Bare nothingness: Situated subjects in embodied artists' systems

This chapter examines the current state of digital artworks, arguing that they have not yet made a groundbreaking impact on the cultural landscape of the 21st century and suggesting that a reason for this lack of notoriety is the obsolete model of agency deployed by many digital artists. As an alternative to what is framed as out-of-date forms of interactivity, the chapter highlights evolving research into interactive systems, artists' tools, applications, and techniques that will provide readers with an insightful and up-to-date examination of emerging multimedia technology trends. In particular, the chapter looks at situated computing and embodied systems, in which context-aware models of human subjects can be combined with sensor technology to expand the agencies at play in interactive works. The chapter connects these technologies to Big Data, Crowdsourcing and other techniques from artificial intelligence that expand our understanding of interaction and participation

Between the art canon and the margins: historicizing technology-reliant art via curatorial practice

This article explores curatorial practice that has technology-reliant works at its epicentre, arguing that for an efficient methodology to historicize the latter there needs to be a reconfiguration of the curatorial scope and a holistic approach to viewing and documenting exhibitions. Based on theoretical research and install decisions of recent years, the ways in which curatorial practice can be reconfigured within the art canon to inform art history, as well as to accommodate developments in exhibition practices are examined

Elevate me later - an analogue sea in a digital world

This is the introductory essay for the edited volume "Exhibiting the Analogue / Exhibiting the Digital: afterthoughts on an exhibition". It places the exhibition within appropriate context and sets the rationale for the texts that follow

Spatial Immersions: the field of exhibition practices [multi-component output - ongoing research project]

This ongoing research project introduces a new way of thinking about the balance between physical and virtual environments in exhibition practices. It explores different models of ‘immersion’ via varying axes, disciplines and points of reference. In this context, it is of great topical interest for contemporary curatorial research and exhibition practices, especially as those become increasingly dependent on technological advances. The research develops the concept of ‘immersion’ with an iterative remodelling in both practice-as-research and contextual frameworks. In each component of this research output, the themes of immersion, spatiality and used media are articulated and explored through curatorial practice and exhibition (with two international group exhibitions), textual form (with the edited volume and the single-authored introduction), and international conference format (with the participation of approximately 70 academics, researchers and practitioners). Researchers and practitioners were involved with the aim to gather feedback to be used for the following iteration

Empathy for the Devil: VR installation and screen capture

VR spatiality is ideological. This VR app and screen capture is a 3D realisation of Motel Room number 1 from Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho of 1960. The mobile phone application, which was rendered in Unity 3D in March 2019, is an invitation to test the limits of VR’s current over determination as an ‘empathy machine’. What does it mean to immerse oneself in the violent, voyeuristic world of Norman Bates? Do viewers feel present in a physical space or experience this as an extension of cinema - as an illusion? What happens to the empathy machine in this configuration

Mycorrhizal Curation: minimal cognition for maximal cooperation

Since 2015, when the authors first wrote a chapter about the state of curation for electronic art (pointing to the absence of works significantly addressing the epistemic implications of a computational logic), artificial intelligence and wider algorithmic forms of logic have become more pervasive themes within mainstream art, with, for example, exhibitions such as ‘AI More than Human’ (2019) at the Barbican Centre, London, the increasing profile of the Lumen Prize, as well as headline grabbing events such as Christie’s auction of the AI generated painting ‘Portrait of Edmond Belamy' (2018); the logic of computation is now, if not generally understood, a ubiquitous facet of the curatorial imaginary, begging the question, where are the alternatives and challenges to Western computation, to the Neoplatonist ideals of mathematical logic? Appraising discourse addressing the non-human and the arboreal, the authors present a radically alternative set of practices, framed as Mycorrhizal Curation, a provocative affront to human representational systems and power relations which place the human at the apex of all epistemic hierarchies, but also, the authors intend to provides a provocative challenge to the hegemony of the artworld, with shifts to models of amicable cooperation and wealth distribution

Mycorrhizal Curation: minimal cognition for maximal cooperation

Since 2015, when the authors first wrote a chapter about the state of curation for electronic art (pointing to the absence of works significantly addressing the epistemic implications of a computational logic), artificial intelligence and wider algorithmic forms of logic have become more pervasive themes within mainstream art, with, for example, exhibitions such as ‘AI More than Human’ (2019) at the Barbican Centre, London, the increasing profile of the Lumen Prize, as well as headline grabbing events such as Christie’s auction of the AI-generated painting ‘Portrait of Edmond Belamy' (2018, created by GAN [Generative Adversarial Network]). The logic of computation is now, if not generally understood, a ubiquitous facet of the curatorial imaginary, begging the question: where are the alternatives and challenges to Western computation, to the Neoplatonist ideals of mathematical logic? Appraising discourse addressing the non-human and the arboreal, the authors present a radically alternative set of practices, framed as Mycorrhizal Curation, a provocative affront to human representational systems and power relations which place the human at the apex of all epistemic hierarchies, but also, the authors intend to provide a provocative challenge to the hegemony of the artworld, with shifts to models of amicable cooperation and wealth distribution

Critical Convergence: Greek contemporary artists in dialogue with the (recent) past

Description / Rationale: Through the technological evolution of the past two decades, there has been an identification of technological mediums so that today, functions such as the recording, processing and reproduction of sound, image and text for communication, entertainment and information purposes are realised through the use of similar digital tools. The “digital convergence”, as is the established term within theoretical discourse about technology, art and the media, merely constitutes the most recent name given to define the advanced form of the integration and hybridization tendency already inherent in audiovisual media. Nevertheless, a critical glance at this concept will reveal that no medium is ever totally identified with another and that, although some parts of information survive such a transmigration, some elements equally get lost in the process. Consequently, the false perception of absolute identification opens the path for the distortion of the sensorial and sociological reality and of history overall. Whist watching the works of the present screening programme, the above-mentioned concerns have greatly informed and enhanced our understanding of this condition and final selection. They have as a common denominator the combination of manual, analogue and digital techniques in order to create implicitly or explicitly political narratives. Through the changing lens of successive technologies, often in line with the respective implications of their adoption, the artists in the programme examine recent and historical crises in Europe and the Middle East; crises on a political, moral, and technological level. This is often achieved with the creative use of original archival material and its integration within the momentum of each respective work. Through this practice, the works operate on multiple levels: in terms of the social and political aspect of their subject-matter, they function both as historical evidence and as its interpretation. At the same time, due to the coexistence of multiple media, the aforementioned historical evidence highlights, evaluates and transcends the limits and capacities of each individual medium

DRHA2019 Conference: "Radical Immersions: Navigating between virtual/physical environments and information bubbles" - convened by Elena Papadaki and Dani Ploeger

This entry consists of the Conference Programme and the Book of Abstracts from the DRHA 2019 Conference "Radical Immersions: navigating between virtual / physical environments and information bubbles" The conference was held at Watermans Arts Centre, London, (8-10 September 2019), and was convened by Elena Papadaki and Dani Ploeger. http://www.2019.drha.uk