Open societies and personal liberties will rely on new technologies as much as they did on printing and free press in prior centuries. Artists and activists -- whose job is to lead society to a better place -- need to understand the fundamental shifts that are occurring in the space of information, communication, and cultural production. Moreover, they should consider becoming early adopters of tools that promise to give them more economic and cultural autonomy. Tech as in Freedom is a three day workshop exploring free and open source software, from the nitty-gritty of 'diff' and 'patch' commands, to the sweeping implications for industry, states, and politics. In particular, the power of open standards for artists, cultural producers, and activists will be highlighted. What new types of production and collaboration does the Free Software model allow? How can we use free culture to create a material world that is richer, more humane, and more poetic? How does one start to model one's own work on free processes, and use free tools?
2. Scrapyard Challenge Workshop | Jonah Brucker-Cohen & Katherine Moriwaki
The Scrapyard Challenge Workshops are intensive workshops where participants build simple electronic projects (both digital and analog inputs) out of found or discarded "junk" (old electronics, clothing, furniture, outdated computer equipment, appliances, turntables, monitors, gadgets, etc..) The MIDI Scrapyard version includes a mini workshop where participants build simple drawing robots or "DrawBots" with small, inexpensive motors, batteries, and drawing markers that can also be connected to Serial or MIDI interface. At the end of the day or evening, the workshop participants have a small performance, concert, or fashion show where they demonstrate and present their creations together as a group. No electronics skills or any experience with technology is necessary to participate in the workshops.
3. Urban Programming 201 workshop | Taeyoon Choi
Taeyoon Choi, an artist active in local and international scene, is conducting a participatory workshop that explores tactics of intervention in the public space, in regard to power relationship between individual, crowd, and authority. Workshop consists of lecture, project, and discussion sessions. Urban Programming 201 focus on developing tools and strategies for peaceful public protest in the public space that are augmented by New Media. The urgent nature of the workshop is in the light of recent police brutality during 'Candle light protest' in Seoul, South Korea. The participants play a central role in creating discourse of public space and protest culture, develop solutions for the situation, and begin a long term communication for collaboration among each other. The workshop happens in SangSangMaDang and various public spaces in Seoul. The participants present their work in progress in the last day to the public.
[Workshop / Performance]
4. ccRealMixter Workshop | CC Salon in Seoul
CC(Creative Commons) is an international non for profit organization that advocates new creative culture based on free use of contents. CCL(Creative Commons License) is a flexible protection of ownership and voluntary sharing as an alternative distribution method. Artist, writers, scholars, creator of all field can expose their work to the wider audience and build upon each other's material. Centered around CCL , CC Salon in Seoul is a platform for makers and developers of diverse fields. CcRealMixter is a project by CC Salon in Seoul, a remix performance party with your own audio and visual material. A workshop introduces methods of image editing and manipulation using 'Scratch', and everyone is invited to become a VJ at the ccRealMixter performance right after the workshop.
[Exhibition / Performance]
5. <Surveillance Opera: 007 >, Yangachi
CCTV cameras are strategically placed in urban spaces to monitor and eventually to control citizen's behavior. Artist Yangachi recreates scenes of popular movie by using real time video feeds of CCTV. Based on familiar plots of the spy movie 007, nine agents are in a blood shedding fight to seize the Bond girl. In this event, Artist utilizes various CCTV already installed in the SangSangMaDang establishment. Audience can watch the agents finding each other to kill, through the pan-optic gaze staged by the artist. The documentation is exhibited after the performance.
The
Image Fulgurator is a device for physically manipulating photographs. It intervenes when a photo is being taken, without the photographer being able to detect anything. The manipulation is only visible on the photo afterwards. In principle, the Fulgurator can be used anywhere where there is another camera nearby that is being used with a flash. It operates via a kind of reactive flash projection that enables an image to be projected on an object exactly at the moment when someone else is photographing it. The intervention is unobtrusive because it takes only a few milliseconds. Every photo another photographer takes of an object at which the Fulgurator is also aimed is affected by the manipulation. Hence visual information can be smuggled unnoticed into the images of others.
[Exhibition]
7. <Oil>, Jaewoo Oh
Oh Jae Woo's <Still Life> series is composed of familiar products like a traditional still life painting, and creating a poem out of the text seen in the screen. One of the pieces <Oil> contains message that comment on the problems of global environment due to oil consumption, and his hopes for the peace. Oh Jae Woo think there is a potential in fine art as a medium to reflect the society's problem in artist's perspective. The artist, knowing that he can not directly intervene into the production and distribution of oil, creates a unique solution for the uneasy situation.
8. <GRL: The Complete First Season>, Graffiti Research Lab (GRL)
Graffiti Research Lab, founded by Evan Roth and James Powderly, is an art group dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artists and protesters with open source technologies for urban communication. The members of the group experiment in a lab and in the field to develop and test a range of experimental technologies. They document those efforts with video documentation and DIY instructions for each project and make it available for everybody. In this exhibition, <GRL: The Complete First Season>, a movie, made by small digital camera, and screened at 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The movie opens up the discourses of opensource in pop culture, hacker philosophy in graffiti, freedom of press through the humorous and decisive projects by the G.R.L.
9. <TIMESALE & TIMEDONATION>, Nanna Hyungjoo Choi 
Researches shows that human life-spans have grown longer. However, people always say they do not have enough time. Time is the origin of every dispute, especially for the urbanites. How can we overcome the lack of time? The project starts from understanding time not as a measurement of length, but a parallel or autonomous entity. Artist has created a mobile object, and intervened in to the public space to interact with pedestrians, in unspecified time and location of Berlin and Seoul during 2007 and 2008. By the contradictory act of displacing entity from time and trading it as if it was an object, the participants experience the consumption of time, and learn to see the relative nature of this decision making. Video documentation of performance and actual objects are exhibited at the venue.
10. <Driving with radio>, Sangtae Jin
<Driving with radio> is a new instrumental method created by Jin Sang Tae, an artist known for making electronic music based on computer. Artist collects and composes sound out of to electromagnetic wave reacting to the static rhythm of radio frequency. He drove around Chung Ryang Ri area in Seoul, recording video and sound of noise created by clash of the electromagnetic wave between street lights, something metallic embedded deep underground, and the obstacle-less environment. The documentation is a candid report on over populated and dense urban space. Artist provides an opportunity for audience to reflect upon their living environment.
11. <Dow Does the Right Thing>, The Yes Men
The Yes Men are a group of culture jamming activists who practice what they call "identity correction" by pretending to be powerful people and spokespersons for prominent organizations. They create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they want to spoof, and then they accept invitations received on their websites to appear at conferences, symposia, and TV shows. Their newfound, self-proclaimed authority to express the idea that corporations and governmental organizations often act in dehumanizing ways toward the public has met both positively and negatively with political overtones. The Yes Men have posed as spokespeople for The World Trade Organization, McDonald's, Dow Chemical, and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Their experiences were documented in the film The Yes Men, distributed by United Artists.
12. <DPT_7S2006>, Dotplay Telecom Inc.
Mobile media and devices are the most intimate technology in our daily life. Dotplay Telecom is a virtual telecommunication company that investigates issues regarding the mobile, and create artistic projects. Dotplay Telecom provides mobile products and services, focusing on making changes in conception of mobile and creating value out of the shift, other than economic profit. Dotplay's high end mobile phone <DPT_7S2006> is undoubtedly used and out of fashion phone. This product is one of our best selling model, because the personal history and memory embedded in the mobile phone are more valuable than the physical and technical attributes of the device. Everyone can become a share holder of Dotplay Telecom Inc, and we accept business proposals via our website.
Korean version >
