Cleotronica 08

Cleotronica 08 January-February Newsletter

JANUARY

Cleotronica 08 Project # 1
Place In Place Of: Alexandria, and related workshop/lecture program
Jeremy Beaudry ( USA ) and Alexandria based art/architecture students

‘Place In Place Of: Alexandria’ is a work in progress by Jeremy Beaudry that manifests itself as a set of site-specific interventions, performances, and documents based in Alexandria, Egypt. Equally important and essential, this project is co-created as collaboration with local art and architecture university students and recent graduates Mohamed Nabil, Mohamed Mansour, Aya Tarek, Omar Mustafa, Abdalla Safwat, Moushira Elamrawy, and Lamia Moghzy. The research and documentation is collected, reconstituted, and recontextualized on the Web at alexandria.placeinplaceof.net/ . Beaudry's lecture program consisted of 3 lectures, 'Artist-Run Culture and Initiatives in North-East USA & Chicago", an Artist Talk about his practice and tactics and finally a final project presentation about the Place In Place Of: Alexandria project.
Bio
Jeremy Beaudry is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, educator and activist from Philadelphia , USA . With a background in both art and architectural practice, Beaudry works across these disciplines to understand and engage the role of personal and collective memory in shaping our experience of physical and virtual spaces. Through online projects, site-based curatorial and creative work, and activism around issues of land use and urban development, he engages a variety of audiences from diverse fields in and out of the academy. He is currently the Director of the Department for the Investigation of Meaning in the Think Tank that has yet to be named, an artists group that initiates site-specific conversations, performative actions, and educational projects to interrogate contemporary urban issues. Beaudry is also an Assistant Professor in Multimedia at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia . More about the artist on meaning.boxwith.com/

FEBRUARY

Cleotronica 08 Project # 2
Rich User Experience
An Exhibition of Projects by Olia Lialina (RU) + Dragan Espenschied (DE)
Date: 14-28 February 2008, Opening 14 February, 7 pm
Location: the Goethe Institute, 10 El-Batalsa Street , Azarita, Alexandria .
Lecture by Olia Lialina: 13 February, 7 pm at Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF)
Lecture by Dragan Espenschied: 15 February, 7 pm at Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF)

In their first exhibition in the Middle-East, Stuttgart based pioneer net artist Olia Lialina (RU) and artist/musician/programmer Dragan Espenschied (DE) present an exhibition of 6 net-based projects that reflect their research on a wide array of net culture related issues from 'interactivity' to 'digital folklore', and from the 'vernacular web' to 'web 2.0'. The project will also feature two lectures/artist talks which will take place at Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF) on 13 February for Olia Lialina and 15 February for Dragan Espenschied, both start at 7 pm.
Bios
Olia Lialina (Born 1971 in Moscow)
Lialina finished Moscow State University in 1993 as a journalist and film critic. In the mid 90s she was one of the organizers of Moscow experimental film club CINE FANTOM. Lialina is considered one of the net.art pioneers. She writes on New Media, Digital Folklore and Vernacular Web. She has been Professor at Merz Akademie (New Media Pathway), Stuttgart since 1999. Animated Gif Model. Wife of Rockstar. Junior blogger.
Dragan Espenschied (Born 1975 in Munich)
Espenschied is an Artist, Designer, Programmer, Musician, and Lecturer nowadays living in Stuttgart. In 1995 he co-founded the internationally active home computer band Bodenstang 2000 with Bernhard Kirsch. Since winter semester 2000: teacher at Merz Akademie in the New Media Pathway, teaches about art and design online, digital culture and folklore, programming. He earned an International Media Art Award in 2001 from ZKM Karlsruhe.

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Cleotronica 08 Project # 3
'We Are the Poster Machine'
An Intensive Poster Design Workshop with Jonathan Puckey (NL/UK)
Dates: Workshop: 24-27 February - Lecture/Artist Talk: 29 February 7pm
Location: Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), 10 Hussein Hassab Street , Azarita, Alexandria .
To apply send a short CV/Bio and three low-resolution Jpeg images of your design work to office@acafspace.org by 16 February 2008, please write 'Design Workshop' in subject box.

Amsterdam based designer and artist Jonathan Puckey will be setting up an intensive 4 day workshop at ACAF focusing specifically on poster design that goes beyond advertising and enters the realm of visual and conceptual communicative experimentation.
To apply send a short CV/Bio and three low-resolution Jpeg images of your design work to office@acafspace.org by 16 February 2008, please write 'Design Workshop' in subject box. Applicants from other cities are welcomed to apply although they will have to finance their travel and accommodation in Alexandria if accepted. Puckey will also be delivering a lecture about his practice and design strategies on 29 February, 7pm.
Bio
Jonathan Puckey (1981) - www.jonathanpuckey.com
I remember a lecture by dutch designer Karel Martens. He was talking about how much his work is based on the limitations of printing techniques such as letterpress and litho. I felt very jealous, because my computer doesn't have any limits. Being able to produce anything feels like a heavy weight on my shoulders. Every single decision becomes so full of meaning; I could have done it in thousands of other ways. Tools are able create a little world of logic that break up all these little decisions into larger pieces. You've already solved a number of problems by creating the tool and now you're left to spend more attention on performing the design. This performance aspect frees me from looking for that perfect image. It's only a result from me and my tools; it doesn't have to be THE result because it's not only about the result. I want the viewer to recognize the process, understand the problem and become aware that a human being was involved in making the product. I am not my machine; maybe my machine can become me.