2009
Production, Event, Festival
People:
Director: Teresa Dillon Exhibition and Production Assistant: Sanda Reit Production support: Luísa Ribas, Catarina Simão, Lígia Teixeira, Margarida Mendes Press: Luísa Ribas, Teresa Dillon, Luis Miranda Translation: Paulo Raposo and Benedetta Maxia Web and print design: Unit 60:unit60.com Web programming: Seb BaconLinks:
1um1.netWHEN AND WHERE
12-15 Nov 2011
Various venues, central Lisbon including ECV Fiat Garage, Av. 24 de Julho, 60 [Santos], Gallery ZDB & Music Box
ABOUT
UM showcases and presents international and experimental intermedia art practices. The works selected for UM focus on our contemporary worlds, cultures and lifestyles. Emphasis is placed on how technology and digital craft mediates, reveals and extends our senses, emotions and perceptions.
UM focuses on the aesthetic expression and communication of ideas. Within the exhibition, club and performance programme, this is achieved through the presentation of work by established and emerging artists and musicians. Contributions from other fields such as science, architecture, design, the humanities and social science are presented in the talks and workshop schedule.
Established in Lisbon, in 2008, the first and second edition of UM took the form of a four-day festival, plus a three week exhibition, which included – opening exhibition, workshops, talks, concerts, performances and public art commissions.
UM is realised with the support of various funders and in partnership with artists, producers, curators and promoters who work across formal and independent artistic spaces, cultural and educational institutions.
Each year the festival is guided by a theme, which influences the type of work selected. The 2009 theme focused on the concept of ‘landscape’.
2009: LANDSCAPE-USING YOUR ILLUSIONS
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 explored this by considering the inter-relationships that inform the perception and construction of our landscape. Special attention was 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.
Participating artists included: André Gonçalves (PT) John Klima’s (US/PT) CADA (PT) Andreas Schmelas & Stefan Stubbe (DE) Teike Haapoja (FI) Sanda Dick & Lukas Hartman (DE) Torsten Posselt, Benijamin Maus, Frederic Gmeiner (DE) Infitive Livez, (UK/DE) Team Brick (UK) Kapulto (UK) Alfredo Carajillo Gabriel Ferrandini (PT) DJ Sniff (US/NL) Mr. Gasparov (PT/ES) Bass Clef (UK) Carsten Stabenow (DE) Dmitry Gelfand and Evelina Domnitch (RU/NL) STEIM (NL) Unsworn Industries, (SE) Prof. Jussi Ängeslevä (FI-DE)Partners:
Music Box ZDB Parq Magazine Guest Music programmers: QuJunktions, UK Guest International partners: Digital Media Class, The Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der Künste Berlin/UdK), Germany and STEIM, The NetherlandsFunders:
Mondriaan Foundation, NL Goethe Institute, Lisbon Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa, Communication and Design Department, CIEAM and Multimedia Department
