* will consist of two moderated panel discussions, one on February 8 and the other on March 15. The first will focus on artist-thinkers who work collaboratively with research teams - including scientists - to produce environments and systems that respond to the human presence; it will include Mark Goulthorpe, Susan Kozel and Chris Salter. For the second panel, we have invited artist-thinkers who question and confront the ongoing development of technical objects and work creatively to subvert them, for instance, the ever-enlarging practice of surveillance and data mining. Our guests will be Adam Greenfield, Beatriz da Costa and Brooke Singer (Preemptive Media), and Michelle Teran.
Panel 1 February 8th at 7 p.m. in the Bill Bordy Theatre, 216 Tremont Street. Mark Goulthorpe, Susan Kozel and Chris Salter
Mark Goulthorpe: In 1991, architect Mark Goulthorpe established the dECOi atelier to undertake a series of largely theoretical architectural competitions. Today, dECOi is an established architectural/design practice that takes a fresh, exploratory approach to design. Goulthorpe will discuss his interactive "Aegis Hyposurface" which dynamically mediates events happening inside and outside of buildings. Goulthorpe currently divides his time between the School of Architecture and the Media Lab at MIT.
architecture.mit.edu/people/bg/cvgoulth.html;
www.newitalianblood.com/showg.pl?id=519
Susan Kozel: Susan Kozel is a dancer, choreographer, writer and Associate Professor at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Kozel has a PhD in Philosophy and is co-founder of Mesh Performance Practices. Her research combines a broad range of interactive and responsive systems with performative practices (telematics, motion capture, sensing, wearables). All of her work is about exploring and expanding our physical and creative interface with technology. She will discuss her current project "other stories" which utilizes the Vicon motion capture system. whisper.iat.sfu.ca; www.meshperformance.org/
Chris Salter: Chris Salter is a media artist, director and composer based in Montreal, Canada and Berlin, Germany. He develops and produces large-scale, multi-media and interactive environments that merge space, vision and sound. These environments respond in complex and subtle ways to audience presence and activities. He is also a professor in the Design and computation Department at Concordia University. He will discuss his large scale installation "Suspension/Threshold." www.clsalter.com; www.sponge.org
Panel 2 March 15 at 7 p.m. The Cabaret, 80 Boylston Street. Adam Greenfield, Beatriz da Costa and Brooke Singer (Preemptive Media), and Michelle Teran
Adam Greenfield: An information architect and user-experience consultant, Adam Greenfield's principal concern over the past half-decade has been "the restoration of human users and their needs to a place of rightful centrality in the design of technical systems." Most often, Greenfield says, complex technical objects are designed without understanding of how people receive, process and act on information, and this is a source of endless frustration on the part of the people who use them. Greenfield feels there has been very little knowledgeable resistance to the idea of ubicomp and the supposed conveniences it will bring. He is the author of Everyware: the dawning age of ubiquitous computing, to be published in March '06, which he hopes will explain just what Ubicomp is, how it might effect us, and how we can effect its eventual development. Greenfield is principal in the New York City-based design consultancy, Studies and Observations. He was previously lead information architect for the Tokyo office of Razorfish. www.v-2.org/
Beatriz da Costa and Brooke Singer (Preemptive Media): Preemptive Media reengineers your thinking about mobile digital technologies imbedded in everyday environments. In live performances and real time actions the PM art, technology and activist collective disturbs, dislodges, and redesigns new media technologies that are often ignored, like the bar codes on driver's licenses or radio frequency information devices used for EZ pass on highways. At the forefront of what is called locative media, Preemptive Media repositions highly specialized technologies within the democratic discourse of low-tech amateurism. PM will focus on their latest project "Zapped" which addresses the mass implementation of RFID and its contribution to the ever growing field of technology-enhanced surveillance practices. www.preemptivemedia.net/
Michelle Teran: Michelle Teran is a Canadian media artist (Toronto) who explores the performative potential of objects and space. Within her practice she examines the intertwining of social networks and everyday social spaces with their technological counterparts and creates performances, installations and online works that are concerned with issues of communication, surveillance, psychogeography, presence, intimacy, social ritual, collaboration and public participation. Teran is co-founder of "LiveForm:TeleKinetics" (with Jeff Mann); she will focus on their most recent project, "Telepresence Picnic." www.lftk.org
About Floating Points: Floating Points is co-presented by Emerson College and New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA), a not-for-profit media organization with offices in Boston and New York. Turbulence.org, a project of NRPA, has commissioned over 100 works by both emerging and established artists who explore the creative potential of the Internet and wireless networks. Emerson College, located in downtown Boston, is the only comprehensive college or university in America dedicated exclusively to communication and the arts in a liberal arts context. Founded in 1880, Emerson College enrolls 3000 undergraduate and 1000 graduate students, and is committed to bringing innovation to communication and the arts. All lectures are free and open to the public.
Jo-Anne Green, Co-Director
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: new-radio.org
New York: 917.548.7780 . Boston: 617.522.3856
Turbulence: turbulence.org
New American Radio: somewhere.org
Networked_Performance Blog: turbulence.org/blog
Upgrade! Boston: turbulence.org/upgrade