Research Colloquium at SFU’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology in Surrey presents

Shawn Brixey

November 28, 2007 at 2:30 pm

SFU Surrey Campus, Room 5380 (5th Floor Galleria)

Title: From Simulation to Emulation: Pioneering Telematic Art in the 21st Century

Abstract:

What were once considered latent and heterodox human potentials are now emerging as real possibilities -- not solely as biological modifications of ourselves but, equally dramatically, in our direct engagements with other things. This shifting perspective requires us to come to terms with the very foundations of our own primary organization - engaging tangibly with the universe on a cosmological, atomic, molecular, quantum, and genetic level. The transition inherent in this realization of our new cultural, aesthetic and scientific selves is emblematic of emerging new art forms that seek to synergize the physical and biological sciences, fully inhabit the vast continuum which humans have inherited, and define a new mode of visual arts practice that is significantly deeper than the rich but ultimately superficial, simulative or merely illustrative history from which they emerged.

DXARTS is a research center at the University of Washington in Seattle dedicated to the exploration and invention of the new methods and thought processes with which such art forms will be pioneered. This presentation will outline some of the core thematics that underpin the research and pedagogy at DXARTS, focusing primarily upon notions of simulation, emulation and telematics. They are pioneering work that is embodied and resides within the same phenomenological reality that everyone inhabits. At DXARTS, rather than seeing telematic art as strictly an interaction between people over distance, they seek a broader, less anthropocentric interpretation that involves networked collaboration between humans and other systems, thus permitting engagement with structures vastly more complex than human beings.

Bio:

Shawn Brixey is Director of the University of Washington's recently established research center and Ph.D. program in Digital Arts and Experimental Media. Previously, he was founder of the Digital Media Program at the University of California Berkeley, and Director of their Center for Digital Art and New Media Research. A graduate of MIT's, CAVS/Media Lab, Brixey has exhibited art and technology works internationally. He has received major grants and awards to support his research including a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship for New Media in 2003. He writes and lectures widely in the U.S and Europe on new and emerging media art forms. Significant review of his work is included in, among other writings, “Information Arts, The Intersection of Art, Science and Technology” by Dr. Stephen Wilson, and the new book, “From Technological to Virtual Art.” by historian Frank Popper.