Imagined landscapes
Imagined Landscapes is a two day symposium presented by Cumbria Institute of the Arts’ Centre for Landscape and Environmental Arts Research (CLEAR) in association with the Brera Academy, Milan. The symposium considers the work of leading international practitioners working between and across art forms and with new media technologies to create and explore imagined landscapes.
Aims:
The broad aim of the symposium is to examine the ways in which the artists explore the notion of the imaginary through their work and to critically reflect on how such works can help us to understand our relationship with landscape and the environment, opening up a site for critical exchange and creating opportunities for future practical exploration and theoretical engagement.
Format
The event will be focussed around a series of presentations from practitioners. In addition, interdisciplinary discussion sessions between artists, cultural figures, those exploring the dialogue between landscape and art within local academic institutions and theorists working within disciplines such as sociology, psychology and environmental science promise to widen the focus of analytical reflection and debate.
Featured artists
Artists contributing to the symposium include:
Studio Azzuro: http://www.studioazzurro.com/
Johannes Birringer: http://www.iks-saar.net/iks_rc2/iks.php?selection=iks&lang=en
Anouk De Clercq: http://www.portapak.be/
Charlotte Davies: http://www.immersence.com/
Jorn Ebner: http://noemalab.org/sections/gallery/jorn_ebner/presentation.html
Igloo: http://www.igloo.org.uk/
Julian Oliver: http://www.selectparks.net/
Jen Southern: http://www.theportable.tv/
Trevor WIshart: http://www.trevorwishart.co.uk/
Other contributors
Individuals engaging in discussion and debate with artists provisionally include:
Anotonio Cioffi, Lecturer and new media art critic, the Brera Academy, Milan
Carl Lavery, Lecturer in Theatre Studies, Lancaster University
Larry Sider, Director, School of Sound
http://www.schoolofsound.co.uk/
Ian Thompson, Senior Lecturer in Landscape Architecture, Newcastle upon Tyne
http://www.apl.ncl.ac.uk/aboutus/profile/i.h.thompson
John Urry, Sociologist, Lancaster University
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/sociology/staff/urry/urry.htm
David Uzzell, Environmental Psychologist, University of Surrey
http://www.psy.surrey.ac.uk/staff/DUzzell.htm
Online exhibition
A website, designed to complement the symposium, will be launched at the event and will feature online works from a series of artists using internet technologies to create virtual landscapes and vistas. The site will also exist as a post-event research tool, tracking developments in new media landscape art and creating a forum space for artists andothers to engage in further critical exchange.
Publication
A publication will follow the symposium which aims to draw together themes and ideas raised during the event; documenting presentations and ensuing discussions. A series of essays from theorists and featured artists will exist alongside these interactions, creating a dialogue with the work.
Intended audience
The symposium will be of interest to artists, designers, new media art critics, curators and those interested in the sociology and philosophy of landscape.
Programme
The symposium will take place at CIA’s Carlisle site ( Brampton Road). The event will begin at 1pm on 26 th October and close at 5pm on 27 th October 2006.
A full programme for the two days and further information is available to download here.
Promoting Work
We recognise the important networking opportunity offered by the event and are therefore happy to showcase digital works by delegates on the theme of imagined landscapes, where possible. Delegates interested in having their work available at the symposium should contact the event organiser on the details provided below.
For all enquiries, please contact Charlotte Stuart, Research Assistant, Cumbria Institute of the Arts, Brampton Road, Carlisle, CA3 9AY, charlotte.stuart@btinternet.com, 01228 400318/ 07985 193 219
Trip
Depending on interest, we will be organising a trip to the Lake District for Saturday 28 th October. The trip is likely to include visit to Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Trust, sightseeing in Ambleside and boat trip on Lake Windermere. If you are interested in taking part, please indicate on the booking form.
Imagined landscapes Artists:
Charlotte Davies . www.immersence.com
Canadian artist Char Davies is internationally recognized for pioneering artworks using the technologies of virtual reality. Enabling immersants to seemingly float — by breathing — through landscapes of luminous transparency, her works explore the paradoxical potential of immersive virtual space for returning attention to our embodiedness in the living flowing world.
Originally a painter, Davies began working with digital media in the late ‘80s when she became a founding director of Softimage, a world-leading 3-D software company. In the early ‘90s she produced an award-winning series of 3-D digital images followed by the renowned virtual environments Osmose (1995) and Ephémère (1998). Exhibited in Canada, the UK, the USA and Mexico, these works have received extensive media coverage ranging from Art in America and New Scientist to NBC News and the BBC. The first monograph on her work, Char Davies’ Immersive Virtual Art and the Essence of Spatiality ( University of Toronto Press) is forthcoming.
In addition to lecturing worldwide, Davies has published numerous essays about virtual space and earned a Ph.D. from CAiiA, Center for Advanced Inquiry in Interactive Arts, University of Plymouth, UK in 2005. She was also recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria, British Columbia.
Davies lives on a mountainside in southern Québec: this "real" environment — the inspirational source for her "virtual"landscapes — has become the ongoing focus of her artistic concerns.
Julian Oliver of experimental game collective , Selectparks: http://www.selectparks.net/
Julian Oliver is a New Zealand born free-software developer, educator, composer and media-theorist. He has presented papers and artworks at many international electronic-art events and conferences. Julian has given numerous workshops and master classes in game-design, artistic game-development, virtual architecture, interface design, augmented reality and open source development practices worldwide. In 1998 he established the artistic game-development collective, Select Parks.
Anouk de Clerq : www.portapak.be
Anouk de Clercq (°1971) studied notation and piano at the musicschool in Ghent and film at the Sint-Lukas art academy in Brussels. Besides mixing different artforms in her videowork – combining images, text, music, animation and architecture in video-installations – she also regularly collaborates with artists working in different fields: musicians, choreographers, writers, architects, fashion and graphic designers. Anouk de Clercq lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. Recent awards include: best one man show art brussels 2005, illy prize international backup award new media in film 2004 international videofestival videomedeja 2004, sphinx award, courtisane festival for short film, video and new media 2004, recent exhibitions include:
2007:
'Cinema and Photography', National Centre of Photography, St-Petersburg (RU)
Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos (ES)
Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (B) (solo)
'De Ontdekking van de Traagheid', KW14, 's Hertogenbosch (NL)
2006:
Borderline', Beijing (CH)
'Holland Festival', Paradiso, Amsterdam (NL)
'Update', Zebrastraat, Gent (B)
'Log', Safn, Reykjavik (IS) (solo)
'Vers uit Belgie', Montevideo, Amsterdam (NL)
2005:
Log', Crown Gallery, Brussels (B) (solo)
'Utopia Festival', Tacktoren, Kortrijk (B)
'Anouk De Clercq with Anton Aeki, Dominique Callewaert, Ryoji Ikeda,...', Netwerk Galerij, Aalst (B)
'Temps d'Images', Center of Contemporary Art Ujazdowksi Castle, Warsaw (PL)
'Contour’, 2nd Biennale for Videoart, Mechelen (B)
'Picture This', Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (B) (solo)
'Terra Infirma', Espai d'Art Contemporani de Castello (ES)
'Bevreemdende verkenningen', Sint-Lukasgalerij, Brussels (B)
'Web Biennial 2005', Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum, Istanbul (TU)
Jorn Ebner: http://noemalab.org/sections/gallery/jorn_ebner/presentation.html
Jorn Ebner , born 1966 in Bremerhaven, Germany, visual artist and writer, lives and works in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and Berlin, Germany. Education: Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, London (1995-98), and English Literature at Universität Hamburg (1990-95). His internet-based works include Leonardo Log (2004) and Leif Codices (2003), both AHRB fellowship projects, Lee Marvin Toolbox (2001), which received the award Kunstpreis des Medienforums München 2001, and Life Measure Constructions (2000/01), a New Media Scotland Commission. Recent solo shows include: Landschaft (Komponenten) at KX in Hamburg and Ordinary Monuments(with Alison Unsworth) at Vane in Newcastle (both 2006). Jorn Ebner at iGallery on www.noemalab.org (2005). Portable Landscape (2005), Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, and an artist book of the same title (publishers The Green Box, Berlin / Zürich) pondered electronic and political implications of landscape. Offline, On( ), Kulturstiftung der Sparkasse Stormarn, Germany (2004), presented Ebner’s computer- and internet-based works. Jorn Ebner has participated at Siggraph 2004 and 2006, FILE 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006, Stuttgarter Filmwinter 2003, Viper 2001, and was invited by Ars Electronica Festival 2006 to create a visualisation for John Cage’s Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra.
Johannes Birringer,http://www.aliennationcompany.com/
Johannes Birringer is an independent choreographer and media artist. As artistic director of AlienNation Co., an ensemble based in Houston (www.aliennationcompany.com), he has created numerous dance-theatre works, video installations and digital projects in collaboration with artists in Europe, the Americas, and China. His ensemble has toured internationally and presented work at festivals, theatres, schools, cultural centers and conferences on both sides of the Atlantic, including two new operas, "Orpheus and Eurydike" (1992) and "Mirak" (1999), the dance piece "Lovers Fragments" (1995), the film "La lógica que se cumple," (1996), the interactive installation "East by West" (2002-2003), and the internet-based performance "Flying Birdman" (2002),among many others. Created the new MFA program in dance & technology at The Ohio State University and directed the "Environments" lab at OSU, while also co-founding a collaborative research group in telematics and online performance (ADAPT). Author of several books, including Media and Performance: along the border (1998), and Performance on the Edge: transformations of culture (2000). Founder of the Interaktionslabor Göttelborn in Germany (http://interaktionslabor.de)/and currently director of the Design and Performance Lab at Brunel University, London.
Igloo : www.igloo.org.uk
Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli have collaborated on multimedia projects since 1995. They seek to investigate the role of the ‘real’ in virtual environments and also that of the reproduction of nature in the history of art and particularly landscape work. Forming Igloo after the success of Daylight Robbery, a motion capture animation & WindowsNinetyEight, CdRom 1996-8, BAFTA nominated in 2002. Recipients of a Royal Opera House commission for Goodbye Venus and a NESTA grant for SwanQuake. Informed by contemporary dance practice, the body is the medium that drives the effects of multiple software & hardware use,which generate the screen based & live performance pieces.
Igloo’s interactive installation, Summerbranch, will be exhibited at the symposium. Summerbranch is a new commission that explores movement and stillness in nature. Using camouflage and other disguises, a person or a computer character can blend into a ‘natural’ environment captured and treated through the moving image. This installation uses the tools of the military-entertainment complex, computer gaming, motion capture, 3D environments and special effects to question what is truth and what is artifice in our attempts to reproduce nature. Through the creation of a computer generated virtual world, Summerbranch seeks to address this by the use of disguise in dance and movement.
Jen Southern www.theportable.tv
Jen Southern is an artist and lecturer based in Huddersfield, UK. Her work involves investigating everyday journeys between virtual and physical spaces, which are navigated through socially embedded technologies such as video games, mobile phones and locative media. With a particular interest in personal and specific relationships with technology in everyday life and ordinary places her work investigates real experiences of game spaces through learning and navigation. Her use of technology is specific to each project and has included robotics, wearables, shipping containers, CD ROMs and currently GPS (Global Positioning System).
Jen's practice is installation based and has been both process led and collaborative, exploring the many grey areas between shared authorship, audience participation and interaction. She has also written and curated, and run technical and creative workshops as part of her own work and in other contexts. These modes of operation are integral to a practice that is rooted in social processes and the relationship between people and local environment.
Trevor Wishart www.trevorwishart.co.uk
Trevor Wishart's work spans a number of genres, from music theatre and site-specific events to extended pieces for tape. His most well-known works include 'Red Bird' (1977), awarded a Euphonie d'Or at the 1992 Bourges Festival, the 'Vox cycle' (1980-88) first heard in full at the 1989 Proms, and 'Tongues Of Fire', winner of the Golden Nica for computer music at the Linz Ars Electronica Festival, 1995.
His work has been commissioned by IRCAM, the Paris Biennale, the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities, the DAAD in Berlin, the French Ministry of Culture and the BBC Proms. In the year 2000, 'Birthrite, a Fleeting Opera' was presented on moving barges on the Thames with performers from the Royal Opera House and Royal Ballet.
He is particularly concerned with the significance of imagination and personal creativity in the modern world and his work often deals with these issues. He has developed many new instruments (as signal processing software) for musical composition, and he is a founder member of the Composer's Desktop Project, a composers' cooperative. His book Audible Design is a practical musical guide to sound transformation techniques using the computer.
Wishart is an independent composer living and working in the North of England. He has held residencies, visiting professorships, or research fellowships in Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, Sweden, and the USA and at several Universities in the UK. He is currently an Honorary Professor at the University of York
website http://www.clear.cumbria.ac.uk/
