Next week Pixelache kicks off in Helsinki (march 30 till April 2).
So will Game Set and Match in Delft, March 29 till 31. The symposium will discuss swarm architecture, pervasive gaming, sensual buildings (!!!), Paskian envirenments, etc. I’ll report from that one, so will Ruairi Glynn.

Martijn de Waal, together with V2 and IIAS in Rotterdam, is organising Tangent Leap, a discussion on Chinese internet culture. It will be streamed live on V2. Panelists include Isaac Mao, Zhang Ga, Karsten Giese and Guobin Jang*.

Next week again, under.ctrl will attempt to define and discuss how “the interfaces of control mechanisms” are shaped and alter our lives in different local contexts. On the programme: sound performances, installations and screenings of works and documentaries along with a panel.

31 March 2006 – 2 April 2006. Forum Stadtpark, Graz.

Wednesday 5 to Monday 10 April will be 6 exhausting days as i’ll be running around Milan to blog the Salone Internazionale del Mobile. The fair has moved to a new complex, designed by Massimiliano Fuksas, in Rho-Pero. But most of the fun will still be in satellite events scattered in the city centre. In tune with the event, a new Design Library will open in Zona Tortona.

After that i’m off to lovely Aix-en-Provence. Douglas Edric Stanley has invited me to give a talk at the Ecole Supérieure d’Art on April 12.

Outside of Europe:

Recording the Brooklyn Bridge, photo: Jodi Rose and Nigel Helyer’s Naughty Apartment

What Survives: Sonic Residues in Breathing Buildings consisting of sound installations and commissioned works that investigate the real and imagined remnants of human presence in architecture. Includes works by Nigel Helyer, Jodi Rose, Alex Davies, Garry Bradbury, Joyce Hinterding, Aaron Hull, Somaya Langley, Amanda Stewart & Sumugan Sivanesan.

Through April 22. Performance Space Galleries, Sydney, Australia.

Next week, Gigantic ArtSpace [GAS] will open Object Lessons, an exhibition of 7 emerging artists from Southern California. The show investigates the current debates of communications literacy and the extent to which we are constituted by our technologies. Includes:

Peter Cho‘s Takeluma is a writing system for representing speech sounds and the visceral responses they can evoke (image below). The project explores the complex relationships between speech, meaning, and writing and comprises several animated, sculptural, and print works.

Can I Get An Amen?, by Nate Harrison, unfolds a critical perspective on one of the most sampled drums beat in the history of recorded music, the Amen Break. It begins with the pop track Amen Brother by 60’s soul band The Winstons, and traces the transformation of their drum solo from its original context as part of a ‘B’ side vinyl single into its use as a key aural ingredient in contemporary cultural expression. The work attempts to bring into scrutiny the techno-utopian notion that “information wants to be free.” it questions its effectiveness as a democratizing agent. Video on Internet Archive.)

The show features also Sean Dockray‘s Cabinet of applauses; Kelli Cain and Brian Crabtree’s Almost Certified (Grade-A noise for non-discerning consumers) egg-tapping robots; Tom Jennings‘s Story Teller which is a self-contained system for telling stories, stored as rows of tiny holes in spools of paper tape; Patrick Vaillancourt‘s Celebrating a Rediscovery of the Intentionally Erased transforms six pop hits into a series of comprehensive drones, to erase the effects of pop music on the mind.

March 29 – May 19, Gigantic ArtSpace, New York.

For Project Series 29, Pomona College Museum of Art (Claremont CA) presents a series of events planned by artists affiliated with Machine Project, a non-profit org that supports creativity and experimentation in art, technology, and science.

Until March 31, 2005, Chronic Revelator, by Phill Ross, will feature works revolving around organic/industrial growth and decay, including some of the 35mm cameras the artist has been weathering in a cement mixer. Along with the cameras will be several large wooden anti-clocks.

* Related: Martijn de Wall’s talk at Transmediale last month.