BusyGamer: “The Mother of All Parties”
BusyGamer describes Plutopia as “the mother of all parties.” They ran into Plutopians Bon Davis and Shanta Stevents at a SXSW pre-party:
I was not only intrigued by the event, but by the enthusiasm both of them seemed to have for the event. “Myself and the other Plutopians have very wide social networks and are always out at different events looking for kindred spirits,” Bon Davis, Techinical Producer said, “We try very hard to make our events appeal to a wide variety of people and are always trying to get the word out. Amongst other things, we try to promote Social Sustainability, so the more people we talk to the more people hear about our participants and what they have to offer. Hopefully we get more converts to our cause. I think personal verbal invitations are so much more valuable than mass market media advertisements.” The grassroots approach worked, while we discussed the event, music and playing in bands (both Shanta and Bon are musicians like yours truly), you can’t help but be intrigued what kind of party two guys drinking beer in a comic book store would help throw. “I work professionally in Theater and Event Production and am always looking for ways to combine my interests in Futurism and Technology and Art with my Production efforts,” Davis continued, “These Events at SXSW are a Great opportunity to present to a National Audience while keep trying to keep true to our local roots.”
Pluto, the planet that crashed into Texas and bounced into Illinois
While we’re not that kind of Plutopians, we’re pleased to hear that the state of Illinois has declared Pluto a planet, and we hope this will inspire interplanetary love from the state of Texas, from within which Plutopia has emerged. Those who’re paying attention are aware that Pluto was (is?), in fact, a community in Texas.
Stanza @ SXSWi Plutopia Event
Stanza is a London based British artist who specializes in net art, networked spaces, installations and performances. His award winning online projects have been invited for exhibition in digital festivals around the world. All his work can be found at www.stanza.co.uk
Stanza travels extensively to present his net art, lecturing and giving performances of his audiovisual interactions. His works explore artistic and technical opportunities to enable new aesthetic perspectives, experiences and perceptions within context of architecture, data spaces and online environments.
Recent exhibitions have included the Venice Biennale: Dislocate. Koiwa Art Space Tokyo Japan: Mundo Urbano Madrid: New Forest Pavilion Artsway: Haifa Museum Israel: Novosibirsk Festival Exhibition. He has also won numerous awards and prizes, such as AHRC Creative fellowship 2006 – 2009: NESTA Dreamtime Award 2004: Clark Digital Bursary 2003: Future Physical Grant for Genomixer 2002: D.T.I. Innovation Award 1997: Videoformes Multimedia First prize France 2005: Art In Motion V First prize USA 2004: Vidalife 6.0 first prize 2003 : Fififestival Grand Prize France 2003: New Forms Net Art Prize Canada 2003: Fluxus Online first prize Brasil 2002: SeNef Online Grand Prix Korea 2000: Links first prize Porto 2001: Videobrasil first prize Sao Paulo 2001 : Cynet art first prize Dresden 2000.
Stanza’s work crosses borders between artistic, technological and scientific sectors. Stanza creates participatory digital artworks that invite viewers to guide data flows or to simply observe self-generating compositions. His digital paintings shift through abstract and iconic patterns, which people can explore akin to virtual environments. Interactive and visually appealing, his style also maintains the substantive power through multi-facetted content. This artist has won international praise and awards for his new media works that invite collaboration.
Stanza is currently a recipient of a AHRC creative fellowship 2006-9 for a project called The Emergent City, researching sensors and the impact of live data in the architectural and urban environment and is based at Goldsmiths College University Of London. Stanza was also awarded a NESTA dreamtime fellowship in 2004. This prestigious award provided incoming investment, allowing allowing experiments using new displays, sensors, and live data to make responsive spaces and interactive installations.
Work has centered on the idea of the building as a new display system and various projects have been made using live data, the use of live data in architectural space, and how it can be made into meaningful representations. see ‘publicity’, ‘robotica’, ‘sensity’, as well as a whole series of work manipulating real time CCTV data to making artworks with them: See, ‘velocity’, ‘authenticity’, ‘urban generation’. These works reform the data, work with the idea of bringing data from outside into the inside, and then present it back out again in open ended systems where the public is often engaged in or directly embedded in the artwork.
At Plutopia 2009, he will have a live, real-time interactive installation and performance of this work.
Ian McLagan at Plutopia
It may seem strange that we have selected Ian “Mac” McLagan to be one of the headliners for an event under the mantle of “living Systems”, particularly when he is surrounded by accomplished proponents from fields as seemingly futuristic as transhumanism, bio- and nanotechnology, future networks, alternative energy and the like.
Yet, in Mac, we have a one-man “living system” who has remained at the center of rock music and ultimately become the hub of a very active social network within the world of rock and roll, connected at various times to bands and artists including The Small Faces and later The Faces, Rod Stewart, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Taj Mahal, John Hiatt, David Lindley, Paul Westerberg, Billy Bragg and Patty Griffin, to name just a few.
Mac has developed a highly successful career spanning four decades. Over that time, he (like all of us, as products and parts of “living systems”) has been influenced and affected by the people, interactions, sounds and media that he has encountered.
Mac took up the keyboard because he heard sounds on the radio, players like Otis Span, Johnny Johnson, Booker T and Billy Preston who inspired him to become the wonderful musician that he is. And he, in turn, has influenced countless other musicians to take up the craft. They in turn will pass that on to others.
As Keith Richards says: “If you turn out to be a musician, everything that you have ever heard comes out in what you play.”
Mac’s role as a highly influential and critical node in this living ‘social network” is a perfect example of a social structure that facilitates communication between a group of individuals or organizations, which are related by one or more specific types of interdependency: a special or common interest; shared values; visions, ideas, or perhaps ideals; friendship, and sometimes even dislike or conflict. Above all, it has been the fluidity in the ties that have made Mac’s relationships as powerful and influential and ones that will outlive both Mac and those of us that have had the opportunity to follow and share in his evolution.
If it were not for Mac, there would have been no Faces, Itchycoo Park, Stay With Me, Miss You, Black Crowes, The Jam, The Sex Pistols, etc., or any of the future names that we have yet to discover that will carry his bits of his creative DNA.
We are proud to have Ian McLagan perform with his Bump Band at Plutopia 2009. His performance will be prefaced by a short introduction from Bruce Duval, who has studied Mac’s contribution both to the world of music and as a “living system” and network hub.
Entranced – Immersive Musical Entertainment
Entranced is a 3D interactive music experience designed to benefit and entertain the player through balancing the emotions, exciting the imagination, and developing rhythmic abilities. Players listen to music and attend to visual and controller vibration cues, allowing them to successfully interpret and perform the expected movements in sync with the music, and resulting in dazzling visual and audio rewards. The goal of playing Entranced is to enter a state of flow, harmonizing and moving with the music while being immersed vibrant and responsive visual landscapes. Entranced uses procedural graphics and popular game controllers such as the Nintendo Wii Remote to create game-as-art that appeals to a wide audience. http://www.monstro.us
Appearing at Plutopia, Monday March 16, 2009, Palmer Events Center, Austin, Texas in our Interactive Atrium Gallery.
Entranced Blog Maker Faire from monstrous on Vimeo.
Many Successes
Born out of the art/futurism collective, Futurama, founded by Futurist and author, Derek Woodgate and Cultural Strategist and Social Commentator, Jon Lebkowsky, Plutopia is a collection of artists, musicians, activists, writers and futurists in Austin, Texas, all aspiring to create multiple future worldviews that will enhance our planet.
In addition to Derek and Jon, the leading Plutopians are Maggie Duval, David Demaris and Bon Davis, whose first event at the 2007 Maker Faire, titled the “DIY Home of the Future,” was a great success that worked well as a representation of the convergent future, illustrating DIY examples of a future immersive, responsive and reconfigurable home, all born out of one’s future ability to extend the “Self” and our personal potential.
On the back of theor 2007 Maker Faire “DIY Home of the Future,” success the Plutopia collective created a multifaceted extravaganza during SXSW, supplemented by panels at SXSWi itself. This event focused again on convergence, together with sustainability, arts and culture and other critical emerging issues.
Subsequently, voted the most exciting event of the 2008i program by the Austin Chronicle, Plutopia featured a talk by noted author, educator, activist and environmentalist Bill McKibben whose recent book Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future considered the power of the sustainable economy; a multimedia display titled “Sustainable Visions” by Green Grover; convergence in the form of Heather Gold’s “Live Human Search Engine”; AI from the Austin Robot Group and immersive technologies integrated with Brian Park’s famous ‘Flogiston Chair” from the movie Lawnmower Man.
While these themes were succinctly presented through the above-mentioned exhibits, talks and visualizations, they were augmented through theater in the form of The Lance Van de Kamp Show, art from Austin Green Art and music from multimedia composers, Carl Stone and David Demaris, NobodobodoN, and OMEGA MONSTER PATROL!, as well as a concert by British future transhumanist band, Intimate Stranger, who added this show to their SXSW presence.
The event attracted a large, engaged audience, which underpinned the power of using the arts and multi-faceted performances as highly persuasive and thought-provoking media to present new approaches to critical issues that we will be facing in the future. Much of the event was interactive, which enabled collaborative and cross-over participation in creating multiple perspectives to these emerging issues. As a collective, Plutopia’s instigators see collective intelligence, awareness, cognition and collaboration as key to the creation of a positive future for all.
What to Expect
Ian McLagan & The Bump Band
This year we have assembled a masterclass of amazing performers, artists, speakers and showstoppers. While it is important that the event comprehensively focuses on the “Living Systems” theme, it should be remembered that it is also time to party after a day of high-powered panels at SXSWi or SXSW Film, or just a tiring day at the “office”.
Topping the music bill is Ian McLagan & the Bump Band – ‘Mac‘ is a genuine dyed-in-the wool rock’n’roller and former member of the legendary Small Faces and the Faces.
He has toured and recorded with: The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Taj Mahal, John Hiatt, David Lindley, Paul Westerberg, Billy Bragg and Patty Griffin, to name some but hardly all of the notables that McLagan has worked with over his fourplus decade career.
The Heather Gold Show
The Heather Gold Show is back again. Her show is a live and online experience that brings together diverse passionate people and you to talk about questions you care about.
Heather is a geek comedian who likes truth, people and making connections. She does this on stage, page and screen and interactively when she can.
Bruce Sterling
World-renowned science fiction author, Bruce Sterling, best known for his novels and his seminal work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre, will be showcased.
Sandy Stone
Sandy Stone from ActLab, back from the Fourth International Workshop on Technologies of the Body, will perform on the frontier of cyborg, gender, and cultural studies, feminist theory, and media production.
Two of the key aspects of Plutopia, 2009 involve the convergence of sustainability with interactive technologies and environmental interfaces. A number of this year’s participants cover such themes such as Christian Kerrigan and his 200 Year Continuum Project. This project explores the possibilities of a symbiotic relationship between two different systems of organization, technology and nature. Christian, an architect & Editor of The Space Between magazine, investigates in his recent work how man’s ability to control his surroundings is intimately linked with his advancing capabilities of using technology, where we are now capable of creating design criteria to manipulate natural growth and development.
Ocean Conservancy promotes healthy and diverse ocean ecosystems and opposes practices that threaten ocean life and human life. Ocean Conservancy believes it’s time to understand that going green starts with living blue. It’s time to start a sea change.
Living systems considered from a different angle involves the work of Jonathan Cohen with his section on Corporate Social Responsibility & Living Systems and Joe Davis-Fleming whose work deals with socio-economic determinants that influence health care disparities between multi-racial/ethnic communities, both domestically and globally, as well as possible models for remedying the resulting inequities that exist in healthcare delivery systems.
There will be art exhibitions relating the “Living Systems” theme with exhibits from as far afield as Bangkok through the work of Sarawut Chutiwongpeti with his visions of Dystopia and Utopia. Sarawut is interested in finding out how contemporary art can enhance the distribution of information and foster a profound universality in the human nature and cross-cultural artistic and critical collaboration.
Two of the most important and inspirational participants are Stanza from London and the Black Pig Liberation Front from Boston.
Stanza creates coded abstract interactive paintings, generative artworks, mashups, and even DNA based installations. He is probably best known for his long-term Emergent City project, which uses sensor networks to create knowledge and interfaces about urban living. Recent exhibitions include in Venice Beinnale, Tate Britain, Sao Paulo Biennale Brasil, Immedia USA, and Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico, The Digital Hub Dublin.
The Black Pig Liberation Front is a killer ritualistic terror and love ensemble complete with grunt ‘n’ groove DJs led by Denis Mahoney. They have worked with Sonic Youth, J Mascis, DJ Spooky, Mike Watt, Blag Flag and many leading lights from the New York scene. Their performance here will use scenes from Josip Beuys and the idea of art as a living system
itself while reviewing the situationist history of psycho-geography.
In addition, there will be everything from fashion shows using non-traditional materials, robotic fortune telling, immersive musical instruments, an interactive Steampunk couch, robot paintings, Aztec Temples, sound sculptures and DJs such as the infamous David Demaris as Dr Strangevibe, Thomas Fang’s Furby Youth Choir and much more.
Call for Artist Participation
This year at SXSW Interactive the Plutopia Party will Focus on “Living Systems Theory.” We are looking for Art in all media that underscores the Integrated and Interconnected nature of all Living Systems from Biological and Cybernetic Organisms to Socio-cultural Networks and International Organizations. We seek to explore:
- The Biological Substrata of Technology
- Human Machine Interfaces
- Biological and Self-Perpetuating Living Art
- Viewer Interactive Experiences
- Reproduction and Recycling
- Holism and Emergence
- Convergence and Divergence
- Interdisciplinary Analysis
- Biological Metaphors for Technological Innovations
- From Fiber to Cyber
- Complexity and Reductionism
Artists are responsible for transport, installation, removal and sponsorship of their own art. Stipends are not available. Promotional space at the event for sales and artist info will be available. As an official SXSW Interactive After-Party we are offering an outstanding opportunity to display your art to the International Tech, Film and Music Communities.
DEADLINE FOR INTENT TO SUBMIT: January 15, 2009
Contact: art2009 [at] plutopia [dot] org
Leave a brief description of your work and a phone or email for reply.
Click here to download .pdf of our call for artist participation.