Yesterday, November 22, 2012, Rasa Smite was giving two lectures in Bratislava: one for students on ‘creative networks and new media art in Baltics’ in Academy of Fine Arts and Design, and the other one, public lecture, on ‘renewable networks’ at A4 space.
THE INTERNET CULTURE AND NETWORKED ART PRACTICES IN BALTICS
Thursday, November 18, 13.00 at Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava
Exploring the dawn of internet culture from an Eastern European perspective, Rasa Smite will be analyzing the development of self-organized formations that started off as ‘virtual communities’, ‘creative networks’ that emerged from the early days of internet culture during the roaring mid 1990s until today’s social media. Describing the pioneering network culture, in particular Smite will focus on analyzing cases of Xchange – internet radio network, NICE – Baltic Nordic media art network, Locative Media Network, Art+Communication festival and other important facets of early network culture that have its origins in Latvia and the Baltic states. This lecture also will look into the case of local E-Lab (now – RIXC) initiative in Riga, as well as other new media / networked art practices in Baltics starting off the 1990s till nowadays.
RENEWABLE NETWORKS – ARTIST APPROACH TO BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE WORLD
Thursday, November 18, 18.00 at A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture
Address: Karpatská 2, 811 05 Bratislava
In this lecture Rasa Smite will focus on the current situation in Baltic countries by analyzing the case of Renewable Network (founded by RIXC in 2009) and emerging tendency in contemporary media art to address and work with sustainability issues from mixed perspectives – social, cultural, ecological and technological. Renewable Network was founded by artists, who once were deeply engaged in exploring the digital media frontiers, today are in the vanguard of building a more sustainable world. Renewable Network artists collaborate with scientists, engineers, designers and architects to develop devices that generate electricity from bacteria in wastewater, aronia berry juice, sunlight, or even electromagnetic radiation; they combine art with agriculture, nature with technology, food production with open information systems, biological systems with electronic networks, rural and urban communities; and they also keep bees in the city, do window-farming, and talk to the plants… More than just a new trend, we, Renewable Network artists, claim that it is a testimony for an ongoing fundamental shift from a “techno-scientific” to “techno-ecological” paradigm.
