News » Amber09: Uncyborgable

It is the third time that Amber Art and Technology Festival with the participation of 6 artists from Türkiye and 22 artists from abroad this year, meets with the art-goers in between 6 – 15 November.  The festival, supported by İstanbul 2010 Europe Cultural Capital Agency, gathers the works, using the current technology in artistic expression together.

Being the first and only festival event in art and technology field in Türkiye, amberfestival offers the recent works of international art scene to its audience and also to the artists of Türkiye.  The festival aims to make the works of artists from Türkiye visible all over the world and support new collaborations on international basis.

The event spaces are differing from the Basilica Cistern to Abudağa Mansion House, İstanbul Modern and are reflecting the exciting cultural panorama of İstanbul.

The Basilica Cistern hosts two different works with the support of Metropolitan Municipality: The work, titled as Arabesk, is composed of robotic arms and legs dancing to waltz and created by Peter William Holden.  The other work by Bill Vorn is a hysterical machine, putting us back in a blackhole of the past through the door of the future.

Similar to previous years, interactive installations selected from the works of the artists who has replied to an international call and the works of the invited artists like Ubernogen and Stelarc will be presented together in Abudağa Mansion House in collaboration with Yücel Foundation.  Prosthesis Head will be the cult artist, Stelarc’s first work, been displayed in Türkiye.  Besides interactive works of young artists, Teoman Madra’s, one of the pioneers who works in multimedia field in Türkiye since 70’s, selected works can be visited in Abudağa Mansion House.

The intellectual meeting done on topics related with the theme of the festival and organized as a seminar previously, is turned into a conference this year.  amberKonferans aims to form a debating platform on the intersection point of science, technology and art with high percentage of participation from people.

amberKonferans, held on 7-8 November, will revive the popular subject of 90’s in the light of current technology, asking the question of “Not cyborganized yet?” and will question the human-technology relationship.  In the scope of the conference where the talks on the theme will be done by Stelarc and Chris Hables Gray, there will be a special session by Leonardo Educational Forum.  Conference will start with the screenings of films of cyborg theme on 6 November, Tuesday and in collaboration with İstanbul Modern Cinema.

amber Art and Technology Platform will continue to produce works in its new centre, starting from November.  amberPlatform will continue to its events in 2010 with amberFestival, amberNetwork, amberKonferans and will also give the start of continuous education and guest artist programme.