1.Edwin van der Heide’s Laser Sound Performance is being presented nightly here at Usine C. Smoky beams of radiant colour slice through the open industrial space. Violent or spectacular – you be the judge when it is presented in Ottawa Monday as part of House of Orange at the Mercury Lounge.
2.If you don’t already know about the work W2 out of Vancouver is doing, go here now and find out more. Really…right now.
3.The pervasivness of technology in the everyday has been highlighted more than once here, and what comes to be most interesting is not always what the gadget is or how it is designed to operate, but rather, how artists and collectives are going out into the world to make use of it, to use it speak to the time in which we live, or to slip themselves clandestinely into the gaps left in the inbetween. Many of the artists who have presented here have chosen to use their work as a way of activating public space, of attempting to foster a two-way dialogue between “the public” and the technology around them. Many of these projects have been smart, thoughtful and genuine; however, we need to think more about the responsibility of artists who create work where “the public” is directly implicated. It is not enough to give provide someone with an app for their iPhone and send them to roam in the city, nor is it fair to assume that only one “public” exists, nor that all “publics” have the same opportunities or technological access. What are the social responsibilities of artists who create interactive work in the public sphere?
Tags: Elektra, Festival, Field Trip, Lasers, W2