Phd M-Node

Research Public Meeting
Announcement and Call for abstracts

"Researching the Future: aspects of Art and Technoetics 2007 Prato, Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci December 7-8-9, 2007

Topics-Themes:
Media Art, Syncreticism, Technoetic, Moist Media, Phenomenology, Media Studies, Psycotechnologies, Transmodalities, Interactive Media Design, Virtual Reality, Enhanced Reality, Freud and Dream Science, Radical Thought, Semilife, Cultural Studies, Cognitive Architectures and Consciousness, Enteogenesis ...

Download the press release (ITA)

*****

Now more than ever artists work through cultural interfaces, the ways and means, turning to evocations of both science and mythology, technology and tradition.

The legacy of postmodernism has transformed itself in this "technoetic" variation. Today man is molded by hyperlinks, processors and networks and by bio and wet methodologies. Our senses are redefined, or rather, re-oriented from a collision with emerging realities, generated by new models of our world and of our subjectivity.

New art is linked to means that introduce it to a new praxis of production that is instantly pragmatic and philosophical. It (What? Art or the praxis?) generates interactivity and the transformation of common sense, both socially and aesthetically, while reflecting on the changing nature of perception, of connectivity and of conscience.

The man is not more into the center of the realm.

Works produced, both concretely and mentally, are made of a stratum of conscious associations, of unconscious sensitivity, of historic scientific data, of multiform unity and gripping discourse, fully interwoven in new telematic environments. These environments can be digital or natural and biological, furnishing us with new experiences and original creative visions.

*****

NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano
ISIA di Firenze
Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara
presentano

Dai Media ai Moist Media, i nuovi scenari della Technoetica

RESEARCHING THE FUTURE: ASPECTS OF ART AND TECHNOETICS 2007 / RICERCA E FUTURO: ARTE, TECNOLOGIA E COSCIENZA. SCENARI DELL'ARTE TECHNOETICA 2007

Congresso di Ricerca dal 7/12/2007 al 9/12/2007
Presso il Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci Viale della Repubblica, 277 - 59100 Prato – Italia

A cura di:

Francesco Monico (Coordinatore della Scuola di Media Design - NABA)
Tommaso Tozzi (Coordinatore della Scuola di Nuove Tecnologie dell’Arte - Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara)
Giuseppe Furlanis (Professore Basic Design ISIA Firenze)

Promotori & sponsor: MUR, Ministero Università e Ricerca, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano - NABA, ISIA Firenze, Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara, CCCS - Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina - Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi

Keywords: Moistmedia, Arte Telematica, Audio Art, Computer Art, Digital Art, Arte Elettronica, Arte Generativa, Artivismo, Hacker Art, Arte Interattiva, Internet Art, Media Technology Art, Performance Art, Robotic Art, Software Art, Sound Art, Video Arte, Video Game Art, Cybernation, Technoetics, Enteogenesi, BioArte, DnaArt, Semilife,…

Il 7, 8, 9 Dicembre per tutti gli interessati all'Arte Telematica, Audio Art, Computer Art, Digital Art, Arte Elettronica, Arte Generativa, Artivismo, Hacker Art, Arte Interattiva, Internet Art, Media Technology Art, Performance Art, Robotic Art, Software Art, Sound Art, Video Arte, Video Game Art, Bioart e ai rapporti, oggi centrali tra Arte, Tecnologia e Scienza ci sarà la possibilità di partecipare al congresso di ricerca che il gruppo di artisti-ricercatori del Planetary Collegium darà vita presso il Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci a Prato. Durante questo congresso saranno presenti artisti e ricercatori di oltre 10 nazionalità differenti che presentando le loro ricerche e opere artistiche esploreranno la nuova posizione dell'uomo nel mondo delle reti e dei processi: sia di quelli dry, tecnologici, che quelli wet, umidi e biologici.

Il Planetary Collegium è un programma di ricerca dottorale che ha già diplomato alcuni tra i maggiori artisti contemporanei come Edoardo Kac, Peter Anders, Joseph Nevchatal, Jill Scott, Bill Seaman, Christa Sommerer, Victoria Vesna, Elisa Giaccardi ... e che sviluppa una fra le più interessanti ricerche del dibattito contemporaneo tra arte e scienza, rappresentazione e metodo.
Il Planetary Collegium è rappresentato dal CAiiA, Center for Advanced Inquiry of Integrative Arts, diretto da Roy Ascott, professore e artista di fama internazionale, e dal nodo italiano dello stesso denominato M-Node, ovvero il gruppo di ricercatori PhD che sta lavorando sotto la direzione di Francesco Monico e Antonio Caronia.

A questa organizzazione di ricerca si affianca nell'evento l'Istituto per il design e la comunicazione ISIA di Firenze, l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara e la Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti di Milano.

Nella prestigiosa cornice del Museo Pecci più di una dozzina di acclamati artisti-ricercatori saranno presenti contemporaneamente in Italia:

Roy Ascott, definito da Frank Popper come la figura più eminente delle arti telematiche e uno dei maggiori interpreti del dibattito arte-scienza, Cattedra di Technoetica all'Università di Plymouth, Professore di Media Design all'Università di California Los Angeles (UCLA), Senior Dean del San Francisco Art Institute, Usa, Professore di Teorie della Comunicazione all'Università delle Arti Applicate di Vienna, Austria, Presidente dell'Ontario Museo d'Arte, Canada. E' stato curatore della Biennale d'arte di Venezia, del Media Ars Electronica festival di Linz (Austria), V2 (Olanda) e altri festival d'arte internazionali;
Mike Philips, Direttore del I-Dat, Centro di Interaction Design e Arte dell'Università di Plymouth;
Derrick de Kerckhove, Direttore del Programma McLuhan in Cultura e Tecnologia dell'Università di Toronto;
Michael Punt, Cattedra di Arte e Tecnologia, Direttore editoriale della prestigiosa rivista su arte-scienza Leonardo Reviews;
Laura Beloff (Finlandia), artista internazionalmente riconosciuta che lavora sulle mutazioni tecnologiche del corpo attraverso la moda;
Elif Ayter (Turchia), Condirettrice del dipartimento di Grafica Interattiva dell'università Sabancy di Instanbul, promotrice di una ricerca artistica sulle nuove forme di collaborazione della didattica ipertestuale e mediata dalle reti telematiche;
Isabelle Choiniere (Canada), Direttrice della compagnia di danza Les Corps Indice;
Nicolas Reeves (Canada), Direttore Scientifico del prestigioso centro di ricerca Arte, media e tecnologia Hexagram di Montreal;
Natasha Vita-More, (Usa), Presidente del Extropy Institute, autrice del manifesto Post-Umano;
Wolfgang Fiel (Austria), architetto-artista che sviluppa una ricerca su un modello di strutturalismo autogenerante;
Semi Ryu (Korea), artista che esplora la rappresentazione mistica dei personaggi modellati in animazione e della tradizione dei pupazzi coreani;
Francesco Monico, Direttore PhD M-Node, fondatore e coordinatore della Scuola di Media Design della Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano, impegnato in una ricerca sul metodo sincretico e sulla technopoetica,;
Antonio Caronia, uno dei massimi esperti di relazioni tra tecnologia, corpo e pensiero, docente di Estetica ei Media NABA, Antropologia della Tecnica Brera, Direttore Scientifico PhD M-Node;
Pierluigi Capucci, si occupa di linguaggi e tecniche di rappresentazione e comunicazione, di processi sinestetici e polisensoriali nella comunicazione e nell’arte, e del ruolo cognitivo dei modelli;
Tommaso Tozzi, autore di Hacker Art BBS, ideatore del primo netstrike mondiale, membro co-fondatore del newsgroup Cyberpunk e della rete Cybernet e ideatore di wikiartpedia, coordinatore della Scuola di Nuove Tecnologie dell'Arte presso l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara e docente dell'Universita' di Firenze;
Massimo Cittadini, Stefano Sansavini, Domenico Quaranta, Franco “Bifo” Berardi.

Saranno presenti ben 10 nazionalità differenti che, assieme ai rappresentanti italiani, daranno vita a un congresso di ricerca di tre giorni a Prato in cui ogni relatore esporrà le linee essenziali del proprio lavoro. Tale incontro rappresenterà un importante confronto tra l'esperienza internazionale e quella italiana.

La scelta della sede del Museo Pecci non è casuale, sia per la sua rilevanza artistico-culturale, sia per la sua strategica localizzazione, equidistante dalle istituzioni d'arte che lavorano sui media, sull'arte telematica e sulle nuove tecnologie.

Per tutto questo il Convegno RESEARCHING THE FUTURE: ASPECTS OF ART AND TECHNOETICS 2007 / RICERCA E FUTURO: ARTE, TECNOLOGIA E COSCIENZA. SCENARI DELL'ARTE TECHNOETICA 2007 rappresenta un'importante opportunità per confrontare e allineare l'esperienza italiana sulla ricerca technoetica e sulle forme artistiche ad essa correlate, con le più quotate esperienze internazionali.

*****

07/12/2007 - friday

14.00 Francesco Monico, Roy Ascott - introduction
14.30 Nicolas Reeves
15.00 Elif Ayter
15.30 Massimo Cittadini ABAC
16.00 pause
16.15 Natasha Vita-More
16.45 Giacomo Verde
17.15 Michael Punt
17.30 Bonomi Francesco
18.00 Wolfgang Fiel

08/12/2007 - saturday

09.30 Jurgen Faust
10.00 Tattarini Mirko
10.30 Mike Philips
11.00 pause
11.15 Simona Caraceni
11.45 Laura Beloff
12.15 Domenico Quaranta
12.45 Tommaso Tozzi
13.15 Lunch
14.30 Antonio Caronia
15.00 Francesco Monico
15.30 pause
16.00 Federica Timeto
16.15 Semi Ryu
16.45 Roy Ascott
17.15 pause
17.30 Imbesi Lorenzo
18.00 Mario Canali

09/12/2007 - sunday

9.30 Natacha Roussel
10.00 Wolfgang Viel
10.30 Franco Marineo
11.00 pause
11.15 Stefano Sansavini
11.45 Glessi Antonio
12.15 Amos Bianchi
12.45 PL Capucci
13.15 Lunchbreak
14.30 Derrick de Kerckhove
14.45 Franco Bifo Berardi
15.15 pause
15.45 Isabelle Choiniere
16.00 Monica Weiss
16.30 Giuseppe Marinelli
17.00 Jennifer Kanary
17.30 Francesco Monico

*****

BIO AND ABSTRACTS

Roy Ascott

BIO Roy Ascott is the founder and President of the Planetary Collegium, the Director of its CAiiA-Hub, and Professor of Technoetic Art in the University of Plymouth, England. He is also Visiting Professor in Design|Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles., and Honorary Professor of Thames Valley University, London. He was Vice-President and Dean of San Francisco Art Institute, California; Professor of Communications Theory, University of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria; Professor and Chair of Fine Art, Minneapolis College of Art & Design; and President of Ontario College of Art, Toronto. Ascott has shown at the Venice Biennale, Electra Paris, Ars Electronica Linz, V2 Holland, Milan Triennale, Biennale do Mercosul, Brazil. His research is in art and the technology of consciousness. He is the founding editor of Technoetic Arts, and is on the boards of Leonardo. LEA,and Digital Creativity. He has advised new media centers and festivals in many parts of Europe, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, and the USA, as well as the CEC and UNESCO, and convenes the annual international Consciousness Reframed conferences. See: Ascott, R. Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art Technology and Consciousness. Berkeley: University of California Press (2003).

ABSTRACT SYNCRETIC FIELDS: art, mind and the many realities.
The formative issues in 20th century digital art concerned connectivity and interaction. Now at the start of the 3rd millennium, they are technoetic and syncretic. Previously, there was much ado about e pluribus unum: out of many, one: a unified culture, unified self, unified mind, unity of time and space. Now at the start of this century, it is ex uno plures, out of one, many: many selves, many presences, many locations, many levels of consciousness. The many realities we inhabit—material, virtual, and spiritual, for example—are accompanied by our sense of being present simultaneously in many worlds: physical presence in ecospace, apparitional presence in spiritual space, telepresence in cyberspace, and vibrational presence in nanospace. A syncretic reality is emerging. The metauniverse is the rehearsal space for a future in which we will endlessly re-invent our many selves. What today we build in the immateriality of cyberspace will tomorrow be nanotechnologically constructed. Our media are both immaterial and moist, numinous and grounded. Chemical technology is complimenting digital technology in our technoetic exploration of consciousness. It is mind rather than body that will dominate the research of our era.

***

Elif Ayter

ABSTRACT ground<c>: the enablement of creativity in a metaverse
ground<c> is a metaverse learning environment, dedicated to the enablement of creativity and inspired primarily by ''The Groundcourse''; Roy Ascott's ground breaking art educational methodology developed and practised during the 1960's. The Groundcourse's aim was to shake up preconceptions and established patterns through behavioural exercises, games, role-play and particularly through the implementation of ''irritants'', operating under the tenets of Dewey's Experiential Learning theories as well as Cybernetics.
The design of experimental, amphibian virtual architecture fulfilling the requirements of this brief; comprised of both highly changeable/unpredictable components akin to holodecks, within which the ''irritants'' of the Groundcourse can be implemented and enacted; as well as relatively static spaces designated for gathering, building and play thus meeting the requirements of constructionist methodology is a crucial component of the author's research. Thus, a description of the design process, as well as a visual documentation of design phases, currently under way in ''Second Life'', will constitute the framework of this paper.
Keywords:
creativity, art education, play, experiential learning, cybernetics, groundcourse, metaverse, Second Life, virtual architecture, irritant.

***

Laura Beloff

BIO With acclaimed international reputation as an artist, the Finnish-born Laura Beloff’s artistic works can be described as peculiar wearable objects, programmed structures and participatory, networked installations. In her pieces she combines technology fluently with various mediums ranging from video to textile, from sound to sculptural and organic materials. Many of her works deal with individuals in the global society trying to adapt to highly complex technologically enhanced world, which is becoming increasingly mobile. Collaboration with other artists, musicians and computer scientists has been one of the features typical for her working methods.
Beloff has exhibited widely in various museums, galleries and major media-art events in Europe and worldwide, recently f.e. in the Venice Biennale 2007. She has received various grants, residencies and awards; Ars Electronica -Futurelab residency 1999-00/Austria, Fulbright-grant/U.S., Air-residency 2001 /Vienna, 3-year artist grant/Finland, 2002 Vida5.0 honorary mention/Spain, 2000 File-festival the 3rd prize/Brazil, etc.
She is frequently lecturing about her research and practice in universities and at various events/conferences. During 2007-08 she is teaching at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki.
In 1999-00 she was a visiting professor at Linz Art University, Austria.
2002-06 she was a professor for media arts at the Art Academy in Oslo, Norway.
2007-11 she was awarded a five-year grant by the Finnish state.
Currently she is working towards PhD within Planetary Collegium, The Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Integrative Arts (MPHIL/PHD Computing, Communications & Electronics, University of Plymouth, Faculty of technology).
More information on her works and cv can be found at: http://www.realitydisfunction.org

ABSTRACT Art, Wearables, Hybronaut and Standards
Many of us are currently, and possibly permanently, living in a hybrid space conditioned by the use of mobile and wireless technologies. This space, which emerges from our technological condition, has been scrutinized by various theorists and researchers during recent years. Amongst others, Timo Kopomaa has written about the concept of a third space, Anthony Townsend about phonespace, and Adriana de Souza e Silva has defined the more general concept of hybrid space which is formed from a merge of physical and virtual spaces.
Our use of technology is generally limited to standard applications and commercial ready-mades, which commonly exhibit a very functional and task-oriented approach to technology. The wider possibilities of hybrid space are often left unnoticed due to the ordinary and pre-defined perspectives offered by mobile devices available for consumers.
Wearables as a phenomenon of recent years of research and development have been triggered by technological development of small size hardware, smart materials and wireless networks. It has also influenced a manifestation of increasing amount of peculiar interfaces among more typical wearable development. Typically these experimental works are designed to be wearable and mobile, but they do not necessarily otherwise fulfill the expected characteristics of wearables. Wearability, though, is one the main features in these works.
The focus of my research is in this kind of artistic experiments, which investigate and refer to concepts such as hybrid space. Works, which enable a person to experience hybrid space in a different manner than with a standardized perspective. These kinds of works aim at directing the focus away from a functionally oriented approach to technology towards a more conceptual approach.

***

Amos Bianchi

BIO Amos Bianchi, laurea in filosofia, è coordinatore didattico dei master e bienni NABA, ove è assistente ai corsi di Teoria e Metodo dei Mass Media e di Teorie della Comunicazione. Dal 2003 al 2005 è stato titolare della cattedra di Estetica dei Media presso lo stesso istituto. Fra il 2003 e il 2006 ha insegnato presso la sede di Milano dello IED e presso il biennio di specializzazione ECM dell’Università degli Studi di Pavia. È socio fondatore di Meme diffusioni. Ha pubblicato articoli su riviste specializzate sulla teoria dell’immagine nel Medioevo.

ABSTRACT Playing television. La televisione dal cinema alla rete
Il prodotto televisivo contemporaneo sta divenendo sempre più crossmediale. Generi televisivi particolari – il serial drama, il reality show – vengono programmaticamente progettati per una diffusione multicanale: il flusso televisivo, prima di tutto; ma anche la rete, i magazine, i libri, i dvd. Ognuno di queste supporti rende parte del contenuto, ma non il tutto, in un gioco di rimandi reciproci continui. Questo intervento cerca di mettere in luce la situazione attuale e i cambiamenti futuri di questi generi, individuando scenari possibili di trasformazione secondo l’analisi della figura dell’autore, il pubblico, le estetiche, i dispositivi, le narrazioni, il sistema di produzione.

***

Francesco Bonomi

BIO Francesco Bonomi è un programmatore free-lance con particolare interesse nel Computing for Humanities e nei nuovi media. Insegna Elementi di programmazione presso l'ISIA di Firenze.

ABSTRACT I database sono media?
La progettazione di un database è una delle operazioni meno visibili nel ciclo di vita di un progetto tecnologico, e spesso la si intende come una semplice e pedissequa implementazione delle specifiche software.
In realtà sempre più spesso le tecniche di database si applicano in modo silenzioso ma pervasivo alla gestione e alla manipolazione di relazioni umane, di collegamenti concettuali e di contatti interpersonali.
Un click su "Add me" non fa altro che creare una una relazione tra due righe di una tabella. Il fatto è che questa relazione prende una valenza nuova, dato che in essa si incarna un'emozione. Ecco che la relazione si trasforma: da "freddo" collegamento tra entità informatiche diventa una relazione "calda", idea che sta alla base del social networking.
La struttura di queste relazioni diventa così la struttura portante di un sito, fino a costituire la "regia" che sta dietro alla lettura mediatica che del sito possiamo fare.
In che misura possiamo quindi oggi dire che database sta assumendo le caratteristiche di un mezzo espressivo?

***

Pier Luigi Capucci

BIO: Since the early '80 he has been concerned with the communication's technologies and with the relationships among arts, sciences and technologies. His theoretical activity is concerned with idioms, techniques and technologies of representation and communication in the communication and art realms, and with the technoscience-based art forms. In the field of applied research he works on the opportunities of social relationships raised by online communications and new media. Currently he is a teacher at the universities of Bologna and Urbino and at the Fine Arts Academy of Urbino. He has published the books "Realtà del virtuale" (1993), on the virtual technologies and the relationships among culture and sensorial representations; "Il corpo tecnologico" (1994), on the impact of the technologies on the human body; and "Arte e tecnologie" (1996), about arts, sciences and technologies. He is the director of the "NoemaLab" project (http://www.noemalab.org), devoted to culture-new technologies interrelations and influences.

ABSTRACT: For a long time the living has been considered as based on the organic realm, simply because life on Earth is organic. Since the end of the '80 artificial life expanded the design of the living to the inorganic realm, shifting the roots of life from the matter to the algorithm. Today the opposition between organic and inorganic is easily crossed and these two realms blends in many fields and applications. The living is the best model in making tools, machines, artifacts, devices which must autonomously work in and adapt to many environments. But despite its evidence, we are not able to define what life is, especially at the nanoscale. Organic and inorganic are two osmotic realms, two declinations of the living, and art can be also a powerful bridge between the two. This multiplicity of the living configures a new step in the evolution of life, envisaging autonomous extensions, enhanced organisms (organic/inorganic) and new forms of consciousness and intelligence.

***

Simona Caraceni

BIO Simona Caraceni is concerned with new media communication and multimediality, and since '94 has been involved in new media and new technology applications in communications and art. She taught at the Universities of Bozen. Milan, Macerata and Bologna. Currently she teaches Informatics at the Bozen University, Social technological interaction at IED and Naba, in Milan.
In 1994 she was one of the founders of the first italian online magazine, NetMagazine, later MagNet, a project on the relationships between arts and technologies which lasted until December 1997. She also wrote in Noema, curating the Bytes section.

ABSTRACT
Her theoretical activity is concerned with man-machine interfaces, multimediality and multimodality, and new media languages of communication. In the field of applied research she works on the opportunities of online communication, multimedia and multimodal interfaces and e-learning with University of Bologna, City Council of Bologna, Regional Council of Emilia Romagna and Cineca.The laical temple: how a museum can represent the idea of sacred in the civil society: technological spaces and anthropological speculations.
Starting with an anthropological analysis, I examine what in architectural and spatial aspect characterize a sacred place, I found some principles on how a museum can better represent the sacred temple of the civil society.

***

Antonio Caronia

BIO Antonio Caronia (Genova, 1944), svolge dalla fine degli anni settanta una ricerca sulla teoria della comunicazione, l’immaginario scientifico e tecnologico, il rapporto fra immaginario e movimenti, con particolare riferimento agli effetti sociali e politici dell’innovazione tecnologica e agli aspetti estetici del comportamento sociale.
È traduttore, collabora a L’unità e alle riviste Millepiani, Cyberzone, Impackt.
È autore di Il cyborg (Theoria 1985; nuova edizione ShaKe 2001), Il corpo virtuale (Muzzio 1996), Houdini e Faust. Breve storia del cyberpunk (con Domenico Gallo, Baldini&Castoldi 1997), Archeologie del virtuale (ombre corte 2001). Ha collaborato alla trasmissione televisiva Mediamente.
Insegna Antropologia della tecnica e Progettazione della comunicazione sociale all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera e Estetica dei Media alla NABA.

ABSTRACT L’azione in quella “zona ambigua, particolarmente poco risolta, che è in parte virtuale e in parte materiale” e cheRoy Ascott ha chiamato “l’orlo della Rete” (“the edge of the Net”), rimette in discussione i rapporti tra virtualità e materia. L’astrazione linguistica spinta al livello di autonomia della creazione di mondi virtuali (nella forma del codice informatico) delinea una tendenza alla smaterializzazione, alla simulazione di “effetti di realtà” che sembrano prescindere dalla fisicità dei corpi. L’arte biotech sembra spingere invece verso un ritorno del corpo, sia pure geneticamente modificato. Ma le due tendenze forse non sono poi così contrapposte. Materialità e immaterialità si sono sempre alternate e mescolate anche nella tradizione meccanica ed elettromeccanica dei corpi artificiali, mentre, a livello di modificazione genetica è l’azione al livello biologico più astratto e codificato (quello del DNA) che dà vita ai nuovi corpi transgenici. Se la prospettiva è dunque quella dei moist media (i “media umidi” che combinano l’aridità e l’astrattezza del codice con i concreti processi biologici), il compito dell’arte e della teoria nei prossimi anni è quello di precisare e di articolare i diversi livelli di applicazione di quelle due componenti e di rimettere in discussione gli ambiti e i limiti dell’azione umana sul proprio destino.

***

Isabelle Choinière

BIO Recognized by local and international press as a visionary performer and undisputable pioneer of « cyber modernity », Isabelle Choinière has created and proposed, since 1994, strong works admiringly integrating dance and electronic arts. Choreographer, performer, analyst, and artistic director, Isabelle Choinière explores the physical and psychic limits of the natural and the synthetic body. Her actual choreographic language draws from a multitude of gestual forms; it also contains a strong reflection about time and space from which emerges an enlarged conception of the body.
Having first studied classical dance, Isabelle Choinière was initiated to the concept of « new dance » by Deborah Hay. After collegial studies in sciences, she obtained in 1989 her bachelor's degree in choreography at Concordia University. In spring 2005, Isabelle Choinière began a doctorate under the supervision of Roy Ascott, founder of the Planetary Collegium, at the Center for Advanced Inquiry in the Integrative Arts (CAIIA) affiliated to Plymouth University in England.
By crossbreeding disciplines and by questioning the their mutual writings, the artistic process of Isabelle Choinière aims to reflect on the infiltration of technological thought in actual dance and how it generates new choreographic models as a representation of the actual cosmology. Driven by a syncretistic approach which mixes several cultural elements, her work is based on the strategy of renewing the sensory experience and perception, the twenty-first century technology opening the path to the creation of a perpetual synaesthesia, as much formed by proprioception of the real body and by exterioception of the mediated body.
Her works and research on the integration of electronic arts in dance have earned her many invitations in several international events in Europe, Latin America as well as in Quebec, as an active artist as well as a lecturer on the substance of her creations.

ABSTRACT Looking For a Choreographic Model Adapted to Our Time. The Orgiastic: a Strategy Via Technology to Renew Our Sensorial and Perceptual Experience of the World
How understanding the infiltration of technologic thought might have some application in the development of new choreographic model.
This work is simultaniously rooted in a syncretistic process and founded on a strategy of perception renewing and of creation of a perceptual synaesthesia formed by the proprioception of the real body as well as the exterioception of the mediated body ; how can 21st century technology open the path for a new perceptual synesthesia , formed both by the proprioception of the physical body and the exterioception of the mediated body?
I propose this approach as a means to move beyond the instrumentalization that diminishes the dancer in relation to technology; could the chosen theme of the orgiastic be a means to counter this tendency by initiating a relation that enriches experiential corporeality?
And how can these ideas take place within my own work and how can they be situated within the context of contemporary dance.
1 There are two types of perception: proprioception, through which we perceive what comes from the inside, and exteroception, or the perception of what comes from the outside. The Feldenkrais method is the study of proprioception that provides us with the invariables of our personal movements and the space that we incorporate: i.e. what he call our inner environment. The Feldenkrais method is part of the somatic practices in contemporary dance.
Somatic practices are centred on developing an awareness of the moving body. These practices consist of learning synergistic interaction processes between consciousnes, movement and the environment. They make up the experiential study of corporeality (ex. : Alexander, Bartenieff, Body-Mind Centering, Feldenkrais, Pilates, etc.)
Ginsburg, C 2006 Le Mouvement et l’esprit ; une critique en forme d’essai. Nouvelles de Danse numéro 53 Scientifiquement Danse ; Quand la danse puise aux sciences et réciproquement : Bruxelles, Belgique. P.38
For a more precise definition of proprioception: By proprioception we understand the main considerations presented in the current literature on the subject: mechanical proprioceptive information(considered as subpersonal, and unconscious) proprioceptive consciousness (recessive awareness of the body) and visual proprioception (Gibson), or the ecological structure of movement perception.
Cf. J. Cole, N. Dupras, S. Gallagher, Unity and Disunity in bodily awareness : phenomenology and neuroscience, actes du colloque ASSC4, Bruxelles, 29 juin-2 juillet 2000.
2 From the Greek Sunaisthêsis: “simultaneous perception”: Plurality of sensory perception characterized by the perception of a supplementary perception to what is normally perceived by another part of the body or which involves another sensory domain.

***

Antonio Glessi

BIO Antonio Glessi (Gorizia, 1954). E' laureato in architettura e ha qualche altro diploma di arti visive.
Nel 1984 ha fondato con Andrea Zingoni il gruppo multimediale Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici. Dal 1996 insegna all'Isia di Firenze. E' attualmente Art Director per le serie televisive di cartoni animati con tecnica digitale "Gino il Pollo" e "Le ricette di Arturo e il Kiwi".

ABSTRACT Il social networking come contesto ormai imprescindibile dell'apprendimento permanente e come generatore di "esperienze" (singole e personali) che vanno a integrare (se non sostituire in certi casi) la formazione intesa come "prodotto" (collettivo e indifferenziato). Altri spunti di riflessione verranno nell'analisi delle attitudini alla frequentazione degli ambienti virtuali, evidenziando la contrapposizione tra le realtà aumentate (a supporto della quotidianità del reale) e le realtà virtuali (come fuga o contrapposizione al reale) e la contrapposizione tra dimensione pratica e intellettualmente speculativa nell'uso dei nuovi media.

***

Lorenzo Imbesi

BIO Architetto, teorico e critico del design, PhD in "Progettazione Ambientale", docente presso l’Università “Sapienza” di Roma e l’ISIA di Firenze, svolge attività di ricerca presso la sezione Arti, Design e Nuove Tecnologie del Dipartimento ITACA, privilegiando con un atteggiamento transdisciplinare di ricerca, le tematiche di frontiera del contemporaneo connesse al progetto ed ai suoi risvolti teorici e materiali, in particolare alla produzione artificiale in relazione alle mutazioni nelle dinamiche socio-comportamentali e di consumo, alle trasformazioni dei modelli dell’abitare legati alla mobilità e alla globalizzazione, all’innovazione tecnologica e alla comunicazione.
Visiting lecturer e borsa di ricerca dell’International Council for Canadian Studies, partecipa a conferenze e convegni a carattere nazionale ed internazionale, anche nella cura e nel coordinamento. Curatore e responsabile di workshop internazionali di progettazione, collabora a numerosi progetti di ricerca a carattere nazionale e internazionale, Ricerche d’Ateneo e MIUR, e promossi dall'Unione Europea. Attualmente, tra le attività, è redattore della rivista “DIID – Disegno Industriale Industrial Design” (RDesignPress ed.); "Gomorra – territori e culture della metropoli contemporanea", "Avatar – dislocazioni tra antropologia e comunicazione" (Meltemi ed.) e collabora con le riviste: “Domus” (ed. Domus); “Tutto da Capo” (Lupetti ed.); “Activa – Fashion, Design, Management” (Design Diffusion ed.); “Drome – arti, culture, tendenze”; con il quotidiano “Il Manifesto” ed il magazine “Alias”.

ABSTRACT Potenza creativa e progettualità critica
i il progetto indaga gli scenari interattivi del quotidiano
Il contributo intende mettere a fuoco il tema dell’ibridazione delle nuove tecnologie con gli oggetti e gli ambienti della vita quotidiana per la sperimentazione di scenari comportamentali interattivi. La mutazione del rapporto tra cultura progettuale ed innovazione tecnologica legata al passaggio alla contemporanea società della conoscenza, apre ad una stagione innovativa di esperienze progettuali tra ricerca e produzione indirizzata a sondare gli scenari sociali che le nuove tecnologie possono aprire.
La diffusività della tecnologia, ormai capillare, comporta così acquisizione di saperi, sviluppa forme di conoscenza ed afferma pratiche di attivismo in grado di moltiplicare zone critiche di riflessione e mobilitare soggettività, liberando contemporaneamente potenziale creativo e sperimentale.
Il progetto svolge così anche un ruolo di mediazione verso le paure e le paranoie che gli scenari tecnologici spesso sollecitano: non più esposta come un valore di per sé con una sua estetica che incute timore, la ritroviamo nascosta negli oggetti del quotidiano con cui intrattenere dimestichezza confidenziale. La tecnologia cioè assume un valore per il suo significato relazionale e il design cerca di operare sull’esperienza intrattenuta in quella zona liminale di interfaccia tra soggetto ed oggetto per esplorarne le modalità di dialogo.

***

Giuseppe Marinelli De Marco

BIO Architetto, è tra i protagonisti della scena culturale italiana e internazionale negli anni settanta con il gruppo di architetti romani “Il Labirinto”.E’ stato pubblicato nelle principali riviste italiane e internazionali quali Casabella, Domus, Space Design, L’architecture d’Haujour d’huy. Ha insegnato nella facoltà di Architettura, esperto in architetture per la comunicazione, professionalmente ha realizzato in Italia numerosi musei interattivi di scienza, tra cui il Geolab.
autore di numerose mostre personali e collettive, dal 1996 è vicedirettore dell’Isia di Roma dove insegna Basic Design, dal 1985, e Metaprogettazione al biennio della laurea specialistica in Design dei Sistemi.

ABSTRACT L’intervento vuole mettere a confronto strategie della Creazione e strategie della Comunicazione alla luce di alcune premesse e riflessioni condotte sulla coesistenza tra cultura materiale e civilizzazione immateriale, nella società globalizzata e sulla posizione che in essa occupa la nozione di soggetto. Il Design dei Sistemi e della Complessità vive dell’apporto del pensiero non lineare e indaga la possibilità del formarsi di emergenze sistemiche all’interno di processi complessi e individua nell’insediamento umani il suo focus principale di studi e di azione, avanzando l’ipotesi che il design di domani studierà e proporrà soluzioni “oltre il prodotto“.

***

Francesco Monico

BIO Direttore del dipartimento di Media Design della Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti presso la quale detiene la Cattedra in Teoria e Metodo dei Mass Media. Allievo del prof. Derrick de Kerckhove, è Fellow del McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology presso l'Università di Toronto. Presso l'Università di Plymouth è Ph.D researcher sotto la direzione e supervisione del prof. Roy Ascott. All'interno di un network internazionale esplora le metodologie di dialogo tra arte, scienza, tecnologia e natura (tech-noetica). È direttore del Nodo di ricerca Ph.D M-Node in Italia. E' stato membro del consiglio scientifico del Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia di Milano Leonardo da Vinci. Ha scritto per l'«International Herald Tribune/Italy Daily». Per Meltemi Editore ha scritto Il dramma televisivo (2006). In ambito dei media studies ha sviluppato una prima riflessione sulla Grammatica, Retorica e Dialettica dei Media. Nel design lavora sul fronte dell'innovazione e della metodologizzazione dei processi technoetici; nell'arte è autore di opere quali TAFKAV, si occupa di oggetti di Arte-Earth/Eco.

ABSTRACT L'artista e il pragmatismo visionario

***

Nicolas Reeves

ABSTRACT FROZEN MUSIC. From the Harmony of the Spheres to Spherical Harmonics
Goethe described architecture as "frozen music". Wright, Fathy, and many other architects wrote thoughtful analogies between the musical and architectural experiences. Attemps to find relations between music and architecture have constantly triggered fascination across the history of the Western world. In the past, the rational for this connection lied in the fact that architecture and music were seen as comological echoes : both were invoking a same order or process of cosmological origin that organized musical elements on one hand and architectural elements on the other. This order was comprehended in the notion of harmony, mathematically described by proportions called "harmonics". Though the cosmological connexion is less explicit today (and at times explicitely lost), many attempts at music-architecture connections can be found during the modern times and in the contemporary period. They all fundamentally rely on some kind of transposition mechanism whose importance cannot be overestimated : it carries and reveals the authors's implicit assumptions about the elements that are likely shared by architecture and music, and about the existence of some common underlying information structuring both of them. In this lecture, I will present a transposition mechanism that is explicitely based on contemporary cosmological considerations. It ackowledges the considerable transformations that both cosmology and the notion of harmonics have undergone from the XVIIIe century on, and relies on the development of computer methods that offer the possibility to quickly describe any material structure by a set of interfering waves from which a reversible transposition into music can be established.

***

Mike Phillips

BIO Phillips is director of i-DAT and heads the Nascent Art & Technology Research Group [www.nascent-research.net]. His transdisciplinary R&D orbits digital architectures and transmedia publishing, and is manifest in two key research projects: Arch-OS [www.arch-os.com], an 'Operating System' for contemporary architecture ('software for buildings') and the LiquidPress [www.liquidpress.net] which explores the evolution and mutation of publishing and broadcasting technologies. These projects and other work can be found on the i-DAT web site at: www.i-dat.org.

ABSTRACT The presentation discusses interventions made by the author and collaborators into the extreme territories that lie outside ‘normal’ human frames of reference. In the space-between the speed of a building, the collective archetypal view from space and the frame-by-frame memory of a catastrophe, lies a new perspective that relocates us from the foreground to the vanishing point. The view through the Albertian window has lost its relevance, it is no longer reassuring, it just doesn’t look ‘normal’ anymore.
The view, for instance, framed by the Sloth-bot v1, a large autonomous robot, better suited to zero gravity environments but confined to a predefined architectural space. The Sloth-bot v1 moves incredibly slowly, influenced by the flow of the buildings occupants and their interaction with the environment the Sloth-bot v1 will anticipate the temporal dynamics of the space, slowly and strategically positioning itself in the right place at the right time.
Or the view seen through the collective gaze of the Search for Terrestrial Intelligence (The S.T.I. Consortium) that turned the technologies that look to deep space for Alien Intelligence back onto Planet Earth in a quest for 'evidence' of Terrestrial Intelligence.
Ot the ‘overview’, a new perspective provided by‘Constellation Columbia’, a working prototype for an autonomous monument for ‘Dead Astronauts / Cosmonauts’, and its off spring ‘Constellation Columbia 2’, a ‘Zero G’ robot that’s primary aim is to seek ‘normality’ and orient itself in absence of gravity.
It is just possible that the views seen by our traumatised technologies are too terrifying for mortal eyes.

***

Semi Ryu

BIO Since receiving MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, Semi Ryu has been working as assistant professor, Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her works started from experimental 3D animations, with the subject of interactivity in Korean traditional theatre and oral tradition of storytelling. Her animations have been widely presented in more than 15 countries, winning numerous awards. Her interest about interactivity has been continued to her critical view of interactive media and virtual interactive puppet performance, presented internationally in Vancouver, Zurich, Amsterdam, Milan, Beijing, Madrid, etc. She has been collaborated with Multimedia lab, University of Rome, Italy since 2004. For more info, www.semiryu.com.

ABSTRACT "Experimental Virtual Wayang " is a contemporary translation of the traditional Balinese shadow puppet performance (" wayang kulit "), featuring virtual interactive puppets and a realtime background drawing system, bringing the sprit of live improvisation into storytelling.
This project explores two ideas of shadow; traditional shadows casted by wayang puppets, and digital shadows, projected images of virtual puppets projected one same screen. The shadow master will be able to simultaneously manipulate traditional puppets as well as virtual puppets which have been fitted with infrared units which will be monitored by a motion and position detection system. This system then communicates with a three-dimensional computer graphics system which will project virtual puppets onto the same screen used to display the traditional wayang puppets. He will be able to change the look of the virtual puppet and to control its movements based upon his own voice. This project opens the interactive system to public, inviting people to draw background images, interacting with puppeteer and musician, during the performance.

***

Tattarini Mirko

BIO Designer, docente in Communication Design all'ISIA di Firenze e docente in Strategic Design presso la Technical University of Varna (Bulgaria). Curatore di "Digital Medina" e ideatore della conferenza X-Media.

ABSTRACT The roots of contemporary, so-called Islamic terrorism are not uniquely religious; other historical influences are also at play: the crisis of modernity. The promise of modernity has resulted in a crisis of confidence. Globally, the hoped-for results of modernisation have not been achieved, and in some instances this has led to extreme reactions. Today's terrorism should not be seen as a war between civilizations so much as a psychosocial reaction to the perceived untruths of modernity. This reaction takes on a sense of subcultural self-determination. Individuals who lack professional tools adopt a "bricolage" (do-it-yourself) approach in developing ideological "castles" and an Internet presence, relying on the promotional strategies of viral marketing. Resistance to "the" establishment is strengthened through recycling cultural artifacts which stemmed from the establishment itself. This recycling of what may be termed ideological waste parallels the social environment described by the cyberpunk literary movement of the late twentieth century. Thus, in terms of communications design, an answer to terrorism would require the development of alternative myths, which should also be given an Internet presence. Such myths need to be shaped by a new global consciousness, and animated by a new vision of the human journey.
Keywords. Modernity, aesthetics, terrorism, design, bricolage, mythology, Internet, warfare, viral marketing, branding, revenge, recycling, cyberpunk, resistance.

***

Federica Timeto

BIO Federica Timeto is a postgraduate research student of the M-Phil/Phd Computing, Communications and Electronics programme of the Planetary Collegium (University of Plymouth, UK), Milan Node. Her research project titles Feminism, Postcoloniality and New Media Theory and Practice; it aims to investigate the tools and methods of new media art from a feminist postcolonial perspective, and to question the idea of boundarylessness, which usually animates the discussion on new technologies.
She has written extensively on feminist aesthetics, feminist art, visual and cultural studies. Her publications appeared in such magazines as Cyberzone and Duellanti, Studi Culturali and the online magazine Technèdonne. She has edited a reader on feminist aesthetics and artistic practice titled Culture della differenza. Femminismo, visualità e studi postcoloniali (Utet Università, forthcoming Spring 2008).

ABSTRACT An elsewhere within here: Eastern Europe as cyberfeminist (according to Marina Gržinić)
Marina Gržinić is a feminist media theorist living and working in Ljubljana. She has been working with video since 1982, mostly in collaboration with Aina Šmid, with whom she has also created the website Axis of Life. Besides, she has published widely on virtual reality, cyberfeminism, and the artistic and political situation of Eastern Europe.
In this paper I will show how her analysis of the postsocialist Eastern European condition can be interpreted as and throughout a cyberfeminist paradigm. I have chosen not to analyze any of her videos in the specific, but to concentrate on her texts instead. However, much of what I will discuss in my paper is synthesized in the video The Eastern House, realized by Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid in 2003, which can reasonably be considered a sort of manifesto of Gržinić’s thought. As we hear from the video, if we limit ourselves to defining the artist as a cyberfeminist from Eastern Europe, we leave the three terms of our statement - that is feminism, cyberspace and geopolitical space – both unquestioned and unrelated, as if they were given assumptions, and we do not articulate the artist’s position. On the contrary, when we assume that «Eastern Europe can be seen as the female side in the process of sexual difference» we ground ourselves «in the real of cyberworld», which allows us to escape any essential definition about the spaces of the real and the virtual, but also of femininity and feminism (Gržinić).

***

Tommaso Tozzi

BIO (Firenze, 1960) Insegna all’Università degli Studi di Firenze e all'Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara, dove coordina la Scuola di Nuove Tecnologie dell’Arte e dirige uCAN – Centro di Ricerca e Documentazione sull’Arte e le Culture delle Reti.
Dalla seconda metà degli anni Settanta realizza progetti musicali, artistici e controculturali e ha partecipato a mostre collettive e personali in alcune tra le principali istituzioni espositive nazionali. Dal 1982 (Il pennello improprio, Giardini di Bellariva, Firenze) ha partecipato a happening con il musicista fluxus Giuseppe Chiari.
È l'autore di Hacker Art BBS (1990), cofondatore del network Cyberpunk (1991) e Cybernet (1993), ideatore del primo netstrike mondiale (1995) e del progetto Wikiartpedia – Libera Enciclopedia sull’Arte e le Culture delle Reti (2004).
Ha pubblicato Happening Interattivi Sottosoglia (Firenze, 1989), Opposizioni ‘80 (Amen, 1991), Happening Digitali Interattivi - cd-rom e libro (Wide Records, 1992), con Strano Network Net strike, no copyright, etc (AAA Edizioni, 1996), Nubi all'orizzonte (Castelvecchi Editore, 1996) e con A. Di Corinto Hacktivism (Manifesto Libri, 2002).
Ha organizzato con Strano Network il convegno e mostra Diritto alla comunicazione nello scenario di fine millennio (Centro di Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci di Prato, 1995) e con A. Ludovico le conferenze Storie dell’Arte delle Reti (2005, Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara), Mappe Resistenti (2006, Museo Villa Croce di Genova) e New Media Art Education (2007, Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci di Prato).
Siti di riferimento: www.wikiartpedia.org-www.hackerart.org- http://www.strano.net/tozzi.htm

ABSTRACT Il dubbio che si vuole istigare con questo intervento è quello per cui non sia arte solo ciò
che viene riconosciuto e legittimato dal sistema dell'arte tradizionale, e dal senso comune ad esso consequente.
Lo sforzo che si chiede è quello di abbandonare l'idea precostituita che l'arte sia un ambito disciplinare unico distinguibile da quello scientifico, economico, sociale, religioso, etc.
Le tesi presentate in questo intervento possono infatti essere accettate solo partendo dal presupposto che l'arte e l'opera d'arte la si ritrova tanto nell'agire riconosciuto tradizionalmente di artisti, critici d'arte,
ecc., quanto nell'agire di scienziati, pensatori, sociologi, attivisti dei movimenti, ecc..
La speranza è quella di pensare che anche senza riconoscere tali forme artistiche come proprie o come quelle da perseguire, se ne possa condividere l'orizzonte.

***

Natasa Vita-More

BIO Natasha Vita-More, media artist and normative futurist, has a BFA in painting and printmaking, University of Memphis; filmmaker-in-residence, University of Colorado; MS in Future Studies, University of Houston; and is currently a MPhil/PhD Candidate, Planetary Collegium, Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts, University of Plymouth.
Natasha's practice has been located in media and performance art and best described as an ecology of the carbon body, narrative, and physical world. Her current research interest investigate the multiple interpretations and values concerning the human 2.0 as regenerative existence, and human 3.0 as an emerging noosphere. Natasha's research addresses NBIC (nanoscience, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science) as tools for regenerative existence, and human rights as an ethical means for augmenting the mind and body.
Natasha has been published in Nanotechnology Perceptions, Vol.2, Technoetic Arts, Vol. 5.3, Annual Workshop on Geoethical Nanotechnology, Death And Anti-Death Vol. 2, Cryonics, Vol. 22.1, and Extropy, Vol. 17. She has received international recognition for human 2.0 “Primo Posthuman,” and has been featured in Wired, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Net Business, Teleopolis, and Village Voice. She has appeared in more than a dozen televised documentaries on the aesthetics of the man/machine interface, and has exhibited at Brooks Memorial Museum, London Contemporary Museum, Women In Video, Telluride Film Festival, and United States Film Festival.
From 2001 to 2006, Natasha was President of Extropy Institute, a futures think-tank. She continues as Director of Transhumanist Arts & Culture, and currently is an advisor to several non-profit organizations including Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, the LifeBoat Foundation, and Alcor Foundation, and is a senior associate at the Foresight Nanotech Institute. Natasha has been a consultant to IBM on the future of human performance, and in the public sector she lectures on social change and humanity's future.

ABSTRACT In The future of Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin suggests that we look toward the future to seek "something quite new that lays ahead for all humanity. In doing so, "we should know what course to steer." Selecting what course to steer is the challenge.
In recent years, challenging developments in science and technology have given rise to research and theory concerning future humans—meaning new minds, bodies, and identities. This meaning touches on augmenting, extending, and regenerating life in biological, synthetic and cybernetic forms. This meaning reaches past, but not completely beyond, theories based in man-machine entity and disembodied agency.
To meet some of the challenges of these impending developments, theoretical explorations in feminist literature, rhetorical and cultural studies, philosophy, anthropology, and consciousness studies, for example, render inter-related and inter-dependent inquiry. These ideas cross over into the arts as artists are also investigating challenges brought about by possible future humans and, thus, issues concerning identity and self.
Such inquiry can offer diversity in knowledge by which experts can better assess possibilities for future humans. Because it is unknown what the behavior will be over time for any species in a transitional stage, especially when such transition is an organized effort at a time when technological exponential acceleration applies, inquiry into future bodies and identities becomes challenging.
In my talk, I suggest that the future human is a transitional stage reflecting new bodies and identities. Herein, the future human does include elements of cyborg and disembodiment; however, its nature or disposition emphasizes regenerative existence as a primary aim and the construction of its mass, or body, whether semi-biological or synthetic, as a secondary aim. In light of this, its identity is not differentiated by association with a metal cyborg or disembodied human, but as a synergistic being comprising a fluid continuity of “self” over time.

***

Monica Weiss

BIO Based in New York City and internationally acclaimed Polish-American artist Monika Weiss creates environments that explore the body as cultural and physical signifier, in the context of historical and individual memory. "Much of her work to date is structured as a remarkable, individual counterpoint between technological media (video projection) and the ancient activity of drawing, which is presented in a primal state inseparable from the body as a whole." (Guy Brett, London, 2007). In 2005 the artist's
first partial retrospective exhibition was on view at the Lehman College Art Gallery, The City University of New York, followed by the publication of a monographic survey catalogue and a New York Times review. In 2006-2007 Weiss's works were on view at Kunsthaus Dresden (Germany), North Dakota Museum of Contemporary Art, Grand Forks, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, ArteBA, Buenos Aires (Argentina), The Facto Foundation, Trancoso (Portugal), Instytut Sztuki WYSPA, Gdansk (Poland), and The Drawing Center, New York. Weiss' works are represented in multiple public collections including Museum Albertina, Vienna, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York and Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami. Forthcoming books featuring Weiss's work include "Drawing Now: Between the Lines of Contemporary Art" (Tracey/Loughborough University, I. B.Tauris, UK, 2007). Monika Weiss is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Art History, Washington College.

ABSTRACT Anamnesis (Swiatlo Dnia) was written as an aftermath of a six-day performative installation at the twelfth-century castle in Trancoso, Portugal with the participation of local women and men, mainly farmers. It was written concurrently while working on the editing of the video and the sound, which I filmed and recorded on site (or, as I think of it, layering of images, sounds and different time paths). The text addresses the act of drawing as related to speech, mark, trace, scripture, presence and absence as it elaborates on the notion of gesture across the media and time. The vital connections between the performative act of drawing and the 'desire to mark' since time immemorial and the contemporary virtual and cinematic mediums are crucial to the notion of 'anamnesis' in both the physical installation in real time with performative inhabitation of space and in the virtual and altered memory of that occurrence in the resulting video piece.

***

For abstract submission, program, registration and location email: inforesearchingthefuture07@gmail.com

M-Node NABA, Via Darwin, 20 20143 Milano,

top

back

This web site is licenced by Creative Commons.