By the time of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, "Setsuden" (Japanese for "saving electricity") had already become a citizens' movement. The first thing the Tokyo Electric Company (TEPCO) blacked out on 11.3.2011 in reaction to the Tōhoku-Earthquake and the nuclear meltdown in reactors 1 to 3 of the Japanese atomic power plant Fukushima Daiichi, was the central light supply in major cities, causing streetlights and LED screens to go still. After a massive power outage, they return from their long blackout, but are screens still the same? As they have deliberately been blackened and their “memory” erased, the role urban screens play after the city “wakes them up” again, has to have changed drastically. Although still overtaken by the same commercial content, media façades carry traces of their own absence in the memory of citizens. What does blackening out mean in the context of urban screens and what goes lost after the sudden shut-down and restart? How to find ways to restore or rethink information after this severe blackout? – a panel discussion with the CCN artists, curators and the transmediale visitors.

Connecting Cities is a project initiated by Public Art Lab Berlin in co-organisation with Ars Electronica GmbH Linz, BIS Body Process Arts Association Istanbul, FACT Liverpool, iMAL Brussels, m-cult Helsinki, Medialab Prado Madrid, Media Architecture Institute Vienna, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Riga 2014, Videospread Marseille and in association with University of Aarhus, Marseille-Provence 2013, MUTEK Montréal, Quartier des spectacles, Federation Square Melbourne and verve cultural Sao Paulo. In cooperation with ARTE Creative, Streampark TV and ikono.

With support of the Culture Programme 2007-2013 of the European Union.