Update: Eric Gordon on ROROTOKO >>

The Urban Spectator: American Concept-Cities from Kodak to Google by Eric Gordon:

The Urban Spectator is a lively and utterly fascinating exploration of the ways in which technologies have influenced our collective conception of the American city, as well as our relationship with urban space and architecture. Eric Gordon argues that the city, developing late and in conjunction with a range of modern media, produced a particular way of seeing — what he labels “possessive spectatorship.” Continue reading

The 2010 Comparative Literature Symposium: Longing in the Age of New Media :: February 19, 2010; 10:00 am - 4:00 pm :: University of Southern California, Social Sciences Building, B40, Los Angeles, CA.

In the current age of new media, various fields of study are experiencing a literal vanishing of the very materials that have traditionally defined them. With this disappearance of the physical material, how has our perception and interaction with the new medium altered? Does the end of the age of mechanical reproduction lead to a resurgence of the aura in older media? Is this the result of nostalgia for the tactile or other sensory experiences that no longer act together in the same way? How does the designation of spectral / material change across different media? Continue reading

Center for Contemporary & Digital Performance Research Seminar Series presents Surfing Disciplines: From Antonin Artaud to neuroplastic arts? by Gordana Novakovic :: February 10, 2010; 2:00 pm (GMT) :: Drama Studio Gaskell Bld. 048, School of Arts, Brunel University, Uxbridge/West London, Cleveland Road + webcast at dance tech net TV.

The digital revolution is changing the nature of our perceptual processes, and this in turn is changing our conscious experience of the physical world, inducing changes in cognition on a scale that is still unknown. As inhabitants of the modern city we are in constant interaction, both active and passive, with digital technology. These facts concern all of us in different ways, but from my own perspective I want to ask: how does all this affect the artist? Continue reading

Turbulence Commission: FUJI spaces and other places by Nurit Bar-Shai:

Appropriating, processing, and interweaving several existing webcam feeds of Mount Fuji, FUJI is a durational piece for four seasons. FUJI examines the authenticity of networked, spatiotemporal experiences of distant nature, sacred sites, and sacred icons. The overwhelming immediacy and delirious variety of live broadcasts available via the Internet, as well as the current incitement to communicate with distant but real subjects alter our experience of space which is invariably mediated through images. In FUJI, the gap between the real place and its representation no longer exists. FUJI is a voyage across deep time, experienced minute by minute, day by day — a longing for a place that could never be, yet, evidently, always is. Continue reading

Aesthetic Journalism: How to Inform Without Informing by Alfredo Cramerotti: Addressing a growing area of focus in contemporary art, Aesthetic Journalism investigates why contemporary art exhibitions often consist of interviews, documentaries, and reportage. Art theorist and critic Alfredo Cramerotti traces the shift in the production of truth from the domain of the news media to that of art and aestheticism – a change that questions the very foundations of journalism and the nature of art. This volume challenges the way we understand art and journalism in contemporary culture and suggests future developments of this new relationship.

Writer, curator, artist and consultant for the creative sector, Alfredo Cramerotti works with a variety of media such as TV, radio, publishing, art exhibitions, festivals and curation. Continue reading

DarkMatr :: December 17-19, 2009; 2:00 - 7:00 pm :: Opening: December 16; 6:00 -9:00 pm :: iMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, 30 quai des Charbonnages, 1080 Brussels.

After 2 residencies at iMAL and one year of work, Tom Heene and his colleagues artists, developers and scientists show the results of the research project DarkMatr. DarkMatr investigates the way virtual and physical data can be merged and presented in a total user experience. The resulting installation uses meaningful representations of web data so that we can empathize with. Taking place within an immersive environment, the visualization is lived as an interactive sensory experience, combining body movements to elements from the internet. Continue reading

RTests: Will Pappenheimer :: November 5 - 21, 2009 :: Opening Reception: November 5; 2:00 - 5:00 pm :: Choate Gallery, Choate Gallery House, Pace University, 861 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, New York.

RTests by artist and Pace Professor, Will Pappenheimer, refers to a selection of his artworks which feature processes resembling or following Herman Rorschach’s Psychodiagnostic directives for the inkblot tests. Using the media of online networks, communications and data exchange, a system or participatory call is set out to test the psychological conditions of a situation. The testing ground includes the intersection of virtual and physical. Continue reading

Agency Reconsidered by Noah Wardrip-Fruin Noah, Michael Mateas, Steven Dow, Serdar Sali [September 2009 Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory]:

The concept of “agency” in games and other playable media (also referred to as “intention”) has been discussed as a player experience and a structural property of works. We shift focus, considering agency, instead, as a phenomenon involving both player and game, one that occurs when the actions players desire are among those they can take (and vice versa) as supported by an underlying computational model. Continue reading

Thierry Fournier: Un geste qui ne finit pas (A Never Ending Gesture) :: October 10 - November 16, 2009 :: lux Scène nationale de Valence, 36 bd du Général de Gaulle, 26000 Valence, France.

By exploring figures of trace, appearance and disappearance, Thierry Fournier’s works challenge presence and otherness, by way of spaces and the time-frames they introduce. Whether they take the form of visual or sound projects, interactive installations or performances, they usually develop within the perceptible - even physical - experience which they propose to their spectators.

‘Experiencing present time, but, even more so, trying to formulate what it is, is like wanting to catch a fish in the water of a river with your bare hands. Continue reading

The Symbolic Efficiency of the Frame @ T.I.C.A.B – Tirana International Contemporary Art Biannual :: September 18 - October 22, 2009 :: Tirana, Albania.

Borrowing on the notion of The Symbolic Efficiency of the Frame, this edition of T.I.C.A.B will contribute to the exploration of the complex nature and appearance of “reality”. Independently of perspective or methodology employed — be it scientific, aesthetic, or philosophical — what interest us are the gaps that manifest themselves in this constantly shifting process of perception. Continue reading