Disrupting the arts scene around the world and in Vancouver (Canada)

I have two news bits of news for this post. First, the theme for the 2015 International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA) to be held in Vancouver, Canada from Aug. 14 – 18, 2015 is Disruption and the deadline for submitting proposals for research papers and art installations is Dec. 20, 2014 (ETA Dec. 22, 2014: The deadline for long art or research papers, short art or research papers, art or research extended abstracts with demonstration or poster presentation, panels, workshops, tutorials and institutional presentations has been extended to Jan. 12, 2014; the deadline for artwork submissions remains Dec. 20, 2014). Here’s more about the symposium from the About page,

ISEA is one of the world’s most prominent international arts and technology events, bringing  together scholarly, artistic, and scientific domains in an interdisciplinary discussion and showcase of creative productions applying new technologies in art, interactivity, and electronic and digital media. The event annually brings together artists, designers, academics, technologists, scientists, and general audience in the thousands. The symposium consists of a peer reviewed conference, a series of exhibitions, and various partner events—from large scale interactive artwork in public space to cutting edge electronic music performance.

In the last four years ISEA has been hosted in Istanbul (2011), Albuquerque, New Mexico (2012), and Sydney, Australia (2013), and Dubai (2014). ISEA2015 in Vancouver marks its return to Canada, 20 years since the groundbreaking first Canadian ISEA1995 in Montréal. The Symposium will be held at the Woodward’s campus of Simon Fraser University in downtown Vancouver with exhibitions and events taking place at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and many other sites and venues throughout the city.

The series of ISEA symposia is coordinated by ISEA International. Founded in the Netherlands in 1990, ISEA International (formerly Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts) is an international non-profit organization fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among culturally diverse organizations and individuals working with art, science and technology. ISEA International Headquarters is supported by the University of Brighton (UK).

Here’s more from the Theme page,

ISEA2015’s theme of DISRUPTION invites a conversation about the aesthetics of change, renewal, and game-changing paradigms. We look to raw bursts of energy, reconciliation, error, and the destructive and creative forces of the new. Disruption contains both blue sky and black smoke. When we speak of radical emergence we must also address things left behind. Disruption is both incremental and monumental.

In practices ranging from hacking and detournement to inversions of place, time, and intention, creative work across disciplines constantly finds ways to rethink or reconsider form, function, context, body, network, and culture. Artists push, shape, break; designers reinvent and overturn; scientists challenge, disprove and re-state; technologists hack and subvert to rebuild.

Disruption and rupture are fundamental to digital aesthetics. Instantiations of the digital realm continue to proliferate in contemporary culture, allowing us to observe ever-broader consequences of these effects and the aesthetic, functional, social and political possibilities that arise from them.

Within this theme, we want to investigate trends in digital and internet aesthetics and revive exchange across disciplines. We hope to broaden the spheres in which disruptive aesthetics can be explored, crossing into the worlds of science, technology, design, visual art, contemporary and media art, innovation, performance, and sound.

I encourage you to read the whole Theme page if you’re interested in making a proposal as the organizers have outlined many approaches to the main theme. Good luck to everyone making a submission (and that includes me). I will be submitting a proposal  with my co-author, Raewyn Turner, an artist from New Zealand, for Steep (I): a digital poetry of gold nanoparticles. (I’ll be writing more about our Steep project soon (hopefully next week Dec. 22 – 25, 2014.)

For the second bit of news, Emily Carr University of Art + Design received grants for two Canada Research Chairs in Oct. 2014. Here’s more from the Recipients List (Note: I have made some changes to the formatting),

Frid-Jimenez, Amber     Emily Carr University of Art + Design     Canada Research Chair in Art and Design Technology     SSHRC [funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council]     [Tier] 2     New [position]
Hertz, Garnet     Emily Carr University of Art + Design     Canada Research Chair in Design and Media Arts     SSHRC     2     New

A Nov. 22, 2014 blog post on Emily Carr University’s The Big Idea blog provides more detail about the appointments,

Emily Carr University of Art + Design is honoured to announce the appointment of Associate Professors Amber Frid-Jimenez and Dr. Garnet Hertz to Canada Research Chairs recently published by the Government of Canada. This historic milestone marks the first Canada Research Chair appointments for Emily Carr University of Art + Design recognizing the institution’s capacity, faculty and contributions-to-date in the fields of art, media and design research. …

… “We are honoured that our University and the work of Dr. Garnet Hertz and Amber Frid-Jimenez are being recognized by the Government of Canada,” said David Bogen, Vice President Academic + Provost, Emily Carr University of Art + Design. “The appointment of our first Canada Research Chairs is significant at every level – for our institution’s culture of research, for our academic programs, and for our students who will work directly with some of today’s greatest artists, designers, and scholars in their prospective fields.” … Associate Professor Amber Frid-Jimenez is an awarding-winning interaction and print designer who has taught design studios and seminars at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Visual Arts Program, the National Arts Academy (KHiB) in Bergen, Norway, and most recently at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She holds a Masters in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab where she studied with John Maeda. Associate Professor Dr. Garnet Hertz’s work explores themes of DIY culture and interdisciplinary art/design practices. His work has been shown at several notable international venues including SIGGRAPH, Arts Electronica, and DEAF, and he was awarded the 2008 Oscar Signorini Award in robotic art. He is the founder and director of Dorkbot SoCal, a monthly Los Angeles-based lecture series, has taught at the Art Center College of Design, the University of California, Irvine, and is now Associate Professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

You can find out more about Amber Frid-Jiminez here and about Garnet Hertz here .

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *