From May 13th to 15th, this year’s digifest will unfold with a series of events taking place at the Design Exchange, Harbourfront Centre and the Ontario Science Centre. An extraordinary lineup of designers and artists will participate in this year’s digifest, a celebration of design and digital culture.
It all begins on Friday, May 13th with a stellar public panel of speakers at the Design Exchange. The keynote speaker is Andreas Broekmann, Director of Germany’s renowned Transmediale festival. Joining him in a panel discussion are architects Oliver Lang of Vancouver-based Lang Wilson Practice in Architecture Culture, and Lars Spuybroek of NOX Architecture, Rotterdam. This event takes place on the Trading Floor of the DX. Tickets for this May 13th event are $20 and may be purchased from the DX by calling 416.216.2138. Following the panel presentations there will be an open reception at the DX.
The festival continues on Saturday, May 14th at Harbourfront Centre with a full day and night of events (2:00pm to 1:00am) exploring digital design in collaboration with digifest 2005. The evening (8:00pm onwards in the Brigantine Room) features the fictional multimedia musical universe of Post-Audio NetLab where audiences engage with an invented collection of 400 CDs (complete with music, video, CD sleeves and flyers) as a listener or by remixing proposed tracks. Comments and information exchange are highly encouraged in this idealistic music community created by Montreal artist centre Agence TOPO. Joining Agence TOPO this night only are Toronto/Montreal performers and DJs Alexis O’Hara, Nanolog, Luci, The Mole, and Tom Kuo (aka Task). Agence TOPO (Post-Audio NetLab), Eunjung Swang (Fabulous Creatures), Gennaro De Pasquale (Ghost Tracks) and Roman B. Milo (Architecture #07) are all winners of digifest’s New Voices award and all of them will be discussing their projects at Harbourfront Centre on May 14th (2:00pm). All Harbourfront Centre digifest exhibitions (except for Post-Audio Net Lab) will be launching on May 19th (6:00pm to 9:00pm) and will be shown from May 20th through July 10th.
On Sunday, May 15th, digifest moves to the Ontario Science Centre for a day of panel sessions featuring Stephen Marshall of the Guerrilla News Network, as well as artists who are exhibiting interactive installations at the Science Centre. Installations such as the Smile Project, a series of robotic sculptures by Jason Van Anden, and Hidden Connections: Patterns in Nature, by Elaine Witmer will be on display from May 12th to 15th.
digifest is Canada’s annual festival showcase of design and digital culture. Established in 2002 by the DX, the aim of this festival is to present digital media culture and design as part of the country’s economic and cultural future. Digifest if presented by the Design Exchange in partnership with Harbourfront Centre and the Ontario Science Centre, with the generous support of Telefilm Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage, Ontario Arts Council, Young Canada Works, the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, Goethe Institut Toronto, Istituto Italiano di Cultura Consolato Generale d’Italia Toronto, UK Trade and Investment Toronto, CCR Solutions, Teknion, and industry partners.
For more information, please visit www.dx.org/digifest/