the Nokia Darklight Pocket Movie Challenge 2006

The winners have been announced to the Nokia Darklight Pocket Movie Challenge. Filmmakers Paul Barritt and Julian Andrade were respectively awarded with the top prizes in the professional and newcomer categories of the 2nd ever challenge. Find out more about the winners and view clips of the short listed finalists...

Architecture of Density Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf was born in Munich, Germany. He grew up in the USA and studied at UC Berkley and at the University of Essen in Germany. He has been living and working as a photographer and author in China for ten years.

In addition to a wide spectrum of publications for international magazines, three books by him on China have been published to date: "Sitting in China” (published by Steidl, 2002) and "China im Wandel” (published by Frederking und Thaler,2001). Recently, Taschen published his documentation of the shaping of public politics and opinion making comprising his extensive collection of Chinese propaganda posters.

Wolf has been intensively concerned with the topic of vernacular culture for many years. His most recent work deals with the issue of the cultural identity of the city of Hong Kong. The exhibition "Architecture of Density" shown in New York in Febuary 2004 is a part of Michael Wolfs recent Hongkong project.

New website of DVJ Kriel launched

Keeping it Kriel. Dr Charles Kriel (aka DVJ Kriel) was born to an American circus family, and spent his childhood traveling North America in make-up and big shoes.

Kriel is now an artist, producer and DVJ based in London. He is also the United Nations World Summit Awards National Expert in New Media. His first book, How to DVJ - a Digital DJ Masterclass, is published by MIM Press. It is the first book to address digital DJ and VJ technologies.
In 2000, Kriel was appointed Artist-in-Residence at BBC Radio 1, collaborating with Pete Tong to create the world’s first weekly VJ stream for the web. He went on to pioneer the first live nationally telecast DVJ mix for BBC Three / BBCi as part of Glastonbury 2004, the same year he became the first Pioneer ProDVJ. The NME named him the world’s leading VJ; he has featured in DJ Mag’s Top 20, and was recently billed "the world’s first superstar VJ" by The Times. As a DVJ, he cut his teeth on the UK’s major dance festivals, and these days you’ll find him driving dirty dancefloors from Detroit to Ibiza to St. Petersburg.As a visual artist, Kriel has exhibited globally. His work has included installations and performances at the Venice Biennale, Tate Britain, the Royal Festival Hall and at gallery of Tomato Design (that’s the band Underworld).Visit the site.

Off / Fóra the 29th Pontevedra Art Biennial, 13.07- 03.09, 2006 in Pontevedra, Spain

Off / Fóra, the 29th Pontevedra Art Biennial, to take place between July 13 and September 3, 2006 in Pontevedra, Spain. Curated by the Argentine Victoria Noorthoorn, the Biennial includes 29 artists from Argentina, Chile, Galicia and Uruguay that explore the phenomena of emigration, mobility and difference today. It will be the first European Biennial to give Latin America, and, specifically the Southern Cone, such a central position.

Off / Fóra, explores emigration as a global, sociological, historical, cultural, and psychological phenomenon.
Off / Fóra considers the four participating countries as representatives of the problems of the contemporary being in a transnational market where the migrant plays a central role.
Off / Fóra delves into the question of how feelings of belonging, roots and place are constituted, and how ideas of nation, identity and tradition are problematized. These questions are explored from a wide perspective where the concept of identification is permanently re-constructed, and the stereotype challenged.
Off / Fóra explores the situation of the migrant or the exile, on the basis of the notion of the artist as a political figure and symbolic analyst of domains, ideas, forms, and languages.
Off / Fóra considers imagination of vital power for the subject; as it allows him to project change, to consider the possibility of migrating, and to visualize the existence of a different world for the future.
Off / Fóra proposes a crossing of boundaries, where the artist takes the limit as a place of debate and extends the frontiers of his own practice. One of the strategies to effect this leap is fiction, understood as an imaginary journey.
Off / Fóra establishes a dialogue in space that privileges resonance, echo, and disturbance over the refuge offered by narrative coherence or nationality.


Participating Artists:

Argentina: Eduardo Basualdo, Aili Chen, Marina De Caro, Ana Gallardo, Sebastián Gordín, Roberto Jacoby, Daniel Joglar, Patricio Larrambebere, Esteban Pastorino, and Judi Werthein.

Chile: Pablo Chiuminatto, Nury González, Josefina Guilisasti, Mario Navarro, and Bernardo Oyarzún.

Galicia: Xosé Artiaga, Vari Caramés, Din Matamoro, Holga Méndez, Andrés Pinal, Carlos Rial, Diego Santomé, and Xesús Vázquez.

Uruguay: Luis Camnitzer, Ricardo Lanzarini, Marco Maggi, Mario Sagradini, Martín Sastre, and Cecilia Vignolo.

Curatorial Team
Director: José Carlos Valle Pérez / Curator: Victoria Noorthoorn
Advisors: Cecilia Brunson (Chile) / Miguel Fernández-Cid (Galicia) / Gabriel Peluffo Linari (Uruguay)

Ars Electronica Info

SIMPLICITY - the art of complexity Our world’s increasing complexity and its tension-filled interplay with our own growing need for a comprehensive, comprehensible overview of the world will occupy the focal point of attention at the 2006 Ars Electronica Festival. This theme is the common denominator of a feature-packed calendar of events, conferences, symposia, exhibitions and performances that will comprehensively showcase the state of the art of global media culture. Linz, June 30, 2006 (Ars Electronica). The program that’s been lined up for Ars Electronica 2006 is a multifaceted encounter with possibilities and strategies designed to help us effectively manage the increasingly multi-layered complexity of our reality. “If we succeed in dealing with complexity in a constructive way and taking advantage of it, then this phenomenon that is increasingly dominating all aspects of our life opens up tremendous prospects for our future,” stated Ars Electronica Artistic Director Gerfried Stocker. “Coming up with intelligent, easy-to-use solutions for complicated, multidimensional tasks is currently the most pressing task that we face. That goes for information technology just as much as it applies to art and other facets of life in our society,” Christine Schöpf pointed out in stressing the importance of this year's Festival theme. Christine Schöpf and Gerfried Stocker are co-directors of Ars Electronica. Implementing new technologies, digital ones included, always entails social consequences that have to be taken into consideration. Among the pressing questions we face: How can computer programs be designed so as to minimize the obstacles that prevent individuals from accessing them? How can we more accurately grasp the concrete social impact of new technologies? What qualities must hardware possess in order to provide everyone—and not just the technocratic elite—with access to it? How can we take optimal advantage of the opportunities that complexity presents in order to identify that which is essential for us in the flood of information with which we are deluged? And what role does art play in its function as avant-garde domain and field of experimentation amidst constantly multiplying data, more and more options and permanent change? A richly varied program and an eminently incomparable atmosphere are the defining features of the Ars Electronica Festival. In addition to symposia, conferences, concerts and exhibitions, a profusion of art projects installed in public spaces invites those partaking of it to engage in interaction, discussion and dialog. From August 31 to September 5, all of Linz becomes a stage set for media installations, screenings and sound sculptures—a most enthralling experience for highly diversified audiences.