POSTCITY

Topography of the Information Warfare

Vladan Joler (RS)

Governments, political actors and companies are now experimenting with more sophisticated ways (harder to detect and document) of exerting internet control and disturbance in the information flow. The aim of this analysis was to explore (and visualize) some of the forms and methods of interventions that various political actors or power structures have been using to control and conquer various online spheres. Here we mostly focused on hidden, indirect actions, interventions by unknown actors, companies without visible ties to government officials, political troll armies and troll lords and “artificial” entities. This map is based on a 5-year internet monitoring process and over 400 different cases of violations documented and analyzed by the Share Foundation. Though different methods represented in this map are observed in our local context, we believe that they are also being used worldwide in similar forms. This map is an attempt to interconnect most of those issues into one map, one possible narrative, one possible reading of those processes.

bitTOWER

Wu Juehui (CN)

bitTOWER is inspired by the uroboros and each element of the installation acts as a visual metaphor. The scaffold matrix creates a space with a limited mass, as though the epidermis of the excessively expanding city has been torn apart and exposed its internal organs. The cycle of lights act as moon and sun, with shadows of mottled steel pipes expanding the borders of the matrix. The interplay of the lights and projected digital images create a virtual world shifting swiftly between night and day. The spiral cases inside the matrix overlap, and just like the uroboros, beginning where it also ends. The immersive environment opens a wormhole to another dimension for the audience, with the synesthetic ceremony leading to a sense of reverie.

Trauma Mapping

Aksiniya Peicheva (BG)

Trauma Mapping aims to develop a methodology for creating “geographical” maps of physical injuries, illnesses or other kinds of damage experienced by the body. It seeks to explore the inner processes of the suffering of stray animals from the streets of Bulgaria; to look for visual traces, left by traumatic events: their projection on the body, the organism’s reaction, the way the cells are being rearranged by what has happened.

Sentientia

Dorin Cucicov (MD)

Sentientia attempts to reconstruct the experience of a sentient creature that learns to interact with the external world. Inspired by Dr. Frankenstein’s creature, Sentientia sends audio signals to its environment and waits for a response to establish an emotional connection. Emotional combinations are generated by the machine and transformed into sound. Once the system understands that it has a mind and is conscious of its surroundings, will it start looking for entities like itself to create social networks of emotional intelligence?

Insert & Play

Jeon Hess (KR)

*Insert & Play* is a microwave that functions as a moving image projector to provide a viable media player. While the project is a celebration of technology and industrial progress, it is also a reminder of nostalgic actions; insert and play—a ritual between man and machine on the verge of extinction.

JAPAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL 2019

The Japan Media Arts Festival honors outstanding works in a wide variety of media in four categories: art, entertainment, animation and manga. This program consists of various excellent films singled out for recognition by the 2019 Japan Media Arts Festival.

Device Art Chronicle

Machiko Kusahara (JP)

The term “device art” is already part of the vocabulary of contemporary art. The Device Art Chronicle demonstrates how the concept was developed within the Device Art Project, aiming to explain the prehistory of media art, and how local and global features are connected. We were able to define features that characterize Japanese media art (e.g. playfulness), which can be better understood by relating them to earlier cultural traditions. Nevertheless, the essence of device art is also international and its features are shared by many works of media art.

Tiger Penis Project

Kuang-Yi Ku (TW)

Kuang-Yi Ku proposes a solution for threatened species like tigers that does not deprive Chinese physicians of their secret ingredients. Why not cultivate the penises in a laboratory with the help of biotechnology? The Tiger Penis Project bridges old traditions and technological innovation, helping to preserve both cultural tradition and nature.

Sausageface

Isabella Auer (AT)

*Sausageface* is fun, annoying, catchy, maybe also a subtle critic on ideals of beauty, consumer society and politics, but it’s definitely a “valid form of abstraction,” as Erwin Wurm once said in an Interview.

Ciutat Vella’s Land-use Plan

300.000 Km/s (ES)

Big Data, KDD and Citizen Participation to Ensure Coexistence between Economic Activity and Citizens’ Quality of Life The project embodies a new way of making urban planning. Fueled by massive information (open data and big data) and complemented with qualitative data arising from citizen participation, the project applies novel methodologies of spatial analysis based on machine learning and artificial intelligence to inform, simulate, and draft a public policy that puts the focus on preserving liveability in cities.