Pixelache is organizing a new edition of Camp Pixelache on 17-19 May 2013 as part of the Pixelache Festival 2013 programme. This year the festival is organised as a dual-city event (16-19 May 2013) in Helsinki-Tallinn, around the overarching theme of Facing North – Facing South.
Pixelache Helsinki (‘Pikseliähky’) is a festival of electronic art and subcultures, organised in Helsinki since year 2002. The festival programme consists of seminars, workshops, exhibitions, performances, concerts and club events. From a local event in Helsinki, Pixelache has developed into an important hub within an international network of electronic arts festivals. Members of the Pixelache Network are Mal au Pixel (Paris), Pixelvärk (Stockholm), Piksel (Bergen), Pikslaverk (Reykjavik), Pixelazo (Colombia), Afropixel (Dakar) and PixelIST (Istanbul).
Camp Pixelache will be held in Estonia, on Naissaar island, near to Tallinn. Typically like at unconferences, the agenda will be created by the attendees at the beginning of the event. Anyone who wants to initiate a discussion on a given topic can claim a time and a space. Our curated themes for the Festival are emerging as Creative Development (North-South, Tallinn-Helsinki & other relations), Virtuality, Resonance, Anti-disciplinarity, Waste, Techno-ecologies, and Control. Welcome to be inspired by these or introduce other topics into the Camp!
The island was rumoured to be “Terra Feminarum” (the island’s Estonian name literally translates as ‘island of women’) but had until WWII a historic Estonian-Swedish fishing community. The island’s military history still leaves its traces in tangible and intangible forms: military buildings, sea-mine relics, heavy minerals, and a vague 3-month period following the October Revolution when it was declared an anarcho-syndicalist autonomous republic. Closed as a military island during the Soviet period, the island has a few dozen permanent residents, boosted in summer time with many visitors, a classical music festival, and is a place to respect as an Estonian nature conservation area.
The venue area/buildings we use have their limitations, including slow internet (limited 3G), only about 3kw of electricity (via solar panels), and access only by ferry, but thats is also what makes it so charming, and a perfect place for a Camp. The event itself will take place in the concert hall built by the well-known Estonian conductor Tõnu Kaljuste, right on the spot where Bernhard Schmidt, inventor of the Schmidt telescope was born. Within the concert hall and related buildings open workshops can also be organised. It takes about 40 min to reach the hall from the harbour on foot. The infrastructure on the island allows for about 100 people to participate.
In addition to facilitating the unconference, we have invited Mary Mellor to give a keynote presentation on Naissaar. Mary Mellor is a Social Science Professor at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne (UK), who has a long-standing interest in alternative, green and feminist economics