Leonardo_Net weblog

The 2nd Leonardo Network workshop “Touchpoints” will be hosted by FACT & Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool, 19th May 2005

Dear colleague,
You are invited to the second workshop of the EPSRC-funded Leonardo network entitled ‘Touchpoints’. The workshop will be held on 19th May at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in Liverpool in association with Liverpool John Moores University and hosted by Wibke Hott and David England.

At this workshop we want to begin the process of identifying opportunities for research collaboration between network members, and to allow people to form groups (‘Cells’) to bid for Leonardo funds to support the development of up to five artworks. All LeonardoNet members are encouraged to take part but places are limited so book early, we may have to limit numbers to 4 representatives per node.

Will node leaders please ensure that anyone at their nodes interested in Leonardo has received this call.
For more information about the artwork projects see other documents on this weblog.

Costs of room hire, lunch and refreshments will be met by the network, but participants will have to pay for their own transport and accommodation as required.

If you would like to attend, please email me (peter.wright@cs.york.ac.uk) AS SOON AS POSSIBLE and further details will be provided.

For those arriving on the evening before the workshop, I will organise somewhere to go for dinner.

Peter Wright

Sent to the HCI-Lit mailing list by Olav W. Bertelsen, here is another event of interest. Note the deadline is imminent for submissions.

CRITICAL COMPUTING — Between Sense and Sensibility

The Fourth Decennial Aarhus Conference,
Aarhus, Denmark, 21-25 August 2005

http://www.aarhus2005.org

New full paper deadline: 18 April 2005 ========================================================

OUR ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION SYSTEM IS OPEN

Continuing the tradition from the conferences in 1975, 1985 and 1995, it is the aim of the fourth Aarhus conference to provide a forum for the exploration and development of new perspectives for critical computing.

As information technology reaches out from the workplace to virtually all aspects of human life, the scope of critical IT research expands from a focus on designing computer support for quality of working life to new frontiers. These frontiers include the home, leisure time, citizen services, public spaces as well as the workplace. We face new challenges for technology support and new pitfalls regarding the ways in which people sense and form meaningful environments.

Critical Computing is a multi-disciplinary conference in participatory design, interaction design, CSCW, social computing, digital art and entertainment addressed from a variety of disciplines like computer science, sociology, psychology, ethnography, architecture, and aesthetics.

Submission deadlines:
Full papers, Panels, Workshops: April 18, 2005
Short Paper, Demonstrations, Doctoral Colloquium: June 12, 2005

More details at: http://www.aarhus2005.org.

Saoirse Higgins asked me to post this where everyone could see it, because, as she rightly says, it’s relevant.

Educating the Innovator: Interdisciplinary Education across Science and Art

19th /20th April: Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow

http://www.cca-glasgow.com

A Glasgow School of Art, Digital Design Studio/CCA event.

Sponsored by NESTA and Scottish Enterprise.

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“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein

A daylong event to discuss and explore the issues surrounding the notion of interdisciplinary art and science education.

Invited scientists, artists and designers contribute their views, talk about their work and give us an insight into how they were inspired to pursue their current field.

Booking through the CCA office – £1 booking fee. t: 0141 352 4900

19th April
Venue: CCA 4

9.30 – 10.00am Registration-coffee/tea
10.00 -10.15am Saoirse Higgins, Digital Design Studio, Glasgow School of Art.
(B.Des Ind. Design, M.A (RCA) Interactive media, M.Sc Media Art and Sciences MIT)
and Paul Miller, Digital Design Studio, Glasgow School of Art
(B.A Computing and A.I, PhD biological and computational motor control)
Introduction to the day
10.15 -10.45am Stephen Draper, Senior Lecturer Psychology, Glasgow University
(B.Sc Physics. M.Sc Computer Science, PhD A.I)
‘Art and science; pure and applied’
10.45 – 11.15am Richard Brown (Richard is on the EPIS entrepreneurial scheme hosted at Edinburgh University, Scotland; B. Sc in Computers & Cybernetics, M.A Fine Art)
‘Art as experimental science – creativity, innovation and wonder’
11.15 – 11.45am Louise Valentine, Acting Course Director, Master of Design, University of Dundee.
(B.A Product Design, PhD Rhetoric in design)
‘The Language of Interdisciplinary teams’
11.45 – 12.15pm Jussi Angesleva, Assistant professor, University of Arts, Berlin,
(Senior concept designer ART+COM, Berlin; M.A Audio Visual media culture, M.A (RCA) Interaction Design)
‘Design, Technology and the Tower of Babel’
12.15 – 1.30pm lunch
1.30pm- 2.00pm Amanda Parkes, PhD candidate Tangible Media Group, Media lab MIT.
(B.Sc Engineering product design, B.A Art History, M.Sc media Arts and Sciences MIT)
‘Kinetics and kinesthesia: education through experience’
2.00pm – 2.30pm Jon Rogers, Lecturer Innovative Product Design – an interdisciplinary course between engineering and design, University of Dundee.
(PhD neural computation/visual perception)
‘Stealth Learning’
2.30pm – 3.00pm Susan Stuart, Senior lecturer in Philosophy, Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute, University of Glasgow.
(B. A Philosophy, M. A Philosophy of Language and Kant, PhD AI)
‘Philosophy: the rules for everyone’s game’
3.00pm – 3.30pm break – tea/coffee
3.30pm – 4.00pm Carol Strohecker, Formerly Senior Research Scientist, Media Lab Europe Director, Everyday Learning research group.
(M.Sc MIT, PhD Media arts and Sciences, MIT)
‘Constructive uses of computational technologies can naturally combine arts and sciences while providing a pluralistic learning model for higher education’
4.00pm– 4.30pm John Gerrard, Digital media artist + artist in resident at Ars Electronica Futurelab
(B. A Fine Art, M. A Fine Art, M.Sc Multimedia Systems)
‘The New Studio: Art, Technology and Developing Models of Collaboration’
4.30pm– 5.00pm Dr. Linda Doyle, Lecturer, Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland.
(Leader Network & Telecommunications Research Group (NTRG) and Disruptive Design Team (DDT); strand leader SFI funded Centre for Telecommunications Value-chain driven Research; B. Sc Electrical Engineering, University College Cork, M.Sc Ph.D Trinity College Dublin)
‘Engineering Art: creating the perfect feedback loop’
5.00pm – 5.30pm Anna Hill, Digital media space artist and Director, Space Synapse Ltd.
(B.A Fine Art, M.A (RCA) Fine Art)
‘Communicating with space; the reincarnation of remote experiences into the social domain’
5.30pm – 5.45pm wrap up

6.00pm – 7.00pm reception in the Café
Music by Art – Science – Sound
Martin Naef (a.k.a. Navisto – www.navisto.ch) and Gert van Santen (from Wave World fame – www.waveworld.tv) will lay the electronic ambient foundation for the after-event reception, with Ilona Kocsis adding the human touch through her eclectic flute playing. Sequenced synths, spacy percussion, and a good dose of live playing – don’t miss this exclusive, one-off event at the CCA!

20th April- Day 2:
Venue: conference room CCA

10.30am – 12.30pm Round table discussion with speakers and invited guests on
‘ Interdisciplinary Education across Science and Art’
Chaired by Dr. Paul Miller
Breakfast will be provided.
12.30pm – 12.45pm wrap up

For more event information contact Saoirse Higgins or Paul Miller: artsci@gsa.ac.uk

Only Shaleph O’Neill at Napier was brave enough to attempt to answer the two questions I posed to kickstart a discussion on the Leonardo-Net list about the issues raised at the first workshop. His response was worth putting somewhere less ephemeral than email, especially as it makes recommendations for the next workshop. Should anyone now feel inspired to take on his points, please use the comment facility.

1.what is art?

The problem with this question is that nearly the whole of 20th century art practice was centered around it, in that the pre-conceptions of what art is i.e. established traditions became challenged and subsequently over run to the point where what was considered to be art was the very nature of challenging what ever ideas about art that had gone before. So challenging preconceived ideas about art is still very central to art practice. Similarly there is the role of the artist as shaman or outsider, whose place in the culture in which s/he lives is to reflect on the culture that surrounds her. I think this notion of reflective practice is central to what we are exploring here.

I think, and people may disagree with me here, that the kind of computer technology we are dealing with here represents a new medium for artist/ performers. The BIG problem as I see it is that only people who have particular skill sets know how to make things with them. Artists engage with their materials bringing ideas to it and deriving ideas from it in a playful reflective way. I think sometimes it is difficult for artists to engage in this way with such new media (particularly media that requires a lot of coding, perhaps).

2. What kind of collaboration could we artistically produce?

For us what our art is will be determined by our engagement with the material. Therefore I would strongly propose having perhaps one workshop (maybe even the next one, be good to do this early so we can reflect on it) that is based around some kind of system as material. This would have to take place in a media lab that has interesting existing equipment/resources. I think the motion capture equipment is a really interesting avenue to pursue. Some of the themes I remember coming out were about space, place, performance and embodiment. In just about all the art that I can think of the body is central to either its production or the forms of its representation. Starting with the body and its relationship to these new technologised spaces I think is a very interesting idea.

It would be good to have some equipment available with some experts who know how to manipulate it, quickly. We could work collaboratively during a workshop conducting artistic experiments (trying things out and reflecting on them). This would be an interesting exercise for everyone. It would also be an excellent opportunity to document what goes on during this process. Much of this documentation will undoubtedly feed into our creative processes also providing material for others within the group to produce other art works.