Starting in 2003 as a festival of locally based artists, Brooklyn’s Conflux festival (September 13 – 16, 2007) has now become an international event with artists from around the world gathering to celebrate contemporary psychogeography. For those who may not know the term, Conflux describes it as: “the investigation of everyday urban life through emerging artistic, technological and social practice.” Translated into a whole spectrum of projects taking place on the streets of Brooklyn — from workshops, walks, demonstrations to interventions in public space — this exploration of the urban environment showed just how much creative potential is out there on the streets.
For example, there was a demonstration of the Energy Harvesting Dérive, a hacked version of the popular Heely’s roller sneaker. This revamped footwear not only generates electricity from human motion; it also uses that power to display random walking directions on an LCD for the user. Second Life Walkie-Talkie Walks by artist Sander Veenhof paired up a real person and a Second Life avatar for a joint exploration of a local neighborhood with the help of specially adapted walkie-talkie devices.
Although creative technology played a role in many projects, others, like Harvey Loves Harvey, used low-tech strategies to encourage human interaction. This modified game of hide-and-seek was performed by Jason Dean and Matthew Nash. Using “Wanted” flyers that they posted of each other throughout the streets, they solicited calls from passersby to help each in his search for the other. Visitors could also take part in a workshop with the Cutup Collective, which takes found posters, cuts them into bytes and bits and recombines them to create dramatic new images.
The best thing about the Conflux festival: it is free! Bubbling over with fresh ideas and collective fun, Conflux is proof that good art can be had by all and that creativity does not have to come with a price tag.
Second Life is a trademark of Linden Research Inc.
Link:
http://www.confluxfestival.org
