Upon the invitation by Transforming Freedom, the internet study group at the graduate centre for social sciences, University of Vienna, meets up at Room D. Their ambitious goal: to develop a mind map of research methods and objects of scrutiny suitable for the study of "The Internet". For further information, visit:
http://internetforschung.wordpress.com/

q/uintessenz and Transforming Freedom present a q/talk by Thomas Länger (Austrian Research Centers Vienna):

Tuesday, 28 October, 2008 – 8 PM (doors open: 7 PM)
Raum D, quartier 21, MQ Vienna

Will our future be quantum?
Quantum cryptography can provide unprecedented security –
Will citizens ever get their hands on it?

Quantum Cryptography, or more exactly Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), is the first application from the next generation technology field of quantum information technologies that is finding its way out of quantum physics laboratories into practical application. The technology claims to yield provably secure distribution of cryptographic keys – a property which could never be asserted for any other key distribution technology before. In this talk we will specifically look at this claim of perfect security and what it means in practice for different user groups.


We will explain the technology giving an account on the historical development of Quantum Cryptography – from the very beginnings in the 1970ies to the most recent achievements in fibre based and free space quantum key distribution. We will analyse the significance of QKD as building block for secure information systems – this while leaving out the very details of quantum physics in favour of concentrating on its high level functionalities and security properties, especially the ‘provable security’ of QKD. In that context, we will also address several common objections that are frequently quoted against the practicability and business value of QKD.

The last part of the talk is dedicated to the practical application of QKD. We will take a look at the market for QKD – which applications are already available today and what can be expected for the future. We will identify prospective user groups from the business, government, and intelligence domains, and evaluate their motivations for using the new technology. Last, but not least, we will raise the question whether QKD will likely be restricted to the aforementioned domains, and how the odds are that it eventually will be used to dependably secure the communication infrastructures of the future information society.

Thomas Länger works at the Austrian Research Centers in Vienna, business unit Quantum Technologies. He was responsible for design and implementation of the ‘Security Certification and Standardisation’ sub project of the EU Integrated Project SECOQC (www.secoqc.net) which was co-ordinated by the Austrian Research Centers. On the occasion of the closing of the SECOQC project the feasibility of integrating Quantum Key Distribution into a common optical fibre network was demonstrated live in Vienna on Oct. 8, 2008. (thomas.laenger at arcs.ac.at) 

A short history of Law and Media about the fugitive Conduct of Music in the time of its enhanced Ownability

Date: Friday, 15 February 2008
Time: 7 PM
Location: Museumsquartier, Quarter for Digital Culture, Raum D /quartier 21

Today, any musical recordings is covered by several separate layers of immaterial rights. Uses of music are strictly regulated by copyright collectives, which have set fixed rates on how much music is worth and how a large part of the money should go to to different actors including record companies and music publishers. Other uses, like creating music out of samples, are practically banned or have to operate in a grey zone. How did we get here?

Copyright, and its philosophical foundation in the distinction between “ideas” and “expressions”, was once constructed only to cover written text. Soon, it expanded to written music. However, stretching copyright to covering the musical sounds as such is something completely different. It took a long time to develop, even after the advent of musical recording. Referring to his ongoing historical research, Rasmus Fleischer will show how this development began as a unionist struggle to resist the supposed `mechanization´ of music and defend live music against the economy of reproduction – but how the age of digitalization rather turned the result into the opposite.

His talk will include examples of the resistance against tape recorders, DJ:ing and synthesizers, as well as presenting audio-visual examples of how older and newer kinds of artistic practice are colliding with the established notion of musical copyright. What he will not present, however, is a recipe for the future.

Rasmus Fleischer is a musician, a historician and one of the co-founders of the Swedish Pirate Office. (Photo by Malin Arnesson, on the right: Markus Nieminen: source)

The long awaited second part of STEAL THIS FILM by the Leage of Noble Peers will be screened. A legend of the web goes into the second round as the Swedish State finally plans to meet The Pirate Bay in court. Special Guest: Felix Stalder
Date: Wednesday, 20th of February 2008, 7 PM
Location: Museumsquarter, Quarter for Digital Culture, Raum D

Steal This Film - Part I (watch it online) was produced in about a month by an international team visiting Sweden after the infamous raid against the Bittorrent tracker The Pirate Bay, through which the film reached millions of viewers worldwide. The second part, financed by donations from the viewers of the first film and released freely on file-sharing networks in December 2007, is something completely different: A much more deeply worked-through attempt to put contemporary battles over file-sharing and digital reproduction in a long historical context.

It includes interviews with prominent historians as well as internet pioneers, combined with some animation work and archive material. This is a film with a clear message: File-sharing can't be stopped. The filmmakers describe their aim as "bringing new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property'".The screening will be followed by an open discussion, introduced and moderated by Felix Stalder. Some news and discussion about the legal battle Swedish State vs. The Pirate Bay may also take place.

Length: 0:44:43
Produced by: The League of Noble Peers (Alan Toner, J.J. King, Jan Gerber, Sebastian Lütgert, Luca Lucarini, and others)
Felix Stalder is a media theorist and sociologist, based in Vienna and Zürich. He is one of several experts on net culture interviewed in Steal This Film II. Felix Stalder's review of Steal This Film Part II was published on the nettime mailing list.

a little about hippies and computers

 

Kerstin von Gabain

Music: Binär (live)

 

Friday, 11th January 2008, 19:00
Transforming Freedom

Museumsquartier, Q21 / QDK
curated by Armin B. Wagner

 

 

The mesh, designed by Kerstin von Gabain and modelled by Marcus Hinterthuer, can be downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes: Further.zip (908 kB)

 

A booklet about the happening is available as a pdf-file: access_to_tools.pdf (756 kB)

The second exhibition within “Network Glimpse” is beared “Dunkle(s) Vorfahren”. It is a creation of Viennese artist Thomas Naegerl, in his own words Skulpteur - Urbanist.

Opening is on October 2^nd, 2007 – 7 P.M. at Transforming Freedom in quartier21/MQ (Electric Avenue), Museumsplatz 1, A-1070 Vienna.

 

The installation is opened till October 16^th – more information about the artist on his website: www.naegerl.com

The first Artist-in-Residence of the Transforming Freedom-Project, Marko Košnik, is featured in a three week long screening. The opening will take place on June 15th, 6 PM at AiRBase, Museumsplatz 1, A-1060 Wien, next to the Freiraum, together with an introduction by Stephen Kovats, artistic director of the Transmediale Berlin. It is situated at the newly installed AiR-BASE in the q21, just next to the Freiraum.

Opening AiR base Nr. 02:

 

Operabil*: The early documents

Documentary video by Marko Košnik based on performances and installations of operabils from 2004 to 2007,
featuring materials from the following events:

2007: Operabil POW; performance lecture QDK – MQ, Istanbul,
Rumeli Han, PSWAR Amsterdam; Ditopia Bathyscaphe Trieste, performance installation,
Museum of Fine Arts, Ljubljana;
2006: The Missing Engine of Laputa, performance
lecture, Documenta Urbana 2, Kassel; Operabil Kobe, dance piece in interactive environment
(with Sumi Masayuki and Barbara Thun), Kobe – Maribor – Berlin;
2005: Operabil Shqiptare, Tirana Biennal 3, site-specific installation – action, Tirana; Operabil Vienna,
performance lecture, Serious Pop – OpenLab II;
2004: Ditopia 02, interactive installation,
Museum of Fine Arts, Ljubljana; Ditopia 05, interactive installation, Herouville Saint Clair

Opening: Fr 15 June, 6 PM. AiRBase, Museumsplatz 1, A-1060 Wien, next to the Freiraum

Exhibition will run from : 15.06. till 06.07., 10 AM – 20 PM

Link to the quartier21-page of the exhibition.

About Marko Košnik

Link to the artist´s website & videos and more archives

a Bad Beuys happening

Saturday, 28th July 2007, 19pm

Museumsquartier, Q21

www.badbeuys.com