Author: janeconway

Blue Grindrod presents The Plurality of Plasma: BioArt as Translation Medium at the Poetic Translations conference: Conversations across the plurality of Arts disciplines in Visual Arts Exhibitions

The Plurality of Plasma: BioArt as Translation Medium
Blue Grindrod

BioArt, or art that takes biological forms and processes as its medium of choice, is increasingly becoming a tool in methods of cultural translation; working to decolonise art practices, biological arts work to translate cultural attitudes through the medium of the body, allowing for increased representations of race, gender and sexuality within a tangible and visceral art form. Arising from religious and historical practices of bodily mark-making and morphological alteration, BioArt found a foothold in popular culture through the literary work of Mary Shelley and H.G. Wells, the filmic traditions of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and in recent years the art of avant-garde enfants terrible Damien Hirst, Orlan and Stelarc.

The aim of this paper is to explore the plurality of biological art practices, both historical and current, as they relate to the translation of cultural values and ideologies through the medium of the human body. Drawing on posthumanist theory, advances in biological technology and feminist and queer discourses, the paper aims to identify the impact and cultural challenges of biological art to
the dominant ideological values of the society in which it has been created, whether this be challenges to existing heteronormative structures regarding gender and sexuality or the questioning of supposed human importance in a world increasingly damaged within the age of the anthropocene. By examining the work of key and diverse figures in the field of BioArt, this paper ultimately aims to identify the ways in which artists making use of biological forms have used the medium to present challenges to culturally inscripted models of behaviour and being prescribed by homogeneous hegemonic power structures, as well as assessing the capability of the forms produced to adequately articulate these challenges as they are translated into a textural and biological product.

South West Creative Technology Network: Interim Report – September 2020

Co-Creating Ethical, Inclusive and Sustainable Futures.

In this Interim report we begin to share our learning and highlight the diversity of impacts that SWCTN has had on building the breadth, connectivity and capacity of the creative technology sector in the South West UK, as well as growing its international reach.

https://www.swctn.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SWCTN-interim-report-compressed.pdf

 

Lecturer Positions in:

Speculative Game Design / 3D Visualisation, Immersion and Simulation / Interaction Design.

Closes: 12/07/2020. Interviews: 29th-3/07/2020.

 

i-DAT is a vibrant open research lab and teaching collective for playful experimentation with creative technology in the School of Art, Design and Architecture, situated within the Faculty of Arts,  Humanities and Business. It delivers programmes of study at both undergraduate and postgraduate level such as BA/BSc (Hons) Digital Media Design, BA (Hons) Game Arts and Design and BA (Hons) Virtual Reality Design.

These programmes embed the production of digital media and design within a framework of creative and experimental artistic practice. They have a rich interaction with MRes Digital Art and Technology and MA Game Design, and a substantial and established PhD community.

They also have strong international connections with the Game Arts Design programme being delivered as a 3+1 at Nanjing University of the Arts and CODEX, an international PGR network. You will be based at the Plymouth campus and would be expected to contribute to this TNE activity.

Three positions are available:

 

 

The University is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive community – a place where we can all be ourselves and succeed on merit. We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums, campus facilities and services to support staff from different backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from women, black and minority ethnic people who are under-represented in this area within University of Plymouth.

Please demonstrate how you meet the essential criteria outlined in the knowledge, qualifications, training and experience elements of the job description in your supporting statement.

Please include a PDF portfolio of practice with your application or a link to your personal website.

For an informal discussion to find out more about the role then please contact Andrew Prior by email andrew.prior@plymouth.ac.uk or the School of Art, Design and Architecture by telephone on +441752585150

 

 

 

Sloth-bots (http://arch-os.com/projects/slothbot/) feature in Kristian Kloeckl’s new book The Urban Improvise
Improvisation-Based Design for Hybrid Cities.

 

 

The Urban Improvise
Improvisation-Based Design for Hybrid Cities

urbanimprovise.com

Published by Yale University Press. A book for architects, designers, planners, and urbanites that explores how cities can embrace improvisation to enhance urban life.

The built environment in today’s hybrid cities is changing radically. The pervasiveness of networked mobile and embedded devices has transformed a predominantly stable background for human activity into spaces that have a more fluid behavior. Based on their capability to sense, compute, and act in real time, urban spaces have the potential to go beyond planned behaviors and, instead, change and adapt dynamically.

These interactions resemble improvisation in the performing arts, and this book offers a new improvisation-based framework for thinking about future cities. Kristian Kloeckl moves beyond the smart city concept by unlocking performativity, and specifically improvisation, as a new design approach and explores how city lights, buses, plazas, and other urban environments are capable of behavior beyond scripts.

Drawing on research of digital cities and design theory, he makes improvisation useful and applicable to the condition of today’s technology-imbued cities and proposes a new future for responsive urban design.

 

Reviews

[testimonial name=”Michael Batty, author of Inventing Future Cities, The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, UK” target=”blank” border=”yes”]“In the headlong rush towards a digital world, we are in danger of losing the emotions of living in cities. In this essential book, Kristian Kloeckl suggests that the way we improvise has an even more significant role in the cities of the future.”[/testimonial] [testimonial name=”Malcolm McCullough, author of Downtime on the Microgrid Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, USA” target=”blank” border=”yes”]“If your city seems overscripted lately, take time for Kristian Kloeckl on open systems for agile citizens. Concise, enjoyable, and deeply researched, The Urban Improvise could be the best urban technology book to read this year.”[/testimonial] [testimonial name=”Mike Phillips, School of Art, Design and Architecture, i-DAT Research Group, University of Plymouth, UK” target=”blank” border=”yes”]“Kloeckl’s insights are original, credible, and eminently useful. This innovative book unlocks performativity as a design approach, making it applicable to the smart hybrid city. This is an important and novel twist to the rapidly fossilising rhetoric around the smart city. It offers a new fresh lens for understanding the implications of technologies that are seeping into the normal everyday.”[/testimonial] [testimonial name=”Mark Shepard, editor of Sentient City: Ubiquitous Computing, Architecture, and the Future of Urban Space, Department of Architecture, University at Buffalo, USA” target=”blank” border=”yes”]“Kloeckl’s thoughtful application of concepts from improvisation in the performing arts to the design of urban interactions in the hybrid city offers a vital alternative to the techno-centric approach of the smart city evangelist.”[/testimonial]

 

The Author

Kristian Kloeckl is a designer and associate professor at Northeastern University’s School of Architecture and Department of Art + Design where he heads the graduate program in Experience Design. Prior to that, he was a faculty member at the University IUAV of Venice and a research scientist at MIT, leading the Real Time City Group at Senseable City Lab, and establishing the lab’s research unit in Singapore. Kloeckl’s work probes the boundaries of interaction design in the context of today’s hybrid cities and investigates the role of improvisational frameworks for design. His work has been exhibited at venues such as Venice Biennale, MoMA, Vienna MAK, Singapore Art Museum. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences such as Montreal World Design Summit, Hybrid City Conference, MIT Platform Strategy Executive Symposium, World Bank SDN Forum, Red Dot Design Museum Singapore, Austrian Innovation Forum, ICA Conference Taipei, eGov Global Exchange Singapore.

 

i-DAT’s B Aga awarded a SWCTN Prototype Grant: Immersive Histories: Decoding Complexity

 

LOOKING FOR THE CLOUD

The prototype Looking for the Cloud will explore sustainability and diversity in our current and future relationships with new technologies – particularly automation and machine learning. Looking for the Cloud will be delivered in collaboration with The Eden Project and manifest as a prototype book, augmented with a proof-of-concept chatbot. The aim of the project will be to raise awareness and enable conversation around the environmental impact of Cloud computing platforms powering advances in machine learning. This prototype will be the first test project of the Re+ Collective – a new female-led collective supporting women to experiment and work with creative technology.

 

 

AUTOMATION PROTOTYPES:

We are looking to invest in prototypes that use creative technologies to deliver original immersive processes, experiences, products or services. The making phase will run through April, May, June with showcasing at the end of June 2019. We anticipate awarding grants of between £20k and £40k.

 

 

DATA PLAY #10:

DATA Play 10
Past, Present and Future

Rolle Marquee, University of Plymouth

Friday 1 November 2019
9.30am to 4.30pm

DATA Play 10 is coming soon and we want you to get involved!

We’re excited to be running another DATA Play day on the 1 November 2019. Once again we will be working with local talent and tech companies to explore how open data and technology can be used to help the Council deliver services in new ways. Impact Lab and the Police Stop and Search department will also be joining us to see if our DATA Play community can help with their challenges.

DATA Play is about working with local talent and tech companies to explore how open data and technology can be used to help us deliver services in new ways. Visit the DATA Play page to see what’s happened at previous DATA Play days.

You can play as a team, meet people on the day or experiment on your own – whatever works for you! It’s free to join, so whatever you’re good at – coding, analysis, mapping, graphics, thinking – come along and join in the fun!

http://www.dataplymouth.co.uk/data-play-10?helm_rd=1

Challenges

Natural Infrastructure

Help us create Parks for the future: parks that celebrate nature and biodiversity; parks that deliver healthy environments for people; parks that are fit to adapt to climate change and parks that celebrate Plymouth’s local history and character.
Come and share your ideas for how technology can help us do this. We hope to be able to award funding to some of the best ideas with practical applications.

Some of our challenges/ideas. Feel free to expand and develop these, or come up with your own:

• Digital noticeboards to tell people what is going on.
• Maps you can ask questions of.
• Ways to capture data in the park such as air quality/bird/people movements and share it meaningfully and creatively to influence use and maintenance of the park.
• We are planting an arboretum for the future at Central Park – can you help us show the public what it will look like in 50/100 years’ time?
• How we can use mapping/GIS data (linked with smartphones) to interpret historical, wildlife and other features of interest around the Hoe?

Devon and Cornwall Police

We want to use this Event to find new ways of improving the way we use Stop & Search powers which reduces crime whilst maintaining public confidence.

• We want ideas about how we can use this data and visualise it in ways that help people see what is being delivered, how and where.
• We want to present data in a way that engages people across the city, whilst presenting some of the key facts and messages around Stop & Search.
• We want to use data to help us communicate with the right people, in a way that encourages them to talk back.
• We want to know what data can tell us about which communities and demographics are most affected by the use of Stop & Search powers.
• We want to find connections between those affected by Stop & Search and other services they may use in the city. This will allow us to shape our prevention work within our communities and build confidence with those who may experience Stop & Search.

Data Sense

How come, with the not inconsiderable investment in environmental data science and climate change modelling, we are so surprised by the Climate Emergency? For all our data literacy, our ability to ‘feel’ data is a missing ingredient in our ability to change our behaviour.

As Allegra Fuller Snyder suggests “Literacy creates distance”, how can we dive into data meaning using human data narratives, game play and storytelling to ensure things are felt a little closer to home, rather than somewhere far away? Its not just about numbers, what playful strategies can be developed to give data meaning.

Behaviourables and Futurables

Many of our challenges are about enabling people to change behaviours. By looking at our past behaviours we should be able to understand why we are behaving so badly now, and possibly imagine our potential futures.
Behaviourables and Futurables anticipate design strategies for visualising and modelling urban and rural activity, drawing on a variety of data sets (environmental, civic and financial) to build models of the past, present and potential futures.

“We are very much concerned with generating futuribles – maybe that’s because the more we can dream up alternative futures the more changeable the present can become.”

Roy Ascott, BEHAVIOURABLES AND FUTURIBLES. Control, London, 1970, Nº 5

• How can we understand complex human behaviour by exploring the entanglement of multiple data sources?
• Are there things we can wear, share and show that reveal the complex interplay of reveal our complicity in our shared behaviours?