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CASE: KATASTRO.FI (Saturday 10.30 AM)
Error 63: katastro.fi undefined
JUHA HUUSKONEN, Katastro.fi
katastro.fi is a media art collective. Since
the organization was founded in 1998, we've
tried to find a better definition but with
no success.... and we are not the only ones:
(katastro.fi defined in Cult magazine, 05/2001)
"Well... Maybe i have to to quote an article from
the Nordic art magazine NU, where the journalist tried
to find out what katastro.fi is. After some desperate
attempts he concludes that "katastro.fi is what katastro.fi
does". I think that's the best definition he comes up with."
katastro.fi operates in the cross-roads of art, media and
popular culture. katastro.fi has gained recognition from
producing many succesful projects but so far has been able
avoid both institutionalization and commercialization.
one of the key elements for this is that katastro.fi has
managed to avoid falling into a certain clearly defined
position in the existing economical and cultural structures.
This has been possible by constantly redefining the
values and organizational structures of katastro.fi.
Juha Huuskonen (b. 1974) graduated from the Computer Science Department of Helsinki University of Technology, majoring in Interactive Digital Media.
Juha has extensive working experience in designing and programming user interfaces and applications involving advanced real-time graphics. He has worked on projects for MTV Networks Europe (Interactive Programming Department, London), CERN (European Nuclear Physics Research Center, Geneva), Finnish National Museum, Alvar Aalto Museum and Heureka Science Centre.
Juha is currently working as a media artist, teacher and technology consultant. Juha is one of the founders and the chairman of media art collective katastro.fi. He is also one of the founders of Olento Talent, a company developing cross-disciplinary media education projects. He has recently taught courses at School of Visual Arts in New York, University of Art and Design Helsinki, Helsinki University of Technology and Helsinki Institute of Arts and Media.
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CASE: HABBO HOTEL (Saturday 10.45 AM)
How Order Emerges in Virtual Space: The Hobbas of Habbo Hotel
SAMPO KARJALAINEN, Sulake Labs
Habbo Hotel is a social entertainment environment, a virtual hotel, on the
net. The key to Habbo Hotel is social interaction, new friends, new
networks, be whoever you want to be. What kind of activities the users come
up with in this kind of environment? What happens if we give moderation
rights to over 200 regularly visiting users? How do they work together and
agree on common rules?
Sampo Karjalainen
(born in 1977) is the Creative Director and one of the
founders of Sulake Labs. Sulake Labs develops spatial multiuser applications
on the Internet; best examples being Habbo Hotel (www.habbohotel.com) and
Mobiles Disco (www.mobilesdisco.com).
Before Sulake Labs Sampo has worked in Finnish new media companies To the
Point and Satama Interactive developing multimedia kiosks, CD-ROM titles and
corporate web sites as a graphical designer. Being undergraduate, Sampo is
planning to study either architecture or some "old media" in the future.
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CASE: NEW ASSOCIATIONIST MOVEMENT (Saturday 11.00 AM)
New
Associationist Movement and the Osaka New School
KATSUHIRO YAMAZUMI, Osaka University of
Education & The Osaka New School
I am a member of the New Associationist Movement (NAM) in Japan, which is a social
movement advocated by Kojin Karatani. NAM is a non-violent counter movement
against capitals and states (capitalist-nation-state trinity), advocating
'free and equal association of co-operative societies'. By using the
LETS (Local Exchange Trading System invented by Michael Linton around
1982-83)-style community currency and Internet, NAM can exist in not only
real-life communities such as villages or towns but also in virtual communities
based on visions, interests, and aspirations that are formed on the Internet.
It can be a Community of Interest (COI). NAM is a movement activating
existing communities and spinning virtual communities simultaneously.
Networks of multiple affiliations are the central point of the NAM project. "In
their daily lives, individuals belong to various organizations–goverment
offices, corporations, unions, civic organizations, political parties,
village communities, and so on–while NAM is not another organization that
stands side by side with others. To participate in NAM does not require
breaking away from others. NAM is an association of those individuals who
intend to be ethical while belonging to the other existing organizations.
After all, the movement of NAM associates people who are enclosed within
organizations" (Kojin Karatani: The Principles of New Associationist
Movement).
As participants of NAM, my colleagues and I founded a nonprofit
organization called the Osaka New School in June 2001. The Osaka New School is now
preparing for opening an alternative school and after-school/in-addition-to-school activities programs in April 2002, which are based
on voluntary participation. It will not be a large factory-style school but
a small handmade school. The Osaka New School intends to become a
creative school in the 21st century. The purpose of our school project is to
redesign the future educational environment and learning activity for
children and young people from elementary school through high school. It
is based on a model of learning activity that could be called the
'Open-Collaboration Model', drawing from Lev Vygotsky's model of 'Zone of
Proximal Development', John Dewey's model of 'School as Social Center', Yrjö
Engeström's model of 'Expansive Learning', and Pekka Himanen's model of the 'Net
Academy'. Creativity and interaction would make up the central foci of
the Osaka New School. "Parents must acknowledge that the schooling, which
will be best for their children in the twenty-first century, has to be very
different from the schooling they experienced themselves"; "schools can no
longer be indifferent to what kinds of living and working await their pupils
when they move into the adult world" (Michael Fullan & Andy Hargreaves:
What's Worth Fighting For In Your School?). We as children and adults would
like to create a meeting place, the Osaka New School, in which creative
networks spinning future hope can emerge. Like Aula, it is a project
to enable voluntary participants to generate a self-organizing social system.
Katsuhiro Yamazumi, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Education at Osaka
University of Education. He is a member of the International Society for
Cultural Research and Activity Theory (ISCRAT) and the New Associationist
Movement (NAM) in Japan. He is currently working on a collective project
for future school design in Osaka. It is called the Osaka New School.
He is author of the 'Orchestrating Voices and Crossing Boundaries in Educational
Practice' chapter in the forthcoming Learning in Classrooms: A
Cultural-Historical Approach (Aarhus University Press, 2001).
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CASE: VALTIKKA.NET (Saturday 11.15 AM)
The Valtikka Project–What Can a Web Page Do to Enhance Democracy?
MARKO LATVANEN, Valtikka.net
In the past decade, non-participation in the political process has
dramatically increased among the Finnish youth. At the same time, new forms
of political and social activism have risen.
The Valtikka.net e-democracy project tries to answer this question by giving
the Finnish youth a new communications and information forum.
Marko Latvanen (born in 1966) works as secretary/co-ordinator for Allianssi's and Ministry of
Education's Valtikka.net e-democracy project. He has written books on the horror genre (Verikekkerit, 1992; co-authored
with Harto Hänninen) and Jesus in the Movies (Vapahtaja valkokankaalla,
1996; co-authored with Olli Seppälä) and has worked as a journalist and film critic. Marko holds a Master's degree in Comparative Religion from the University of Helsinki, and is interested in media, politics, religion/myths, history - and preferably the combination
of all these!
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CASE: HELSINKI G8 DEMONSTRATION (Saturday 11.30 AM)
The Introduction of Electronic Public Space in the Formation of Political Action
SAMPO VILLANEN, Volunteer Organization for Fair Trade
The specific case of my presentation are the organizing procedures of
political activists during a demonstration held on 20 July in Helsinki this year. This demonstration was directed at the G8 meeting underway in
Genoa and the follow-up actions to express concern about the violence that
occurred there. I will use this as an example to illuminate the function of the
Internet in contemporary political activism (and action) and will apply
the concepts of different publics and counter-publics used by Michael
Warner and Craig Calhoun to understand this phenomenon more generally.
Sampo Villanen is a 25-year old activist who studies sociology at the University of Helsinki. He has done
research in the Urban Planning Bureau of the City of Helsinki on urban
planning, urban public space and the meaning of Helsinki's controversial Makasiini-buildings
for citizens. He is currently preparing his Master's Thesis on the use and meaning
of urban public space in demonstrations. Sampo is Chairman of the Volunteer Organization for Fair Trade in Finland. During the
last five months he has also participated in the activities of the ATTAC movement in Finland.
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CASE: EUROPEAN STABILITY INITIATIVE (Saturday 11.45 AM)
European Stability Initiative: Virtual Think Tank on the Balkans
MINNA JÄRVENPÄÄ, ESI
ESI was born out of a concern over the strategic and institutional deficit of international organisations working in the Balkans. In order to generate ideas that can propel change, we needed a space for asking questions and transferring knowledge and a team willing to take intellectual risks. Beyond our own circle we also felt that we had to enter into dialogue with a maximum number of policy planners and decision makers. In my presentation I will explore some of the successes but also problems encountered with ESI's loose and geographically spread organisation: What does the work space of ESI look like? How does one maintain commitment within a team? How can its external networks be made to function more intensively?
Minna Järvenpää is founding member and Director of the Belgrade centre of the European Stability Initiative (ESI, www.esiweb.org). Until recently she worked as senior adviser to former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, supporting a range of crisis management initiatives in the Balkans and throughout Europe. Minna has a background in Slavic languages and international relations from Harvard and the London School of Economics.
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CASE: UNDERFUND (Sunday 10.45 AM)
Underfund: A Web of Fellow Creators
ANDERS NORDWALL, Underfund
A presentation of a utopian dream coming true and the story of a struggle to
create the world's first direct democratic real-time cultural funding
system. Also introducing how to create a world-wide organisation whose
entire administrative department is contained in a briefcase and how to give
an anarchistic structure a legal body.
Anders Nordvall is one of the founders of the Underfund. He has been working with numerous
projects in the fields of interactive drama and Second stage interactive arts
(SESTIA), and is currently working on Force Majeure and Mind Feed. A Creative
producer in the Association of Interacting Arts and a member of the creative
unit Kalliope, Anders is currently studying Aesthetics in Stockholm, Sweden.
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| Aula |
LASIPALATSI,
MANNERHEIMINTIE 22-24,
HELSINKI, FINLAND TEL. +358-45-6798730
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WWW.AULA.CC
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