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  Violence Online Festival In this month's issue of fAf, we present two texts addressing the new media art project, Violence Online Festival which features 150 works sourced globally. Curated by Agricola de Cologne who contributes an essay about the project concept and origins, the Violence Online Festival reflects on 'violence' as a plural practice which denigrates humanity. De Cologne writes "violence is present anywhere, hidden or sleeping, hesitating, waiting or in action, starting from simple mobbing via verbal or physical attacks, the bandwidth has no end." Also, fAf reproduces (from Ciberp@is) a review by Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana in both Spanish and English. Violence Online
Festival
"Violence" is a New Media art project in the form of an online festival reflecting the phenomenon of "Violence", curated, organized and created in Flash by Agricola de Cologne, curator and media artist operating from Cologne, Germany. As an ongoing project Violence Online Festival is developed for presentation in the framework of physical and virtual media festivals and exhibitions. For each event a new version of the project will be created and adapted to specific needs including additions of new artists/works and other changes. Violence is an expression of speechlessness, of lack of communication. The best way to eliminate violence and confrontation is looking for communicating, dialogue and networking, starting already in the smallest cell of society which leads in consequence to openness against the different, tolerance. A good example on the way to that represents the net based art project - http://www.a-virtual-memorial.org - Memorial project against the Forgetting and for Humanity" (by Agricola de Cologne, published as Article20 in - Covenant of the Articles of Artistic Mediation on World Mediation Summit Washington 2002 ). The human character contains both a light and a dark side, good and bad, individually manifested. Deeply rooted is a dark-sided element: Violence. In happy surroundings, it becomes hardly visible and in less happy surroundings - either of a physical, psychological, environmental, ideological, economic or political nature - nearly automatically a kind of survival strategy with all the known consequences we see manifested in conflicts on a small or large scale. Violence is present anywhere, hidden or sleeping, hesitating, waiting or in action, starting from simple mobbing via verbal or physical attacks, the bandwidth has no end. Nowadays, globalization, social injustice, unemployment, increasing wealth on one side and on the opposite increasing poverty (without mentioning some causes) produce a climate where violence has a fertile soil. From the attack on 9/11 in the USA, people from the Western civilization became painfully aware that security of any kind is a mere illusion; not only the internal, but also the external enemy is present anywhere. Artists are said to be the consciousness of a nation or society as they reflect the actual state of the psychological and physical environment. When this state is penetrated by violence, nobody is surprised that violence becomes a universal subject for artistic reflection, the difference may only be the view of it and its perception depending on the respective cultural background. 'Art and violence both seem to stem from the abstract: that place beyond logic, the realm of the emotion. When they intersect we are simultaneously repelled and attracted, frightened and excited. Historically this meeting has been wrought with complexity, and as cultural violence in every society increases, we are prevented by paranoia, censorship and ethical demands from asking, and sometimes even posing, some of the most important questions violence and art together and separately produce: how is violence represented, and what or how much of it do we need to resist the cultivation of fear and the encouragement of dependency? Is violence a tool, a process or a result? When are artistic portrayals of violence justifiable? As intellectual exercise, ritual, or spiritual enhancement? For other purposes? Or are they never justifiable? Is violence in art an action, reaction, or reflection?' (from festival statement). How different the results of an artistic reflection can be is shown through the Violence Online Festival including more than 150 artists from 30 countries presenting their work. It forms a dynamic collaborative art work presenting very individual visions and use of media. The relevance of violence becomes visible also through the high quality standard of all the included works. Each of them represents another aspect of violence caught in textual poetry, running as a video or embedded in an interactive environment of a net-based art work. In reaction to the key role (mass) media plays by displaying and even promoting violence, a new environment (interface) has been created for Violence Online Festival, which houses and hosts the art works within a virtual media company named "Violence Media Incorporated". By dividing the company into different departments (eg. "Violence for Happiness" , "Violence Marketing" or "Violence Broadcasting"), it becomes clear that their meaning has a rather ironic or sarcastic character, which gives the mbedded art works a new meaning. While surfing through this environment, the visitor is forced to ask and give answers, and becomes slowly a part of this network of art through his reflections and changes of perception.
VioLENS reflexiona en Internet sobre el concepto de violencia by Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana (c) 2002
¿La violencia es un instrumento, una necesidad o el inevitable resultado de las dinámicas humanas? Si es cierto que los artistas reflejan el mundo que les rodea, ¿cómo materializan en sus obras el lado más oscuro de la vida? A partir de estas consideraciones y coincidiendo con el VioLENS Festival, celebrado en la ciudad checa de Tabor, el artista alemán Agricola de Cologne ha lanzado el Violence Online Festival. La convocatoria, aún abierta, ha recibido más de 300 proyectos, de los que 150 se han elegido para formar parte del festival. La selección reúne poesía textual y visual, net.art, imágenes y sonidos en streaming, flash y otras experimentaciones que ilustran múltiples visiones de la violencia. El comisario ha creado un sitio en Flash que simula la interfaz de una compañía virtual de comunicación, Violence Media Corporated, dividida en departamentos. Para la portada del sitio ha elegido Scum, una animación de Mike Salmond, emblemática de la espiral de la violencia. En las obras desfilan las formas de violencia y sus manifestaciones, siempre peligrosas. Destaca The Velvet-Strike Team, una colaboración entre el barcelonés Joan Leandre y los estadounidenses Anne-Marie Schleiner y Brody Condon. Es un proyecto antimilitarista concebido como una colección de pintadas para usarse como graffiti en las paredes del videojuego Counter-Strike, basado en la respuesta del jugador a un ataque terrorista.
VioLENS reflects in Internet on the violence concept by Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana (c) 2002 Violence is an instrument, a dynamic necessity or the inevitable result of the human ones? If it is certain that the artists reflect the world that surrounds to them, how they materialize in his works the darkest side of the life? From these considerations and agreeing with the VioLENS Festival, celebrated in the Czech city of Tabor, the German artist Agricola de Cologne has lauched the Violence Online Festival. The call for participation, still actual, has received more than 300 projects, of which 150 have been chosen to be included in the festival. The selection combines textual and visual poetry, net.art, images and streaming sound, flash and other experimental works that illustrate the manifold visions of violence. The curator has created a site in Flash that simulates the interface of a virtual company of communication, Violence Media Incorporated, divided in different departments. For the cover of the site, "Scum" has been chosen , an animation by Mike Salmond, visualizing the spiral of the violence. In the works the forms of violence and their manifestations develop dangerously further on, documented evidently in the work of The Velvet-Strike Team, a collaboration between the Barcelonian Joan Leandre and the US Americans Anne-Marie Schleiner and Brody Condon. It is a conceived antimilitarist project like a collection of paintings to be used like graffitti on the walls of the video game Counter-Strike, meant as the answer on the game of a terrorist attack.
Violence Online Festival Contacts Version 1.0 of Violence online Festival had been
presented as online part of Violens Festival Tábor (Czech Republic) 17 -
31 August 2002 Technical requirements
Agricola de Cologne is a multi-disciplinary media
artist and New Media art curator operating from Cologne, Germany. He is
the founder and the curator of the NewMediaArtProjectNetwork - the
experimental platform for art in Internet and its corporate sites: As an artist he had more than 100 individual
exhibitions in cooperation with more than 70 museums throughout Europe and
is participating in a variety of media festivals/exhibition around the
globe. A detailed biography can be visited on: Roberta Bosco is an Italian journalist who specializes in art. She has been a correspondent stationed in spain for twelve years. She writes the editorial for the magazine Agostini-Rizzoli, and writes regularly in Sette, the magazine of the Italian daily newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. She is also presently the correspondent of El Periodico del Arte, the Spanish edition of the network. Stefano Caldana is an Italian journalist specializing in digital culture. Since 1998 Bosco and Caldano have worked for CiberP@is, the weekly magazine of art and new technologies of the Spanish daily newspaper, El Pais. Throughout their careers they have collaborated with numerous publications, Italian as well as Spanish. They are authors of ARTE.RED at http://www.elpais.es/especiales/2002/arte/portada.htm, a navigable history of the net.art carried out for El Pais Digital.
'VioLENS reflexiona en Internet sobre el concepto de
violencia' was first published in Ciberp@is, a weekly magazine about
Internet and new technologies in the daily spanish newspaper EL PAIS
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