[NetBehaviour] Upgrade! Tijuana April event!

dj lotu5 lotu5 at resist.ca
Tue Apr 7 22:41:48 CEST 2009 

Upgrade! Tijuana
Fifth session / Quita Sesion
Wednesday, April 29th, 7-9pm

charlas sobre/de... // talks by/about...

Transborder Immigrant Tool - Ricardo Dominguez and Brett Stalbaum
Becoming Dragon - Micha Cárdenas
Thighmaster - Annina Rust
Kixly - Moisés Horta

mas informacion sigue y en // more info below and at 
http://upgrade.dreamaddictive.com

cartel aqui // flyer here:
http://upgrade.dreamaddictive.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/upgradeabril1.jpg


Lui Velazquez
Calle José Maria Larroque #273.
1ro Piso, Int. 6, Colonia Federal.
Tijuana, Baja California.
Mexico, C.P. 22 300**


directions and map at http://luivelazquez.com

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*
*

*Transborder Immigrant tool*

The border between the U.S. and Mexico has moved between the virtual and 
the all too real since before the birth of the two nation-states. This 
has allowed a deep archive of suspect movement across this border to be 
traced and tagged -- specifically anchored to immigrants bodies moving 
north, while immigrant bodies moving south much less so.

The danger of moving north across this border is not a question of 
politics, but about the vertiginous geography. Hundreds of people have 
died crossing the U.S./Mexico border due to not being able to tell where 
they are in relation to where they have been and which direction they 
need to go to reach their destination safely.

transborder

The technologies of Spatial Data Systems and GPS (Global Positioning 
System) have enabled an entirely new relationship with the landscape 
that takes form in applications for simulation, surveillance, resource 
allocation, management of cooperative networks and pre-movement pattern 
modeling an algorithm that maps out a potential or suggested trail for 
real a hiker/or hikers to follow.

The Transborder Immigrant Tool would add a new layer of agency to this 
emerging virtual geography that would allow segments of global society 
that are usually outside of this emerging grid of 
hyper-geo-mapping-power to gain quick and simple access with to GPS 
system. The Transborder Immigrant Tool would not only offer access to 
this emerging total map economy -- but, would add an intelligent agent 
algorithm that would parse out the best routes and trails on that day 
and hour for immigrants to cross this vertiginous landscape as safely as 
possible.

Ricardo Dominguez is a co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance Theater 
(EDT), a group who developed Virtual-Sit-In technologies in 1998 in 
solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. He is 
co-Director of Thing (thing.net) an ISP for artists and activists. His 
recent Electronic Disturbance Theater project with Brett Stabaum, Micha 
Cardenas and Amy Sara Carroll the *Transborder Immigrant Tool* (a GPS 
cellphone safety net tool for crossing the Mexico/U.S border was the
winner of "Transnational Communities Award", this award was funded by 
*Cultural Contact*, Endowment for Culture Mexico - U.S. and handed out 
by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico), also funded by CALIT2 and two 
Transborder Awards from the UCSD Center for the Humanities.

Ricardo is an Assistant Professor at UCSD in the Visual Arts Department, 
a Hellman Fellow, and Principal/Principle Investigator at CALIT2 
(bang.calit2.net). He also co-founder of *particle group* with artists 
Diane Ludin, Nina Waisman, Amy Sara Carroll a gesture about 
nanotechnology entitled *Particles of Interest: Tales of the Matter 
Market* (pitmm.net) that was presented in Berlin (2007), the San Diego 
Museum of Art (2008), and Oi Futuro, Brazil (2008).

http://bang.calit2.net/xborder/

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*Becoming Dragon*

*3266085700_3406de1613_b
*

Becoming Dragon questions the one year requirement of Real Life 
Experience that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive 
Gender Confirmation Surgery (Sexual Reassignment Surgery), and asks if 
this could be replaced by one year of Second Life Experience to lead to 
Species Reassignment Surgery. For the performance, Micha Cárdenas lived 
for 365 hours immersed in Second Life with a head mounted display, only 
seeing the physical world through a video feed, and used a motion 
capture system to map her movements into Second Life. The installation 
also included a stereoscopic projection that the audience could immerse 
themselves in. During the year of research and development of this 
project, Micha Cárdenas began her real life hormone replacement therapy 
and wrote poetry about the experience which was included in the 
performance of Becoming Dragon.

Micha Cárdenas / dj lotu5 / Azdel Slade is a is a transgender artist, 
theorist and trouble maker. She is an MFA candidate at the University of 
California San Diego. and holds a Master's degree in Media and 
Communications with distinction from the European Graduate School and a 
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Florida International 
University. She is a researcher at CalIT2 and the Center for Research in 
Computnig and the Arts. Her interests include the interplay of 
technology, gender, sex, desire and resistance. Micha is a founding 
member of a number of art/activism collectives including Sharing Is 
Sexy, the borderlands Hacklab and the City Heights Free Skool. Her work 
has been exhibited internationally at museums, galleries, conferences, 
community spaces and public spaces.

http://secondloop.wordpress.com

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*Thighmaster*

*
*

While technologists scramble to develop technologies for the production 
and storage of environmentally friendly electricity, it is also 
important to address our personal role in conserving energy. Indeed, 
thermodynamics shows that we can't get energy without spending it, and 
while great efficiencies may be found in energy generation, it is clear 
that the most substantial way to solve the energy crisis is by reducing 
demand.

While reformulating lifestyle and habits is usually thought to be the 
job of media, public relations, and activism, there is no reason that 
technology should not be central to how we understand, consider, and 
change our own energy usage. Most of us are unable to pay close 
attention to our own power consumption in our busy daily lives. Indeed, 
the purpose of consumer products is to make laborious tasks as simple 
and easy as possible by replacing a consumer's own energy with 
electricity or fossil fuels. As a result, it's easy for us to avoid 
personal responsibility in the global climate crisis. This can produce 
feelings of guilt and self-reproach in the consumer. Project Thigh 
Master is a system that alleviates this condition by assuring that 
reminders to save electricity will not go unnoticed, increasing its 
owner's peace of mind by setting a penalty for environmental waste.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~rusti/thighmaster/ 
<http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Erusti/thighmaster/>

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*Kixly*

Started in 2005, Kixly is the solo project of TIjuana based artist 
Moisés Horta Valenzuela.

Taking influence from the noisier side of shoegaze, the digital musique 
concréte of Lucky Dragons and the classic studio techniques of 
electronic music pioneers Steve Reich, William Basinski and Raymond 
Scott, Kixly produced organic soundscapes as if created using analogue 
recording techniques.

His sound has gradually shifted in order to express religious themes, 
the relation between saint worship in mexican culture and pre-hispanic 
panteism, and the psychological spirits of Moisés' family ancestry.

In 2009 he co-founded, alongside Reuben Albert Torres, the 
multidisciplinary label Ni, which includes regional artists Los Macuanos 
and María y José.


-- 

micha cárdenas
performance / social media / public culture

C(a)lit2 Researcher, http://bang.calit2.net
CRCA Researcher, http://crca.ucsd.edu
MFA Candidate, UCSD, http://visarts.ucsd.edu
MA, EGS, http://egs.edu

blog: http://bang.calit2.net/tts

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