<nettime> Internet creativity: Open Sources, Open Borders

[cornelia sollfrank <cornelia@snafu.de>]

from <marta@laagencia.org> on rhizome list 02-16-2004

The weather in Madrid was nice and mild, perfect to receive all the
representatives from the art world at large gathered around the International
Contemporary Art Fair ARCO.  

Our community was also there.  The moment had come to decide who would receive
the 20,000.00 and 10,000.00 Euros for the best internet-related art and
research project.  The winner of the ARANEUM prize, organized by the Spanish
ministry of Science and Technology in collaboration with the ARCO foundation,
coordinated by LaAgencia, was about to be revealed. 

Rachel arrived on Thursday morning.  In the afternoon, Vicente picked up Olia
from the airport and drove her straight to the ARCO offices.  Rachel, Jose Luis
Brea and Juan Manuel Bonet (director of the National Reina Sofia Museum in
Madrid) were already there.  Rachel and Olia did a wonderful job adapting
themselves immediately to the Spanish schedule: a meeting that starts at 7pm …
The decision was made but we all had to keep ourselves from talking until
Saturday.

On Saturday 14, 2004, Vicente introduced Rachel, Olia, Jose Luis and Jorge
Pérez Martínez (Director General for the Development of the Information Society
of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology) to the press.  Some familiar
faces like Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana were also there.  Speeches on the
relevance of this prize in the current local and global contexts led to the
announcement of the winners:

10,000.00 Euros to develop the best research project on Internet creativity
will go to Geert Lovink The essay that we will be enjoying a year from now is:
Open Sources, Open Borders--Issues in Global Internet Culture It will explore
the uncertainties of an unequal global society gathering online; topics
include: Alternatives in global governance; ICT in India; OneWorld, an
NGO-Dotcom?; ABC of Webjournals; Web Design: the first Decade; Cellspace
Explorations; Movement Strategies.

20,000.00 Euros for the creation of an Internet related art project will be
received by Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki As of December 1 2004 we
will be able to explore the “coincidences of need” proposed by Umbrella.net
(http://www.undertheumbrella.net) The project aims at “…highlighting
connections in public spaces by creating a system of ad-hoc network nodes that
can spontaneously form and dissipate based on changing weather conditions and
crowd formations.”

That evening Vicente had organized THE party in the new 250 sq. meter space
that will now house LaAgencia.  It was an event full of new creativity, music,
video and blinking lights that brought together all the energy that has defined
their projects and collaborations since 1998.  

We celebrated LaAgencia’s 5th anniversary, the new space, ARANEUM.  The
evening also served to showcase LaAgencia’s newest project - Trans-E, to be
presented during the International Benicassim Festival in August.  The
highlight of this event will be SV2, a streaming software, fresh from the
Mexican UNAM, intended for the omnipresence of our community; it was be tested
on Saturday, bringing Barcelona’s Optiq_Syndicate and NYC’s Volume to Madrid.
The magic of the evening was provided by the physical and virtual presence of
Good Mood, Frecuencia Electronica, FakeShop, Arcangel Constantini, Area3, Igor
Stromajer, FakeShop and other usual - and new - suspects.

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net