DI-EGY Fest 01 English section book

Behind The image and Beyond

----------------Egypt Digital art festival 0.1 ----------------27 MARCH/ 10 April Cairo. 2013 -----------------

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Credits The Ministry of Culture, Egypt has been produced this publication for the Di-Egy Fest 0.1 Exhibition 2013, This publication was generously supported by the British Council, The American Embassy and ProHelvetia.

Publication co-ordination Haytham Nawar Publication editing Lauren Alexander, Cheri Allcock, Haytham Nawar Festival and publication design Ghalia Elsrakbi (www.foundland.info) Translation Transtec The artwork related materials included in this publication have been contributed by the participating artists and researchers.

All copyright is credited to them.

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INTRoduction Di-Egy Festival 0.1 was initiated and curated by Elham Khattab (Out of the Circle initiative) and Haytham Nawar.

Festival Coordinator: Hala Gabr Workshop Coordinator: Dahlia Refaat Di-Egy kids coordinator: Mostafa el Bana Di-Egy kids mediator: Lena Seik and Alexandra Friedrich

Prof. Salah El-Meligy Head of Fine Arts Sector Ministry of Culture, Egypt 20 March 2013

The festival was made possible by: German University in Cairo, the British council, American University, Cairo, Pro-Helvetia, Institut Français, The Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University, I-DAT, Artellewa, Foundland, Curated Place, 100 copies music and Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig With special thanks to the following: Cheri Allcock, Latifa Fadlalla, Hazem Gad, Gezira Art Centre staff, Hussam Tooti, Max Kazemzadeh, Ashraf Magdy, and all Di-Egy Fest volunteers.

This publication is not for sale.

Images play a significant role in the creative scene all over the world due to ever developing modern technologies making it more interesting, attractive, and expressive of the past, present, and future. A new generation of artists employs talent and courage in order to enter these new worlds of research, experimentation.

Developments in Egypt, especially in the Plastic Arts, follows international trends. In the past few years we have seen many highly acclaimed artists emerging, as well as promising young talents being discovered.

DESIGN RESEARCH COLLECTIVE

Egyptian artists have become more aware of the power that their works are able to have on a wider public. On an international stage they compete with contributions of drawings, sculpture, ceramic arts and graphic arts.

Modern technology and its tools have no doubt had a great influence on the making artworks and added enormous capabilities to such fields.

Technological changes have opened up new conceptual changes in the media arts.

DESIGN RESEARCH COLLECTIVE

With the artists ability to uncover secrets of unknown worlds, beyond the visible, one can only imagine the future, when we will be able to touch, read, and highlight mysteries in the form of plastic shapes capable of addressing the recipient.

In line with these developments, it is inevitable that we need to ensure the increase of spaces for display, competition, experimentation, artistic collaboration and exchange of experiences for Egyptian artists in the field of Media Art, so as to assist them in their relentless pursuit to realize its theories and initiatives. We would like to make way for them in a manner appropriate to the current significance of such arts all over the world, encouraging them to produce untraditional innovative ideas.

I do however think that it is increasingly important to provide opportunities to interact with the local audience and present its artists and arts, particularly as it combines professionalism, idea, and concept.

Art events such as this are real opportunities for artists who are working in this field to explore new avenues for such revolutionary change in the concepts of creativity and established thoughts related to the plastic arts. This festival provides them with the opportunity to meet new audiences, exchange opinions, experiences and discuss expertise and technological developments, allowing artists to be able to use this information in the developments of new artworks.

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DI-EGY FEST concept Haytham Nawar and Elham khattab Di-Egy Fest 0.1 initiators

late eighties, the School of Fine Arts first graduates Mahmoud Mukhtar and Mahmoud Said, as most artists at the time, used traditional mediums (paintings, sculpture, photography, etc), and the white cube gallery in Egypt was virtually the only holy place where artists could install their artworks, inviting an elite audience to visit, view and purchase the works.

communities to establish new relationships, open new dialogs, and build new platforms for future collaboration and cooperation.

In the late nineties, when the internet began to more ubiquitously absorb the masses, artists began to experiment and explore the use of this new medium in their work. This had a significant impact on how Egyptian Contemporary Art was defined, practices, and exhibited. Each of these factors served as interesting challenges motivating the establishment of the Di-Egy Festival here in Egypt. We hope also that this festival will help to look back and learn from our rich history and serve as a contributing pillar supporting our evolving identity within the arts, also that this festival may serve as a first step in discovering how art can play a more significant role in developing our society.

Jacques Rancière said that there are two catastrophic opinions about image and reality that are popular today. The first says that nothing is real anymore, because all of reality has become virtual, a parade of simulacra and images without any true substance. The second says that there are no more images, because an “image” is a thing clearly distanced or separate from reality, because we have lost the distance that enabled us to discern between images and reality, the image, as a category, no longer exists.

Why DI-EGY FEST 0.1 Now in Egypt?

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DI-EGY FEST. 0.1 Theme: Digitalizing Egypt. Behind the Image and Beyond Behind the Image and Beyond concept

Just as the image plays an increasingly pervasive and persuasive role in the world, so the desire to make the invisible visible, to go behind and beyond the image, has played a significant part in the development of Western art over the past century.

From 27 March to 10 April, 2013 in Cairo, Egypt DI-EGY FEST 0.1 Technology has profoundly changed the ways we connect, work and play now in Egypt.

With social networks, videos, mobile networks, tablets, digital games and computers, most of us become abosorbed in the immersiveness of technology and are reliant on the digital world to carry out the activities of our daily routine.

How does digital media influence creative ideas and practice? In comparison to the rest of the world, how has Egypt evolved in the area of digital art? How can creative practices and discovery in the area of digital art around the world influence our local creative community and practice? In what ways can we connect, communicate and collaborate with artists from other countries to make way for new creative possibilities and solutions in Egypt? ….and lastly, how can this festival motivate this collaborative initiative?

Since the recent evolving changes in Egypt, we face many questions…. questions that may find

new solutions through dialog and discovery with this Digital Arts Festival in Egypt, “DI-EGY FEST “.

DI-EGY FEST 0.1: Past, Present Future “The history of modernism is intimately framed by that space; or rather the history of modern art can be correlated with changes in that space and in the way we see it. We have now reached the point where we see not the art but the space first. (A cliché of the age is to ejaculate over the space on entering a gallery.) An image comes to mind of a white, ideal space that, more than any single picture, may be the archetypal image of twentieth century art; it clarifies itself through a process of historical inevitability usually attached to the art it contains.”

Inside the white cube, the ideology of the gallery space by Brian O’Doherty From its establishment in Cairo 1908 by Egyptian Prince Youssef Kamel to the beginning of the contemporary arts uprising in Egypt in the

With the support of the Fine Arts Sector of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, the British Council Agouza, the Swiss Foundation Prohelvetia, German University in Cairo and the American Embassy; Di-Egy Fest will present a range of activities in Cairo which is open to the public. For 15 days, visitors and attendees will have the chance to visit international digital arts exhibitions, attend a projection night displaying visual and interactive work by international artists, visit local artist open studios, attend an international academic conference, and participate in up to seven different workshops covering a range of creative and digital themes. Children will have a chance to learn about digital arts through the Di-Egy children section as well.

By presenting work by digital artists from Egypt and around the world, young artists will gain significant exposure and inspiration in regards to creative digital art ideas, practices and techniques?

The festival is a great opportunity for individuals from a range of backgrounds, skills, and

While the status of the image and its many canons of representation vary across cultures, none will deny its power to excite and incite, inform and dissimulate, inspire and suppress. It can be argued that the more transparent the image the more profound or mysterious its origins. Post-digital art overtly challenges the image’s status of semiotic stability and rhetorical determinism, and empowers the viewer to transform and transcend what is seen, through interaction and participation, in a process of emergent meaning, exploiting particularly the hyperlinks and non-linearity of networks.

This is to go behind the image to a second order state of semantic fluidity, and open-ended semiosis.

We might think of this in terms of looking at past examples of new “imageness”–for instance, the rise of photography. Photography carried out a new form of representation framed by literature itself, capturing the aesthetic of the prose poem. While Baudelaire is famous for denouncing photography, his prose poems appear to anticipate its eventual function in their early verbal version of the snap-

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shot. Photography [like one of Baudelaire’s prose poems about people in a window that Rancière read] leaves the look mute and allows space for a multiplicity of meaning.

From the Di-Egy Fest 0.1 theme concept, we felt the need to organize the festival in different activities so the festival participants will have a wider platform to connect, learn, talk and work together to discover more behind the digital image and beyond in Cairo.

Di-Egy Fest 0.1 Activities • Di-Egy Fest 0.1 Exhibition The Di-Egy Fest exhibition activities include two Fine Arts gallery spaces (Al-Gezira Arts Centre) and British council Agouza from 30th March to 10th April 2013, open studio in “Out of the circle” studio and projection night April 2nd.

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These activities present young Egyptian talents to international artists and guests and open new platforms to connect them with contacts and ideas.

• Di-Egy Fest 0.1 Workshops The Di-Egy Fest workshop activities run from 27 March to 10 April 2013 and include seven different activities related to new digital mediums to

help young artists learn more about digital art techniques. The seven workshops are about the themes; sound art, game design, creative coding, digital performance, technoetic arts and curating digital arts.

• Di-Egy Fest 0.1 Academic conference The Di-Egy Fest conference will be a three-day academic conference with the corporation of Plymouth University and German University in Cairo to present an academic conference with professional international and Egyptian researchers about Digitalizing Egypt and the future of the image.

• Di-Egy Fest 0.1 Children The Di-Egy Fest 0.1 childrens section presents an exhibition tour for children and their parents to educate them about digital arts in their lives through artworks. Children will be involved in the festival through these tours, as well as by participating in a workshop teaching more about everyday digital arts techniques.

E Di-Egy Fest 0.1 Exhibition Cairo / 2013

E exHibition

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C.U.Water Achilleas Kentonis There are times where distraction and a kids toy have the same aesthetic; at least to the "eyes" of the water. Two incidents which are forced to coexist in the two layered virtual spaces of a projection.

Reissue Ahmed El Shaeer -------BIO: Achilleas Kentonis studied engineering, physics and fine arts at the University of South Alabama, USA and at the Universidad de Castilla la Mancha, Spain. As a researcher / scientist he has participated in research programs at NASA, the Cyprus University and the Aegean University. Since 2009 he has created and manipulated electroacoustic instruments and produces sonic, noise and alternative music performances. In 2010 he created the Urban Hero, a faceless hero who brings change, justice and love to our planet.

Together with the artist Maria Papacharalambous he is a founder and the director of ARTos Foundation in 2000 (centre for contemporary Arts and Science ) which was awarded with the University of Cyprus Award for its Contribution to Culture and Society in 2008.

After 9/11 a lot of Art centers in middle east made artists of this region work through a stereotype of concepts that the western market might want them work with it, such icons include Ben laden & W.Bosh. Realigning current constructs, it made a kind of Imbalance between what is 'art' and what is simply a new Orientalism, but this time at the hands of artists of the Middle East themselves, who, approaching the western art market, have the opportunity to both play with and destroy the wall of conception that has been created, 'The right and access to the center (concept) to destroy and re-think of a new vulnerability without market mechanisms'

01. C.U.Water : Achilleas Kentonis

-------BIO: Born in Cairo, Egypt in 1980; Ahmed lives and works in Egypt. Ahmed El Shaer is a multi-disciplinary artist (installation, photography, sound, video), with a particular interest in digital technologies. His videos combine Machinima, stock footage, 3D animation and experimental soundscapes. He is Co-Founder of “CAIRO DOCUMENTA” an independent event and has began started to establish “TOLON STUDIO FOR CONTEMPORARY ART” - as an Individual Company, a non-profit organization devoted to

the Game Goal : the Destruction of the Center ( Concept ), and the destruction is through the art work bomb & to get them you should make the Fly to

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eat from the wall ( ‫& ( يزيلجنألاب تبسنوك ةملك‬ then press ( space ) to launch in the direction of fly & where you should the fly in the same direction of the center ( Concept )

02. Reissue – : Ahmed El Shaeer

contemporary arts

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SQUARE Ahmed Helmy The life of every human being represents a series of conflicts. Whether these are internal conflicts with the soul or disputes with others, all of these conflicts are giving every person the motivation to put in maximum energy for survival, these conflicts being the main fuel which helps to sustain life. When he was a caveman the biggest worry was in the ground, there were obstacles, problems and surprises as he tried to overcome the blood and defeat of a thousands of years. These conflicts may be between good and evil, success and failure or between science and ignorance. The idea is to refer to these conflicts symbolically through some of the contradictory words from different languages.

Exposure Ahmed Sakr -------BIO: Ahmed Helmy is an Egyptian artist and designer. Born 1982 in Giza, Egypt, he is currently working as an Assistant Lecturer of Advertising Design Department at Faculty of Applied Arts, October 6 University, Giza. During his Bachelor of Applied Arts, he also participated in many different art and design classes. In following years he took a Postgraduate Diploma in Graphic & Advertising Arts, and received his Master’s of Advanced Studies in Graphic & Advertising Arts. Since 2002, he has been an artist and designer. His process is a series of experiments aimed at identifying and defining limits of an audience's relationship with the artist.

Exposure is a short game inspired by the Arab Spring protests and other uprisings, set in a fictional Egyptian town. Exposure is more of a decorated narrative walkabout, borrowing its minimal gameplay aesthetics from the recent experimental short-game art movements (i.e. notgames), the game was written with dark themes in mind. The traveling protagonist has just returned to his town to find that a club-like social space has opened recently. Most of the story is told through interactions with NPCs in town, then the player is left to decide whether to play along to the premeditated end. It relies heavily on the player's imagination to fill the narrative gaps.

-------BIO: Ahmed Saker is an independent game developer, game artist and blogger and co-founder of Nayzak Studio, where he works as a game programmer and designer. He has been part of the Egyptian indie game scene for about seven years now and has worked with different groups of audiovisual artists, starting with AV's Octwar project (2005) to Spyros Entertainment (2010-2011) - where he worked on mobile games. Having left the company just last year to start his own studio Ahmed also occasionally writes on game design and video game theory on his blog. He has helped organize a videogame/tech-related events (such as the 2nd Game Zange) and given lectures/ sessions on game development in Mansoura and Menoufiya Universities.

The game was created for The 1st Game Zanga (game jam) in which it won the Most Creative Entry award.

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03. SQUARE: Ahmed Helmy

04. Exposure: Ahmed Sakr

Space in Motion Amina Ahmed Shafik

An interactive/ generative installation, 'Space in motion' is about how one can depict a visual aesthetic for motion in a given space. By capturing the motion of human movement in a space, we can experience how our motion has impact the space around us. Aside that you get to experience a fun element of having different coloured particles shadowing your every move and depicting your motion in space."

the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Babis Venetopoulos -------BIO: Amina Ahmed Shafik is a fourth year student at the German University in Cairo, in the Faculty of Applied Arts and Science, Media Design and works in film making, 2D animation, Interactive design and sound design.

Description of Work: The “digital sculpture” “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” is a digital three dimensional model of a kneeling soldier in “actual size” while committing suicide.

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Time has frozen the moment, but while it is passing by it does not allow us to become fully aware of what is in progress. The soldier has just pull the trigger and the bullet has only just cross the brain.This work is a monument dedicated to the hero – soldier unspoken of, as his gallantry consists innon – urban ideologies of valour.

Department of the School of Fine Arts, Aristotle Universi-

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BIO: Born, lives and works in Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece.

Babis took his Masters in “Digital Forms of Art” at the School of Fine Arts, Athens and Visual and Applied Arts ty of Thessaloniki.

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Space in Motion: Amina Ahmed Shafik

the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: Babis Venetopoulos

Me, Myself & Maybe I: Mixing Realities Revised Claudia Jacques in collaboration with David Melendez

Alternative/ parallel, 2013 Khaled Galal The artist is trying to create a new reality through introducing dissimilar elements, contradictory in content and put it in a framework that creates new relationships and deals with the idea of the illusion of reality versus the reality of the illusion. The reality of 'things' is not what they really are, it is the invisible relationship between them. The artist trying to find a visual form of this invisible relationship, either through coincidence or intentionally. The way of processing image based on the meaning that image carries to the artist. This project is an attempt at visualing an alternate reality, Untitled pieces clue together based on hand- and digitally-collaged images of figures and landscapes.

Imbuing found images with new properties, the artist presents still and moving images as an experimental process of interpreting illusion, the passing of time and the sense of reality.

-------BIO: Khaled Galal is an Egyptian artist (b. 1984), he holds a BFA in Painting from Alexandria University 2005, and is working now on his MFA through his job as a Teaching assistant in the same University, and through his residency at MASS-Alexandria 2010/2011

A Physical installation in collaboration with David Melendez.

-------BIO: Jacques has an M.F.A. in Computer Art (SVA, NY, USA). She is currently a PhD candidate at the Planetary Collegium, CAiiA Hub at the University of Plymouth, UK under Professor Roy Ascott researching space-time aesthetics mediated by information. Through the intersection of art, technology and science, she designs hybrid art and educational environments that aim to explore perceptions of space-time and digital-physical mediated by information.

She teaches studio art and communication arts and has a studio in Valhalla NY. She has collaborated with many artists has exhibited and presented both nationally and internationally.

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Alternative/ parallel, 2013: Khaled Galal

Me, Myself & Maybe I: Mixing Realities Revised: Claudia Jacques in collaboration with David Melendez

Trails II Daniel Bisig and Philippe Kocher

Trails II is an audiovisual artwork that consists exclusively of abstract audio and video generated in real-time without any human intervention. The underlying algorithms have been derived from the simulation of flocking behaviours. These algorithms control both the large-scale structure of the work as well as its visual and sonic details. The work experiments with synchronicity, structural analogies and aesthetic relationships between the two modalities. It poses the question whether a strong coherence on a structural level results in a similarly strong coherence on an perceptual level.

Distention Diane Derr

-------BIO: : Daniel Bisig was born in 1968 in Zürich, Switzerland. In 1994, he received a Master's degree in Natural Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In 1998, he received a PhD in Protein Crystallography at the same university. In 1999, he finished training in web-design with a

Distention investigates the production and dissemination of information by western news agencies concerning the Egyptian Revolution.

In the reporting of the Egyptian Revolution by western news agencies the mediated relationship between the experience and representation of information became distended.

diploma at the EB-Wolfbach, Zurich. In between 1999 and 2001, he was teaching web-design at the EB-Wolfbach. In 2001, he joined the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Zurich as a senior researcher.

Philippe Kocher studied piano, electroacoustic music, music theory, and composition in Zurich, Basel and London. His work encompasses pieces for instruments and

This project is particularly aimed at an Egyptian audience as it creates a playful bridge between the population that created and experienced the revolution and the footage that propagated a mediated representation of the events of the Egyptian Revolution, to the western audience.

voice with or without electronics. His interest lies both

------BIO: Diane Derr works with time-based media, using the moving image as material. Exploring the narratology of transmedia, Diane considers the space between the real and the fictional representation through the appropriation of still and moving imagery. Her work investigates the roles of author, subject, and spectator within the intertextual and inter-subjective narrative adapting structural, editorial, and production frameworks. Diane is Assistant Professor and Media Technology Coordinator in the MFA Design Studies program at Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar. She is currently a doctoral research candidate in the Planetary Collegium, Centre for Advanced Inquiry into Integrative Arts (CAiiA) at the University of Plymouth.

in electronic and instrumental music. He is working at the Institute for Computermusic and Sound Technology (ICST) in Zurich as research associate and software developer as well as at the Zurich University of the Arts as lecturer for music theory and computer

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aided composition.

09. Trails II: Daniel Bisig and Philippe Kocher

10. Distention: Diane Derr

Undecided, Pixel Art game sprites inspired by the Egyptian culture.

Ehab Alkady (Bobby Alkady) The aim of the work is to explore the contrast and similarities within the Egyptian society using the simplicity of visually abstract game spirits. A simple animated poster containing numerous characters inspired by the different professions, backgrounds, and mentalities that form the egyptian society.

Let’s Play Politics: The Flag Eman Abdou

-------BIO: : Ehab Alkady is a professional graphic designer, working as a freelance game artist/designer. He graduated with a bachelors degree in Applied Arts from the Art & Design Academy in Egypt in 2009 and started working for several design studios. In January 2013 he received a Masters Degree in Design from the Cardiff School of Art & Design where he made research on Abstraction and Photo-realism in video game visuals. During the Masters course he created several game art projects using different visual styles and techniques but pixel art remained his favourite.

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Undecided, Pixel Art game sprites inspired by the Egyptian culture.

Ehab Alkady (Bobby Alkady)

A brand of nationalism sweeps across the nation after Egypt wins a football match against Algeria on the 28th of Jan 2010, politicians attempt to induce national patriotic feelings - the denied feelings of Egyptians who have undergone social oppression and low standards of living. In spite of this, joy was real, people were celebrating on the streets waving flags. The work The Flag depicts a huge flag that went up in the streets during these celebrations and the joy that people experienced carrying it - events documented in the video piece The Longing, show how governments direct peoples feelings, but how these 'fake' emotions can trigger positive action and maybe even a revolution. The same flag goes up in Tahrir square during the revolution, and is documented in various newspapers. The flag is washed and sent again to the streets. This ritual of washing, drying and hanging is marked with many hidden gestures. The photographs reflect the ongoing state of the

Let’s Play Politics: The Flag: Eman Abdou

public and the various demonstrations which are aimed at real social change.

-------BIO: : Eman Abdou is a Cairo-based visual artist. In 2001, she graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts Painting Department, Helwan University. She worked as a teacher assisting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University until she moved to England in 2004 to study 'Delivering Learning' at Loughborough College. In 2009 she completed an MA at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University and her thesis was titled “The Effects of Conceptual Art on Contemporary Art.” Abdou is currently pursuing her PhD at Helwan University entitled “Egyptian Art and its Relation to Politics since 1990 until Now,”.

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Dialogue Fares El-Siagy

The Wizard of Loz Forat Sami Al Alfy

It is A Video Performance Art ...

Its Name Is Dialogue ....

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It is A Dialogue Between Me And Every Spectator ...

rently lives in El Mahalla El Kobra and Alexandria.

Listen First ... Then Watch .... What Do U See ? !

in many local and international exhibitions. His practise

BIO: : Fares El-Siagy is an Egyptian born Visual Artist who curHe graduated from the Fine Arts College, Painting Department at Alexandria University and has participated includes spans a broad range of media including painting, drawing, digital media, video, performance and photography.

Description of Work: A collaborative project where by each person visualizes a chapter from the story of The Wizard of Oz and adds an 'Egyptian touch to it.' The artist choses to visualize his chapter by mixing 8-bit characters with real life images. The video was made for the digital compositing course at the GUC under the supervison of Mikala Hyldig Dal, Ayman Abo el Kheir and Ahmed Karim.

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-------BIO: : Forat Sami AL Alfy is an applied arts student majoring media design at the GUC, currently in his fourth year. He has a passion for motion graphics and video editing.

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Dialogue: Fares El-Siagy

The Wizard of Loz: Forat Sami Al Alfy

JOURNEY TO ARD AL AMAL (Episode II) Foundland

Nefertiti – Challenging Symbols of Femininity in Videotaped Interview Sessions. Reflecting Visibility and Audibility of Egyptian Women.

Fred Meier-Menzel

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Description of Work: Ard al Amal (meaning The Land of Hope in Arabic) is a fictional destination in the children’s animated series called: “Adnan and Leena”. This anime series was very popular during the 1980’s in the Arab world, when it was dubbed from Japanese into Arabic. Adnan and Leena, the main characters battle through a post-apocalyptic world, trying to build a new life, while under constant threat from a dark and mysterious enemy.

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Since the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011 anti-regime individuals and groups online have created and shared an abundance of oppositional imagery on social media. Foundland has followed some of characters and heroes who have come into play online. Virtual characters and images become re-inscribed with renewed significance in the context of war, where they become place - holders for the absence of real heroes and leaders.

acting to the events of the Syrian revolution as they have

JOURNEY TO ARD AL AMAL (Episode II): Foundland

BIO: Foundland is an art and design practice founded in 2009.

Duo Lauren Alexander and Ghalia Elsrakbi are based in Amsterdam, but are currently doing an artist's residency at the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo until June 2013.

Foundland aims to combine a curiosity for design, art, writing, politics and theoretical ideas to create imaginative explorations of research topics. Since 2011 Foundland has been invested in following, documenting and reunfolded on social media.

During 2012 they presented at exhibitions, festivals and workshops at Kadist Foundation (Paris), Impakt Festival, De Appel and BAK (The Netherlands). In 2013 they will

Nefertitia 'a symbol of Egyptian identity' as Zahi Hawass, Egyptian Archaeologist and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, calls her. Not only is she once again the main attraction in Berlin's big exhibition “In the Light of Amarna. 100 Years of the Nefertiti Discovery“ her image has recently been used in quite another context. She stands for history and tradition as well as for eternal female beauty.

But how does she compare to Egyptian women nowadays? The videotaped interview is a possibility to make the voices of Egyptian women heard on questions of the body concept, personal freedom, the understanding of privacy and on the right to claim common public space equal to men.

-------BIO: Fred Meier-Menzel (1965) earned her Diploma in Communication Design at the University of Applied Sciences and Art in Hannover, Germany, in 1988. Shortly after, she moved to London to study figurative drawing and sculpting at the Heatherly School of Fine Arts. In 1991 Meier-Menzel returned to Germany to establish the design office “ATELIER FRED” in Berlin. From 2002 - 2005 Fred worked as a lecturer for Costume and Life Drawing in HTW Berlin, University of Applied Sciences. In 2003 she founded the Aktsalon Drawing Society, an Arts Forum offering conceptually distinguished public drawing sessions. In 2006, she was appointed professor at the German University in Cairo where she worked as Head of the Drawing Department until 2011. She is one of the founding members of the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Arts

be exhibiting at Damascus Visual Arts, in Istanbul. They

there and taught 'Image Language and Nature Studies'

have contributed to international journals such as Open!

and supervised Bachelor Students in the field of Commu-

Magazine (The Netherlands), Esse (Canada) and Ibraaz

nication Design.

Middle East online journal.

Nefertiti: Fred Meier-Menzel

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Why water is incombustible ?

Hagar Masoud A sound installation which consists of four headsets show in the space/ A live sound performance.

Duration : 25 minutes .

What do we remember of the sounds that could accompany a romantic landscape ? What do we hear when it's silent ? Do we remember the sounds that were surrounding us in the school or the early morning birdsong ? Do we recall these sounds from our memory or do we remember these from the last movie we watched?

Were they real or electronic sounds ? Can we be sure ? Does it matter ? We don't question our acoustic memories, therefore it's easy to manipulate them...

Di-corrupt Hamdy Reda

-------BIO: : Hagar Masoud works in multi-media installations that take specific locations and documentation of events and combine research with visuals and sound. Working across photography , sound , drawing, and writing, Masoud records several sounds and re-create new audio in different context based on memory and surround environments.

In 2011, Hagar Masoud received her BA in Art Education from Helwan University. In 2012 she studied at Mass Alexandria and Masoud worked as an artist assistant at dOCUMENTA (13) Masoud has participated in several Sound performances such as Egyptian Females experimental music at 100Copies music space in Cairo , at D-CAF festival with Nassibyan Orchestra band, El Fagala with Nassibyan Orchestra band played at the Jesuit Cultural Centre, Youth Salons and the Cairo Opera House.

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Why water is incombustible ? Hagar Masoud

The practice of the image involves various technical questions related to its creation, but is it possible that the image has rebeled against its maker and decided to re-create herself in a world of digital corruption that allowed her to be untamed ? Is it possible for me to help her re-create herself?

-------BIO: Hamdy Reda is a contemporary Egyptian visual artist and curator. He lives and works in one of the outskirts of Cairo. Mr Reda’s background as a painter as well as his experiments with photography forms a very solid artistic foundation for his artwork. Mr Reda's work has been exhibited at many venues inside Egypt as well as around

In a time not too distant, I replaced my physical Archive with a digital one, the later started to grow rapidly, and needed more space to transfer and store, during the transfer process the archive grew from megabytes to gigabytes to terabytes; it became impossible to control the process of growth and the huge space it began to occupy. One day, due to fast transfer and the weakness of the transfer medium, the images were digitally corrupted, in the light of this accident, I decided to extract the images from the heart of the digital corruption, and start a new phase in the dialectic relation between past and future and recycle them.

Di-corrupt: Hamdy Reda

the world, and he is a recipient of various artistic awards and recognitions.

He is also interested in the North-South artistic dialogues, and South- South artistic dialogues. Reda’s feelings as an alienated artist in the Cairo elitist artistic community made him establish artellewa as his artistic refuge. Artellewa is an independently run small art space that provides artistic services to the residents of Ard ElLewa, which is the local neighbourhood of Mr Reda.

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Source i-DAT Source is a manifestation of i-DAT's Operating Systems. These ‘Operating Systems’ dynamically manifest ‘data’ as experience in order to enhance perspectives on a complex world. The Operating Systems project explores data as an abstract and invisible material that generates a dynamic mirror image of our biological, ecological and social activities. The Operating Systems project proposes a range of tools and initiatives that have the potential to enhance our ability to perceive and orchestrate this mirror world.

Source lifts the veil and provides a glimpse of the space beyond the mirror.

Detect me!

Islam Shabana and Mohammed Abdel Zaher -------BIO: i-DAT is a lab for creative research, experimentation and innovation across the fields of digital Art, Science and

An interactive web based streaming through a webcam

-------BIO: : Islam Shabana uses digital practises of image process-

Technology, generating social, economic and cultural

ing and post/ internet art techniques as an experimental

benefit. Located within the Faculty of Arts at Plymouth

digital artist. The idea of alchemy is the basis of his pro-

University, it has been delivering high quality and experi-

duced work through the digital images, where he com-

mental national and international arts and cultural activ-

bines the realms of the universe with its virtual coun-

ities since 1998. i-DAT became an Arts Council England Na-

terparts. After the rise of technology and the use of

tional Portfolio Organisation in March 2012. It continues

internet, the definition of reality has become very sensi-

to evolve its programme of activities, pushing the bound-

tive between science and spirituality. Human presences,

aries of digital arts / creative media practice, instigating

whether online or in real life, and the illusions of space,

playful opportunities for research, production and col-

time and perception - of what is real and what is not - are

laboration and making technological innovations accessi-

the enquiries which are questioned, seeking the under-

ble to artistic talent and audiences.

lying truth within reality. From illustration and cartography to gif animation and web- based visuals, Shabana aims through his presentation of ideas to make a playful and skeptical kind of artwork.

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Source : i-DAT

Detect me!: Islam Shabana

Facultative Kareem Lotfy

A digital triptych of a generated pattern multiplying.

a77a Khaled Hafez

-------BIO: Born in 1985 in Cairo, Lotfy grew up in both Western and Egyptian culture and his work deals with this cultural overlap. In 2008, Lotfy started working with monochrome glitch bitmaps which he used to generate sound compositions. Since then, he has experimented with digital media with which he produces and presents his work that varies from electronic music to 3D sculptures.

The work is a 2-D and 3-D animation on video and still footage of a figure of my favourite ancient gods, Anubis. The figure dwells in the streets of urban Cairo today, intermingling with street paradoxical citizens and situations.

The work ironically documents the current state of the streets of Cairo, once described as one of the most beautiful downtowns in the world, and a reflection of the social and economic challenges facing many communities in the world now. The work was nominated for the Lumen_EX Digital Awards, Spain, 2010 and was prizewinner at the 9th Bamako Biennale in 2012.

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-------BIO: : Khaled Hafez is a Cairo-based visual artist. Hafez explores through painting, video, photography, installation and interdisciplinary work elements of local identity exposed to the global consumer goods culture and uses irony to probe notions of subjugation, equal rights, games of wealth and power and changing social politics.

His work has been shown in the USA (the New Museum and Queens Museum, New York), France (Centre George Pompidou, Paris); UK (Saatchi Gallery, London), Germany (Kunstmuseum Bonn); Belgium (MuHKA Museum of Art), Greece (Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art); Brazil (Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Sao Paolo) among other places.

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Facultative: Kareem Lotfy

a77a: Khaled Hafez

La Caravane de Dix Mots Maria Papacharalambous All is nothing but a storytelling. Waved stories with moving images create small ephemeral monuments of everyday life blended with the unexpected. Small forgotten stories invading the virtual space via the collective imagination and memory. Maybe we are just images watching us as images.

Rakete Mario von Rcikenbach ------BIO: Maria graduated with distinction from the School of Fine Arts in Athens and continues post graduate studies at the Faculdad de Bellas Artes, Universidad Complutence in Madrid and at the Universidad de Castilla la Mancha, Guenca, Spain. She also completed her studies in Athens National Conservatory. Over the last years she has focused and studied Philosophy and alternative Psychology. The result of this ongoing knowledge, which blends eastern and western way of thinking, has had a direct impact on her work of the last few years: 2010 "Here & there", 2011 "Here & Now Happiness". In 2011 Maria created the socio-artistic movement Reflections / Αναστοχασμοί with activist actions.

Rakete is a cooperative multiplayer game for up to 5 players. Each player controls one thruster of a rocket with the goal of landing it safely.

The team is forced to work together and communicate with each other to be successful. Rakete has been shown at several shows and festivals in Zurich, Los Angeles, New York, Berlin and Munich.

-------BIO: Mario von Rickenbach is a game designer and artist based in Zurich, Switzerland. He received a Bachelor degree in Game Design at Zurich‘s University of the Arts in 2010, where he works as teaching assistant nowadays. His recent works include Mirage, a quirky game about a surreal creature, Krautscape, a generative racing game and Rakete, a cooperative multiplayer game.

The game is controlled by five footswitches which are connected to a custom-built controller. Rakete is ideally installed at places where people meet and have a minute to play together. It is very simple to start playing, but very hard to master – the main fun originates in the communication between the players who are forced to work together to be successful.

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La Caravane de Dix Mots: Maria Papacharalambous

Rakete : Mario von Rcikenbach

change Max Kazemzadeh

Change‌ is a networked interactive computer-vision based experience that represents the idea of change as it relates to individual identity, the idea of home, daily routine, rituals, relationships, and sense of community, whether analog or digital, whether natural or augmented. Within the notion of change exists disorientation, disruption, dissonance, confusion, and fear. Sometimes change is due to our own decisions, and sometimes others decisions force us to change. Sometimes the system changes an aspect of the information represented, and other times the users input via gestures or sms text messages to affect the system behavior. Either way, there will always be a residue, in this case in the form of a twitter feed.

Iskenderia Mayye Zayed -------BIO: Max Kazemzadeh is an Assistant Professor of Art & Media Technology and founder of the FUNCOLAB multidisciplinary artspace at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, and is presently pursuing a Ph.D. with the Planetary Collegium at the University of Plymouth(UK). Kazemzadeh uses a syncretic approach to investigate connections

A montage of scenes from famous Egyptian fiction films, the documentary film "Sunken ruins of Cleopatra's palace", Constantine P. Cavafy's poem "The City" and text from Michel de Certeau's book "The Practice of Everyday Life". This video was made as a final project for "Godard & Varda" class in Wellesley College in Spring 2012.

-------BIO: An independent filmmaker and a video artist, Mayye Zayed works as a freelance editor, videographer, DOP and camera person. She studied Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering in Alexandria University. Having attended many filmmaking, animation and video art workshops including the Jesuits filmmaking workshop

between art, technology, and consciousness in his re-

in 2009/2010, she was also a part of the crew in Ibrahim

search, experiments and interactive installations.
In the

El Batout's feature film Hawi. She was a resident art-

last three years Kazemzadeh has exhibited in nine inter-

ist in Marseille, France and was part of DOX BOX 2011 in

national group exhibitions and six solo exhibitions, has

Damascus. In 2011/2012 Mayye was granted a Fulbright

presenting and published six papers in international con-

scholarship to study cinema and media studies in Welles-

ferences, and gave artists talks in Dublin, Gijon, Madrid,

ley College in the USA which also enabled her to take the

Beijing, NYC, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Washing-

comparative media class Innovations in Documentary in

ton, DC.

MIT. She's currently working in different feature documentaries as a DOP and an editor.

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change : Max Kazemzadeh

Iskenderia: Mayye Zayed

The Rude Discourse Mohamed Abdelkarim Sound and projection performance. Text and sound in the context of a narrative in order to create allegory and represent personal diaries.

Left and Right Mohamed Ali -------BIO: Mohamed Abdelkarim's practice engages various subjects within the frameworks of normalcy and compliance, questioning the everyday, relations to authorship, representation, economic capital and difference social currencies, including tourism and religion. In his works, he tests different strategies of exchange, play, camouflage and concealment and his work processes engage artists and cultural activities, the language of art and culture and its relationship to financial crisis. As an artist Abdekarim's work has contributed to the artistic languages emerging from Egypt. His works have been included in the framework of 98Weeks Bazaar at the Thessaloniki Biennial in

Do we use the right brain always or also the left brain? When do we use each one? Do we read images from right to left or from left to right?

Have we lost the beginning? Are we reaching the end, it`s the correct end?

--------

The congestion and permanent replicatation of the images around us, lead us to permanent and inevitable schizophrenia.

ited in different countries around the world including Al

Nothing satisfies our avidity for the visual, although we do not realize the essence of things; this is the consumer life that we now live in.

dency in Delfina Foundation (UK, 2009)

BIO: Muhammad Ali is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Syria. He graduated with a BA in Painting from the Fine Art Faculty of the University of Damascus. He is one of AllArtNow artists and his works have been exhibmarkhiya Gallery (Qatar, 2012), Scope (Basel and NewYork, 2008), Living Spaces contemporary art festival (Syria, 2010), Darat Al Funun (Jordan, 2005) and artist in resi-

2011, the artist-organized Cairo-Documenta show at the Viennoise Hotel in Cairo in 2010 among others.

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The Rude Discourse: Mohamed Abdelkarim

Left and Right: Mohamed Ali

We are the end of the world Mohamed El Masry Many say the end of the world is close and it will be because of a natural phenomena or cosmic disaster. Truth be told we have met the end of the world during the last 100 years, having witnessed many great wars and times of ethnic cleansing – time of significant violence and cruelty. The human destroys himself and destroys civilization, he destroys human creativity, everywhere - we destroy and disallow continual human existence. The project addresses images of armed conflicts and incidents of ethnic cleansing from multiple places and different dates over the last 100 years. There is no significance to the sex, type or location, all are partners in pain, in a time where the red flower dies.

We stand at different distances and do not do enough to maintain civilization and humanity.

The Elegant Universe Mohamed GabEr -------BIO: Based in Cairo, Egyptian artist and photographer Mohamed El Masry has received a bachelor's degree from Art Education College, Helwan University, 2004. He has studied intensive programs in visual arts and their social role, and how to employ arts to serve the society, correct behaviors, and practice social guidance. He has also received a diploma in photography and painting from Helwan University in 2006. He is a founding member of Olympia Fine Art Association, a league for the winners of the Olympics golden medals in arts; a member of 'Road to 2010'; and a representative of African Colours in Egypt and North Africa.

The project is named after a book by the american physicist Brian Greene who talks about the string theory built by another American physicist Allen Goss who said: "There are many different worlds and it is expected of a world such as ours to exist. If we went to a clothes store where there are clothes of many different sizes, then it is no wonder that we find a dress of our size. So it is not surprising for a world such as ours to exist, as there are several different worlds."It is this theory of the existence of other parallel worlds which inspired this video processing project experiment in which a self portrait photograph is processed to create different versions of the face from different perspectives. Different shapes which create the face; shapes that look like mountains if you look down on them or from the side but look just like the shape of the face if you are facing them.

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-------BIO: Mohamed Gaber is a visual artist and graphic designer who works in the field of design, painting, type design and street art. He believes that experimentation is the best route to learning. In 2009 his work was selected for the exhibition Left in Vision in 2009, the TYPO Berlin 2011 and in 2013 he was nominated for The Jameel Prize by the V&A museum in london. In 2007 Mohamed started a project called Graphics Against System aka (G.A.S.) with an aim to produce artworks that visually agitate and produce social and political awareness. One of these artwork was the “Kon maa al sawra� which was made for the general strike of 2008 and was reproduced by the time of the revolution 25 jan 2011.

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We are the end of the world: Mohamed El Masry

The Elegant Universe : Mohamed Gabr

Trap//.02 Mohamed Shoukry Description of Work: The installation exploits the perception and realization of an idea, the conflict between the truth as we know it and what is told to us as the truth. Spectators are decieved by a sound, the talking of prosperity in the room, they approach the TV screen without knowing they are inevitably walking into a trap.

This installation is made to expose the deceptive political acts happening in Egypt, between both through the state and from the opposition; leaving the people trapped in-between.

-------BIO: Mohamed Shoukry is a contemporary visual artist. Born

EGYPT KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN (NASSIBIAN ORCHESTRA) Nina EL Gebaly, Jacqueline george, mahmoud tarik,Joseph Anees, Evraim Samir

in Cairo, in 1976, he holds a PHD from the faculty of applied arts in “Video Sculpture”. He has exhibited in various international art galleries including F+F Schule für Kunst und Mediendesign, Switzerland / Kunstverien, Germany / Open City Exhibition, Italy / Artist Village Exhibition, Taiwan / Haslla museum, South Korea. Since 1996 he has participated regularly in many national art events, was awarded second prize in the youth salon 2005 and first prize in “talaa exhibition” for three consecutive years.

The aim of the Project is to denounce the prevailing authoritarian deal in Egypt. We refused to fully control the work, so open microphones, pencils, paper and other materials can be found and audiences can make and change what he/ she likes, and the sounds of the audiences voices, movements and performance, bcome the sources of the music tracks and and visual backgrounds.

-------BIO: Team Nasibian orchestral was formed in 2011 at the end of the workshop Faggala sounds with Ahmed Bassiouny. During the workshop Nassibian Orchestra studied the nature of sounds and sound art, and they recorded environmental sounds of the Faggala area to make the sound tracks. Completed after the martyrdom of Mahmoud Refaat, they started to make concerts in several places such as Jesuit, Cairo and in the streets of the Faggala, at 100 Copies Cairo , Medrar for Contemporary Art , Darb 17 18 , and the D-CAF Festival 2012. Their main focus is not on traditional music but sounds, drawing a new mental image and concept with each track .

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Trap//.02: Mohamed Shoukry

EGYPT KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN: (NASSIBIAN ORCHESTRA) Nina EL Gebaly, Jacqueline george, mahmoud tarik,Joseph Anees, Evraim Samir

“CAiiA CAirO Circuit” Pam Payne Description of Work: The “CAiiA CAirO Circuit” is a digital video installation, responsive to video input from exhibition participants as co-creators. The concept is derived from my current investigation of creative form as a means to traverse the boundaries of consciousness in order to access perspective and insight. Influences include thirteenth century philosopher Raymon Llull whose graphical devices, part magical sigil and part mnemonic, were instruments intended to reveal information from memory and elsewhere. The timing of the video sequences is based on the African-Yoruba ritual polyrhythm for Eshu/Eleggua, also known as Hermes/Mercury, the guardian messenger at the crossroads of alternative realms. The imagery is a montage of social movement and the piece is intended as a wish for, and a group meditation on the emergence of creative spirit.

"Isis and Osiris - we are all Egyptians" Quantum Cinema -------BIO: Pam Payne is a digital artist and theorist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work explores consciousness, noetic experience and the interaction of electronic and organic forms through code, motion, imagery, installations and events. She exhibits her work in the US and internationally and has been awarded grants from the NEA, NYSCA, LMCC, ETC and The Puffin Foundation. She is currently pursuing doctoral research with the Planetary Collegium, Center for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts, University of Plymouth, UK.

Description of Work: The installation ( mixed media: sculpture, painting, projection) stages the primary philosophical and anthropologic idea that western contempoarary knowledge is based on ancient greec philosophy and mathematics rooting in ancient egypt wisdom; in other words: Quantum Information can be traced back to Ancient egypt Mysteries ( cf. conference contribution of Renate Queheneberger)Topics: Quantum Physics, digital 3D animated geometry, Isis and Osiris myth, higherdimensional space concepts.

-------BIO: Quantum Cinema is an artistic research project in an interdisciplinary constellation between Experimental Physics, Discrete Mathematics and Geometry, Analysis and Scientific Computing and Anthropology of Art. Based at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, it is currently in its final stages.

Sculptors Osama Zatar (Palestine), Alaa Alkurdi (Lebanon) Painting Iva Kaličanin ( Serbia) and Quantum Cinema Group, 3D animation artists (Austria, Serbia): Peter Weibel, Renate Quehenberger, Nikola Tasic, Kathrin Stumreich (Department of Digital Arts, Prof. Ruth Schnell), Rudi Friemel (Department of Art & Sience, Angewandte) Christian Magnes.

-------Renate Quehenberger is a Scientific Researcher, artist, writer, director; and since 2010 initiator of the project “Quantum Cinema - a digital Vision” Since 2007 she has

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been studying for a doctorate at the University of Applied Arts, Department of Media-theory under supervision of Prof. Peter Weibel and a doctoral studies with the Topic: On the hermeneutics of the Penrose Tilings, supervisored by Prof. Elisabeth von Samsonow, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

“CAiiA CAirO Circuit”: Pam Payne

"Isis and Osiris - we are all Egyptians": Quantum Cinema

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" VS. " Augmented Reality Live broadcast Sameh Mohamed Al Tawil The idea of the project revolves around the camouflage and deception in media, and how it can manipulate Videos, sounds and images to change the facts and manipulate the impact on public-opinion. In this augmented, interactive work viewers have the opportunity to lift prefabricated banners inscribed with different liberal, civil and national icons, these signs morph on the screen to the contrary totalitarian and religious icons, sounds and images. The work is a metaphor of the confusion and deception in the social and political scene in Egypt at the moment.The contradiction between cyber protesters and the content of the manipulated banners satirically deliver a message about media deception and its incompatibility with reality and logic and makes it part of the public confusion that does not work by all means.

Tape loading error Sandra araújo

-------BIO: Born in Cairo, Egypt 1978, Sameh Mohamed Al Tawil holds a BA from the faculty of applied arts, a Diplom from The Fine Art Academy in Munich ADBK and is completing a MAH in media art histories from the Donau university.

An animation exploring the visual culture of video games and the spread of popular gif files.

The imagery of Magritte's surrealist paintings gives a working platform for modular elements and texture, thus sharing, the action with layers that emulate lo-fi quality and bug / glitch images of early computer machines.

His work has been exhibited internationally.

-------BIO: Sandra Araújo aka s-ara is a visual artist and VJ undergoing an MA in Artistic Studies – Theory and Critic of Art program at Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto.

S-araʼs animations evolve through an experimental and explorative process of the visual culture of video games and the spread of popular gif files. That aesthetic choice reflects and reiterates lo-fi quality and bug / glitch images of early computer machines.

…

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" VS. " Augmented Reality Live broadcast: Sameh Mohamed Al Tawil

Tape loading error: Sandra araújo

The Artist “The dead man and the living man” Chadi Adib Salama

This Project is based on a comparison between two Egyptian visual artists and how they acted towards the 25th of January 2011Egyptian Revolution. The First artist is myself (The Dead Man); who still lives as a dead man in the Egyptian society after the revolution, and the Second artist is Ahmed Basiouny (the Living man); who died on the the 28th of January 2011 (the third day of the revolution) but still lives in ourminds.

-

Minecraft Mausoleum ( 04:14, soundtrack: song for Lenin) Tom Bogaert ------BIO: Born in Cairo, 1980, Salama is a Visual Artist and Curator who works as a Lecturer in the Decorative Design Department in the Faculty of Art Education, Helwan University. In 2002 he graduated with honors from the Faculty of Art Education specializing in Art`s Culture, and in 2009 earned his M.A. in Design from the Faculty of Art Education, Helwan University. Salama has conducted numerous Solo Exhibitions and participated in many international and local for which he has earned many awards.

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In the face of the Arab Spring's general enthusiasm for online tools, Minecraft Mausoleum utilizes Minecraft - an online building game as context and medium to present a model of a Mausoleum for Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. A first model and rendering of the Mausoleum was presented in Aleppo, Syria in August 2010.

Bashar is a British-trained ophthalmologist and the eye doctor’s tumbling E eye chart is the alpha and omega of the Syrian IPO chapter. Does Dr. Bashar still dream about tumbling Eye Doctor E charts and the course for Syria they might chart: left, right, up or down? This M (“E down”) shaped mausoleum might be how President Bashar’s Mausoleum will look like.

Minecraft is a building game which allows players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world. Minecraft is an ‘open world’ game: it is based on a concept where a player can freely roam an infinitive virtual world. The term ‘open world’ alludes to the absence of artificial barriers.

-------BIO: Before dedicating his life to art, Tom Bogaert documented genocide and human rights abuses in Africa, Europe and Asia. He worked as a lawyer for Amnesty and the UN refugee agency. Tom Bogaert stopped practicing law in 2004 and participated in the EFA Studio Center in NYC. He has widely exhibited in Europe, the Middle East and the US. In 2009, the artist moved to Amman, Jordan to work on 'Impression, proche orient' an art project referencing issues relevant to the contemporary Near East society. Bogaert's recent solo exhibition 'and did those feet' at al-Hoash gallery in Jerusalem included works produced in Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.

Rotating Flags (Syria, 2010) Tom Bogaert

screenshot from looped digital animation

The Artist “The dead man and the living man”: Chadi Adib Salama

Minecraft Mausoleum ( 04:14, soundtrack: song for Lenin): Tom Bogaert Rotating Flags is a digital animated "Anaglpyph magenta-green" 3D rendering of the Syrian Flag. This project is inspired by Bashar al Assad's background as an ophthalmologist and his fascination with pink glasses.

The public is invited to look at the piece through 3D glasses. This digital piece has its origins in Aleppo, Syria where it premiered in August 2010 in the form of a small scale video installation.

In June 2012 and updated version of Rotating Flags was presented at al Hoash gallery in Jerusalem.

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Do-Mystic Uni-Verse Walid Ahmed Elsawi Do-Mystic Uni-Verse: is a visual interpretation of the aftermath of the bomb that went off recently inside of me, It's about hope and also showing the stagnant life we live. Clips are subtitled with vague, subtle, and desperate sentences "verses", about this dull life of mine, but at the same time there's a sort of sarcasm in there... The motion mechanism is inspired by the motion of the solar system, performed with worn out nick nacks. I emulate the solar system to represent infinity and continuation.

The Face Orchestra Yasmin Elayat

-------BIO: Walid Ahmed Elsawi is an Egyptian visual artist,, He completed a B.F.A. in Painting, Alexandria University in 2010 and has participated in various group exhibitions. In 2013 he held a solo exhibition at Saad Zaghlol Center, Cairo. Interested in conceptual art and digital painting he mostly works with texts, installation and videos.

Description of Work: The Face Orchestra allows users to create music with their facial expressions and their body movement. Visitors walk up to a screen where they see themselves reflected. Once they blink, they hear a drum beat synchronized to their blink. When they keep blinking, the drum beat keeps beating. When they open their mouth a chant starts to stream, and stops when they close their mouth. Combining different facial expressions and body movements will create other sounds to allow the user to create music. The installation is meant as a one-person experience to create music with their face and movement.

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-------BIO: Yasmin Elayat is a new media artist and creative technologist designing and developing interactive installations for physical spaces and interactive storytelling projects for the web. Yasmin developed large-scale installations for the Museum of Science and Industry, HP, RISD, and two Muse award-winning interactive exhibits for LAMH. Yasmin is the Co-Creator of 18DaysInEgypt: A Collaborative Documentary Project about the ongoing Egyptian Revolution which was awarded the Tribeca New Media Fund grant, was a Sundance Institute New Frontier Lab artist project, and was awarded an Honorary Mention in the Digital Communities Category of the Prix Ars Electronica 2012.

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Do-Mystic Uni-Verse: Walid Ahmed Elsawi

The Face Orchestra: Yasmin

Untitled Yousria Ghorab Actually, I was there when it happened and the numbers of the victims is still increasing til now. I wonder, if a human could be turned into just a number on a list of the dead Title of the work: The Rude Discour

PROJECTION NIGHT Reza Michael Safavi, Max Kazemzadeh, Victor Diaz Barrales , Tegan Bristow, Kareem Osman -------BIO: Yousria Ghorab lives and work in Giza, Egypt. In 2003 she studied in the faculty of art education, Helwan university. During her studies she took part in many “multimedia art” workshops. In 2003 she made her first video art, 'Similarity' gained an award from the Goethe institute and was fourth in the Cairo in festival for independent cinema in 2004. She worked as a 2D animator and after finishing her diploma in multimedia from ITI (information technology institute 2006) she studied film-making in cinema school - Jesuit Cairo. Til now she has made 4 short films 'Déjà vu', 'You or anything else', 'Fly kite' and 'Waiting'.

---------------

BIO:

BIO:

Victor Diaz is a researcher, artist and educator whose

Reza Michael Safavi (CA) is an artist and educator cur-

focus is on creating new ways of interactions between

rently living and working in the United States. His cur-

computers and people. He is interested in developing

rent research examines how the presence of technology

novel ways of collaborative interactions in public spaces

in daily life shapes human experience: our perceptions,

considering key aspects of time and space within a

social behavior, economics, entertainment and the way

cultural context. He also creates tools that help to

we meet our basic needs. He uses video, sound, sculp-

increase the usability of creative technologies. He holds

ture, analog and digital devices and elements of the natu-

a Telecommunications Engineering degree and an MSc

ral world to create interactive experiences that highlight

on Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media from the

the interfaces, both macro and micro, among people,

University Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona. He has been

technology and the environment. He received an MFA in

integrating research and artistic practice in laboratories

Digital Arts from the University of Oregon and a BFA from

and residencies such as the University of Bern,

the University of Victoria, in Victoria, BC, Canada. He is

Tokyo University of Sciences, Kitchen Budapest, LCD

currently an assistant professor of fine arts in digital me-

Guimaraes, Medialab Prado in Madrid and had different

dia at Washington State University.

roles as an interaction designer and R&D position in the aerospace industry. He is currently working for The Patching Zone in the Netherlands within a social innovation programme finding new ways of education.

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Untitled: Yousria Ghorab

“Made In Egypt” Kareem Osman

“Made in Egypt” is an ongoing project that Iis still being compiled, and to be extended to more cities in and outside of Egypt. This project is an exploration/scan of the city and its products: physical, cultural, and social products. The questions arise are: What do we make? How do we move? What do we exchange? What are the different aesthetics of the endless layers of Egyptian society, and how do they fuse together to shape what we identify as “Egyptian”? Is there a pattern that is followed, or is it complete chaos? A performance which gathers everything from rural landscapes on the way to Alexandria, to small underground downtown bars, street markets, and trains in different times of the day; trying to capture moments that are passed unnoticed, and look at what is possible to see with fresh eyes.

CUSS Webisodes & Kishwateli by Muchuri Njenga Tegan Bristow -------BIO: Kareem Osman gained his bachelor degree in Graphic design and advertising from the school of applied arts, Helwan University. A multimedia visual artist based in Cairo, Egypt. Kareem Osman uses a semiotic framework, through visual jockeying, graphic design and installation, his work explores how cities shape experience, movement, body gestures, and Egyptian life. He has also founded a small social enterprise called DesignKaf that designs high quality goods with traditional crafters and up-cycled materials and is a consultant for the Open Lab Egypt on digital media and cultural performances in Cai-

CUSS Webisodes - a 12 min remix.

Kishwateili - "Kichwateli" (Swahili for TV-head) is a short film by visual artist Muchiri Njenga set in a post-apocalyptic African slum and city.

This film takes the viewer on a spiritual and metaphorical voyage through a young boy's dream mixing new imagery of a young boy wondering inquisitively with a live TV as his head to show the effects of media on a young generation.

-------BIO: Tegan Bristow is a Lecturer and runs the Interactive Digital Media program at the Digital Arts Division of the Wits School of the Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Bristow is additionally a practicing artist working collaboratively and individually and has exhibited widely. Bristow is writing her PhD with Roy Ascott and the Planetary Collegium through Plymouth University in the UK. The PhD research is on cultural and art practices with communication and digital technologies in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.

ro and was a resident VJ for in the 100live electronic festival in 2012.

CUSS Webisodes (South Africa) is a collective with mass culture in South Africa as its essential driving force. Their

.

focus is on the influence of Television, radio and moblie phone. Exclusivity and high-brow aesthetics are exchanged for mass culture in their aim to create this highly thought out work. By looking at South African culture at certain socioeconomic levels they have been inspired

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by the abundance of unique culture and/or social phenomena.

“Made In Egypt”: Kareem Osman

CUSS Webisodes & Kishwateli by Muchuri Njenga: Tegan Bristow:

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Di-Egy Fest 0.1 Open Studio With the corporation of Out Of The Circle studio, the idea is to open a space and platform for young artists for three days with two professional digital artists (Egyptian and Int. artist) to come and meet with them daily during three days from the festival.

Open studio will help them to create their digital platform to connect now with artists and in future.

Invited Artists:

Victor Diaz (Spain) Reza Salavi (USA) Max Kazemzadeh (USA)

C ConferenCe

Di-Egy Fest 0.1 CoNference Cairo / 2013 International Conference on Digital Arts within the International Research Conference in the SeriesConsciousness Reframed: Art and Consciousness in the Post-Biological Era In cooperation withThe PlanetaryCollegium, UK and German University in Cairo.

The Planetary Collegium is an international platform for research in art, technology and consciousness, with its hub based in the University of Plymouth, with linked centers [Nodes] in Zurich, Milan and Kefalonia.RoyAscott at the University of Wales founded the Consciousness Reframed conference series in 1997.

Consciousness Reframed is a forum for trans-disciplinary inquiry into art, science, technology, and consciousness, drawing upon the expertise and insights of artists, designers, architects, performers, musicians, writers, scientists, and scholars, from many countries. Consciousness Reframed conferences have taken place in Australia, Austria, China, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

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Di-Egy Fest 0.1 WORKSHOPS Cairo / 2013

w worksHoPs

DI-EGY FEST 0.1 Workshops 1. Digital performance/Robotics workshop

By Daniel Bisig and Phillipe Kocher- Artist/Engineer - Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland.

The concept of a complete autonomous agent constitutes is of central importance to the field of embodied artificial intelligence. In order to fulfill the criteria of complete autonomy an agent needs to be self-sufficient, situated, embodied, adaptive, and autonomous. I'm particularly interested in how this concept could be applied to interactive installations. How do the

roles of user and artefact change in case of autonomous systems.How to support intuitive forms of interaction with a system that can no longer be controlled. What sort of interfaces will be suitable to support these novel forms of interaction.

2. Game design workshop

By Mario von Rickenbach, Game designer, Game art,Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland Game art become one of important section of our daily digital arts projects that we face now in our life. New technology enables new forms of expression, requires new ways of perception and thus changes the entire cultural system.

Mobile applications industry started to grow faster in Egypt the last couple of years and because we believe of the importance of professional Egyptian artists in this field.

3. Sound Art workshop

By David Strang, University of Plymouth, UK Sound art is a diverse practice that considers wide notions sound, listening and hearing as its predominant focus. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art is interdisciplinary in nature, or takes on hybrid forms. Sound art of-

ten engages with the subjects of acoustics, psychoacoustics, electronics, noise music, audio media and technology (both analog and digital), found or environmental sound, explorations of the human body.

4. Creative coding, processing and open frame works Workshop

By Max Kazemzadeh, Artist/Engineer, Arduino, processing and openframworks, Gallaudet University, Washington DC.USA Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or envi-

ronments.Hardware is an important line of experimentation to me these days, as it allows us to free both ourselves and our data from the only interface most of us know: the laptop/pc screen.

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DI-EGY FEST 0.1 Workshops 5. Curating digital arts workshop by curator Andy Brydon and Amalie Briden from curated place, Manchester, UK. Curating subject now became a very important subject in visual arts now, not only in how to prepare arts projects and exhibitions but in how the arts and creativity process became an inspiring tool itself that can affect our life and our practice with different ways. In this subject, we think that it is important to present a curating digital arts workshop for young Egyptian artists or curators to help them to learn

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what is curating and how they can select the artworks they want and how to curate it in different unique ways to present their exhibitions professionally to public and different audience.

The curating digital art workshop is presented

by Curated place and Andy Brydon Director and curator of curated place. www.curatedplace.com

6. Technoetic Arts workshop

by Roy Ascott, Artist/Educator - Technoetic Arts, Planetary Collegium, UK Technoetic relates to that which concerns the technology of consciousness. Such technology may be telematic, digital, genetic, vegetal, moist or linguistic.Technoetics is a convergent field of practice that seeks to explore con-

sciousness and connectivity through digital, telematic, chemical or spiritual means, embracing both interactive and psychoactive technologies, and the creative use of moist media.

7. Sensorama Workshop

by I-DAT , UK The Sensorama Workshop builds on i-DAT's experience developing a range of ‘Operating Systems’ to dynamically manifest ‘data’ as experience in order to enhance perspectives on a complex world. The Operating Systems project explores data as an abstract and invisible material that generates a dynamic mirror image of our biological, ecological and social activities.

Sensorama focuses on developing sensor devices and methods to visualise the data they harvest from the environment. The Sensorama

workshop is built around devises constructed to feed Eco-OS. Eco-OS collects data from an environment through the network of ecoids and provides the public, artists, engineers and scientists with a real time model of the environment. Eco-OS provides a range of networked environmental sensors (ecoids) for rural, urban, work and domestic environments. The real-time data collected through these sensors is visualised using Processing sketches and the Unity 3D Game Engine.

Di-Egy KIDS With the cooperation of Galerie Fur ZeitgenossischKunst Leipzig (GFZK) Museum of contemporary arts in Leipzig, arts mediation department, we organize special artistic program for the children because we believe that day after day the technology take part of our life and now the children will be our future generation in Egypt.We still can remember how the computer miracle and PC change our life in end of eighty and the windows program in the nineties. For our generation, the computer and digitalizing our life is something new for us but for the children and all the future generations computers, Ipod, Ipad, Iphones, electronic games is their life and the only thing they know since they start to to open their eyes on the present life.

In this subject from our responsibility as curators and researchers, we are keen to present the DI-EGY Children section to Egyptian children and audience in a way to start a good awareness about how digitalizing our life can have a positive impact on our children and future generations in the future. Di-Egy Fest 0.1 Children will present two different digital workshops with schools and family guided tours for children in the exhibition.

DI-EGY CHILDREN guided tours will present guided trips complimentary 2 hours and professional guided tour for students aged 8- 18. The group of up to 15 people maximum (with supervisors of our volunteers during the tour).

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