Gadgetrepublic.com - News: Digital Life

In its second year, Tweak aims to marry technology and society through art by taking a look at how we interact with and view the digital world.

^{Jen Wunderling looks at the impact of social media}

The festival will have an international array of speakers, performers, designers, exhibitions, films, visual artists, and DJs, all from an eclectic range of backgrounds, including Berlin-based artist Jens Wunderling who will use his art installations to take a look at social media like Twitter, and how they impact on society.

_{Artists Time Redfern and Ralph Borland comment on our surveillance society}

Artists Tim Redfern and Ralph Borland will have smSage, as featured in the New York Times; a seemingly ordinary surveillance camera that accepts SMS messages and using text-to-voice software it quotes randomly from the SMS stream, loudly and quietly, with no pattern. An exhibition designed to disquiet and disturb; a rambling mad man on the street corner in a surveillance society.

Unlike last year there will also be three full-day workshops open to the public as well as plenty of evening events. If you like robots then sign up now this one being ran by Brock Craft, John Nussey and Ryan Jordan.

^{Robot workshop unleashes our techno-era Dr Frankenstein}

This is a crash course in Arduino - an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software - and it will introduce attendees to the basics of using it on conjunction with puredata to create live performances and get your robot moving.

And if interactive art installations or workshops in robotics aren't enough, the entire festival will be wrapped up with several music events including Noise Night, a live electronic late-night concert featuring popular Irish purveyors of soundscapes Sunken Foal.

By Marie Boran