[-empyre-] empyre: Resistance is futile, ISEA, Sydney 2013 - week 2

[BIGGS Simon]

Welcome to week two of empyre's July 2013 discussion: Resistance is futile, ISEA Sydney, 2013

Thank you to Terry Flaxton, who graciously and provocatively kicked off the debate for the month. Other's, notably Johannes Birringer, Christine Spiesel and Simon Taylor, responded energetically, with much of the focus being upon how knowledge and cognition might variously be constituted. Thanks to everyone for writing and reading.

Before introducing the second week's three discussants (Paul Sermon, Charlotte Gould and Gary Warner) it is probably wise to restate that July's discussion on empyre will engage the themes and activities underlying and emerging from this year's International Symposium of Electronic Arts, held in and around Sydney, Australia during June 2013. The primary theme for ISEA was "resistance is futile". How are we to interpret this? Resistance to what? The conference programme offered a positive take on this statement - proposing that the electronic arts have moved from the margins to occupy a central role in contemporary culture. But has this happened - and, if it has, is it generally the case or only so in certain contexts? Resistance can be a positive or a negative form of agency. Are we talking about resistance as something heroic or reactionary - or both? What of those aspects of our technologised society which many of us would wish to resist? Do we seek to be the willing subjects of the pervasive surveillance systems the ISEA keynote Julian Assange spoke of and which are again in the news after Edward Snowden's recent revelations? Do we wish to be gamified and appropriated into the attention economy? Is it possible to resist these forces?

Other themes were also apparent at ISEA, addressed in the various conference tracks and emergent in the creative works presented. Important questions were asked about:
- sustainability - how this can be achieved in relation to the environment but also how artists, arts groups, academics and activists might ensure their activities are sustainable as the processes of technologisation and globalisation unfold?
- notions of the human - what does it mean to be human now, in the context of developments in genetics and ICT?
- globalisation, diasporas and cultural identity?
- the boundaries of the real - where virtual and augmented realities have become pervasive media?
- the post-digital and its implications for aesthetics and questions of agency?
- the challenges and opportunities associated with big data?
- urbanism, activism and the socially disruptive potential of technology?

Our guests during the second week of our discussion about resistance and futility are:

Gary Warner (AU) has a 40-year history of cultural engagement in Australian and international galleries, museums, botanic gardens and visitor centers as artist, curator, writer, creative director and digital media producer. He has collaborated with leading artists, exhibition designers and architecture firms, curated large-scale exhibition projects, directed and produced numerous multimedia installations, and researched and written interpretation of social history, natural sciences, contemporary art and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. While skilled in the use of digital media systems, he maintains a strong interest in hand-making, building small buildings, the adventure of materials and writing tanka poetry. Recent exhibition projects have included pencil drawings, folded paper and laser-cut plywood structures, and custom design of a timber and aluminium system for construction of geodesic domes.

Paul Sermon (GB) has, since the early nineteen-nineties, pursued practice-based research centered on the creative use of telecommunication technologies. Through the unique use of videoconference techniques in artistic telepresence applications he has developed a series of celebrated telematic art installations that have been widely exhibited throughout Europe, East Asia, the United States and Australia, including first prize awards at the Interactive Media Festival Sparky Awards in Los Angeles, the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica Award in Linz, as well as nominations for the San Francisco World Technology Awards, the ZKM International Media Art Prize Karlsruhe and twice Prix Ars Electronica runner up.

Charlotte Gould (GB) is Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at the University of Salford, School of Arts & Media. Through her research she explores the creative and cultural potential that urban screens have to offer in the digital media age and how these emerging technologies and digital infrastructure impact on how the public interacts within the urban environment. She has undertaken a number of interactive installations and projects with key industrial partners, including interactive installations for Moves09 at the BBC Big Screen in Liverpool, the BBC Big Screen at the Glastonbury Festival and for ISEA09 at the Waterfront Hall Belfast.


moderator:
Simon Biggs
simon at littlepig.org.uk<mailto:simon at littlepig.org.uk>
http://www.littlepig.org.uk @SimonBiggsUK http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs

s.biggs at ed.ac.uk<mailto:s.biggs at ed.ac.uk> Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
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http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/simon-biggs%285dfcaf34-56b1-4452-9100-aaab96935e31%29.html

http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/  http://www.elmcip.net/  http://www.movingtargets.org.uk/  http://designinaction.com/
MSc by Research in Interdisciplinary Creative Practices  http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees?id=656&cw_xml=details.php


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