FASTFORWARD: ON NEW MEDIA ART
SECOND INTERNATIONAL FORUM
11.22.07 – 11.24.07
Meetings, debates and performances from 10.00 am
to 10.00 pm
Via dei Mille 60
80121 Napoli
P +39 081 795 86 04-05
F +39 081 795 86 08
info [at] palazzoartinapoli.net
forum [at] palazzoartinapoli.net
Alex Adriaansens, V2 – Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam
Paul Brown, Computer Art Society, London
Mario Costa, Artmedia, Salerno
Geoff Cox, University of Plymouth, Plymouth
Amanda McDonald Crowley, Eyebeam, New York
Dieter Daniels, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media Art Research, Linz
Kelli Dipple,Tate Modern, London
Michele Emmer, Leonardo – ISAST, Roma
Rosina Gómez-Baeza Tinturé, Laboral – Centro de Arte y Creacion Industrial, Gijón
Jon Ippolito, University of Maine, Orono
Yael Kanarek, Upgrade!, New York
Simona Lodi, Share, Torino
Barbara London, MoMa Museum of Modern Art, New York
Emma Quinn, ICA – Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Wonil Rhee, Curator, Seoul
Yuliya Sorokina, Curator, Alma-Ata
Christine Van Assche, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Valentina Valentini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, Roma
Scientific committee
Laura Bardier, Julia Draganovic, Marina Vergiani
The second edition of the INTERNATIONAL FORUM FASTWORWARD: ON NEW MEDIA ART includes a number of events and debates designed to explore the analysis of the relationship between new media art documents and works. The commitment of the PAN Documentation Centre to set up an art archive — and in particular to establish a collection of digital art works — is combined to the goal of promoting a reflection on the variety of experiences and on the subjective nature of research in the field of new media. Today, manifestations of digital arts concern disciplines, works, museum institutions, research and documentation centres, but also methods and instruments for communication and education to art. This year the INTERNATIONAL FORUM widens its scope and becomes one of the cultural initiatives promoted by the city in the framework of participation in the Universal Forum of Cultures of Monterrey. The venue has not changed, but the contents have grown and look fast forward, indeed FASTFORWARD: ON NEW MEDIA ART, to 2013, the year for which Naples has submitted its candidature to host the major event promoted by
the Unesco.
It is a choice which goes hand in hand with the will to record informed experiences and opinions on the development of production processes, archive systems, curators’ approaches and exhibition projects dedicated to the new media arts. In particular, in this edition contemporary art merges with other art languages and touches the most urgent issues of the contemporary world, mixing its experimental and multimedia languages and collecting contributions distributed across the four themes which constitute the conceptual core of the Universal Forum of Cultures: peace, sustainable development, cultural diversity and know-how.
The working sessions on the agenda at the SECOND INTERNATIONAL FORUM FASTFORWARD ON NEW MEDIA ART relate the four lines of research of the PAN with the four themes of the Universal Forum
of Cultures:
PEACE / NARRATIVE STRUCTURES
“love is a better teacher than duty” Albert Einstein
It is necessary to keep a constant thread, to carry out research on the function of Art in contemporary society, on the artist’s role in social formations, on the ability of works and documents to communicate the ‘common good’, to re-create the positive conditions of individual and collective experience, in a language that uses visionary tools to express feelings, stories, emotions completing the rational sharing of will and ethics. About art creations, one may say what Jacques Monod said about science “the candour of a new look (the look of science always is) can sometimes shed new light on ancient problems”
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / PROSPECTIVES AND LIMITS OF PRODUCTION
“They would saw the branches on which they were sitting and shout out their mutual experiences on how to saw faster, and they hit the ground with a crash, and those who saw them shook their heads while sawing and carried on sawing” (Bertold Brecht)
In modern debate, the role of technologies in bringing about transformations into our present is widely recognised: material conditions of everyday life, political and social relations, cultural exchanges between different subjects and contexts — they are all simultaneously structured and de-structured as a consequence of the massive introduction of variable instruments and media. The deep involvement of the institutions working in the different fields of contemporary art becomes thus evident. The challenge is a major one, as it concerns above all the possibilities of spreading and circulation offered by technology (thus possibilities which involve creation, use, preservation) and, more in general, the visions which can make a cultural medium relevant and devastating in a media-saturated world!
CULTURAL DIVERSITY / MAPPING AND NETWORKING
“A landscape is made up of processes more than of places. The true essence of the landscape entails interaction and integration” Frederick Steiner
New media art is the expression used to define works which are created, related and, however, used through innovative and unstable technologies since the mid- 20th century. The disciplines usually included in the expression new media art are: cell phone art, computer art, digital art, electronic art, finance art, generative art, hacktivism, information art, interactive art, performance art, robotic art, software art, sound art, video art, video game art.
KNOW – HOW / SHARING KNOW-HOW
“Latent meaning becomes the expression of a more general cultural and cognitive process, in which objects gain significance through the association with know-how rather than with sensitivity” Masao Yamaguchi
Even art expressions give rise to aesthetic forms which can be referred to the potential and varieties of the so-called new media. As in a response to these transformations, the very approach to art history and criticism changes due to the appearance of new forms of ‘global and cyberspace culture’ and to the impact of digital media on the very concept of intellectual property. The whole range of art expressions identified by the new media is among those effects of technological innovation which is based on the application of contemporary scientific research.
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FASTFORWARD ON NEW MEDIA ART: ROBOTS
08.11.07 – 03.12.07
France Cadet, Christian Faubel, Pascal Glissmann e Martina Hofflin, Ken Goldberg, Leonel Moura, Keneth Rinaldo, Robotlab
curated by Laura Bardier
supervisor Julia Draganovic
On the occasion of the 2nd International Forum Fastforward On New Media Art, the PAN | Palazzo delle Arti Napoli presents FASTFORWARD ON NEW MEDIA ART: ROBOTS.
A recurring image in contemporary society is the growing speed of digital information. Technology evolves and absorbs information at a dizzying speed, whereby knowledge is transmitted to “intelligent machines” in a process which seems to be leading us towards a post-human hybrid state. The exponential evolution of information technologies may produce the means by which artists will be able to create beyond their own vision and knowledge. On this occasion, the PAN has turned its attention to research and production in the field of robot art. “Intelligent machines” — once an oxymoron — are becoming commonplace. Robots are present in science and technology as well as in our homes, in art, in cinema and literature. Their importance is growing in diffuse sectors like industrial production and entertainment. At a deeper level, indeed, robotics raises fascinating cultural issues involving philosophers, artists, scientists and technologists. Experiments in this field started as early as in the 1950s with, for example, Edward Ihnatowicz’s Senster or Cybernetic Serendipity at London’s ICA, and are hosted also in the main contemporary art events, as it happens at the Mexican pavilion of the 52nd Venice Biennale.
Contemporary robotics is the field in which the comprehension of human intelligence materialises; it is a topic that has always been transversal to scientific and human disciplines alike, and that has brought together research fields into neuroscience, engineering, computer science, biology, mathematics, psychology, philosophy. Transferring the processes of animal and human brain to robots is an ongoing effort which, besides technical difficulties, raises crucial questions on more general issues too: can an “intelligent” robot also imitate and learn, experience the world and become aware of it? What social status, what rights, what responsibilities will this and other types of “artificial life” have? What relationship will such a robot be able to establish with human beings? Will it be possible to design creative robots, able to act in a drama together with actors or to become recognised authors? How will aesthetics theories have to renovate themselves to account for this new dimension of art, where the artist can become a robot designer and the creation can eventually be a work and a process at the same time? These are the questions which the artists invited to FASTFORWARD ON NEW MEDIA ART: ROBOTS try to give an answer to, discussing many of these issues with varying experiences and results.
The exhibition hosts artists such as Moura and Robotlab, who propose robots that create art, or as Rinaldo, Glissmann and Faubel, who present robots that are works of art themselves or, finally, as Cadet and Goldberg, who create works inspired from the imaginative world related to robots and electronics.
