Pixelache Helsinki 08

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Pixelache University is the theme of Pixelache Helsinki 2008 festival. The theme is  exploring education in the cross-roads of science, technology, art and culture.

Each of the four days has it's own topic / theme:

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THURSDAY 13 MARCH

Opening of Pixelache Lounge exhibition

Featuring: 

• Artists challenge the public discussion about environmental issues (Vihreä Pilvi / Nuage Vert by HeHe, Saving Myself by 5voltcore, Public Smog by Amy Balkin)
• 'Signals from the South': Beepez-le project made in Cameroon (by Daniel Peltz), Statistical Objects by Alejandro Tamayo (Colombia) and an installation by Karthikeya Acharya (India)
• Artists working with scientists (The Camera Lucida by Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand)
• New work from schools and research labs (from Hungary, Sweden, Germany and Finland)
• Self-Portrait as a Pataphysical Object by Torsten Lauschmann / N.I.P. (UK)

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FRIDAY 14 MARCH

‘The Pixelache University day’

Pixelache University seminar (10 am-4:30 pm) features three sessions:

• Re-inventing the teaching situation
• Education in the era of social media and dissolving institutional boundaries?
• Artistic research: collaboration and innovation
Presenters and moderators include Kitchen Budapest (HU), Eléonore Hellio (FR), Alejandro Tamayo (CO), Juha Huuskonen (FI), Petri Kola (FI), Juhana Kokkonen (FI), Helen Evans (FR), Evelina Domnitch (RU/NL) and Tapio Mäkelä (FI).

N.I.P. – New Interfaces in Performance (5:30-8 pm) is a touring presentation, network and workshop series, currently featuring artists from UK, Netherlands and Portugal. This artist lead initiative is exploring gesture and movement based interfaces within live performance and interactive, mixed media installation. Teresa Dillon (UK) will give a presentation about N.I.P. in Kiasma seminar, followed by N.I.P performances in Kiasma Theatre:
• Burning the Sound by Rudolfo Quintas & André Gonçalves (PT)
• Resonant Objects by André Gonçalves (PT)
• Air Stick by Ivan Franco (PT)
• BOP by Teresa Dillon & Kathy Hinde (UK)
• TokTek / Tom Verbruggen (NL)

Pixelache Club in Korjaamo features the first ever Baltic Boxwars battle (8-10 pm), followed by finnish music acts who are all in their own way deconstructing the genre of  live electronic music:

• Larry Button (FI) performing with electronic toys

• JS666 (FI) music mash-up with VJs Taavet Jansen & Maike Lond (EST)

• Desert Planet (FI) with their helmets feat. Association of experimental electronics (FI)

• Pleasures and Days (FI) creating perfect popular music for the people of the 21st century

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SATURDAY 15 MARCH

‘The A-B-C day: Systems & Media Literacy’

Saturday programme features many seminars and presentation/demo sessions. Media literacy of young people seminar (with artist Markus Renvall, researcher Reijo Kupiainen and Matti Kari / IRC-galleria) is the only one that takes place in Finnish, all other seminars are in English.

Traveling without moving seminar is exploring various means to cut down the amount of international air travel, featuring John Thackara (UK), Andreas Zachariah / Carbon Hero project (UK), Matt Jones / Dopplr (remote participation) and Daniel Peltz (US, remote participation). The three sessions in Kiasma Seminar room – Re-mixed reality seminar, Open hardware seminar and Pixelache Open Forum – are mostly targeted for students and professionals of digital media and media art.

Pixelache compilation #1 screening – the Anti-Spectacle (6-7 pm) features work from Geert Mul (Netherlands), HeHe - Helen Evans & Heiko Hansen (France), JODI (eu/holland/belgium), Kristian Simolin (Finland), Liisa Lounila (Finland), Mike Nourse (US/Canada), Simon Faithfull (UK) and Steven Dixon & Tore Nilsson (Sweden).

Night on Earth is series of exhibitions and club events in Berlin, Helsinki and Shanghai. Night on Earth Launch Event of the project in organised in collaboration with Pixelache, featuring live electronic music acts Moby Dictator (FI), Eero Johannes (FI) and DJ Candle in the Wind (FI) + a dj set from Dead O (FI). The VJs of the night are Jesse Auersalo (FI) and Beige/Harmaa (FI).

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SUNDAY 16 MARCH

‘The Grassroots day’

Sunday starts a screening of Roope Ahola's 'Rousseau's Garden' documentary about Happihuone, an independent outdoor art and performance venue that was forced to close last autumn, followed by ‘Self-organising strategies’ discussion hosted by Andrew Paterson (FI), with contributions from Cindy Kohtala (FI), Demian Deadly (UK), and others. This session will have an open discussion format.

The main event on Sunday is the ‘Signals from the South’ seminar, featuring presentations by artists and researchers who have been working in ‘the South’. The presentations are dealing with how people are adopting new communication technologies in these countries, where the infrastructure and culture is very different from 'the West'.

• Eléonore Hellio (FR) & Dicoco Boketshu (Congo)
- MOWOSO collective in Kinshasa, Congo
• Mikko Lipiäinen (FI), Erik Sandelin (SE), Åsa Ståhl (SE)
- Burma: Creating art under the radar
• Francesca Bria (IT) & Federico Primosig (IT)
- International cooperation on free software, shared knowledge and digital ecosystems: Italy-Brazil-Venezuela
• Alejandro Tamayo (CO), Juha Huuskonen (FI)
- Pixelazo in Colombia

• Karthikeya Acharya (IN)
- Porn, Play and Persevere - the hybrid space of internet cafes in India.

Sunday programme also features Economie 0, a presentation / discussion related to Antidatamining (FR), a project exploring stock market data.

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Pixelache Helsinki 2008 organisers and supporters: