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Art & Culture My Lectures Technology

Extra Ears and Transhuman Dance Recitals

stelarc

I’m really pleased to be chairing a panel that will be exploring what our physical selves could be in the future at the upcoming Edinburgh Science Festival. Entitled “Bodies of the Future“, the panel will examine exactly that, but also the other issues around how technology shapes our relationship with the physical environment and the multifaceted identities we create.

Panelists Stelarc (Brunel University), Martyn Ware (the Illustrious Company), Andrew Shoben (Greyworld), and Dr Jonathan Freeman (Goldsmiths, University of London) will explore the shifting boundaries between the technologically adapted body, concepts of self, and senses of place.

While we’re touching on the subject, I can’t resist embedding this piece by video artist Jeremy Bailey. “Transhuman Dance Recital #1” humourously raises some of the questions around popular conceptions of transhumanism, that I’m certain we’ll also explore on the panel — among many other issues.

Panel details: “Bodies of the Future”: Stelarc, Martyn Ware, Andrew Shoben, Dr Jonathan Freeman, Chaired by Michelle Kasprzak. Edinburgh Science Festival, Wed Apr 15, 2009, at 19:00. Book tickets here. Presented by PEACH – Presence research in action, and supported by Edinburgh Napier University. Stelarc’s Ear PORTRAIT taken by nina sellars, originally uploaded by k0re.

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Art & Culture My Lectures

Urban Media: Interventionist Digital Art in the City

Exiles of the Shattered Star by Kelly Richardson
Recently, I gave a talk at Pixel Gallery in Toronto on the subject of ‘urban media’. I also was on the national CBC radio programme “Here and Now” before the talk, discussing the concept of urban media.

I used several case studies to construct the argument that urban media takes many forms, and often invites logistical and conceptual challenges, but that the rewards are significant: exposure to a public that would not normally call themselves art patrons, and the possibilities of conceptual layers added to a work because of an urban context.

The talk was quite freeform, so instead of presenting my slides, here are the links to the projects I discussed:

The Geostash urban intervention project
The Meta-Parade performance projects
Snout, an urban sensing project by Proboscis
The Transmedia 2000 video billboard project
The Transmedia 2002 video billboard project
The Transmedia 29:59 video billboard project
Fernando Prats at Madrid Abierto

…and a couple of bonus links:
Otherworldly and Best of Transmedia, programmes I curated especially for urban screens.