Call to Artists:

Have you ever wanted to hack public space? Have you ever wanted to change or augment the cities you live in or visit? Communectivity is a four-day intensive workshop for interventions in the public city space of Gent, Belgium. Participants will collectively build a public interactive installation to be deployed in the city of Gent and present their project in a public forum. Workshop activities will include creating rapid prototypes of concepts, collective brainstorming, hacking and circuit bending, and subverting existing architectures, public spaces, and collective practice. We will also focus on challenging accepted forms of use of mobile and wireless technologies to create playful interventions that allow members of the public to participate. Workshop participation is open to anyone interested in artistic practice and technology. Technology skills are not necessary and a diversity of skills and practice are welcome and encouraged!

Workshop Description:
This workshop will explore modes of collaborative information and data exchange systems in local and public spaces. It will focus on how individuals can become both distributed and localized participants in shared experiences that can exist city-wide or on a personal scale. The idea is to work on a single project or theme by splitting participants into groups and working collectively. The workshop will take place over four days, include an initial day of introductions, brainstorming around specified topics, and overview of budget, technologies available, expertise of participants and more. The second day we will build a “quick and dirty” prototype to test, provide justification for the project, and give short internal presentations. Day three will involve building a more robust version of the project and have a working version ready for deployment. The final day will be to install the project and collect initial reactions to the piece by people who might use it or see it. Finally, each group will give a more formal presentation of their project in a forum open to the general public. (May 14)

WHEN: May 11-14 (tuesday-friday) 12-8pm

WHERE: Kunstencentrum Vooruit Gent, Belgium

COST: 60 euro (includes sandwiches and drinks at noon)
*If you are coming from abroad and need lodging contact
Kathleen Melis: kathleenm@vooruit.be

WHAT TO BRING:
Laptop, basic electronics materials and tools, any building materials, electronics, motors, sensors you will need or would like to share. (laptops and materials are optional. We will not discount anyone due to lack of material or tools.)
Day 1
 Day 2
 Day 3
 Day 4

People Introductions
Topic Introduction
Concepts / Ideas
from participants (Brainstorms)

Presentation:
Public Space/ Mobile Technologies

Technology
overview:
Materials used/ limitations of
technology
Less is more (Scrapyard)

Building & Planning
Scoping out local spaces
/environments
5 Reasons for project
(Why? What? How?
Where? When?)
.............................................
2 prototype experiments done by the end of the day: One using
technology one without.


Presentations of concepts
..............................................
Evening Lecture:
Jonah Brucker Cohen + Amy Franceschini speak about their work.


Jonah: "Enabling Collaborative Networks
in Public Spaces"
Amy: "Communiculture"

More Building and Fabricating
Testing out concepts		 Installing project in location

Collecting feedback
from people whovisit
/view/use the project.





..............................................
Evening
Performance:

SimpleTEXT
by Family Filter


Communectivity Presentations:
Projects presentations
byworkshoppers.

Result:

Formation of groups with topic/interest crossover. 		 Result:

Group presentations with clear concepts / plan for implementing.  		Result:

Project Ready for Deployment in Public Space.  		 Result:

Presentation of projects
to general public.

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Jonah Brucker-Cohen, HEA Researcher/ PhD Candidate, Trinity College Dublin
URL: www.coin-operated.com/projects

Jonah Brucker-Cohen works as a Research Fellow in the Human Connectedness Group at Media Lab Europe in Dublin, Ireland and a PhD candidate in the Networks and Telecommuni-cations Research Group (NTRG) at Trinity College Dublin. He received a Masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, NYC and worked there from 1999 to 2001 as an Interval Research Fellow creating interactive digital / networked projects. His focus is on subverting existing relationships to human/ networked interfaces by building new real-world inputs to networks, redefining how information is used and disseminated, and shifting virtual processes into physical forms through networked devices and experiences.

His work has been shown internationally at events such as Ars Electronica, The Whitney Museum of American Art: Artport, DEAF, SIGGRAPH, VRML-Art 99, Art in Motion II in Los Angeles, F.I.L.E. Festival in Brazil, Nordic Interactive Conference (ElectroHype) festival in Copenhagen, Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts in Tokyo, ISEA, Soundtoys.net, Transmediale, European Media Arts Festival, and the 8th
Annual New York Digital Salon.

Amy Franceschini, artist/educator
URL: www.futurefarmers.com

Amy Franceschini is a new media artist working with notions of community, sustainable environments and the conflicting rituals of humans and nature. Her work manifests "on" and "offline" in the form of dynamic websites, installations and printed matter. Past projects include "Photosynthesis Robot" that featured a solar powered robot and ‘offshoots’ where the audience was invited to exchange plants and information in a portable potting shed. Franceschini received her MFA from Stanford University and has exhibited internationally. A select list of shows include: "Tirana Biennale: Interactive Art" at Deitch Projects, NY; "Bay Area Now 2", at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and "Utopia Now" at California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco, and the Whitney Biennial 2002.

In 1995, she founded Futurefarmers, an artists/design collective. Since 1998, Futurefarmers has hosted over 14 international artists through their residency program. The AIR program has fostered relationships with interdisciplinary artist who continue to collaborate with Futurefarmers. Amy currently teaches New Media courses at the San Francisco Art Institute and Stanford University.