OKNO is an artist run organisation for art and media technology. The working of OKNO hinges on two driving principles that are interconnected: collaboration and ecology. We use our collective garden OpenGreen, our workspace and our server as catalysts for creating art works.
We are having a continuous program with media art events, exhibitions, expert and social meetings, workshops and performances. We collaborate with several local and international organizations, with similar goals. A system of exchange and cooperation has been maintained, especially with Central Europe.
Over the years, we started to work more on longer-term projects, involving very diverse artists and experts, of all levels of experience, but with a common interest in the experimental and environmental. For that reason we started up a larger project “Time Inventors’ Kabinet”, concentrating on the notion of Time in our present culture.
The central task of ESC is to produce art; the main emphasis lies on the precise observation and seismographic capture of artistic processes that examine sociopolitical developments (information technology and biotechnology, socioeconomic systems) and new technologies (hardware and software).In Graz, ESC is the only space for this type of production.
The intention of ESC is thus not only to present artistic work for a short period of time but also to accompany artists over longer periods of time. As a result, changes and developments are made accessible.
At a time when the direction and dimension of a new project cannot yet be assessed, the ESC provides a space for test configurations and projects through infrastructural and technical support as well as through debate and continuous reflection and contributes to raising public awareness and conveying the relevance of the topic/the production.
The central role of a non-commercial space like the ESC im LABOR is to support artists in their productions, thus differentiating it from venues and official spaces such as a commercial gallery or a museum. For this reason, the share of worklabs is becoming more and more central to the yearly programming of the ESC.
Since the start of the project in 1993, the ESC has always tried to facilitate and support cooperation with other organizations and initiatives. These cooperations can take on many different shapes. We provide the infrastructure (building, including all available technology) to artists and other art associations, who are able to work autonomously without our participation in the content (meetings, symposiums, exhibitions).
COL-ME was founded in 2007 and is based in Bratislava/Slovakia.
Our focus moves between new media arts and culture and narrative projects with social character. Ideally we connect all of the aforementioned strings within our ideas and works. COL-ME always seeks to establish connections with other groups and organisations, which often leads to cooperation, fruitful for all involved and forcing us to look beyond our own borders.
We take a feminist approach to arts and culture, which we also express in our statutes with the fact that a bigger amount of the board members has to be female. We work with women who are technically engaged and we always seek to look for gender equality in our projects.
We operate in Central Europe – the region we live in, work in and identify ourselves with. A region that has no real identity unless we look in the past and romanticize it, which is not what we are aiming at. As we orient ourselves towards the future we despise nationalistic tendencies and understand ourselves as political in the way, that we are trying to counter these tendencies by developing/connecting to an informal network of cultural organizations in the whole region.
