Revolting Temporary Media Lab

Revolting Temporary Media Lab
15th Aug - 20th Sep 1998

The Revolting Temporary Media Lab in Manchester, which took place for five weeks in August/September 1998, has been a follow up of Hybrid Workspace. Revolting, organized by Micz Flor (www.yourserver.co.uk) took place in very different social environment, compared to Kassel, away from the big art crowds. It had a similar mix of people, themes, and low-tech approaches. It brought together local groups and communities to focus on practical outcomes, small presentations, and debates. Revolting had a special emphasis on spreading specific content via different media, such as a regular free newspaper, local radio, and the Net.
Source: Geert Lovink, The Importance of Meetspace

---

"... One of the moments in which the richness of contradictory and subversive potential of Balkan "histories" became apparent was a series of night-long discussions between Luchezar Boyadjiev (from Sofia) and Melentie Pandelovski (from Skopje), with the involvement of Amos Taylor (from the UK, living in Finland) some of the time, at the ISEA 98 (Inter-Society for Electronic Arts) meeting in Manchester/UK in the first week of September 1998, in the context of the temporary media lab Revolting (...)" (src)

---

Revolting was a temporary media lab which ran during ISEA '98 in Manchester, England. It was organised by Micz Flor (CrashMedia, University of Salford, Mute Magazine). It has been described by a number of journalists and participants as the most exciting event to take place at this year's conference.

"At the opening of the Revolting temporary media lab you would encounter little more than a crowded bar area, two empty shelves, the Revolting newsletter (tabloid format) a set of 60s sofas and the subtle electronic tracks of Berlin's trax tv. No (media) art on display - wait, some people mistook the Flying Toasters screensaver projections for an installation work and subsequently must have thought: this is bad art. But nobody said anything.

Between the 15th August and the 20th September 1998 the empty shelves got filled with material: photocopies, videos, slides, audio tapes, photographs, print outs. And the web site incrementally raised its content index, now supplying over 10 hours of sound files, scans, texts, graphics, links, messages. The revolting FM transmitter on 106.5FM lifted most of the content on-air and the coffee machine in the bar area must have produced gallons of content itself. More info on the projects can be found on the site. (...)

With a five week programme inviting international and local media players, temporary also described the ongoing transformations of the Revolting space. At times we had two presentations a day, especially throughout the time where isea98 had it's 48 hours of academia based across the road at Manchester Metropolitan University. This ongoing change was crucial to the flavour of Revolting. The foundation remained the same: a bar area, a coffee machine, a kitchen, three Macs, VCRs, tapes, radio transmitters, slide projectors, beams, etc. - but the space became what the participants would make of it, sometimes disrupting the expectations with vigorous incisions.

Source: http://www.cybersociology.com/files/4_explodingmedia.html

Related:
Media Labs
Communication Art

---