What is the UM Festival?

Using Our Illusions

UM: International Festival for Experimental Intermedia is a four-day festival programme taking place between 12-15 Nov 2009, across various venues in central Lisbon, with the exhibition continuing until 23 Nov.

The event includes exhibitions, workshops, talks, concerts, performances and public works, with internationally renowned artists, musicians, academics, designers, architects and practitioners taking part.

UM aims to go beyond the limited term of ‘media art’ and instead present ‘intermedia’ practices, as a combination of art forms, which focus on concept, communication, realisation and implication. Within the exhibition, talks and workshops emphasizes is placed on cross-over, experimental and socially engaged practices, which take risks, extend ideas and bring together different approaches and techniques.

As one of the only kind of festival’s currently taking place in Portugal, UM aims to support the presentation and dissemination of contemporary intermedia practices from Portugal, as well as bring leading international artists to the country. Drawing on open curational approaches to programming, this year music promoters and curators, QuJunktions (UK) and Prof. Jussi Ängeslevä (FI/DE) from the Digital Media class, The Berlin University of the Arts/Universität der Künste Berlin have been invited to input into the programme selection.

Landscape: 2009 Festival Theme

Established in 2008, this is the second edition of the festival. Each year UM is guided by a theme, which in 2009 focuses on the concept of ‘landscape’. The concept of landscape originates from the 15th century, where ‘landschaft’ was used to describe a shaped or domesticated land. The word was later used by the Dutch, in the 17th century, where ‘landschap‘ or ‘landskip‘ was used to describe a painting of a particular place, which was perceived as a scope or space. Today the word is commonly coupled with notions of place, nature, view, scenery, environment, as well as romantic or nostalgic notions of the rural.

Within the social sciences and humanities landscape also refers to the complex social construction of how space is organised and produced.  On a fundamental level, landscape is about human presence in the world, it is what we ’see’, our panoramic, from any single (static or mobile) point of view. In this respect landscape can be considered an constructive process, it is a way of seeing the world and our imagined relations to it. It is an active process, whereby the external world is mediated through human subjective experience, this in turn not only informs our sense of reality and self but also enables us to act, to move, to transform – to use our illusions.

The works selected for the exhibition, talks, workshops and performances explore this by considering the inter-relationships that inform the perception and construction of our landscape. Special attention has been placed on works which directly or indirectly address the extension of our perceptual facilities and how they assist us to processes our relations within the world.  In particular the works selected conceptually address issues of awareness, information and control, mediation and empowerment, loss and disappearance, habit and tradition. In their form and aesthetic they are objects, techniques and tools which provide the space to allow for the consideration of alternatives, informing us of our position, differences and the limits, which can open or close possible landscapes and realities.

What is happening?

Exhibtion

This years exhibition returns to the ECV Fiat Garage space in Santos, where last year we took over this car garage and launched UM. This years exhibition shows a mix of sound and installation objects, screen, photographic and mobile based-works, many of which adopt new and existing technologies to visualize, concepts of landscape.

André Gonçalves (PT) sound piece ‘Trigger Happy’ is a historical record or projection of canned laughter over seventy years, reflecting on how media influences the ways in which we communicate and express our emotions.  Jodi Rose’s (AU) iambic, global bridge project, maps the unique soundscapes of bridges across the world and will be creating a specific output based on Lisbon bridges. John Klima’s (US/PT) piece ‘The Great Game’ a hacked kiddie-ride installation comments on information control and ownership of data. While the visualisation of our everyday, habitual movements in particular locations is picked up by CADA’s mobile phone piece, ‘Time Machine’. Julius von Bismarck’s (DE), award winning piece, ‘Image Fulugator’,  is a specially made device which intercepts the flash  digital cameras in public space and overlays other images on the one taken. His pieces brings up questions of how photographic images are used to construct and edit our perceptions. Similarly ‘Artificial Smile’ by  Andreas Schmelas & Stefan Stubbe (DE) is also a device which overlays the perfect smile on the any facial image taken and clearly shows how media tools, often ‘re-touch’ our worlds, in order to given the illusion of perfection. Teike Haapoja (FI), also exposes how the camera can capture often unseen elements of life and her poetic life-size projection, uses infra-red cameras, tracks the cooling down of a horse body as it dies. Sanda Dick & Lukas Hartman (DE), also considers  extended camera techniques presenting her project ‘Monitor Photography’ which demonstrates how a laptop can become a portal photo developing unit. Questioning the way in which architectural images are constructed and the kinds of physical representations they tend to be privalge is at the heart of Torsten Posselt, Benijamin Maus, Frederic Gmeiner (DE) work, which using algorithm techniques to re-map our visions of physical space and it’s construction.

Music

The UM music programme brings a feast of delights, opening with a new musical adventure on the 13th Nov at ZDB (doors open 22.00). Extending your aural landscape, this evening is a co-production with the avant-garde music promoters and curators QuJunktions (UK) who bring their QuWack concept to the festival. The evening opens with local turntable maestros, Whit playing live. This is followed by the QuWack event, an international and local ’special selection’ of sound artists and musicians. Together they will play a ‘game’ of musical tag, with each performer following the other in succession, playing solo and  collaborative. Fresh sounds will  emerge as  Infitive Livez, (UK/DE), Team Brick, Kapulto (UK) and Alfredo Carajillo, Gabriel Ferrandini (PT) and DJ Sniff (US/NL), play and pass their sounds and beats to create an unfolding, live and improvised music-gig-installation. This experimental evening is followed by a live, dance-inspired set from Lisbon, home-boy Mr. Gasparov (PT/ES) and Bass Clef (UK), who will be rocking the house with their live dub, 2-step and electro inspired tunes, in MusicBox on the 14th (doors open 23.00).

Talks and Workshops

UM talks and workshop focus on extending the pedagogical, conceptual and techniques behind the works select and the theme of landscape. Over the core festival dates (12-15 Nov) coversation presentations will be given focusing on: Consciousness and Landscape; Perception and Representation-Computational Ways of Seeing and Tuned Spaces. Speakers include internationally renowned artists and practitoners in their field, including Carsten Stabenow (DE), Emanuel Pimenta (PT/CH), Dmitry Gelfand and Evelina Domnitch (RU/NL), and Terike Haapoja (FI). Each session provides the space for more in-depth discussion and debate. The 2009 series of workshops focus on contemporary conceptual thinking and design approaches with STEIM, (NL) Unsworn Industries, (SE) and Prof.  Jussi Ängeslevä (FI-DE) leading on specific techniques and ideas.

Look forward to seeing you at UM!