<nettime> Utopia Reversed - An assault on neurospace [Weimar, May 26-27]

[Matteo Pasquinelli <matteopasquinelli@gmx.it>]

UTOPIA REVERSED - An Assault on Neurospace

A two-day meeting in Weimar about new forms of art and activism hitting
the global mind

Weimar, May 26-27, 2005, h20-22.
Schiller Festival, Utopia Baustelle
www.schillerfestival.com/Utopie/10_Reversed.html


What is today's space for political and artistic action? From political
utopia to TV imagery to cyberspace, different kinds of 'space' have been
populated in contemporary culture. A group of Italian and French
activists will gather in Weimar trying to explore and discuss new spaces
and new strategies of activism after the internet. Under the concept of
'neurospace' Matteo Pasquinelli, media theorist from Bologna and editor
of Rekombinant, will focus on the convergence between popular imagery
and networked environment. Technology-based activism is turning into
biopolitical forms of communication: not simply counter-information or
media activism but the production of new collective subjectivies and
narrations. Just back from the EuroMayDay 005 mobilizations, Alex Foti
will tell tales of San Precario, the new icon of metropolitan resistance
from net/temp/flex and precarious workers in Italy, while Zoe Romano
will introduce Serpica Naro, the open source stylist whose multi-level
media hoax caused waves of panic among Italian fashion designers.
Turning to social reactions to mediascape, Andr=E9 Gattolin will look at
the activities of the Anti-Pub Brigades, a French movement that fights
against the visual dominance of commercial ads in the urban public
space. Sara Massaccesi from Rome will illustrate Guerriglia Marketing's
modus operandi in the brandscape. The Milan-based game developer Paolo
Pedercini will screen his Molle Industria project, which has alredy been
covered by the BBC in its treatment of 'political videogames'.

Curators: Jan Hendrik Brueggemeir, Matteo Pasquinelli.


PROGRAM

Thursday, May 26, 20-22h.
Introduction and presentations with:

    - Matteo Pasquinelli, Bologna/London (www.rekombinant.org)
    An Assault on Neurospace: New forms of art and activism hitting on
    the global mind

    - Paolo Pedercini, Milan (www.molleindustria.it)
    Molle Industria: Gaming as a new radical language

    - Andre Gattolin, Paris (www.hns-info.net, www.stopub.tk)
    The Antipub movement: From underground to "no ground"


Friday, May 27, 20-22h.
Presentations and final debate with:

    - Alex Foti, Milan (www.sanprecario.info, www.euromayday.org)
    San Precario: The Italian icon of flexible revolt

    - Zoe Romano, Milan (www.serpicanaro.com, www.chainworkers.org)
    Serpica Naro: Subvertising the fashion industry

    - Alex Foti + Zoe Romano
    May Day 005: Euroradicals fighting precarization across Neuropa

    - Sara Massaccesi,  Rome (www.guerrigliamarketing.it,
www.espropriproletari.com)
    Guerriglia Marketing: brand economy encounters social conflict



More material, slides and articles available soon on:
www.schillerfestival.com/Utopie/10_Reversed.html

Some webcams on the Utopia baustelle:
www.thueringer-webcams.de/weimar/theaterplatz/fullsize.jpg
www.corneliaerdmann.de/venezia/Weimar.htm



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