Detoxing Media Addicts

transmediale.06 is devoted to artistic ideas and strategies which subvert the technological paradigm of reality. Rather than exploring the relationship of media and reality from the perspective of technologies that impose specific perceptions of reality, transmediale tries to show ways and means to subvert these constructions, to exaggerate or reduce them to absurdity. Artistic works in this spirit will be displayed in the transmediale lounge and in the exhibition SMILE machines, while the festival's conference offers a reality-check of the present.

Have we arrived in the futurological scenarios and "science fiction" of the 1980s? Two panels on "Media Addicts" discuss the technologies which permeate our existence and examine the representation, perception and transformation of reality by media. The first "Media Addicts" panel includes Simon Penny, Jordan Crandall and Lu Jie, who - moderated by Matthew Fuller - will place the emphasis on the socio-political aspects of media technologies (February 4, 14 hrs). On the second panel Janet Cardiff, Marie-Luise Angerer and Michael Bull will discuss how our subjective perception of these "augmented realities" is changed by mobile media, and what the effects are on social cohesion and on the public sphere (February 5, 14 hrs).

Many people today surround themselves with a panoply of digital gadgets. Mobile phones and MP3-players, GPS and navigation systems are part of their everyday lives. Wavering between the terror of consumption and comprehensive auto-surveillance, these "Media Addicts" move through a world determined by technologies, in which the borders between the individual, media prostheses and the hybrid layers of cyberspace are blurred. The transmediale lounge examines urban and media realities, it shows survival techniques and the struggle of the individual against an adverse reality. It also presents works from the video programme of transmediale.06 dealing with the topic "Reality Addicts". (see also press sheet: Reality & Me)

transmediale's exhibition SMILE MACHINES shows several works that defy a reality dictated by mass media by extracting samples and recomposing or looping them endlessly (Muntadas' "Slogans", Birnbaum's "Wonder Women"). Kim Beom edited a paratext from the repletion of (TV) information, and Christian Möller disguised the false smile of TV entertainment. Pomeroy's texts, performances and videos de-mystify technology and its economic basis, while Paik ("I make technology ridiculous") purposefully profanes it with his "TV-Rodin". (see also press sheet: SMILE MACHINES by Anne-Marie Duguet)