Mapping Medias Symposium

Toron­to, Jan­u­ary 28 to 31, 2016

Fol­low­ing its his­toric gath­er­ings for the media arts sec­tor MANO/RAMO is pleased to announce Map­ping Medias to be held in Toron­to Jan­u­ary 2016 arti­cle source. Tak­ing the dis­cus­sions of ON.Fire in 2010 and Evolve or Per­ish in 2013 as a start­ing point Map­ping Medias will focus on the rapid­ly evolv­ing land­scape of inde­pen­dent art prac­tices includ­ing film, video, sound art, dig­i­tal media, video games and yet unknown forms of exper­i­men­ta­tion, pro­vid­ing a space for chal­leng­ing dis­cus­sions to devel­op strate­gies for nav­i­gat­ing the field.

Map­ping Medias will be held in con­junc­tion with the 8 Fest, Toronto’s pre­miere small-gauge film festival.

Full sched­ule as a pdf: Map­ping _Medias_Guide

All con­fer­ence and pro­gram­ming venues are acces­si­ble to wheel­chairs and mobil­ity devices. Lunch­es will be pro­vided on Sat­ur­day and Sunday.

Map­ping Medias is gen­er­ously sup­ported by the Ontario Arts Coun­cil, the Ontario Tril­lium Foun­da­tion, and the Toron­to Arts Council.

Open­ing Night Keynote and Sound Art Performances
Bev­er­ley Halls SPK
206 Bev­er­ley Street

Pan­els
Unit­ed Steel­work­ers Hall
25 Cecil Street

MANO Mem­ber Rep­re­sen­ta­tive or Stu­dent Reg­is­tra­tion Fees $60
(includes 8 Fest Pass)
Non-mem­ber Rep­re­sen­ta­tive or Indi­vid­ual Reg­is­tra­tion Fees $90
(includes 8 Fest Pass)

Reg­is­ter online at: https://mano-ramo.ca/mapping-registration/

Indi­vid­ual Tick­ets (lim­ited tick­ets will be avail­able at the door dai­ly, does not include 8 Fest screenings)
Thurs­day Open­ing Keynote, Per­for­mances $15
Fri­day day pass $20
Sat­ur­day day pass $20
Sun­day day pass Free

Need anoth­er rea­son to join MANO/RAMO?

MANO/RAMO pro­vides Trav­el Assis­tance for one rep­re­sen­ta­tive from each mem­ber orga­ni­za­tion or col­lec­tive. Accom­mo­da­tion sub­si­dies for mem­bers are based on availability.

To join MANO/RAMO please see: https://mano-ramo.ca/join-manoramo

Sched­ule

Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 28
Open­ing Keynote by Dean­na Bowen
7:00 to 8:30 pm

Dean­na Bowen (b. 1969, Oak­land; lives Toron­to) is a descen­dant of the Alaba­ma and Ken­tucky born Black Prairie pio­neers of Amber Val­ley and Camp­sie, Alber­ta. She is an award win­ning inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist and recent recip­i­ent of the 2014 William H. John­son Prize. Her work has been exhib­ited inter­na­tion­ally in numer­ous film fes­ti­vals and muse­ums, includ­ing the Insti­tute of Con­tem­po­rary Art at the Uni­ver­sity of Penn­syl­va­nia, Philadel­phia; the Images Fes­ti­val, Toron­to; Flux Projects, Atlanta; the Kas­sel Doc­u­men­tary Film and Video Fes­ti­val; Ober­hausen Film Fes­ti­val; Nash­er Muse­um of Art at Duke Uni­ver­sity, Durham, North Car­olina; and the Cana­dian Muse­um of Immi­gra­tion at Pier 21, Halifax.

Sound Per­for­mances and Party
9:00 pm to 1 am

Sound Art Per­for­mances, DJ Sets and Par­ty co-pre­sent­ed with NAISA, fea­tur­ing: Hec­tor Cen­teno & Tet­suo Kogawa, Hushy (Michelle Irv­ing), Gor­don Mon­a­han; Hap­tic Sen­sory Expe­ri­ences by VVi­bra­Fu­sion­Lab; DJ sets by Hussy and Produzentin

Trans-Feed­back Radio by Hec­tor Cen­teno & Tet­suo Kogawa
Trans-Feed­back Radio is a quadra­phonic “trans-feed­back” micro-FM trans­mit­ter per­for­mance by Hec­tor Cen­teno with Tet­suo Kogawa join­ing via video link from Japan. In this per­for­mance Cen­teno and Kogawa cre­ate com­plex feed­back cir­cuits using radio trans­mit­ters and receivers and the con­duc­tive prop­er­ties of the human body.

Room by Hushy
The piece is titled Room and com­bines room tones sam­pled from sev­eral films, sfx libraries, with field record­ings of oth­er rooms/spaces. These sound sources will be processed to high­light the var­i­ous inher­ent or imag­ined states of dra­matic nar­ra­tive pos­si­ble with their acoustic prop­er­ties. What are the unheard under­cur­rents behind the son­ic atmos­pheres we inhab­it and what mean­ings lie behind the bound­aries that these “space con­tain­ers” present?

Sauer­kraut Syn­the­sizer by Gor­don Monahan
Fruits and veg­eta­bles are arranged in a net­work so that they become volt­age con­trollers for a soft­ware-based audio syn­the­sizer. A zinc ter­mi­nal and a cop­per ter­mi­nal are insert­ed into fruits, veg­eta­bles, and a jar of sauer­kraut, so that each organ­ic object becomes an acid bat­tery that pro­duces approx­i­mately one volt of elec­tric­ity. As the depth of inser­tion of the bat­tery ter­mi­nals is changed, para­me­ters of the syn­the­sized sounds are altered in real-time.

Dance Par­ty
DJs Hussy and Produzentin

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29

Fun­der Forum
10:00 am to noon
Mark Haslam (OAC/CAO), Peter King­stone (TAC), San­jay Sha­hani (OTF/FTO)

Meet the fun­ders in this open­ing ses­sion. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Ontario Tril­lium Foun­da­tion, Ontario Arts Coun­cil and the Toron­to Arts Coun­cil will pro­vide up-to-date infor­ma­tion regard­ing cur­rent and future pro­grams, changes and oppor­tu­ni­ties. This is a great oppor­tu­nity to dis­cuss recent changes and developments. 

Lunch on own
noon to 2:00 pm

Open Forum — One Minute Del­e­gate Intro­duc­tions
2:00 to 3:00 pm

Pre­sen­ta­tion – Dis­cus­sion: MANO Lead­er­ship Project — Best Prac­tices in Human Resources / Gov­er­nance / Access / Equi­ty / Con­flict Res­o­lu­tion for Media Arts
3:00 to 5:30 pm
Speak­ers: Giselle Bas­anta, charles c. smith, Sheila Wilmot

Pre­vi­ous con­sul­ta­tions demon­strated the need for the media arts sec­tor to devel­op a set of (unique­ly tai­lored to the orga­ni­za­tional struc­tures of artist-run media orga­ni­za­tions) best prac­tices, poli­cies and doc­u­ment tem­plates on human resources, gov­er­nance, acces­si­bil­ity and inclu­sion, and con­flict res­o­lu­tion. With the sup­port from the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts, MANO’s mem­bers worked with con­sul­tants Giselle Bas­anta, charles c. smith and Sheila Wilmot to devel­op such poli­cies and pro­ce­dures dur­ing the sum­mer and fall of 2015. MANO staff and the con­sul­tants will lead this ses­sion pre­sent­ing the pol­icy doc­u­ments and tak­ing feed­back from the mem­ber­ship. This ses­sion will be fol­lowed by a Con­flict Res­o­lu­tion work­shop in Feb­ru­ary 2016 with Sheila Wilmot. 

8Fest Small Gauge Film Fest
7:00 pm to late

SATURDAY, JANUARY 30

The Mar­ket of All Things
10:00 to 11: 30 am
Speak­ers: Pierre Bon­homme (Sud­bury, CION), Jim Munroe (Toron­to, Hand Eye Soci­ety), June Pak (Toron­to, Artist) and Indu Vashist (Toron­to, SAVAC)

Through­out its his­tory artist-run cul­ture has pre­sented an alter­na­tive to mar­ket dri­ven art and media afford­ing a space for exper­i­men­ta­tion with con­tent and form. While pro­vid­ing an alter­na­tive to com­mer­cial prac­tices artist-run cul­ture has also engaged with indus­try and mar­kets in a con­tin­ual push and pull of inter­ests between com­merce and artis­tic auton­omy. As the cul­tural indus­tries have emerged as a major eco­nomic sec­tor in late-cap­i­tal­ism how has this changed the posi­tion of artist-run media and inde­pen­dent prac­tice? How can cul­tural indus­tries and inde­pen­dent art prac­tices work to sup­port each oth­er? Can the mar­ket present greater degrees of free­dom and auton­omy for artists and cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions than the pub­lic fund­ing mod­el? With glob­al trans­for­ma­tions tied to dig­i­tal mar­kets and plat­forms what oppor­tu­ni­ties for artis­tic and polit­i­cal engage­ment are emerg­ing and what threats does the sec­tor need to address?

Our esteemed pan­elists will exam­ine the space between com­merce and col­lec­tiv­ity, eco­nomic and social mea­sures of exchange and seek to answer some of these, and oth­er, ques­tions while trac­ing new ways forward.

Open Forum — Three Min­utes Speak­er Spots for Ideas and Feedback
noon to 1 pm

Lunch Catered by the Regent Park Cater­ing Collective
1:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Beyond Inclu­sion: The State of Equity
2:00 to 3:30 pm
Speak­ers: Fran­cis­co-Fer­nan­do Grana­dos (Toron­to, Artist), Amy Fung (Toron­to, Images Fes­ti­val), Jes Sachse (Toron­to, Artist), Ariel Smith (Ottawa, Nation­al Indige­nous Media Arts Coalition)

The media arts sec­tor in Cana­da has seen repeat­ed waves of con­tes­ta­tion towards build­ing access and inclu­sion for artists and orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing diverse com­mu­ni­ties includ­ing those of colour, indige­nous, new­com­ers, queer, deaf and dis­abled. While great strides have been made with the rise of iden­tity based fes­ti­vals and orga­ni­za­tions since the 1990s and through improved inclu­sion with­in orga­ni­za­tions as a whole there remains work to do to ensure equi­table access to the means of pro­duc­tion, dis­sem­i­na­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion in Ontario’s media art sec­tor. The project of ensur­ing the sec­tor evolves in a man­ner that reflects the chang­ing demo­graph­ics of the province while main­tain­ing a strong stance against oppres­sion is an ongo­ing one.

This pan­el will reflect on best prac­tices and ways for­ward for a diverse media arts sec­tor. How has the media arts sec­tor changed to become more inclu­sive, or failed to change in the past 30 years and where does it still need to do work? How do orga­ni­za­tions engage from a stance of anti-oppres­sion? How can orga­ni­za­tions be gen­uine allies and when do attempts fall into prob­lem­atic tok­eniza­tion? What can we learn from oth­er sec­tors to build anti-oppres­sive organizations?

Mul­ti Polar Sec­tor: The City and the Regions
4:00 to 5:30 pm
Speak­ers: Ser­ena Katao­ka (Sud­bury, White Water Gallery), Scott McGov­ern (Guelph, Ed Video), Tam­my Rea (Hal­libur­ton, Sticks and Stones Pro­duc­tions), Sam Shah­sa­habi (Thun­der Bay, Satel­lite Art Artist Collective)

The rela­tion­ship between Toron­to and the rest of Ontario is too often framed as one of metro­pole and periph­ery, par­tic­u­larly when speak­ing of artists from the north and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties. While artists and arts orga­ni­za­tions find their great­est con­cen­tra­tions in major cities the his­tory of Cana­dian media art is filled with artists, col­lec­tives and orga­ni­za­tions work­ing in small cities, rur­al areas and remote com­mu­ni­ties who have made sig­nif­i­cant impacts on the nation­al and inter­na­tional scene. Why should artists go from the city to the north to share their work and knowl­edge when it often means miss­ing what is already know there, how can this trend be reversed, what do the cities need to learn? Is liv­ing and work­ing out­side the major cen­tres a rad­i­cal ges­ture for a pro­fes­sional artist or arts orga­ni­za­tion? How can the media art sec­tor be reimag­ined in a non-hier­ar­chi­cal cartography? 

Pre­sent­ing var­i­ous strate­gies for net­works and sup­port in the regions our pan­elists will exam­ine the notion of a mul­ti-polar media arts with­in Canada.

8Fest Small Gauge Film Fest
7:00 pm to late

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31

MANO Annu­al Gen­eral Meeting
10:30 am to noon

Lunch Pro­vided
noon to 1:00 pm

Preser­va­tion Strate­gies — A Pol­icy Build­ing Session
Facil­i­tated by Car­o­line Seck Langill (Peter­bor­ough, OCADU)
1:00 to 3:00 pm

This dis­cus­sion, intro­duced and facil­i­tated by Car­o­line Seck Langill will work with mem­bers to pro­vide to devel­op a series of pro­pos­als and ways for­ward for the media arts sec­tor in Ontario to devel­op ground up preser­va­tion strate­gies. Work­ing groups will be cre­ated to dis­cuss issues spe­cific to film, video, new media and gam­ing preser­va­tion. The work of these groups will shape MANO’s provin­cial and fed­eral advo­cacy on preser­va­tion for the 2016/17 year. 

Clos­ing Presentations
3:30 to 4:00 pm

8Fest Small Gauge Film Fest
7:00 pm to late