HTMlles 8 crowd control

HTMlles 8 Festival Theme: crowd control

Despite the influx of technological tools and ubiquitous communication networks, mobility and the state of being mobile still do not exist without negotiating systems of inclusion or exclusion. It remains necessary for an individual to navigate personal and external control structures before undertaking movement. Geopolitical divides, governmental regulations, and shock and awe tactics contribute, alongside technological limitations and unequal access to resources, to the complexity of becoming and remaining mobile. These mechanisms of control are oppressive and limiting, but overcoming these confines can induce new and unexpected creative practices as well as ways of being.

HTMlles8 is devoted to artistic practices and presentations which provide relief to these problems of mobility. Avoiding technologically deterministic or commercially driven approaches, HTMlles8 seeks to present tactics and voices for creating more inclusive and self-determining physical, virtual and ideological mobility. Installed and performed works will be presented in a number of locations around Montreal as well as on several online venues. Additionally, a series of workshops and presentations will provide a forum for the public to engage with the works presented. The festival's programming takes a critical position regarding new technologies specifically as they relate to art in situations of migration, 'border' negotiation, and crowd control.

The works included in this programming look at how new technological tools, communication networks, the internet and tele-conferencing change how space and distance exist and are navigated. They describe how structural systems which have not yet adapted to the volume and speed of global communications, use firewalls and other mechanisms to maintain control. Some of the works seek to place the control back into the hands of individuals while others try to tell us that maybe we are in control. By supplying DIY tactics, making environmental threats visible and sharing mobile experiences, each of the works presented hints at the possibility of alternate realities and discusses the migrations and decision making which would transport us there.

Whether defining mobility as a privilege, an act of defiance or an ideology, this edition of the HTMlles festival, addressing the thematic of Crowd Control, comes at a timely moment for reflection within the realms of technological advancement, globalization, contemporary cultural production, archiving and cyberfeminist discourse.

Kyd Campbell [frontierlab.org]
Programming Director HTMlles 8

The HTMlles Festival is a biennial international interdisciplinary arts festival based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The festival showcases artists, theorists, academics and practitioners whom are creatively engaged with emerging technologies. The festival features cutting edge digital and interdisciplinary artwork alongside public discussions and workshops. HTMlles enjoys international notoriety and represents a highly anticipated and privileged moment for those interested in contemporary new media art practices.

The HTMlles festival highlights original works that seek their meaning in the immediacy
and simultaneity of electronics, networks and digital communications. Our mandate aims to counter the low visibility of women artists working with technology. This includes, but is not limited to, internet-based artists, video and sound artists, electronic musicians, robotic and kinetic sculptors, programmers, designers and multidisciplinary performance artists. HTMlles' objectives include increasing public awareness of a diversity of new media work, generating dialogue between practitioners and other art experts, and exposing Canadian women artists to relevant developments and practices abroad (and vice versa).

The diverse themes proposed in each festival edition allows for critical discourse surrounding contemporary technological complexities and tendencies, and permit broad interpretations relating to current and emerging issues. Through practice, the festival represents and investigates the development of a global creative community on the forefront of new media practices.

As a project of Studio XX - the first feminist digital resource center in Montreal - the festival supports and encourages a cyber-feminist analysis while also creating a site of convergence between the general public, artists, curators, and theorists from around the world. This year, HTMlles is pleased to contribute to celebrations surrounding the 10th Anniversary of Studio XX !