Information and Communication Technology festival, at Goethe-Institut, Karachi.
Karachi:Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be utilised in different manners to strengthen civil society, said one of the media artists grouped together in The Mauj Collective, who just participated in Transmediale, held last January in Berlin.
Yasir Husain shared Maujs experience of contributing to different thematic sessions of the festival, at Goethe-Institut, where people from different media and art disciplines were present to hear about the wonders of digital art on Wednesday.
Transmediale or the festival for art and digital culture, as it is popularly known around the world, where this year The Mauj Collective for Open Technology, Art and Culture represented Pakistan contributing to its three sections: Conference, the Salon and an online session Shift, Break, Control.
Yasir Husain said that the theme of the festival was Deep North which explored the ways in which culture and technology could contribute to possibilities opened up by metaphorical and real defrosting of the polar ice cap brought on by global climate change.
The Mauj is a Karachi-based group of media artists, who have been using open technology, art and culture to empower society and people. Besides Yasir, Attiqa Malik and Nameera Ahmed participated in the festivals events through display of new media artworks and discussions on Pakistani and regional condition.
In question-answer session, audience threw more suggestions than asking questions. Majority of them insisted on exploiting the potential of text messaging on cell phones in the real sense of staying informed and eventually having a say in collective matters.
An architect asked the trio to try and make all the media thats already existed accessible to the other side of English speaking section of the population for a better future for all of Pakistan. Entice them to events like Kara Film Festival instead of seeing this fantastic event becoming an event for English-speaking few.
