How can mobile technology contribute to society?

In my opinion, technology, and specifically technologies of a distributed nature as cell phone networks, offer many opportunities to change the way central systems of power and control regulate the exchange and availability of information. Furthermore, if we are able to build our own infrastructures to monitor the environment, control our domestic spaces or help us navigate the city, we will be in the position to create self-regulated platforms to address social needs, as an alternative to official and commercial applications which stress on regulation and marketing.
 
What do you expect from your participation at Mobilefest?

I expect an opportunity to discuss issues related to the use of new technologies as tools for social change, meet artist and designers with similar interests, and of course, have fun! From the kids, I expect lots of questions, a good dose of imagination and inspiring insights.
 
What do you think about Mobilefest?

I could not agree more with Mobilefest's vision about new technologies, and its focus on their social and political implications. Also, the festival takes place in an emerging country, Brazil, which in my opinion offers the challenges and opportunities that can be addresseed through the type of technological development which take place free of commercial constrains.

Robert Mathy is interviewed by Mobilefest!

Robert Mathy, Austrian artist, has confirmed his presence at IV Mobilefest that happens from 12th to 15th November in Sao Paulo - dates in Rio de Janeiro will be confirmed in the next fews days. He'll participate in Mobilfest discussion about Music with Gilberto Mendes and Cristiano Rosa.

Mathy will also show his work “Light Frequency Fingertips” and will hold a sound performance with an instrument that captures various signals of electromagnetic waves sent by mobiles.

On his interview, he talks about the importance of mobile technology nowadays and his expectations about IV Mobilefest.

Mobilefest - How can mobile technology contribute to society?
Robert Mathy - The possibillities are increasing constanly with the development of new technologies. There will be more and more capabilities to use this technologies in a positive way. For example education, information, social networks and right to say. But keep always in mind that this technologies could be used to benefit surveillance or transgress our right of privacy.

Mobilefest - What do you expect from your participation at Mobilefest?
Robert Mathy - I hope I will meet many interesting people, hear new interesting things, see interesting art, can inspire other people with my performance and have fun.

Mobilefest - What do you think about Mobilefest?
Robert Mathy - I think there are many creative people who are concerned with mobile technologies and art. Mobilefest gives a good cross section of this people and an interesting mixture of exhibitions, performances and lectures. i like that there are international participants. This is the first time for me at Mobilefest so i could tell more when its past.

Participant's biography

Robert Mathy

Robert Mathy is concerned with possibilities of electroacoustic soundgenerating and the overlapping among art and daily-used-media. Selection of exhibitions and performances:

Guthman Musical Instrument Competition | Atlanta | 2009
Fullframe Festival | Vienna | 2009
mobile music workshop | Vienna | 2008
The Time of Distance | Helsinki | 2008
Field | Berlin | 2007 

Clara Boj gives exclusive interview to Mobilefest!

Spanish artist Clara Boj will also be at IV Mobilefest that happens from 12th to 15th November in Sao Paulo - dates in Rio de Janeiro will be confirmed in the next fews days.

Clara Boj shows “Playground Híbrido”, project shared with Diego Diaz, which links electronic games and traditional living spaces like playgrounds. Through a net of RFID and PDAs sensors children have fun while participating in a collaborative game.

Clara has given Mobilefest an exclusive interview where she talks about the importance of mobile technology nowadays and her expectations about the event.

Mobilefest – How can mobile technology contribute to society?
Clara Boj – Mobile technologies are nowadays tools that most favour communication and acess to informatio. They allow us being tuned and informed but the most important is that they allow us to contribute and participate in the processes of collective citizenship.

Mobilefest – What do you expect from your participation at Mobilefest?
Clara Boj – Getting to know the festival and the context in which it's inserted, and the city of Sao Paulo.Although mobile technologies extend more and more over any city and answer defined function globally speaking, each context generates different strategies of appropriation and creative modls of communication. I'm specially interested in the opportunity of seeing how our project Hybrid Playground, oriented to children and developed within the public space, satisfies or not specific needs of Sao Paulo. How is public space sued in Sao Paulo? How can interactive game contribute to the definition of the city?

Mobilefest – Qual a sua opinião sobre o Mobilefest?
Clara Boj – I believe it's a fantastic platform to know different agents engaged in the development and use of mobile technollgies and their different approaches. It's a festival where one can share and receive information and generate new networks for future collaboration and projects.

Bruno Vianna and Nicholas Knouf show Fluid Nexus at Mobilefest

IV Mobilefest, to take place in November in  São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, brings one more attraction : the project Fluid Nexus, created by Bruno Vianna and Nicholas Knouf.

Fluid Nexus is na application for mobile phones developed to allow activists (or any other person) to send out messages and data independently of a centralized network. It’s been projected to make the interchange of information possible even if the central system falls, be it due to government decision or natural catastrophes. Based on the thought that, under similar conditions, people continue to move around the world, we can use ideas saved on clandestine networks to turn people into message holders.

Should it join enough people, temporary and fluid nets can be generated to send out messages from one to another, disseminating as viruses and reaching many more members of the group. That enable a sub-reptile communication through daily activity – a fluid view of reality. Besides that, Fluid Nexus can be used as hyper-local platform of messaging, indirectly associated to physical space.

Check out some vídeos by Fluid Nexus!

Fluid Nexus on Android from Nick Knouf on Vimeo.

Fluid Nexus on Android, early test. from Nick Knouf on Vimeo.

Technical Details for Fluid Nexus from Nick Knouf on Vimeo.

Leia a seguir a biografia dos participantes

Bruno Viana and Nicholas Knouf

Bruno Vianna works with cinema, portable media and installations. He directed 4 short-films between 1994 and 2003, and launched his first feature Cafuné in 2006. In 2008 he launched a feature-film, Ressaca, edited live, that uses an interface specially developed for the project. He has works on portable supports like Palm Poetry and Invisíveis. Bruno is graduated in Cinema and holds a Masters by ITP-NYU.

Nicholas Knouf is a PhD student in information science at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. His research explores the interstitial spaces between information science, critical theory, digital art, and science and technology studies. Ongoing work includes MAICgregator; Fluid Nexus; robotic puppetry projects that engage with psycho-socio-political imaginaries; and sound works that encourage the expression of the unspeakable. Past and current work has been recognized by a number awards, including an Honorary Mention by Prix Ars Electronica in [the next idea] category (2005), the Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) for his master’s thesis (2008), a memefest Award of Distinction (2008), a special transmediale “Online Highlight” (2009), and a “Turbulence Spotlight” (2009). Additionally, his work has been discussed in print and online media, including ID Magazine, the Boston Globe, CNN, Slashdot, and Afterimage.

Mobile communication helps mapping the difficulties faced by disabled people

The Spanish artist Antoni Abad will come to São Paulo to continue the project Canal Acessível, that has already been in Barcelona, Spain, and Geneva, Switzerland. The project will be launched during the IV Mobilefest, that happens in November in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

In 2008 Antoni presented his project in São Paulo and this time his aim to make people aware of the importance of mobility in the cities. His main goal is , through active collective participation, build a map on the internet with the reflex of the accessibility issue. Using 3G network of data transmission, each participant published the images of architecture barriers they faced in their cities, as well as examples of good adaptation on the project’s site in Barcelona and Geneva as imagens localizadas das barreiras arquitetônicas com que se depararam, assim como os exemplos de boa adaptação.

The result was a large map of accessibility in the cities with GPS precision and enriched by pictures taken by wheelchair users themselves, what allowed changes and adaptation of the spots where problems were found.

For further info about Canal Acessível, click here.

Participant’s bio

Antoni Abad

Sculpture for many years in the past until finding out he could work with the combination of what he used in his sculptures transported into the territory of projected video, when he learned about that technology at Banff Centre, Canada. After that, Antoní worked for nearly 10 years on projects of projection on space also with software until he finally made a project with a virtual fly that lived in the user’s computer, that hid a community distributed where communication of such users could not be intercepted, , “a community prepared to be able to conspire” and, at last, he started working with mobiles, with the internet and “with all those collectives” of which we can have a sample of his project on http://www.megafone.net/.