• Recoding humanity. Digital Challenges for Society, by Dr. Bernhard Serexhe, November 02, 2018, 10:40, FFB 05.

Whereas not so long ago digital forms of communication were seen as the hope for new forms of democratic participation, they have recently been converted into ideal instruments for the governance of people. We have become accustomed to this situation, just as we are not deterred by the myriads of video cameras on the way to work or on our way back home. This resignation paired with our love of ease and selfishness invites not only the private sector to install a new society with a pre-programmed divide between an elite of hyper-agile information users and a broad mass of interactive consumers restlessly zapping futile audio-visual products and services offered at dumping prices in order to guide their practices and preferences. This re-coding of humanity has the potential to result in a society, in which everyone will be content, well-informed of everything he or she should know in order to play a useful role in society, but remaining  ignorant of everything, which does not need to be known and consequently permanently amused to the point of complete satiety.

Dr. Bernhard Serexhe – Art historian, author, independent international curator, certified expert for electronic and digital art. He studied sociology, psychology, educational science and art history, Ph. D. on the Cathedral Saint-Lazare in Autun, Burgundy (France), consultant for the Council of Europe, 1994-97 co-founder and curator of ZKM | Media Museum, 1998-05 head of ZKM | Museum Communications, 2006-16 chief curator of ZKM | Media Museum Karlsruhe,  since 1998 lecturer media art and museology at the State Academy of Fine Arts St. Petersburg and the Universities of Berne, Basel and Karlsruhe, 2008-12 professor for aesthetics and media theory at Istanbul BILGI-University, since 2010 director of the EU Research Project www.digitalartconservation.org, since 2016 independent curator and certified expert for electronic and digital art; since 2016 ongoing international exhibitions, consulting for international art institutions, and expertise on the preservation of digital media art.

  • A talk by Hayo Wagenaar, October 12, 2018, 10:40 at FFB 05

Hayo Wagenaar, interaction designer, co-owner and creative director of IJsfontein, has visited Bilkent on Friday, October 12th. IJsfontein is specialized in Playful learning and works in the field of education, serious gaming, mobile apps, VR applications, interactive installations and cross-media concepts. 
The past fifteen years Hayo was responsible for spatial interaction projects, interactive exhibits at IJsfontein and educational innovation in general with a connection between public spaces, home and or the classroom. His main focus in design is to create a “controlled flow of curiosity of a visitor”. IJsfontein’s first game “Master of the Elements” (1997) won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award and was published worldwide. Hayo was rewarded with a Jan Kassies Oeuvre award of the Dutch Media Fund and an oeuvre award of the Dutch Children Media Awards. The talk is organized in cooperation with Dutch Culture. 

  • Special Screening: My Year with Helen, Film screening and talk with former New Zealand Prime Minister, and UNDP Administrator, Helen Clark together with the film’s director Gaylene Presten, May 14, 2018, at 14:30 at FFB 22.

A special film screening with the participation of Helen Clark, former New Zealand Prime Minister, and UNDP administrator, together with Gaylene Presten, filmmaker. My Year with Helen – The Helen Clark Documentary (Dir. Gaylene Presten, 2017, 93’) This screening was part of 21. Flying Broom Women’s Film Festival. “The film conveys how tough it is to break the remaining glass ceilings. May it motivate future generations of women to keep at it!” — Helen Clark, 2017

  • From Distraction to Exodus: The Facebook Saga, a talk by Geert Lovink, April 24, 2018, at 19:00 at Ka Atölye.

A good part of Geert Lovink’s latest book ‘Social Media Abyss’ is dedicated to both the critique and the quest for alternatives. From fake news to #deletefakebook, social media discontent is growing. All we hear about lately is the bankrupt hegemony of Mark Zuckerberg. However, few draw consequences out of the Cambridge Analytica revelations. Breaking up is hard to do. Evidence of whistleblowers is not enough. With Slavoj Zizek, we can say that we know social media is evil, but continue to use it. This is the age of false consciousness 2.0. It’s time to question (ourselves). How should alternative network architectures look like? Should our strategy be radical decentralization or should we still aim at scaling up in order to reach a critical mass? What’s the right mixture of digital despair, radical critique and utopian promises? How do you like to design the social? 

Geert Lovink, the founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, has visited the Department of Communication and Design on April 23rd and April 24th. Together with Andreas Treske Geert Lovink had a presentation and discussion on the evening of April 24th at 19:00 at Ka Atölye in Kavaklidere, Güneş Sokak 17. The event was open to the public. 

  • Cinematography Workshop with Joe Foley, March 30th, 2018, at 9.40 – 12.30 at FF-B08

Filming night interior and exterior scenes using examples from the Cohen Brothers film ‘No Country For Old Men’. Lighting large exterior spaces and mixing blue back light with tungsten key lights. Plus, interior night scenes through windows and doorways. The workshop was open to third and fourth-year COMD students.

No Country For Old Men – Getting Shot Scene  https://vimeo.com/97886555

Joe Foley has been working as a cinematographer for over two decades, shooting feature films, commercials, television, documentaries, and music videos. He shot 16 feature films and 8 documentaries as well as plenty of commercials. Foley received his BFA in film from New York University and an MFA in Film from Columbia University. He has taught filmmaking and cinematography at NYU Singapore-Tisch Asia, Barnard College, the School of Visual Arts, Hunter College, the New School and the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. See: http://www.joefoleydp.com/
  • Play for Impact; Game Concept Design, workshop and talk by Ellis, February 8, 2018, at FFB 05 & FB 114

Bilkent students recently had the opportunity to learn about design from an unusual perspective when Dutch game designer Ellis Bartholomeus visited campus to give a talk for the Department of Communication and Design. Over a decade ago, Ms. Bartholomeus began focusing on designing games for older people; in her talk on February 8, she shared the insights she has gained from her work in this area, as well as her experience in game design in general…

You can read the full article by Mithad Meraj (MAN IV) on Bilkent News.

  • Noise (2012), Film screening and talk with Dan and Noit Geva,  November 8, 2017, at 16.40  at FFB 06

Noise is a politically subversive tragic-comedy a salutation to the social engagé of the Griersonian tradition. The film creatively dramatizes the story of a documentarist who suffers from hyper-acoustic sensitivity, which makes his life in Tel Aviv, one of the noisiest urban locations on earth, a living hell. Tormented by the belief that they live in an incredibly noisy society, the award-winning couple of Israeli filmmakers resolves to investigate the issue: they install cameras in their house to capture sources of this formidable sonic mass that invades their daily lives.

Filmmaker Dan Geva introduced his film and answered questions after the screening.

  • “Play/Pause, FF/Rewind”, Workshop and Symposium, keynote speakers: Wolfgang Ernst, Annie van den Oever and Jussi Parikka, October 2-6, 2017, FADA.

Celebrating the launch of its Media Archeology Lab, Bilkent University Department of Communication & Design held “Play/Pause, FF/Rewind,” a five-day event on Shared Practices & Archaeologies of Media. The event gathered together international scholars and artists exploring media archaeology. The keynote speakers of “Play/Pause, FF/Rewind” were Wolfgang Ernst, Annie van den Oever and Jussi Parikka. The program concluded with a roundtable discussion of October 6th from 6 to 8 pm at Erimtan Arkeoloji ve Sanat Müzesi.   

Sponsored by: İ.D. Bilkent University in cooperation with the Goethe Institute Ankara

Wolfgang Ernst is Professor for Media Theory at the Institut für Musik und Medienwissenschaft at Humboldt University, Berlin, where he co-runs the Media Archaeological Fundus. He has had teaching experience and guest professorships at several universities (Kassel, Leipzig, Cologne, Weimar, Bochum, Paderborn). Other publications in English: Digital Memory and the Archive (2013); Sonic Time Machines (2016); Chronopoetics (forthcoming 2017). Current research fields: time-based and time-critical media processes; implicit “sonicity” in techno-mathematical media; experimenting the writing of media time in non-historiographic ways.

Annie van den Oever Associate Professor Arts, Culture and Media / Film, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Director of the Master in Film Studies. Director of the Faculty Minor in Film Studies. Head of the Film Archive and Media Archaeology Lab, University of Groningen.

Jussi Parikka is a media theorist, writer and Professor in Technological Culture & Aesthetics at Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton). Parikka has a PhD in Cultural History from the University of Turku, Finland and in addition, he is Docent of Digital Culture Theory at the University of Turku, Finland.