Roy Ascott wins at Prix Ars Electronica 2014

Roy Ascott wins at Prix Ars Electronica 2014

It’s official. Professor Roy Ascott is a national – and an international – treasure.
One of his seminal pieces, Video-Roget has become part of the Tate Gallery Permanent Collection, where it will sit alongside works by the most celebrated British artists of the past 500 years.
Plus he won the Golden Nica award as a Visionary Pioneer of Media Art at the esteemed international competition for cyber-arts, the Prix Ars Electronica 2014, “the world’s oldest and most renowned competition in media art”.
Roy, Professor of Technoetic Arts in Plymouth University’s School of Art and Media, and founding president of the Planetary Collegium based here, has been at the forefront of the digital art movement for more than five decades.

“Familiar Strangers”: Artist Residency Lee Nutbean

“Familiar Strangers”: Artist Residency Lee Nutbean

 
6th – 15th June 2014
Open 11am-6pm
KARST: 22 George Pl, Plymouth, PL1 3NY
http://www.karst-projects.org/
http://greaterthanone.i-dat.org/
You are invited to visit the Karst Artist Residency with Lee Nutbean in partnership with i-DAT from the 6 June – 15 June, culminating in the final presentation of his work on Sunday the 15th from 3pm – 7pm, followed by the closing party for the FAX exhibition at 7pm.

“Familiar stranger:
an individual who is recognized from regular activities, but with whom one does not interact “ (Milgram, 1972)
For this artist residency at KARST: Plymouth, interactive artist and researcher Lee Nutbean will be exploring this notion of ‘familiar strangers’ coined by Stanley Milgram in his 1972 ‘Familiar Stranger Study’. He will develop a wireless shape shifting network to elicit real time pattern and proximity data from the ‘familiar strangers’ we encounter on a daily basis. The network will facilitate adHoc opportunistic assembly and clustering by both hardware and software configurations, and provide a networked ecology to harvest, aggregate and disaggregate realtime geospatial data.
The networked ecology will act as a platform, and the correlated material will be processed to explore the use of provocative prototypes to create new meaningful sensory experiences.
Over the residency period a selected ‘provotype’ will be beta tested and refined to create a final output in the form of an electronic interactive installation. The installation will directly interact with members of the public and will create a meaningful insight into this hidden social network in which we are all embedded.
This residency is part of KARST Studio2 Residency Programme that coincides with their current exhibition ‘FAX’, which is a traveling exhibition curated by João Ribas, in collaboration with KARST and co-organised by The Drawing Center, New York, and Independent Curators International (ICI), New York.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Lee Nutbean is an Interactive artist working at the transdisciplinary intersections of art and participation, across academia, research and the creative industries. His work explores the evolution of smart networked technologies through the participatory design of provocative prototypes, that elicit and respond to inspirational data through subversive open-ended environments. These electronic ecologys culturally probe the dynamic networks within and between corporeal and viral spaces to reveal new phenomena that confront, question and push new digital practices to innovate and inspire public engagement.
 
 
ABOUT FAX
KARST: Plymouth
15th May – 15th June 2014
Exhibition open Thurs – Sun 11-6pm
CLOSING EVENT : Sunday 15th June 5-7pm
ARTISTS:
DAVID BLANDY,  PAUL BUCK, GREIG BURGOYNE , HEMAN CHONG, FRED FOREST, JACOB DAHL JURGENSON, MARKO  MÄETAMM,  JACOPO MILIANI,   SLADJAN NEDELJKOVIC, CLUNIE REID, MARTHA ROSLER, JOSEF STRAU, RICHARD WENTWORTH
Guest Curator: João Ribas, in collaboration with KARST and co-organised by The Drawing Center, and Independent Curators International (ICI), New York.

Technology for transmitting printed images and texts dates from the nineteenth century, however it was the introduction of modern fax machines in the 1970s that turned facsimiles into a ubiquitous communications medium.  Although generally used for international business purposes, artists readily exploited its immediate, graphic, and interactive character. The fax has subsequently become it an important part of the history of art, appearing in movements such as Fluxus, and the burgeoning practices of new media artists. But with the fax machine now fast becoming a technology of the past, how do artists see the potential of the fax transmission today?
The first FAX exhibition, held at The Drawing Center in New York, 2009, featured works sent via fax by nearly 100 creative practitioners. Artists, architects, designers, scientists and filmmakers, spanning multiple generations, were invited to transmit works during the exhibition, to a working fax machine in the gallery.  FAX has since toured around the world, and every host institution has invited additional participants.  The pieces received during each showing have steadily expanded the initial core of works, and this cumulative process has created a broad collection from across the globe.
The twentieth showing of FAX takes place at KARST, and a select group of new collaborators have been invited to take part. Faxes will be received in real time in the exhibition space, throughout the duration of the show, and will include drawings and texts, as well as inevitable junk faxes and errors of transmission. The artworks, reflecting ideas such as reproduction, distribution, communication and technological obsolescence, will be permanently added to the ever-accumulating project.
 
LOGOKARST         i-DAT Logo red_Inspire

Heavens Above! BBC Stargazing Live Event.

Heavens Above! BBC Stargazing Live Event.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/thingstodo/activity/heavens-above-2014
Date: Tuesday 7 and Wednesday 8 January
Location: Immersive Vision Theatre and Plymouth Lecture Theatre, Portland Square Block C. Plymouth University, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA. Google Map Location: http://goo.gl/maps/uUSq0
i-DAT in association with Plymouth Astronomical Society is contributing to the BBC Stargazing Live Events Programme, with their Heavens Above! 2014 shows. A series of presentations in the Immersive Vision Theatre (IVT) will fly audiences to the edge of the known universe – and back again. On the Wednesday there will also be lectures, displays and a quiz from the Plymouth Astronomical Society in The Portland Square Building – next to the Immersive Vision Theatre.
Tuesday 7 Jan: Immersive Vision Theatre by i-DAT/Luke ChristisonTickets are free via: http://heavensabove.eventbrite.com

  1. 18:00–18:40
  2. 19:00–19:40

Wednesday 8 Jan: Immersive Vision Theatre by i-DAT/Luke Christison. Tickets are free via: http://heavensabove.eventbrite.com

  1. 18:00–18:20
  2. 18:30–18:50
  3. 19:00–19:20
  4. 19:30–19:50

Wednesday 8 Jan: Plymouth Lecture Theatre, Portland Square Block C by Plymouth Astronomical Society.
No Tickets Required for the PAS Lectures.

  1. 18.00: The Inner Planets, David Wilton
  2. 18.20: Exploring the Sky with Computer Software, Ken Facey
  3. 18.40: Observing the Moon, Charles Spreat
  4. 19.00: The Outer Planets, David Wilton
  5. 19.20: Exploring the Sky with Computer Software, Ken Facey
  6. 19.40: Observing the Moon, Charles Spreat

http://www.plymouthastro.btck.co.uk/StargazingLive2014

Cost: No charges
Special requirements: Due to the limited capacity of the Immersive Vision Theatre you will need to register for a ticket to guarantee a space.
Tickets are free via: http://heavensabove.eventbrite.com
No Tickets Required for the PAS Lectures in the Plymouth Lecture Theatre in Block C Portland Square.
Google Map Location: http://goo.gl/maps/uUSq0

Luke Christison

Luke Christison

Luke is a Research Assistant and Technician for i-DAT and for the Environmental Futures and Big Data Impact Lab. He also operates as a commissioned artist / developer and as an Associate Lecturer for the Digital Media Design course and teaches at the Nanjing University of Arts in China.

With the Impact Lab Luke specialises in 3D interactive data visualisation and science communication, working with SME’s and project partners to develop new tools and products. He is based within i-DAT’s Immersive Vision Theatre, where his research deals predominantly with interactive game technology and fulldome techniques but his interdisciplinary approach has also allowed him to deliver lectures and workshops on cosmology, physical and interactive computing, visual communication, data visualisation, graphic design techniques, animation, film, 3D modelling, projection mapping, VJing, 360 media, virtual and augmented realities.

Jane Grant

Jane Grant

Jane Grant is an artist and academic. Her collaborative has resulted in award winning projects including, The Fragmented Orchestra with John Matthias and Nick Ryan which was winner of the PRSF New Music Award, 2008 and received an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica 2009. The Fragmented Orchestra was exhibited at FACT and 23 sites across the UK. Jane was the PI on an AHRC grant, ‘Threshold, Merging the human voice with neurological time patterns,’. Her recent work includes Soft Moon and Leaving Earth; both films draw upon astrophysics and science fiction.

Her sonic artwork Ghost was premiered at ISEA Istanbul 2011. In this work the temporal, topological networks and pathways of the cortex are explored in conjunction brain hallucination or ‘sonic ghosts’. Plasticity, a collaborative work with John Matthias, Kin and Nick Ryan was recently exhibited at the BFI as part of the onedotzero festival, Google Campus London and HWK, Institute for Advanced Study in Germany. Jane is currently working on Heliosphere, a large-scale project about the ionosphere as the interface between the Earth and the Sun, a multi-screen film, Orbital about the interaction of the atmosphere of the Earth and its influence in looking into space.

Jane runs the NeuroArts conferences with co-director John Matthias, these symposia have taken place at ISEA Istanbul, ISEA Sydney, and Plymouth University. She is leader of two projects including Participatory artistic interaction in a mobile neural field’
in the Marie Curie ITN project ‘CogNovo’, PI Sue Denham, at Plymouth University.
Jane writes about noise, science and art and the mutability of matter.

Jane is Associate Professor (Reader) in Digital Arts at Plymouth University, co-director of the research group art and sound and Principle Supervisor in the Planetary Collegium, CAiiA-Node.

Dawn Melville

Dawn Melville

A creative and multifaceted entrepreneur with particular expertise in generating, testing, developing and turning ideas into business opportunities. With a wide portfolio across digital technology, media, design and research, Dawn has a natural flair for sparking off, bringing together and leading collaborations across industries, cultures and institutions. Dawn currently heads up i-DAT’s commercialisation and organisational management, making meaning and sustainable ventures out of complex interdisciplinary collaborations.

Being one of the first students to graduate from the renowned MediaLab Arts course at Plymouth University (now Digital Art and Technology) she has since worked across a number of sectors with roles that ranged from a sub editor in newspapers to a designer in the theatre before setting up Motiongrafik Ltd in 2000 – a Creative Digital Agency. Whilst running Motiongrafik Dawn set up initiatives to nurture and promote emerging  talent, including Young Motionplymouth – a young person’s film festival and Last Friday – a creatives’ monthly networking event. In 2005 she was given an Enterprising Woman award highlighting her success in business in the creative sector. She was also one of the co-founders of  Indra Congress (previously known as Arrow): an arts and reconciliation organisation working internationally with young people in the world’s trouble spots on creative expression as a tool for peacemaking.

Since 2008 Dawn has worked as entrepreneur, advisor, associate lecturer, board member and consultant across the educational, technology, creative and cultural sectors. She has successfully delivered core competencies such as strategy, bridge-building and relationship management, business conception, investment and development across a diverse portfolio. Integral in all of this is her ability and drive in bringing people together and realising their potential. A skill which Dawn frequently also applies to any two, three of four legged animal she meets, being a renowned and inherent animal lover and fixer.

mob: ++44-07876365210
eml: dawn.m.melville@plymouth.ac.uk

Lindsey Hall

Lindsey Hall

Lindsey Hall is co-founder of RIO, and in charge of Business Development.
Leading on business development across the whole of RIO, Lindsey focuses on helping the organisation’s business units, contract delivery team and research & development lab secure solid business foundations so they have the scope to innovate and grow.
Lindsey’s track record in the public and private sectors as a social entrepreneur, thinker and leader has seen her set up and develop products and services across the creative, learning and education sectors.

From building award-winning programmes in the UK to driving groundbreaking initiatives internationally, Lindsey has the experience and skills at management, board and executive level to steer social business ideas towards success; making money and make a difference at the same time.
Lindsey is a NESTA Cultural Leadership fellow, an INSEAD graduate, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a trustee of Fifteen Cornwall and a board member of RISE.

Mutamorphosis: Tribute to Uncertainty. Prague 6-8/12/12

Mutamorphosis: Tribute to Uncertainty. Prague 6-8/12/12

Mutamorphosis: Tribute to Uncertainty. Prague 6-8/12/12
International conference on mutant futures of arts, sciences, technologies, design and society brings together over 100 presenters from all over the world to share ideas and discuss various projects and initiatives that cut across disciplines in order to challenge emerging technologies and their impact on us. Among the themes, there are “bacterial sublime”, “nomadic citizen science” or “future of art/science education”. Organized by CIANT | International Centre for Art and New Technologies.
 
Nanotechnology: Instability in an Unpredictable Milieu
By Paul Thomas & Edward A. Shanken & Mike Phillips & Frederik De Wilde

Keywords: Nanotechnology; Art; Science; Materiality; Measurement.
 

and :

The End of Things.

Mike Phillips and Gianni Corino.

Abstract:  Just as the ‘thing’ gets its own Internet its significance as a foci of knowledge within a variety of disciplines is dissolving. This dissolution can be clearly seen in microbiology where there has been a steady shift of focus from solitary bacterium to an understanding of quorum-sensing in bacterial communities. At a larger scale, a fly is no longer recognised as a ‘body’ but through an analysis of its DNA and a human more clearly understood as a constituent of a crowd, a demographic or an entry in a National Health Service database. Architecture collapses in importance in the context of the complexity of the urban environment, whether it is the connecting temporal tendrils of traffic flow or an underlying web of a sewage system.

 ‘The End of Things’ explores a set of technologies and processes being developed by i-DAT that offer strategies for understanding these trans-scalar shifts. Framed as ‘Operating Systems’ they embrace social, biological, architectural and ecological data harvesting and manifestation. These OS’s recognise a cultural shift where suddenly a rose by any other name is less significant than the complex temporal.