Organizations: invisibleNetworks: Versionfest04

Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 01:06 PM

To encourage discussions of the methods and approaches we use to move into and out of the social, economic, artistic, political and technical networks we connect to and/or disconnect from. The Version>04: invisibleNetworks convergence mobilizes a diagram of these interconnections, entry and exit points and the transmissions that occur within them. Uncover and open channels of discussion, hidden orders, unseen hands, blackboxes, backdoors, wormholes and access points. Participants in Version>04: invisibleNetworks will function as nodes and hubs in this amorphous system and construct this years' decentralized convergence.

VERSIONFEST WEBSITE
April 16 - May 1 , 2004

For two weeks an invisible network will occupy and transform city of Chicago. Collectives and nomadic societies of artmakers, musicans, resisters, bikers, radical cheerleaders, activists, journalists, theorists, cultural workers, performance artists, urban shamans, political immigrants, programmers and mediamakers are invited to swarm Chicago in order to build, deconstruct, and make public the networks of contemporary social, political and cultural practices that are reweaving strategies for building another future.

What secrets hide in/on the invisibleNetworks, behind the anonymous logins and under the masks that we wear? What are the politics, aesthetics and conceptual underpinnings of hiding and/or revealing? What tools are available to analyze those hegemonic forces that wish to remain concealed? Self-organization, resistant strategies and absorption concern these networks as they are mobilized by individuals, collectives, corporations and nation-states.

During Version>04 the public and private spaces will reveal the communications and strategies of disobedients, government agencies, psychogeographers, surveillance players, public interventionists, rogue agents, space hijackers, covert operators, digital detourners and urban planners.

Select Media co-presents and programs the annual Version festival. Recent festival themes focused on the Digital Commons (Version>02) and the Technopocalypse vs Technotopia (Version>03).

Select is an experimental critical arts project that explores the emerging aesthetics, technologies, and politics of the emerging counter cultures and contemporary arts. Select investigates threads of hybrid practices and trajectories by innovators within creative resistance milieus and the arts and academia. Our projects explore their roles, impacts and meanings in various formats and presentations. We distribute representation and extensions of these projects via our micromedia efforts, CDs, magazines, DVDS, festivals, artifacts and events.


1. Invisible College
The Invisible College is a space for open collaborative media projects, performance and workshops. Blurring the line between presentation and particpation, it's focus is on expanding social and cultural distribution networks thru using emerging, archaic and current techonology with community exchange practices. It's goal is to facilitate connections between creative and political networks by presenting, documenting and archiving projects and practices revealed during the convergence. The college will feature video production, publication and performance workshops that make use of participant media and documentations during the convergence.
The Invisble College will act as a hub and incubator for activities during Version>04. Participants may create media to be aired and presented before during and after the Version>04 convergence. All media will be archived and viewable/listenable online, in print or on air. It will feature thematicly presented programs by groups and collectives, personal projects, presentations and performances. Instead of theory the College emphasises practice and experimentation. We will learn the art of making media and generating communicable ideas.