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29 October 2004
INAUGURATION - THE NEW LOCATION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
WING E4, PALACE OF THE PARLIAMENT

program

photo credit _ iosif kiraly

EXHIBITIONS:

Romanian artists (and not only) love the Palace?! From its inception in the '80s The House of the People and the major urban displacement it produced have generated a series of metaphors, myths and reactions. These in turn informed a wide range of artworks relating to the building. This exhibition finally gathers all these artistic and cultural opinions to the social, ethical, architectural questions concerning the building hosting the new Museum. Interrogating the history and symbolism of the edifice, the exhibition engages the viewer-participant in a dialogue about the post-communist condition. Artists: Irina Botea, Christoph Büchel, Jordi Colomer, Nicolae Comanescu, Stefan Cosma, Alexandra Croitoru, Josef Dabernig, Calin Dan, Suzana Dan, Euroartist Bucuresti, Daniel Gontz, Dumitru Gorzo, Teodor Graur, Ion Grigorescu, Karen Kipphoff, Iosif Kiraly, Peter Jacobi, Dan Mihaltianu, Gianni Motti, Vlad Nanca, Marilena Preda-Sanc, Cristian Pogacean, Cristi Puiu, subREAL, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor. Curator: Ruxandra Balaci. Texts by: Ruxandra Balaci, Ami Barak, Rene Block, Nicholas Bourriaud, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Geta Bratescu, Mariana Celac, Liviana Dan, Razvan Exarhu, Heiner Holtappels, Anders Kreuger, Enrico Lunghi, Mihai Oroveanu, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, Marco Scotini, Stefan Tiron, Alexandra Titu, Nina Vagic.

Josef Dabernig _Envisioning Bucharest (undeveloped idea for a competition proposal with Rudolf Prohazka in 1996) Jordi Colomer _Anarchitekton (Barcelona, Bucarest, Brasilia, Osaka, 2002-2004)

Caméra The collaboration between the two video-artists Jian Wei Wang and Fudong Yang and the architect Yung Ho Chang is a reflection of current art practices in China. Image-producing devices such as the Leica, Nikon, Polaroid and Seagull cameras are reassembled out of metal, wood, plastics and paper into habitable spaces of reflection. This alternative to the new unplanned Chinese construction boom is a form of 'micro-urbanism' (a term coined by Yung Ho Chang), attuned to the current historical, social and ecological issues stemming out of the relationship between market economy and political power. Artists: Chang Yung Ho, Wang Jian Wei, Yang Fudong Curators: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Vivian Rehberg Travelling exhibition from Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. With the support of the French Ministry of Culture and the French Embassy in Bucharest.

Stock Zero - opera Stock Zero follows the operatic moves and exchanges between Capital and political power. "Our epoch does not lack a political project, but is waiting for the forms to incarnate and materialize it. Because form produces or models meaning, orients it, and reflects it back onto everyday life. Revolutionary culture created and popularized several types of sociality: the assembly (the soviets, the agoras), the sit-in, the demonstration and its processions, the strike and its visual symbols (the bandanna, the manifestos, etc....) Under what slogan could images parade today? What is their role in the construction of the narrative of 'reality'? (Nicolas Bourriaud, from the Stock Zero libretto) Artists: Boris Achour, Mircea Cantor, Plamen Dejanoff, Kendell Geers, Bertrand Lavier, Franck Scurti. Curator: Nicolas Bourriaud With the support of the French Embassy in Bucharest.

Mircea Cantor _The Landscape is Changing (2003, courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Paris / NY)

Under Destruction #1 This is the first episode in a series of site-specific interventions which address the real and symbolic architecture of the House of the People / Palace of the Parliament. Arists: Cristoph Büchel, Gianni Motti Curator: Mihnea Mircan With the support of Swiss International Air Lines & Headvertising.

Early Works The exhibition looks at a remarkable example of collaborative, experimental practice uniting two Romanian artists, Horia Bernea and Paul Neagu. It isolates a few works from the '60s and '70s, which evince an engagement with the question of artistic freedom in stark contrast to the production of the epoch, generally confined to a complacent 'Socialist Surrealism'. Artists: Horia Bernea, Paul Neagu Curator: Mihai Oroveanu

Paul Neagu

Ami Barak - curator, President IKT (International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art), Paris
René Block - Director, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel
Nicolas Bourriaud - Director, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Heiner Holtappels - Director, Netherlands Media Art Institute / Montevideo Time Based Arts, Amsterdam
Anders Kreuger - free-lance curator, Stockholm
Enrico Lunghi - Director Casino Luxembourg, Forum d'Art Contemporain, Luxembourg
Catherine Millet - Director Artpress, Paris

images from the opening night

works in the exhibitions
Stock Zero curated by Nicholas Bourriaud
Kendell Geers _John 8:32 (2004) & Beyond Good and Evil (1999) Bertrand Lavier _Composition en quatre couleurs (1999/2004)	Boris Achour _24/24 - 7/7 (2004)
Camera curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Vivian Rehberg copyrigt Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Yung Ho Chang _Seagull (2003)
Horia Bernea, Paul Neagu. Early Works curated by Mihai Oroveanu
Romanian artists (and not only) love the Palace?! curated by Ruxandra Balaci
Ion Grigorescu _Dialogue with Comrade Ceausescu (1978)	Dan Hatmanu
Cristian Pogacean _The actors of subliminal history (2004)	Casa Gontz _Trans (2004)
Irina Botea _Batuta lui Oprica (2003)	Vlad Nanca _30 Years of Social History (2003)
Under Destruction #1 Christoph Buchel & Gianni Motti curated by Mihnea Mircan
	catalogue 350 pp full color edited by MNAC coordinated by Ruxandra Balaci & Raluca Velisar

FRISBEE - Czech Videoart: Zbynek Baladrán, Filip Cenek+Jirí Havlícek, Guma Guar, Petr Lysácek, David Možný, Pavel Mrkus, Jan Nálevka, Michal Pechoucek, Record, Pavel Ryška, Patrik Sedlaczek+Jirí Kotrla, Jan Stolín, Jirí Suruvka, Jan Šerých, Martin Zet, Petr Zubek curator František Kowolowski organized by House of Arts Brno 7 December 2004, 18,00 h MNAC / Mediateque opening: Guma Guar (D'j + V'j) with the participation of: Martin Zet, David Možný, Jirí Ptácek, Guma Guar, Jirí Suruvka. lectures 8. - 9. 12. 2004 , 18.00 h / Mediateque with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, House of Arts Brno, Czech Center Bucharest. www.dumb.cz/frisbee

David Mozny _Virtual Soul Waste, 2'36", 2004, video	Jan Stolin, HORIZON.EXE, 3'50", 2003, software
Jiri Suruvka / lecture	Martin Zet / performance
	Martin Zet / performance

SHAKE THE LIMITS BUCHAREST 4.06-25.07.2004, MNAC / Kalinderu MediaLab
Artists: Daniel Blaufuks (PT), Pavel Braila (MD), Alexandra Croitoru (RO), Joao Paulo Feliciano (PT), Angela Ferreira (PT), Teodor Graur (RO) Tellervo Kalleinen (FI), Mihaela Kavdanska (BG/RO), Dominik Lejman (PL), Ciprian Muresan (RO), Cristian Pogacean (RO), Rassim (BG), Miguel Soares (PT), Time's Up (A),
Roi Vaara (FI)

Curator: Maria Rus Bojan (RO/NL)

shake night bucharest

Shake the Limits is a strategy of defining identities within Europe. Starting from the premise that geographical delimitation of a continent or the mere shape of a map presupposes an exterior, neutral and objective positioning, Shake the Limits proposes the reverse: to trace an affective map of Europe from the inside. This imaginative strategy, interpreted with the use of a metaphoric-topographic approach aspires to emphasize that Europe is much more than a precisely delimited geographic territory. As such, the project Shake the Limits can be interpreted as an attempt to bring to the foreground a number of artistic approaches which are specific to the border areas of Europe, the purpose being to analyze the relationship between centre and periphery, starting backwards, from the margin towards the centre. Such an approach presupposes the multiplication of perspectives, which leads to an increasingly open and wider vision of the European artistic space. The necessity of such a discourse seems especially appropriate now that the concept of 'border' is changing. New entities add to the old "European" nucleus in an ongoing process that is effectively multiplying the areas in contact and it contributes to a new way of understanding distances and vicinities. Furthermore, the border practice acquires a double meaning: of separation and communication. If borders, traced as delimitation of an administrative territory, still function as a theoretical model of closure, the other model functions in opposition: space opens up on the horizontal as a natural reaction to the fact that territories are first lived and only later divided into distinct entities. In other words, the landmarks that help us guide our day-to-day movements are part of the lived space, whereas borders are products of the conceived space which is fundamentally opposed to the natural human impulse to defy limits. Art is nothing but an objectivation of the lived space that finds its resources in the production of representations, signs and systems of symbols that are organized according to a certain order or ideology.
Shake the Limits is also a strategy of creating spaces, especially conceived to train and access the most diverse artistic codes, allowing for a mutual recognition of cultural systems without introducing any form of hierarchy. Inviting artists from different countries - from the extreme geographical areas of Europe: North, South, centre or East - aims to underline the idea that artistic space is a privileged one without any borders and useless territorial infatuation. Thus, in this new framework, the centre coexists with the periphery, the North receives the warmth of the South, the East no longer wishes to be West and, on top of all, the most surprising relationships are added, connections that only such an encounter can generate.
more
whatch Roi Vaara's performance

Performing Identities - May 10 - 15, Kalinderu MediaLab
A project of the City of Vienna and Bucharest
Commissions to:
_Tanzquartier Wien www.tqw.at (dance and performance program); in collaboration with MNAC, Teatrul National, Teatrul Bulandra
_springerin-hefte für Gegenwartskunst www.springerin.at (exhibition)
_mica-music information centre austria www.mica.at (music program)
_wespennest www.wespennest.at (literature)
Coordinator: Martina Hochmuth

performing identities _dance / performance / research / lecture _May 10 - 15, 2004
Vienna Days in Bucharest / Zilele Vienei la Bucuresti
It was as an interesting challenge to follow the invitation of the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna to develop a project involving dance and performance artists from Vienna and Bucharest; also due to the fact that there has been an ongoing exchange with the Bucharest based art community since the mid nineties.
Reflections about common grounds led to performing identities, a transdisciplinary project, which will bring together choreographers, performers, visual artists and theorists around the discussion of notions of identity - of the individual, the society and the political - in urban contexts.

Related event _exhibition curated by Georg Schoellhammer
opening on 13th at 17.00.
artists: Josef Dabernig, Dorit Margreiter, Lisl Ponger, Florian Pumhösl.
closing date 22 may

sound _hp stonji http://hpstonji.estonji.com/   http://www.zilele-vienei.ro/ read article http://www.mica.at/news/news_detail.asp?clr=2&iID=344831

Mon, May 10, 14.00 - 18.00h RESEARCH The City Tour From the Periphery to the Centre introduces relevant case studies and research on (inner) migration, the margins and 'les marginaux' of the city, the 'mahala', current phenomena in subculture and communist architecture, case study Casa Poporului; contributions from the fields of art, art theory, cultural anthropology, sociology and architecture by Mariana Celac, Calin Dan, Iosif Kiraly, Vlad Nanca, Razvan Stan, Stefan Tiron, Andreea Ogrezeanu. Thu, May 13, 19.00h PERFORMANCE Milli Bitterli / artificial horizon (A), and he another from among each other Manuel Pelmus (RO) Outcome Venue/Ticket Teatrul Bulandra, Sala Toma Caragiu Str. Jean Louis Calderon 76A tel 0040-21-314 75 46 Fri, May 14 PERFORMANCE ongoing 11.00 - 16.00h Claudia Heu (A) / Jeremy Xido (USA) Trace, an audiotour through the City of Bucharest for 2 persons at a time Location: will be announced upon registration Duration: ca 15 minutes for 2 persons at a time 19.00h Barbara Kraus (A) Well/come to the Club of Pleasure. A ShapeShifterStory Superamas (F/A) Body, History, Images &… Tourism. a screened foto-roman Venue/Ticket: Teatrul Odeon, Calea Victoriei 40-42 tel 0040-21-314 72 34 Sat May 15 LECTURE 13.00 - 16.00h 13.00h Introduction/Moderation: Boris Buden (CRO/A) publicist, translator, Vienna, Berlin 13.15h Anette Baldauf (A/USA) cultural critic, Vienna, New York 13.45h Ileana Pintilie (RO) art historian, Timisoara 14.45h Horia Roman Patapievici (RO) writer, Bukarest 15.15h Katherina Zakravsky (A) philosopher, Vienna Location/Info: Galeria Galeria/Universitatea Nationala de Arte, Str. Gen. Budisteanu nr.10 tel 004 021 212 88 64 PERFORMANCE 20.00h subREAL Communication 1:1:1 + a media performance by/with Calin Dan (RO/NL), Iosif Kiraly (RO), Dan Mihaltianu (RO/D/N), Location/Info: MNAC Kalinderu Medialab, Str. Dr. Sion 2-4 tel 0040-21- 311 10 26 Note : no access after 20.00h 21.30h Mihai Mihalcea (RO) Stars High in Amnesia's Sky Eduard Gabia (RO) Bonus Location/Ticket: Teatrul National Bucuresti, Sala Atelier, Bd. N. Balcescu 2 tel 0040-21-314 71 71

performing identities is a cooperation of the City of Vienna/Cultural Department and Tanzquartier Wien curated by Martina Hochmuth
in collaboration with ArCuB, Institut Français de Bucarest, MNAC Kalinderu Medialab, springerin Hefte für Gegenwartskunst, Teatrul Bulandra, Teatrul National Bucuresti Sala Atelier, Teatrul Odeon, Universitatea Nationala de Arte / Galeria Galeria.

Interferences in the Space of Eurasia / April 6, 2004 Kalinderu Medialab Contemporary Art from Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzia a presentation delivered by Stefan Rusu, visual artist and freelance curator, highlighting his curatorial experience and collaborations with Asian artists, in the projects "Invasia" a film by Stefan Rusu and "Intersection" (Mongolia). http://www.art.md/invasia/ro.html <re-orientation> Under these circumstances the InvAsia project (and discourse) was meant as a re-orientation from complex Western influences towards others-from the Far East and Central Asia-which exist virtually and only have to be activated by energy vectors. These vectors contain enormous energies, power fields and influences that can be re-activated only at the cost of evoking terrifying and catastrophic events for the Western civilization and order-just remember the horrible events provoked by nomad invasions which changed the direction of the world. Thus, the current invasion was used as an excuse to import a vital component that would complement and spur (by its complexity and force) the evolution of the artistic environment. Erbossyn Meldibekov http://www.art.md/invasia/participants/meldibekov01_ro.html Blue noses Veaceslav Mizin & Evghenii Ivanov http://www.art.md/invasia/participants/mizin01_ro.html Blue noses Group Novosibirsk, Russia http://e-gallery.guelman.ru/eng/authors/bluenoses/ http://e-gallery.guelman.ru/eng/authors/bluenoses/4062b99a8e3a7/ Erbol Meldibekov ranks among the most known artists of Central Asia. He participated in all important exhibitions throughout Europe. In 2000 he won the 1st prize of the Annual Exhibition of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art in Almaty. Educated as a sculpturer he also works as a performer and in the fields of photography and video. born in Shimkent in 1964 graduated from Almaty State Institute for Theater and Arts in 1992 lives and works in Almaaty, Kazakhstan http://www.universes-in-universe.de/islam/eng/2004/02/ifa/img-03.html http://www.ifa.de/galerien/zentralasien/emeldibekov.htm http://www.samal.kz/~scca/en/floors.htm http://www.kunstaspekte.de/index.php?tid=2610&action=termin

Nicolas Bourriaud (Palais de Tokyo), 27 - 28 February Kalinderu MediaLab / The French Institute in Bucharest Contemporary Art and Global Production Conference and workshop http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/ Nicolas Bourriaud (b. 1965) Co-director of Palais de Tokyo - contemporary creation site, Paris. Art critic and curator, founder and director of the magazine Documents sur l'art. Books: Esthetique relationelle (1998, 1998, English version 2002), Formes de vie. L'art moderne et l'invention de soi (1999), Postproduction (2001). Exhibitions (selection): Unmoving short movies (Venice Biennial, 1990), Commerce (Espace St. Nicolas, Paris, 1994), Traffic (Capc Bordeaux, 1996), Joint Ventures (Basilico Gallery, New York, 1996), Le Capital (CRAC Sete, 1999), Contacts (Kunsthalle Fri-Art, Fribourg, 2000), Touch (San Francisco Art Institute, 2002).

Emotional Architecture
Calin Dan
Curator Raluca Velisar
Kalinderu MediaLab / 12 December 2003 - 26 January 2004

[R][R][F] 2004 ' XP /5 March-30 April/ Kalinderu MediaLab [Remembering-Repressing-Forgetting] experimental global networking project by Agricola de Cologne www.newmediafest.org/rrf2004 rrf2004@newmediafest.org

This represents the starting point for the development of a global networking project which will be operating until the end of 2004.
Numerous places around the globe will be participating and presenting [R][R][F] 2004 simultaneously during the year: The first ones which joint the project were Kalinderu MediaLab/Museum of Contemporary Art Bucuresti (Romania), Istanbul Museum (Turkey), Bethlehem International Center (Bethlehem Palestine), Basics Festival (Salzburg/Austria), Bergen Center of Electronic Arts Bergen/Norway(Norway), PEAM - Pescara Electronic Art Meeting 2004 (Italy), invited are also Hong Kong, New York, Stockholm, Haifa, Madrid, Sevilla, Cologne, Athens, Alexandria and many other places.
From its structures, [R][R][F] 2004 is an extraordinary experimental New Media art project programmed and realised by Agricola de Cologne.
Its central subject, abbreviated in the capital letters of the title, is
"Remembering, Repressing, Forgetting".
A new way of art working is practised: networking as artworking.
Experimental fields of memory are developed by inviting curators from different countries around the globe, eg directors of media festivals or curators specialised in New Media, who have to select a number of artists of their choice according the terms of the project.
The dynamic of this ongoing and continuously changing project, as it is set up for being presented in festivals and media exhibitions, manifests itself not only in the artistic online environment, especially created for [R] - [R] - [F] 2004, but also progressing when for each new presentation a new project version is created, including new subject related aspects, new curators and new artists and new visualisations of the connected memory fields.
Continuously expanding, these memory fields containing curators and artists of the previous project versions will be always present in the background while slowly a networking universe of collective memory comes up. The project uses the Internet not only as an artistic environment, but primarily also as a communicating medium and a data base which is closely connected to memory and loss of memory, thus the subject of the festival project. The Internet represents not only the ideal medium in many ways, but allows above that direct intercultural networking like no other medium.
[R][R][F] 2004
is organised completely online. It includes a variety of online and offline components, an exchange between virtual and physical levels.
The basic subject is "Memory and Identity", the basic operating aspect is "networking as artworking". Although anything connected to the project is transmitted online, the basic installation aspect is the exchange/combination of virtual and physical space in a physical installation.

These are the components of [R][R][F] 2004

1. [R][R][F] online
Presentations:
National Museum of Contemporary Art / Kalinderu MediaLab Bucharest - opening 5 March 2004
Bergen Electronic Arts Centre Bergen / Norway www.bek.no - opening 5 March 2004
New Media Art Festival Bangkok / Thailand http://thailand.culturebase.org - 20 - 28 March 2004
Version<'04 Festival - Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 16 April -1 May 2004 http://www.versionfest.org/

The curatorial project RRF v. 2.0 is the basis of RRF 2004 / participating curators and artists:

-->1st week feature<--- . [R][R][F] 2004 --->XP consists of several "Memory Channels" including subject related modules in form of media projects. . The basis of [R][R][F] 2004 --->XP forms [R][R][F] Version 2.0 as "Memory Channel 1" including contributions from invited curators. These curators selected following artists: . 1. curator: Gita Hashemi (Iran/Canada) curatorial theme: "RealPlay" selected artists: Jaromil, Mireille Astore, Haleh Niazmand Hardpressed Collective, Threadbare Coalition . 2. curator: curator: Raul Ferrera-Balanquet (Cuba/USA) curatorial theme: "In[ter]vención" selected artists: Giselle Beiguelman (Brazil), Ricardo Baez (Venezuela) Santiago Perez Alfaro (Mexico), Eduardo Nava (El Salvador/USA) Juan Devis and OnRamp Arts (Colombia/USA), Alex Riviera (Peru/USA) . 3. curator as interface: Calin Man (Romania) curator as curator: Stefan Tiron (Romania) curatorial subject: Romanian Young Guns selected artists: all Romanian Sergiu Negulici, Milos Jovanovic, Catalin Rulea Daniel Gontz, Valentin Chincisan . 4. curator: Bjoern Norberg (Sweden) curatorial subject: "Inflict" artists: all Swedish " Beeoff" --> Olle Huge, Tomas Linell, Mikael Scherdin . 5. curator: Eva Sjuve (Norway) curatorial title: BEK_dns selected artists: Gijs Gieskes, Antti Sakari Saario, ARM with John Hegre Fruit, Cosmic Jinxm, Christian Bøen Thorsen, Lossius, Bastiansen and BEK_dns_combat selected artists: Torgeir Nes, Tom Moland, Stefan Mitterer, Terje Urnes, Peki Sinikoski, Rune Storetved, Marieke Verbiesen, Gijs Geiskes. . 6. curator: Agricola de Cologne (Germany) curatorial theme: {nodes of identity} selected artists: Conor McGarrigle (Ireland), Maite Camacho (Spain) Erkki Kirjalainen (/Santtu Rantanen) (Finland David Clark (Canada), Melinda Rackham (Australia) Nathaniel Stern (South Africa), Oliver Dyens (Canada) Shilpa Gupta (India), Michael Sellam (France)/Garrett Lynch (Ireland) JODY ZELLEN (USA) . 7. Melody Parker Carter (Germany) curatorial theme: : >preconstructed transformations selected artists: Werner Cee (Germany), Sachiko Hayashi (Sweden) Liz Miller (USA), Lisa Gye (Australia) Mustafa Maluka (South Africa), Avi Rosen (Israel) Irena Paskali (Macedonia), GAST BOUSCHET/Nadine Hilbert (Belgium) Stephane Barron (France), Lisa Cianci (Australia) . 8. Special Feature: title "Women :Memory of Repression in Argentina" curatorial environment by Raquel Partnoy (USA/Argentina) and Agricola de Cologne (Germany) including testimonials of "Mothers of Plaza de Mayo" Bueno Aires/Argentina and net based art works of following Argentine artists---> Marina Zerbarini , Andamio Contiguo Irene Coremberg, Anahi Caceres

2. Memory Channels
[R][R][F] and each other included basic component, eg XP (experimental) versions of Violence, Rainforest Memorial, Globalization, AIDS Memorial, News Channel, Streaming Channel, Video Channel and others, but not more than 16 channels in total, will form the "Memory Channels", which are screened in physical space on "MemoryScreens" and "MemoryProjections" and form the basis of the physical installation of [R][R][F] 2004.
Globalization modul curated by Humberto Ramirez
http://www.wiggedproductions.com/globalization.html
Critical Art Ensemble http://www.critical-art.net/, subRosa http://www.cyberfeminism.net/, Violence Online Festival http://www.newmediafest.org/violence/, "Stop Motion Studies" http://www.stopmotionstudies.net/, RTMark http://rtmark.com/, denniscucumber http://www.denniscucumber.com/, "Over My Dead Body" http://www.overmydeadbody.org/accueil.php

3. Networks
The networking project does not include only these mentioned virtual and physical components from different sources of [NewMediaArtProjectWork]:cologne, strategic points (places, institutions, individuals) will be installed, which are connected in the network also during the year 2004. Each of these strategic points will form a local network consisting of local institutions, artists, organisations dealing with New Media and art, "memory and identity" and/or humanitarian matter in social, cultural or political concern.
Each strategic point/local network will present [R][R][F] 2004 in physical space simultaneously with other strategic points of the global network, as well as it will optional complement this presentation through works of local artists connected to "memory and identity", and a program of Internet related actions of different kind, via "online streaming" in real time or temporarily displaced. Further are optional, workshops or other events to be organised in this framework.
The audience, the project is addressed to is not only reduced to online users, but includes the visitors of the physical installation as well, who all cannot only participate what is going on in the global network (program), but it is intended to include also some direct involvement of the visitor.
Please find additional info about Version 1.0 of [R][R][F] festival on : www.newmediafest.org/rrf/

News:
1. Gita Hashemi curates "RealPlay"

"RealPlay"
is the title of Gita Hashemi's curatorial contribution to [R][R][F] 2004 --->XP www.newmediafest.org/rrf2004/
or direct access also via www.newmediafest.org/rrf2004/rrfv2.htm

Participating artists:
1. Jaromil
2. Hard Pressed Collective
3. Mireille Astore
4. Project Threadbare Coalition
5. Haleh Niazmand

RealPlay
Essay by Gita Hashemi. RealPlay has little to do with play, really. It is about playing for real. Topically positioned in specific times and/or places, the works in RealPlay contest, counter and/or subvert dominant geopolitical and/or cultural notions with reference to the colonial constructs of the "Middle East" and the "West." This selection works as a broad political commentary as well as responses to certain trends in "new media" discourse that explicitly or implicitly (sometimes inadvertently) postulate and promote fundamental distinctions and discontinuities between the "virtual" and the "real." Such distinctions inevitably idealize the illusionary (utopic or distopic) space where code is entirely capable of masterminding experience, or where code becomes experience. The projects in RealPlay reject such Western-oriented techno-centric and techno-determinist tendencies by privileging urgent socio-political issues over media formalism and by insisting on the priority of social interaction over, as well as through, cyberspace interactivity. Using diverse practices of documenting and archiving, these projects capitalize on the function of the internet as a repository of retrievable data and, more importantly, as a communication channel that can be advantageously put to use towards inciting counter-hegemonic thought and action.

Subverting stereotypical representations of Palestinians as fanatic terrorists or people solely occupied and pre-occupied by war, in "http://farah.dyne.org/", an account from a trip to Palestine following the brutal Israeli re-occupation campaign of the West Bank in 2002, software pioneer and artist Jaromil (Italy) gives an account of the everlasting human search and capacity for joy in towns and refugee camps under siege (again). Farah: In Search for Joy is a brief and unpretentious traveler's search for and documentation of those aspects of the Palestinian popular culture that continue to create, offer and celebrate joy in spite of the prolonged conditions of colonial occupation and war. As an archive (in progress), the website is incubated in and reflective of the artist's interactions with his environment as it is a virtual space for our encounter with a dimension of Palestinian reality categorically forgotten or ignored in dominant representations in the West.

An initiative of Hard Pressed Collective (Canada), a group of media artists with a penchant for politically-engaged art-making, "http://www.charlesstreetvideo.com/project.php?id=1" The Olive Project is, on the surface, a programmed compilation of short videos by diverse international artists. Thematically grounded in the historically rich and culturally diverse symbolism of the olive, the videos exhibit a range of artist responses to the ruthless practice of uprooting olive trees in Palestine by Israeli forces- a favourite occupation strategy aiming to force Palestinians off their land by effectively undermining the economic survival of the growers and their local production. Collectively, the videos construct a time-based memorial to "peace and justice" made of 2-minute blocks. Before, through and beyond the remediated compilation and its dissemination in cyberspace, however, this project functions as a tool for consciousness-raising, mobilizing and networking around an issue of real world significance.

"http://www.crixa.com/mireille/Migrant/Tampa.htm" is the web component of Mireille Astore's (Australia) larger sculpture and performance project that takes as its starting point the infamous Tampa ship incident in August 2001. The incident brought local and international public attention to the plight of the "boat people"- refugees primarily from the "Middle East"-who, upon arrival in Australian waters, were first refused landing and then recast as prisoners by a xenophobic "Western" state. Astore's obsessive photographic documentation (from the inside looking out) of her 18-day self-inflicted virtual imprisonment-in a scaled recreation of Tampa on a public beach in Sydney-functions as a looking glass in which to observe the uneasy and disturbing reactions to the arrival of new migrants by a society that has repressed its own memory and burried its own racist and colonial settler history under the grounds on which Woomera and Nauru detention centres currently stand for real.

"http://www.threadbare.tyo.ca/" Project Threadbare is animated by a coalition of activists in response to the detention in August 2003 of 21 South Asian (primarily Pakistani) students in Toronto, Canada under the guise of anti-terrorist and national security operations. Since its inception, Project Threadbare has been an immensely successful local expository and legal campaign against racial targeting, detention and deportation of immigrants and refugees by Canadian police, intelligence and immigration forces, who are hotly in the race for the third place prize of dishonour, after USA and Australia, for breaking their own nation's civil liberties codes as well as international human rights conventions. This website, an ongoing forum, newsboard and archive for Toronto activists, is
one wiki that doesn't pretend to be the virtual world's better-than-original replica of "democracy." Although some of the active members of the coalition are artists and their website is pretty slick, Project Threadbare was not conceived as and does not make a claim to being new media art; rather, it is a real world experiment in social and creative participation and collaboration, with tangible impact in the lives of the original 21 detainees and now in the lives of many others in similar predicaments.

"http://surveyofcommonsense.net/" Survey of Common Sense is a recreation of an earlier participatory painting installation project by the same title by Haleh Niazmand (USA). A parody of the polling industry that for the past 5 or 6 decades has been the engine of "democracy" in the United States, Niazmand's image-text intervention, in the form of survey questions with forced yes/no "choices," is not only an authorial comment on the practices of polling as determinant of "democratic outcome," but a strong challenge to notions of "pragmatism" and "common sense" preached from political pulpits in the present-day United States. Beyond this, Survey of Common Sense is an invitation, courtesy of an artist from the "Middle East" and a citizen of the "West," to the participants/viewers to recongnize, acknowledge and reflect upon the ways in which each and every one of us are intricately and deeply implicated, really and virtually, in the bloody absurdity of this political moment. As such and in the very impossibility of responding with any degree of ease and resolution to Niazmand's questions, this work is an incessant challenge issued so we will not slip into forgetting.

The projects in this selection have taken shape independently of this curatorial effort. My thanks to all the participants for allowing me to include their work in RealPlay.

About the curator:
Gita Hashemi
engages in cultural practice as artist, writer, curator, organizer, worker and educator. Her most recent curatorial projects include RealPlay (2004, netart exhibit) Negotiations: From a Piece of Land to a Land of Peace (2003, art-driven multidisciplinary event, http://negotiations2003.net), WILL (2003, multidisciplinary transnational exhibition, http://negotiations2003.net/will), Afghanistan, 2002: No Refuge and Locating Afghanistan (2002-3, image-text exhibition and publication with photography by Babak Salari), and Trans/Planting: Contemporary Art by Women from/in Iran (2001, with Taraneh Hemami, http://strictlypersonal.net/transplanting).

Her recent titles include Post-Coitus (2003, http://post-coitus.net), Olive Fair (2003, http://olivefair.net), Many Stones for Palestine (2002, http://strictlypersonal.net/stones), The Word Room (2001, with Post-Exile Collective, http://wordroom.net), A War Primer (2001, sound installation), and Of Shifting Shadows (2000, CD-R). Hashemi's work has been exhibited, reviewed and collected nationally and internationally. She is the founder of Iranian Artists in Dialogue, a co-founder of Post-Exile Collective and a founder of Creative Response. She resides in Toronto, Canada.

Hashemi's labour as an intellectual has crystallized in simultaneous processes of de/re/construction; not in any specific class of objects or within any particular representational genres, but in the envisioning of the spaces and formulation of the critical practices that can be constitutive in transformative social and political movements. Informed by her direct engagement in liberatory political struggles before, during and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution as well as her experience of exile in North America, Hashemi's work takes shape in a continuous process of countering masculinist discourses of fundamentalism, fascism, colonialism, corporatism and militarism. Notions of community, co-labouring, public space and active participation are integral to her creative engagement. So is the understanding that artistic practice, as a fundamentally social process, is inherently political and must, therefore, be subject to conscious (re-visionary) feminist re-articulation: The political is personal, the personal is poetic, the poetic is political, the political must become ethical.