Framed by her long-standing research on collaborative practices, geographer and ethnographer Penny Travlou introduces two projects she has been involved lately: Platohedro, a space, a platform and community based in Medellin, Colombia, and the Feminist Autonomous Research Center in Athens (FAC).  Platohedro refers to the indigenous concepts of Buen Vivir and Buen Conocer and works on adapting them to the contemporary living conditions in urban societies, while FAC puts an emphasis on commnity-based autonomous knowledge production. Both are concerned with forms of thinking and working together that allow for creating alternatives to extractivist, colonial, racist and anti-feminist modes of (knowledge)production.
https://platohedro.org/
https://curatingcommonwellbeing.platohedro.org/
https://feministresearch.org/
https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/profile/dr-penny-travlou

Buen Vivir. Interview with Penny Travlou

One of Detroit’s finest exports is legendary house and techno pioneer, Gari Romalis, and as we enter what could potentially be a summer of love he creates an outstanding four track EP, “Black Traxx Matter”, spreading a message which scratches way below the surface, using music as a tool to share. The body of work spans across distinctive and slinky deep house energy, oozing class and emotion, notably what we have all come to love and adore in Romalis’ back catalogue. Music from the soul, for the soul, coming soon on Italian label, Nicepeople.

Opener “Black 2 Da Future” rides an effortlessly cool groove, brushing by in the summer breeze, paying homage to brighter days. Next up is “Black Diamondz (Africa Mix)”, consisting of a tight and punchy drum arrangement, and warm and infectious sub bass. Welcoming you with open arms.

“Black Luv” is lighter on its feet than the previous tracks, a definite housey spring in its step, all of the elements conversing in sweet harmony. A cruise down nostalgia lane. “Purpose Reprise (Motivate Mix)” closes this wonderful EP. Six and a half minutes of pure bliss which shifts into a pure and powerful moment when a spoken word sample enters the room, as the soft keys work their way around the message.

A masterpiece body of work from one of the most esteemed artists in the game. The Nicepeople label keep continuing to propel high quality sounds from new and established artists, with a healthy schedule already pencilled in for 2021.

Black Traxx Matter

NCP005 || Gari Romalis - Black Traxx Matter 12"

Welcome to Furtherfield's cultural podcast grounded in news from where we are. This ongoing series of podcasts are dedicated to the collaborative-imaginative fieldwork of artists, techies, and activists informing how we organise, imagine and build solidarity, good health and post-capitalist realities. Working together and supporting others to do the same.

In 2021 we celebrate 25 years of radical friendship at Furtherfield. We are revisiting past and current collaborators to discuss their fascinating ideas and what they’re up to. These are critically in-tune thinkers working cross-disciplinary practices, examining various aspects of the Internet now and post-digital contexts. They are changing culture, their lives, and the lives of their communities.

We are interested in unearthing an ecological economy, relational understanding, and lived lives, alongside survival strategies, critical thinking and grassroots systems of peer and individual engagement, as part of the art context. We are examining power and how lives get lived, on whose terms, living the proposition, and what it means in the 21st century.

For this episode, we have three excellent interviews. Two by Filippo Florenzin with Angela Washko and Rosa Menkman, and my interview with Cornelia Sollfrank. 

Cornelia Sollfrank, since the mid-1990s has investigated the worldwide communication networks and transferred artistic strategies of the classical avant-gardes into the digital medium. Her special interest lies in experimenting with new models of authorship, in continuing various forms of artistic appropriation and in deconstructing myths around geniality and originality. She is currently working as an associate researcher in the project “Creating Commons.”

Angela Washko is an artist who creates new forums for discussions about feminism in spaces frequently hostile toward women, femmes, and non-binary people. Washko’s practice spans interventions in mainstream media, performance art, installation, digital art, writing, video, and video games. 

Rosa Menkman's work focuses on noise artefacts that result from accidents in both analogue and digital media (such as glitch and encoding and feedback artefacts). The resulting artefacts of these accidents can facilitate an important insight into the otherwise obscure alchemy of standardization via resolutions.

As usual, we have special guest appearances of experimental noisemakers and music, which includes: AGF (poemproducer), and other audio related surprises.

Image: The Game: The Game is a feminist video game made by Angela Washko. From iinstallation, 2018 Amphitheater Gallery.

News From Where We Are #5 - The Radical Friendship series

Ruth and Marc of Furtherfield Gallery join us to talk about the connections between art, games and revolutions in everyday life and technology.

Furtherfield disrupts and democratises art and technology through exhibitions, labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking and is London’s longest-running (de)centre for art and technology whose mission is to disrupt and democratise through deep exploration, open tools and free-thinking. 
Ruth Catlow is its co-founding artistic director and has spent 20 years exploring games, and more recently Live Action Role Play as a way of engaging people's imaginations and expertise across silos, around emerging technologies and the wicked social and political problems they give rise to or intensify. Catlow is the founder of DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab crowdsourcing R&D by leading artists, using blockchain and web 3.0 technologies for fairer, more dynamic and connected cultural ecologies and economies. She is also PI at the Blockchain Lab at the Serpentine Galleries R&D Platform.
Marc Garrett is a co-founder of Furtherfield ho has curated over 60 contemporary Media Art exhibitions and projects in the UK and internationally. Heb is recently the co-editor of the books Artists Re: thinking the Blockchain, State Machines: Reflections & Actions at the Edge of Digital Citizenship, Finance, & Art and Frankenstein Reanimated: Art and Life in the 21st Century.

Artgames and interspecies LARPS - with Marc and Ruth of Furtherfield(CGCG014)

Karun Cowper speaks with urbanist, activist and "Audacities" initiator Sharon Ede on "cosmo-localisation" in the New Economy in Australia and beyond.

"Audacities" initiator Sharon Ede on "cosmo-localisation" in the New Economy

This is a recording of the presentation 'Commoning our Democracy' by Michel Bauwens of the http://p2pfoundation.net/ at the Imagine Festival in Belfast 1/03/208.

https://imaginebelfast.com/events/commoning-our-democracy/

Slides below description.

"Democratic nation-states are in crisis and hardly able to contain the forces of disruption that are trans-national in scale. We are living in an era of crises when the consequences of the currently dominant economic, social and political paradigms are pressing upon people, fomenting feelings of frustration, helplessness and despair and damaging democracy. Such feelings are all too familiar for those of us living in Northern Ireland.

In recent years, we have seen a re-emergence and fast growth of ‘the commons’ and ‘commoning’, with ‘citizen commoners’ cooperating in the interests of an ecologically sustainable, kinder society. This has been particularly evident in the fields of the field of shared knowledge, and in the mutualisation of provisioning systems through urban commons. There are many who believe that the innovative ways of thinking and doing associated with commoning are vital strands of the ecological and societal transformations that are needed for humanity to survive and thrive in the challenging times ahead.

Can the forms of co-governance and mutualised property that are characteristic of commoning help with renewal of our democratic institutions? Drawing from his experience of working in various parts of the world, Michel Bauwens, co-founder of the trans-national P2P Foundation, will offer answers to this question. It is envisaged that Michel’s presentation will inform and inspire some co-creative, civic conversation among participants about the prospects for ‘commoning our democracy’."

Presentation Slides -

PDF - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lrwpGsti-J01Kluxy-0SNoK2bbaz2Fx2/view?usp=sharing

ODP - https://drive.google.com/open?id=1z0jAwouASITcOUVXvnGEuGXrxFk8BitK

PPTX - https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iKa_DmTIYsosOkb1osRENCp1RvhaJqed

Michel Bauwens - P2PFoundation.net - Imagine Festival, Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, NI. 14/03/18

"ConstallationOuverture"
Mixage: Annie Abrahams. 
Voices: Annie Abrahams, Alix Desaubliaux, Pascale Barret. 
Laughs: Alice Lenay, Gwendoline Samidoust, Alix Desaubliaux, Annie Abrahams and Carin Klonowski. 
Music: "Ouverture 14" by Jan de Weille.
projet Constallations: https://constallations.hotglue.me/ 

Played live online Sunday 25 Aug. 7pm UTC+01 2019 via channingtatum. CHANNING TATUM: a project by Rohanne Udall & Paul Hughes.

ConstallationsOuverture

For Hyperdelia’s new album 'For Always LP' Andreas Dzialocha creates an enchanting ghost music. Animated by his solo bass playing and haunted by aleatoric acoustics, the record unearthes the instrument’s low end harmonics. The vinyl is a cute transparent blue and comes in a see-through PVC cover: limited edition of 200 copies.

For Always LP is produced in collaboration with Sam Slater (Hildur Guðnadóttir, Shapednoise, Zebra Katz, Mica Levi) and with support by composer/violist Marta Forsberg (Passepartout Duo, Ellen Arkbro, Stellan Veloce) and sound artist/singer Fågelle (Henryk Lipp).

Dzialocha recorded the initial bass material residing at the Baltic Sea in Lithuania. Afterwards and in collaboration with Sam Slater, he reworked the material in Stockholm: there they re-amped the original stems and turned the studio itself into a living dub creature. Dzialocha, who is also a programmer, created an algorithm to sequence and filter the bass inputs. This software in turn randomly enables loudspeakers, headphones and tape machines that were placed in corridors and staircases. As an eerie result, we hear both Dzialocha’s stripped-down bass playing, the (non)logic of the algorithm as well as the specific resonances of the room acoustics: all of these have merged into one sentient instrument.

'For Always LP' is populated by a myriad of these machinic, acoustic and indeed personal traces. Marta Forsberg and Klara Andersson join by providing viola (on IV) as well as guitar, voice and lyrics (For Always). The record is animated by all of these forces and in ensemble they sing a wonderfully abstracted ghost music: for always.  
credits
released February 20, 2020

Composition: Andreas Dzialocha
Electric Bass: Andreas Dzialocha
Viola (on ‘IV’): Marta Forsberg
Lyrics, Voice, Guitar, Noise (on ‘For Always’): Fågelle

Software development: Andreas Dzialocha
Production: Sam Slater, Andreas Dzialocha
Mixing: Sam Slater
Mastering: Rupert Clervaux

Recorded in "Art Colony" Nida, Lithuania
Post-Production w/ Sam Slater in "Studio Navet" Stockholm, Sweden

For Always LP

For Always LP - III

Our City

This stereo sound collage is a tribute to the spirit of late 70s/early 80s independent music, a period latterly referred to as post-punk. It sews together edits made from the albums of about 30 different bands. It is an entirely personal selection and not in any way representative of the time, just my experience of it, and some of my favourite moments. 

It should be listened to via a decent amp and speaker set up or good headphones - not computer speakers or smartphone, as much detail and subtlety will be lost. The piece is freely downloadable to transfer to suitable listening media.

Many of the fragments are merely a second or two long, but the identity that runs through the music, like the colour through a stick of Brighton Rock, is indelibly strong and is an immediate memory trigger, re-firing those synaptic leaps, bringing you back to the original context. The time travel element is strong, but great strength of this music is that it travels so well across time - it is both of its time and beyond it; still sounding fresh and vital. 

This was a time, in the wake of punk’s short-lived initial burst and eventual burn out, when bands were being more exploratory within conventional musical forms, breaking the format down and re-assembling it, often healthily cross-fertilizing genres such as funk, jazz, dub reggae, disco, krautrock, improvisation and non-Western musics. Forty years on, I continue to draw considerable satisfaction from it. Its currency remains strong.

It was music untethered to conventional musical skills, where only the most rudimentary understanding of musical structures was sufficient to make music. Now it was approached laterally, with intelligence and imagination in place of ‘chops’. That said, certain musicians from this time had considerable chops, but the spirit of the time was about stretching the form. Even if you didn’t have traditional instruments, you could find sonically rich material in scrapyards and docklands in the death throes of their associated industries. And you didn’t need a state-of-the-art recording studio.

This music was both a response to prevailing conditions as well as something facilitated by them, in the sense that, unlike now, people had more time on their hands by subsisting on the dole, living in squats and being in receipt of local authority third level grants. The conditions, though difficult on many levels, were ripe for experimentation.

I was a teenager at this time and this music made a huge and lasting impression on me. The DIY ethos was incredibly refreshing and the sense of possibility felt wide open. The music was rich and atmospheric, often like film soundtracks. Whole worlds opened up that you could lose yourself in. It created a fertile head space for making art. Some of the lyric writing drew from other parts of the culture: literature, film, art, and formed a gateway to further exploration. 

Unlike now, access to information was scarce - there were music weeklies such as the NME, Melody Maker, Sounds and (in Ireland) Hot Press. Then there was the proliferation of cheap home made fanzines thanks to the photocopier - Vox being a particularly good Irish example. John Peel’s radio programme was a complete anomaly for the BBC at the time, and a vital conduit into the scene which Peel was hugely supportive of. 

The tribute title, taken from the Gang Of Four’s song Ether, was chosen for its critique of consumerism’s empty promises at a time when the future it proposed was slowly being dismantled and we were being sold short. Now there is the hauntological dimension of this disinterring of musical history, and the idea of ‘cancelled futures’ - a lively area of study in recent years thanks to the work of Mark Fisher and others, drawing from the original ideas of Jacques Derrida.

Dirt Behind The Daydream

this week’s text is a review of Sahej Rahal’s moving image work: finalforest.exe that’s up on Transmediale’s Almanac, their online programme accompanying their IRL activity.

read the text: thewhitepube.com/sahejrahalfinalforest

Sahej Rahal, finalforest.exe for Transmediale's Almanac

A podcast of interviews, reviews, readings, announcements hosted by Marc Garrett. Furtherfield is London’s longest running (de)centre for art and technology. We are a community who develop collaborative-imaginative fieldwork together + enable others to do the same. Down with the exclusive commercial art world + big tech companies that control + kill our cultures. We are about openness + outreach. We value: polyphony, politics + play; misfits + mayhem; inquisitive + imaginative kind. We want disruption, democracy, decentralisation, distribution + diversity across art + technology now!

News From Where We Are #5 - The Radical Friendship series

furtherfield

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