ART+COMMUNICATION
The 9th international festival for new media culture
May 31 – June 10, 2007
Riga, Liepaja Karosta and Aizpute

This year the 9th international festival "Art+Communication" is taking place within the framework of French Spring program from May 31 to June 10 2007 in Riga, Liepaja Karosta and Aizpute. Continuing the previous theme of "waves" festival the guiding theme for this year is focused on the relevance of "spectral ecology" in order to draw publics attention to the invisible side of electronic technologies - the density of electro-magnetic spectrum (EMS) in the environment and its effects on human and living nature today and for years to come.

Humanity has known electromagnetic waves for a century and for more than half a century the communication technologies have developed rapidly and people have been breaking into the radio spectrum..The total density of radio frequency waves penetrating every corner of the planet (and every person on it) is now 100 million times the level reaching us naturally from the Sun... What are we transmitting so intensively embracing the Earth into more and more dense layer of electromagnetic waves? .. How does that effect us and our environment?...

Electro-magnetic fields are biologically active which means that living beings react to them... Electromagnetic fields created by human gadgets effect our body, influence nature and extend beyond the boundaries of our planet… Our planet has become a source for a dense radio wave radiation in the Universe.. Every signal once transmitted on Earth continues to radiate in space…Radio, TV and satellite signals, e-mails and phone calls as well as nuclear test shock waves and military radars, experiments with low-frequency waves, even the radiation of microwave ovens… Invisible and omnipresent, electromagnetic fields have become ghosts of the modern world.

In the world constituted by electromagnetic cosmology (and industry) understanding the electromagnetic field is a way to understand ourselves and our surrounding*..
*After Bureau d’études ”Electro-magnetic propaganda. The statement of industrial dogma”, Paris, 2006.

Issues of “Spectral Ecology” are carried out from a wider point of view, considering interpretations of the post-industrial human and interconnections between the environment of his creation and the living nature. The exhibition in Riga reveals the effect of electro-magnetic radiation on human body and maps the most powerful EMS networks in Latvia. During the international conference in Liepaja topics like espionage, secret experiments and art in the context of military technology will be discussed. The event program for living and growing culture of Karosta – mushroom laboratory (LabiChampi) – use mushrooms as an organic material, an urban architectonic design form and as a key element of social communication between locals, artists and festival visitors. In closing creative workshops in Aizpute will demonstrate how the present technology myths originate.

Bureau d’études ”Electro-magnetic propaganda"

Festival program:

SPECTRAL ECOLOGY – May 31 – June 10, Riga..
Spectral Investigations Collective (FR) and RIXC (LV) artist group exhibition in RIXC Media Space and maps at public transportation stops in Riga. 31.V 12.00: opening day program opened to the public, 18.00: opening of the festival and performances. Exhibition open until June 10, 12.00-20.00. Entrance free.
Location: RIXC Media Space, 11. Novembra Krastmala 35 (entrance from Minstereja street), Riga.

ESPIONAGE TECHNOLOGIES AND ART – June 1- 2, Liepaja Karosta.
An international conference on 1.VI 14.00– 18.00 and 2.VI 11.00–17.00. 2.VI 19.00 A “Military myth“ walk trough the labyrinths of Karosta forts (guided by historian Juris Rakis).
Location: Kinoosta, boulevard Atmodas 6A, Liepaja Karosta.

LABICHAMPI – June 1 - 3, Liepaja Karosta.
Festival events for living and growing culture: 1.VI 19.00 K@2 (LV) and Exyzt (FR) opening of installation and exhibition “Mushroof”, creative workshop presentations, performances “Flying mushrooms”, DJs & VJs. 2.VI and 3.VI 11.00 – 19.00 A guided tour around the exhibition, clothes making workshops, training in mushroom growing, mush-meal and exchange of mushroom recipes, French traditional bal musette. 2.VI pl. 22.00: “Electrochampi” at Fontaine Palace club in Liepaja.
Location: Building of Prospective Karosta’s Art Center, Cesu rotas street 2, Liepaja Karosta.

TECHNOLOGY MYTHS – June 3 - 9, Aizpute.
Creative workshop program: 3.VI 11.00 A research trip to USSR army missile bases in Kurzeme. 4.VI pl. 11.00 Public presentations from participants. 5. - 9. VI Creative workshops conducted by: SIC (FR), Andrei Smirnov (RU), Kuda Begut Sobaki (RU), Sergey Teterin (RU), Rainer Prohaska (AT)
Location: Artists’ Residence Center, Atmoda street 9, Aizpute.

Festival organized by:
New media culture center RIXC (Riga / LV), Culture and information center HYPERLINK "mailto:K@2"K@2 (Liepaja Karosta / LV) and Interdisciplinary Artists Group Serde (Aizpute/ Riga / LV) in cooperation with Exyzt (Paris / FR), Ellipse (Tours / FR), Bureau d'études (Paris /FR) and Art Research Laboratory of LPA (Liepaja / LV).

Contacts:
Phone + 371 7228478, E-mail: rixc@rixc.lv

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