…and now something completely different – SCHEDULE
The most wanted news on the Kontakt website (and FB), the official schedule, is finally here! As you can see we can expect a wide range of lectures, presentations, exhibitions, reading corner activities, panels and all sorts of entertainment. You can find the Gameroom Schedule here.
Hereby we we would like to emphasize the special topic of SFeraKon/Eurocon 2012: Kontakt Special Track -short presentations of fandoms and SF & F literature from Non-English speaking countries to facilitate a closer contact between European national fandoms . All presentations, along with anything interesting that happens at the con itself will be published in an electronic format by Kontakt and made available free online for all fans of SF&F.
Besides Q & A’s, where our GoH-s Tim Powers, Darko Macan, Charles Stross and Dmitry Glukhovsky will present themselves, you can hear what they have to say at all sorts of different panels. However, we point out the literary workshop of Tim Powers: MAKING THE READER BELIVE IT! (Saturday, 17:00 – 18:15) and Macan’s Comics Workshop for Kids (Sunday, 13:15 to 14:30). One of the most interesenting panels will definitely be Free On Line Fiction with Stross, Glukhovsky and Powers together as panelists. Glukhovsky will also tell us something more on panels: European Hard SF and E- Publishing, while Stross and Powers will probably take the opposite sides on the panel Steampunk in Literature. This year’s FAN GoH, Cheryl Morgan, 4 times Hugo award winner and a very active member of the international science fiction community will also participate in many panels.
Have fun and make new international SF friends!
Kontakt Kids
SFeraKon is traditionally a favorite destination for children on Saturday. On Saturday evening, before the SFERA Award Ceremony for adults, we award the winners of SFERA’s art and literary competitions for children and young people. Every year more than 1,000 children apply for the competition. In addition to the SFERICE Award Ceremony for Kids and gifts from sponsors, the winners of the art competition have their first exhibition on SFeraKon, while the works of the literary categories winners are published in the SFERA’s fanzine Parsek. You can check out the list of this year’s winners here.
The Croatian Guest of Honor, Darko Macan, comic writer and artist, as well as an illustrator of books for children is also known as the author of the comic book Borovnica (Blueberry), published in Croatian children’s magazine Modra Lasta. Macan has prepared a special Comic Book Workshop for Kids on Sunday, April 29th, from 13:15 to 14:30.
SFeraKon 2012 as Eurocon brings also additional children’s programs, creative workshops – KontaktKids.
On Saturday and Sunday Valery Strutinskaja, kids animator and SFera’s volunteer, will hold educational SF art-workshops, intended for children from 0-12 years.
- Eco-Eco Workshop consists of making a costume from garbage bag and adhesiv collage (up to 7 years).
- My favorite fairytale Workshop is an interactive art workshop (up to 12 years).
- My favorite Superhero Workshop is a drawing and painting workshop (up to 7 years).
- Balloon Modelling Workshop, creative work/game with balloons (up to 7 years).
In addition to the art workshops the music workshops for children 0-5 years Music Together ® will be also held on Saturday (18:15 to 19:30). Music Together is an internationally recognized music program for children 0-8 years. The workshop will be held by Croatian center for this type of early music education Suzin Music Together.
Playing games is an important part of any Science Fiction Convention, and for the first time it will be possible for children to learn and play board games for kids on SFeraKon/Kontakt. The Association “Igranje” will have a table with games suitable for beginner and younger age during the weekend. (All descriptions and rules of these games can be found on the website igranje.org).
Bella Proxima & Romanian intercultural project
The Romanian SF&F society SRSFF had started a very ambitious and praiseworthy intercultural project on the European level – the exchange of texts, interviews, information and ideas between various European SF communities. The first result of this project is the promotion of the Croatian Science Fiction through the trilingual anthology Bella Proxima (in Romanian, Croatian and English), which will be presented on Kontakt. The presenters will be Romanian translators, editors and Croatian authors, presented in the book.
However the SRSFF society has even more to offer; we invite you to attend two more Romanian panels:
- European Intercultural Exchanges about their next intercultural project with the Hungarian SF community and their future plans.
- European Hard SF as a sub-genre within the European science fiction since Jules Verne.
Comics
As a large and important part of SF culture, comics will be presented through lectures and panel discussions by eminent writers, critics and artists. First and foremost we want to point out that our Guest of Honor, Darko Macan, is a prominent Croatian comic writer and artist, as well as an illustrator of books for children. Beside his Q&A presentation and participation in panels on comics, he has prepared a special Comic Book Workshop for Kids and the Cartoon History of Croatian SF and Fandom.
Pavle Zelić, SF and comic writer and critic, comes from our neighboring country, Serbia, will moderate two panels in English: Fantastic Art – it’s Fantastic! and Graphic Novels in the SE Europe. So, if you would like to know something more about SF comics in the former Yugoslavia, this is a very good opportunity.
Marko Fančović, journalist, translator and SF critic will talk about the recently deceased French comic legend, Jean Henri Gaston Giraud, best known by the pseudonym Moebius. Moebius contributed storyboards and concept designs to numerous science fiction and fantasy films, including Alien, Willow, Tron (’82.), The Fifth Element etc.
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Wireless energy transmission with Tesla Magnifiers – Live experiment
Nikola Tesla was a genius well ahead of his time. Tesla Long Distance High-Power and High-Efficiency Wireless Energy Transmission is still a mystery to our technology. To better understand Tesla’s claims that power can be transmitted to any distance on Earth with insignificant losses and to see what challenges does this pose to the current technology, two simple prototypes of Tesla Magnifier have been built. All data was ready available on internet: original Tesla’s patents and articles from 1891-1919 related to wireless energy transmission. Information have led to the optimal calculation of geometry for a Tesla Magnifier, a kind of resonant antenna used to transmit and/or receiver power. Some unexpected electrical conditions have been observed which were accurately reproduced using computer models in SPICE (electronic circuit simulation) and NEC2 (antenna simulation and electromagnetic field visualization). The simulation has revealed geometry of the field around the Tesla Magnifier and it differs from the field around an ordinary radio antenna.
Based on computer simulations and an earlier smaller experiment, a larger experiment was already undertaken in summer of 2011, with two Tesla Magnifiers three meters high that lighted up fluorescent tubes in a receiver 40 meters away.
Davor Jandrijević (BScEE) does independent research of exotic technologies in his free time. After several of his creations didn’t work, he wanted to try out something that’s bound to work. He decided to build a prototype of a Tesla Magnifier and repeat Tesla’s experiment of wireless energy transfer.
Read MoreAfterKon – Observatory
On SFeraKon 2011 Dave Lally (the president of the European Science Fiction Society) visited the Observatory in Zagreb and was so thrilled that he wanted to share his enthusiasm with all of us. At his suggestion and in cooperation with the Zagreb Observatory we have organized a group trip to the Observatory after the convention, on Monday, April, 30. at a promotional price for only HRK 20 ( €2,7/£ 2,2)!
The trip includes:
- Lecture in English about the history and scientific work at the Observatory (30 min.).
- The presentation of the Hybrid Cosmic Ray Particle Detector (put in operation in 2008) – as a part of the SEVAN Network (United Nations Basic Space Science projects & International Space Weather Initiative).
- Sun Poster (made in collaboration with the Observatory Kanzelhöhe, in Graz, Austria). The poster will be available in English, Croatian or German. If the Stars are right you could also peek at the Sun through the telescope.
The meeting point with Dave Lally will be in front of the Hotel International at 10:45 am. The tour and the program in the Observatory begins at 11:30.
Survivors of four days of lectures, panel discussions, boardgames, workshops & partying at the Kontakt who show up on Monday at 10:45 am in front of the Hotel International are indeed real fans! Read More
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