Transmediale.02 Festival ˈGo Public!ˈ

Transmediale, Berlin

transmediale.02 [go public!]
The transmediale is a platform for artistic presentation and critical reflection on the role of digital technologies in present-day society. The festival provides a forum for communication between artists, those working in the media and a wide range of experts and offers a stimulating environment for the presentation of major new projects from digital culture.

transmediale.02: [go public!] How do you "go public" today? 15 minutes of fame through an appearance on TV? The IPO of a self-founded company? The publication of a press release? A post-modern shopping-spree? The participation in a street demonstration? Or rather a permanent online-presence through home-installed Web cameras? Dreams of the public sphere as a space free of power relations where citizens communicate to formulate their joint political will, are long gone. The total public sphere of mass media is breaking up into a multiplicity of partial publics where individuals and groups perform and act. Politics is happening somewhere in between.

The English term "to go public" originally means "to publicise information", but today it is used primarily in the context of founding a joint-stock company or its IPO (initial public offering). The stock market crash of spring 2000 meant a huge disenchantment for this precarious concept, which had fascinated the IT sector for years. Digital media still carry the hope for new forms of democratic participation. But how far do they really open up cultural and political spaces where a public sphere can take shape and where you can "go public"? Does today's cultural and political effectiveness evolve first and foremost in non-public spaces? The shopping mall as a democratic forum, the post-industrial product or service as an ultimate "res publica"?
The transmediale.02 encourages artists and media producers to "go public!" and, at the same time, asks how and where efficient models of public spheres are being developed. Artists and media producers experience and explore the frictions and borders between private and public and research the possibilities for constructing new spaces for public action. It remains to be seen whether these are to be found on the trading floor or in your home kitchen, on a free server or on a private TV channel.

Exhibited Artwork

Tracenoizer - Disinformation on Demand

TraceNoizer – Disinformation on Demand generates clones from your databody in order to disinform those, who are spying on you. TraceNoizer is a webbased search, analysis and home-page publication system. What is TraceNoizer? TraceNoizer calls attention to the issue of electronic surveillance on the Internet and as a service offers a strategy to counter it. There is information about most more …

New Museum, New York

Transmediale, Berlin

New Museum, New York