The City Re-imagined, Re-invented!

aceartinc., Urban Shaman Gallery, Video Pool Media Arts Centre, and Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art are thrilled to present

(in)visible cities

– a performance art festival in Winnipeg’s Exchange District from September 6th to 13th, 2008.

Transforming, Shape-shifting Artists!

(in)visible cities will include live performance events by an array of internationally renowned artists including: Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Vancouver), Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan (Winnipeg), FASTWÜRMS (Creemore, ON), Jessica Thompson (Toronto), and Nhan Duc Nguyen (Vancouver). Cultural theorist Jeanne Randolph (Winnipeg) will act as (in)visible cities’ rapporteur/blogger, providing insightful commentary as festival events unfold.

You! Work it! Mix it up!

To further engage audiences as both participants in and witnesses of the work, (in)visible cities will present two performance workshops:

Performance and Activism in Everyday Life, led by Cheryl L'Hirondelle, Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, is a two-day workshop expanding ideas of performance art practice in relation to collaboration, community, and activism.

Freestyle SoundHack, led by Jessica Thompson, is a one-day workshop/performance involving the creation of wearable sound pieces that generate and broadcast electronic beats as users move through urban environments.

Meet the Artists! Exchange Ideas! Incite!

(in)visible cities will also include a round-table discussion on performance practice, identity, community, agency and place.

Morphing, Resonating Cities!

The city – our city – is network of living cultures with heterogeneous but intersecting communities, systems, flows and struggles. Through presenting performance works that play out a variety of modes of social interaction with audiences, (in)visible cities provides an arena in which to further animate the stories, histories and economies of the Exchange District.

You are invited to witness and participate in events that expand possibilities for performative agency while also speaking to the politics of place – of cultural visibility and invisibility, presence and absence, utopia and urban myth, renewal and resistance. Through (in)visible cities we offer new forms for imagining how urban dwelling, telling, exchange, site and history can be reinvented.

A full festival schedule with dates, times and venues will be available by mid-August.

For more information about (in)visible cities contact:

aceartinc. Tel: 204.944.9763 Email: program@aceart.org
Urban Shaman Gallery Tel: 204.942.2674 Email: program@urbanshaman.org

(in)visible cities gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Winnipeg Arts Council’s Downtown Festival Grant Program, the Manitoba Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Generous in-kind support is provided by Canadian Goodwill Industries Corporation, Little Saigon Restaurant, and Kensington Building Ltd.

Sincere thanks also to our donors, members and volunteers; and to our community, and friends and family.

* * *

PS: Visit the (in)visible cities blog! http://invisiblecitiesperformance.blogspot.com/

2008 / 2009 Call for Submissions

Video Pool Media Arts Centre
2008 / 2009 Call for Submissions

Theme: Resistance
Deadline: Friday, March 21, 2008

Resistance is a movement, a position, an attitude, and a measure. It is an individual or collective response. It can be political, or it can relate to physical properties of the known universe. It concerns citizens. It concerns artists. It concerns that which is local as well as that which is global. It is about forces, agency, strategy, play, and subversion. It is an argument. It seeks change, or it fights to stay the same. It mobilizes. It is unconscious. It is a side effect. It is intentional and affirmative.

Video Pool invites submissions pertaining to the theme Resistance for the 2008/09 programming season. We encourage projects involving:

• New media
• Experimental electronics
• Installation (with media components)
• Audio art
• Curatorial packages (with media components)

Video Pool is particularly interested in projects that intervene in public space or otherwise make use of non-traditional exhibition settings.

Video Pool’s 2008/09 programming season will include two programs specifically focused on new media performance and single channel film and video that resist conventional thinking and/or assumptions about what constitute video and new media art practices, and possibly the environs within which they take are expected to place.


Submission Requirements:

Please note that due to funding requirements, primary consideration will be given to Canadian citizens.

All Submissions Must Include:

1. Artist/curator CV including current contact information (mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address)
2. A short description of the proposed project or video(s), including an outline of the critical and/or curatorial objectives of the work submitted
3. Names of all participating artists
4. Titles of all proposed projects/videos, as well as year of completion and city of origin
5. Exhibition history of each project, including a description of contexts within which the work will be presented in the coming year
6. A statement indicating if the artist(s)/curator(s) plan to be in attendance with the work and, if so, in what capacity they would expect to participate in the screening/exhibition
7. Support material: Please do not send originals as Video Pool will not accept responsibility for the loss of, or damage to, any support material
   - Still images should be submitted on CD (maximum 20 images, .jpg preferred, please do not exceed 72 dpi or a resolution of 1024 X 768 pixels)
   - Video support material should be NTSC and submitted on VHS, DVD, or Mini DV
   - Audio support material should be submitted on CD
8. Complete list of all audio, video, and images submitted
9. Please include a SASE if you would like your support material returned

Video Pool is committed to reflecting cultural diversity in it’s programming and thereby encourages applications from artists and curators from all communities.

Video Pool encourages the submissions of projects that are already complete or near completion.

Fees are paid in accordance with the CARFAC rate scale.


Please Direct Enquiries to:

Milena Placentile, Programming Coordinator
vpprogramming at videopool dot org
204.949.9134 ext.1


Please Send Submissions to:

Programming Committee
c/o Video Pool Media Arts Centre
#300 – 100 Arthur St.
Winnipeg, MB R3B 1H3 Canada


All submissions must be received by the deadline: March 21, 2008

Great news! Now you can "Call" and "Relay" for a little longer ;-)

*Ha ha* Sounds a little like an ad for telecom services ;-)

But really, this is great news!

Thanks to the generosity of artist Germaine Koh, volunteers participating in Call, and Artspace, Video Pool is happy to announce that Call and Relay will now be available until Tuesday, November 27, 2007. So, if you've not yet had a chance to chat with a stranger, or to send an SMS message to the whole city via roof-top lights flashing Morse code, now is your chance =-).

To participate in Call, visit the Artspace lobby and pick up the telephone receiver. To participate in Relay, send a text message to 204.951.1929.

"Help! I'm trapped on the roof! Bring coffee. Add soy."

That's just one of the many messages that has been conveyed across the Exchange, and beyond.

What else has been communicated? What have you communicated?

Relay is back up and running, and it's available until November 16. Send your message to 204.951.1929 and experience the experience of your ideas flashing their way to others!

More information about Germaine Koh's project, "Relay"

Now that those handy lil' Morse code "decoder cards" have started to circulate around the city, the telephone number temporarily designated for Relay has been receiving calls. Potential participants are seeking more information, so we've updated the voice message to direct them here.

Things you might like to know about Relay, and how to get involved:

• Participation is open to anyone with access to a cellular phone capable of sending text messages (aka SMS). Regular message charges, as per your cell phone plan, apply.
  
• Relay accepts any text message sent to the designated telephone number (204.951.9129) as per the character-length maximums established between wireless carriers.
• Your message can be personal, or public in nature. That said, please be aware that it is visible in Morse code format to anyone who can see the light flashing from the roof of Artspace. Open access public broadcast is one goal of the project, after all.
• Neither the artist nor staff of Video Pool intervene physically -- we don't approve or reject messages.

Relay will be available from October 16 - November 16, 2007, so feel free to share your thoughts with the city as often as you wish.

Don't have a decoder card yet? Now you do! Click on each of the two images below in order to access and print them in full-size...

If you have any questions, post them as a comment, and we'll update this post accordingly =-)

"Call" and "Relay" Launch on October 16!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Video Pool Media Arts Centre
in conjunction with Artspace is proud to present

Call and Relay

two projects by internationally renowned Canadian artist Germaine Koh

Winnipeg, MB (October 4, 2007) – Video Pool welcomes residents of Winnipeg to talk to strangers via two intriguing new media projects by Germaine Koh.

Call is an interactive installation involving a hacked vintage rotary-dial telephone that connects immediately to one of several volunteers as soon as the receiver is lifted. Participants are invited to experience the unique opportunity of striking up a conversation about anything or everything with an anonymous individual at the other end of the line. Interpersonal exchange with other inhabitants of our city has never been easier, and when was the last time any of us took the time to hold a random and potentially meaningful conversation with someone new?

To connect with someone through Call, just visit the Artspace lobby. You don’t even have to dial!

Relay is a subtle intervention that combines the lonely signal of a flashing navigation beacon, city electrical systems, and the invisible communications networks that surround us. A utilitarian light fixture enigmatically flashes – in Morse code – short text messages (SMS) received on a designated mobile phone number. Locally, the light will operate as a sort of bulletin board conveying news from near and far, and providing opportunities for sociability and local messaging in the immediate area and across the city. The beacon merges early technologies for communication and navigation with some of the more contemporary methods by which information and desire flow today.

Share an exciting scoop, or just say hello, by sending a text message to 204.951.1929. From the roof of Artspace, your message will be conveyed to all.

Call and Relay will be available at Artspace, 100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg, from October 16 – November 16, 2007.


Related events – All welcome

Artist talk on Tuesday, October 16 at 6:00 pm, followed by an opening reception from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at Platform Gallery, 1st floor, 100 Arthur Street.

Call and Relay are presented thanks to generous support provided by:





VIDEO POOL MEDIA ARTS CENTRE is a non-profit artist run centre dedicated to advancing the discipline of media art by providing media artists, non-profit organizations and community groups with access to professional video and media equipment, training, distribution and programming. Video Pool strives to be a national leader fostering innovation, experimentation, critical dialogue and advocacy in media arts.


Contact: Milena Placentile, Programming Coordinator
204.949.9134 ext 1
vpprogramming@videopool.org
videopool.org // videopool.blogspot.org