To deepen the discussion on the selected theme, each year, Microwave International Media Arts Festival holds a keynote conference which invites artists and scholars from all over the world to share with audience their ideas.This year, we aim at arousing discussions on the artists' intent to "hack" the city with surprising tactics as a means of freedom of expression through our keynote conference. 3 groups of keynote speakers are invited to share their views and experience on "hack the city" media arts.
Alessandro Ludovico and Hans Bernald (Italy) 亞歷山德羅．魯多維科及漢斯．貝瀚 (意大利)
Topic: GWEI - Google Will Eat Itself 高管會吃掉自己
Alessandro Ludovico, 1969, lives and works in Bari, Italy. He is a media critic and the editor in chief of the magazine Neural from 1993 and was awarded with a "Honorary Mention" for Net.Vision at Prix Ars Electronica 2004. Alessandro Ludovico is one of the founding contributors of the Nettime community and one of the founders of the organization "Mag.Net (Electronic Cultural Publishers)". One of his recent project is "GWEI - Google Will Eat Itself".
Hans Bernhard is a Vienna and St. Moritz based artist working in the fields of digital and fine art. Using technology, computers and the internet as a medium since 1994, he exhibited and performed in venues like the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Japan), the Ars Electronica (Austria), the Konsthall Malmoe (Sweden) or the SFMOMA (USA). He is a founding member of the legendary etoy.CORPORATION and of UBERMORGEN.COM. He studied visual communication, digital art, art history and aesthetics in Vienna, San Diego, Pasadena and Wuppertal. Hans is a professional artist and creative thinker, working on art projects, researching digital networks, exhibiting and travelling the world lecturing at conferences and Universities.
In the conference, the two speakers will introduce their concept behind Google Will Eat Itself --- an innovative and international project.
The artists raise money by serving Google text advertisements on their websites. With this money they automatically buy Google shares which means that they buy Google via its own advertisement. Google eats itself - but in the end the artists own it. They construct the new global advertisement mechanisms by establishing a model and thus reder them into a surreal click-based economic model. Finally they hand the common ownership of "their" Google shares over to the GTTP Ltd. (Google To The People Public Company) which distributes them back to the users (clickers) / public.
For more information on GWEI, please visit: www.gwei.org
研討會中，兩位講者將介紹其創新和國際項目-《高管會吃掉自己 Google Will Eat Itself》- 背後的理念。
他們在自己的網站上賣 Google 文字廣告籌集資金，而賺得的金錢會自動購入高管的股份。即是說他們是由 Google 自己的廣告把其購入。 高管吃掉自己，最終由藝術家擁有。他們通過建立一個模型，建造新的全球廣告機制， 從而使它們成為一個超現實、以點擊為基礎的經濟模型。 最後，他們會將共同擁有的高管股份給予 GTTP 有限公司 (Google To The People 人民高管 )，分回給用戶（ 點擊者） /市民。
Brian Holmes (France) 布賴恩．霍姆斯 (法國)
Topic: Swarmachine 蜂擁機
Brian Holmes is an art and cultural critic, activist and translator, living in Paris, interested primarily in the intersections of artistic and political practice. He holds a doctorate in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of California at Berkeley. He was the English editor of publications for Documenta X, Kassel, Germany, 1997, was a member of the graphic arts group Ne pas plier from 1999 to 2001, and has recently worked with the French conceptual art group Bureau d'etudes.
He is a frequent contributor to the international mailinglist Nettime, a member of the editorial committee of the art magazine "Springerin" and the political-economy journal "Multitudes", a regular contributor to the magazine Parachute, and a founder of the new journal "Autonomie Artistique". He is currently preparing a book in French, entitled "La personnalite flexible: Pour une nouvelle critique de la culture."
In the conference, Brian Holmes will present his recent research on Tactical Media, titled "Swarmachine: Activist Media Tomorrow", alongside with slideshows and examples. More details of the research and the rest of Brian's projects can be found on: brianholmes.wordpress.com
Publication:
Hieroglyphs of the Future: Art and Politics in a Networked Era (2003): Collection of essays, which features a solid political approach intertwined with art, pushes the limits of the critique of the mobility as defined by human beings and the reconfiguration of urban space, analyzing the powers and desired contained in it.
Ballettikka Internettikka: VolksNetBallet is a guerrilla "Net Ballet" Performance conducted by Igor Stromajer & Brane Zorman.
VolksNetBallet was broadcast in the form of six one-minute streaming videos, almost live, with only two minutes delay. It means that the visitors could see and hear in six steps what had just happened only two minutes earlier during the VolksNetBallet in Volksbuhne Basement Toilet. All six videos were edited live in-camera, using only STOP and REC functions, then immediately converted to Real Media files using Real Producer, and finally, transferred to the server for viewing.
The artists utilized low-tech mobile and wireless equipment for the invasion and live broadcast: a public unprotected wireless internet connection point (wLAN), available for free at the Rosa-Luxemburg Square in Berlin (ID: Helmut22; signal strength in the basement of Volksbuhne: 2/5), free RealProducer (version 11.0) and Live LE software for streaming video and audio live manipulation.
The initial version of Ballettikka Internettikka: VolksNetBallet took place on the very same evening and at the very same time as another huge people's festivity -- the final match of the World Soccer Cup 2006, which also took place in Germany.
In 2007, we have invited Igor Stromajer & Brane Zorman to perform a new Hong Kong version of Ballettikka Internettikka for the Festival. The performance will took place in a toilet of a hotel room in Hong Kong, being documented, and presented during the Keynote Conference.
www.intima.org/bi/index.html
