The featured artist at this week’s Digital Soiree is visiting conceptual and sound artist, Claudia Wegener.

Claudia writes: "I came to Joburg with the idea to continue a project and an obsession I’ve been following for a while: walking in the streets of cities, watching the comings and goings of people. . .  I take notes of people’s movements in the street and develop the hard-written footage into audible "movies", a choreography after the event.  I started to write in Joburg. I started in Joubert Park, and I got caught up in events . . ."
 
"these writings collect evidences of an obsessive relationship. Shared by many. Walking in the city: drifting. The city drifter is obsessed with the life of the street and joins it like an alien."

Claudia is a member of FOREIGN INVESTMENT, an international artist collective based in London which uses local communities and their surroundings to create artistic interventions. Çurrently in a residency at The Bag Factory in Fordsburg, Claudia is working on several projects based on her interactions with street life in Johannesburg, including Long Walk and Radio Armed Response.
   

 
_{Poster designed by Arlene Murphy}

As usual free (and secure) parking is available in front of the Digital Arts Convent building.  For directions please go to map

Just up and worth a visit - the Armed Response website by the 2006 Interactive Media Design class at Wits Digital Arts.  The Flash-based site is the result of roughly five weeks of intense team work by the 7 postgraduate students in the IMD class under the direction of lecturer, Andre Venter.  The project was a collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg around the theme of  privitized security.  Also part of the project was a play directed by Wits Drama Lecturer, David Peimer, and a Conference co-funded by the Open Society Foundation and organised by Johannes Hossfeld. (Both these events will open on May 12.) As their contribution to the development of the website, the Goethe-Institut brought out Geman guest lecturers who made valuable input into the project during a week of workshops.  The site uses sound and interactive features to explore the experience of crime, security and paranoia in Johannesburg.

So far Apple have been able to present themselves as the good guys in the music download imbroglio. iTunes, their proprietry music (and now video) download service broke the logjam around legal vs illegal downloads and has gone on to sell millions of tracks. But there was a catch. iTunes can only be played on Apple’s own device, the iPod. Now they’ve just been hit by a new law in France that will force them to open up their DRM (digital rights management) and allow iTunes tracks to play on other devices. All hell has broken loose. Apple could withdraw their service from France, or take the matter to the EU. But this could have broader ramifications for the use of digital music tracks. Viva la music!