[spectre] The #zerofuture is Beautiful! The HTMlles 11 - RECAP 2014

[Sophie Le-Phat Ho]

The #zerofuture is Beautiful!
The HTMlles 11 - RECAP 2014
Montreal (Canada)
http://htmlles.net

See pics here:
http://htmlles.net/2014/slider/index.html


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.


The future is obsolete.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.

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
(http://htmlles.net/2014/index.php?page=events&lang=en&evId=104) 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
(http://htmlles.net/2014/index.php?page=info&lang=en&mer=true) 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 will be available on Studio XX’s Matricules
Archives in 2015.
See a selection of pictures here: http://htmlles.net/2014/slider/index.html


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:
http://www.studioxx.org


More links:
http://htmlles.net
http://htmlles.net/2014/slider/index.html
http://htmlles11.tumblr.com
https://twitter.com/LesHTMlles
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Studio-XX/207210409308922?fref=ts