Radiator: Exploits in the Wireless City

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Radiator Symposium - Exploits in the Wireless City
Broadway Media Centre, Nottingham UK
15 - 16 January 2009


As part of the 4th Radiator festival, the Radiator Symposium, “Exploits in the Wireless City”, aims to instigate discussion, debate and new interdisciplinary research networks based on the understanding that the development of digital networks are transforming our notion of (public and private) space.

Bringing together artists with architects, urban theorists, computer scientists, sociologists and fellow citizens, the symposium will explore, question and play with this new urban topography where the re-conceptualizing of the public sphere in the regeneration developments of the East Midlands mirror those around Europe.

Radiator will host the symposium alongside a series of presentations, exhibitions and discussions where the audience will have the opportunity to explore, remodel and re-present space in its traditional and emergent forms.

In its critique, the Radiator symposium will question the opportunities, future strategies and implementations that artists and communities face when learning to act within these new hybrid city spaces.

Through its artistic interventions, Radiator will put theory into practice with projects and events that both position and challenge the dominant forces at work in the urban environment and explore the new territories opened up by hybrid space. The “Going Underground” project, investigates this infrastructure by placing 5 artists into the urban confines of British cities: Glenn Davidson (Artstation) (UK), Folke Köbberling & Martin Kaltwasser (DE), Ian Nesbitt (UK), Christian Nold (UK), N55 (DK). These artists will act as sleeper agents, observing and gathering information from a range of different sources including; architects, planning departments, city council offices, surveillance, monitoring centre’s and the Police to create new work in response to their research.

The Radiator festival is curated by Anette Schafer & Miles Chalcraft from Trampoline. Trampoline has hosted and curated events in both Nottingham and Berlin since 1997.

Participants in the Symposium:
Saul Albert: Co-organiser of Dorkbot, and co-founder of The People Speak, UK
Richard Barbrook: Critic of the neo-liberal cyber-elite, University of Westminster, Hypermedia Research Centre, UK
Steven Benford: Professor of Collaborative Computing University of Nottingham, co-founder of Mixed Reality Laboratory, UK
Duncan Campbell: Freelance Investigative Journalist, UK
Neil Cummings (tbc): Professor of Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art & Design, UK
Sean Dodson: The Guardian, UK
Charlie Gere: Director of Research at the Institute for Cultural Research at Lancaster University UK
Peter Goodwin: Executive Director of Accelerate Nottingham, the leading think-tank on ICT issues for the Greater Nottingham area, UK
Usman Haque: Architect & Artist, UK
JODI (tbc): The pioneer artists duo of Net Art - Joan Heemskerke/NL -
Dirk Paesmans/BE
Rob Van Kranenburg: The Waag Society, NL
Joost Van Loon: Institute for Cultural Analysis Nottingham Trent University, UK
Krzysztof Nawratek: Lecturer in Architecture, University of Plymouth
Saskia Sassen (tbc): Sociologist and economist noted for her analyses of globalisation and international human migration, USA
Kuba Szreder: Independent Curator, PL
More tbc….

Observers and advisors:

Sarah Cooke: Researcher, co-founder and co-editor of CRUMB (the Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss), an online resource for curators, producers, commissioners and exhibitors of new media art, UK
Regine Debatty: Initiated we-make-money-not-art.com a weblog for critical media art and cultural discourse, BE/DE
Alessandro Ludovico: Editor of Neural Magazine, DE
Laura Sillars: Head of Programming at FACT, Liverpool, UK





The themes under investigation in the symposium include:

Wireless Networks or Gated Communities?
A wireless network is an ever shifting, dynamic, constant entity, with a combination of different topographies. They are difficult networks to map, measure or control. Since regulations of usage, frequencies and sharing are still in the process of being negotiated, how is access control and data manipulation being exposed, exploited, packaged and challenged?

Experiencing the E-City
Our mobility while we work, e-shop, or communicate in a wireless zone tends to make us nomadic and lets us adapt a particular space (café, park, home) to our momentary need. Spaces become multi-purpose, the workspace becomes unscheduled and deregulated. New clusters are generated. People, increasingly un-tethered from their workspaces, are nevertheless subject to more control and surveillance in an increasingly obscured manner. How does this distributed social space change people’s experience of city?

The Networked City
From ambient technology such as RFID (radio frequency identification tags) to ‘smart buildings’, how is an increased computerisation of our environment impacting on our privacy? Are we on our way to ultimate surveillance? What possibilities for resistance do we have left?

Communication Architectures
New Social Networks and organisations come through websites, we make ‘friends’ with people on a suggestion, we work sat across the world from our colleagues. How has the transformation in social flow dynamics changed the usage of existing architectures?
What are the social impacts of digital communication technologies? Do communities, especially those under-represented in socio economic terms, stand to benefit from these new hybrid spaces?
Radiator and its Symposium will present work that combines an engagement with locality and community with an exploration into the possibilities of digital enhancement where the role of the city-as-communications-network is deep at its core.

RADIATOR:
10 days of exhibitions, events and discussion exploring how electronic networks are transforming our notion of private and public space

Launch event: 14th January 6-11pm @ Broadway Media Centre & The New Art Exchange
Events: 13-18 January
Symposium: 15, 16 January, Broadway Media Centre & Derby QUAD
Exhibition: 13 - 24 January

Various venues and off site projects across Nottingham

w: radiator-festival.org
e: [email protected]


Symposium details:

Thurs 15 - Fri 16 January: 10:00am - 5:00pm
Thurs 5:00pm - 9:30pm: Trip to Derby QUAD for Jane & Louise Wilson exhibit, AGM exhibit, talks and networking

Full Pass: £ 60 (concs. £ 45)
Early Birds:£ 50 (concs. £ 40)
Single Day: £ 35 (concs. £ 25)





Prices include lunch, refreshments, trip to Derby Quad, Radiator Festival events.

Accommodation: special hotel deals with Radiator bookings. Email for details or check website nearer the time.




For Bookings, ring (0)115 840 9272
Early Bird registration is before December 12th

BOOK NOW FOR EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT!