Mediamatic.net
New Media, Art, Society and “Cultuurprofijt”
Mediamatic is a cultural organization in Amsterdam. We do exhibitions, presentations, workshops and much more. This site combines an overview with news and theory.
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Review
“Ze hebben allemaal zo’n grote neus. Hoort dat er ook bij?”
Kijk naar ons, je kunt niet om ons heen!
Vanaf de buitenzijde is een stapel zwarte kratten zichtbaar. Aan de binnenkant vormen ze een doolhof, zonder licht. Bij de ingang van het doolhof staat een krat met hoofdlampjes. Ik zet een lampje op mijn hoofd en loop naar binnen. Na een aantal seconden sta ik oog in oog met een mooie man. Hij heeft een stoere, indringende blik. Ik beweeg mijn hoofd iets naar beneden, zodat de rest van de foto ook zichtbaar wordt. Ter hoogte van zijn borst blijft mijn blik steken. Ik zie twee grote littekens op de plek waar eerst de borsten zaten van deze man.
Ik ben in Mediamatic, waar de foto-expositie XXBoys te zien is. Deze expositie maakt deel uit van het gelijknamige project, van kunstenaar Kael T. Block. De expositie bestaat uit foto’s van transgenders, in dit geval vrouwen die getransformeerd zijn tot man. Jans Possel, een van de oprichters van Mediamatic, vertelt meer over de foto´s.
'Gabriel - Seattle', gefotografeerd door Kael T Block.
Deze fotoserie maakt deel uit van het project XXBoys. Kunt u mij uitleggen wat de boodschap is van Kael T. Block en wat hij hoopt te bereiken?
“Hij is een blog gestart en heeft de foto’s gemaakt, omdat hij zelf in 2003 ook besloot om van vrouw naar man te gaan. Hij wilde zich gesterkt voelen in zijn wens daarin en wilde graag communiceren met anderen die dat proces al hadden doorgemaakt of zouden gaan doormaken. Hij is toen online gaan kijken, wie hier ook mee bezig was en heeft een blog opgestart. Hier kunnen mensen reageren op elkaars vragen en ervaringen uitwisselen. Zelf woont hij in Parijs, maar hij ontdekte dat veel van deze mensen uit Amerika kwamen. Hij is ze toen gaan opzoeken om met hen te praten en omdat hij fotograaf is, heeft hij ze ook geportretteerd. Deze mensen kende hij voorheen niet, maar heeft hij ontmoet via zijn blogs, onder andere op MySpace.”De foto’s hangen in het donker en worden zichtbaar door middel van een lampje wat je op je hoofd draagt. Wat is hier de gedachte achter?
“Het zijn hele confronterende foto’s en op deze manier willen we ook het gevoel geven van het gevangen zitten in je eigen lichaam. Het dient ook om de foto’s goed te kunnen bekijken, echt af te tasten en hier de rust voor te nemen. In eerste instantie heb je geen idee waar je naar kijkt, maar op deze manier zie je goed de details. Het is een mooie manier om op ontdekkingstocht te gaan. In de etalage hebben we de...29.12.08, Tanja Baudoin Read more
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MobileDevCamp report
A weekend of mobile hacking
The MobileDevCamp, already in its second installment, brought techies from all over the country (and even from the UK and Finland!) together to teach them about the latest developments in mobile computing. Organised by BubbleFoundry and hosted by Mediamatic, the first day focused on workshops about development on mobile platforms (Android, iPhone, Symbian). The second day was for the die-hard hackers who enrolled in a competition to create the best mobile app in a single day.
Hacking away.. -
Picture by textopus
Day one
The day started with an Android Mobile Development workshop by Diego Torres Milano. He introduced the crowd to the relatively new Android platform, which is the new open phone platform by Google, amongst others. The talk was concluded by a live demo of building a simple "maps" application, which could be realised by just a few lines of code.
Next, Joris Kluivers, author of several iPhone apps, walked the crowd through writing its first iPhone application. His talk focused on the different options one has when starting an iPhone app. He was a good speaker and it was nice to learn about his experiences with iPhone development.
iPhone 101Picture by dinomeratiAfter lunch, Henriette Cramer, a human-computer interaction researcher at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, introduced the crowd to the issues in designing interfaces for mobile. While the talk was not technical, Henriette pointed out that the technicalities were not the most problematic issues in software construction: thi...
01.12.08, Michel Langendijk Read more
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Any Media Workshop @ IDFA 08
21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 November 2008
The first workshop day started off with a keynote-lecture by Cassian Harrison about his work with the BBC-series "Britain from Above". The 5-part TV-series uses GPS-data to visualize daily life in Britain. Harrison tracked just about anything from garbage trucks to school children and worked this data into beautiful footage shot from the aeroperspective.
Cassian Harrison - creator of BRITAIN FROM ABOVE
After this Kick-Off the workshop participants moved through the rainy streets to Mediamatic at Vijzelgracht and were greeted with a tasty mediterranean style lunch. Then, back to business, workshop trainer Klaas Kuitenbrouwer introduced them to the seemingly infinite possibilities of new media tools..., the Korsakow-System for instance (a software to create non-linear narratives) but also more widely known internet platforms such as Flickr and YouTube. Another focus of this years Workshop is GPS-technique and how it can be converted into narratives or incorporated in art projects.
Afterwards the participants started discussing their own ideas which are quite diverse -
Joyce Treasure would like to make a film about the relationship between young people and their dogs. Since it has become fashionable among London teenagers to have staffordshire- or pitbull terriers. Her idea is to take a closer look at the „scene“ by establishing a fictional character alongside documentary footage of young dog owners.
Paul Thwaites has the am...
24.11.08, Deborah Meibergen Read more
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Relationships: Love, prosecution + trust, despair +
Conference Blogging from Kom Je Ook?
Yes. I am convinced that more than 300 Dutch cultural professionals will keep their eyes open for new opportunities to communicate with me. At least, that is my aspiration after participating in the Kom je ook? seminar organised by Mediamatic in Amsterdam’s public library OBA.
looking for an audience
One of the main questions was much more Low-Tech than super RSS or API, as a keynote speaker Nina Simon asked directly from the cultural professionals: What kind of relationship you want with your audience? As a normal cultural heavy-user (I do go to gigs, exhibitions, theatre plays, cinema and I like various forms of culture from Mozart to minimal techno and from Damien Hirst to Rembrandt), I want to turn the question around and share a moment of thinking the relationship I want to built with my cultural institutions!
Honestly speaking, my favorite cultural institutions are Tate Modern in London and Palaís de Tokyo in Paris, even though I don’t live in either of the cities. Still both art spaces are filled with memories of amazement and inspiration. In fact, I tend to visit both when I am around, and during this millennium I have been in Tate Modern 12 times and in Palaís de Tokyo six times, thanks to relatives that keep me visiting in those cities regularly.
When mapping my visits to the online versions of those two mentioned cultural spaces, the amount of visits is much more rare, and focused on practicalities such as opening times and nearest tube stations besides current exhibitions. I think that is pretty surprising, considering that I spent several hours per day online, and I do follow many art blogs, cultural networking sites, artful platforms, creative forums and I even love to share my opinions in many of them. Another keyn...
19.11.08, Michel Langendijk Read more
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Lecture
Lecture Hybrid Toys
23 October 2008
Designing hybrid toys with Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino of Tinker.it
This a summary of and some comments on the excellent lecture of Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino that she delivered in the context of the Cinekid Festival, at 23 October 2008.
Hybrid Toys lecture door Alexandra Deschamps - Sonsino
Toys are about play, fun, enjoyment, but mainly for kids. Teenagers don't do toys but games, and 'adult toys' conjure up a different context. Toys do start to re-infiltrate the lives of elderly people again, but in a quite instrumental way. Recently in Manchester, UK a playground for elderly people was opened (indeed that beats a stuffy and smelly gym). Also in attempts to counter effects of age dementia, toys are used.
Interestingly, toys haven't changed much over the years. Our idea of what a game is, is totally overhauled by new media, but toys are still pretty much the same as, say, 20 years ago. Toys (judging by what can be found in the shops) have not adopted the possibilites of new media and cheap hardware. They seem to have a kind of conserving bubble around them - why would that be ?
One thing is that the age window to reach kids with toys is shrinking (in sales terms this effect is known as 'time compression') - their play moves over to the screen sooner and sooner in their lives. The average shelf space for a toy in retailers shops is 12 cm. These are big constraints for innovation. And there could also be some kind of implicitly shared nostalgia at play, that makes people look for the pl...
11.11.08, Deborah Meibergen Read more
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Exhibition
El HEMA is open again!
Now on show in Rotterdam
On Saturday 25 October 2008 a new El HEMA exhibition was opened in Rotterdam. The Mediamatic concept was adopted by Kosmopolis and will tour Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and several festivals.
Rik Grashoff (wethouder Rotterdam) en Rene Repko (HEMA B.V.) happy in de El HEMA Rotterdam
El HEMA opening
The Arabic version of the Dutch department store HEMA opened in 't Gemaal, a new cultural spot just off the Afrikaandermarkt on the south side of the river. In the middel of the largest arabic and middle eastern population of the city.
The El HEMA Rotterdam is opened from 25 October until 24 December 2008:
Wednesday: 10.00 – 17.00
Thursday: 12.00 – 17.00
Friday: 12.00 – 19.00
Saturday: 10.00 – 17.00Kosmopolis presents the exhibition El Hema in cooperation with
TheBrandHotel. EL HEMA is a concept of Mediamatic, Amsterdam and was on show from Augustus 2007 until Januari 2008 at Mediamatic. More than 50.000 people visited the El HEMA. It won the Dutch Design Price in the category Visual Identity.Mediamatic developed the concept of El HEMA to draw attentioin to five new digital Arabic typefaces, that were developed by Dutch Arabic design teams.
28.10.08, Michel Langendijk 1 commentsRead more
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Opening Kiki on Steroids
In the presence of the artists and with Lupe Special
Friday October 17 Mediamatic celebrated the opening of the new exhibition Kiki on Steroids!, about transgender and selfrepresentation on the internet. With over 350 visitors it was a big success. Come to Mediamatic and enter the labyrinth to see the photographs of Kael T Block and 'Lupe' by Bogomir Doringer!
Open from Wednesday to Sunday from 12.00 — 20.00 hrs.
Kiki on Steroids! exhibition Opening at Mediamatic.
With a Lupe Special from 20:00 - 22:00!
During this night make-up artists can transform you into someone of the opposite sex.
Inside the labyrinth that dominates the exhibition space Kael T Block's xxboys, an intimate photoseries about transboys, is presented. The new work Lupe by Bogomir Doringer is also on show. And Women with Beards by Ine Poppe and Jetty Verhoeff from 1997 can be seen again. Youtube videos teach you how to change from a woman into a man and vice versa.
Kiki on Steroids! runs from 18 October 2008 until 4 January 2009, and is open from Wednesday until Sunday from 12:00 - 20:00 hrs.
20.10.08, Deborah Meibergen 1 commentsRead more
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Interview Kael T Block
On XX Boys and more
Mediamatic's exhibition Kiki on Steroids! presents Kael T Block's project XX Boys, a collection of photographs of transboys. Rooted in his own experience as a transboy or 'FtM' (Female to Male), the series is a personal exploration of masculinity, gender binaries and gender fluidity. The photos are often close-up, in-your-face portraits, that directly confront the viewer. An important aspect of the project is its presence on the internet, where the trans community comes together and XX Boys can communicate with each other and participate.
We talk to Kael about his personal investment in XX Boys, the project's growth and what it has already achieved.
Kael - Paris, by Kael T Block
Can you tell a little bit about how your project XX Boys started and developed? Is it still growing today?
Kael: When I started my transition in 2003 I was really looking for visual documentation about the transition, and I wished there was a project, or a website, with pictures and testimonies of other transboys to help me through my questioning, and fears. I started taking self portraits, and to connect with other FtMs on communitarian websites like Friendster and MySpace, forums, only they were on the other side of the ocean! I started traveling, opened a blog, and connected with more and more FtMs online, friends of friends, friend of models, and it snow balled. I've traveled a lot in the United States, in Canada, and I started to travel a bit more in Europe to balance it.
I took a year and half to work on a website project, with personal profiles for the models, pictures, videos, writing, links and promotion of FtMs artists and projects. FtMs can register online to pose for the project but can also send their pictures and artwork for the photo contest or the zine, people can support and participate to the project a lot of different ways. The new website should open in a couple of months.
XX Boys is grounded in your personal experiences as a transboy. Was it a difficult decision or a big step for you to engage in a project on such a personal level?
Kael: Actually to start this pro...17.10.08, Tanja Baudoin Read more
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Hackers Camp Day 8
Today is the last day of Picnic. Willem Velthoven, director of Mediamatic Lab challenged Monique van Dusseldorp, one of the organizers of Picnic, for a run with the exciting ikRun installation. Unfortunately for Willem, Monique won!
Later this day Willem presented the freshly made Mediamatic Hackers Camp masterpieces at the conference.
To get a good idea how the atmosphere was at the Hackers Camp and PICNIC check out this video clip below, made by Matt Cottam and Jasper Speicher, creators of the very funny Breathalyzer.
Breathalyzer @ PICNIC, Amsterdam from Tellart on Vimeo
ikWiN project is a great success
One of the biggest hit of today was without a doubt the ikWin! It is so funny and exciting to watch and take part in this project. Especially if you could get your hands on a Bill Gates of Paris Hilton tag, you'll be the winner, without a doubt!
The Friend Drink Station was sold out after many people discovered this new way of networking...
V-Bird collapsed yesterday after suffering too many bugs and technical hick-ups, fortunately it did at least fly gloriously for one day.
A lot of attention for the Duck Race. The manoeuvrability of these little duckies was not so easily done, maybe if you are used to handle a Wii mode it woudl have been a bit easier! Breathylzer is a success, of course everybody wants to know how drunk they are.No words needed for the Massage Couch this type of free relaxation is always a success.
The world of The Breedrs was by now very crowded. Many of the cute beasts were not so cute anymore, but turned into gigantic obese creatures. Nevertheless very nice to look at and even nicer if you discover your own creature to be one of the largest!On the last day of PICNIC people tended to drink a ...
27.09.08, Willem Velthoven Read more
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Hackers Camp Day 4
Day 2 ended @ 2 in the morning and Day 3@ 3 in the morning, the longest night so far. Will Day 4 beat the record?
All projects are progressing and looks like our teams will meet their deadlines.
Last night after some spicy Indian take-out Marc Boon got his RFID-over-I2C-serial-interface, which is a component used by three different projects: V-Bird, Media Tower and RFID Racer. Today locations will be finalized for each project.
This is just an experiment -
V-Bird team are looking for possible casing for their flying camera
Morning
Today another volunteer arrived. Welcome Silvia Janoskova.
Also a camera crew from Tvents came by to make a news item on Hacker’s Camp.The Breedrs, small personal creatures, are very close to getting their pond. The team still needs sand and a beamer. Luis is working on genetics and Neil on behavior of creatures and the project is coming together well.
Basic construction for Massage Couch is completed and now comes the technical part: LED signalization systems, speakers, and creating interfacing with Anymeta.
For Mario Carts=RFID Racer basic visualization will be complete today and IKWIN! project needs a bell to go “ping!” when you win and they are still looking for platforms.
Department of Information Security and Privacy project Media Tower needs horn speakers and program for streaming on screens looks great. It’s designed so if you swipe your tag, it will screen your image and your name will be announced through horn speakers. The team is convinced it will have a great impact on the audience.
22.09.08, Willem Velthoven Read more
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Hackers Camp Day 1
Mediamatic is going to kick start this year’s Picnic with a first live event, a Hackers Camp, a team of professional geeks and interaction designers with technical and creative skills who will use RFID and physical computing to realize the most creative and ambitious of ideas. Mediamatic has assembled a nerd’s paradise – a bunch of exciting equipment for participants to play with while questioning social interaction and identity.
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The Group
Morning
A brightly lit room of Oosterlijk Meterhuis is filled with shiny laptops, cords and strong smell of coffee. After a brief introduction, Klaas lists available equipment and seems like brainstorming is about to begin. The anticipation is high but there are still a few obstacles on the way - the participants have to familiarize themselves with the working environment, RFID tags, RFID readers, social interaction concept and the coffee machine. So in short the brainstorming will take place after lunch starts up the brains.
Afternoon
Semi-sunny afternoon weather is positively stimulating grey cells and the results are exciting.
19.09.08, Deborah Meibergen Read more
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Call for Artists
Mediamatic Travel Boarding Call 2009
Aneta Szyłak and Rebecca Gomperts at Modelarnia in Gdansk, Poland -
Modelarnia was an independent art space on the old Gdansk Shipyards where Lech Walensa started the uprising against the Polish communist regime.
In 2009 Mediamatic Foundation, in collaboration with Partizan Publik, will open the very first Do It Yourself Travel Agency. Mediamatic Travel will facilitate trips to the contemporary cultural scene worldwide. Contemporary Culture is produced in many places where the general audience just imagines civil war, pyramids, famine or cheese. Mediamatic Travel will connect local operators in the arts to professional visitors from abroad and peers. The goal is to enhance visibility and promote collaboration.
Suckling Pig Band in Guangzhou. -
Pigs are soo much more musical in mainland China
We’ll use 3 main channels: a global on line network, a shiny travel catalogue and an exhibition in Amsterdam, Mediamatics home base.
Mediamatic Travel will be an art project itself: utilising embedded tourism to achieve a global sensory network for creative innovation. Among our first batch of destinations are Cairo, Damascus, Novosibirsk, Tbilisi, Beirut, Kabul, Durban, Dubai, Nairobi, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Mexico City, Gaza City, Istanbul, Tirana, Prague, Kyoto, Detroit and Rio de Janeiro.
We are looking for key people around the world to work with us on this project.
If you live in a city so exciting worth showing off, there are a number of different ways in which you can participate in Mediamatic Travel. Linking into the global cultural underground, with a climbing level of involvement, you could become a friend, an agent, a guide or operator:
— Friends: Register to our site and make new friends using our social network tool.
— Guides: Conjure up city tours in you city, show people your work and / or the work of people you value.
— Agents: Advocate you and your city on the online network, make suggestions for people, places and venues to explore.
— Operators: Organise complete full package trips to the cultural scene of your city and region.The local service will have a standard format and will be provided at a standard fee. The aim is to make the service profitable for all local parties ...
08.09.08, Merel Matic Read more
