The Piksel05 festival / workshop for “Free, Libre and Open Source Audiovisual Software and Art” is having its kickoff party right about now. Subtitled “Collective Code” and lasting until 23 October, the festival will feature artists from different countries gathering to do present art and software, perform sound and images live, doing workshops and getting up to mischief with code. The Piksel home page is now a blog, which presumably will have continous updates throughout the coming week.

This year there will also be an exhibition at Rogaland Kunstsenter, entitled NO FUN! - games and the gaming experience. The exhibition is curated by Isabelle Arvers and Gisle Frøysland, and will open Wednesday 19 October. The show is a collaboration with PixelACHE 2006.

Piksel is organized by Bergen Electronic Art Centre (BEK), of which Gisle Frøysland is Director of Visual Arts. Gisle spoke at the Generator.x conference to present Piksel and Open Source perspectives on software. The Bergen scene is known for its amazing energy and optimism, where artists seem to support each other’s projects in a way that is not often seen in major cities. With the Piksel project it has also become a nexus for the Open Source movement.