News

Wednesday 01/11/2017:
The History and Development of Virtual Reality Art in China.
Professor Sheng Jin, Nanjing University of the Arts, China.
Room 209, Roland Levinsky Building, Drakes Circus, PL48AA.
Limited seating available so please email stavros.didakis@plymouth.ac.uk if you would like to attend.
 
We are honoured to present Professor Sheng Jin from Nanjing University of the Arts, China to present his talk entitled: The History and Development of Virtual Reality Art in China. The presentation builds on the collaboration between i-DAT and Nanjing University of the Arts on the development of the BA (Hons) Game Arts and Design programme.

The Overview: Leonardo 50^th Anniversary Celebration.

With, amongst others, Roy Ascott, Nina Czegledy, Sue Denham, Eduardo Miranda, Michael Punt & Roger Malina.
Balance Unbalance 2017 is delighted to be hosting the ‘Overview’, a 50^th Anniversary Celebration of Leonardo. The Overview celebrates Leonardo’s impact by providing a transdisciplinary change of perspective on the world. The Overview is synergetic with BunB 2017’s theme: “A Sense of Place” and confronts the transcalar – the macro, messo and micro understanding of our ecologies. The Leonardo Overview Panel will take place on the 22 August. The Overview is supported by the Eden Project [www.edenproject.com] The afternoon of Tuesday 22 of August 2017.
Room 212 Roland Levinsky Building.
https://www.leonardo.info/50th-anniversary

A New Book by LEA Cloud and Molecular Aesthetics published on the new platform Contemporary Art and Cultures. Thanks to OCR, The MIT Press, andMIT Media Lab. The volume –https://www.pubpub.org/cac/page/cloud-and-molecular-aesthetics – is edited by Lanfranco Aceti, Paul Thomas, and Edward Colless.
Cloud and Molecular Aesthetics is an open access book by Leonardo Electronic Almanac edited by Lanfranco Aceti, Paul Thomas, and Edward Colless. It is published by MIT Press with the support of Operational and Curatorial Research (OCR) and Goldsmiths, University of London.

The Balance-Unbalance Data Visualisation DATA Play event is a collaboration with Plymouth City Council and TheData.Place collaborating organisations. It is the seventh event in the DATA Play series of data-hackathons which feed off Plymouth’s open data as a resource being developed over the period of more than a year to support the development of Plymouth’s digital economy and provide a resource for all of Plymouth’s communities to find, publish and use data.
 

Brilliant documentary about Donald, mentioning Autoicon and Psalms.
“Sonia Boyce views current interest in black British art through the life of Donald Rodney, the work he left behind, his fellow artists, friends and family, and Auto Icon – a digital version of himself.
Donald Rodney often talked of a clock ticking. A sufferer of sickle cell disease, he had a life expectancy of only 36 years. He died in 1998 after packing a furious amount into a short life. Part of the BLK art group and a new wave of Black British Artists out of the art schools, his work was political, challenging, innovative and smart.

Sonia, who knew Rodney well, unearths the creative, the personal and the political in what is often an emotional journey into her friend and fellow artist’s life. Before he died, Donald started work on Auto Icon, an early digital life that enables a virtual conversation with Donald through diary notes, images and sound bites. Although the 1990’s technology can now be rather awkward, it offers snatched glimpses into the work, the artist and his collaborators.

Sonia visits Donald Rodney’s family, still in Smethwick where they experienced an openly racist election campaign in the 1960s, followed by a visit to this ‘racial hotbed’ from Malcolm X. She interviews Donald’s family, for the first time, about his art and meets those who are now reviving, collecting and exhibiting his work, and discovers why there’s renewed interest in him and his contemporaries in today’s political climate. Sonia asks what kind of work Donald might be making now, in the age of social media, post-truth, and division, and how the work he’s left behind speaks to us now.

Producer: Michael Clifford
An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4.”

New positions available in i-DAT, School of Art, Design and Architecture
Plymouth University.
Closing date: 7 June 2017.
Digital Media Design:
Associate Professor in Digital Design Media
Lecturer in Digital Media Design
Game Art & Design:
.5 Lecturer in Game Art & Design
 
To support i-DAT research and teaching activities in:
BA/BSc (Hons) Digital Media Design.
BA(Hons) Game Art & Design.
BA/BSc (Hons) Internet Design
MRes/ResM Digital Art & Technology

i-DAT and Tate at Technarte 2017 Bilbao.
This is Where We Are- Collaborating with Algorithms 
‘This Is Where We Are’ (TIWWA) was an immersive and interactive algorithmic sculpture fuelled by the data we collectively generate, created by i-DAT working with Tate Collective London and Intercity for the opening of the new Tate Modern building. London, UK, on the 17 – 19 June 2016. This technological fusion of interactive light and sound asks audiences to consider the data they generate and the algorithms that increasingly influence their behaviour through offering a glimpse into a future where we work rest and play with and through algorithms. The event saw 197,000 people interact with TIWWA through direct contact with its mediated surfaces and through online real-time interactions through social media and the TIWWA AI chatbot.
Birgitte Aga, Mike Phillips & Rebecca Sinker (Tate)
http://www.technarte.org/speakers/birgitte-aga/
Technarte 2017 Photo Album
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/SYQTER7-c0c” width=”1600″ height=”1600″]  

The first prototyping workshop of the newly formed PGR VR/IVT Research Group is documented here:

VR-IVT Research Group

The VR/IVT Research Group is supported by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, School of Art, Design and Architecture Postgraduate Research Fund. The Project involves PGR students from i-DAT, Planetary Collegium and CogNovo:

• Coral Manton (i-DAT)
• Luke Christison (i-DAT),
• Isabella Beyer (Planetary Collegium),
• Michael Straeubig (CogNovo).

Venice Agendas 2017: The Contract

When: 3 May 2017, 6:00 PM – 26 May 2017, 5:00 PM

Where:DACS, 33 Old Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 6AA

Launching the programme of events for 

Venice Agendas 2017:

The Contract exhibition brings together artworks that explore the idea of the contract from different perspectives: the contract between artist and audience, artist and institution, nation states, and the individual and society at large.

The exhibition includes artworks by 

Keith Arnatt / Hollis Frampton / Hew Locke / Donald Rodney / Monica Ross / Carey Young

and is curated by Gilane Tawadros.

At a time of significant social and political turbulence in the world, the obligations – explicit or implied – which we have towards each other are being called into question, re-negotiated and re-written.

The Contract presents works that challenge the contractual agreements which we take for granted, recalls others which we need to remember, and provokes discussion about the nature of our obligations.

Press release for The Contract

About Venice Agendas

Venice Agendas was developed by Bill Furlong and Mel Gooding and has featured at every Venice Biennial since 1999. Since 2011, workinprogress (Clare Fitzpatrick and Terry Smith) has continued the series of topical, intelligent and informative discussions, talks, debates and events. Mel and Bill along with Vittorio Urbani of Nuova Icona continue to support and mentor the project.

Venice Agendas 2017: The Contract is produced by workinprogress in collaboration with DACS, theartistsagency, Turner Contemporary, SHAPE Arts, the Creative Foundation and Nuova Icona. The media partners are FAD Magazine and Clocktower Radio NY. The project is financially supported by the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust and The National Lottery through Arts Council England.

London: 4 – 26 May
Venice: 10 – 12 May
Margate: 17 June
Folkestone: 23 September

Mike Phillips talks about his collaborations with the artist Donald Rodney (Visceral Canker, Pslams and Autoicon) at EMBODIMENT, AUGMENTATION AND REMIXING. DONALD RODNEY: THE REIMAGING LAB
30 MARCH 2017, 13.00-17.00
The Donald Rodney Lab is presented by Vivid Projects with the Digital Humanities Hub, University of Birmingham. Supported by The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and University of Birmingham.