20 March 2003 / 2004 / 2012

Special Selection of videos from Francophone Countries
curated by Agricola de Cologne

Anthony Rousseau (France) – Climax, 2006, 1:10
Laurent Pernot (France)- Still Alives, 2005, 2.34mn
Mihai Grecu (Romania) – Coagulate, 2008, 5:56
Athanasia Leivaditou (Greece) – 1,6 S.M. OF LIFE, 2010, 7:12
Jean Gabriel Periot (France) – Nijuman no borei , 2008, 7.30
Myriam Thyes (CH/Luxembourg) – Depression Marquis, 2009, 2:23
Hamza Halloubi (Morocco) – Untitled (lait), 2007, 0:56
Virginie Foloppe (France) – “J.F.’s Toolbox” 2004, 5:50
Octavian Fedorovici (Romania) – Around 7 o’clock, 2007, 3:06
Rafael (Belgium) – Let’s Make a Deal, 2008, 3:15
Robert Quelven (France) – 8 Group, 2010, 8:00
Matthieu Capel (France) – Rupture, 2006, 4:44
Amandine Brenas (Lebanon) – Sous-pitrage, 2005, 5:44
Yasmine Issa (Lebanon) – Film Panchromatique Blanc et Noir, 2007, 1:55
Frank Gatti (France) – Slapstick Social, 2008, 15:25
Jimmy Owenns (France) – Tease, 2004, 7′00
Isabelle Schneider (France) – “Body of War II, 2006, 4:00

About the festival in Prague
ANEMIC Festival is dedicated to the discovery of independent film directors and emergent artists. Through its program, the festival seeks to discover, support, and inspire independent film and multi-disciplinary artists around the world, and to introduce audiences to their new creation. ANEMIC presents a fresh and multi-disciplinary program composed by feature, documentary and short films, digital poetry, video art, animations, interactive installations, audio-visual performances, public discussions and meetings with artists.

MAF’04 – Thailand New Media Arts Festival 2004
(excert from an article by Tom Brecelic)

Koh Samet, an island in the Gulf of Thailand, surely doesn’t look this bizarre, but there’s a virtual-reality version of the resort island in Bangkok this month that’s one of over 100 individual works from 30 countries displayed at Thailand’s Second New Media Festival (MAF-04) from March 20-28.
“The increasing use of communications technology in Thailand, combined with the unique Thai lifestyle and culture, is an excellent environment for exciting media art to emerge and fertilize the global art scene” says Festival director Francis Wittenberger, an Israeli who has spent the last ten years in top media labs in Europe.
“This year’s success was attributed to sponsorship from various institutions who provided venues and the possibility of over 30 visiting artists to arrive” (that includes the German and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lost In Space UK, Kunstpunkt Berlin, Fonds BKVB, The Flemish community’s cultural fund and local partner-venues as the Srinakarinwirot University, Alliance Française of Bangkok, The Goethe Institut Bangkok, The British Council Thailand, Banrie Café, Media Shaker Siam Co. and Oddyssee) says, Francis, a media artist himself who started the Thailand’s First New Media Art Festival last year, in the northern resort town, Chiang Mai. Thirty-three international artists participated this year compared with twelve in MAF-03.
“I also wanted to tap into institutions that may not actually have supported these kinds of creative expressions,” says Wittenberger. . “So much has been written about the political perspective of Israel in the mass media that people are not aware of the cultural and social dimensions of the country. Taking this into context, the Israeli embassy extended its support to facilitate Israeli artists and institutions for the festival.”
“The same goes for Srinakarinwirot University, the main venue sponsor of the event,” says Mr. Wittenberger, “where there are no media courses in the Faculty of Fine Arts, let alone the incentive to support a New Media Event.”
But Mr. Wittenberger isn’t deterred. He believes that Thailand is a new media haven that just needs a bit of nurturing through festivals like this. “You find teenagers at night-markets sitting on carton boxes cracking the code of the latest picture phones. These kids are potentially electronic artists.”
Mr. Wittenberger set up a platform for cross-cultural exchange in 2001, the “International Cultural Exchange Computer Activities” (ICECA), a volunteer initiative that was set up to foster cross-cultural activities in the new media field in Thailand. after being invited to participate in the “Chiang Mai Social Installation 2001”, titled “Eu-ka-Buek” where he exhibited Oman Robot, a thinking and feeling robot that was programmed to communicate in several languages as well as Thai. “Thais are innovative and ‘auto-bridge’ the gap between their traditional culture and modern lifestyle,” says Mr. Wittenberger who offered free of charge computer-related courses at Chiang Mai University Art Museum, where the inaugural festival was established in 2003.

[R][R][F] 200x —>XP
An independent cultural production in progress —>

The project was initiated in October 2003 in order to start in March 2004 the realisation of the global network by presenting [R][R][F] 2004 –>XP at Museum of Contemporary Art Bucaresti/Romania, Bergen Electronic Arts Center Bergen/Norway and New Media Art Festival Bangkok/Thailand and later at different places around the globe and starting a variety of associated processes developing and running during 2005 as [R][R][F]2005—>XP, as [R][R][F]2006—>XP in 2006 etc.

[R][R][F] 200x —>XP is an experimental New Media art project created and developed by media artist and New Media curator Agricola de Cologne which he is developing and organising completely online.

[R][R][F] 200x–>XP includes a variety of online and offline components
The basic subject –>“Memory and Identity”
The basic operating aspect –>”networking as artworking”.
The basic presentation aspect –>physical installation – the exchange/combination of virtual and physical space.

Due to its complexity, [R][R][F] 200x —>XP is constructed of two parts, a low tech administrative body which contains all relevant project related information in a textual form, and an high tech artistic body based on an interface developed in Flash. Both together form the art work to be transported or distributed via the Internet. The artistic body includes all art related components which may come from most different sources.
The interface of the artistic body refers to the human brain and its complex networking structures by visualizing them in different ways. The essential nodes of connection are reduced to some basic sections , named: “Memory Channels”. Each of these “Memory Channels” (currently eight) is focussing on different aspects of “memory and identity” – the main subject of [R][R][F] 200x –>XP – and may carry some sub-sections as well, modules which contain specific project environments or individual art works.

[R][R][F] 200x –>XP is an interactive environment. Both, the dynamic of the project becomes perceivable and the actual art work comes up only through the activity of at least one single user. But it is not only the activity of using a mouse or keyboard for exploring this net based art environment, but as the result of it the activity which is provoked by using the senses and initiating processes through associating.

In this way, [R][R][F] 200x–>XP does not represent a complete art work, but Internet specific as it is, the project is ongoing. Corresponding to the collage principle the brain is using for its associative system, the project represents rather a framework for options to start processes. By following them, the actual art work can take shape in most individual ways, in a kind of dynamic virtual sculpture, a kind of hyper-dimensional collage or patchwork.

The composition of the work is as simple and simultaneously as complex as it can be. Agricola de Cologne holds the position of a creator who is building an Universe of hisown in which most different networking instances are acting. He is creating a specific system, which is based on filtering, associating and linking on different level, starting from his personal view based on specific filters, then by inviting curators, who select artists of their choice, the next filtering and networking level is installed,. The artists who are selected via curating form the next following level. As they may come from different cultural, religious, political and social backgrounds and more than 45 countries on the globe, they are installing a complex filtering system of their own via the artworks and the specific view the art work is based on. Each included art work has and gets a very special meaning in this networking context.
The active user anywhere on the globe, finally, forms another level by contributing his personal filtering system via associating and reflecting, it is him who is initiating actively processes which lead finally to his personal art work.
The term “global” has a fundamental meaning in many concerns, not only related to the global aspect in terms of this Universe the creator is building, but even more to the networking structure the creator is installing in the global context of this “one” world we all are living in, by inviting/involving/incorporating physical networking instances as curators, artists, institutions, organisations etc, which can form the basis for external/affiliated local networks consisting optionally again of a variety of virtual and physical components, but also in the sense of distributing the specific project contents which may have again complex relations to the term “global”.
Without the existence and the rapid developments of the new (and above all affordable) communicating technologies and the virtual environment of the Internet, which allows communicating in real time to any place on the globe, a project like [R][R][F] 200x –>XP would have never been started .Agricola de Cologne is using these technologies in most different ways according their rules –>the Internet as a whole not only as a database, but as an environment for creating art, for distributing net based art in its various forms and in this way the specific content of his project via the net in real time to any part on the globe.
Thus, “networking” in terms of “ artworking” is not reduced to a certain aspect of artistic creating in which several artists work on a common project under mutual influence and inspiration, but includes all possibible elements and their mutual relation and dependence the actively involved networking instances are producing .
Networking is a specific form of communicating, and communicating as such forms the fundament of the project, in general. Consequently, an essential part of the project consist of components which may become visible only as the result of a communicating process, but are actually acting entirely in the background , as the communicating between the physical networking instances which keep the project running.
The exchange/communication between physical and virtual space has a specific relevance. One main goal of [R][R][F] 200x–>XP represents its installation/presentation in physical space at locations in most different parts on the globe, whereby [R][R][F]200x —>XP does not provide any physical component, but exclusively its art related contents distributed via the Internet. Each single physical installation represents an unique action, not only due to the different conditions space and the dimension the technical equipment may have, but also to the inclusion of new aspects and components in this continuously expanding project environment.
[R][R][F] 200x —>XP is an open system, not in the sense of “open source”, but, independently from any restricting ideology, it is open for all developments which might come .
Agricola de Cologne shows himself as a universal instance which incorporates most different functions in one single person, in first place the artist, but also the programmer & multi-media developer of its content, the creator of an universe of itsown, a director of a virtual institution, the chief –curator who curates curators, the curator who curates artist and contents, the co-ordinator and organiser of virtual and physical events, initiator and central networking instance withing the entire networking structure, but rather as a “primus inter pares” than in an hierarchic sense.