JI Festival Internacional de arte, ciencia y technologia: dinamicas fluidas

by Juan Carrete Parrondo (ed.) et. al.
Ayuntamiento de Madrid, Madrid 2002.
200 pp., Illus. Paper, Eur 12.00.
ISBN: 84-8806-90-x.

Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent
stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be

This is the catalogue of the 1st International Festival of Art, Science and Technology, Cibervision 02, held at the Centro Cultural Conde Duque of the City of Madrid and organised by the new MediaLab Madrid. The festival was directed by Karin Ohlenschlaeger and Luis Rico. The book itself is in Spanish, but it includes English translations of all texts. Festival information is at http://www.cibervision.org/

The first part consists of theoretical reflections on the interrelations between the arts, science and technology under the general assumption that Humanity is 'an irregular tapestry of relations involving six thousand million individuals who are co-evolving within an ecosystem of limited resources.' (Ohlenschlaeger and Rico). It includes texts by Fritjof Capra, Manuel Castells, Inke Arns, Antonio Fernandez de Molina, Giuseppe Caglioti, Federico Moran, Otto Roessler, Arthur P. Smith and Peter Weibel, Andres Fernandez Diaz, José Naredo, Jorge Riechman, Joaquin Nieto and Ornella Caccio. Undoubtedly this is good company, even if some of the contributions are undergraduate remakes of stories that have been told before - and better - by others.

Most of them are concerned with complexity and chaos, biotechnology, genetic technology and the networking of society. The most interesting and original pieces are by Antonio Fernandez de Molina on Oscillation and Synchrony and by Roessler, Schmidt and Weibel on 'The world as Interface'.

In the second part, 17 artists who participated in the exhibition which was held at the Cultural Centre Conde Duque from 4 till 17 March 2002, simultanuously with the Festival, present their work. They are: Eugenia Balcells (Spain), Dominic Buttimore (UK), Daniel Canogar (Spain), Circo Interior Bruto (Spain), Ursula Damm (Germany), Hans Diebner and Sven Sahle (Germany), Yoichiro Hawaguchi (Japan), Sachiko Kodama (Japan), Donatella Landi (Italy), Golan Levin (USA), R. Lozano Hemmer (Canada), Aguedo Simo (Spain), Karl Sims (USA), Christa Sommerer, Laurent Mignonneau and Roberto Lopez-Gulliver (Japan), Transnational Temps (Spain), UHF (Spain) and URU (Spain).
The third is called 'encuentros y talleres' which translates into 'encounters and workshops'. The City of Madrid has established its new MediaLab Madrid, a space where encounters and debate between artists, scientists and theoreticians can take place (www.medialabmadrid.org). Some of the debates have been initiated at the Festival and the catalogue includes short introductions to them.

The fourth and final section called 'ciclo de invierno' or 'winter cycle', contains the programme of a series of lectures/debates in Madrid.

The catalogue has short biographies of all contributors. Information and contact: info@laie.es.