Tomorrow = Another Today

The future is obsolete. The 1990s were the end of the century that mobilized on “the future”. Since, global neoliberalism has spread the emptiness of the “post” ideology, whereby the illusion of having gone “beyond” class, race, and gender has left the door open to the desert of semiocapitalist desires, the noise of the overproduction of commodities and intellectual property, and the rise of biosurveillance. The 00 decade, which started with the dotcom crash, saw the New Fall, as social movements were cornered by the war on terrorism, the obsession with so-called security, and the implementation of financial insecurity and austerity, on a global scale. In parallel, aliens started to proliferate in the shape of afrofuturism, cyberfeminism, and queer futurity, among others, and highlighted the fact that the “future” invented by modern capitalism, futurism and to some extent cyberpunk, was white, male, and heteronormative.

After more than a century, should we still care about “the future”? Recently the speculative turn and the calls to focus on the present might be symptoms of a future in crisis. If the idea of the future has inherently been developed in relation to technology, science, and progress, how do artists today contribute to the construction and/or subversion of the future? What kind of imaginations can come out of collective exhaustion, melancholy, of being fed up on a wide scale? What sort of non-market value can co-emerge without a future and the refusal of neoliberal resilience/positivity? What sort of creativity can come out of being liberated from the future? Are negativity, nihilism, cynicism or irony ethics of the privileged? What kind of feminist ethics is created in #zerofuture?

The 11th edition of The HTMlles features projects that shed light on the perception of “today’s futures” by different generations, including critical and creative propositions by more than 50 local and international artists, curators, and thinkers, through online and IRL exhibitions, performances, discussions, and workshops, taking place in Montreal/stolen indigenous land. The future invented by modern capitalism is in crisis. #zerofuture is the point zero of collective liberation from “the future” in order to (re)build community. The absence of a future is a good reason to invent one...

About The HTMlles

Taking place in Montreal, The HTMlles is an international biennial festival that brings together artists, scholars, and activists who are passionate about critical engagement with new technologies from a feminist perspective. Based on a specific theme, each edition addresses urgent socio-political questions by pushing the boundaries of artistic and feminist practices.

Initiated in 1997, the festival began as an international platform for introducing women’s web art. Collaborating closely with partner organizations, The HTMlles has become a multi-site festival dedicated to the presentation of women’s, trans, and gender non-conforming artists’ independent media artworks in a transdisciplinary environment that strives for anti-oppression.

The HTMlles is produced by Studio XX, a bilingual, feminist artist-run centre for technological exploration, creation, and critique, founded in 1996.

Accreditations

To apply for certification, contact communications at htmlles.net by providing the following information:

• Full name
• Contact information (email, mailing address, phone)
• Media (name, short description, including web link if available)
• Event(s) you want to cover during the festival
• Independent journalists can apply to contribute to the festival's blog of The HTMlles 11 or make an exchange of blog posts.

Press Releases

• The HTMlles 11 unveils its festival program!
• The HTMlles 11 events

Brochure

PDF version

Documentation

Photos, videos and communications via the Matricules Archives.
Photos selection.

Contact

Isabelle Guichard

Communications Coordinator

communications at htmlles.net

514 845 7934

4001 Berri, espace 201

Montréal (QC) H2L 4H2

Studio XX's Mandate

Founded in 1996, Montreal-based Studio XX is a bilingual feminist artist-run centre for technological exploration, creation and critique.

Studio XX’s mandate focuses on enabling the creative actions and perspectives of women at the forefront of contemporary technological landscapes and the development of a digital democracy that values autonomy and collaboration.

Studio XX supports the creation and dissemination of independent media art through its Wired Women Salons, commissions, co-productions, its online electronic journal .dpi, artist residencies, the weekly XX Files radio show, the HTMlles Festival, through professional development workshops and anytime access to its Open Source Lab.

In 2008, Studio XX launched Matricules: one of the world’s largest online archives of women’s digital artworks.

Website : www.studioxx.org

Archives

The HTMlles Festival achives are stored in Matricules, an online digital archive comprised of a dynamic database housing all of the images, artists and events that making up Studio XX's history.

Festival documentation (photos, video, etc.) is available in Studio XX Website or Matricules Archives

Websites of The HTMlles Festival Past Editions:
2012 | 2010 | 2010 | 2007 | 2005 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1998 | 1997

The HTMlles 11 - RECAP 2014

The #zerofuture is Beautiful!

After 10 days of activities, the 11th edition of The HTMlles, feminist festival of media arts + digital culture, ended beautifully (and sweaty) on November 15, at the monthly Cousins Party, with special guest Juliana Huxtable from NYC.

ZÉR0 FUTUR{E} featured more than 70 artists and speakers, with a considerable number of women of colour from 5 different continents, presenting nearly 40 projects, most of which were premieres. This year, the festival's success was especially noticed by the public, cultural workers, as well as the media. The HTMlles attracted more than 3000 visitors across a dozen venues throughout Montreal. ZÉR0 FUTUR{E} Co-Directors, Sophie Le-Phat Ho and Katja Melzer, were particularly moved by the fact that a feminist festival of media arts and digital culture could attract such a diverse audience, including trans, queer, men, and inter-generational representation.

Photo Gallery

PROOF, Alisha B. Wormsley and Lisa E. Harris. Photo: võ thiên việt, 2014.
See more pictures.

The future is obsolete. There's hope in #zerofuture!

To warm up and begin reflecting on critical and creative notions of the future, The HTMlles 11 offered a series of pre-festival events, including the Notopian Film Nights / “Pas de futur, pas de problème” and solo exhibitions by Christina Goestl (Vienna), Marlène Renaud-B. (Montreal), Nadia Seboussi (Montreal), and Lisa Reihana (Auckland), which launched with a conversation between Lisa and Emilie Monnet (Montreal) about indigenous prophecies and the deconstruction of colonialist imageries.

The festival officially kicked off on November 7 with a day-long conference, Feminist Technics, Queer Machines: Inventing Better Futures, that brought together graduate students and artists to discuss themes of Technology and Futurity, Decolonizing the Future, and Futures of the Mediated Self. The panels were followed by a keynote talk with Ytasha L. Womack (Chicago) introducing the concept of Afrofuturism as Creative Empowerment.

The festival headquarters were inaugurated on November 8, with collaborative works by Frances Adair Mckenzie (Montreal) and Amy Chartrand (Montreal), Angela Gabereau (Montreal) and Coral Short (Montreal), Alisha B. Wormsley (Pittsburgh) and Lisa E. Harris (Houston), as well as Valérie d. Walker (Montreal) and Bobbi Kozinuk (Vancouver). Solo presentations by micha cárdenas (Toronto), Jenny Lin (Montreal), and Mehreen Murtaza (Lahore) also premiered at 4001 Berri Street that same evening.

The following days were marked by intense discussions on ways of re-imagining and re-designing our futures. The conversations on Afrofuturism and Cyberfeminism featured artists, researchers, activists and cultural workers, connecting with an engaged audience around urgent issues of community building, online and on the ground activism.

"Afrofuturism as Creative Empowerment", Ytasha L. Womack. Photo: võ thiên việt, 2014.
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Hands-on workshops such as the FemHackFest 2014 organized in collaboration with FemHack (Montreal) invited the public to share their skills and knowledge about feminist hacker culture, solar power and a variety of open source software.

An offshoot of ZÉR0 FUTUR{E}, the Mad Parade video programme curated by Anne Golden (Montreal), featured shorts by Diyan Achjadi (Vancouver), claRa apaRicio yoldi (London), Sandra Araújo (Porto), Alison Ballard (London), Cristine Brache (London), Francesca Fini (Rome), Beate Hecher and Markus Keim (Vienna), Myriam Jacob-Allard (Montreal), Nelly-Ève Rajotte (Montreal) and Sabrina Ratté (Montreal).

Another highlight was the performance night on November 13, which started with an intimate soundscape by Julie Matson (Montreal), followed by the networked audio-visual performance G.I.A.S.O. (Great International Streaming Orchestra) conducted by Jenny Pickett / APO33 (Nantes), and culminated with a compelling witch opera by The Pre-Lubed Sisters (Montreal). The festival also presented performances by Véronique Binst (Brussels) and Sonia Paço-Rocchia (St-Joseph-du-Lac), tobias c. van Veen (Vancouver), Aïsha C. Vertus (Montreal), and those of the Journée Paroles et Manoeuvres : Eros Frankenstein, with contributions by Montreal-based artists and speakers Raphaële Frigon, Désirée Holman, Virginie Jourdain and Florence Larose, Audrey Laurin, as well as Catherine Lavoie-Marcus and Priscilla Guy.

Although the official closing party already took place, the festival is not over yet! The exhibition Maid in Cyberspace - REVISITED, featuring works by Gaby Cepeda (Lima), Émilie Gervais (Marseille), Faith Holland (New York), Jessica MacCormack (Montreal) and shawné michaelain holloway (Chicago/Paris), can still be viewed online until December 31, and the video work by Linda Franke (Cologne) is being projected in the windows of the Goethe-Institut Montreal until January 2015. Additionally, festival tote bags and t-shirts designed by B L C K M S S N (Montreal) can still be purchased online or at Studio XX.

Other artists and speakers who made this festival edition memorable include: Adwoa Afful (York), Tatiana Bazzichelli (Berlin), Pascal Beauchesne (Montreal), Madelyne Beckles (Montreal), kimura byol (Montreal), Li Cornfeld (Montreal), Jessie Daniels (New York), Jess Dorrance (Montreal), Eleanor Dumouchel (Montreal), Nantali Indongo (Montreal), Andrea Joy Rideout (Montreal), Michelle Lacombe (Montreal), Sharrae Lyon (Toronto), Nnedimma Nnebe (Montreal), Audrey Powell (Montreal), Anna Pringle (Montreal), Mikhel Proulx (Montreal), Lisa Taylor (Sherbrooke), and Alain Thibault (Montreal).

The festival documentation is available on Studio XX’s Matricules Archives.
See a selection of pictures.

The Devil Inside Us: A Witch Opera, The Pre-Lubed Sisters. Photo: võ thiên việt, 2014.
See more pictures.

What’s on the Horizon

On its last weekend, ZÉR0 FUTUR{E} also launched a local and international forum on festival sustainability, using a wiki – a conversation to be continued over the next months…

This 11th edition was made possible with the collaboration of more than 20 programming partners – from artist-run centres to grassroots collectives – as well as 8 unpaid interns, 4 unpaid bloggers, over 30 volunteers, and 14 staff members and freelancers, all of whom donated many unpaid hours. In addition to our desire to make non-remunerated labour a thing of the past, The HTMlles is also working to expand the festival's accessibility for differently-abled and disabled participants in the future.

The HTMlles is a non-profit festival with very limited resources, and therefore relies on the personal engagement of the participating artists allowing the festival to present a powerful and high quality program that highlighted the vitality and diversity of feminist futurisms.

Studio XX and The HTMlles would like to thank all the artists, speakers, partners, interns, volunteers, freelancers, funders, sponsors, and everyone who joined this challenging and unique initiative!

See You in the Future

Finally, as Studio XX wraps up its 11th edition of The HTMlles, the feminist media artist-run centre invites you to engage with its regular activities, but to also look out for signs of the next HTMlles, coming soon to a future near you. Find more information about Studio XX’s upcoming workshops and events here. studioxx.org

The Time Capsule of #zerofuture @LesHTMlles

We asked the ZÉR0 FUTUR{E} artists to submit videos, texts, songs or anything that can be stored digitally and is of great importance to them for the year 2014.

micha cárdenas (Toronto) | Linda Franke (Cologne) | The Pre-Lubed Sisters (Montreal) | Frances Adair Mckenzie (Montreal) | Emilie Gervais (Marseille) | Gaby Cepeda (Lima) | Cristine Brache (London) | Lisa E. Harris (Houston) & Alisha B. Wormsley (Pittsburgh) | claRa apaRicio yoldi (Londres) | Valérie d. Walker (Montreal) & Bobbi l. Kozinuk (Vancouver) | Sonia Paço-Rocchia (St-Joseph-du-Lac)

Newsletters

• The #zerofuture is Beautiful! | The HTMlles 11 - RECAP 2014 (December 9th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 | Last day (November 15th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 | DAY 8 (November 14th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 | DAY 7 (November 13th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 | DAY 6 (November 12th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 | Workshops (November 11th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 | Screening & Performances (November 10th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 | Day 2 - Nov. 9th, 2014 (November 8th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 - OPENING ! Sat. Nov. 8th, 7PM (November 7th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 - Conferences / Discussions / Workshops (November 6th, 2014)
• INVITATION - ZÉR0 FUTUR{E} Opening, 8 nov. 7 PM - PARTY (November 3rd, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 | Festival Passes (October 31th, 2014)
• The HTMlles festival 11 | exhibitions + PROOF workshop Tuesday, Oct 28, 7 PM (October 24th, 2014)
• The HTMlles 11 festival unveil its program! (October 16th, 2014)
• Le festival Les The HTMlles 11 is approaching... (September 19th, 2014)
• Feminist Art Needs Communication (August 25th, 2014)
• Internship offers within The HTMlles festival! (June 17th, 2014)
• Call For Papers | Conference: "ZERO FUTURE" (March 27th, 2014)
• MASHUP PARTY « Pas de futur, pas de problème » / NOTOPIAN (December 19th, 2013)
• Call for Proposals: The HTMlles 11 - ZERO FUTUR(E) (September 25th, 2013)