Chris Joseph

The new Digital Arts Forum website has been launched at www.digitalartsforum.org.uk

The Digital Arts Forum is an Arts Council funded regional arts portal to promote the East Midlands’ digital arts. The DAF is primarily aimed at artists and arts workers in the East Midlands region of the UK, who are working with film, video, animation, moving image, net art, photography and new media; although it welcomes input from the arts world further a field.

The redesigned website is simpler and reduced to easy to navigate core functions in the News, Gallery, Calender, Profile and Directory sections.

Please register to the website as an individual and/or organisation. Registered users of the website will be added to the Profile section as individuals or to the Directory section as organisations. It is important to choose a Username that clearly states whether you register as a person or organisation and you will be displayed on the website by this name.

Profile and Directory should work as a contact resource database for the East Midlands including all important arts players of the region.

Please submit news about all your upcoming projects and events to the website to keep it up to date as a regional arts platform.

News can be submitted by registered and logged in users through the Submit News Story function or by emailing to Anna Petry (details below) and then will be posted on the site.

The calender shows single events coming up. People can submit their events to it by emailing title, date and time, location and a short description.

The website’s Gallery is a platform to showcase samples of art work from all artists from or working in the region. It is possible to display a selection of five pieces each to give an overview of the work and introduce to the artists. Links or contact addresses will give the opportunity to find our more.

The DAF Gallery can show stills or video material, which will be hosted through Youtube.

Anna Petry
Anna [at] broadway.org.uk

Digital Arts Development Officer
Broadway Cinema and Media Centre
14-18 Broad Street
Nottingham
NG1 3AL

T 0115 952 6600
F 0115 952 6622
www.broadway.org.uk

[Neural n. 29 contents]
http://www.neural.it/art/2008/03/neural_29.phtml
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[new.media.art]
. Yao Bin (interview),
. 8gg (interview),
. We Make Money Not Art/We Need Money Not Art interviews,
. The Paradox of Chinese Art in the Age of Technology
. Continental Drift.
. v2_zone MOCA Taipei.
. 11th Microwave Hong Kong.
. news (WINDscale, Privileges, Feed, Spinal Rhythms, Life)
. reviews (Home-Made, Conexoes Tecnologicas, Two Films,
Database Aesthetics, MediaArtHistories, Intimate Transactions)
. centerfold: ‘Constellation’ by Chu Yun
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[e.music]
. FM3 (interview),
. Zen Lu (interview),
. news: (Torcito Project, Sonic Wargame, Akousmaflore, Plink Jet, Isaidif)
. reviews: (Cultura VJ, Continuity, Messy, Living Sterea & Cinema.tik
Tricycle)
. reviews cd: (Frank Rothkamm, Minoru Sato + Asuna, Tim Blechmann,
Oh Astro, Dorninger, Al Margolis, Shinkei, Gavin Bryars, Jorge Haro,
John Luther Adams, Uusitalo, Snog, martyn Bates & Max Eastley,
Savvas Ysatis + Taylor Deupree, Roam The Hello Clouds,
Periferico, Zaum, David Watson, Einstuerzende Neubauten)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[hacktivism]
. Made in China, dagongmei and the global it factory,
. The Great Firewall of China,
. Post Revolutionary Glimpses,
. news (new American Dictionary Security/Fear edition, Constrain City,
Breaking the News, Transborder Tool, Parallel Rethoric).
. reviews: (Peers, Pirates and Persuasion, Infotopia, Netporn,
Depford.tv Diaries, Wired Shut, Panel de Control)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NEURAL http://neural.it/
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Supported by the Goldsmiths GRADUATE SCHOOL and the Goldsmiths DIGITAL STUDIOS

6pm until 8pm, Seminar Rooms at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW

FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME. No booking required.

————

*5 JUNE with ALEX MCLEAN & DAVE GRIFFITHS
:
Live Coding*

Live coders program in conversation with their machine, dynamically adding instructions and functions to running programs. Here there is no distinction between creating and running a piece of software - its execution is controlled through edits to its source code. Live coding has recently become popular in performance, where software is written before an audience in order to generate music and video for them to enjoy. McLean and Griffiths have played around Europe together with Adrian Ward as the live coding band “slub”. They will talk about the history and practice of live coding, and give some demos of their own live coding environments.

ALEX MCLEAN has been triggering distorted kick drum samples with Perl scripts for far too long. He is a PhD student at Goldsmiths Digital Studios.

DAVE GRIFFITHS writes programs to make noises, pictures and animations. He makes film effectis software and computer games.

Dave & Alex are both members of the Openlan free software artists collective and the TOPLAP organisation for live algorithm promotion. slub.org ; toplap.org ; pawfal.org/openlab ; pawfal.org/dave ; yaxu.org

————

THE THURSDAY CLUB is an open forum discussion group for anyone interested in the theories and practices of cross-disciplinarity, interactivity, technologies and philosophies of the state-of-the-art in today’s (and tomorrow’s) cultural landscape(s).

For more information check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/gds/events.php or email Maria X at drp01mc [at] gold.ac.uk

To find Goldsmiths check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/find-us/

Supported by the Goldsmiths GRADUATE SCHOOL and the Goldsmiths DIGITAL STUDIOS

6pm until 8pm, Seminar Rooms at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW

FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME. No booking required.

————

*29 MAY with RICHARD COLSON
:
Linking the Senses *

Richard Colson considers the role of gesture as part of any process of making art and reflects on its use in his painting and in his work using digital technologies. The talk will try to unravel aspects of experience that have a direct bearing on the interdependence of vision, auditory phenomena, gesture and spatial changes in both the creation of art and its reception by the viewer. Richard will use visual art works and examples of creative writing and will try to show how an awareness of spatial position can have a critical influence on the nature of what is perceived.

RICHARD COLSON is the author of The Fundamentals of Digital Art (AVA Publishing Uk Ltd) and co-curated Sense Detectives at Watermans Arts Centre. He is a Director of the annual Takeaway Festival of DIY Media at the Dana Centre, Science Museum. His paintings are in collections at the House of Lords, the House of Commons, Royal Dutch Shell and Pearson PLC.
www.kwomodo.com

————

THE THURSDAY CLUB is an open forum discussion group for anyone interested in the theories and practices of cross-disciplinarity, interactivity, technologies and philosophies of the state-of-the-art in today’s (and tomorrow’s) cultural landscape(s).

For more information check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/gds/events.php or email Maria X at drp01mc [at] gold.ac.uk

To find Goldsmiths check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/find-us/

Supported by the Goldsmiths GRADUATE SCHOOL and the Goldsmiths DIGITAL STUDIOS

6pm until 8pm, Seminar Rooms at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW

FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME. No booking required.

————

*15 MAY with COLM LALLY & VERINA GFADER
:
Condensation revisited: strategic walking / access to knowledge / economics of things / conversation pieces *

In June 2007 Colm and Verina were invited to take part in the residency programme: Reference Check, a co-production lab taking place at the Banff New Media Institute in Banff, Alberta, Canada. During the residency they expanded the notion of “interface” associated with various forms of online communication and exchange, to other, perhaps more radical, forms of spaces between different entities. At the core Colm & Verina’s actions emerges the search for where a site of potential resides beside of technologies’ restrictive mode of ex/inter-change and so-called collaborative or networked practices. Colm & Verina will present the “document” of the process that their project Condensation took during the residency at Banff. This includes questions of: the necessity of temporary frameworks; the character of dialogical communication processes; the failure as a site of potential. In an informal setting the “document” will take the format of a line, or “walking” – of virtually making a tour through various landscapes…

COLM LALLY is founder and director of E:vent. Since 2003 Colm has taken a hands-on role developing the E:vent programme, focusing on media art; video; performance; and electronic music. Colm was a co-organiser of Node.London 06 and is co-director of Arts in Action artists community.

VERINA GFADER completed a practice-based Ph.D. in Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins College, London in 2006, and recently joined CRUMB (web resource for new media art curators) as post-doc research assistant.

————

THE THURSDAY CLUB is an open forum discussion group for anyone interested in the theories and practices of cross-disciplinarity, interactivity, technologies and philosophies of the state-of-the-art in today’s (and tomorrow’s) cultural landscape(s).

For more information check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/gds/events.php or email Maria X at drp01mc [at] gold.ac.uk

To find Goldsmiths check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/find-us/

Supported by the Goldsmiths GRADUATE SCHOOL and the Goldsmiths DIGITAL STUDIOS

6pm until 8pm, Seminar Rooms at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW

FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME. No booking required.

————

8 MAY with CAMILLE BAKER & MARILENE OLIVER
:
MINDTouch
&
Making DICOM Dance – The Digitised Body as a site for performing subjectivity*

MINDTouch explores ideas of non-verbal transference, telepathic collaboration, and the participant as performer, using biofeedback and mobile phone technology under meta-goals of studying “liveness” within mobile networked environments. MINDTouch involves creating a mobile networked performance that utilizes a database of streamed and/or archived video-clips created by video-enabled mobile phones, to then be retrieved, streamed and remixed during (a) live visuals performance(s). The participants invited to contribute to the video blogs are asked to explore their own consciousness, non-verbal emotional /affective senses and dream states, embodiment and communication.
www.smartlab.uk.com/2projects/mindtouch.htm

CAMILLE BAKER is a Ph.D. Candidate at SMARTlan, University of East London, conducting research on Networked Performance Media, funded by BBC R+D.
www.swampgirl67.net

&

Making DICOM Dance: Marilene Oliver’s practice-based research looks at medical and laser imaging technologies that scan bodies and break them down to bytes. Oliver examines from an artist’s perspective, the processes needed to convert flesh to pixel (digital photography), flesh to voxel (MRI, CT and PET) and flesh to xyz co-ordinates (3D laser scanning). Oliver will present a selection of artworks made using MRI data (where the subject of the scans is bespoke) and CT data (where the subject of the scans are either infamous or anonymous). The presentation will be both technical and theoretical, concentrating on the performative puppeteering activity that emerges when working with MRI and CT data.

MARILENE OLIVER is currently a research student in the Fine Art Print department at the Royal College of Art. Oliver has exhibited widely in the UK and Europe including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Academy, Royal Institution, Science Museum (UK). Oliver was awarded the Royal Academy print prize in 2006 and the Printmaking Today prize in 2001.

————

THE THURSDAY CLUB is an open forum discussion group for anyone interested in the theories and practices of cross-disciplinarity, interactivity, technologies and philosophies of the state-of-the-art in today’s (and tomorrow’s) cultural landscape(s).

For more information check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/gds/events.php or email Maria X at drp01mc [at] gold.ac.uk

To find Goldsmiths check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/find-us/

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/accs/

The Center for Digital Discourse and Culture (CDDC) at Virginia Tech is pleased to announce the launch of Arts, Culture, and Civil Society (ACCS). This online archive of syllabi, e-prints, web links, and other digital resources is intended to serve as a starting point for students and scholars who are exploring the arts, culture, and civil society in their courses and/or research. These major topic areas are related to many important theoretical concerns for contemporary social criticism, political theory, and cultural policy-making. The collected materials span a wide range of disciplines, analytical frameworks, and locations. Topics range from the nature of current-day urban formations, nation-states, and local communities to the analysis of power, modernity, and discourse as related to the arts. One key aim of the ACCS project is to represent a wide range of approaches and resources related to the study of politics, culture, and the arts in our contemporary global society.

Please direct all questions or comments about ACCS to cddc [at] vt.edu. We also welcome your contributions and suggestions as we continue to expand the archive.

Jeremy Hunsinger
Information Ethics Fellow
Center for Information Policy Research

New technologies have had a major influence on the way we communicate and use language today: punctuation and capital letters are being dropped in favour of emoticons, letter-number homophones and acronyms. But are email, instant messaging and mobile text messaging degrading the language? This question surfaces in debates among writers, language professionals and academics, as well as among parents and their children.

Panelists:

- Nadine F - editor/designer, Wordrobe [ wordrobe.net ]
- Simon Perril, Poet and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and English at De Montfort University [ dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/english/simon_perril.jsp ]
- Jess Laccetti, Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer at De Montfort University [ jesslaccetti.co.uk ]
- Hugo Worthy, Writer and Archivist
- Chris Joseph, Chair [ chrisjoseph.org ]

This event took place as part of cultural eXchanges, an annual event hosted by the Faculty of Humanities at De Montfort University.

CALL FOR PAPERS AND ARTWORKS/GAMES/DEMOS

3rd ACM International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts
DIMEA 2008

10-12 September 2008
Athens Information Technology (AIT), Athens, Greece
Conference Web site: http://www.dimea2008.org

Full Papers and Art Works/Games/Demos Submission Deadline: May 12th, 2008
Workshop Proposals Deadline: April 21st, 2008 (EXTENDED)
Tutorial Proposals Deadline: April 18th, 2008

======================================

The advances in computer entertainment, multi-player/online gaming, technology-enabled art, culture and performance have created new forms of entertainment that attract, immerse and absorb their participants. The phenomenal success of such a “culture” to initiate a mass audience in patterns and practices of its own consumption has supported the evolution of an
enormously powerful mass entertainment, digital art and performance industry extending deeply into every aspect of our lives, leading further to major societal and business contacting changes.

The International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts (DIMEA), in cooperation with ACM, is the premier forum for the presentation of societal, business and technological advances and research results in cross-disciplinary areas
related with digital interactive media in entertainment, art and creative technologies. This conference is dedicated to build common ground between research, design and development, learning and collaboration in its myriad digital media forms: one of its many
objectives is the exploration of ‘play & learn’, demonstrating new arenas and applications for digital gaming and incorporating leading edge technologies, designs and models in our changing views about what is involved in gaming.

DIMEA 2008 is jointly organized by Athens Information Technology (AIT), ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI, Singapore Chapter) and the Society for Excellence and Innovation in Interactive Experience Design (InExDe).

DIMEA 2008 will bring together academics, technologists, artists, designers, and industry representatives to address and advance the leading edge of new digital and interactive media.

Read more

From the authors:

The state of writing among teens today is marked by an interesting paradox: While teens are heavily embedded in a tech-rich world and craft a significant amount of electronic text, they see a fundamental distinction between their electronic social communications and the more formal writing they do for school or for personal reasons.

* 87% of youth ages 12-17 engage at least occasionally in some form of electronic personal communication, which includes text messaging, sending email or instant messages, or posting comments on social networking sites.
* 60% of teens do not think of these electronic texts as “writing.”

Teens are utilitarian in their approach to technology and writing, using both computers and longhand depending on circumstances. Their use of computers for school and personal writing is often tied to the convenience of being able to edit easily. And while they do not think their use of computers or their text-based communications with friends influences their formal writing, many do admit that the informal styles that characterize their e-communications do occasionally bleed into their schoolwork.

* 57% of teens say they revise and edit more when they write using a computer.
* 63% of teens say using computers to write makes no difference in the quality of the writing they produce.
* 73% of teens say their personal electronic communications (email, IM, text messaging) have no impact on the writing they do for school, and 77% said they have no impact on the writing they do for themselves.
* 64% of teens admit that they incorporate, often accidentally, at least some informal writing styles used in personal electronic communication into their writing for school. (Some 25% have used emoticons in their school writing; 50% have used informal punctuation and grammar; 38% have used text shortcuts such as “LOL” meaning “laugh out loud.”)

All of this matters more than ever because teenagers and their parents uniformly believe that good writing is a bedrock for future success. Eight in ten parents believe that good writing skills are more important now than they were 20 years ago, and 86% of teens believe that good writing ability is an important component of guaranteeing success later in life.

These are among the key findings in a national phone survey of 700 youth ages 12-17 and their parents conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the National Commission on Writing. The survey was completed in mid-November and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. The report also contains findings from eight focus groups in four U.S. cities conducted in the summer of 2007.

For the full report please visit:
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/247/report_display.asp

About the Pew Internet & American Life Project: The Pew Internet Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Internet explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. Support for the project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The project’s Web site: http://www.pewinternet.org

About the National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools and Colleges: In an effort to focus national attention on the teaching and learning of writing, the College Board established the National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges in September 2002. The decision to create the Commission was animated in part by the Board’s plans to offer a writing assessment in 2005 as part of the new SAT(r), but the larger motivation lay in the growing concern within the education, business, and policy-making communities that the level of writing in the United States is not what it should be.
http://www.writingcommission.org/