news

wearables discussion on -empyre-

Sat, 14 May 2011 04:10:58 +0100

-empyre- facilitates critical perspectives on contemporary cross-disciplinary issues, practices and events in networked media by inviting guests -key new media artists, curators, theorists, producers and others to participate in thematic discussions. It is an Australian based global community which preserves its autonomy as a non-hierarchical collaborative entity by engaging with new content on a monthly basis. The list was instigated by Melinda Rackham (AU) in 2002. Melinda was also one of the driving forces behind the reSkin Media Lab and associated WearNow symposium in Canberra 2007.

This month, -empyre- is hosting a discussion on wearables, featuring Janis Jefferies (UK) and Valérie Lamontagne (CA), Ashley Ferro-Murray, Sabine Seymour, Danielle Wilde (AU), and Sarah Kettley (UK).

Renate Ferro writes:
During the month of May 2011, -empyre soft-skinned space will be focusing its discussion on wearable technologies through which technology augments or enables the body within its surrounding environmental architecture. Wearable technologies have proliferated within the realms of the dyi culture of art and technology. The arduino and lilypad platforms and open source software processing have made these technologies more accessible to artists and students. Embedded accelerometers within ubiquitous communication and computer hardware such as the i-phone, i-pod touch, and the i-pad among others have simplified the relationship between code and interactivity.
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> Some of the questions to be considered over the course of the next fours weeks will include: How do wearable technologies enhance the body’s capabilities to interface with the environment as transmitters, receivers, enablers of data-in-the-world. How do the technologies of material protect the body upon harmful impact (fire, heat, microbes) or enhance more pleasurable sensation? What is the role of risk in relation to the failure of design or delivery? What are the relationships between the practical aspects of use and the aesthetic concerns of design? How do we understand wearable technology in relation to the excesses of commodified culture?

hold the front page

Tue, 3 May 2011 12:14:54 +0100

I was very excited to receive my complementary copy of Digital Creativity with our paper in it - Karen and Tina’s work has made the front cover!

Nam June Paik

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:06:19 +0000

Spent a wonderful couple of hours at the Tate Liverpool yesterday just in time to catch the Nam June Paik exhibition. I knew that this artist had been an important member of the Fluxus group in the 60s and 70s, working with technology, but hadn’t realised the extent to which he’d worked with musicians, most notably Stockhausen and John Cage (whose tie he cut off in performance). His pieces have unavoidably taken on a retro aesthetic now, which perhaps makes the radical impact of the work recede, but his approach and the questions he addresses will never date, as technology continues to develop ‘too fast’.
I was slightly disappointed not to be able to buy my cellist mother a TV cello postcard, if not a video bra to play it in.

Artlink, Edinburgh

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:51:06 +0000

Last month, Alison Stirling of Artlink in Edinburgh organised a two day workshop bringing together social workers, carers, psychologists and family of people with profound learning difficulties and special needs with artists in order to explore creative and empathic ways of working together. Her visit to MIT last year prompted her to extend ideas approached in previous artist projects, and to open the area up to others. Presentations included issues in evaluating for improvements in individuals’ wellbeing and socialisation, artist projects with specific individuals and their carers, and practice based research in designing interactions with and for the deaf and for those on the autistic spectrum.
Above is the front cover of Utopia, the first edition of a magazine charting these ideas.

Making visible the invisible

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:13:08 +0000

Thursday, Friday this week, I attended a conversational conference at the University of Huddersfield organised by Michael Hohl (above). This is the first time I have been to one of these, and found it a very interesting experience, quite intense and with a very egalitarian ethos - no stars here, despite some big names. What I liked best was the bizarre mix of disciplines and backgrounds present, with mathematicians, AI, genetics and art all rubbing shoulders. Mae Wan Ho was an interesting keynote, speaking on our whole organism responses to truth and beauty, while Ranulph Glanville’s soundpiece Blind was a mesmerising experience performed in St Paul’s Hall. The main outcome from the group I worked with (for me anyway) was the idea that we do not choose to see the relationship between nature and industry - the bee does not issue us an invoice when we take the honey - if nature supports all industry, which in turn supports us, then that is where the investment needs to happen.