Does Twitter art [Twart] exist? – a question raised by Jools Matthews to stimulate debate in a Facebook forum on artists using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace for art projects. Thinking about the use of Twitter as a medium for the arts I came across the project “Overhere“, an installation by Lauren McCarthy:

“In Overhere, the twitter feeds of the two characters are converted into whispered automated voices and play through speakers embedded in objects in the lobby. The feeds are experienced separately, intimately…requiring you to get close, to move, to listen, to work together to overhear the dialogue.

With the collective action of two or more participants, a full conversation is reformed in physical space based on the virtual communication of two fictional characters.

Overhere heightens the experience for those audience members coming to see the live performance but also stands alone as a voyeuristic experience. Overhere is free and open to the public:  June 5-28, Fri – Sun from 6pm – 8pm at the Gershwin Hotel, 7 East 27 Street between 5th and Madison Avenues.

The combined experience of these environments—the live bathroom performance, audio installation and website—mark a private world revealed in public space.“

About the artist the following can be read at www.lauren-mccarthy.com: “Lauren McCarthy is a designer, artist, and programmer currently living in Cambridge, MA. She recently graduated from MIT with degrees in visual arts and computer science. Her work explores the intersection of physical and virtual space, through participatory interventions that invite participants to question and engage with systems in both spaces simultaneously. She also works as a designer at Small Design Firm, creating interactive installations and media environments for various museums and institutions, including the Visitor’s Center at Monticello, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

via www.lauren-mccarthy.com

Overheredarkhorse.com and Overhere have been commissioned by a canary torsi:
http://overheredarkhorse.com/faq.html#overhere

Recent articles on Twitter in the arts can be accessed here at:
http://www.docpop.org/2008/10/23/robots-dont-know-anything-about-twitter.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/23/art-twitter-twart

Here is the detailed information on Leonardo Education Forum , LEF @ARS Electronica 2009

Broad goals of the Leonardo Education Forum
The Leonardo Education Forum LEF is a working branch of the “Leonardo/ISAST – International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, San Francisco. Leonardo ISAST serves the international arts community by promoting and documenting work at the intersection of the arts, sciences, and technology, and by encouraging and stimulating interdisciplinary collaboration.
The Leonardo Education Forum LEF promotes the advancement of artistic research and academic scholarship serving practitioners, scholars, and students who are members of the Leonardo community; LEF provides a platform for collaboration and exchange with other scholarly communities.

Recent initiatives
Currently, a LEF group is working on an international initiative to interrogate the gap between arts, science and technology in education, with a focus on questions such as: “Media Art Education in the 21st Century – what can be done? What are the most inspired educational goals for the 21st century?”
Initial focal areas were identified as;

• The role of Curricula: Mapping the terrain
• The role of Institutions: Institutional / Organizational Capacities and Benchmarks
• The role of Research in media art & science & technology

A culture of research orientation can be seen as a wider trend in the media arts. What kind of new art genres are being developed by artists’ creative use of mixed media technologies, visual culture and communities and what is their impact on education?
New curricula have to be developed, which inform new job profiles of artist researchers and new qualifications. Innovative forms of art practice are being introduced at the intersection of media, arts, science and technology. What are the most effective elements of curricula to educate artists as well as art teachers for the future?
The changing media and art institutions require an interactive debate on new conditions and evaluation criteria for developing new models for institutional networks, which allow implementing the media arts across curricula structures. In January 2009 a short strategy summary, outlining focus issues and an action plan for a white paper on policy analysis and planning in media and new media education, was circulated. This was based on international meetings of experts and educators at Mutamorphosis, re:place, ISEA 2008 and ARS Electronica 2008. These meetings revealed that, although most of the sub questions in the identified focal areas overlap to one degree or another, there is also the need to add a discussion of,
• network-centric and intercultural learning methods and processes.

The LEF@ARS09 education session continues this process of international consultation and aims to further the development of a trans-national approach to research, looking at innovative models for educating media artists in the future.

Outcomes
This meeting will provide the opportunity to summarize the participants’ input on the focus issues (by means of working groups) and to identify a Steering Committee with leaders for each of the focal areas (which may be modified in the course of the discussions). After the meeting(s), the steering group will, among other things, lead the development, via email forum discussions, of longer papers containing strategic recommendations on policy analysis and planning in media art education in each of the focal areas. These recommendations are intended to outline a vision of education transformed by the context of new learning cultures, rather than one that relies on tweeking traditional models of pedagogy. This material will then be edited into one document intended for stakeholders in the field (practitioners, educators, researchers, theoreticians, historians, etc, as well as administrators and policymakers. The text will also be submitted to the Leonardo Journal of the International Society of Art, Sciences and Technology.

Hosts
Nicoletta Blacher (AT), Head of the Ars Electronica Center, Head Education Programme
Angelika Plank (AT), Head of Department of Art Education, Kunstuniversität Linz
Christa Sommerer (AT), professor, Department of Media, Interface Culture
Ars Electronica Futurelab

Organisers
Nina Czegledy (HU), LEF co-chair, board of Leonardo and Leonardo/Olats
scientific committee,
Daniela Reimann (D/AT), LEF representative Germany; Kunstuniversitaet Linz, Art Education
Lynn Hughes (CA), LEF representative, Concordia University Montreal

LEF @ ARS 2009 program

Friday, September 4, 2009, venue: ARS Electronica Center AEC, seminar room

9.00
Welcome by Leonardo Education Forum
Nina Czegledy, Ellen Levy, Andrea Polli, Daniela Reimann, Roger Malina, Victoria Vesna
on behalf of LEF

9.10
LEF initiative: state of the art & the White Paper
Lynn Hughes Nina Czegledy, Daniela Reimann
(presented by Lynn Hughes)

9.30
Keynote host: Nicoletta Blacher, Head of the Ars Electronica Center,
Head Education program

10.10
Patricia Olynyk, Director, Graduate School of Art Florence and Frank Bush Professor of Art; Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis/USA: Research/Creative work in Media Arts, Technology and Science in Academic Environments

11.00
Change of venue: University of Art and Industrial Design, Kollegiumsgasse 2, Audimax
see here on the map

11.30 Welcome by LEF: Nina Czegledy, Daniela Reimann Lynn Hughes

11. 40 Presentation of “Media Design” (“Mediengestaltung”) the new Teacher Training Programme for secondary schools of the University of Art and Industrial Design, Linz
Angelika Plank, Head of the Department of Art Education, Kunstuniversität Linz
University of Art and Industrial Design, Linz

12.30 lunch break

13-13.30
Presentation “Migrating Art Academies”, Mindaugas Gapsevicius, Vilnius Academy of Arts/ top e.V., Berlin

Discussion
14-15 Introduction to Working Groups – Daniela Reimann

Working Group Session (3 Rooms)
1. The Role of Research in media art & science & technology (Lynn Hughes, Dusan Barok)
2. Curricula: Mapping the terrain (Claudio Rivera-Seguel, Monica Bello)
3 . Institutions: Institutional / Organizational Capacities and Benchmarks (Maria Cristina V. Biazus, Annette Wolfsberger, Virtual Platform, NL)

15-15.15 Coffee break

15.15- 16 Working group session (3 rooms) continued.

16.15- 17 Working group summary session

19.30 Prix Ars, Brucknerhaus

Saturday, 5 September, 2009
venue: Kunstuniversität, Kollegiumsgasse 2, Audimax

10.00 Welcome by LEF: Nina Czegledy, Daniela Reimann Lynn Hughes

10.10 Christa Sommerer, Professor for Interface Culture, Department of Media,
Kunstuniversität Linz – university of art and industrial design,
The Cultural Interface

11.00 Coffee break

11. 10 Erika Pasztor, Head, Media Design Department, Budapest College of
Communication and Business: The future of media art and design is in the hands of education, but who will hold in hand the future of (this) education?

12.00 -12.30 Concluding session

Daniela Reimann, Nina Czegledy, Lynn Hughes

here is the detailed program as PDF file for distribution.

…and here is the Weather Pixie for Linz..

Dear colleagues,
As you are aware, we are working on an international initiative to interrogate the gap between arts, science and technology in education, with a focus on questions such as: “Media Art Education in the 21st
Century – what can be done? What are the most inspired educational goals for the 21st century?” The changing media and art institutions require an interactive debate on new conditions and evaluation criteria for developing new models for institutional networks, which allow implementing the media arts
across curricula structures.
In January 2009 a short strategy summary, outlining focus issues and an action plan for a white paper on policy analysis and planning in media and new media education, was circulated. This was based on international meetings of experts and educators at Mutamorphosis, re:place07, ISEA 2008 and ARS Electronica 2008.
The LEF@ISEA09 education session continues this process of international consultation and aims to further the development of a trans-national approach to research, looking at innovative models for educating media artists and art educators in the future.

This meeting will provide the opportunity to summarize the participants’ input on the focus issues (by means of working groups) and to identify a Steering Committee with leaders for each of the focal areas (which may be modified in the course of the discussions). After the meeting(s), the steering group will, among other things, lead the development, via email forum discussions, of longer papers containing strategic recommendations on policy analysis and planning in media art education in each of the focal areas. These recommendations are intended to outline a vision of education transformed by the context of new learning cultures, rather than one that relies on tweeking traditional models of pedagogy. This material
will then be edited into one document intended for stakeholders in the field (practitioners, educators, researchers, theoreticians, historians, etc, as well as administrators and policymakers. The text will also be submitted to the Leonardo Journal of the International Society of Art, Sciences and Technology.

Please find below the program of LEF@ISEA2009 Belfast, to take place at ISEA09, the 15th International Symposium on Electronic Art, on 29 August 2009 from 13.45- 16.45h, venue: BT Riverside Tower, Groundfloor

13.45 Welcome
Kerstin Mey Director of Research Institute of Art and Design,
University of Ulster. Artistic Director ISEA2009
Nina Czegledy LEF co-chair

13.55 Keynote Andrea Polli, Director, Interdisciplinary Film and
Digital Media Program, University of New Mexico,
LEF outgoing co-chair

14.15 LEF international initiatives & the White Paper
Nina Czegledy, Senior Fellow KMDI, University of Toronto
Adjunct Associate Professor, Concordia University, LEF co-chair

14.35 Introduction to LEF working group session
Daniela Reimann, University of Art and Industrial Design, Linz
LEF correspondent, Germany

14.45 Working groups
Focus:
1. The Role of Research in media art & science & technology
2. The role of Curricula: Mapping the terrain
3. The role of Institutions: Institutional / Organizational
Capacities and Benchmarks

16.15 Summary

We loook forward to seeing you. The next LEF event will take place at ARS Electronica Linz, 4-5 September at AEC and Kunstuniversitaet Linz.
LEF@ARS is hosted by AEC and the Department of Art Education at the Kunstuniversität Linz

Nina Czegledy and Daniela Reimann

…and here is the weather pixie for Belfast…

“Is this your luggage.com?” is a project by Luna Laboo. Since I am always worried about losing luggage on a flight (especially since we are not allowed to take a survival package in the hand luggage) I like the idea of this project, described on her Web site as follows, very much:

“I COLLECT LOST LUGGAGE, PHOTOGRAPH IT, AND THEN TRY TO FIND THE OWNERS.
IT’S A LITTLE ODD BUT NOT AS ODD AS STAMP COLLECTING, JUST A LITTLE HARDER TO FIND STORAGE SPACE.
WHEN A BAG GETS LOST THE AIRPORT OR AIRLINE WILL STORE IT FOR A WHILE AND TRY TO FIND THE OWNER.
IF THEY CAN’T IDENTIFY THE OWNER OF THE CASE THEY SEND IT TO BE AUCTIONED OFF WITH THE PROFIT GOING TO CHARITY.
I GO TO THESE AUCTIONS AND BUY THE CASES SO I CAN PHOTOGRAPH THEM FOR MY WEIRD VOYEURISTIC PASSION.
THE REASON FOR THE WEB SITE? I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO TRY TO FIND THE PEOPLE WHO OWN MY SUITCASES, SO IF YOU HAVE ANY FRIENDS WHO HAVE LOST A CASE PLEASE GET THEM TO HAVE A LOOK.”

Via www.isthisyourluggage.com

See also: Interview With Luna Laboo: Is This Your Luggage?

German speaking colleagues might know the BR online artmix.gallery series entitled “Hoerspiel und Medienkunst” I recommended earlier on the blog’s side bar (and kept it there as I am a collector). However, BR online now is on call for contributions for the “Techno Fossil” competition of the artmix.gallery:

“Media of communication usually disappear behind of what they’re trying to express: music, sounds, pictures.
Only when they refuse working, the machine itself attracts attention. Distorted pictures, noisy sounds, diffuse and disparate signals testify to the independent existence of the old apparatus. For this reason the new competition was created.

Dictaphone, cassette recorder, tape recorder, super 8 camera, rotary dial telephone, polaroid, shellacs, vinyls, commodore 64, cell phone: anything the analogue and digital range of technical devices offers.

By using allegedly “dead media” – reactivated, manipulated, maltreated – there are many possibilities to produce new radio dramas and videos, to create new stories and compositions.”

Please see here for terms of entry

Web site: http://www.br-online.de/hoerspiel

via BR Hoerspiel und Medienkunst-Newsletter

Please have a look at the below exhibition on Shared Robotics to take place from August 21th to November 29th 2009 in Odense, DK:

“RoboDays are proud to present the exhibition “Shared Robotics” at Kunsthallen Brandts in Odense from August 21th to November 29th 2009. In “Shared Robotics” two fields: robotics and contemporary art are fused.

Today robot utopias and dystopias have collapsed: Robots are neither slaves nor doomsday machines; on the contrary robots are an increasing part of our everyday lives. The exhibition “Shared Robotics” displays artworks that incorporate custom built robotics and converts industrial robots for new purposes. The exhibition seeks to show, how the actual coexistence between humans and robots can lead to creative developments.

The exhibition presents four very different art installations, each offering their take on, how the fusion of technology and art can create works that speak of our high-tech society and the technological and social implications it brings with it. For the exhibition a website has been developed: http://www.sharedrobotics.com, which takes you back in time and show, how robotics in a cultural perspective has been interpreted over time. The site is presented as a multi-touch wall in the exhibition and gives the audience a chance to explore and examine the various works.

Several of the participating artists are working directly from the idea that knowledge should be shared, not locked in copyrights and patents. It allows others to develop new projects based on the artist’s original ideas without restricting their use. At the same time the visitors get the opportunity to recreate and build on the art from the manuals that can be found at the exhibition.

Artists:
Sabrina Raaf, http://www.raaf.org resides in Chicago and has previously worked with robotics in her art. For this exhibition she cooperates with Danish industrial robot manufacturer Gibotech A/S, based in Odense to create an installation, where one of Gibotech’s robots is reprogrammed to cut corrugated plastic in large patterns. Over time, the patterns will transform into a sculptural installation spilling out on the floor or the exhibition space, evolving through the exhibition period. Sabrina Raaf is a DIVA residency artist supported by The Danish Art Council and is therefore staying in Odense, and working at Gibotech until the opening of the exhibition. Afterwards she will be present and work on the project during the exhibition opening hours. Visit http://www.robodays.dk to see when.

The Danish artist collective Illutron, http://www.illutron.dk, show their work “N7331227″ that brings an old industrial robot back to life. Using computer vision the robot has been equipped with the ability to see and have been programmed to read and reproduce the visitor’s drawings on a big wall consisting of 96 light bulbs.

The German artist Ralf Schreiber, http://www.ralfschreiber.com/ experiments with what he calls minimal robotics. Schreiber’s contribution to the exhibition is called “Living Particles # 58″ and consists of a room filled with rows of small robots hanging from the ceiling and creating an impression of life kept in a strict order.

Douglas Repetto, who resides in New York, is participating with the work “Foal”. “Foal” is a very simple mechanical robot, which in shape and movement resembles a newborn foal, staggering around trying to gain control over its legs. In the exhibition several small foals will stagger around on their uncertain legs. The artwork is an open prototype that can be built by anyone who wants to grabble with robotics and simple mechanics. In the exhibition you can also find instructions on, how to build your own foal.

About RoboDays
The exhibition is part of RoboDays Robot Festival from 10 to 12 September in Odense. RoboDays is an organization established in cooperation with RoboCluster at University of Southern Denmark and gathers knowledge about robotics in Denmark: http://www.robodays.dk/

Shared Robotics is supported by By- og Kulturforvaltningen in the Municipality of Odense, the Arts Council, the European Regional Development Fund and RoboCluster.”

Shared Robotics
August 21th – November 29th 2009

Kunsthallen Brandts
Brandts Torv 1
DK-5000 Odense C

Forside

Photos and text via e-flux

I just came across some new e-books available for download @MIT Press and thought to share the sources with students and colleagues.  You might know the White Paper version , we used it during the last semesters. However, here is the e-book:

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, Media Education for the 21st Century by Henry Jenkins :

”Shifting the conversation about the “digital divide” from questions of technological access to questions about opportunities for being involved in participatory culture and acquiring the necessary skills.”

The  Future of Learning Institutions in the Digital Age by Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg:

“Cathy Davidson and David Theo Goldberg focus on the potential for shared and interactive learning made possible by the Internet.”

Living and Learning with New Media – Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, by Mizuko Ito, Heather A. Horst, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Becky Herr-Stephenson, Patricia G. Lange, C. J. Pascoe and Laura Robinson:

“This report summarizes the results of an ambitious three-year ethnographic study, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings—at home, in after school programs, and in online spaces. It offers a condensed version of a longer treatment provided in the book Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out (MIT Press, 2009). The authors present empirical data on new media in the lives of American youth in order to reflect upon the relationship between new media and learning. In one of the largest qualitative and ethnographic studies of American youth culture, the authors view the relationship of youth and new media not simply in terms of technology trends but situated within the broader structural conditions of childhood and the negotiations with adults that frame the experience of youth in the United States. The book that this report summarizes was written as a collaborative effort by members of the Digital Youth Project, a three-year research effort funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California.”