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In a time where digital prevails and blends in with real life, questions arise as to how one can continue to showcase creativity off and on the screens. The 180 Media Lab emerged from a desire to embrace improvisation and experimentation to birth original ideas.
It was during the last week of November 2021 that 180 Media Lab gathered disruptive talent from multiple worlds in a programme that aims to rethink culture both in real life and online. The programme offered a multidisciplinary and wide-ranging perspective on the creation of new cultural forms and means of expression for the future.
We are standing in the eye of a global change: a format revolution. New formats are being born, rising exponentially, and storytellers are turning the page on traditional narratives and reforming how the public views content. This, in a way, is not surprising. Artistic manifestations have been a consistent variant over the years, never failing to make a stand during unusual and uneasy times. So why is this time any different?
How can we bring communities together to explore the opportunities of merging old and new media? Curator Joana Seguro was invited to give form to this idea of making an hybrid online and physical event with space for all artistic expressions and that would make us think about the world to come, in a post-pandemic context.
180 MEDIA LAB — NEW IDEAS FOR OLD FORMATS
“
This is not an academy.
This is not a festival.
This is not an exhibition.
This is not a broadcast.
This is experimental, hybrid, conceptual, unusual, strange, playful, odd and contradictory and all of the above.
”
— Joana Seguro, 180 Media Lab curator
ARTISTIC CIRCUIT
As Joana Seguro explains, the Artistic Circuit comes from the attempt to extend the content exhibited on Canal180 to Porto, in order to create a "different way to navigate the city".
THE WRONG TV
Celebrating digital culture since 2013, the wrong is a collaborative effort harnessing the potential of the internet, shaped as a decentralized global art biennale and tv channel, open to participation, happening both online and offline.
curated by David Quiles Guilló
Installation by Pedro Maia & Joana da Conceição
In 180 Media Lab, Pedro Maia presented his work Variations on Negative Space (2021) with the soundtrack of Joana da Conceição. Using 16mm analogue film as a point of departure, Pedro Maia pushes the possibilities of materiality and form of the medium itself.
Installation by Berru
Berru Collective presented the installation Electromagnetic Interference System (2021) at Garagem 180. Iteration of a system composed of a screen, a sensor and a converter. The system is in a feedback loop and in dynamic equilibrium, generated by (re)injecting electromagnetic interference as video in the operation of each screen. The sound of this behaviour is visible in the object and amplified in space.
And then we were LIVE. As a way to bring the physical experience that had happened in the artistic circuit to the digital and their audiences, we created two special broadcasts that were aired on television (Canal180) and online, on Twitch.
EMISSION I — NOINDEX
Through conversation, sound, writing, performance and video work, NOINDEX is a collective project that desires a dislocation of this centralized coordinate and aims to strip away its visual cues and impulse triggers until all that remains is a future we imagine together, instead of the one we’re always being shown. Hosted by Amar Ediriwira and Clayton Vomero, NOINDEX brings in the transmission the philosopher Srećko Horvat and music by DJ Firmeza, along with visual work from many different artists, converting the whole experience as an NFT suitable to purchase.
EMISSION II — 180 MEDIA LAB LIVE
180 Media Lab Live consisted on a cabaret mixing all our participants and new friends in a fusion of filmed content and live performances. Directed by Joana Domingues, 180 Media Lab Live marked the end of a week of fun and experimentation in Porto in a TV transmission that shows collaborations and individual pieces across genres, disciplines and narratives.
This first experience allowed us to reach new artists who were able to collaborate, without knowing each other, but combining their techniques and creating something fresh. Every day there’s something new, in which both the artists and audiences are challenged to adapt to it.
With 180 Media Lab, by breaking predefined structures and concepts and through collaboration, we saw the emergence of a space for new ideas and a new generation of creators.
BERRU
Berru is a collective of artists who have been developing works based on the exploration of different mechanisms, concepts and materials. They work indistinctly with moving images, sculpture, sound, new media, and there is always a very dynamic and performative element in all their pieces.
PEDRO MAIA
Pedro Maia is a Portuguese filmmaker working predominantly with 16mm and 8mm film, pushing the boundaries and aesthetic of analog cinema by manipulating the raw materials and challenging the traditional process, continually expanding the visual and technological heritage of classic film methods.
JOANA DA CONCEIÇÃO
Joana da Conceição's practice is developed between painting and music. Together with André Abel they form since 2005 Tropa Macaca, a contemporary electronic composition duo.
AMAR EDIRIWIRA
Amar Ediriwira is a writer and curator based in London. He is currently the creative director of Boiler Room, where he sets the agenda for all major projects. He is also the founder of video platform 4:3.
CLAYTON VOMERO
Clayton Vomero is an artist and filmmaker based in New York & Napoli working in film, photography, music, and text. His film Gang earned significant attention upon its release in 2015 for its raw and emotional depiction of NY youth.
DJ FIRMEZA
DJ Firmeza is like a magician who plays live music in the domain of percussive entanglements of another dimension, leading the dance floor towards a communal trance that his spiritual core effortlessly summons.
SREĆKO HORVAT
Srećko Horvat is a Croatian philosopher, author and political activist. The German weekly Der Freitag called him "one of the most exciting voices of his generation" and he has been described as a "fiery voice of dissent in the Post-Yugoslav landscape".
MIRA CALIX
Mira Calix is an award-winning artist and composer based in the United Kingdom. Music and sound, which she considers a sculptural material, are at the centre of her practice. Her work explores the manipulation of the material into visible, physical forms through multi-disciplinary installations, sculpture, video and performance works.
LOÏC PERELA
Loïc Perela is an independent choreographer and dance teacher. He studied at the ENSDM in Marseille and the CNSMDP in Paris between 1998 and 2004. He went on to work as a dancer for IT Dansa in Barcelona, Donlon Dance Company in Saarbrücken and Scapino Ballet in Rotterdam between 2004 and 2012.
POLIDO
Polido is a composer and artist currently based in Lisbon. Starting from the material and technological properties of sound - and its relational and immaterial dimension - his work approaches questions of language, archive, and intersections between music stories and politics.
CARMINDA SOARES
Carminda Soares is an emerging creator, dancer and performer. She Graduated in the contemporary dance program Art Factory International - Dance Start Up VIII and, in 2016, by the Advanced Training in Interpretation and Choreographic Creation of Companhia Instável.
MARIA R. SOARES
Maria R. Soares is a dancer and emerging creator. She graduated from the Advanced Training Program in Interpretation and Choreographic Creation of the Companhia Instável and from the professional program of contemporary dance, Art Factory International.
DJ NARCISO
DJ Narciso stands out as a producer in continuous creative flow of new themes and dj tools, proportionally dense and flexible, working between melody and metallic beats with equal proficiency, in low and high rotations.
MIGUEL JANUÁRIO
Miguel Januário was born in Porto in 1981. He studied Communication Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto in 1999 and, from that year on, started to develop graffiti interventions in the urban space.
CATARINA MIRANDA
Catarina Miranda has been developing fictional discourses, whose languages intersect dance, voice, scenography and light, approaching the body as a vehicle of hypnagogic transformation and awareness of the present.
ARMANDO SOUSA — FONOTECA MUNICIPAL DO PORTO
Armando Sousa is the archivist and programmer of the Fonoteca Municipal do Porto. Gathering about 35,000 vinyl records, this space located in Campanhã, at Arda Recorders, is a sound archive and a public space for music appreciation.
HERLANDER
Herlander is an artist, performer, producer and vocalist who aims to rewrite the rules of the popular music standard. With his antipop sound diving in genreless waters, he harmonises voices and particular sounds that can be sit down in the same room.
IRENE ALVAR
Irene Alvar (Madrid, 1988) began her musical studies at the age of 9. In 2006 she was granted an entrance award to study a Bachelor’s degree at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester (U.K.). Due to her interest in orchestral playing, after completing her Bachelor’s degree she moved to Göteborg, Sweden, where she coursed a two year Master’s degree at the Swedish National Orchestra Academy.
QUENTIN SMIRHES
Quentin Smirhes, created by writer, filmmaker and performer Sean Reynard, is the febrile re-imagining of children's school TV from the seventies cupboard.
_BLANK
_blank, also known by Blanca Rego is a filmmaker, media artist, writer and researcher. Strongly influenced by experimental film and electronic music, her work focuses on the relationship between sound and image.
LOLO & SOSAKU
Lolo & Sosaku investigate the possibilities of sculpture as an expanded field. The nexus that unites their work is the quest for an object in contact with its surroundings and with the spectator, an object that seeks friction and tension, exploring the capacity of creating new meanings.
A. BILL MILLER
We exist within a built environment that is constantly mediated by the grid. Grids organize space through coordinate mapping and patterns of development. Grids compress, redisplay, and reorder information. Grids are an enforcement system imposed upon both nature and culture. The coldness and rationality of the grid confront the warmth and playfulness of the human touch.
This article was written by Carolina Ribeiro and Nicole Gonçalves.
featuring 180 Media Lab: Aftermovie directed by João Martins, produced by José Guilherme Marques and Nicole Gonçalves,
filmed by João Martins, Carolina Ribeiro, Lourenço Ribeiro and Nicole Gonçalves and with graphics by Mário Meira.
180 Media Lab was produced by Canal180 in partnership with Porto/Post/Doc with a programme curated by Joana Seguro and produced by Joana Mesquita Alves.
Proofreading and translation of the video and this article by Eva Magro.
Published on December 2021.
