spaces here / ‘now’, and there / ‘then’ / ‘when?’.

These are issues important for any city, any location. Space : Network : Memory asks how might the mesh city of Christchurch be just one starting point for new ways of thinking the impacts and place of media and art.

Read the Call for Proposals for the Dunedin Symposium 13-15 September 2013

Contribute to the continuing discussion – Why Mesh?

= = =  Planning 

The Physics Room

 For further information or assistance please contact vicki 021 778 067 or digitalsmith(at)clear(dot)net(dot)nz

physicroomlogo_BW TO USE

cnz-logo

The Un Litro de Agua project aims to establish and support dialogue between Colombian and New Zealand artists and the wider public through a series of collaborative arts events.

Un Litro de Agua was initiated by New Zealand artists Ana Terry and Don Hunter (Number 8 Collective) during their residency in Casa Tres Patios, Medellín, Columbia in 2012.

The project facilitates discussion and critical thinking around sustainable water practices through workshops, exhibitions, urban interventions and platforms for public participation and dialogue.

Un Litro de Agua (“One Litre of Water”) explores different social and environmental cultures around water, and its place in our collective memory. The emphasis of the project is river rejuvenation, exploring social and environmental linkages and differences between waterways in Medellín, Columbia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

The project is currently in process. The first phase of Un Litro de Agua was a curated exhibition of New Zealand artist’s work exploring various aspects of the thematic of water, with an emphasis on developing dialogue between Columbian and New Zealand artists.

The Number 8 Collective has also run community workshops – digital and non digital – working with NGO’s Mi Sangria, Casa Tres Patios and several youth groups at Communa Trese (Community Thirteen).

Although sustainability was the initial focal point of Un Litro de Agua,  much of the workshop process relied on negotiating cultural borders – emphasising the very foundation to sustainable practice being the collective agreement of different cultures and people to work together.

Workshop with Comuna Trece where participants put together their own stop motion films about the project’s theme

These borders included the Collective’s position as foriegners or “gringos”, and borders between families within Medellín’s communities – an effect of over 20 years of drug gang violence resulting in displacement and constantly shifting hierarchies between gangs and their associated families.

The Number 8 Collective have also set up a Blog about the Un Litro de Agua project, including discussion and updates about New Zealand and Columbian rivers and waterways. Rio de Medellín, running through the city of Medellin, has had a considerable injection of resources over the last decade in an attempt to return the rover to a health state and changes attitudes around its use, while New Zealand has comparable histories around river rejuvenation and river resource allocation.

The Un Litro de Agua blog is updated regularly and the Collective has a combined exhibition of Columbian and New Zealand artists planned for 2013.

Ana Terry and Don Hunter formed the Number 8 Collective in 2010 as a way to formalise the pair’s growing collaborative partnership and develop their emerging curatorial practices. The name is a reference to number 8 fencing wire – a symbol of the quintessential kiwi improvisational approach.

The underlying aim of the Number 8 Collective is to provide platforms initiating and facilitating discussion of contemporary issues between artists and the wider community.

Casa Tres Patios is an arts-led NGO based in Medellín, Columbia founded in 2006 with an emphasis on teaching, research and the creation of links between artists, public institutions and other national and international independent spaces.

A detail of the cyclone fence artwork Hapori

Why Mesh Cities Christchurch?

A roundtable discussion event was held at The Physics Room Gallery on the 30th of March. This was to begin the research project with a thorough grounding with the projects and artist communities operating already in the this space. A group of fifteen discussed their work and the alignment with proposed themes as part of the launching of this project. The discussion in its raw form is here -  http://piratepad.net/TLeKCQbnmw , the purpose being to embed the research project in both a local and national context.

A beginning framing statement:
Referencing the concept of Robert Oullette’s MESH, the research project Mesh Cities Christchurch positions the ubiquitous cyclone fence as a metaphor for framing the interconnectedness of the network, actual, social, creative, urban and rural, within the digitally networked community that is Aotearoa Digital Artists. Like the woven fence the strength is in the connections developed throughout the project, the mesh both contains and provides permeable space for developing synergies between the ongoing development activities in Christchurch and the ramifications for the rest of the country. A palpable disjunction emerges between the top down or data-driven approach driving government designs for the city’s rebuild, and the highly social, bottoms up  and collectively imagined future. These plans sit alongside a city rich in a creative response to resident experience.

The research project Mesh Cities Christchurch addresses how artists might respond, what opportunities arise and how nimble processes may offer insights for speculation on public spaces as creative venues and their importance for future community development.

Your comments are invited through the Mesh Cities Christchurch FB page

Further links:

http://meshcities.com/

http://www.shareanidea.org.nz/

http://www.rebuildchristchurch.co.nz/blog/2011/5/share-an-idea

MeshHaporiWeb

 Art work photographed in Christchurch 29th March 2013

Space : Network : Memory is the 8th ADA Network symposium. ADA symposia have a formidable reputation for critical collegial exchange within the expanded field of digital and media arts. This September in Dunedin we mark a decade of ADA Symposia in response to themes generated by the three year ADA Network research project Mesh Cities Christchurch.

Space : Network : Memory  welcomes proposals for provocations, panel participation and presentations of work engaging with aspects of the broad range of practices and approaches necessary for rethinking the contemporary city, the networks that surround and emerge from it, and the memories it holds.

Space : Network : Memory will include artists, designers, media practitioners and performers, urban planners, historians, theorists, curators, writers, educators, and storytellers.

Space : Network : Memory recognises that the situation of post-quake, post-‘blueprint’, transitional Christchurch generates problems and possibilities for all of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The DUNEDIN symposium will continue this discussion. Dunedin is an historic city with many evident remains of the past, yet, for seismic and economic reasons these environments are in transition and their stories are under threat. Dunedin’s historic warehouse precinct is one focus of discussion, and will feature as a site of conversation. Space : Network : Memory will engage closely and playfully across Dunedin city.

Space : Network : Memory seeks;

• Proposals for short provocations that respond to histories, architectures, art and media as they interplay and feedback with civic processes, and/or re-engage people in urban and public spaces.
  Your abstract should include: name, contact information, title and a 300 word abstract referencing the relevant symposium theme, and any technical requirements.  Please expect to give a ten minute presentation and contribute to a panel discussion – online resources to support your presentation are welcome. Due 10 June, 2013

• Panel proposals. These abstracts should include: name of  at least three people to form a panel, contact information, title and a 300 word abstract referencing the relevant symposium theme, and any technical requirements. Please expect to present a collaborative 30 – 40 minute panel – online resources to support your panel presentation are welcome. Due 10 June, 2013

• Presentations of work. These should include; name, contact details, an image or documentation of the work (if possible), and a 150 word abstract for a five minute discussion. Online resources to support your works are welcome. Due 10 June, 2013

• Please email your proposals or requests for information to adasymposium2013_at_ada_dot_net_dot_nz

Details of the conference format, programme, registration and accommodation options will be announced by the end of June 2013.

The 8th ADA Symposium in Dunedin is part of ‘Mesh Cities Christchurch’
http://www.ada.net.nz/meshcities/ada-mesh-cities-christchurch/

= = = = =

The research project Mesh Cities Christchurch begins in the post-quake city and looks outward to the possibilities and implications of this transitional state for urban, public, and social space in Aotearoa New Zealand. Through the idea of the ‘Mesh City’, The ADA Network asks, how can networked media artists respond to the conditions of contemporary Aotearoa? What opportunities arise here? What does the ‘smart city’ mean for media art practice? How can nimble processes respond to public spaces as creative venues and their importance for future community development?  And how can media art contribute to reimagining, remembering, reinvigorating, reconnecting with, or indeed resisting, urban and social space?

Mesh Cities Christchurch references the ‘sustainable, intelligent city‘ of ubiquitous mobile networking, in Robert Oullette’s MESH concept, but contextually positions the ubiquitous cyclone fence as a metaphor for interconnectedness in Aotearoa – in which the strength of the fence lies in its interwoven strands. The wireless networks of a ‘smart city’ however carry inevitable inequities of access and exclusion; like the modular fencing that surrounds so many broken buildings and empty sites, the technological mesh delineates ownership and regulates access. However, spaces between the wires enable other meanings and possibilities to slip through. In Christchurch, for example, a palpable disjunction emerges between the top down approach driving government designs for the city’s rebuild, and the highly social, bottom up and collectively imagined future. The city is rich in creative responses to resident experience, which emerge through the telling of stories, the co-creation of new experiences, and constant negotiation between the co-located spaces here / ‘now’, and there / ‘then’ / ‘when?’.

These are issues important for any city, any location. Space : Network : Memory asks how might the mesh city of Christchurch be just one starting point for new ways of thinking the impacts and place of media and art.

= = =

I’m Never Going to Dance Again – Dan Untitled’s Afterparty – Dan Untitled (NZ)

ANGRY – Annie Abrahams (France) & collaborators, streaming interface: mosaika.tv by Ivan Chabanaud

The 121212 UpStage Festival of Cyberformance (live online interactive events created and presented for online audiences) will take place 5-12 December 2012. The festival will feature 38 performances created and presented in UpStage and a variety of other online platforms (including Water-Wheel’s the Tap, SecondLife, Visitors Studio and other purpose built networked environments).

The 121212 UpStage Festival presents a programme of online performances that can be watched from Internet-connected computers anywhere in the world – traversing time zones and the globe for multi-cultural, multi-lingual performances by emerging and established artists.

UpStage, a web-based platform for online performance was first launched in 2003, and has hosted an annual cyberformance festival since 2007. 121212 will mark the sixth UpStage festival (previous festivals include 070707, 080808, 090909,101010 and 11:11:11), and also a turning point for the event in the retrospective aspect (Walking Backwards into the Future) and in opening the festival out to platforms other than UpStage (Testing 1 2 1 2 1 2). 121212 will be the last time the festival can use this date format, and it is also this year UpStage is working to launch a new engine for the UpStage platform; DownStage – extending the possibilities of future performances.

The festival will consist of two parts:

“Walking Backwards into the Future” – a programme of 19 restaged cyberformances from the past five UpStage festivals (5-11 December) http://upstage.org.nz/blog/?page_id=3430

“Testing – 1 2, 1 2, 1 2” – new works in UpStage and other networked platforms (12 December 2012 – with a bit of 11th and 13th depending on your location). http://upstage.org.nz/blog/?page_id=3447

All of the performances will be available to online audiences, via standard web browser and will be projected at physical sites around the world (called Real Life access nodes). The schedule page contains links to the shows, and time converters and will become live once the festival starts. The UpStage environment http://upstage.org.nz:8084 becomes the hub of the festival with a ‘foyer’ stage operating throughout the 121212 event. The two festival architects and guest hosts from the UK, Europe and USA will discuss shows, answer queries and host a central point for artists to relax and engage with audiences between shows.

The 121212 UpStage Festival of Cyberformance is organised by Festival Architects Vicki Smith and Helen Varley-Jamiesion, with a team of dedicated artists and volunteers.

A full programme of performances in the festival is available on the UpStage website http://upstage.org.nz/blog/

Neighbourhood Air is an interactive, online artwork that gathers live pollutant levels from Auckland City air. The collaborative project includes urban meteorologists, programmers, media artists and breathers of air as a continuous feedback mechanism. Sensor instruments in Auckland, New Zealand provide a platform for continuously accessible, real-time information about city air quality.

Fluctuating levels of data drive the movement of the interface. Different sky-coloured bars represent five weather and gas measurements, including (from top to bottom) relative humidity, temperature, Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). The colour bars are a distillation of a process called ‘sky sampling’ using video. When the bars reach the far right of the screen the air quality is poor.

This work premiered at Screen Space in Melbourne in February 2012 and travelled to New Mexico as part of ISEA ‘Machine Wilderness’, in September 2012.

Visitors to http://www.neighbourhoodair.co.nz/ can use this interactive platform, which also functions on a smartphone or ipad, and collect ‘air samples’ for themselves.

As part of the project, Randerson has also set up a blog where visitors can share their thoughts, memories and photographs of Auckland’s city air.

The CyPosium, an online symposium of cyberformance, will take place on Friday 12 October 2012 from 3pm UK time.

Since the 1990s, there has been a growing body of live performance that is situated online. These events differ enormously in form and content and are frequently described by different terms such as cyberformance, remote performance, Internet theatre, screen stage and computer-mediated performance. They engage different audiences and are staged in a variety of different online environments: text-based and graphical chat rooms, sound broadcast, real time choreography for screen, virtual worlds, games and purpose built or existing platforms (such as Facebook). The net, however, is forgetful, and loses memory of these events, the people who lived them, and the environments and communities who hosted them.

The CyPosium invites cyberformance artists, researchers and interested participants to share and discuss past online performances. The CyPosium aims to tackle questions about the different kinds of events that have happened, what was unique about these particular events, what they made possible, why they were done in a certain way, and the results of these decisions.

The event is coordinated by a loose collective of artists and researchers based in different locations throughout the world working in the field of Cyberformance, including Vicki Smith and Helen Varley-Jamieson from the Aotearoa Digital Art Network. The CyPosium will be hosted by Upstage, the Waterwheel Tap and independent cyberformers.

Presenters for the CyPosium are:

Maria Chatzichistodoulu
Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn
Alan Sondheim
Milijana Perić
Stephen A. Schrum
Joseph DeLappe
Adriene Jenik
Active Layers
Roger Mills
Maja Delak and Luka Prinčič

All is that is required to participate is a standard web browser with the Flash player plugin and a broadband Internet connection. More information including a full presentation schedule for different time zones is available through the CyPosium media release and website http://www.cyposium.net/

The ADA Network is proud to present Netwalking, a series of workshops and master classes with UK-based media artist Simon Pope that will take place in March and April 2013. Registration is now open.

Pope will lead three public workshops hosted by the ADA Network in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch which will draw upon his recent work of walking-as-art. The ADA Network will also host a residency period in Whanganui and coordinate a trans-tasman collaboration with a residency at the University of Wollongong, NSW.

The Netwalking Tour will focus on the themes emerging from Pope’s recent projects such as The Memorial Walks (2008), A Common Third (2010) and Memory Marathon (2010). These projects involve walking with others to negotiate routes as a way of exploring relationships between people and our relationships with ‘land’. In ‘A Common Third’, (2010), Pope walked with others to jointly-negotiate unfamiliar terrain through hills and mountains, which later formed the basis of an audio installation, drawing parallels between processes of working together and models of dialogue.

The master classes will include: presentation of the artist’s recent work, a discussion of ‘sociality and walking’ in contemporary art practice; and a practical workshop addressing the specific themes emerging from Pope’s practice.

Pope has been a leading figure in early challenges to media art, and his ‘walking work’ has developed out of an ongoing exploration of the various ways we might be together and how this is negotiated. As a member of the new-media-artist’s group I/O/D, Pope was interested in the connectedness of things – both human and non-human, social and technical – that constitute the Web, as explored in Manuel de Landa’s ‘Meshworks’. I/O/D took a sceptical and exploratory view of interface and developed ‘speculative software’, such as ‘I/O/D: The Web Stalker’.

The Netwalking master classes and workshops will serve as an opening remark in a new dialogue with NZ artists and curators through which to explore an expanded, networked notion of ‘landscape’ in relation to dialogue and negotiation. The master class series will engage NZ practitioners with new ways of working that are not only at the cutting edge of media art practice internationally, but that contain particular relevance to NZ as a country mapped by complex economic, social and cultural networks.

Programme

All netwalking events are free of charge.
Registration is essential for masterclasses and public walks.

• Saturday March 16th, 11am – 4pm
  Masterclass The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, Wellington, NZ
• Sunday March 17th, 11am – 4pm 
  Public Walk, The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, Wellington, NZ
• Tuesday March 19th, 7.30pm 
  Artist Talk, The Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, NZ
• Friday March 22nd, 11am
  Public Walk, Whanganui, South Beach, Whanganui, NZ
• Thursday March 28th, 11am – 4pm
  Masterclass, The Physics Room, Christchurch, NZ
• Friday March 29th, 11am – 4pm
  Public Walk, The Physics Room, Christchurch, NZ
• Wednesday April 3rd, 11am – 4pm
  Masterclass, A.U.T University, Auckland, NZ
• Thursday April 4th, 5pm – 6pm
  Public Panel Discussion, A.U.T University, Auckland, NZ
• Thursday April 11th, 11am – 4pm
  Masterclass, University of Wollongong, Australia register
• Saturday April 13th, 11am – 4pm
  Public Walk, Big Fag Press, Sydney, Australia register

Media

lo-res A4 b&w jpeg for email and web

A4 Mailer lo-res jpeg for web and email 174.8 KB

A4 Mailer lo-res pdf for web and email 679.0 KB

A4 Flyer hi-res jpeg for print 1.2 MB

A4 Flyer hi-res pdf for print 7.7 MB

A1 Poster hi-res jpeg for print 4.8 MB

A1 Poster hi-res pdf for print 43.9 MB

Contact

For more information please email: netwalking_at_greenbench_dot_org

Support

The Netwalking Tour has received substantial funding from Creative New Zealand, with support from The Dowse Art Museum, The Greenbench, The Sarjeant Gallery, The Physics Room, A.U.T, University of Wollongong, and Big Fag Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ADA is a network researching the expanded field around media, new media, electronic and digital art. The ADA Network enables communication between artists, curators, teachers, critics, theorists, writers and the interested public. ADA develops public understanding of digital art through its online forum, through publications and exhibitions, and by touring speakers, holding master classes and symposia.

ADA is a national organisation advancing education, enabling  discussion, collaboration and mentoring, passing on learning and  expertise. ADA contributes towards the development of digital art, in all its manifestations, across Aotearoa New Zealand.

In 2010 ADA hosted the masterclass tour of Professor Douglas Kahn to Auckland, Christchurch, Whanganui. ADA was a key partner for Electrosmog: Festival of Sustainable Immobility, an international networked conference and festival initiated by De Baile in Amsterdam. 2010 also marked the seventh ADA symposium, Energetics and Informatics. Over the past nine years ADA symposia have maintained a reputation for inspired presentations by leading and emergent New Zealand artists alongside renowned international artists and critics. In 2008 ADA published The ADA Reader, a book that remains the only comprehensive text on media arts and their histories in New Zealand. This text has given an international depth and recognition to New Zealand’s media arts practice.

ADA is a charitable trust. Current trustees are Zita Joyce (Chair), Stella Brennan (Secretary), Su Ballard (Treasurer), Ana Terry, Julian Priest, and Vicki Smith. Previous trustees include Honor Harger, Douglas Bagnall and Janine Randerson.

The ADA network continues to expand understanding of and exposure to digital and media arts (in all their variety) in Aotearoa New Zealand.