▶ GLOBAL ART PERSPECTIVES am 18. Juni ab 17.30 Uhr

with: Sue Gollifer, Ekmel Ertan, Haytham Nawar, Lewis Kaye, Scott Kildall , Anna Dumitriu, Ana Carvalho und Maurice Benayoun.

PROGRAM

18:00 - 18:20 Uhr

Maurice Benayoun // Director, amberPlatform/BIS

Art curing the global body

18:30 - 18:50 Uhr   

Ekmel Ertan // artist, curator and educator

18:50 - 19:15 Uhr   

Haytham Nawar // artist, designer and researcher

Digital Art in Egypt Practice and Research / Di-Egy fest 0.1 in Cairo an Organisational perspective

19:15 - 19:35 Uhr   

Scott Kildall // cross-disciplinary artist

Networked Performances

19:35 - 19:55 Uhr   

Sue Gollifer // artist and researcher University of Brighton, UK

ISEA International - Past Present and Future

19:55 - 20:15 Uhr   

Anna Dimitriu // artist, UK Clinical Research Consortium, University of Hertfordshire

Unnecessary Research: Art Science Collaboration in the UK - and beyond!

20:15 - 20:35 Uhr   

Ana Carvalho // doctor of Communication and Digital Platforms from FLUP

Gardens and notations as elements of the process

20:35 - 20:55 Uhr   

Lewis Kaye // sound artist

Soundart in canada

21:00 - 21:30 Uhr   

Discussion

Maurice Benayoun // Director, amberPlatform/BIS, Sabancı University, Fass

Art curing the global body

Ekmel Ertan // artist, curator and educator

independent Art Organizations and Corporatization of Art Scene:amber Platform Case

In the last days of may, the city of Istanbul has been displaying new forms of political action calling for more direct democracy, which - I believe - has connections - in theoretical level - with the Arab Spring and Occupy movements. On 27th of May at 5 am in the morning, police entered into Gezi Park in caterpillars and armed with tear gas. Gezi park (in taksim square) is at the very city center of Istanbul and was where a small group of individuals  was keeping guard to prevent a plot of trees from being cut down in order to build a shopping mall. The police knocked down a tree, pelted the volunteers with tear gas and set tents on fire. What happen that morning and the police’s continuing assault on the protestors in the following days spread through social media.  Developments turned into a resistance and spread many cities in Anatolia. In the afternoon of June 1st, the protestors entered into Taksim square and Gezi Park as the police withdrew. The peaceful occupation of Gezi Park has been still continuing today, as of 10th of June.

No main stream media channel provided news coverage about the unfolding of events in Istanbul as well as the rest of the country. Part of the critique over the past fourteen days has been directed towards the media, some of which belong to larger corporations. There is a direct connection with these companies, which control media, as they are also major players in the Turkish art scene.

In this paper, I will try to explain the current state of the art scene, its actors and organizations in Turkey: The Commons, the public sector and the privatization. Then I will continue with my own experience as a director of an independent art organization amberPlatform, which works in the field of art and technology with a critical approach since 2007. I will also try to look at the impact of information and communication technologies and the new financial and organizational ways of sustaining the autonomy as an art NGO.

Ekmel Ertanworks as artist, curator and educator. Ertan is the founder and artistic director of İstanbul based amberPlatform (by BIS, Beden-İşlemsel Sanatlar Derneği / Body-Process Arts Association), which is a research and production platform on art and new technologies. Ertan is the curator of the international “amber Art and Technology Festival” in Istanbul since 2007. He curated also international amberPlatform exhibitions and performances. He is the initiator of amberConference, the only Science, Technology and Art Conference in Turkey. Ertan is also working as the site coordinator and director for several international projects based in Turkey and Europe in the field of art and technology / new media and society.

Ertan has exhibited his photography work in New York and Turkey. He has exhibited his new media installations and cooperative performance works in Turkey and international festivals and venues. Ertan received his BSc degree in Electronics / Communication Engineering from the Technical University of Istanbul and his MA degree on Interactive Media Design from Yıldız Technical University. He worked as a design and test engineer on telecommunication systems in Turkey, Germany and Belgium. He started a multimedia design company in 1997in Istanbul. Between 1999 and 2006, he taught multimedia / visual communication design at Istanbul Bilgi University, İstanbul Technical University, and Yıldız Technical University and since 2006 he has been teaching at Sabancı University.

Haytham Nawar // artist, designer and researcher

Digital Art in Egypt Practice and Research/ Di-Egy fest 0.1 in Cairo an Organisational perspective

Haytham Nawar (Born in Gharbia, Egypt -1978) is an artist, designer and researcher, currently living and working between Egypt and Switzerland. He is Research Affiliate at the Civic City Institute, Geneva University of Art and Design HEAD, Ph.D. Candidate at the Planetary Collegium, Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Integrative Arts CAiiA, School of Art and Media - University of Plymouth. Nawar’s practice is interdisciplinary and incorporates the mediums of drawing, printmaking, video Installation and light, sound installation. He is a Fulbright Alumni “School of Visual Art in New York” SVA. Nawar received a BA degree in Fine Arts with a major in printmaking, a Master’s degree in Fine Arts majoring in New Media from Faculty of Fine Arts, Cairo, Egypt and another master’s in Advanced Study in Art and Technology from Zurich University of the Arts ZHDK, Switzerland. Nawar is also a member of the Syndicate of Plastic Arts in Egypt, former member of The Associations Internationale des Critiques d’art (AICA) Paris, France. He is also a member of ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale), TDC Type Directors Club, USA. Since 1998, he has participated in several international exhibitions, biennales, triennials, and workshops in Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Egypt, France, Greece, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain, South Korea, Switzerland, Syria, UAE and United States.

Scott Kildall // cross-disciplinary artist

Networked Performances

Scott Kildall is cross-disciplinary artist who combines networked performance and algorithms to make art works that invite public participation. His work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the New York Hall of Science, Transmediale (Berlin), the Venice Bienale (Internet Pavilion), Furtherfield (London) and the San Jose Museum of Art. He has received fellowships, awards and residencies from organizations including Recology San Francisco (2011),  Turbulence.org (2010, 2009), Eyebeam Art + Technology Center (2009), Kala Art Institute (2007) and The Banff Centre for the Arts (2009, 2006). He currently works at the Exploratorium as a new media exhibit developer and helps create exhibits relating to Life Sciences. He resides in San Francisco.

Sue Gollifer // artist and researcher University of Brighton, UK

ISEA International - Past Present and Future

Sue Gollifer is an artist, an academic and a researcher at the University of Brighton, UK, and an early pioneer of new media art, her work is in both national and international public and private collections. She is the Director of the ISEA International Headquarters, and is on a number of National and International Committees, including (CAS) the Computer Arts Society, (DAM), Digital Art Museum, (DACs) the ACM SIGRAPH Digital Arts Community, Lighthouse and Phoenix Brighton, UK. She has been a curator of a number of International Digital Art Exhibitions including, ArCade, the UK Open International Biennale Exhibition, of Digital Fine Art Prints 1995 – 2007 and the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery Exhibition’04: Synaesthesia and currently the “Intuition and Ingenuity” art exhibition to celebrate the Alan Turing Centenary. In 2006 she was awarded an iDMAa Award, The International Digital Media Arts Award for her ‘Exceptional Services to the International New Media Community’.

Anna Dumitriu // artist, UK Clinical Research Consortium, University of Hertfordshire

Unnecessary Research: Art Science Collaboration in the UK - and beyond!

Anna Dumitriu is Artist in Residence on the UK Clinical Research Consortium "Modernising Medicial Microbiology" Project based at the University of Oxford and a Visiting Research Fellow: Artist in Residence at The University of Hertfordshire in their Adaptive Systems Research Group, she will discuss art/science collaboration in the UK and internationally. www.normalflora.co.uk www.annadumitriu.co.uk www.unnecessaryresearch.org and www.artscienceethics.com

Ana Carvalho // doctor of Communication and Digital Platforms from FLUP

Gardens and notations as elements of the process

My artistic practice is mostly live-edited/processed video and composition. I develop research and teach within Live Audiovisual Performance. Subjects related to my work are located between areas of knowledge, constantly feeding a strong curiosity about everything. Process in art has always interested me and affected my artistic work. In general terms, process in art describes a shift of focus from the result to the act of making. Live audiovisual performance emphasize process because the object is replaced by the event. There is no object, therefore no fixity. Identity is a part of the process and of the event. Identity is in itself process, a becoming state. The changes in country of residency that occurred in 2008, and moving into a flat on the top of a building with a comfortable open area, allow me to start to develop a garden (the 4th floor garden). Reflecting in the transformation of the  space and upon the space itself (the garden – what is a garden, what is its symbolics and the one of its elements?) the relationship between gardens and art unravel. Garden is a permanently changing aesthetic composition (no nature nor culture, but both) and the gardener an identity intuitively aware of this combination. Identity and work develop in connection with ritual (Judith Butler).

Based on the action of gardening, combined with research on Philosophy of Nature (Alfred North Whitehead), literature and film, projects have been taking shape over the years. My presentation will focus on two projects where the process of cultivating the soil is closely related with composition for sound and image and aesthetic decisions. These projects are Systematic Illusion (2011), developed between Porto and Cornwall and Refractive composition (2012) developed in New York.

In live audiovisual performance there is no object as final result, therefore, no fixity. Process is emphasized through ephemerality of the performance because process is of the same nature as of the event (ephemeral artistic expression): flowing of time. In general terms, process in art describes a shift of focus from the result to a continuum of act of making, for this reason it has always interested me and influenced my artistic practice. The changes in country of residence that occurred in 2008, moving into a flat on the top of a building with a comfortable open area, allowed me to start to develop in there a garden (the 4th floor garden). Reflecting upon the space in transformation, the relationship between gardens and art unravel (what is a garden? what is the symbolism of a garden and its elements?). A garden is a permanently changing aesthetic composition (no nature nor culture, but both) and the gardener an identity intuitively aware of this combination. The action of gardening, combined with research on Philosophy of Nature (Alfred North Whitehead), literature and film, has been since the beginning affecting the work I make. This affection is aesthetic as much as it relates with communication with others. My presentation will take as example the project Systematic Illusion (2011) where organizing and caring for plants is closely related with rhythm composition of sound and image through which connections with the audience are established (recurring to sound of breathing). I interested in explore intuitive modes of participation of others in my work, both during the event and throughout its creative process.

Ana Carvalho is a doctor of Communication and Digital Platforms from FLUP (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto). Her thesis is "Materiality and the Ephemeral: Identity and Performative Audiovisual Arts, its Documentation and Memory Construction." Currently, she holds a position as invited lecturer at the ISMAI (Instituto Superior da Maia). She is live video composer and performer, and writes on subjects related to live audiovisual performance.

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