The new media art festival UPDATE will take place from November 22 to 30. The festival program includes discussions, masterclasses, lectures and workshops on art and technologies online. UPDATE is intended for students, young artists, professionals, and other interested parties who want to supplement or acquire new knowledge and competencies in working with digital technologies. The festival program is intended for everyone, including those without prior knowledge, all events are available free of charge. Working language: English.
On Monday, November 22 at 6PM (GMT+2) everyone is invited to take part in the masterclass hosted by artist, art critic and curator Ellen Pearlman. Pearlman will share her unique knowledge and philosophy gained through research and practical work. The master class is intended for those who are interested in such areas of technology as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, human-computer communication, and interfaces.
On Wednesday, November 24 at 6PM (GMT+2) there will be a panel of presentations and a discussion of the project GREEN participants. GREEN (“GREEN Revisited: Encountering Emerging Naturecultures”) project reconsiders pervasively used notion of “green” that is symbolically associated with everything “natural”, claiming that such superficial notions are used to mask the increasing technical manipulations of nature and environment. More: http://green.rixc.org/.
On Thursday, November 25 at 6PM (GMT+2) there will be a discussion event focusing on AR and XR; participants will be able to listen to case studies, experiences, and opinions about the development of AR apps and projects from practicing developers, producers, and artists.
On Friday, Nov. 26 at 6PM (GMT+2), there will be a 2-hour master class on the skills, knowledge and mindset needed to work in the highly profitable industry of VR development. The masterclass will be hosted by Steven Jupijn, the technical artist at Apollo Journey (www.apollojourney.com/).
On Tuesday, November 30 at 6PM (GMT+2), there will be a discussion on the artist’s role in this struggle against climate change and promotion of a more sustainable lifestyle. The discussion will look for answers to questions such as: how to talk about waste, recycling, sustainability, and resources in art practices? Aren’t sustainable artists part of a greenwashing strategy?
During the festival, participants are invited to join workshops. The aim of the workshops is to provide specific, technical knowledge, new inspiration, and experience in working with certain technologies. The program offers sound recording and editing workshop, building of immersive sound installation workshop, participants will work with modular synthesizers, 3D scanning and motion tracking technologies. It will also be possible to learn to use the program vvvv, which is a tool used in VJing (real-time or staged video manipulations used in audio-visual installations or as a background for music, concerts, performances, etc.).
The festival will take place on the ZOOM platform. The full festival program, additional information and registration can be found on the website: https://update.mplab.lv/.
UPDATE is organized by Liepaja University Art Research Lab (MPLab, www.mplab.lv) in cooperation with ASTE. Art, Science, Technology, Education (www.aste.gallery), RIXC, the centre for new media culture (www.rixc.org) and BIAN, Baltic Immersive Audio Network (https://www.balticimmersive.net/).
UPDATE is created with the support of the European Union program “Creative Europe”, the project “GREEN REVISITED. Encountering Emerging Naturecultures”, Liepaja City Municipality institution “Culture Department” and State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia (VKKF). The workshop “Space in Sound | Sound in space” is created with the support of “Nordic Culture Point” programme.
Full program and registration: https://update.mplab.lv
For future communication: Maija Demitere, maija@mplab.lv, +371 29948430
