Netzkultur @ Freiburg’s Politik im Freien Theater Festival. GERMANY
Date 21. November 2014
Start 11:00 Uhr
End 16:00 Uhr
Event Workshop
Place Theater Freiburg, Winterer-Foyer
With Benjamin Gaulon and Petr Žílka (Ztohoven)
The internet has arrived in theatre. But there’s more to it than just embedding a YouTube video or doing “something with Twitter”. These days theatre-makers are also internet users, and portrayed or reflected reality is also internet reality. And aren’t all stages, whether in the classic sense or public space, virtual places that can be programmed with theatre media? In this workshop ideas for plays and working methods to incorporate digitalisation can be discussed with experts.
Workshop (for 15 participants), application with a short CV to: netzkultur@berlinerfestspiele.de
The works of the French artist and academic Benjamin Gaulon deal with consumer society, recycling and the calculated obseleteness of products. Gaulon studied Visual Communication in Strasburg (France) and Interactive Media and Environment in Groningen (Netherlands). Under the pseudonym “Recyclism”, he develops interactive installations made of electrical scrap such as the “Recycling Entertainment System”, which interconnects six Nintendo consoles and turns them into an electronic musical instrument; or the graffiti robot “Printball” which is made out of a paintball gun. His works have been shown all over the world and have received multiple awards; since 2005 he has held international workshops and lectures on hardware hacking, recycling, digital art and graffiti. Benjamin Gaulon is the co-founder of the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art and the Recyclism Hacklab, a collaborative workspace in Dublin. He currently lives in Paris again and is the programme director of the Design and Technology study programme at Parsons Paris.
www.recyclism.com
www.ewasteworkshop.com
Petr Žílka (Ztohoven) is the public voice of Zthohoven, a Czech artists’ collective. The group works anonymously and only appears in public every few years – but when it does, very effectively. It specialises in media hacking and interventions in public spaces that provoke not only social controversies but, quite often, legal battles about the freedom of art too. In 2003 they commented on the resignation of Czech President Václav Havel by manipulating a huge heart-shaped sculpture on the roof of the President’s seat in Prague Castle, and turning it into a question mark that shone out over the city. In 2007 they caused an international furore with their work “The Media Reality”, in which they hacked into the weather cams of Czech television broadcasters and inserted fake footage of an atom bomb explosion into tranquil weather pictures of Krkonoše. Zthohoven is a play on words that can be read as “exit“ (Z toho ven) or “the hundred diarrhoeas” (Sto Hoven). The collective consists of about 20 permanent members and grows to about 100 when they move into action. With its organisation Fair Art, which provides a network for artists, curators and lawyers, the group also stands up for artistic freedom and represents artists in legal battles. Members of the group are currently setting up a hacker space in Prague.
www.ztohoven.com
www.fairart.cz