Newcastle, Gateshead, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, UK
28 February - 8 March 2008
www.avfestival.co.uk

The AV Festival is a biennial international festival of electronic art, moving image and music. AV Festival 08: Broadcast will take place across the three urban areas of Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland & Middlesbrough, 28 February - 8 March 2008.

The theme of the festival is broadcast. The UK has begun to switch off analogue television signals, paving the way for television to become entirely digital. At the same time the internet and mobile networks have created opportunities for us to ‘broadcast ourselves’ in entirely new ways. As the landscape of broadcasting changes irrevocably, AV Festival 08 will be a catalyst for debate about the future of broadcasting, and an event to celebrate a century of on-air and online transmission.

AV Festival 08: Broadcast features of over 100 new commissions, exhibitions, screenings, concerts, workshops and events, including:

• a new performance of John Cage’s Variations VII performed by :zoviet*france: & Atau Tanaka
• a newly commissioned outdoor performance by Marko Peljhan
• a contemporary version of the famous radio War of the Worlds radio play, directed by Joanna Read
• performances by Autechre, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Jean-Jacques Perrey, Broadcast, Disinformation, Long Range & many others
• a newly commissioned sound installations by Chris Watson, Marcus Coates, People Like Us and others
• exhibitions by Joyce Hinterding, Harun Farocki, Staalplaat Soundsystem, Yuko Mohri, Sonia Boyce, Ryota Kuwakubo and others
• a major new touring exhibition, Broadcast Yourself, featuring Bill Viola, Chris Burden, Nina Pope & Karen Guthrie & others
• a conference featuring Atau Tanaka, Douglas Kahn, Brandan Labelle, Heidi Grundmann, Andreas Broeckmann, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec & others
• workshops lead by Tetsuo Kogawa, Raitis Smits, Caitlin Jones and others
• a screening programme of bold and innovative television
• 3 FM radio stations, including Resonance FM broadcasting from mima in Middlesbrough

In 2008, TRANSIT LOUNGE begins in TRUDE, Calvino’s ubiquitous city of tourism. From the 16th of January, TRUDE will be found between the cities of Berlin, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, as 15 artists collaborate remotely on the evolution of a complex, emergent structure.

The platform for this trans-disciplinary exchange is the TRANSIT LOUNGE website, powered by open-source, wiki software. An organic structure, the site grows in multiple directions as the content is layered and interlinked, tracing remote interactions and local interventions between artists. The latency of these dialogues across time zones and locations creates feedback loops (local interventions – web – local interventions) opening up spaces for mistranslation resonating between the different cities.

The multitude of inputs, exchanges, and disruptions will be distilled in an exhibition which opens in Berlin at PROGRAM on the 31st January, 2008 to coincide with transmediale.08. Here the variations will continue to multiply as the process is augmented by the actions of visitors to the space.

TRANSIT LOUNGE is a project by Katie Hepworth (Sydney) and Miriam Mlecek (Berlin) and involves the following artists:

Chris Bennie (Brisbane), Bianca Calandra (Berlin), Robert Curgenven (Berlin), Cat Hope (Perth), Tanja Kimme (Melbourne), Govinda Lange (Paris-Berlin), Somaya Langley (Berlin), Sarah Last (Brisbane), Silvia Marzall (Berlin), Ben Milbourne (Melbourne), Michael Prior (Melbourne), Lynda Roberts (Melbourne), Jodi Rose (Berlin), Sumugan Sivanesan (Sydney), Anna Tautfest (Berlin)

EMERGENCES

PROGRAM Gallery
Invalidienstr 115
10115 Berlin

Vernissage: 19:00, 31.01.08
Opening Times: 14-19:00, 01.02.08-06.02.08

(other sites to be announced)

TRANSIT LOUNGE is a partner event of transmediale.08 CONSPIRE…

TRANSIT LOUNGE would like to thank the Australia Council for their support.

For more information, please refer to http://www.transitlounge.org

Subscribe to our updates list go to www.transitlounge.org/subscribe.html

Media Contact: Katie Hepworth

From Goethe-Institut Australia:

Robert Henke tours Australia
Electronic Music
January / February 2008
Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney
Entry: various (see diverse events)

Robert Henke is an electronic music composer and performer, instrument builder, audio software designer and installation artist from Berlin, Germany. He is most well known for his dance music composed and performed as Monolake.

As Monolake he has performed in Australia and New Zealand in 2003 and 2006 and will visit again in January and February 2008. In 2008 Robert will perform in dance clubs and outdoor festivals as Monolake and will perform his most recent work Layering Buddha in a series of multi channel concerts in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.

Robert has produced a wide range of audio work for both listening and club environments. He has performed or created installation work of his sound art at the Tate Modern in London, the Pompidou Center in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art (MUDAM) Luxembourg as well as at Transmediale and many smaller festivals and galleries in Europe and the United States. He is a regular performer at the MUTEK Festival in Montreal. Robert’s work Layering Buddha was awarded an Honorary Mention in the Digital Musics category at this year’s Prix Ars Electronica competition.

Dates and locations can be found at Goethe-Institut Australia and also Robert Henke’s website.