Transmediale festival 2008 was hosted in various locations all over the beautiful (and large) city of Berlin. The main base for the festival was the House of World Cultures, a gift to Germany from the USA in 1957 to celebration the defeat of fascism and the fight against communism. The building itself is vast and beautiful, much like the city. The shape is unusually sculpted and is reminiscent of the star ship Enterprise form Star Trek with its futuristic modernist design.
Berlin has been described by Karl Scheffler in 1910 as“a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being.", so perhaps it was a rather apt location to host a festival for art and digital culture. Digital media is constantly evolving and changing and is never easy to define or explain; like the city of Berlin, it is in constant flux. The building in which the festival was set was much the same. The rooms and spaces in which the festival took place were constantly regenerating themselves over the 5 day festival breathing new life into spaces which were initially taken for granted. Every area and space was used in some way to show work or explain ideas.
The introduction to the festival attempted to explain the theme, which this year was “conspire”. A piece by Kimsooja called Respirare was shown before the talk and consisted of the sound of someone’s breathing becoming faster and faster and more intense as the colour of the screen changed gradually throughout. During the talk itself it was explained that the act of breathing together fitted with the theme of conspire. Breathing together was the basis of many conspiracies. The book of Genesis explains how God created Man through divine breath. Now, what has been created by man is breathing. Factories, cars and machinery are expelling CO2 gasses and other toxins which are severely affecting our planet. 2007 was explained as being a historic year when we finally began to wake up and take notice of climate change and began the climate debate. The debate itself has been the subject for potential conspiracy, with some experts claiming that the climate change is the earth’s natural progression through its various stages and cycles. It was stated that this festival could be seen as being a “climatologist’s conference”, with many of the pieces displayed, seminars and lectures focussing these climate issues and conspiracies. Some pieces address our love /hate relationship with conspiracy and explore who is terrorising who, and in what context. The aim of the festival, it was stated, was to reflect our technological culture in trans-disciplinary forms.
One of the quotes used by one of the speakers was by Jules Verne- "Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real." This speaker urged us to make our own links between pieces and not necessarily follow the path which the curator wanted you to follow. This reminded me of Lev Manovich’s ideas about how we follow other people’s brain structure and thinking when we follow hyperlinks.
The Building was divided into 5 main areas. The area in which the lectures were hosted was the Auditorium. The lectures were informative and theoretical. Experts who spoke came from many different backgrounds but most appeared to have an art background. The lectures usually consisted of a panel of four or five exerts speaking on a particular subject. Each gave a totally different perspective to the other and the information provided was so vast it was difficult to capture any notes at times. The talk on Web 3.0 was especially intriguing although it seemed to skirt around the actual subject instead of tackling it directly and collectively.
The Theatersaal was host to many film programmes, usually grouped together under a loosely themed title. This room was host to some of the highlights of the festival for me. The “When You’re Strange” programme was the first to be shown in the Theatersaal. This programme consisted of four films. The first and most inspirational was “Stranger Comes to Town” by Jacqueline Goss. This film used World of Warcraft avatars to tell people’s stories about their experiences entering the U.S. The avatars provided a different perspective and an anonymity which was unlike other documentary-like short films. It also provided a humorous element which was not totally appropriate to the subject matter, but proved to be engaging and interesting. Other film programmes which I attended and enjoyed included “Inside Out” with films like “Super Smile” and “Je Suis Une Bomb”; featuring a pole-dancing woman dressed in a panda suit. “A Decade Called X” was a programme put together by Marcel Schwierin. It consisted of 1950’s commercials, short films and propaganda films. Some hilarious, others disturbing and a few which contained traces of the two.
The Lounge area was always changing. When you first enter the building there were various exhibits, mostly screen based for you to interact with. Down the stairs and towards the café area there were interactive screens which change your reflection and alter information. Other screens and exhibits took place outside the Bilderburg area, which was host to seminars about many different topics from surveillance to Google.
The Exhibition area itself was vast with the space in the centre of the room occupied by a large circular area curtained off. This piece was called “A Plaything for the Great Observer at Rest”, an installation created by Normanchi Hirakuwa, which dominated the room. Other exhibits featured clouds, spaceships and flying saucers following the theme of “conspire”. Films were shown under large tilted black boxes; an immersive environment where you could completely engage with the each piece. I had to visit the exhibition many times to explore the pieces and even then, unfortunately I did not manage to see the majority of the films.
Club Transmediale took place in venues including the MAO club which usually plays avant-garde techno music and is host to world class DJ’s. This venue was transformed into an experimental music venue with artists showcasing intense and sometimes theatrical performances. The Sonic Wargame allowed four players to improvise music together by voting for each other producing various sounds. Other venues were host to more experimental music and the planetarium hosted an art piece where 1000 peacock feathers were dissolved in acid.
On Sunday, after attending the Web 3.0 lecture in the Auditorium I felt quite sad knowing that I would have to leave the festival shortly. Having spent a portion of the previous 7 days at the House of World Cultures I still felt as though I had a lot more to see and do there. Balancing experiencing the festival and resisting the lure of the city of Berlin was a difficult task. The festival, although occasionally taking itself slightly too seriously, provided a vast forum and experimental centre for people involved in all areas of digital media to gather, learn and showcase their work. The festival was a beacon attracting artists, professionals and students fro m all over the world. I enjoyed my time at Transmediale and felt inspired and refreshed when leaving the festival; I would definitely urge anyone involved in digital media to attend.
(I will add some photo’s later.)
