metropolitan studies

CfPP: Gewächshaus Erinnerung – a project by thon&beuse

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The project Gewächshaus Erinnerung by thon&beuse is concluded: documentation online under
http://www.thonbeuse.com/reaction-gewaechshaus.html

Gewächshaus Erinnerung
Performative Installation, 30 Tigerbambusrohre, 2000 Meter imprägnierter Baumwollfaden, 100 Meter schwarzes Nylonseil, 100 Meter weisses Nylonseil, Draht, 1000 Sandwichboxen transparent, gesammelte/gespendete Erinnerungsstücke, gegossener Wurfanker, 2 Schekel. thonbeuse 2010
Schlagworte (Tags) Bewegungsmuster, Intim/Öffentlich, Erinnerungsmuster, Topographische Vernetzung/Verteilung, Erinnerung/Raum, Architektur, Baugeschichte, Erinnerung/Ritual, Erinnerung/Wandel, Kunst/Wort

Surveillance, Performance and New Media Art

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Vol 7, No 2 (2010)
Surveillance, Performance and New Media Art

The relationship between the visual arts and surveillance has been explored through large scale exhibitions (CTRL:Space, ZKM), and texts such as Loving Big Brother (McGrath, 2004) have introduced questions of performance and performativity into the surveillance debate. However, as the technological possibilities available to artists grow, and the social impact of surveillance is increasingly recognized, there is a need for a thorough examination of the uses of surveillance in the visual arts, particularly in the genres of new media and performance art, where issues regarding technological engagement and embodiment come to the fore. This special issue of Surveillance & Society presents papers and works that examine the complexities of surveillance in new media and performance art.

http://surveillance-and-society.org/ojs/index.php/journal/issue/view/Performance/showToc

From The NY Times: In Bid to Sway Sales, Cameras Track Shoppers

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Paco Underhill is the founder of Envirosell, a trailblazer in observational research.

Because of sensitivities surrounding privacy, some retailers are reluctant to discuss surveillance technology. And exactly how many cameras are tracking shoppers is not known, partly because cameras are installed and uninstalled during various studies. (The videotape is for internal use only).

But industry professionals said interest in analyzing shoppers was growing. Video analysis companies said nearly every major chain was or had been a client, including giants like Wal-Mart Stores and Best Buy Company Incorporated”.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/business/20surveillance.html

Transient Spaces – The Tourist Syndrome

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Lecture by Magdalena Taube and Krystian Woznicki

26.01.2010, 20:30 h

Where exactly is paradise? Where is home? Who are the explorers? Who gets discovered? In today’s world, there are no clear answers to these questions.

In modernity the world was defined by way of a geographical outside, paradisal lands located beyond the networks of European expansion. The outside functioned as a counterpart that gave structure to the inside and helped shape its boundaries. In the early 21st Century this classical outside is disappearing and the world, at least in its previous form, is imploding and reforming.

The journey has already begun.

Magdalena Taube (Berlin, literary scholar) and Krystian Woznicki (Berlin, cultural critic) have published the digital mini-feuilleton, berlinergazette.de, since 1999.

Could be truthful: Moscow cameras streamed false pictures

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Police have learned that CCTV cameras all across Moscow streamed prerecorded pictures, while the company servicing them received more than a million dollars in payments.
The company, StroyMontageService, has been accused of security fraud. Police have detained its director, Dmitry Kudryavtsev, who denies all charges saying the scandal is an attempt by his rivals to squeeze him out of the market.
The alleged fraud was uncovered during a routine check of Moscow CCTV cameras.
“From May to September 2009 CCTV cameras in several districts of Moscow streamed pre-recorded pictures instead of real-time video,” police spokeswoman Olga Dumalkina stated on Tuesday.

http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-01-13/cctv-cameras-fraud-moscow.html

thonbeuse present "vogelsang site walks II: "Blickpolitik" eine "Vogelsang Konversion" neu mit Nothammer"

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Dies ist eine Projektskizze, die sich grundsätzlich als temporäre Erinnerungseinrichtung eignet, im konkreten Fall bezieht sie sich beispielhaft auf das Informationszentrum vogelsang ip’s – eignet sich aber grundsätzlich für Orte an denen die “Blickpolitik” eine Rolle spielt. Im Rahmen der sogenannte “Vogelsang Konversion” spielt die Steuerung der Wahrnehmung, der Blicke und Eindrücke eine wichtige Rolle. Diese Projektskizze ist gegenwärtig eher als ein kleiner Essay zu verstehen, die tatsächliche Realisierung des Projektes steht nicht im Vordergrund. Die grundsätzliche Frage ist die nach der Schuld/Unschuld des Blickes, also nach der Inszenierung von Blicken und den dadurch ausgelösten Emotionen/Denkprozessen vor dem Hintergrund der Geschichte Vogelsangs als Bildungseinrichtung des NS-Faschismus.

http://www.thonbeuse.com/Blickpolitik-Vogelsang-Konversion.html

Art and Its Cultural Contradictions, Joshua Decter

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 http://www.afterall.org/journal/issue.22/art.and.the.cultural.contradictions.of.urban.regeneration.social.justice.and.sustainability

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What is at stake when artists, architects, curators, organisers and other cultural producers facilitate bricks-and-mortar change, on the ground in cities, with citizens, communities and institutions? How do we test the interrelationships between the practices of artists and urban policy makers? What is the metric that we might utilise to determine effectiveness? And what do we mean by effectiveness? Critical effect? (Or, for that matter, critical affect?) The putatively emancipatory outcome generated by some kind of new situational knowledge? Or, is it a question of generating ambiguity, per se, as a means of problematising hegemonic political, economic and cultural formations?

read more…

Aftermath: Vogelsang Intervention

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Public Events• Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln• Filzengraben 2 & 12, 50676 Köln

Aftermath: Vogelsang Intervention
Panel Discussions• Aula In Deutsch and English

Monday November 16th 19:00h Aula
Remembrance Culture and Public Space
moderated by Julia Scher with Astrid Wege, David Stoop, Christine Threuter
Susanna Schoenberg, students
Vogelsang was a Hitler elite school. Can this site ever be reclaimed? The newly named vogelsang ip, Internationaler Platz, stakes a claim against the Nationalism that exploded into a hate industry for 12 long years. What is the shape and consequence of their new program?
Can this place be a place for contemporary art or humanitarian public praxis?

Tuesday November 17th 19:00h Aula
Remembrance Culture and Art
moderated by Julia Scher, with Barbara Hess, Kasper König
Susanna Schoenberg, students
At what moment does art, self-conflict, and the conflict of the state, converge? How have artists and critics dealt with the struggle over the possession of narrative itself? What are some of the evolving critical approaches to artworks that enter “dark sites”?

Wednesday November 18th 11:00h room2
“Further discussion- War and Peace and Recycled Landscapes”
Student panel

Exhibition glas moog Nov. 16-18th
“Aftermath: vogelsang intervention”
(closing party) November 18th•18- 20 h
“Aftermath” refers to an event space here and now, in the aftershock of just having returned from Vogelsang. Some first document scenarios, cut on tape and written in chalk.
Daniel Ansorge, Auriel, Peter Conrad Beyer, Christine S. Thon und Lars H. Beuse, Florian Egermann, Eva und Artur Holling, Aino Korvensyrjä, Theresa Krause, officinevida, JiHyun Park, Nicholas Pelzer, Evamaria Schaller Franziska Windisch, Irena Wolf, Roshanak Zangeneh