MEMEFEST 2008- EXPLORING RADICAL BEAUTY OF COMMUNICATION

Memefest, the International Festival of Radical Communication – born in Slovenia and rapidly reaching a critical mass worldwide – is proud to announce its seventh annual competition. Once again, Memefest is encouraging students, writers, artists, designers, thinkers, philosophers, and counter-culturalists to submit their work to our panel of renowned judges.

This year, jury members will among others include new media theorist, activist and founder and director of the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam, Geert Lovink (http://www.networkcultures.org/), Dori Tunstall a leader in field of Design Anthropology and Associate Professor of Design Anthropology and Associate Director of the City Design Center at University of Illinois at Chicago, P.K. Langshaw, the Chair of and Associate Professor in the Department of the Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Jason Grant, Director of Inkahoots (http://www.inkahoots.com.au), the adventurous graphic design studio in Brisbane, Australia, Gon Zifroni from the excellent and innovative design research collective based in Amsterdam and Brussels, Metahaven (www.metahaven.net), and theater director virtuoso, Jernej Lorenci.

This years festival theme is RADICAL BEAUTY. Participants will respond to an excerpt taken from the movie Rize and comment on it with their works.

Here is how we defined radical beauty:

Beauty is a cultural creation that expresses dominant values. In the 21st century beauty is often extremely commercialized. Radical beauty is a cultural creation that expresses the desire of a change in society. Radical beauty is about changing dominant values through action and creation. Grassroots projects are often the vectors of these changings. They experiment new practices and express new values.

RADICAL BEAUTY

• content of communication: poetic dialogue and action between the world and grassroots projects or processes that are existing or yet to be realized
• process of communication: empowering relations between people
• aesthetic: evoking a strong feeling of affection or love

• with radical beauty we want to overcome to usual criticism of social construction of beauty, mostly regarding the representations of women in media.
• radical beauty is a theme but also a communications approach - Therefore we need to channel the concept of radical beauty in to specific problems/issues

As always, those whose work does not take a conventional format can enter the Beyond… category, where the name of the game is challenging mainstream practices and beliefs! Beyond… continues to grow in popularity as a category not only because of its avant-garde appeal but because it is open to non-students as well.

Memefest occurs completely online at www.memefest.org, and all entries will be available for full access and commentary in the site galleries. In 2007, Memefest received almost 500 entries from participants of every continent on the globe (‘cept Antarctica). We hope to get bigger, and to spread more of those good infectious ideas, so keep thinking - and creating.

Deadline for submissions is May 20th 2008!

Good luck!
www.memefest.org

Gertrude Digital Media Festival

20-27th June 2008 - A week of projected media spanning Gertrude St, Fitzroy.

Viewers can access our outdoor gallery at any hour to gain an insight into how we see our relationship of living, working and playing in an urban city setting.

Visit Gertrude St after dark!

Launch party 7.00pm on the 20th of June. The program runs all hours from the 20th to the 27 th June 2008 - Incorporating the shortest day of the year for maximum viewing time!

Call for Entries
Calling for artist and community entries.
Works should respond or incorporate the theme: Urban Perspectives.

The Gertrude Association is calling for digital art (still, video and animation) entries for PROJECT the 2008 digital projections festival.

Viewed where?
Digital Art works will be projected on exterior buildings, pavements, out of windows and onto laneways along Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, 8 locations have been selected.

What’s the Format?
Upload your submission onto our site. Art must be in a digital format Please no more than 2 MB. Projections will not be accompanied by sound. The selected artists will be contacted to resupply their films on file at full quality for projection.

How long?
The recommended length is no more than 15 minutes, if you would like a longer piece to be considered please submit an edited 4 minute version.

Entries Due
Friday May 5th @ 6.00
For more information go to our web site (links below) and enter.

Click here to enter and register online.

* Please note the dates of this festival have changed to 20-27th June 2008.

Memefest 2008: Radical Beauty

While the web team work on upgrading and updating the Memefest 2008 home site (coming soon) we are happy to announce this year's theme – Radical Beauty. More information can be found here. And the video/text for this year is a segment from the film Rize, available to view here.

Recently launched: MemeTV

MemeTV is now available at the Memefest website (here). Have a look at the moving image contributions from the 2007 Memefest competition (with several Australian entries) and watch this space for the 2008 Memefest outline ... coming soon.

Judges have spoken ... 2007 results online now

Check out the website for the 2007 results, well done to all the winners.

Design that "touches people"

A project from the School of Visual Arts in NYC:
http://design.schoolofvisualarts.edu/youdonate/7.htm

Briefing: Memefest text 2007

The 2007 Memefest text is unlike previous texts, which have been essays or manifestos. This year the trailer for Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds has been chosen. You can view it here: http://www.memefest.org/shared/videos/birds480.mov

Made in the 1960s, this footage would originally have been seen in movie theatres and possibly on television. Today, we can watch it in our homes or offices, in university lecture theatres or on mobile phones and i-pods just about anywhere. We now have access to visual media that Hitchcock couldn’t have imagined, which brings us back to the principles of Memefest.

Hitchcock used a commercial medium – the cinema trailer – to promote more than his film. He used a cinema trailer to promote, or disseminate, his ecological stance on man’s relationship to nature. Hitchcock's trailer is effective and memorable because it uses humour and parody to make a serious point. Memefest invites you to produce a visual response to this film, considering the wider theme of ecology.

What is a visual response?
A drawing, a cartoon, a photograph, a series of photographs, an advertisement, a magazine mock-up, a poster, a postcard, an installation, a short film, an animation, a website, a blog, a tattoo, a performance, a visual poem. That’s where I ran out of ideas, but you don’t have to stop there. However, first consider what you want message you want to communicate, and then the best way to communicate that message. Make sure you document any work that is not produced digitally so it can be uploaded to the site.

Ecological responsibility
If you're not sure where to start thinking about ecology, here are some ideas.

"A designer’s job is to be concerned with both the tiniest details and the broadest cosmological abstractions, and how they affect each other – as well as what looks good … In short, designers are naturally concerned with ecology… making things function and ‘appropriate for their context’ is no longer enough; designers have to be concerned with how their designs affect their environment."

Tucker Viemeister, ‘Towards a New Ecology’, Design Issues.

Tucker Viemeister's statement addresses the need for designers to think at both a micro and a macro level; designers must consider not only a specific project (micro) but also the affect the output of that project will have on its environment (macro). That environment might be cultural (it could affect the way people think and behave) or it might be ecological (it could physically affect the world). This consideration of micro and macro is a basic principle of design ecology.

The term ecology refers to the relationships between living organisms and their environment. However, when we speak about ‘ecology’ it is often synonymous with the idea of a crisis. Specifically, the damage human beings are inflicting on our planet. The Earth Charter (www.earthcharter.org) provides a system of sustainable values and principles for all people to adopt in order to address major ecological issues. This document is a valuable resource to get your head around some of the major contemporary ecological issues.

As designers, our ecological responsibilities are twofold: firstly, we have a behavioural responsibility (how do our actions affect the environment?) and secondly, we have a communicative responsibility (how can designers promote awareness, about ecological and environmental issues?). So, as designers, we are responsible for the design outputs we release into the world, and we are also responsible for the messages we communicate to the world.

Memefest invites you participate in a growing online community of designers, writers and cultural theorists by responding to a new text each year. If you haven't already done so, watch the Hitchcock film. Read the Earth Charter. Have a look at some of the links on this site. Visit the Memefest homepage (www.memefest.org) and look at examples from past years. Research the history of protest graphics. But most importantly, have an opinion, and let us know what it is.

Lecture/Seminar: The Art of Change

If you are in Melbourne, get yourself along to this free seminar series at RMIT!



Lecture/Seminar: The Art of Change
Thursday, 1 March 2007 to Thursday, 29 March 2007, 5:30pm - 7:30pm

A free public seminar series exploring the role of cultural action and the arts in movements for social change.

Thursday 1 March, 5.30-7.30pm: Graphic Design
Thursday 8 March, 5.30-7.30pm: Music
Thursday 15 March, 5.30-7.30pm: Film
Thursday 22 March, 5.30-7.30pm: Theatre
Thursday 29 March, 5.30-7.30pm: New Media

RMIT City Campus,
Building 12, Level 5, Room 2
Melbourne, Australia
Stair access from Swanston Street
Lift access from Bowen Street

Find out more at:

http://advocacy.tce.rmit.edu.au/OtherEvents/Events.htm
http://advocacy.tce.rmit.edu.au

The Big Switch Off!

April 13 - 14, 2007, 8pm to 8pm

The Challenge: Leave no environmental footprint for one day

In 2006, a group of friends in Melbourne

pondered what they could do about the climate.

It resulted in a 48 hour trial run celebrated
with an unplugged evening of entertainment in
Fitzroy Gardens.

Now you can join The Big Switch Off for 2007.

www.thebigswitchoff.org

How does Memefest work?

Year- round, Memefest serves as a forum for discussion and site for the exposition of radical communications strategies. All are welcome to cruise the site and to comment on content.

Each year, Memefest singles out a text and/or image that serves as a focal point for a critical take on the current media environment. In the spring, the festival’s competition opens to both graduate and undergraduate students of Communication Studies, Sociology and Visual Arts (except the Beyond… Category which is open to non-students as well). Participants are asked to respond to the chosen texts and images with written or visual entries (according to their discipline).

After the May deadline, submissions are evaluated by an international jury composed of distinguished professors and artists as well as professionals from the spheres of journalism, design, advertising and social marketing. Those who have submitted their works can view the juror’s comments online. The best entries in each category, as chosen by the jury, will be awarded Award of Excellence.

All entries are displayed on the site with comment boxes provided for visitor feedback.

Participation is free.

What is Memefest?

Memefest, an international festival of radical communications, started in Slovenia in 2001.

Memefest departs from the principle that too much talent and knowledge is being wasted in marketing communication and other "mind-altering" media practices that spread negative, infectious ideas. However, we believe there is hope. Together, we can explore how ideas are being–and can be–created and spread, replicating themselves in a manner akin to viruses. These disseminated ideas are called memes. The goal Memefest sets for its participants is to generate and replicate more positive and beneficial memes. Memefest proudly provides a public space where beneficial memes are fostered, nurtured, and rewarded.

Each year, Memefest singles out a text and/or image that serves as a focal point for a critical take on the current media environment. At the beginning of each year, the festival’s competition opens to both graduate and undergraduate students of Communication Studies, Sociology and Visual Arts (except the Beyond… category, which is open to non-students as well). Participants are asked to respond to the chosen texts and images with written or visual entries (according to their discipline).

For more information, see www.memefest.org

Feel free to contact us : memefest.oz@gmail.com