The Emerging Practices [EP] research forum presents a spring series of conversations featuring visiting theorists, curators, and practitioners working across domains and methodologies, each concerned with the role of technology in socio-cultural production. Each speaker will present their work in a short lecture, to be followed by an open dialogue moderated by EP graduate students.  The events in this conversation series are free and open to all.

>Jens Hauser • Friday, February 1, 4-6pm, CFA 144: Jens Hauser is a Paris-based curator, author, and arts and culture critic who focuses on the interactions between art and technology, as well as on trans-genre and contextual aesthetics.
http://www.transmediale.de/content/jens-hauser

>David Familian • Monday, February 18, 6-8 pm, CFA 144: David Familian is the Artistic Director of the Beall Center for Art and Technology at UC Irvine. He has curated one-person exhibitions of Shih Chieh Huang, Golan Levin, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Chico MacMurtrie, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Nam June Paik and Victoria Vesna.
http://beallcenter.uci.edu

>EcoArtTech • Monday March 4th at 6-8pm, CFA 144: EcoArtTech is Leila Christine Nadir and Cary Peppermint working in postdisciplinary collaborative to merge primitive with emergent technologies in the overlapping terrain between “nature,” built environments, mobility, and electronic spaces.
http://www.ecoarttech.net

>John Craig Freeman • Friday, April 19, 12-2pm, CFA 136: John Craig Freeman is a public artist with over twenty years of experience using emergent technologies to produce large-scale public work at sites where the forces of globalization are impacting the lives of individuals in local communities.
http://johncraigfreeman.wordpress.com

Support for Conversations on Emerging Technologies series is provided by the Humanities Institute, Techne Institute, Graduate Student Association, Department of Visual Studies and Squeaky Wheel

http://isea2012.org

Several faculty, Phd/grads and alumni from the Departments of Visual Studies, Media Study and Architecture made their way out to the enchanted desert landscape of northern New Mexico for the 2012 International Symposia on Electronic Art (ISEA). The International Symposia on Electronic Art is one of the most important academic gatherings on electronic art world-wide, bringing together the worlds of art and science. Each year the festival takes place in a different global location. This year’s theme “Machine Wilderness” referenced the “New Mexico region as an area of rapid growth and technology within vast expanses of open land, and presents visions of a more humane interaction between technology and wilderness in which machines can take many forms to support life on Earth.” The festival was divided into the subthemes Radical Cosmologies, Trans-Species Habitats, Dynamobilities and Econotopias which was directed by Dept of Visual StudiesProfessor Stephanie Rothenberg focused on emerging creative economies.

Student participation included current Media Study PhD grad Paul Sargent and grads Laura Curry and Jordan Dalton. Visual Studies alumni included  Alice Alexandrescu, Tim Scaffidi, Marc Tomko, Caitlin Cass. Media Study alumni included Anna Schime, Liz Flyntz and Cayden Mak.

Faculty included Visual Studies professors Paul Vanouse , Joan Linder  and Stephanie Rothenberg; Media Study professors Teri Rueb, Marc Bolen and Josephine Anstey and Architecture professor Jordan Geiger.

Tuesday, May 4, from 7PM to 9PM at Soundlab, Pearl and Swan Streets, downtown Buffalo.

One night exhibition of interactive electronic artwork by students from Visual Studies, Media Study and Architecture produced in the course Real-Space Electronic Art (Art 489/589).  Admission free.

> 6:00pm Monday February 22, University at Buffalo North Campus, Norton 112 < Stallman launched the GNU Project and initiated the free software movement years before others even thought about 'open software'. Don't miss the Fidel Castro of Computer Science ! All are invited - there is no admission charge. Curious? Go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

LALYA GAYE Lecture+Mobile phone workshop 12.03.09

Thursday, December 3, 2009

—Lecture, 11:30am – DMS 232 – Lalya discusses her work which “explores potentials of ubiquitous computing for everyday life aesthetic activities, and focuses in particular on locative media and mobile music technology”.

—Workshop – 7:00pm – DMS 246 – ***Limited Space – Please RSVP to Erik: erikconrSPLATbuffaloDOTedu*** This hands-on workshop will demonstrate the creation of media for mobile phones using python.

ABOUT

Lalya Gaye is an HCI/interaction designer, researcher and teacher, trained in engineering, who works in multidisciplinary projects at the convergence of art, technology and design.

In her research, she is interested in the relation between people and new technologies, in the context of contemporary culture and society: how to design new technologies that can challenge and inspire people creatively, and what aesthetic activities people come up with when having access to them. This covers a broad range of interests, from mobility and urban space, to aesthetic computer-mediated interactions such as electronic music making or digital photography, to physical interfaces and the integration of technology into everyday environments, artefacts and behaviours, i.e. ubiquitous computing. Her research explores in particular the potentials of mobile and ubiquitous computing for everyday life aesthetic practices and creative behaviours, and builds on mobile music, locative media and physical computing projects. She approaches her research question with a combination of user-centred, body-centric and culturally grounded interaction design, of physical prototyping and of user studies in context.

For more information about Lalya Gaye’s work, please see: http://www.daonk.org/people/lalya/

The GDR serves as a kind of point of entry for Jud and Wachter into the broader world of media censorship. They spent some time in the GDR as artists-in-residence, and during that time they noticed the ways in which Western media were still used under the radar. picidae is named after the “Wall woodpeckers,” the first people who tore holes in the Berlin Wall — in some ways, the project is tearing some pretty big holes in the new variety of Iron Curtain.

picidae is a project that takes image grabs of websites that are banned or firewalled. This way, they can avoid the censorship of, say, China’s Golden Shield. In fact, picidae is used by people living in China to get information from beyond the Great Firewall. Mathias also said that it was an experiment in seeing the Internet from a different perspective, considering how our relationship to the medium might be different if we were born on the other side of the world.

Because picidae has been used as an activist tool — and because their other projects have been very politically heavy — I couldn’t help but wonder if Jud and Wachter relate to the activist element in their work. Mathias said that, while their work has a real-world impact, it is art, and they consider themselves artists. He told me, “We are very proud and feel honoured, when our work is used to fight or grant basic human rights.” Mathias also said that their works are works in progress, that require the audience to participate in the experiment. Since it is an experiment, it seems there are many ways individuals can use the tools that Jud and Wachter create.

Interestingly, some internet security companies have contacted them to find out more details about picidae and how it can be used or turned off. Their responses were not those of the enemy, trying to shut down the project, but instead had the tone of peers. Mathias explained that they were mostly curious about how picidae worked. When I asked about this “other side,” Mathias pointed out that maybe it’s the same side — it’s hard to tell in the constantly shifting configurations of power on the internet.

You can catch Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter talk about picidae as well as their other work tomorrow on campus and at Sugar City.

Presentation: Department of Media Study, University at Buffalo, CFA232, Tuesday, November 17, 3pm
Discussions: Sugar City, 19 Wadsworth St., Buffalo, Tuesday, November 17, 9pm

Both events are open to all. Limited seating available. Please arrive early.