How do the developments in the area of digital media affect our culture? What are our possibilities to influence these developments and to actively shape (media) cultures? What are the relations of technologic, artistic, social and political utopias and realities in art and everyday life, in science and society? Which connections are there between the different fields and cultures? And what do people from different disciplines learn from each other? Questions like these are addressed and dealt with at interfiction, the workshop-symposium for art, media and net culture. Each year we choose a special topic to take up the challenge.
In 2017 the interfiction conference for art, media and network cultures invites with lectures, presentations and workshop-sessions to go for *TOPIA! We are interested in new and old, fantastic, concrete and real utopias and dystopias. bio- and technotopias – and especially in how media can be used not only as displays, but also as tools for conceiving *TOPIAS, and for making them become reality.
Artists, video- and filmmakers, designers, programmers and (h)activists, researchers in media and network cultures, and others interested in interdisciplinary exchange are invited to join the conference and to discuss their ideas and projects. Moreover, the interfiction DIY-Lab will offer opportunities to test, to share and to develop how-tos and know-how in practice as well.
Head of the section is Dr. Verena Kuni, professor for Visual Culture at the Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main.
Team 2017: Karsten Asshauer, Martin Dege & Verena Kuni
PROGRAM 2017 – interfiction *TOPIA!
Kassel, November 17-19, 2017
Medienprojektzentrum Offener Kanal, KulturBahnhof
FRI, Nov 17, 2017 / 7 p.m. / Offener Kanal
Screening: Harun Farocki: Serious Games I – IV. 2009/2010. Video-Installation
Talk: Do we need fiction to create reality?
with Prof. Dr. Verena Kuni (Kunst-und Medienwissenschaftlerin, Goethe Universität Frankfurt a.M. / interfiction, Leitung) and Judith Waldmann (Kunsthistorikerin / Monitoring, Ausstellungsleitung)
Both the exhibition Monitoring and the workshop-conference interfiction are addressing the question: Can fictions create realities?
Harun Farocki's series "Serious Games" is about the preparation and post-processing of military operations in virtual realities. Within the safe space of a simulation soldiers are enabled to make experiences that are supposed to influence their actions and their behaviour outside the VR.
By taking the example of a game whose rules are set to make the players forget about the playing field and its borders, the shiny promise of a preparation for the future and the re-working of the past made possible by the power of images and immersive media environments is put on the agenda anew and cast in a rather ambiguous light: utopia, dystopia, alternate reality were yesterday - welcome to our present: fake it real!
Verena Kuni (interfiction), Judith Waldmann (Monitoring) and the Dokfest are cordially inviting you to the screening and discussion of "Serious Games"!
SAT, Nov 18, 2017 / 10.00 a.m. / Offener Kanal
SUN, Nov 19, 2017 / 11.00 a.m. / Offener Kanal
Workshop-seminar with lectures, projects, presentations, videos, discussions, & DIY interfiction-Lab
Call for contributions and further information: www.interfiction.org
Contact: info@interfiction.org
About interfiction
interfiction, a yearly workshop symposium, has been part of the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival since 1995. As the interdisciplinary section of the festival, interfiction’s aim is to bring together artists and scholars, theorists and practitioners in one event, in order to deal with the complex field of art, media and net culture together. Every year there is a new topic of focus. Based on the pressing questions of the issues, projects and hypothesis are presented and discussed, while workshops and talks enable a concentrated exchange, which is supposed to lead to a deeper reflection and show new perspectives.
interfiction is a forum for the exchange, networking and cooperation of producers of theory practice. The main structure of the event is reflected in the wish to function as a “temporary laboratory” – not only a platform for ideas and projects but to enable a direct and productive discussion about questions and problems which are essential to the participants.
Find further information about interfiction, as well as an archive of the past events at www.interfiction.org.
Contact: info@interfiction.org