This panel invites curators from Vancouver and interna- tionally to share working practices around collecting con- temporary art, including media and new media art. The collections of museums, galleries, online art organisations and private individuals are increasingly broadening to in- clude more new media art.
New media art has both disrupted existing collecting sys- tems and offered now opportunities for rethinking who collects and how. Because new media art is sometimes non-material, process-based or involving audience partici- pation, how might these kind of practices be collected? What is actually collected (objects, beta software, instruc- tions?), where (online, offline, nomadic?) and how (com- missioned for collection, bought from art fairs, versioned from production labs?) Does new media art challenge, or become embedded in, the globalised nature of art markets?
Because new media is used as a means of documenting, archiving and distributing art, and because new media art might be interactive with its audiences, this highlights the new kinds of relationships that might occur between audi- ences as viewers, participants, co-producers, selectors, tag- gers or taxonomisers. Examples of current collecting prac- tice are given by all of the speakers.
This panel will discuss alternative models of arts education that have emerged from Roy Ascott’s career and practice. Ascott, the founder of the University of Plymouth’s Plane- tary Collegium, is widely regarded for his role as an arts educator and theoretician. In a field that integrates arts, technology and science, he has presented concepts and terminology that frame debates and define new territories. He has published and presented his work internationally, and given keynote addresses at several arts-science con- gresses, including ISEA.
It has been over 20 years since Ascott founded a radi- cal distributed research centre and doctoral program. He founded the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts (CAiiA) in 1994 at University College of Wales Newport, and latter established STAR (Science Technolo- gy and Art Research) in the School of Computing at Plym- outh University. CAiiA-STAR constituted a joint research platform, with access to supervisory and technical re- sources at both universities.
In 2003, Ascott relocated the platform to Plymouth University, giving it its present name Planetary Collegium. The Planetary Collegium’s global reach extends beyond the UK through mimetic nodes in Italy, Switzerland and Greece, with a new node currently forming in China. Suc- cessfully graduating over 50 PhDs, the Planetary Collegi- um is host to a dynamic community of over 70 doctoral candidates and researchers.
This panel will discuss the singular aspects of Ascott’s pedagogical challenge to conventional models of advanced art research in Europe and North America. Its panelists will present a history of Ascott’s innovative curricula as well as the development and operation of the Planetary Collegium and its nodes. Finally it will demonstrate how Ascott and the Planetary Collegium have affected advanced studies in the arts beyond the Collegium itself.
This panel will examine curatorial practice within a post- disciplinary framework; with a particular focus on the “liveliness” of media art objects and practices that situate themselves across, between and after disciplines. Bringing together curators of new media, as well as scholars work- ing within art/science frameworks the panel will explore the implications of such objects and practices for the future of museums, galleries and other cultural organizations as sites of knowledge production.
Over the past few years the panel conveners, Dr. Lizzie Muller and Dr. Caroline Langill have been conducting re- search around the “liveliness” of media art objects in exhi- bition contexts. This investigation, which has been funded by a SSHRC Insight Development grant, has its roots in theories of media art aesthetics and audience experience, but connects with the increasingly influential discourses of vital materialism and object oriented ontology. The grow- ing acknowledgement of the vitality and agency of things productively disrupts media art theory and curatorial ap- proaches. It challenges the specialness of media arts’ claims around categories such as interactive, responsive, autonomous and generative art. Simultaneously it allows for an expanded field of enquiry and exchange in which media art can escape its exhibitionary ghetto and form pro- ductive and provocative connections with an unlimited world of lively objects.
The panel will present the outcomes of a 3-day curatori- al research workshop, taking place at The Banff Centre in the week prior to ISEA 2015. This workshop, held as part of the Banff International Curatorial Institute program is planned to compliment the ISEA program and to capitalize
Caroline Langill
OCADU Toronto, Canada clangill@ocadu.ca
on ISEA’s international community of media art practi- tioners. The workshop will consider the notion of lively objects - including, but not limited to media art works - and their potential for disrupting the mono-disciplinary struc- tures of the exhibitionary complex. It will examine the agency of such objects within curatorial practice and audi- ence experience, and ask how we might reconsider modes and venues of display in response to this agency.
Sixteen participants will attend the Banff workshop and the following selected presenters will speak about their own work as well as reporting on the dialogue that oc- curred in Banff:
Depending on how you look at it, critical theory has been with us for some time. Its contents range from antiquity to the present, from the writings of Parmenides to Zizek, while it is largely a product of postmodernism and the critical turn in the humanities over the last thirty-five years. The new millennium brings with it exhaustion and renewal, global economic collapse coupled with the rapid-fire invention of disruptive technologies, all of which calls for the reevaluation of critical theory in terms of modernity reconceived. Altermodern, paramodern, modernity in the longue durée, or complexism: it is the contemporary time of not simply postmodernity’s past, but more importantly a union of art, architecture, and biology. Of these terms, we choose Philip Galanter’s “complexism” for two reasons. First, as a synthesis of modernism and postmodernism, it takes the best of all worlds. Second, it prioritizes the ecological paradigm of the complex biological system as means to rethink art, architecture, and the humanities broadly conceived.
We propose two panels – both titled COMPLEXISM: Art + Architecture + Biology, A New Axis in Critical Theory? – interrogating the concomitant disruption within critical theory that is the field of art, architecture, and biology. Building on past paradigms, from the Frankfurt School, Post-structuralism, and Deconstruction to embodiment, affectivity, and emergence, these two consecutive workshops unite artists, architects, and theorists to discuss the critical underpinnings of art, architecture, and biology now. Superseding any cultural divisions, each panel will be a mix of artists, architects and theorists. These two panels promise to open a discussion catalyzed by the following questions and more.
Ø How do bio-architecture and bio-art together transform contemporary critical theory?
Ø How does bio-architecture inform bio-art, and vice versa?
Ø What is the role of synthetic biology in helping us to understand “life” as
it crosses the divide between living and non-living?
Ø How might the naturphilosophie of Goethe carry forth a politics of labor
justice into the present?
Ø How does Max Bense’s information aesthetics provide a renewed means
of understanding semiotics in terms of biological complexity?
Ø How does morphogenesis and computation transform the contents and
definition of “form” within bio-art and bio-architectural practices?
Ø How does Moholy-Nagy’s Bauhaus bio-functionalism inform
contemporary bio-art, bio-architecture, and critical theory?
Ø Might the biological concept of “autopoesis” approximate “performance”
and performativity” in the arts?
Ø How does the generative aesthetics of computation resonate with
generative biology and evolutionary development?
Ø Do bio-art and bio-architecture in the present carry forth the political
purview of German Romanticism?
Ø What is the role of an aesthetics of complex systems thinking in
contemporary critical theory?
Invited panel participants:
Philip Beesley, Founder of Philip Beesley Architect Inc. (PBAI) in Toronto,
Canada and professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo
David Benjamin, Principal Architect, The Living and Assistant Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, New York
Juan Manuel Castro, Hideo Iwasaki Lab, Laboratory of Molecular Cell Network & Biomedia Art, Waseda University, Tokyo
Dennis Dollens, Visiting Professor, BioDigital Architectures Master, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona. His most recent book is: Autopoietic Architecture: Can Buildings Think?
Anna Dumitriu, BioArtist, Author of Trust Me, I’m an Artist: Towards an Ethics of Art
Philip Galanter, Artist working in the fields of generative art, physical computing, sound art and music, complexity science, and art theory and Assistant Professor, Department of Visualization, Texas A&M
Mitchell Joachim, Co-Founder of Terreform ONE and Associate Professor at NYU and EGS in Switzerland
Morgan Meyer, Center for the Sociology of Innovation at Mines ParisTech, Paris, France
Patricia Olynyk, Director, Graduate School of Art, Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Charissa Terranova, Associate Professor of Aesthetic Studies, University of Texas at Dallas
Yvan Tina, PhD Candidate, Arts & Technology, University of Texas at Dallas/Aix Marseille University, France
Zenovia Toloudi, Architect, Artist, Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth and Elected Member for Boston Society of Architects (BSA)
Through a dynamic interactive panel format, veteran art- ists, humanists, and scientists will share with and engage ISEA 2015 attendees. Panelists have collectively more than 100 years of lessons learned, wisdom, and bold visions of the future for data-artifacts in the age of digital media.
From complementary perspectives on the emergence and evolution of artistic data visualization, Donna Cox, Sara Diamond, Lyn Bartram, Roger Malina, and Lev Manovich, will provide a glimpse into the past and future of the field, addressing the funding issues, emerging research topics, and collaborative opportunities on the horizon for artists.
Depending on how you look at it, critical theory has been with us for some time. Its contents range from antiquity to the present, from the writings of Parmenides to Zizek, while it is largely a product of postmodernism and the critical turn in the humanities over the last thirty-five years. The new millennium brings with it exhaustion and renewal, global economic collapse coupled with the rapid-fire invention of disruptive technologies, all of which calls for the reevaluation of critical theory in terms of modernity reconceived. Altermodern, paramodern, modernity in the longue durée, or complexism: it is the contemporary time of not simply postmodernity’s past, but more importantly a union of art, architecture, and biology. Of these terms, we choose Philip Galanter’s “complexism” for two reasons. First, as a synthesis of modernism and postmodernism, it takes the best of all worlds. Second, it prioritizes the ecological paradigm of the complex biological system as means to rethink art, architecture, and the humanities broadly conceived.
We propose two panels – both titled COMPLEXISM: Art + Architecture + Biology, A New Axis in Critical Theory? – interrogating the concomitant disruption within critical theory that is the field of art, architecture, and biology. Building on past paradigms, from the Frankfurt School, Post-structuralism, and Deconstruction to embodiment, affectivity, and emergence, these two consecutive workshops unite artists, architects, and theorists to discuss the critical underpinnings of art, architecture, and biology now. Superseding any cultural divisions, each panel will be a mix of artists, architects and theorists. These two panels promise to open a discussion catalyzed by the following questions and more.
Ø How do bio-architecture and bio-art together transform contemporary critical theory?
Ø How does bio-architecture inform bio-art, and vice versa?
Ø What is the role of synthetic biology in helping us to understand “life” as
it crosses the divide between living and non-living?
Ø How might the naturphilosophie of Goethe carry forth a politics of labor
justice into the present?
Ø How does Max Bense’s information aesthetics provide a renewed means
of understanding semiotics in terms of biological complexity?
Ø How does morphogenesis and computation transform the contents and
definition of “form” within bio-art and bio-architectural practices?
Ø How does Moholy-Nagy’s Bauhaus bio-functionalism inform
contemporary bio-art, bio-architecture, and critical theory?
Ø Might the biological concept of “autopoesis” approximate “performance”
and performativity” in the arts?
Ø How does the generative aesthetics of computation resonate with
generative biology and evolutionary development?
Ø Do bio-art and bio-architecture in the present carry forth the political
purview of German Romanticism?
Ø What is the role of an aesthetics of complex systems thinking in
contemporary critical theory?
Invited panel participants:
Philip Beesley, Founder of Philip Beesley Architect Inc. (PBAI) in Toronto,
Canada and professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo
David Benjamin, Principal Architect, The Living and Assistant Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, New York
Juan Manuel Castro, Hideo Iwasaki Lab, Laboratory of Molecular Cell Network & Biomedia Art, Waseda University, Tokyo
Dennis Dollens, Visiting Professor, BioDigital Architectures Master, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona. His most recent book is: Autopoietic Architecture: Can Buildings Think?
Anna Dumitriu, BioArtist, Author of Trust Me, I’m an Artist: Towards an Ethics of Art
Philip Galanter, Artist working in the fields of generative art, physical computing, sound art and music, complexity science, and art theory and Assistant Professor, Department of Visualization, Texas A&M
Mitchell Joachim, Co-Founder of Terreform ONE and Associate Professor at NYU and EGS in Switzerland
Morgan Meyer, Center for the Sociology of Innovation at Mines ParisTech, Paris, France
Patricia Olynyk, Director, Graduate School of Art, Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Charissa Terranova, Associate Professor of Aesthetic Studies, University of Texas at Dallas
Yvan Tina, PhD Candidate, Arts & Technology, University of Texas at Dallas/Aix Marseille University, France
Zenovia Toloudi, Architect, Artist, Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth and Elected Member for Boston Society of Architects (BSA)