dislocate
Dislocate is a long term project which examines the relationship between art, technology and locality. Its objective is to promote international interdisciplinary discussion and debate upon the impact of new technologies upon our concept and construction of place, the various challenges which we may face in this process and also the creative potentials and commentaries which exist here. Through artistic, cultural and intellectual exchange and collaboration we aim to enable an important sharing of experience and expression of the various contexts which impact upon our daily lives and effect our attitudes to place and new media.
Dislocate was initiated in 2006 in a response to what appeared an increasing fragmentation and confusion in the discourse surrounding place and new media. There had been many developments in the media art world in particular in the field of locative media which many professed to bring a convergence of location and technology together, while others were proclaiming the end of geography which had become obsolete in an age of global connectivity and communication immanence. Dislocate aimed to challenge both of these ideas in a more critical investigation which could reflect widely but in depth upon the supposed loss or increase of place through technological developments and globalization.
08
Dislocate 08 questions our notions of place and location in the face of perpetual motion through multifaceted environments. The velocity of this passage is accelerated through new technologies, but as a result how does this impact upon our encounter with place and our attempt to communicate this to elsewhere? Through an exhibition, symposium and workshop series Dislocate will examine this encounter and communication, taking a journey through surrounding spaces and exploring our transient connections.
Propelled through so many spaces with such momentum, mobility brings freedoms but also responsibilities. While in this state of passage how do we decide which spaces to engage with and what is our dialogue with them?
Considering the locations we constantly carry with us, the interaction between the internal/external, virtual/physical, real/imaginary, our locatedness is multiple, fragmentary and in constant flux. Nomadic in structure the festival will focus upon our kinetic force through these various intersecting sites. Employing transitions by foot, bike and public transportation Dislocate will form an expedition into the diverse routes of the city and its hidden spaces, while questioning our relation to the ground beneath our feet.
In this state of transit does our mode of transport isolate us from that which we travel through? Is there a destination? And how do we know when we have arrived?
Documentation http://dislocations.wordpress.com/ Press Release http://eonsbetween.net/press.pdf
07
The city is no longer built of concrete, a static posture no longer endures. Our surroundings have become a malleable space which can be warped, spliced and expanded at will. We no longer stand in one place alone, a mass convergence of coordinates is taking place beneath our feet.
As we traverse these points of perpetual motion we are enclosed by structures of elsewhere, met with the sliding walls of other places which lead us through a never ending maze. Shrouded in alternative layers of space, we escape to another confinement through the mesh of new media.
As our presence is extended by the veins of technology our sense of space is transformed, our nervous system stems through endless reaches of universal skin. Our eyes see through a thousand windows, each with a different view, a collision of a multitude of global sounds meets our ears, our fingers pass beyond tiers of materiality. But can we see what is before us? Are we listening to the resonance of our surroundings? Can we feel the texture of this place?
Engaged in distant or imaginary space, we flick through the channels with our remote control and choose when to plug in when to switch off. But as we are absorbed by these electronic pulses are we disappearing from the here and now?
Personal technologies offer a kaleidoscopic sensation of a multi-layered existence, but perhaps may also provide a microscope by which to examine the place which we are in at this moment.
Dislocate 07 – Festival for Art, Technology and Locality
Dislocate brings together a group of over 30 international artists in an exhibition, symposium and workshop series in Tokyo and Yokohama. Considering the spacial and social dislocation which can occur through technology, these artists are investigating how new media can be rooted in its specific location and form a meaningful relationship between ourselves and our surroundings.
Dislocate aims to explore the potential new media has to increase our awareness of our environment, enhance participation in our locality and community and transform our perceptions of the space we inhabit.
This project presents cutting edge approaches to new technology art but with a view to seeing beyond the technology itself, examining what lies past the screen.
Dislocate prompts us to reconsider the alternative uses of the personal technologies which surround us, not merely offering an escape route from our current situation but also a tool to actually confront this very location.
With an endless array of spaces available to us, we can select our contexts of participation like the channels of a television. We may be highly active in an online space, engrossed in our constructed personal space, but by choice or otherwise we may distance ourselves from our immediate surroundings. We are presented with the freedom of ‘unlimited’ possibilities and yet are we making these decisions consciously or are they occurring without thought?
Dislocate considers the very integration of new media with the environment and this might be utilized to consciously reconnect with our location, seeking to explore, question and debate how can technology be used to heighten our engagement with our surroundings instead of isolating us from our immediate space.
When numerous places converge in one site, how do we navigate such space? How does our interaction within a given space formulate identity and how can this be communicated effectively to elsewhere?
Participating Artists:
Active Ingredient, Christian Nold, Dan Belasco Rogers, DFuse, Taeyoon Choi, So Hyeon Park, Erik Pauhrizi, Stanza, Yuko Mohri, Ryosuke Akiyoshi, Disinformation, Augmented Architectures, Martin Callanan, Frank Abbott, Sascha Pohflepp, Andreas Schlegel and Vladimir Todorovic, Mouna Andraos, Miguel Andrés-Clavera and Inyong Cho, Laurent Pernot, Esther Harris, Andreas Zingerle, Julian Konczak, Genevieve Staines, Marco Villani, So Young Yang, Liu Zhenchen, Nisha Duggal, Lori Amor & Kevan Davis, Maria Raponi, Lisa Mee, Leo Morrissey, Cary Peppermint & Christine Nadir, Anne-Marie Culhane, Jomi Kim, Harry Levene & Jon Pigrem, Naoko Takahashi, Son Woo Kyung
06
2006 saw the inauguration of the Dislocate project presented at Ginza Art Lab and its Satellite space in Koiwa.
We constantly swim through an invisible sea of hidden reality – our environment is not formed only by our physical surroundings but of its multiplicity of insubstantial networks – constantly transmitting and receiving.
Physical geography is being transcended, psycho-geography is extended.
We are never located in just one space.
Here is not just here but also there.
‘Dislocate’ is an exhibition examining the tensions between the local and the global – the elements and identity of one local space which are simultaneously intersected by countless global links and influences.
Full artist listing:
Keiko Takahashi, Allen Coombs, Jean Gabriel Periot, Kim Collmer, Collectif_fact, Marina Chernikova, Myriam Thymes, Lee Arnold, Anthony Kelly and David Stalling, Andrew Wood, Nick Cope and Tom Howle, Akiko and Masako Takada, Ricard Gras, James Patterson, Takayo Sugiyama, Eve Vergano, Steffen Blum, Yoshinori Niwa, Yuko Mohri, Jeanie Finlay, Christophe Charles and Rob Flint, Lori Amor, Kevin Jones, David Thomas, Sara Heitlinger, Catherine Clover
exhibition
Dislocate is concerned with offering audiences the opportunity to experience a diverse range of engaging practices from both Japan and internationally-based artists. Artists from all over the globe have come together to present works which challenge the viewer to identify their own notions of place and question how they may interact and respond to these practices from their own location. The exhibitions have always taken place over two or more sites, including different cities, encouraging the audience to move between different spaces and experience the different particularities revealed here. The exhibitions although having a base within a gallery space are increasingly designed to be encountered beyond this controlled space, going out onto the streets and exploring the surrounding city while engaging with the work. This physical exploration supports new realisations of the surrounding spaces and its interplay with other locations.
workshops
The key to Dislocate is participation and engagement. It is a platform from which new dialogues can emerge and it is vital that both artists and audiences are equally involved in this process. This is why Dislocate has initiated a wide range of events which include performance, workshops and symposia. They allow alternative forms of presentation and participation in which audiences can make significant contributions to the progress and direction of the events, they can deepen their knowledge and understanding of new media art and offer their own experiences and perspectives too.
2006
Mapping Workshop - The workshop held in the Ginza area investigated ideas of overmapping. Participants were encouraged to think about a route they regularly took through the city – such as their walk to the station, their walk to work etc. They created maps of these routes with key points along the way showing places of interest or places which have some meaning to them. These maps were then overmapped onto the area of Ginza, with the gallery space as the starting point. We then each followed the routes which had been outlined within their new environment and compared the points of interest to the actual surroundings of the area – hospitals became sake bars, shrines became banks, pet shops became convenience stores.
2007
Active Ingredient’s Ere Be Dragons offered a multi-player game which is played by the beat of your heart and your physical location. Attached to a heart rate monitor and holding a GPS enabled PDA, participants navigated the surrounding streets in accordance with the virtual territory they created on their hand-held screens.
In Christian Nold’s Emotion Mapping workshop participants were given a chance to map their emotional responses to the streets of Yokohama. Fitted with a special device which measures the body’s state of agitation, along with global positioning, participants freely roamed their environment and noted points of interest, excitement and fear. After their travels their data was downloaded and a visualisation of their route and their agitation levels mapped.
Taeyoon Choi in ‘Shoot me if you can’ undertook a competition between two teams, using their mobile phones to shoot (photograph) their opponents. In a furious game of digital tag, players hurled through the streets, darted around corners and plunged for cover in this fast pace, exhilarating game.
2008
Exploring the pathways of Yokohama
Yokohama is famous as a port of exchange, a gateway for international relations, a historical site of both commercial and cultural trade. With its various inlets and outlets, Yokohama is a buzzing network of transactions and communications. But with our rapid movement through fluctuating lines how can we take account of each footstep? Utilizing these networks, trains, subway, roads, alleys in a scrutinization of the moving city, workshops will set out an expedition in which we reflect upon our roaming through urban space and the fleeting exchanges which occur here.
live events
Dislocate also includes a number of live events presenting performance, sound and live video. Offering yet another dynamic angle to Dislocate’s explorations, spontaneity, improvisation and a direct relationship to the audience are defining elements of these presentations.
symposium
Dislocate initiated its symposia series in 2007 in order to provide a platform for in-depth debate and discussion upon the pressing points of new media and locality. This event again brings together international artists/curators/theorists in the exploration of our conceptualization of space and the impact of emerging technologies upon our relationship with our surroundings.
Participants have included:
2007
Active Ingredient (UK), Christian Nold (UK), Dan Belasco Rogers (UK), Augmented Architectures (UK), Taeyoon Choi (Korea), So-Hyeon Park (Korea), Sascha Pohflepp (Germany), Inyong Cho (Korea), Yuko Mohri (Japan), Vladimir Todorovic (Singapore)
2008
Kentaro Taki (Japan), Venzha Christ (Indonesia), Proboscis (UK), Open City (UK), Tapio Makela (Finland), Exonemo (Japan), Matt Adams (UK), Drew Hemment (UK), Norimichi Hirakawa (Japan), Yukiko Shikata (Japan), Georg Russegger (Austria), Alistair Gentry (UK)
