April 2009 YASMIN Discussion: New Media: User's Behavior, Social Systems and the Body Politic

This discussion deals with how (new) media can affect local behaviours related to creativity and innovation within a socio-political context, and what is the link between politic and the ways that users behave.

We are interested in exploring how artistic and cultural expression in a given location can be affected by global networked systems, and the interactions with social systems and behaviours. The Intention behind artworks vs. new media as a device for being in touch, so for being creative.

SMS strategies can affect politics and democracy, especially with programs based on mass voting via SMS; depending on the voting results, this social activity can challenge the community isolation versus the fear of dissolution into a more regional or global system.

Politics uses (new) media when planning and imagining dozens of utopian models for the country; but media power is explored on the other hand by artists who reflect the absurdity of the politic.

Virtual social networks maintain difficult relations caused by economical necessities that force families to disperse physically in order to seek living. In this vibrant atmosphere, the identity and belonging convictions are often scrambled by the eclectic media content.

Questions that are raised include:

- Is (new) media a tool which reinforces people's creativity and how it is expressed in terms of social behaviour?
- How are democracy and social connectivity via new media related?
- Are global and local systems two separate entities, or is it about one place?
- What is the impact of the media content on identity in your socio-politic sphere?
- How is the economy affecting visual forms of communication?
- Do artworks emerge from a specific Intention or from media models constrained by business requirements?
- What new roles do virtual social networks adopt to maintain difficult relations?

Moderator:

Ricardo Mbarkho

Ricardo Mbarkho is an artist and lecturer. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1974. His works and lectures take part in many publications, media, and in education and art institutions and events in Lebanon and internationally. In his work, he often uses new media to tackle questions mainly related to human relations and belonging issues within the socio-political sphere. Ricardo Mbarkho received his Art Diplomas from Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and Ecole Supérieure d’Etudes Cinématographiques, Paris, France and from Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts, Beirut. He also completed an exchange study program at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. He teaches art, video, and new media at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Beirut. Currently, he lives and works in Lebanon and France. www.ricardombarkho.com

Invited Respondents:

Jordan Crandall

Jordan Crandall (http://jordancrandall.com) is a media artist and theorist based in Los Angeles. He is Associate Professor in the Visual Arts Department at University of California, San Diego. He is currently at work on a multi-platform media work entitled "Showing," which looks at ecologies of display and the construction of the self through stagings, arousals, extensions, and intimacies. He is also at work on a development of assemblage theory that focuses on network ecologies, emergent presencing, and the dynamics of desire. He is the founding editor of the new online journal Version (http://version.org).

Annie Paul

Annie Paul works at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, where she heads the Publications Section of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES). She is also a founding editor of the journal Small Axe (Duke University Press). Paul is the recipient of a grant from the Prince Claus Fund (Netherlands) in support of her book project, Suitable Subjects: Visual Art and Popular Culture in Postcolonial Jamaica.
http://anniepaulactivevoice.blogspot.com/

Eugenio Tisselli Vélez

Born in Mexico City, 1972. Writer, teacher and programmer. His areas of interest include digital narratives and technology as a tool/medium for social research. His work (installation, performance, software, text and net.art) has been featured in different festivals and exhibitions around the world, and is available at http://www.motorhueso.net. He is the developer of zexe.net, a mobile communication project for groups in risk of exclusion, initiated by Antoni Abad. He worked as an Associate Researcher at Sony Computer Science Lab in Paris. Currently, he is a teacher and co-director of the Master in Digital Arts at the Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona.

Delphine Tonglet

Graduated in History of Art, Delphine Tonglet collaborates with Studio Azzurro, an Italian group of video creation from 2000 to 2008 as responsible for public relations (www.studioazzurro.com). For Studio Azzurro, she coordinated various research projects financed by European Commission, a first one dedicated to digital libraries (www.brickscommunity.org) and a second one dedicated to multimodal interfaces applied to digital theatre (www.callas-newmedia.eu); She also followed RAMI a Mediterranean project focused on Encounters on Arts and Multimedia (http://rami.lafriche.org/). In 2009, she started a new collaboration with yoox.com, a global internet retailing partner for the leading fashion and design brand as coordinator of special projects, multidisciplinary projects related to fashion, culture, design and art.

Tereza Wagner

Tereza Wagner is a UNESCO Senior Programme Specialist dealing with arts and creative issues www.unesco.org/. Her graduate and undergraduate degrees are from Paris V University, France, including a doctorate in Anthropology of Contemporary Arts. Former member of UNESCO’s Arts and Cultural Enterprise Division, she is now in charge of the co-ordination of cultural events within the Cultural sector of UNESCO. In 1993, they initiated the UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts www.unesco.org/culture/creativity/prize, which includes the new UNESCO Digital Award.

As an art historian, Tereza Wagner has closely followed the development of video arts and digital creation in the past 30 years. In 2002 she leaded a programme called DigiArts: UNESCO Knowledge Portal http://portal.unesco.org/digiarts, a web- based initiative created together with an interdisciplinary group of specialists, which aimed to promote ICT creative tools among young people at school level and which extensively disseminated on-line teaching and information on digital creation world wide.

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