CAA 2008 Annual Conference Events
Conference Dates: February 20-23, 2008 Dallas
New Media Caucus presents Three Juried Sessions, a Screening, an Exhibition, and our Annual General Meeting, most in conjunction with the Dallas Contemporary, a few blocks away from the Conference Center.
Screening:
Title: “The Algorithms of Art”
Curated by: Holly Willis, Institute for Multimedia Literacy, University of Southern California
Time: Thursday, February 21, 5:30-7:00pm
Place: The Dallas Contemporary, located at 2801 Swiss Ave
Theme:
As the computer becomes increasingly central to all areas of cultural production, more and more artists are exploring the possibilities of code as an expressive form and creating artworks that are dynamic, generative and performative. These are also artworks that challenge definitions, ontologocial categories, conceptual models and expectations, requiring new articulations of aesthetic parameters and an expanded notion of art itself.
This panel invites artists and theorists interested in algorithmic art to discuss this emerging form. Questions to consider include: What happens when software becomes a medium, and artworks are not stable, situated artifacts but instead dynamic, generative systems? How does this emerging artform intersect with existing art practices, including music, animation, video art and performance, and how might their accompanying discourses contribute productively to our understanding of generative art?
Session One:
Panel Title: “art blogging == global.exhibit(local)”
Panel Chair: Paul Catanese, San Francisco State Univeristy
Time: Thursday, February 21, 7:30-9:00pm
Place: The Dallas Contemporary, located at 2801 Swiss Ave
Panel Description:
An explosion of new blogs from artists, collectors, galleries, residency programs and museums are reshaping notions of professional practice within the arts. Though promotion is certainly a major driver in this arena, sites such as Art.Blogging.LA, Walker Blogs, Art Fever and PORT are especially good at projecting a local arts scene into a broader context. Other models investigate blog as sketchbook, establishing a new format for the open atelier.
Does art blogging indicate the emergence of a dislocated, yet thoroughly local arts scene? Can blogs shift the space of studio practice while retaining its capability to be unstructured? Is the quest for site traffic inherently at odds with healthy periods of gestation and dormancy? What models exist for balancing these forces? What are the implications for establishing or maintaining an art practice for those who remain virtually present, yet physically distant?
Session Two:
Panel Title: “Not Learning from Net.Art: The Rise of Newer Media”
Panel Chairs: James Morgan, San Jose State University
Time: Friday, February 22, 12:30-2:00pm
Place: Houston Ballroom A, Adams Mark Conference Center
Panel Description:
This panel considers the qualities of an emerging medium (second life and mmo based works) in the context of net.art. We shall include significant scholarship on the rise/history of net.art and see how and where SL is stumbling. The purpose of this will be to provide a type of roadmap for success to emerging media based on the stumbles fumbles and lessons learned from net.art.
Theory based arts venue creation has produced one fundamental lesson: The translation of media production through simulation produces no functional difference across environments. With over two years experience in the creation of an arts venue and new media center in Second Life we have found no significant difference in the positioning of the gallery or artist. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that art creation is also not different on any essential level between these media, and possibly others. The search for an comparative model yields net.art. Though there are differences in the construction of the social environment net.art closely mirrors the development of art in the emerging medium of Second Life. Because of this there are both opportunities (for study and experimentation) and cautions (or lessons learned).
Panelists:
Patrick Lichty, Interactive Arts & Media, Columbia College, Chicago Editor-In-Chief Intelligent Agent Magazine
Brad Kligerman, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Malaquais and Building with Immaterials
Marisa Olson, Rhizome at the New Museum of Contemporary Art
Joel Slayton, CADRE Laboratory, San Jose State University
Session Three:
Panel Title: “The Synthetic Aesthetics of New Media Art”
Panel Chairs: Carolyn Kane, San Jose State University
Time: Saturday, February 23, 10:00-11:30am
Place: The Dallas Contemporary, located at 2801 Swiss Ave
Panel Description:
Contrary to traditional aesthetic theories that argue for the primacy of the subjective and phenomenological aspects of color in the interpretation of artwork, color in electronic media, like the logic of technical media itself, is thoroughly removed from anthropomorphic sensibility.
Much new media art criticism exemplifies a hermeneutic approach that seeks to rationalize and transform a work into an intelligible “art object” for canonization and social theory. Is this approach problematic for the nonsensical logic at the heart of technical media art? Can color, as a physiological and pre-cognitive field, as well as a major principle of aesthetic theory, effectively reconcile computer based artwork with the subjective and humanistic drives in art making? For instance, the new media work of Paper Rad, Pipilotti Rist, and Jeremy Blake all use color in ways that address both the technical media platform and its aesthetic sensibility.
And don’t forget…
“The New Media Caucus General Meeting ”
Chair: Gwyan Rhabyt
Time: Saturday, February 23, 12:30-1:45pm
Place: Dallas Ballroom D1, Adams Mark Conference Center
Description:
Your chance to become a leader in the field of New Media
And
“Media-N Journal Meeting”
Chair: Rachel Clarke
Time: Saturday, February 23, 1:45-2:15pm
Place: Dallas Ballroom D1, Adams Mark Conference Center
Description:
Get involved with the NMC’s peer reviewed journal
Other CAA 2008 Annual Conference Events [link]
