Subtle Technologies 2003

Schedule


Thursday May 22 2003 Deconism Gallery 330 Dundas West, Toronto

7pm		Opening Panel: Cyborg DECONtact An opening panel with Arthur Kroker, Derrick de Kerckhove, Steve Mann and Simon Penny.

9 pm		Exhibition Opening of Bedlam Telekinesis by Simon Penny and Bill Vorn

Friday May 23 2003 Innis Townhall 2 Sussex Avenue, UofT campus, Toronto

11am		Swipe Project by Beatriz da Costa and Brooke Singer Beatriz da Costa and Brooke Singer will present their on-going project, Swipe, a collaboration with Jamie Schulte. Swipe, a multi-disciplinary performance, addresses the gathering of data from drivers' licenses, a form of data-collection that businesses are starting to practice nation-wide. Swipe Booth: check what sort of information is stored on your driver’s license.

Noon		Lunch

1pm		Plant Anima Project: A Biotechnological Architecture by Aniko Meszaros Plant Anima is an ongoing project to study the transformation of tools of biotechnology into devices of culture. It proposes a new inhabitable architecture generated through the invention of unique plant organisms that is wired yet vegetable, responsive yet independent, artificial and alive.

2pm		Growing Houses by Tony Paginton Growing Houses examines the possibilities for a future environment in which buildings are grown rather than built.

3pm		IntelligentCITY by Sophia Lycouris and Yacov Sharir IntelligentCITY uses choreographic practices in dialogue with interactive technologies to transform and accentuate the perception of everyday built environments, such as shopping centers, by live audiences who are also the regular users of such environments.

4pm		Risky Surveillance: Distributed and Multiple Identity(ies) as Resistance by Nancy Nisbet Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) microchip implantation is one of several commercially attractive human tracking and authentication systems. This presentation will explore creative opportunities for resisting such surveillance and challenging officials to ensure protection for individual privacy and freedom.

Evening Performance
8pm		Palindrome performance and discussion German inter-media dance troupe Palindrome use dance movement in conjunction with interactive electronic systems to control a layered environment of video projections, music and lighting. Discussion by Palindrome’s artistic director Robert Weschler follows the presentation.

Saturday May 24 2003 Innis Townhall 2 Sussex Avenue, U of T campus, Toronto

9am		Locative Media: Mapping and Positioning Ad-hoc Wireless Networking by Marc Tuters Marc Tuters contrasts corporate driven wireless experiments, such as HP’s Cooltown, with grass-roots collaborative wireless mapping projects which he argues facilitates its users to become 'architects of their own social spaces'

10am		Squaring the Circle: An Artist’s Exploration of Time, Space, Frequency and Sound by Steve Heimbecker Steve Heimbecker describes his philosophic and creative path as an audio artist leading to the creation of the network sensor system Wind Array Cascade Machine and the installation "Pod" (on exhibit at InterAccess during the festival)

11am		Synesthesia and Digital Perception by Sergio Basbaum Perceptual habits of western culture since Greece operated through a synesthetical approach to reality that lasts until 18th century. Modernism separated the senses, and modern art has operated through this logic. But contemporary digital culture seems to be again turning into those older models of perception, largely synesthetical.

Noon		Lunch

1pm		Brain Basis of Musical Performance, Cognition, Perception and Improvisation by Lawrence Parsons This presentation will review new scientific findings indicating that indeed distributed throughout the brain are discrete neural systems and computations for particular music experiences and skills.

2pm		Interacting Galaxies: Gravity as Art by John Dubinski We observe interacting galaxies in the universe as images frozen in time but the beautiful structures they exhibit are the result of gravitational dynamical processes. John Dubinski will present work that attempts to breathe life into these images using the power of computer simulation and animation.

3pm		Something out of Nothing: the Effects of the Vacuum by Ivette Fuentes-Guridi What does the vacuum mean? Can anything happen there? This presentation will discuss how Ivette Fuentes-Guridi has looked for answers concerning this topic via artistic and scientific explorations

4pm		Are the Laws of Quantum Theory a Consequence of the Human Condition? By Lucien Hardy Quantum theory is deeply strange. Why, we might ask, does nature turn out to be described by such a weird theory? Lucien Hardy’s attempts to answer this question have led him to rethink the relationship between ourselves and the world we are immersed in

Opening Reception InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre #444-401 Richmond St Toronto
5pm		Wind Array Cascade Machine:Pod by Steve Heimbecker Interactive installation as part of Signal, an exhibition of telematic art.

Festival Party Centre for the Arts # 303 - 533 College Street, Toronto
9pm		SHED and Mixmotion provide music and visuals for our party celebration.

Sunday May 25 2003 Innis Townhall 2 Sussex Avenue, U of T campus, Toronto

10am		A Discussion of Bedlam & other Robotic Art projects by Simon Penny and Bill Vorn Bedlam is a telematic and teleoperative art installation comprising telerobotics, machine vision, interactive sound and video, with user interaction at each physical site and via the web.

11am		The Art of Time of Strange Attractors by Robert Krawczyk Strange attractors generate repeating point patterns in two-dimensional space while their coloring algorithms which represent time produce images of coherent three-dimensional forms. Robert Krawczyk investigates the subsurface structures of these patterns.

Noon		Lunch

1pm		Art, Science and Democracy by Lee Smolin This talk will explore historical and contemporary points of contact between the development of our understanding of space and time and our conception of human society. It will be argued that the practices of science, art and politics, different as they are, share certain ethical precepts without which none would progress.

2pm		Industrial Culture: Conversion Performances by Johannes Birringer This is a preview of a laboratory to be conducted in an abandoned coal-mine in Germany this summer. Various perspectives on interactive media as "conversion performances" are sketched, and conversions described as alternative economies of communication and connection, which use interactivity for practices that link technologies with everyday culture and education.

3pm		Rewilding North America from the Urban Out by Adam Zaretsky Architectural Ecology for the Sustainable Urban Psyche: Can we use our green imaginations to create realities of urban design which are not incompatible with sustainable futures?

4pm		Wrap-up Panel Discussion Moderated by Jack Butler Interdisciplinary artist Jack Butler's works bridge between the visual pleasure of art and the rational demands of science. He has exhibited installations, video projections, computer animations and performance works internationally. His work is in private and public collections including the National Gallery of Canada. Butler has degrees in Visual Art and Philosophy and 30 years experience as a medical model builder and published researcher in human development. He has taught at many institutions including Carnegie Mellon University and, most recently, at the Banff Centre for the Arts and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario.