amber'11: Next Ecology

amber'11 Art and Technology Festival
November 2011, İstanbul
curated by Ekmel Ertan
produced by amberPlatform

Next Ecology
text by Ekmel Ertan, Fatih Aydoğdu, Zeynep Gündüz

New technologies are far more important then ever before not only as a tool but primarily as a framework. By means of new technologies and with increasing acceleration we have changed the world in which we live in: we changed nature, we changed our environments, we changed our bodies. We have created a new and global habitat, which is different from where we started. On the one hand, we cannot return to the starting point where no technology rules. On the other hand, the current situation is not sustainable neither socially nor environmentally.

We have changed our environments and ourselves, but we have not understood the change that we have caused nor have we acknowledged the overall results and effects of these changes. Today we need to reconsider all the paradigms we rely on: nature, bodies, economics, politics, environment, and communication to name a few. In sum, we need a new framework.

The abnormal natural disasters, the global social problems, the antagonism between the consumption economy and energy resources, the revolutionary movements in Middle East and many other places on Earth designate the un-sustainability of the current stand and the need for a change. Examples such as these point to one thing: we must have a new conceptualization of ecology as the environment that we live in, which does not exist without today’s technology.

Taking ecology as a conceptual framework, which entails the relationships of the natural and artificial environments of mankind, we believe that we need a new holistic ecology which internalizes the transformative power and possibilities of technology and covers all aspects of possible relations among the living and non-living surroundings, from politics to love, from environments to health, from economics to media. We call this framework Next Ecology.

With the theme title Next Ecology, amber’11 calls on artists to interpret the life forms, production and consumption patterns and politics of Next Ecology from the vantage point of arts and technology.

Exhibited Artists and Works
Dardex-Mort2Faim Art Group / Planet Of Apes
Francesco MONICO / Hybrid Constitution
Ioannis MICHALOUS / My First Time To Touch A Cloud
Jalila ESSAIDI / 2.6g 329m/s
Le Fresnoy / A Selection Of Films On Next Ecology
Linda IHAROVA / Migromat
Matthieu CHERUBINI / rep.licants.org
Miro SOARES / Sea Studies
Nurit BAR-SHAI / FUJI Spaces And Other Places
Onur YAZICIGİL / Bug İstanbul
Osman KOÇ / Doppelgänger
Ozgun KILIÇ / Microfields
Paul DESTIEU / Fade Out
Raziye KUBAT / Tree Profile
Saša SPACAL / 7K: New Life Forms
Tobias ROSENBERGER / Large Scale - The Song of the Great Promise
Wonjung SHIN / Ring ring rain