Art/Science/Nature weblog

2002-02-20T11:14:00.000-05:00

Thought this lecture may interest some of you. Also the following two lectures are applicable to the course material. I suggest you attend Joe Davis' lecture if at all possible. Stephen Wilson wrote the text I mentioned earlier in the year, Intersections of Art, Science and Technology. It might provide a tidy ending to the course to attend his lecture.

Does Software Want a Social Life?
Interactive Arena Kicks Off 2002 Lecture Series Monday

On Monday, February 25, 2002, The Canadian Film Centre's Interactive Arena presents its first lecture of the 2002 season with artist, writer and media
theoretician Joel Slayton. Slayton will discuss the "social framework", or
interrelatedness, of information technology as it is now being explored
through cutting-edge art, business and research.

Slayton's concepts will be illustrated with examples of his work created at
C5 Corporation and featured at prestigious exhibitions including Walker Art
Center, Ars Electronica, Transmediale, SIGGRAPH and Whitney Museum of
American Art. Slayton will also explore the newly blurred boundaries of
art, business and research as they collaborate in cultural production.

Slayton is Professor of Art and Director of the CADRE Laboratory for New
Media at San Jose State University and founder and President of C5
Corporation. He is also Chair of the Leonardo/MIT Press Book Series, a
member of the Board of Directors of the Silicon Valley arts organization
ZeroOne, a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts award and
artist-in-residence at the Xerox Parc Research Centre in Palo Alto.

Joel Slayton - "Organic Information Structures"
Monday, February 25, 2002, 6:30pm
Design Exchange, Trading Floo
234 Bay Street, Toronto
Tickets: $12 general public / $10 DX members & Film Centre alumni / $6
students & seniors
Info: 416-216-2160 / info@cdnfilmcentre.com

Now in its fifth season, Interactive Arena is a monthly series exploring the
converging worlds of design, new media and technology by bringing to the
podium some of the most innovative and influential thinkers at work in
international new media today.

Upcoming Interactive Arena Lectures:
March 20, 2002
Joe Davis - artist, writer and MIT research fellow discusses The 4th
Dimension: Genesthetics

April 15, 2002
Stephen Wilson - author, artist and Head of Conceptual/Information Arts, San
Francisco State University discusses Intersections of Art, Science and
Technology

Interactive Arena is presented by Canadian Film Centre's h@bitat in
partnership with founding sponsor
DXNET and patrons Holmes and Lee and Shift. For more information, visit
http://www.cdnfilmcentre.com.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2002-02-15T14:50:00.000-05:00

In Class 7 we will look at the writing of Vandana Shiva and the movement of artists working with but also critiquing genetic manipulation of living things Please take a look at the following sites: .Artists for Responsible Genetics, Interview with Vandana Shiva and look at the weblog archive from 11/18/2000 posted by Dana on Art and the Human Genome Project.

2002-02-15T14:39:00.000-05:00

Professor Stephen Morris will be visiting our class on Monday, March 04. He will speak about his research in non-linear physics. You may want to check out his website : Non-linear Physics Also you can check out the website for a course which Prof. Morris teaches at Uof T, which has some bearing on Art, Science and Nature. Physical Science in Contemporary Society

2002-01-27T16:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.albalagh.net/kids/contributions/scientific_method.shtml

I spoke last week about the Muslim roots of the scientific method. Here is the link: scientific method

2002-01-22T08:28:00.000-05:00

This note is really for Cliff, but it applies to anyone interested in early scientific thought. Arthur Koestler has written a book called THE SLEEPWALKERS which, as per the front cover, is "the classic account of the great astronomers - from the early Greeks through Copernicus and Galileo." Koestler is a very thorough in this book and covers thought during the dark ages as it leads into the Renaissance.

2002-01-19T14:11:00.000-05:00

Here are some links/resources that I am forwarding from David.

http://slashdot.org/ - Culture and Technology - Awesome for daily news.
http://www.newscientist.com/ - Cultural Scientific news.
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/quantum/inthebeginning.jsp - Quantum Theory
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991757 - Amusing.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/ - Good place to find out how things work.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/relativity1.htm - Special Relativity.
http://www.nature.com/nature/ - Pure Science
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020107/020107-2.html - Bose-Einstein Condensate / Stopping Light
http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=2 - Ray Kurzeil - Artificial Intelligence
http://www.nanodot.org/ - Nanotech
http://www.sciam.com/ - More Science
http://arstechnica.com/ - Good for tech news
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/2q00/dna/dna-1.html - Primer on DNA Computing

The Age of Spiritual Machines - Ray Kurzweil (Artificial Intelligence)
The Difference Engine - Bruce Sterling and William Gibson (Fiction)
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson (Fiction - Encryption)
Fermat's Enigma - Simon Singh ( Mathematics)
The Code Book - Simon Singh (Encryption)
Godel, Escher and Bach - Douglas R. Hofstadter (Unusual theories connecting Math, Art and Music. Touches on genetics as well.)
Chaos - James Gleick (Chaos Theory)

2002-01-13T22:41:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone in the 2002 Artscinat class.

I will post information pertaining to the class in this space for your perusal. I am going to leave the archive of past discussions fyi. Some of the info may prove helpful to something that you are working on.

Please feel free to post items your self.

2000-12-07T11:02:00.000-05:00

I just spoke to Scott Menary, the Physics professor at York who we will be visiting on Monday. Driving onto campus is not a good idea, since the wait is about an hour. We will meet outside OCAD at 12:30 and take the subway up to York together. Please email me at calgord@pipcom.com in order to acknowledge this message. Alan thanks for you help on this but we won;t be needing the van after all.

2000-11-27T17:32:00.000-05:00

this msg is for josh i have your Chaotic Dynamical Systems book - jerry
will have it back to you on friday forsure.

2000-11-20T08:53:00.000-05:00

This is a web project by Diane Luden called the Genetic Response System.... she says:

The first element of the Genetic Response System will be to design an artificial life form -a Viroid whose manifestation will be circumscribed by the parameters of search strings that will seek out the latest information on genetic developments- be they real or imaginary. The Viroid as life form will define itself via the outcome of knowledge it gains in its seeking out specific information about genetics on-line such as ‘Speed Economies (the flow of biotechnology stocks) DNA Harvesting (like the Human Genome Project) VR Timeline (a mapping of the history and development within Capital from this century).

The Genetic Response System is the first project of a larger attempt to build a staging process that can trace the flow of this new genetic economy in present. These Viroid engines will cover and juxtapose both scientific representations of bio-research and methods.
------
Oh yeah, and I went to Zsa Zsa Saturday night, but the installation wasn't running. According to InterAccess, it was supposed to be on until Saturday. According to Zsa Zsa, it was finished Thursday. Oh well.

2000-11-18T10:40:00.000-05:00

ART and the HUMAN GENOME PROJECT
Visit Art in the Genetic Age featuring links to articles and artists discussing the HGP. Make sure you check out Picturing DNA, an upcoming book about relationships between art and genetics.

Also: Creative Time's DNAid--a public project in NYC to raise awareness about the importance and implications of genetic research.

If you're reading this on Saturday, you can still check out an installation at Zsa Zsa Gallery tonight (the last night) between 6-11pm by Nell Tenhaaf, called "dDNA (d is for dancing)". I wish I had known about it sooner, it's in conjunction with the Intimate Perceptions show at InterAccess. Anyway, I'm going to go to videotape it. I'll bring it in to class on Monday.

2000-11-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

Here are the links to the websites I was talking about
Institute for Applied Autonomy
The Centre for Metahuman Exploration

2000-10-30T19:14:00.000-05:00

some interactivity articles by David Rokeby for next class
http://www.interlog.org/~drokeby/articles.html

2000-10-26T08:03:00.000-04:00

Upcoming Events at the Goethe Institute:

Screening | Sat Nov. 11, 7pm
WIRED BODY / MEDIATED BODY
This series focuses on both historical and contemporary international examples of work dealing with postmodern notions of the human body, exploring the interface between the applications and implications of new digital and enhanced imaging technologies in the medical sciences and the reflection upon their meaning in the arts and popular culture. Featuring works by: Peter Campus, Judith Doyle, Su Rynard, Joan Jonas and more...

Opening | Sat Nov 18, 3:30-6pm
VERAL FRENKEL: BODY MISSING
A six-channel video installation with large-screen website projection focusing on the theft of art during WWII. This work was first developed for the Offenes Kulturhaus in Linz, Austria in 1994 and has since travelled to major galleries in Tokyo, Bremen, Stockholm and Detroit.

Symposium | Sun Nov 19, 2-5:30 pm
Vera Frenkel's Body Missing is siutated within the context of critical discourse around the ambiguities and meanings of new technologies and an image based culture.
Speakers:
Christoph Tholen (Kassel), "Between the Images: Hybrid Culture and New Media."
Sigrid Schade (Bremen), "On the Symbolic Circulation of Art: Vera Frenkel's Body Missing in the political context of the German debate on stolen art in the 90s."
Jeanne Randolph (Toronto), "Electronic Fantasies under Metaphorical Truths: Psychoanalytic Hypotheses about Vera Frenkel's Body Missing Project."

All events take place at the Goethe Institute, 163 King Street West, Toronto (at University)

2000-10-19T13:10:00.000-04:00

On Thursday the 26th of October Doug Back will be meeting an academic who writes on technology in Everquest. This meeting will be projected in his class at about 1:30. You are invited to attend that class if you are interested. I will talk about this more on Mon.

2000-10-19T13:08:00.000-04:00

FYI

Norman and I have been preparing to establish a student/faculty/user run
Internet server facility so that net artists can explore, develop, modify
and install their own back-end to web, email, or other net projects. We
have received support from the ACC who will be providing connectivity. We
have one Linux box ready to go as a router, which we can then hang other
servers off (production servers, development servers, Linux and/or
Windows). We are having the first meeting of anyone interested in
participating Monday, October 23 at 12:00 in the Electronics Lab. This will
be a hands-on learning experience for all involved.

You are invited. Please feel free to invite others who you think may benefit.

Geoffrey

_______________________________________________________

2000-10-19T13:07:00.000-04:00

Renaissance Students
by Joyce Slaton

3:00 a.m. Jun. 7, 1999 PDT

You wouldn't know it by playing Riven or watching The Phantom Menace, but
game companies and filmmakers are having a hard time finding
special-effects artists.

So one university is taking the bull by the horns and mounting an academic
program aimed at filling the digital-effects void in Hollywood and Silicon
Valley. This fall, the University of Florida will launch its Digital Arts
and Sciences Program, aimed at churning out grads as comfy with a keyboard
and mouse as with a paintbrush.

"Computer nerds generally know nothing about art and artists don't tend to
be computer savvy," said Paul Fishwick, University of Florida computer
engineering professor and chair of the interdisciplinary committee that
created the program. "But more and more in movies, computer games, and on
the Web, we see a convergence between art and computing. The employers of
the future will need employees with a background that bridges that gap."

The program, a collaboration between the school's College of Fine Arts and
College of Engineering, requires digital arts and sciences students to take
a range of core classes Da Vinci could have taught. Those getting a DAS
degree under the ægis of the computer engineering college are required to
take drawing classes and an intro to electronic music. Art students'
classes include analytical geometry and beginning calculus, as well as
courses that provide hands-on computer experience.

"We're in a period where the average person has amazing access to
technology," said Fishwick. "Effects are everywhere: on television, on the
Web, in films."

"Even computing itself is becoming more visual," he added. "Users demand
programs with elegant, simple, pleasing interfaces, which require a
knowledge of design, a knowledge of aesthetics. As computers touch our
lives more and more, this need grows."

"If computer scientists want to make 3-D objects, they have to understand
the basics of modeling, the way light looks on a form, the basics of
color," said College of Fine Arts Assistant Dean Marcia Isaacson. "The
boundaries between computers and art are blurring."

Corporate backers of the program include SGI, the 500-pound graphics
gorilla that created the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park. The company donated
SGI machines to the DAS visualization lab. Digital Arts and Sciences is
also getting assistance and advice from Cinesite Visual Effects, the Kodak
special-effects studio that did work for The Mummy and Titanic.

Richard Kidd, computer graphics supervisor for Cinesite, said the effects
industry is hurting for employees who don't need on-the-job training.

"Almost no employees come to us with a background in both art and science,"
Kidd said. "Companies have to spend time and money teaching artists to use
computers or teaching programmers about art, and when the typical employee
leaves after the typical two years, they take all that training with them."

"It's a very competitive industry," said Dave Stemation, SGI Higher
Education account manager. "Employees ready to work right out of the gate
are very rare. They usually learn on the job how to combine effects
disciplines, but if they learn that before they even come to work, they're
going to be priceless."

2000-10-17T11:55:00.000-04:00

Mark Madel's elegant interactive objects seduce and provoke us, coercing us
gently and with good humor into complicity. Beautifully crafted from the
raw components of technology -- printed circuit boards, LCDs, buttons,
switches and speakers -- they manage to project a mischeviously human
presence as they challenge our notions of time and emotional relationships.

An American based in Amsterdam, Madel has been creating and exhibiting
interactive technology art in Europe and America since the early 1980s.
This retrospective will bring his work to the West Coast for the first time
in more than ten years.

XEROX PARC GALLERY, Palo Alto, CA

2000-10-17T00:08:00.000-04:00

The paper which Alan brought to class about consumer tracking is in the surveillance file in the library. Also, I am delivering a paper at a conference in Nov called "Recognizing Like: Connections with Science for students of art" and I would like to show the instruments that you made. If you are not oppossed to this, could you please bring your piece to class next week so that I can document it.

2000-10-15T21:20:00.000-04:00

Part of my instrument project can be found on-line... dig it.

2000-10-10T16:45:00.000-04:00

hi ..I am curious as to whether my blog will publish from here, Elliott Lake. If any of you are planning on attending the symposium in Ottawa, the Ottawa Art Gallery is on the corner of Daly and Nicholas just beside the Rideau Centre. I hope to be there. Hope you are all having fun with your instrument. Well, not having fun with it necessarily, but working on it.

2000-10-06T23:23:00.000-04:00

Well...I don't think I can take you all on a field trip, although I would love to. I am heading up to Elliott Lake on Monday to spend several days at the White Mountain Academy as a visiting artist, so I won't even be around this week to make plans. I am going to leave from my place in Norwood on Sunday morning at about 7am. If you can get yourselves to Norwood (just outside of P'boro) on Sat. night you are free to camp here and then come up with me the next day. I will be staying in Ottawa that night and then heading to Toronto early Monday morning so that I am in TO in time for class. Since you asked Dana............

2000-10-06T23:18:00.000-04:00

crisis of certainty...technologically-induced...liquid
spaces...shifting boundaries...networked selves...smart
environments...distributed consciousness...life,
artificial?...culturally speaking

A one-day international symposium
Sunday, 15 October 2000
Arts Court Theatre, 2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa

The Ottawa Art Gallery and the Department of Visual Arts of the
University of Ottawa are pleased to present a symposium in conjunction
with the exhibition Catherine Richards: Excitable Tissues on view at
the Ottawa Art Gallery until 19 November 2000. This one-day event
brings together internationally renowned artists, writers, critics and
scholars to provide cultural analyses of the impact of technologies
on the human body, identity, consciousness, and subjectivity, and to
generate discussion..

Morning Session: 10am to noon
Arts Court Theatre, 2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa
Moderator: Sylvie Fortin, Curator of Contemporary Art, The Ottawa Art
Gallery Dot Tuer is a writer and critic whose essays on new media and
contemporary art have been widely published in anthologies, catalogues
and journals. She is on the faculty of the Ontario College of Art and
Design, and is a frequent guest lecturer with keynote papers presented
at the DIA Centre for the Arts, the Chicago Institute of the Arts, and
the Sydney Biennale, among others. In 1999, she received a Canada
Council Senior Artist's Grant to begin research on a book that will
bring this examination of nature and culture to a discussion on
contemporary Canadian art. N. Katherine Hayles is Professor of English
at the University of California, Los Angeles. She writes and teaches
on the relationship between literature and science in the twentieth
century. Her most recent book is How We Became Posthuman: Virtual
Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. She is currently
at work on two books on electronic literature, Coding the Signifier:
Rethinking Semiosis from the Telegraph to the Computer and Linking
Bodies: Hypertext Fiction in Print and New Media.

Afternoon Session: 2pm to 4pm
Arts Court Theatre, 2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa
Moderator: Catherine Richards, artist and Assistant Professor in the
Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa

Frances Dyson is a writer and artist specializing in new media and
sound; she lives in Sydney, Australia. She has published articles most
recently in 100 Years of Cruelty: Essays on Artaud; Uncertain Ground:
Essays Between Art and Nature; CIRCA #90: Art and Technology
Supplement, 1999; The Virtual Dimension: Architecture, Representation
and Crash Culture; and Immersed in Technology.

Marcos Novak is an architect, artist, composer, and theorist
investigating actual, virtual, and hybrid intelligent environments. He
originated the study of liquid architectures in cyberspace. He
currently lives in Venice, California.

A complete symposium programme is available at www.cyberus.ca/~oag or
by calling 233-8699, ext. 223.

Admission is free.

___________________________

2000-10-05T21:21:00.000-04:00

2000-10-05T18:46:00.000-04:00

Caroline: are you going to take all of us on a field trip to Ottawa?

2000-10-05T12:16:00.000-04:00

This exhibition is currently on at the Ottawa Art Gallery.
The panel discussion on the 15th will be worth attending. All three of the speakers are major contributers to the current discourse on technology.

EXCITABLE TISSUES
Friday, 15 September at noon
Talk with Catherine Richards

EXCITABLE TISSUES
Friday, 13 October at noon
Curator's talk with Sylvie Fortin

EXCITABLE TISSUES
Sunday, 15 October, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Symposium
Participants: N. Katherine Hayles, Frances Dyson and Dot Tuer.

2000-10-03T10:45:00.000-04:00

Here is the site for Loompanics Unlimited, the company that publishes such great book titles as The Policeman is your friend and other lies, How to disappear completely and never be found, and Practical LSD Manufacture. A catalogue for the truly paranoid!

2000-10-03T10:21:00.000-04:00

Professor Steve Mann at the University of Toronto has been researching what he calls "Personal Imaging" for years (he used to be an MIT prof). This page describes one of his art interventions called Safety Glasses, Safety First in which he wears a portable webcam in public--turning the tables on surveillance culture.

2000-09-30T13:16:00.000-04:00

Here is a fun site in relation to the class on Surveillance. If anyone has any video clips they would like to show on this topic, please bring them in.

2000-09-28T08:28:00.000-04:00

An addendum to the Images Festival post:
Don't forget about V is for Video, and F is for Film, the annual student programmes that are part of Images. Last year, both Sarah and Josh had great pieces screened in V is for Video. The deadlines for these are usually in January. The video programme is organized through OCAD--for more info, track down Lisa Steele or 3rd year student Julie Booker, this year's coordinator. I don't know who runs F is for Film, but you could contact Images and ask them.

2000-09-27T23:38:00.000-04:00

Hi there, Since the class has dwindled to about 9 or 10 students we will not require as much time to do crits on the instrument assignment so I think I will try to cover classification the week of Oct.16.

2000-09-27T19:12:00.001-04:00

ISEA2000 - REVELATION
10th International Symposium on Electronic Arts
Paris, France - December 7-10, 2000
art3000.com or ISEA

The tenth edition of the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) will be held in France in December of 2000, uniting participants from over 30 countries. Under the theme of Revelation, ISEA 2000 will explore the effects of the technological revolution on art and its impact on society through new forms of representation, such as digital imaging, multimedia, the virtual, interactive installations and networks.
Contact: ART3000 (to receive a more detailed program and/or to register),
156 Avenue de Verdun 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux France.
Tel.: 33 (0)1 46 48 66 36 Fax: 33 (0)1 46 48 66 59
Send an e-mail for more info.

2000-09-27T19:12:00.000-04:00

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:
IMAGES FESTIVAL OF INDEPENDENT FILM & VIDEO
TORONTO, CANADA, APRIL 12-21, 2001;
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 17, 2000
Eligibility: Films, videos, new media and related installations produced after January 1, 1999. Artists must maintain final edit and copyright control. For more info and application forms contact IMAGES at:
Telephone: 416-971-8405
email: images@interlog.com or visit their website

2000-09-26T20:49:00.000-04:00

Here is the site which discusses Muslim scientists Muslim Science

2000-09-26T13:13:00.000-04:00

Here's a link to a show that took place last year at the Dalhousie Art Gallery called Engaging the Virtual. It features work by Juan Geuer, Doug Back, Norm White, Catherine Richards, David Rokeby and others. Images and texts on the works are all on-line.

2000-09-25T17:32:00.000-04:00

The Arts Policy Branch of Canadian Heritage is undertaking electronic consultations on the creation of an Arts Policy Framework. For some time members of the arts community in Canada have asked for a cohesive, integrated vision and policy statement guiding federal support for the arts.
Your input will contribute to shaping the future of arts policy in Canada. These consultations will be held on the Internet from September 18 to October 31, 2000 with the goal of having a Framework in place by the Spring of 2001. The address is: www.pch.gc.ca/arts/consultations

2000-09-18T18:27:00.000-04:00

Here are a few links to get started:
Interaccess, Toronto's very own centre for electronic/media art.

Digibodies, an on-line exhibition dealing with art and science.

Eduardo Kac's website--find out about the GFP bunny.

2000-09-18T18:11:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Art/Science/Nature 'blog. I hope we can use this page as both a resource and a way to share information and communicate. Feel free to post interesting links, comments on the class readings, events, books, questions, whatever. Eventually, I hope to improve the format a bit, but for now we'll just use the pre-fab page.