DASH Archives - November 2012

Latin America and Cybernetics at ISEA 2012

From: Paul Brown <paul@PAUL-BROWN.COM>

Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2012 20:09:21 +0000

Forwarded from YASMIN:  http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin


Dear members of Yasmin,

I am Esteban García an artist and PhD candidate in Computer Graphics
Technology at Purdue University. I presented at ISEA 2012 a workshop on web
radio called “Radio Chigüiro” and collaborated with Andrés Burbano in the
panel “Code Talkers.” I also attended to the exciting panel in Cybernetics
and here are my notes:

Latin America and Cybernetics at ISEA 2012

This panel focused in past and current Latin American approaches to
cybernetics. Researchers in Artists, Neurologists, Politicians and
Mathematicians have explored cybernetics, "the scientific study of control
and communication in the animal and the machine."[1] Some of the approaches
included transposing different disciplines to create within a new field of
knowledge.

Susana Quintanilla presented on an early case of the Latin American
influence in the development of a conceptual model for cybernetics. It
started with the communication of Neuroscientists Norman Weiner and Arturo
Rosenblueth, starting in the 1930’s and continuing throughout their lives.
Rosenblueth was a scholar born in México who in the 1930 was awarded an
scholarship in the department of Physiology of Harvard Univeristy. During
his lifetime, he co-wrote articles with Weiner including “Behavior, Purpose
and Teleology” in 1943, a seminal article that redefined the theory of
cybernetics. Rosenblueth’s return to Mexico as a Professor in the
Physiology department of UNAM didn’t stop him and Wiener to continue to
collaborate. They were able to maintain correspondence and co-author
research in the new science of cybernetics.

Pablo Colapinto’s presentation regarded to “Grupo de los 13,” an
Argentinian-based group of artists who in the 1970’s explored cybernetics.
The work of Luis Fernando Benedit was highlighted. His work explored the
development of autonomous systems. Benedit’s “Biotron” was installed in the
1970 Venice Biennale, displaying an enclosed environment for bees:

*
*

*Biotron, an aluminum and plexiglas construction which housed 4,000 bees,
shown at the 1970 Venice Biennale. The insects had the choice of feeding
from artificial flowers which dripped sugar at the direction of a computer,
or from actual flowers in a nearby garden. The bees preferred the
artificial solution.* [2]

Pablo, can talk a little more about Benedit’s work? It was a very
interesting presentation.

Eden Medina’s presentation was called “Cybernetics and Political Change in
Chile. Medina focused in the particular case of project Cybersyn, an
experiment in cybernetic socialism during Salvador Allende’s government
from 1970 to 1973.  The presentation was based on Medina’s book entitled
“Cybernetic Revolutionaries” from MIT Press (2011) [3]. Cybersyn overlapped
science and politics aimed to be a socialist approach to technological
innovation.

In 1971, Fernando Flores wrote to Stafford Beer about starting a
challenging project to be implemented across the whole country. In a note
by Medina:

*
*

*The person in charge of the technical aspects of the nationalization
effort had learned about cybernetics in college, especially a vein of
cybernetic thought known as management cybernetics that was in development
by an Englishman named Stafford Beer.*

A team that included Beer, aimed to create a National network for data
processing using one mainframe computer. The goal was to achieve an
auto-regulated society. One of the highlighted examples, was a sketch of
Project Cyberfolk, by Beer. Cyberfolk was a prototype of a system that
could be installed in people’s Television to give the government real-time
feedback about society. One of the notes on the bottom represented a dial
with a meter to measure the overall levels of happiness of the population.
Medina explained that “Cybersyn illustrates how political innovation can
lead to technological innovation.*”*

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be in Eduardo Bayro’s presentation. Did anybody
get to see it? Maybe Alejandro?

I tried my best to recollect from my notes, also I would like to thank Eden
for sending me her notes about her presentation.

Talk to all you soon,

Esteban García
art & research
www.snebtor.org

References:

[1] Wiener, Norbert (1948). Cybernetics, or Communication and Control in
the Animal and the Machine. Cambridge: MIT Press.

[2]
http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/4913/releases/MOMA_1972_0142_125.pdf?2010

[3]http://www.cyberneticrevolutionaries.com/?page_id=2



====
Paul Brown - based in the UK May to November 2012
http://www.paul-brown.com == http://www.brown-and-son.com
UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
Skype paul-g-brown
====
Synapse Artist-in-Residence - Deakin University
http://www.deakin.edu.au/itri/cisr/projects/hear.php
Honorary Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====





















































































































Forwarded from YASMIN:  http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin


Dear members of Yasmin,

I am Esteban García an artist and PhD candidate in Computer Graphics
Technology at Purdue University. I presented at ISEA 2012 a workshop on web
radio called “Radio Chigüiro” and collaborated with Andrés Burbano in the
panel “Code Talkers.” I also attended to the exciting panel in Cybernetics
and here are my notes:

Latin America and Cybernetics at ISEA 2012

This panel focused in past and current Latin American approaches to
cybernetics. Researchers in Artists, Neurologists, Politicians and
Mathematicians have explored cybernetics, "the scientific study of control
and communication in the animal and the machine."[1] Some of the approaches
included transposing different disciplines to create within a new field of
knowledge.

Susana Quintanilla presented on an early case of the Latin American
influence in the development of a conceptual model for cybernetics. It
started with the communication of Neuroscientists Norman Weiner and Arturo
Rosenblueth, starting in the 1930’s and continuing throughout their lives.
Rosenblueth was a scholar born in México who in the 1930 was awarded an
scholarship in the department of Physiology of Harvard Univeristy. During
his lifetime, he co-wrote articles with Weiner including “Behavior, Purpose
and Teleology” in 1943, a seminal article that redefined the theory of
cybernetics. Rosenblueth’s return to Mexico as a Professor in the
Physiology department of UNAM didn’t stop him and Wiener to continue to
collaborate. They were able to maintain correspondence and co-author
research in the new science of cybernetics.

Pablo Colapinto’s presentation regarded to “Grupo de los 13,” an
Argentinian-based group of artists who in the 1970’s explored cybernetics.
The work of Luis Fernando Benedit was highlighted. His work explored the
development of autonomous systems. Benedit’s “Biotron” was installed in the
1970 Venice Biennale, displaying an enclosed environment for bees:

*
*

*Biotron, an aluminum and plexiglas construction which housed 4,000 bees,
shown at the 1970 Venice Biennale. The insects had the choice of feeding
from artificial flowers which dripped sugar at the direction of a computer,
or from actual flowers in a nearby garden. The bees preferred the
artificial solution.* [2]

Pablo, can talk a little more about Benedit’s work? It was a very
interesting presentation.

Eden Medina’s presentation was called “Cybernetics and Political Change in
Chile. Medina focused in the particular case of project Cybersyn, an
experiment in cybernetic socialism during Salvador Allende’s government
from 1970 to 1973.  The presentation was based on Medina’s book entitled
“Cybernetic Revolutionaries” from MIT Press (2011) [3]. Cybersyn overlapped
science and politics aimed to be a socialist approach to technological
innovation.

In 1971, Fernando Flores wrote to Stafford Beer about starting a
challenging project to be implemented across the whole country. In a note
by Medina:

*
*

*The person in charge of the technical aspects of the nationalization
effort had learned about cybernetics in college, especially a vein of
cybernetic thought known as management cybernetics that was in development
by an Englishman named Stafford Beer.*

A team that included Beer, aimed to create a National network for data
processing using one mainframe computer. The goal was to achieve an
auto-regulated society. One of the highlighted examples, was a sketch of
Project Cyberfolk, by Beer. Cyberfolk was a prototype of a system that
could be installed in people’s Television to give the government real-time
feedback about society. One of the notes on the bottom represented a dial
with a meter to measure the overall levels of happiness of the population.
Medina explained that “Cybersyn illustrates how political innovation can
lead to technological innovation.*”*

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be in Eduardo Bayro’s presentation. Did anybody
get to see it? Maybe Alejandro?

I tried my best to recollect from my notes, also I would like to thank Eden
for sending me her notes about her presentation.

Talk to all you soon,

Esteban García
art & research
www.snebtor.org

References:

[1] Wiener, Norbert (1948). Cybernetics, or Communication and Control in
the Animal and the Machine. Cambridge: MIT Press.

[2]
http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/4913/releases/MOMA_1972_0142_125.pdf?2010

[3]http://www.cyberneticrevolutionaries.com/?page_id=2



====
Paul Brown - based in the UK May to November 2012
http://www.paul-brown.com == http://www.brown-and-son.com
UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
Skype paul-g-brown
====
Synapse Artist-in-Residence - Deakin University
http://www.deakin.edu.au/itri/cisr/projects/hear.php
Honorary Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====



cfp: Historiographies of New Media [in Art History] (Chicago Art Journal)

From: Paul Brown <paul@PAUL-BROWN.COM>

Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2012 09:20:15 +0000

From: Solveig Nelson, Chicago Art Journal <UChicagoArtJournal@gmail.com>
Date: Nov 5, 2012
Subject: CFP: Historiographies of New Media (Chicago Art Journal)

Deadline: Dec 17, 2012

Call for Papers Submission Deadline: December 17, 2012, 5 p.m.

Historiographies of New Media

The Chicago Art Journal, the annual publication of the University of
Chicago Department of Art History, is seeking submissions of original
work by graduate students and faculty. The 2012-2013 edition asks how
new media have affected not only the production of art, but also the
production of knowledge about art. What is at stake in approaching art
history through the concept of new media?

Particularly in the post WWII period, the term “new media” has been
applied to a range of formats—from photography, to video, to the
Internet—that have revolutionized the modes of transmission and
reproduction of “old” media of art. The concept of new media seems to
promise a mass media address, yet artists have often emphasized the
limits of circulation—for instance, in closed-circuit television, or
in zines that were produced via Xerox processes and yet distributed to
small networks. Such a dialectical relation escapes media theory’s
emphasis on mass distribution and gestures instead toward sites of
friction between the imaginative and material aspects of new media,
which the discipline of art history may be particularly well-equipped
to explore.

Furthermore, the formation and performance of art history has been
contingent upon pivotal introductions of reproductive media, from the
double-slide lecture to the publication of photographs in books, from
the use of facsimiles in the classroom to broadcasts of “art on
television.” In turning with fresh eyes to the idea of new media, we
consider art history’s rhetorics of description and display. How might
we effectively attend to the aesthetic and pedagogical aspects of new
media in the wake of communications theory and concepts such as
interactivity?

Just as recent scholarship has addressed the nuances of “pre-modern”
and modern notions of mediality—including forms of mechanical
reproducibility and audiovisual displays emergent in the Middle
Ages—so might we aim to reframe more contemporary art historical
categories of “lateness” such as the post-medium condition.

We are especially interested in papers that diverge from the
well-known chronologies of Euro-American technological developments.

Topics might include but are not limited to:
- the performance and circulation of art history through facsimiles,
 photographs, slide projections
- responses and counter-responses to new media technologies within art
 criticism, critical theory, and film theory
- historical modes of mechanical reproduction, such as imprinting
 coins, technologies of the book, and seals
- transfers and transformations among media
- media as reference for other media
- the materiality of new media, and material processes
- new media and abstraction
- painting after the advent of network theory
- the aesthetics of television
- queer aesthetics and new media
- analog and digital in art and art history
- historiographies of “video art,” including the role of projection
- the wider implications of artists’ practices in Xerox, zines,
 artists’ books, flip books, and holograms
- the dialectics of art transmitted through media and art as media
- new media’s relevance for reframing art historical cycles and
 geographies of innovation

Submissions:
Papers must follow The Chicago Manual of Style and should not exceed
5000 words. Each submission should include an abstract of
approximately 500 words. Both Word documents and PDFs are acceptable.

All contributors should include their name, address, telephone number,
and email address.

Authors are responsible for securing image reproduction rights and
associated fees.

Please send submissions to the graduate student editor Solveig Nelson
at UChicagoArtJournal@gmail.com by December 17, 2012, 5 p.m.

Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Historiographies of New Media (Chicago Art Journal). In: H-ArtHist, Nov 5, 2012. <http://arthist.net/archive/4152>.



====
Paul Brown - based in the UK May to November 2012
http://www.paul-brown.com == http://www.brown-and-son.com
UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
Skype paul-g-brown
====
Synapse Artist-in-Residence - Deakin University
http://www.deakin.edu.au/itri/cisr/projects/hear.php
Honorary Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====









































































































From: Solveig Nelson, Chicago Art Journal 
Date: Nov 5, 2012
Subject: CFP: Historiographies of New Media (Chicago Art Journal)

Deadline: Dec 17, 2012

Call for Papers Submission Deadline: December 17, 2012, 5 p.m.

Historiographies of New Media

The Chicago Art Journal, the annual publication of the University of
Chicago Department of Art History, is seeking submissions of original
work by graduate students and faculty. The 2012-2013 edition asks how
new media have affected not only the production of art, but also the
production of knowledge about art. What is at stake in approaching art
history through the concept of new media?

Particularly in the post WWII period, the term “new media” has been
applied to a range of formats—from photography, to video, to the
Internet—that have revolutionized the modes of transmission and
reproduction of “old” media of art. The concept of new media seems to
promise a mass media address, yet artists have often emphasized the
limits of circulation—for instance, in closed-circuit television, or
in zines that were produced via Xerox processes and yet distributed to
small networks. Such a dialectical relation escapes media theory’s
emphasis on mass distribution and gestures instead toward sites of
friction between the imaginative and material aspects of new media,
which the discipline of art history may be particularly well-equipped
to explore.

Furthermore, the formation and performance of art history has been
contingent upon pivotal introductions of reproductive media, from the
double-slide lecture to the publication of photographs in books, from
the use of facsimiles in the classroom to broadcasts of “art on
television.” In turning with fresh eyes to the idea of new media, we
consider art history’s rhetorics of description and display. How might
we effectively attend to the aesthetic and pedagogical aspects of new
media in the wake of communications theory and concepts such as
interactivity?

Just as recent scholarship has addressed the nuances of “pre-modern”
and modern notions of mediality—including forms of mechanical
reproducibility and audiovisual displays emergent in the Middle
Ages—so might we aim to reframe more contemporary art historical
categories of “lateness” such as the post-medium condition.

We are especially interested in papers that diverge from the
well-known chronologies of Euro-American technological developments.

Topics might include but are not limited to:
- the performance and circulation of art history through facsimiles,
 photographs, slide projections
- responses and counter-responses to new media technologies within art
 criticism, critical theory, and film theory
- historical modes of mechanical reproduction, such as imprinting
 coins, technologies of the book, and seals
- transfers and transformations among media
- media as reference for other media
- the materiality of new media, and material processes
- new media and abstraction
- painting after the advent of network theory
- the aesthetics of television
- queer aesthetics and new media
- analog and digital in art and art history
- historiographies of “video art,” including the role of projection
- the wider implications of artists’ practices in Xerox, zines,
 artists’ books, flip books, and holograms
- the dialectics of art transmitted through media and art as media
- new media’s relevance for reframing art historical cycles and
 geographies of innovation

Submissions:
Papers must follow The Chicago Manual of Style and should not exceed
5000 words. Each submission should include an abstract of
approximately 500 words. Both Word documents and PDFs are acceptable.

All contributors should include their name, address, telephone number,
and email address.

Authors are responsible for securing image reproduction rights and
associated fees.

Please send submissions to the graduate student editor Solveig Nelson
at UChicagoArtJournal@gmail.com by December 17, 2012, 5 p.m.

Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Historiographies of New Media (Chicago Art Journal). In: H-ArtHist, Nov 5, 2012. .



====
Paul Brown - based in the UK May to November 2012
http://www.paul-brown.com == http://www.brown-and-son.com
UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
Skype paul-g-brown
====
Synapse Artist-in-Residence - Deakin University
http://www.deakin.edu.au/itri/cisr/projects/hear.php
Honorary Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====




Two brand new MSc at UCL Science and Technology Studies Dept.

From: "Aicardi, Christine" <c.aicardi@UCL.AC.UK>

Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 15:33:54 +0000

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are pleased to inform you of the launch of our new MSc programmes, revamped for 2013. You can find out about them at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/prospective/msc/uclmastersdegrees. There is one in History and Philosophy of Science and one in Science, Technology and Society. More information will be posted in the coming weeks as we flesh out syllabuses etc.

If you have students, colleagues, friends or family that you think might be interested, please do suggest that they get in touch. The email is sts-msc-admission@ucl.ac.uk.
 

All the best,

 

Christine

 

Dr Christine Aicardi

Wellcome Library Research Fellow

Department of Science & Technology Studies

University College London

http://ucl.ac.uk/sts/staff/fellows/aicardi



Dear friends and colleagues,

We are pleased to inform you of the launch of our new MSc programmes, revamped for 2013. You can find out about them at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/prospective/msc/uclmastersdegrees. There is one in History and Philosophy of Science and one in Science, Technology and Society. More information will be posted in the coming weeks as we flesh out syllabuses etc.

If you have students, colleagues, friends or family that you think might be interested, please do suggest that they get in touch. The email is sts-msc-admission@ucl.ac.uk.


All the best,



Christine



Dr Christine Aicardi

Wellcome Library Research Fellow

Department of Science & Technology Studies

University College London

http://ucl.ac.uk/sts/staff/fellows/aicardi


CFP: Media Art Histories 2013: RENEW

From: Oliver Grau <Oliver.Grau@DONAU-UNI.AC.AT>

Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:00:12 +0100

Call for Papers:

Media Art Histories 2013: RENEW
The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, 
Science and Technology

Riga, October 8 - 11, 2013

The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, 
Science and Technology, Renew, will be hosted by RIXC and held in 
Riga, Latvia, October 8 - 11, 2013, coinciding with the international 
festival for new media culture Art+Communication. It will host three 
days of keynotes, panels and poster sessions on the histories of 
networked digital, electronic and technological media arts.

Besides general topics of the call, the theme of Renew, Media Art 
History 2013 addresses current tendencies in sustainability quests 
from various perspectives. As media art is based on increasingly 
out-dating technology and it is dependent on energy (electricity) the 
conference will discuss sustainable approaches towards the issues of 
producing, preserving and representing media  artworks - how to 
'renew' them through both - tools and histories. By focusing on 
networked media arts, the Renew conference will cover a broad range 
of topics to include early communication art (mail, fax, radio, 
satellite, etc.), net.art and net.radio, open source and network 
culture, locative media and wireless communities, hybrid networks and 
electromagnetic art, and last but not least - artistic investigations 
in sustainability, and future visions of art within the convergence 
of information and energy technologies.


Proposed topics:

* Histories of networked art and media technologies

* Archiving, preserving and representing new media art

* Media archaeology

* Paradigm shift - from new media to post-media conditions in art

* Writing histories of media art across Eastern Europe and the Baltics

* Revising the geospatial aspects - for writing comparative media art histories

* Resilient networks and emerging 'techno-ecological' art practices

* Multifarious potential of expression in media art - 'new imagery' 
of our times


* * *
DEADLINE for abstract proposals: January 25, 2013.
Notification of acceptance will be announced in March 25, 2013.

Individual proposals should consist of a 250-word abstract with title.
Proposals and inquiries regarding submissions should be made on 
www.mediaarthistory.org web-site.

* * *
Selected papers from the conference will be published in Acoustic 
Space and other venues. Founded in 1998 by E-Lab as artistic journal 
for sound art, networked audio experiments and new media culture, 
since 2007 Acoustic Space comes out as peer-reviewed journal for 
transdisciplinary research on art, science, technology and society, 
published by RIXC & Art Research Lab of Liepaja University.

* * *
The conference will be complemented by a variety of affiliated 
events, including the Art+Communication festival, with a thematically 
related media art exhibition, experimental film and video screening 
programme, live performances, concerts and workshops.

* * *
MAH 2013 Renew Conference Chair:  Rasa SMITE and Raitis SMITS

Honorary Board: Jasia REICHARDT, Itsuo SAKANE, Peter WEIBEL, Douglas 
DAVIS, Robert ADRIAN

Renew Conference Advisory Board: Erik KLUITENBERG, Armin MEDOSCH, 
Inke ARNS, Andrey SMIRNOV, Jussi PARIKKA, Edwin van der HEIDE, Mark 
TRIBE, Gediminas URBONAS, Marko PELJHAN, Nishant SHAH, Edward 
SHANKEN, Darko FRITZ, Tatiana BAZZICHELLI, Frieder NAKE

MAH Conference Series Board:  Erkki HUHTAMO, Tim LENOIR, Machiko 
KUSAHARA, Gunalan NADARAJAN, Oliver GRAU, Douglas KAHN, Linda 
HENDERSON, Sean CUBITT, Martin KEMP and Paul THOMAS

------------------------------------------------------------------

More info:
http://www.mediaarthistory.org/renew 
http://rixc.lv/13 

Contact:
Rasa Smite rasa@rixc.lv 

------------------------------------------------------------------



Electronic Arts in Australia online

From: Paul Brown <paul@PAUL-BROWN.COM>

Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 03:05:17 +1000

Continuum:   The Australian Journal of Media & Culture, vol. 8 no. 1 (1992)

Electronic Arts in Australia

Edited by Nicholas Zurbrugg

Now online at:


Full index of Continuum issues online at:


====
Paul Brown - based in the UK May to November 2012
http://www.paul-brown.com == http://www.brown-and-son.com
UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
Skype paul-g-brown
====
Synapse Artist-in-Residence - Deakin University
http://www.deakin.edu.au/itri/cisr/projects/hear.php
Honorary Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====



























Continuum:   The Australian Journal of Media & Culture, vol. 8 no. 1 (1992)
Electronic Arts in Australia

Edited by Nicholas Zurbrugg

Now online at:

  http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/8.1/8.1.html

Full index of Continuum issues online at:

  http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/continuum2.html

====
Paul Brown - based in the UK May to November 2012
http://www.paul-brown.com == http://www.brown-and-son.com
UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
Skype paul-g-brown
====
Synapse Artist-in-Residence - Deakin University
http://www.deakin.edu.au/itri/cisr/projects/hear.php
Honorary Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====