Roboexotica is the annual festival where scientists, researchers, computer experts and artists from all over the world build cocktail robots and discuss technological innovation, futurology and science fiction.Until recently, no attempts had been made to publicly discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication. Roboexotica is an attempt to fill this vacuum. It is the first and, inevitably, the leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics world-wide. A micro mechanical change of paradigm in the age of borderless capital. Alan Turing would doubtless test this out. Cheers!

Roboexotica is a coproduction of monochrom, Shifz and the Bureau for Philosophy.

December 1-4, 2011 in Vienna, Austria.

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"The title for the 12th edition of Pixxelpoint 2011 is appropriately enigmatic: LETS GET READY..., merely defines a space of engagement driven forward by a generative force: 'to begin again from the beginning' for those who seek what formulates new media art in its fluent transition between the various manifestations, which can take on new meanings in multiple contextual re-configurations no matter what of their materiality or mediality. Especially when considering the articulations from the fundamental/historical register to what this could foster at the intersection of new media art's "mission, its destiny."

December 2-9, 2011 at Pixxelpoint 2011 - Let's Get Ready, Bevkov trg 4, 5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenia.

Link to monochrom's BRAVE NEW PONG.

The fourth 'Wolfgang Lorenz Memorial prize for Internet-Free Minutes' has been awarded to A1 Telekom Austria CEO Hannes Ametsreiter by the Monochrom artists' collective. He won the booby prize for his rejection in February of the idea of net neutrality, saying the operator owns the technology and infrastructure and therefore should have the right to decide how it is used. The prize is named after the director of Austrian broadcaster ORF, who made a scatalogical remark in 2008 about young people disappearing into the internet. Lorenz said TV would remain the top medium with or without young viewers.

Enjoy.

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Urban Hacking, as a book, tracks numerous strategies, including Augmented Reality interventions, billboard alteration, graffiti, tags, and greening, as a kind of "programmable literature", made possible through open sourcing of code and the artistic re-use of place. From this admixture, we have the foundations of an urbanism made by and for "the people" which, at the same time as interrogating the fabric of spaces overtaken, outsourced, managed and mined, hales radical, digital cultures, and opens surfaces for dialogue with urban environments from within a post-colonial critique. The book is an attempt, I would argue, to identify strategies for the problem spaces which might be creatively detourned, delimited, or re-designed. It articulates the problem of politicized urban art as requiring a much-needed re-invention of itself, on toothier terms.

But, the book is, also, self-consciously, historical. There is a chapter on Lenin's vision for the center of Lviv, for instance, which shows how he re-engineered the monuments and central squares of that city.

Director Johannes Grenzfurthner gave a short presentation about traditional narrative cinema, the problems of storytelling and Sierra Zulu.

Link (TEDxVienna)

I thought you might enjoy my recent socialist-capitalist fusion blog "comparing and contrasting" Arse Elektronika and Singularity Summit. Can us wild futurists ever work together? Will the rich invest in erototech?

Order via office@monochrom.at

We are part of public art project "Transprivacy" in Düssedorf, Germany.

Here is our poster...

Johannes Grenzfurthner is an artist, writer, curator, and director. He is the founder of monochrom, an internationally acting art and theory group. He holds a professorship for art theory and art practice at the University of Applied Sciences in Graz, Austria. He is head of the "Arse Elektronika" festival in San Francisco, host of "Roboexotica" (Festival for Cocktail-Robotics, Vienna and San Francisco), and co-curates the Paraflows Symposium in Vienna

The presentations were extremely wide-ranging, and showed the creativity possible as a new age of sexual freedom emerges. Each one incrementally stretched the group or "hive" mind in real time.

Among the dozen+ offerings, we heard from Kitty Stryker in her frank talk, "Sex Work, Disability, and Stigma"  and Maymay presented "A Class Analysis of Social Status in the BDSM Scene” (also available on YouTube). David Fine, who vaguely describes himself as "a Sex Robot from the 25th century" spending his time in our era guiding technology in useful, or at least interesting, directions, brought us his reimagining of the Mindflex kids' toy (available on Amazon) which he modified to activate a vibrator, simple and perhaps the first attempt we’ve seen to apply an EEG headset  to a sex toy; The future possibilities are endless.

Here is the link.

And there have been many other write-ups and comments, we can't link all of them here, but feel free to google.

The Roboexotica 2011 Festival dates are set for December 1st-4th in Vienna. If you're into robots, and are of legal drinking age, this is one event absolutely not to be missed.

Here's how the Roboexotica organization website positions this totally unique annual celebration featuring robots contributing to improving life in a meaningful way...

Cheers! Roboexotica will take place in Vienna December 1-4, 2011. Until recently, no attempts had been made to publicly discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication. Roboexotica is an attempt to fill this vacuum. It is the first and, inevitably, the leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics world-wide. A micro mechanical change of paradigm in the age of borderless capital. Alan Turing would doubtless test this out.

December 1-4, 2011 at Ragnarhof, Vienna.

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Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Johannes Grenzfurthner. We think we have known of each other for years. Maybe 5. Maybe 100. He is a profoundly playful artist working with a group that calls itself Monochrom.

We met, at last, as you can probably deduce from our photo.

Since attending DiGRA I have been rather imbued with something akin to hope. Meeting young artists working in so many different media to create new invitations to, well, fun. Artists who are finding not only fun, but funding. The optimism is tangible. Johannes is one of the wonderful few who nurture that tangibility with their very beings.

On the heels of Folsom Street Fair, Arse Elektronika, an annual conference on sex, technology and culture arrives in San Francisco from September 29-October 2.
Curious to know how sex and technology intersect? Arse Elektronika is certain to titillate. This year's theme, "screw the system" looks to explore questions such as:

"What are the labor conditions of non-Western workers who make most of the world's sex toys? What's the environmental footprint of a technologically assisted orgasm? How does the criminalization or stigma of sex tech production harm the communities in which it is produced? What's the product life-cycle and planning horizon of sex tech? What are the barriers to entry for sex tech production? How important is intellectual property to sex tech, and how is it enforced?"

The event kicks off its opening night with the Prixxx Arse award for the best in sex machines, orgasmotrons and teledildonics on Thursday, September 29th at Chez Poulet. The event is organized by the Austrian art collective, monochrom.

Talks at the event include such topics as "Making a Mind Controlled Dildo" and hands on workshops for the DIY crowd.

While Arse Elektronika isn't going to please all, I can't imagine a city better suited for such an event. For the curious, you can check out the full schedule on Arse Elektronika's website.