Author Archives: Stuart Hedley

Telematic LASER: ALL THE WORLD’S A SCREEN Thursday 2nd December 2021, 4pm GMT – Online

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On Thursday 2 December 2021 at 4:00pm GMT the Telematic LASER will present the online panel discussion ALL THE WORLD’S A SCREEN with performance, Shakespeare and technology specialists… Pascale Aebischer, Lucy Askew and Sarah Ellis. They will discuss the impact of the pandemic on the performing arts, reflecting on the histories, contemporary practices and futures of online theatre that creatively engages remote performers and audiences.

Register Here:

https://leonardo.info/telematic-laser-all-the-world-s-a-screen/

The panel will be co-moderated by Paul Sermon and Satinder Gill from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Covid-19 Response project Telepresence Stage. The Telematic LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) is co-hosted by the University of Brighton’s Centre for Digital Media Cultures, Leonardo ISAST and the Third Space Network.

This Telematic LASER brings together three leading performance, Shakespeare and technology experts, who have each confronted the effects of the pandemic on the performing arts through distinctive and innovative approaches to online theatre. The panel will provide a unique opportunity to present, contrast and discuss their results, as well as the conceptual and technical challenges they faced in pursuit of newfound digital aesthetics that define a language of online theatre. How is it possible to convey tragedy, comedy and magic through code, 3D modelling, live audio-video streams and interactive systems? And how have online theatre audiences learnt to suspend disbelief in new and necessary ways? Overlooking the occasional technical glitch or even embracing it as the authenticity of liveness, negotiating latency, navigating time zones, and identifying with a mirrored image of self, are all new online phenomenon. How do we overcome them or turn them to our advantage? All theatre is essentially technical, but what are the advantages, disadvantages and distinct differences between online and physical theatre? Whilst online theatre has presented new forms of dramaturgy and choreography through new paradigms, structures and experience, is it essentially reframing how we touch, how we feel intimacy and experience proprioception, for both performers and audiences or is it extending our understanding of their essential qualities?

Panellists

Pascale Aebischer is Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Performance Studies at the University of Exeter. She has a particular interest in bodies and performance technologies (from candlelight through social media to ‘live’ theatre broadcast and digital performance). Pascale is leading the coordination of the AHRC’s Covid-19 research portfolio as Principal Investigator of The Pandemic and Beyond: the Arts and Humanities Contribution to Covid Research and Recovery. 

Lucy Askew is Chief Executive and Creative Producer at Creation Theatre, based in Oxford. They have been producing and performing innovative theatre productions in alternative locations and settings for over 20 years. Since lockdown in March 2020, Lucy has produced an impressive programme of unique online performances, including a Zoom audience engagement production of The Tempest and an ambitious choose-your-own-adventure take on Romeo and Juliet.

Sarah Ellis is Director of Digital Development at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Through her recent partnership with the UKRI Audience of the Future programme Sarah led and produced ‘Dream’, an online virtual midsummer forest experience for the RSC, inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Using motion capture cameras and 3D gaming software ‘Dream’ explores how audiences and avatars could be experienced as possible futures for live performance.

Moderators

Paul Sermon is a Telematic Artist, Professor of Visual Communication at the University of Brighton and Telepresence Stage Principal Investigator.

Satinder Gill is Research affiliate in the Centre for Music and Science at the University of Cambridge, researching the body in sense-making and presence.

Production

Telematic LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) is co-hosted quarterly by Paul Sermon from the University of Brighton, Centre for Digital Media Cultures and Randall Packer from the Third Space Network. A program of the Leonardo International Society of the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST), the series is comprised of online public dialogues and performances that feature discussion, presentation and experimentation among leading artists, researchers, scientists and performers in the area of art and telematics.

Telepresence Stage is a UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project led by University of Brighton UK, in collaboration with LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore and the Third Space Network in Washington DC. In response to the Covid-19 impact on the performing arts sector, this project aims to identify new and creative ways for actors, dancers and other performing arts professionals to rehearse and interact together in shared online spaces and to produce collaborative live performances from remote sites.

The University of Brighton https://www.brighton.ac.uk/digital-media-cultures/

The Third Space Network https://thirdspacenetwork.com

For more information please contact Paul Sermon p.sermon@brighton.ac.uk

 

 

Gene Youngblood Memorial Tribute – Tuesday June 15

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3SN Celebrates Life of Media Visionary
Gene Youngblood Memorial Tribute
The Unfinished Communications Revolution

Media visionary and activist Gene Youngblood, author of the 1970 book Expanded Cinema in which he predicted the future of the media arts as a communications revolution, died on April 6, 2021, at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

On Tuesday, June 15, 4pm EDT  9PM BST, the Third Space Network will present online the Gene Youngblood Memorial Tribute: The Unfinished Communications Revolution honouring his life and work. The artists, curators, and media scholars who will speak about Youngblood’s colourful life and historic contribution to the arts, are among those who pioneered the emerging forms of experimental film, video, and communications art during the latter part of the 20th century.

The Gene Youngblood Memorial Tribute will be co-moderated by 3SN Creative Director Randall Packer and media artist Kit Galloway. The event is a presentation of the Telematic LASER series (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous), co-hosted by 3SN, Currents New Media (Santa Fe), Leonardo/ISAST, and the University of Brighton/School of Art/Centre for Digital Media Cultures in the UK.

Register here
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/gene-youngblood-tribute/register

Telematic LASER is co-hosted quarterly by Randall Packer of the Third Space Network & Paul Sermon of the University of Brighton/School of Art/Centre for Digital Media Cultures. A program of the Leonard/International Society of the Arts, Sciences, and Technology, the series is comprised of online public dialogues and performances that feature discussion, presentation and experimentation among leading artists, researchers, scientists and performers in the area of art & telematics.

Unlikely Partners

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Recently Professor Alison Bruce and Professor Andre Viljoen brought together University of Brighton researchers across the disciplines of Architecture, Design, Computing, Engineering and Mathematics for a range of exciting conversations to get to know each other better, see how they think about similar topics from their different perspectives, and think about if / how they may work together in the future.

Topics included:

Cultural heritages in times of digitisation and decolonisation. Dr Katy Beinart and Dr Karina Rodriguez Echavarria 

The Circular City and Rethinking Architecture and Engineering. Katrin Bohn , Duncan Baker Brown and Dr Yan Wang

Hyper-local Production and Advanced Engineering. James Tooze and Prof Marco Marengo

Interplays between experimental design and engineering. Dr Sarah Stevens and Dr Poorang Piroozfar 

Conversations about cybernetics. Dr Ben Sweeting and Prof Haris Mouratidis 

Machine learning and design. Dr Marcus Winter and Dr Derek Covill 

The Aldrich Collection

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Initiated in 1995 by Michael and Sandy Aldrich, the Aldrich Collection  comprises about 300 works of contemporary visual art. The vast majority of these have been produced by students and tutors working in the Arts at the University of Brighton,  as well as its distinguished institutional precursors in art and  design education which go back over 140 years. Pictures and artefacts in numerous media are held within the collection with the aim that they should be accessed by the wider community.

Walter Bailey bn. 1960, ‘Sculpture’, green oak, 214cm x 61cm

Important areas of the collection include works by John Vernon Lord, George Hardie, Brendan Neiland, Alan Davie, Quentin Blake, Kenneth McKendry and Mark Power.

Please do browse the Aldrich Collection here.

During the national lockdown the The Michael Aldrich Foundation ran the “Image of the Week” school project with JONK, releasing one image a week from the Aldrich Collection.

Portrait of Michael Aldrich by Kenneth McKendry, Aldrich Collection, University of Brighton

Michael Aldrich and his family have had a strong supportive relationship with the University of Brighton since sponsoring student employees for electronics engineering and computing degrees in 1977. Michael became a member of the Governing Body in 1982 and is the Founding Chairman (1988-1998) of the University of Brighton.

In 1996 the University of Brighton dedicated the new Moulscomb Library to Michael Aldrich. In June 2002 the final stage of the Aldrich Gardens at Moulscomb was opened. In July 2002 Michael Aldrich received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University and in 2008 agreed to donate the Michael Aldrich Archive to the Aldrich Library.

Loss & Transience – Online Events 19-27 March 2021

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Loss & Transience

An exhibition of moving image artworks and documentary films presented by VisionMix and co curated by Dr. Lucía Imaz King (Lecturer in Moving Image, University of Brighton)

Image credit: Gigi Scaria, Face to Face (2010) Digital print, courtesy of the artist

Curators’ Note

The Exhibition brings a selection of works in documentary film and artists’ video by ten contemporary artists/filmmakers living and working in India today, including artists of Indian heritage based internationally.

The films are linked by their protagonists’ state of transience at key moments within the films providing numerous insights into how day-to-day realities are being catalysed to affect change, but also to reflect on present political and environmental concerns.

Collectively the films are examples of rendering new worlds through improvisation which cannot exist ‘in the real world’; an approach that is re-constructive and playful; allowing for adaptation to the challenges of the environment whilst critically questioning our role within it.

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Online Events

Webinar hosted by Hong-gah Museum  – 27 March  7-9 pm Taiwan time, 4.30-6.30pm IST, 11am-1pm GMT

Aired on Hong-gah Museum’s FB page. Log on via this link at the above time.

https://facebook.com/HongGahMuseum

Introduction to the exhibition, Loss & Transience, with Curators, Zoe Yeh, Lucía Imaz King & Rashmi Sawhney, followed by a talk between filmmaker Avijit Mukul Kishore and visual artist, Nilima Sheikh on their collaboration for the film, Garden of Forgotten Snow, about the practice of Nilima Sheikh. Guest artist: Kuei-Pi Lee.

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Video Screenings hosted by videoclub, UK – 19-27 March 2021 (24 hours per day)

Selected films/video artworks from the exhibition, accessible on a rolling programme:

Ranbir Singh Kaleka: Man with Cockerel, 2004 (6 mins) & Forest, 2007 (16 mins)

Avijit Mukul Kishore: The Garden of Forgotten Snow, 2017 (30 mins)

Mochu: Wake, 2008 (15 mins)

Ranu Mukherjee: Home and the World, 2015 (5 mins)

Gigi Scaria: No Parallels, 2010 (6 mins) & Political Realism, 2009 (3 mins) 

Join link for online screening programme:

https://videoclub.org.uk/visionmix-loss-transience-2-film-programme-and-artists-2/

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Webinar hosted by videoclub – 20 March 11am-1pm GMT, 7-9 pm Taiwan time, 4.30-6.30pm IST

Introduction to the exhibition, Loss & Transience by Curators, Lucía Imaz King, Rashmi Sawhney and Jamie Wyld (videoclub) followed by an artist’s talk by Gigi Scaria with public interaction.

Join link for Webinar:

https://videoclub.org.uk/visionmix-loss-transience-2-curators-and-artists-talk/

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Hong-gah Museum 

Taipei, Taiwan – 12 March – 2 May 2021 – Visiting hours: 10:30-17:30 Taiwan time, Tues to Sun

https://www.hong-gah.org.tw/4376?lang=en

Exhibition in the Video Hall, Installations and screenings of works by artists/filmmakers:

Ranbir Singh Kaleka, Gigi Scaria, Mochu, Avijit Mukul Kishore, Ranu Mukherjee, Ayisha Abraham, Abhinava Bhattacharyya, Ambarien Alqadar, Madhusree Dutta & Devshree Nath

Curators: Lucía Imaz King, Rashmi Sawhney

Film screening at Hong-gah Museum Video Hall: 10,17 and 24 April, 2.30-4.30pm

Madhusree Dutta, Seven Islands and a Metro (180:00)

Catalogue for the physical and online exhibition events:

https://www.hong-gah.org.tw/4376?lang=en

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Contact for enquiries: https://www.visionmix.info/contact

Online throughout March and April – ART/DATA/HEALTH Seminars: Communicating public health data creatively during the pandemic

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ART/DATA/HEALTH Seminars: Communicating public health data creatively during the pandemic

Organised by the ART/DATA/HEALTH project (University of Brighton, funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council), this seminar series explores how health data have been communicated during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on creative and artistic representations of data.

Join Dr Aristea Fotopoulou (Creative Futures Academic lead and project lead for ART/DATA/HEALTH) in this exciting free online seminar series, where International  speakers explore how health data have been communicated during the COVID-19 Pandemic, focusing On Creative And Artistic Representations Of Quantitative Data.

The series includes perspectives and approaches to data from bioart, community art, participatory dance, media art, film and more traditional data vi, such as infographics, which were explored during the two years of the ART/DATA/HEALTH Project.

Programme

30/03 Anna Dumitriu. “Creating Meaning From Healthcare Data Through Art”.  BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE

01/04 Prof Rahul Bhargava Northeastern University “”Get Off The Screen!!! Creative Approaches To Embodying Data In The Real World”. BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE

09/04 Dr Younghui Kim, Queensland University Of Technology. “Data Art: Exploring Data As Artistic Material And Medium”. BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE.

12/04 Prof Sally Wyatt, Maastricht University. “Touching Data: Touch Me With Your Naked Hand Or Touch Me With Your Glove”.

DATE TBC Patel, Shreepali (StoryLab Project, Anglia Ruskin University). “Covid Through The Creative Lens”.

20/04 Launch Of ART/DATA/HEALTH Short Film “Human, Planet, Weaker, Other”, Directed By Dr Aristea Fotopoulou, Animation By Caroline Beavon, Filming By Hydrocracker.

Update – More Culture Less Medicine Conference 2020

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Creative Futures are delighted to announce that the video is now available online from the Brighton & Hove City Council Arts, Health and Wellbeing Group More Culture Less Medicine Conference 2020 Conference.

The excellent event brought together a wide spectrum of representatives from Arts, Health and Social Care to look at some of the key developments within the sector and to explore how we establish Brighton and Hove as a Centre of Excellence for Arts, Health & Wellbeing. Duncan Bullen (Director of the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing at the University of Brighton) and Dr Aristea Fotopoulou (Creative Futures Academic lead and project lead for ART/DATA/HEALTH) both presented.

@ the Crossroads ::: where do we go from here? Saturday, Jan. 16th

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Telematic LASER – presented by Third Space Network, – University of Brighton School of Art, & Leonardo/ISAST

 

ONLINE PUBLIC DIALOGUE
Saturday, Jan. 16th, 9am ET / 2pm UK / 3pm CET / 10pm Singapore
/// ONLINE REGISTRATION – Save Your Spot on Crowdcast

 

Randall Packer (US) (moderator), Ghislaine Boddington (UK), Steve Dixon (SG) & Paul Sermon (Professor of Visual Communication at the University of Brighton, UK)

 

In the wake of Covid-19, we have witnessed a mass migration to the third space, that telematic region of shared networked space that lies between the local and the remote. We ask: what are the personal, social, and artistic implications of this migration in which our dependency on global communications to conduct the most essential human interactions has accelerated at an unprecedented rate? This acceleration into the third space has impacted, most notably, the performing arts, where alternative virtual platforms have challenged the ability to emotionally and intellectually engage with a live audience. As performance ensembles and theatre companies attempt to shift, en masse and yet apprehensively, to the virtual stage – a place of impermanence and flux – they often find themselves confined to miniature boxes and a fixed frontal gaze where movement, speaking, play, and all the other critical elements of performance are compromised. For the inaugural Telematic LASER, in the face of this dilemma, our panel will discuss concepts, techniques and approaches garnered from the new media arts, those intrepid experimentalists who have been at the vanguard of telecommunication arts for decades. We will address and explore critical questions that now lie before us as we find ourselves at the crossroads between the physical and the virtual, contemplating our next steps.

 

Telematic LASER is co-hosted quarterly by Randall Packer of the Third Space Network & Paul Sermon of the University of Brighton: program of the Leonard/International Society of the Arts, Sciences, and Technology. The series is comprised of online public dialogues and performances that feature discussion, presentation and experimentation among leading artists, researchers, scientists and performers in the area of telematics.

Leonardo / ISAST

The LASERs are a program of international gatherings that bring artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together for informal presentations, performances and conversations with the wider public. The mission of the LASERs is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building.

 

New academic lead for Creative Futures

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We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Aristea Fotopoulou as the new academic lead for Creative Futures.

Dr Aristea Fotopoulou

The Brighton Futures are an integral part of the Strategic Plan for Research and Enterprise and, together with the Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence (COREs), are the focus of the University’s globally-influential research and enterprise activities.

The five Futures (Connected, Creative, Healthy, Radical and Responsible) are based on the principles that underpin our strategic plan and characterise the type of research and enterprise that we currently do and plan to expand. Our academic leads are senior academics who provide thought leadership, working to consolidate our existing strengths and explore and develop new possibilities.

Dr Aristea Fotopoulou will commence in the role in January 2021 and has already begun to make a contribution to the Creative Futures agenda. As a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Innovation Fellow and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Leadership Fellow, she leads on the ART/DATA/HEALTH research project which uses data as creative material for health and wellbeing; the project recently brought attention to the pandemic’s impact on women facing domestic abuse through a sculptural installation. In addition to her research and leadership credentials, Aristea brings broad-ranging experience to the role, including insight from her work as a Postgraduate Research Coordinator and her previous position as Early Career Researcher ambassador.

Dr Aristea Fotopoulou said:

“I am delighted to join the Brighton Futures as Academic Lead of Creative Futures, and contribute to the development of the University’s interdisciplinary research environment that nurtures creativity and innovation. The opportunity to produce inspirational solutions and positive change has never been greater, and I am a strong supporter of bringing together the arts, science and technology to do this.”

More Culture Less Medicine – 23rd November to 26th November

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Following on from More Culture Less Medicine last year, for 4 days in November 2020 the Brighton & Hove City Council Arts, Health and Wellbeing Group will be bringing together a wide spectrum of people from Arts, Health and Social Care to look at some of the key developments within the sector and to explore how we establish Brighton and Hove as a Centre of Excellence for Arts, Health & Wellbeing. Duncan Bullen (Director of the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing at the University of Brighton) and Dr Aristea Fotopoulou (project lead ART/DATA/HEALTH) shall both be presenting.

The conference will take the form of a series of bite-sized morning sessions, 10am-midday every day, via zoom. The sessions are FREE to book via the hyperlinks below,

Each event will include cross sector speakers and presentations, showcasing of diverse and high quality practice and open discussion.

Each day will be themed, as follows:

• Monday 23rd: The Big Picture – considering the international, national and local context and the latest research findings. BOOK DAY 1 HERE

• Tuesday 24th: The Big Challenges – tackling inequalities and finding opportunities. BOOK DAY 2 HERE

• Wednesday 25th: The Big Vision – creating a shared vision for Brighton and Hove (this
session will be led by the HERA Partnership) BOOK DAY 3 HERE

• Thursday 26th: The Big Conversation – exploring the issues, the opportunities, the
developing language and practice BOOK DAY 4 HERE