Future Places. Porto, Portugal, 2009

The totality of radiofutura´s broadcast during futureplaces is now available on web stream… in perpetuity.

Listen here.

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futureplaces 2009 continues! We are currently gathering coverage and feedback, and will be sharing this throughout the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned.

For now, you can check the new poststop website and coverage of a New Zealand breakfast served in Porto by radiofutura. There are also flashmob photos by Ana Parada on flickr, and David Fodel´s piece Where is Love on youtube. Also, Hye Yeon Nam has some cool shots on her flickr photostream, and radio zero has some great behind-the-scenes shots of radiofutura in action.

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The jury´s verdict is out! Thanks to Hugh Forrest, Karen Kocher and Cristina Sá for an excellent job.

These are the winners of the FUTUREPLACES Exhibition 2009. You can see the futureplaces 2009 exhibition at Maus Hábitos, until October 25.

FIRST PRIZE:

Outhouse

Installation
Brian Cohen. TRAX

First place is awarded to Outhouse, from Brian Cohen and his team from TRAX. Using an outhouse to serve as a semi-public video confessional booth, this project redefines society’s last bastion of privacy and intimacy. Equipped with four doors in but only one door out, this project is not just a humorous gimmick but it is a serious tool for enhancing the knowledge, development and preservation of community. Combining innovation, creativity, originality, and digital technology, Outhouse unites yesterday and today in a way that cuts to the heart of the ongoing mission of the Future Places Festival.

SECOND PRIZE:

Oporto-Brooklyn Bridge

Interactive Sound Installation
Naomi Kaly & Alyssa Casey

Second place goes to the Oporto-Brooklyn Bridge installation by Naomi Kaly and Alyssa Casey. Based on their observation that the Dom Luis I Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge roughly reflect one another across a horizontal access, their elegant project explores the thin line where two different linguistic and cultural territories can connect and engage in conversation. The engaging and very tactile project allows for user created conversation, as well as deep reflection on the metaphor of wire in today’s digital society.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Wonderland

Video
Hye Yeon Nam

The second honorable mention is Wonderland, created by Hye Yeon Nam from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Hye’s video of walking backwards throughout downtown Manhattan quickly creates a sense of unease and discomfort for even the most casual of viewers. Her simple and very understandable idea immediately captures her difficult experience in assimilating to a new culture.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Master and Margarita

AV Performance
Video Jack (André Carrilho and Nuno Correia)

The first honorable is Master and Margarita by André Carrilho and Nuno Correia of Video Jack. Their performance piece mixes music, video, and digital technology to give a fresh interpretation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic book about Stalinist Russia. This ever-evolving piece reinforces our understanding of how narratives change every time they are performed and every time they are re-visited.

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* 2pm – 4pm

VENUE: MAUS HÁBITOS
WIFP
informal talks around digital media research projects in progress.

Projects include memoriafutura.org, culturalivre.eu, oncologiapediatrica.org. Ideas include How to go digital with a local brand, Time machines and Europe through typography.

* 4:30pm – 6pm
VENUE: MAUS HÁBITOS
THE FUTURE WILL GO BACKWARDS
Sound seminar by Jon Wozencroft.
…Which is a riposte to Althusser’s famous work, “L’Avenir Dure Longtemps” (translated by his American publishers as “The Future Lasts Forever”).
The seminar is a partial examination as to why the sense of the future seems to have collapsed in contemporary Western society. Recent art and music-related initiatives such as Jem Finer’s “Longplayer” and Brian Eno/Stewart Brand’s “Long Now Foundation” suggest that life will be STILL THERE in the year 2525. One of Jenny Holzer’s aphorisms is more succinct – “The future will be stupid”. Of course, this is not the promise of the scientific and pharmaceutical sectors, who suggest ’smart drugs’ and neural implants will accelerate the intelligence of the general population. So are we, in fact, going through the final process of “dumbing down” before emerging like a phoenix species from the ashes?
One of the more elliptical statements Marshall McLuhan made, “Anything you go deeply enough into, reverses”, warrants closer examination.

* 6:30pm – 7:30pm
VENUE: MAUS HÁBITOS
AWARDS GALA

* 10pm – 1am
VENUE: MAUS HÁBITOS
THE FUTURE PLACES IMPROMPTU ALL-STARS ORCHESTRA

Closing concert and party: AltaBaixa.

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Yesterday´s STOP event was a great success! A mega-concert, the futureplaces 2008 START record launch, and the launch of the poststop.pt website. From now on the STOP musicians collective has an online presence, a portal, participatory platform and archive.

Check poststop.pt here.

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Here is a sample of festival coverage by João Pádua. More, much more soon.

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Follow this link in order to find out more about the pieces that make up the futureplaces 2009 exhibition. Remember, it´s a wiki-catalog: exhibitors will be adding to their individual pages throughout the next few days.

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Tune in: 91.5FM.

Listen via web here.

Check the schedule here.

Guillermo salutes the birth of radiofutura!

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In preparation for the FuturePlaces festival, Heitor Avelos assigned his multimedia students to develop navigational aids for getting around Porto and finding the various festival locations. We’re proud to present their work here on this page. We hope you this helps you get around the city!

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Future Places Festival Workshop will take place at the following sites:

Computer vision – Golan Levin

Faculty of Fine Arts, South Pavillion, room 21

Interface Design for Mobile Devices – Nuno Correia and Mónica S. Mendes

ICICOM (Curso de Jornalismo), room 301

Open Cities – David Gunn

Escritório do Infante

Uncovering Urban Stories – Valentina Nisi and Ian Oakley

Faculty of Fine Arts, South Pavillion, room 43.

To check how to get there, please visit http://colab.ic2.utexas.edu/futureplaces/places/ in ADDRESSES AND MAPS.

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