Open lectures (International New Media Art week 2009)

Rob van Kranenburg - THE INTERNET OF THINGS

Rob van Kranenburg wrote the ‘The Internet of Things’ and co-organized the DIFR (a broad range of pro and anti RFID positions) network in the Netherlands. He works one day a week for Professor Ben Schouten at Fontys Ambient Intelligence in Eindhoven as member of the Lectoraat. He is the founder of Council www.theinternetofthings.eu and co-founder of Bricolabs www.bricolabs.net

We believe the "winning solution" to making the most open, inclusive and innovative Internet of Things is to transcend the short-term opposition between social innovation and security by finding a way to combine these two necessities in a broader common perspective. The Internet as most people know it – the www - is 16 years old. In these sixteen years we have seen disruptive innovations in content (individuals gaining power with their ideas and opinions through blogs, issue websites, online collaboration), and in formats (youtube video, tomtom navigation).

The next step is the change we are witnessing daily in our conceptual models of framing data-informating and knowledge in our institutions and formal environments. The Internet of Things; imagine a world where everything can be both analogue and digitally approached – reformulates our relationship with objects – things- as well as the objects themselves.

Any object that carries an RFID tag relates not only to you, but also through being read by a RFID reader nearby, to other objects, relations or values in a database. In this world, you are no longer alone, anywhere. It holds dangers, but it also holds promises. And maybe it can be the positive solution, the logical step in the history of outsourcing memory to objects, devices and the environment, for the challenges we all face today of an ever growing individualization that might tempt citizens into breaking with existing solidarities (among race, gender, ethnicity, age...) that are currently harnassed through a model of organisation that is under severe pressure to reform.

download video (140MB)


 

Prof. Carole Gray - REFLECTIVE PRACTICE: STRATEGIES AND TOOLS WITHIN CREATIVE INQUIRY

Prof Carole Gray is an independent artist, researcher and higher education consultant with significant experience as a visiting academic at a number of international and UK Art and Design institutions. International advisor of New Media Art Masters programme (in development), University of Liepaja, Latvia. Author of numerous books concerning art and research issues. (http://carolegray.net)

The concept of ‘reflective practice’ (Schön, 1983) is widely accepted now as an important part of the methodology of research within creative disciplines. Scrivener (2004) provides an excellent description of reflective practice. He says:

“reflective practice provides a way of thinking about the nature of the creative-production process: the way past experience (both personal and collective) is brought to bear on it, the evaluation of action, rigour in creative-production, and the stance of the practitioner.”

Helpful though this is, reflecting on practice is easier said than done. What are the means by which we might actively engage in reflection-on- action, reflection-in-action, and in planning new work - reflection for action?

This presentation clarifies what reflection is through some key thinking on the topic from artistic, pedagogic and philosophical perspectives,

for example Paul Klee, John Dewey, Donald Schön, and why it is important to developing critical approaches to inquiry. Various strategies for reflection in practice-led inquiry are offered, for example, ‘conversations with ourselves’ (Steier, 1991) and dialogue with others. Allied to these strategies some reflective tools are described and critiqued, for example research journals, activity/development logs, multi-vocal diaries, ‘visual dialogues’ (Delday, 2006).

http://www.makingsenseresearch.net

http://www.carolegray.net

download video (62MB)


 

Dr. Heather Delday - INVENTING AND USING REFLECTIVE TOOLS WITHIN AN EMERGING ART PRACTICE

Dr. Heather Delday is an artist, designer, researcher. In the centre of her research is exploring and questioning a creative role - through a practice-led art PhD (Close as a construct to critically investigate the relationship of the artist and the everyday, 2006, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland.).

This presentation draws from my practice-led art PhD: Close as a construct to critically investigate the relationship of the artist and the everyday, 2006, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland.

My doctoral studentship was attached to a visual arts research programme called On the Edge - which explored how artists work rural contexts (North East of Scotland) in contrast to the more common situation of artists working in urban contexts. (www.ontheedgeresearch.org).

The presentation focuses on how art projects were used as the primary method of research - my own projects and those of the artists engaged to undertake the On the Edge projects.

The artistic approach was to make artistic interventions working with people in their everyday situations - people who were usually not familiar with the creative process. The research question was how to understand the value of this collaborative way of working. This involved exploring reflective methods, for example, ‘visual dialogue’ as a means of developing shared understanding.

download video (53MB)


 

Dr. Christopher Hales - THE COMMUNISTS ARE EXPORTING DEMOCRACY: THE KINOAUTOMAT STORY, THE WORLD'S FIRST INTERACTIVE FILM MADE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA IN 1967

Dr Chris Hales is a specialist in exploring the “interactive moving image”, as practitioner, educator and researcher. His CDroms and touch- screen installation have been selected at numerous film/multimedia festivals. His PhD “Rethinking the Interactive Movie” was successfully completed in 2006. Recent projects include “Cause and Effect”, an experimental interactive cinema performance which has been staged with Finnish colleagues in more than thirty international venues, and a research project in Prague to rediscover the “Kinoautomat”.

In 1967, at the Expo67 in Montreal, the world’s first interactive film system called ‘Kinoautomat’ ran daily for six months using technology that enabled audiences to ‘vote’ several times to determine what happened next in the film. Created in Czechoslovakia and directed by Raduz Cincera, much play was made of the fact that a Communist regime had invented a truly ‘democratic’ type of cinema. Recently I undertook an in-depth archaeology of this neglected film – which faded out of view in the early 1970s - and completed a prototype interactive DVD of the original film together with a detailed collection of written articles. This talk will present the film and give an overview of its technological and artistic creation.

download video (80MB)


 

Sohvi Sirkesalo - SOCIĀLO MEDIJU RĪKI KĀ SATURA RADĪŠANAS PROCESA DAĻA

Sohvi Sirkesalo has a degree in literature and communication, she has worked in Finnish Broadcasting Company over 20 years as journalist and director, both in radio and TV. Started in multimedia business in the beginning of 1990, working as scriptwriter and project manager in Multimedia Company Sansibar. Worked as lecturer from 1995, now Senior Lecturer in Interactive media in Tampere Polytechnic, School of Art and Media. Teaching mainly interactive storytelling and drama, project management and media culture.

download video (60MB)

Tweet