For amber'08 body process arts festival, We are interested in installations that explore the theme of “Inter-passive Persona” in the here and now of the digitalizing world. However we remind you not to shy away from participating if you cannot readily link the festival theme to your work. We see the festival theme as a tool to think and work with in our larger collective effort of developing an artistic expression of technology. You, the artist alone will define what it inspires and allows.
We also encourage outdoor interactive installations all over Istanbul.
The selected artworks among the submissions will be exhibited in amber'08.
This year amber’08 is featuring a new event called “interactive games” as part of the festival exhibition.
It will feature various game concepts that can be experi¬mented and played by the audience. This event will be very interesting and attractive to the young generations and all game lovers. The games that will be exhibited operate on new interaction concepts that are not based on the mouse or keyboard. The player literally participates and interacts in the game by using his voice, body and movement in a variety of innovative ways.
This exhibition will be realised in the collaboration with M2F from France. Beside the invited works BISD will announce an international call for art/game works. The works chosen from among the ap¬plications will be exhibited in this section alongside the invited ones.
Interactivity is celebrated and enjoyed for the comfort and convenience it brings into our lives, and the aesthetic and practical possibilities it opens up for all creative activity. Efficiency, speed, fluidity, a frictionless flow of things, precision of form and an infinite multiplication of virtual possessions in the digital universe come to mind. Interactive technologies rearticulate our relations to ourselves and to others.
In today's digitalizing world, we access closed and invisible systems that operate on a global scale via our network-connected personal computers. We take on an ever-increasing role in this network of relations that is itself based on interactive technology. Our bodily disposition and movement, consciously or unconsciously partakes in digital interactivity. We interact with machines and others as we interact with others through machines. The information produced as a result of this interaction takes on an independent life as data but continues to somehow represent our real self. On the other hand, the information as an independant existence, do not belong anymore to ourselves and become an active subject, which determines the limitations of our connection to the external world on our behalf.
In this brave new World, in the now and here determined by digital technologies, are we really and completely active subjects? Or do we also need to talk about an interpassive personality?
Amber'08 will focus on the emerging subjectivity under the reign of the digital. Through a variety of artistic, technological and philosophical exhibits, it aims to explore and question our new persona shaped by the logic and concept of interactivity.
amber festival is one of the projects of BIS (Body Process Arts Association)
BIS (Beden-İşlemsel Sanatlar Derneği / Body Process Arts Association) is an Istanbul based initiative that aims to explore artistic forms of expression at the conjunction of the body and the digital process. It was founded in 2007 as an association by a team of researchers and artists from disciplines such as dance, performance, design, social sciences and engineering. The founders of amber came together in order to create a local discussion and production platform on art and technology in a globalized World itself transformed by new technologies.
BIS defines its area of interest through the wording of its subtitle. The concept of body-process refers to the inevitable relation between the modern human body and technological processes and tools. Starting from the observation that new technologies increasingly manage practical and critical aspects of our lives such as communication, health and security, this concept orients itself to think about the fluid boundaries between body and technology and the consequences of their interaction. The concept of body-process arts envisages artistic forms that explore, think, embody and question this complex and multifaceted relationship.
for more information on BIS: www.a-m-b-e-r.org
amber'08 Organization Committee
Advisory Committee:
Meltem Aksoy, Elif Ayiter, Derya Bigalı,
Beral Madra, Nilgün Mirze, Aydın Siller, Ali Yurtsever
Art Director & Project Manager:
Ekmel Ertan
Concept:
Ekmel Ertan, Nafiz Akşehirlioğlu
Organization Managers:
Serap Öztürk, Özlem Alkış
Event Organizers:
Nafiz Akşehirli (seminars)
Gizem Candemir (artist presentations)
Public Relations:
Handan Yalvaç Kaplan
(PR company to be identified)
Production:
Kemal Yiğitcan
Gülay Yiğitcan
amber Festival Identity Design:
Alişan Çırakoğlu
amber'08 Identity Design:
Güneş Resul
Graphic Design and Application:
Gizem Candemir
Web Design and Application:
Ekmel Ertan,
Çağlar Akpınar
amber’08, the largest international event in Arts and New Technologies in Turkey, will take place in between
7-16 November 2008 in Istanbul with a variety of venues.
amber is an annual festival organized by Body-Process Arts Association that aims to create, develop and promote a discussion platform, the researches and the creation in performance arts and technology in Turkey, by an art form that uses new technologies and the potentials of the human body.
please visit amber'07 web site for the information about previous festival.
The festival will host a variety of performances, interactive installations, seminars and workshops by international and local group of artists and thinkers. amber’08 will offer an opportunity for artistic exchange and cooperation as well as will constitute an opportunity for Istanbul art audiences and young artists to view and experience an avant-garde art form as executed by artists from different cultural backgrounds.
The works that will be exhibited in amber’08 will seek to transcend the usual “audience-artwork” relationship based on a passive gaze. Instead, the interactive aspect of the works will invite the audience into being a bodily participant in the artwork. Thus each artwork turns to an experience for the audience. The audiences become the subject and the object through the artwork that is experienced. The exhibited artworks will employ computers, electronic devices, sensors, motion capture devices and special softwares.
ACTIVITIES
Stage performances involve performance groups that focus on the interrelations amongst body and technology through the use of various interactive forms and devices on the stage. Amber’08 invites well-known artists and art groups who are creating multimedia stage shows to İstanbul.
Interactive Installations seek to produce an interactive and participatory environment by inviting
and including the viewer into the artwork. Beside the invited artworks, amber opens a call for installation artists around the theme. This year, around 15-20 installations will be exhibited in different
venues during the festival.
BISD will organize regular guided tours in the exhibition venue for the children from the schools or foundations that are working with children, during the festival.
Special Event “GAME” :This year amber’08 is organizing a new event “interactive games” as part of the exhibition. There will be various game concepts in this sections which will be experimented
by the audience. We think that this new section will be very interesting and attractive for young generation and game lovers. The games that are exhibited in this new section will feature the new interaction concepts which are not based on mouse or keyboard. The player participates to game by using his-her voice, body, etc and interacts with it in a variety of innovative means.
This exhibition will be realised with the collaboration of M2F from France. Beside the invited works BISD will announce an international call for art/game works. The works choosen among the applications
will be presented in this section beside the invited ones.
Workshops focus on a particular artistic or technological question or issue and involve an in depth collective study/experimentation session led by an expert in the field. These workshops will be designed on different levels based on specific needs for artists, technicians, children and students. The workshops are one of the key event group of the festival.
Artists’ Presentations involve individual presentations by artists on their work and methods. This presentations give the audiences a chance to meet and discuss with the artists. A night of artists presentations “DÖRTYÜZSANİYE” will be organized by difüzyon as a night long event.
Seminars involve an in-depth discussion of the questions and issues raised by the festival theme and the exhibited artwork. Seminars will be held in two groups in the first weekend of the festival. The first day the artists will give talks about their work or about the field, country, etc. that they work. The second day artists, thinkers and theoreticians will talk around the festival theme.
Activities for Children are an important feature of the festival which includes stage performances and workshops. In addition to those, everyday arranged guided tours will be organized for children
and young audience in the exhibition space.
Parties aim at developing the communication among the community beside the audience and the artists. Parties also will include performances that are based on new technologies.
Networking Meeting take place in the last day of the festival starting at 2008 which will be the initiation meeting of the amberNet. This new network project covers the neighbor countries and Middle East countries this year, which will be extended to Caucasian and Turkic countries in the following years. This new network aims at creating a regional platform for the artists from Middle East, Turkic and Caucasian countries, and also create a firm connection to the west.
Special Performance “IMMEDIATE Project”: amber’08 will host the first presentation of the project “IMMEDIATE” in Istanbul. IMMEDIATE (“Immersive Media Dance Integrating in Telematic Environments”) is a research and creation project led by CIANT (Prague) with the participation of 5 organizations from European countries. BISD is one of the partners of the project. IMMEDIATE project is supported by EU in the frame of Culture 2007-2013.
The project aims at creating an immersive, telematic, multimedia stage performance.