RUBRICS OF TRANFORMATION - PLANETARY COLLEGIUM- THE ATHENS SYMPOSIUM

An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

RUBRICS OF TRANFORMATION

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

“The world that led to my ideas of interaction, transformation, and transcendence grew from my dissertation Cezanne and the Expression of Change, the Tarot and I Ching, Pollock, Duchamp, Zen and the primacy of gesture, the occult and esoteric more generally, alongside an early passion for the cybernetics of Ross Ashby, Nobert Wiener and my friend Gordon Pask.

Hence my early change-paintings and other participatory analogue structures, especially the transactional table-top work. All precursors to the distributed authorship of my telematics art projects. It’s all about interface and connectivity.

I have always assumed that consciousness is a field for which we can develop tools of access… my conceptual assumptions have nothing to do with technology in the raw. I like my technologies to be as near to invisible as possible. For me, it’s all about tools of transformation, whether they are alchemical, somatic, digital, or pharmaceutical. Chance and change, connectivity, sacred spaces, networked, extended senses (‘psibernetics’), these constitute (some of) the rubrics of motivation for me.”

Roy Ascott

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

RUBRICS OF TRANSFORMATION THE ATHENS SYMPOSUM

FEB_18_2019 IN CONJUCTION WITH

THE DEP. OF MEDIA & COMMUNICATION OF THE ATHENS UNIVERSITY HOSTED AT

SERAFIO- CITY OF ATHENS THE THEME The title of the symposium “Rubrics of Transformation” has been selected from Roy Ascott’s writings. Through this text, Ascott has featured the meaning of transformation in a remarkable and crystal way. His syncretic approach, combines eras and areas, creating a fusion in where everyone can ask for the right to participate in the process of transformation. And this is not an easy task, but, certainly, it yields remarkable results, because it creates the condition by which one can invest in his own transformative capacity of human capital. That is, the capital that is in a position to be liquidated for the purpose of its recapitalization, so to become transformative.

However, in order to free up the capital, it is an imperative to think first about the lack of its liquidation valuation whether or not it is founded on insolvency, or is voluntary or compulsory. The surplus value of Technoetics should be found in the participatory economy, in terms of its transformation and communication, so to reveal the potentialities of the human capital at an earlier stage, before any processing or optimization which may cause the lack of its liquidation.

Katerina Karoussos

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

The Planetary Collegium is an international research platform that promotes the integration of art, science, technology, and consciousness research, under the rubric of technoetic arts . The founding president of the Planetary Collegium is Roy Ascott, De Tao Master of Technoetic Arts at the DeTao Masters Academy in Shanghai. The Collegium aims to produce new knowledge in the context of the arts, through transdisciplinary inquiry and critical discourse, with special reference to technoetic research and to advances in science and technology. It seeks to reflect the social, technological and spiritual aspirations of an emerging planetary society, while sustaining a critical awareness of the retrograde forces and fields that inhibit social and cultural development. It combines the face-to-face association of individuals with the trans-cultural unity of telematic communities, thereby developing a network of research nodes strategically located across the planet, each with a distinctive cultural ethos. The Collegium seeks outcomes that involve new language, systems, structures, and behaviours, and insights into the nature of mind, matter and human identity.

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Mike Phillips: “Oh! You, Pretty Things…”

The presentation discusses a short history of conversations with the artificial other. The focus is on the evolution of the authors relationships with artificial and autonomous systems that provoke a renegotiation with things that display behaviours similar but distinct from our own. Things that mimic and flatter but remain obscure and ambiguous.

These things include collaborations between artists and artificial intelligences that contribute to a negotiated outcome, such as Psalms and Autoicon (Donald Rodney), Slothbots, Noogy, TIWWA and, more recently, Emoti-os. These works have been generated through a collaboration between people, places and Artificial entities, all of which could claim an equal partnership in the creative production of the projects.

From things that perform and provoke to those that imitate and confuse, these collaborative works are the product of a playful engagement with artificial forms that reflect our bias, concerns and desires with a frightening lucidity, in a way that threatens to know us better than we know ourselves.

Mike Phillips is Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts at Plymouth University, the Director of Research at iDAT.org and a Principal Supervisor for the Planetary Collegium.His R&D orbits a portfolio of projects that explore the ubiquity of data ‘harvested’ from an instrumentalised world and its potential as a material for revealing things that lie outside our normal frames of reference – things so far away, so close, so massive, so small and so ad infinitum. For more information, see the i-DAT web site at: http://www.i-dat.org. Phillips is an active member of an international transdisciplinary community that engages with immersive, interactive and performative technologies. He manages the Fulldome Immersive Vision Theatre (www.idat.org/ivt/), a transdisciplinary instrument for manifesting (im)material and imaginary worlds and is a founding partner of FullDome UK (http://www.fulldome.org.uk/). He is co-editor of Ubiquity, The Journal of Pervasive Media http://www.ubiquityjournal.net/and a member of the ISEA International Board (http://www.isea-web.org/)

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Ioannis (John) Bardakos: On mathematical formalism and poetics in art and technology.

Mathematical language, whether we are talking about metamathematics and logic or we discuss about sets, functions, symbols and variables is a processing and communication system for exploring patterns. In art and especially in art that relates with connectivity such a scheme can be the main tool to relate and compare, describe and analyze, forecast and speculate the aesthetic generation and evolution for everything that changes.

Through the evolution of technology, we have experienced a gradual immersion in such a milieu of ever-changing interfaces that manifest themselves as the erotic convergence of software, hardware and the moist medium. We suggest that this convergence and especially when it exists under a context of art is isomorphic with its mathematical descriptor. The poetics of this mathematical symbolic literature is additionally isomorphic, with the poetics of the art process that generates the field of the aesthetic experience.

Ioannis (John) Bardakos is an artist an academic and a researcher. He was born in Athens, Greece, studied Mathematics and Arts in Greece, Spain and Paris. John Bardakos has been working for more than 20 years within art and technology as an artistic director and a producer. He is currently the academic program director and a senior lecturer in the BA of Technoetic Arts provided by DeTao Masters Academy and the Roy Ascott Technoetic Arts Studio for the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. His research and art practice lie in the space between Art, Technology, Mathematics and Philosophy. John is a PhD candidate between the Athens School of Fine Arts (HyperMedia Lab) and the Paris 8 University (EDESTA) in the INREV Laboratory.

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André Sier: Non-human Labyrinths

An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Within the context of exploring connections between generative art, games and mythology, my practical artistic research was led to focus on labyrinthine structures as possible pathways to gain deeper humane insights into the origins of labyrinth formation by means other than human.

Labyrinths are inextricable paths, human made millennial structures which provide spatial challenges often connected with feedback, compression, entanglement and hyper complexification of goal oriented displacement. Initially an intricate spiral line returning towards itself, a pre-homeric image of the underworld, a place for the dance of the lady of the labyrinth, it is probably one of the oldest deadly games made out of paths and crossroads, defying free will of choice of the traveling adventurer seeking to solve its mystery or simply conquering it by getting out alive.

Three case studies are explored: ‘k.’, ‘k.~’ (Sier, 2007-10), a purely electronic labyrinth designed by author shaped stochastic algorithms which induce pseudo random generators to give shape to a near infinite virtual space, a digital open labyrinth inspired by Kafka’s “The Castle”; ‘8-bit Maze Gardens’ (Sier, 2018) are generative graffited paintings on floral, mathematical and labyrinthine themes, where maze like patterns emerge from the use of mathematical formulas of flower formation; ‘Ant Ennae Labyrinths’ (Sier, 2018) are bio-electronic ecosystems and interactive optical apparatus to create animal made 3D labyrinthine patterns by ants interfered with laser light sources controlled by electronic images or human interaction.

André Sier works artistically with code and interactive media at s373.net/x studios, where he combines videogames, installations, painting, sculpture, music, mathematics and computation into objects and experiences of electronic arts, merging mythology, interfaces, generative interactive space-time continuums. In the past 21 years has produced objects and serial interactive work that playfully unravel time and space relations, synthesized on electronic substrates, shown at over 27 individual national and international exhibitions. André Sier is an electronic artist trained in sciences, arts, computing, with a degree in philosophy, lecturing in electronic arts, pursuing PhD in technoetic arts.

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Julia Heurling: Reflections on repetition, abstraction and transformation According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, abstraction refers to the cognitive process of isolating, or “abstracting,” a common feature or relationship observed in a number of things, or the product of such a process. New World Encyclopaedia describe abstraction in philosophical terminology, as the thought process wherein ideas are distanced from objects. Abstraction uses a strategy of simplification which ignores formerly concrete details or leaves them ambiguous, vague, or undefined.

Abstract thinking, as opposed to concrete thinking, has no application in “the real world” unless adapted to certain circumstances. For this reason, abstract thinking can be regarded as limited in capacity to affect change. Yet, abstract thinking can be seen as a basis for major transformation. Problem solving often involves combining abstract and concrete reasoning.

I consider repetition a method for abstract thinking. I refer to my artistic practice as visual thinking. It is not materialised or visualised verbal thinking, rather it is thinking addressing meaning and communication in a non-verbal way. My work is concerned with methods of visual inquiry into and through repetition, and how it connects to concepts of thought, experience and knowledge. Repetition in the sense of abstraction encourage the viewer to associate, to think, to expand the mind.

This article will reflect on how abstract thinking can be seen as a basis for transformation. Drawing from examples from my own artistic practice, I will look at how repetition, as means of abstract thinking, can be seen as a tool for bridging and repositioning perspectives.

Julia Heurling is an artist, designer and researcher specialised in pattern and textile who lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Since January 2016 she is a Ph.D. candidate at the Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University. She has a Master Degree in Textile Design from The Swedish School of textiles, Borås, Sweden.

Her work include pattern for wallpaper, textiles, iPhone-cases, porcelain and posters as well as artistic commissions and exhibitions. Her artistic focus is visual investigations of the surrounding world through abstraction and pattern composition. She has a strong interest in documentation and visual representation of place, environment and phenomenon.

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Rui Wu: Field of Consciousness Consciousness is a field for which we can develop tools of access. People who make interpreter is a medium and access between consciousness. Sometimes, I take the role as an interpreter, but actually I define it as a communicator between people, not just by language, but by mind, so that I would like try to share some knowledge on it.

A well-prepared information interpreter needs to detect the consciousness fields of both side, to find out the resonant frequency which is the entrance of each system, to hold and transform and deliver messages under mutual consciousness field, to express the message by all means which is perceivable rather than expressed.

Let’s think and talk about the access to connect consciousness from an interpreter’s observation.

Rui Wu, Chief Communication Officer of Detao Group, vice general manager of Detao Master Academy. Living in Beijing, working between Beijing and Shanghai, between technology and Art, between academic and commerce, so she always be required and devoted to build up access between systems. Her research interest is about the Art Education in the Art and Technology Syncretic Field.

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Roy Ascott, Keynote speech

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Mike Phillips, Keynote Speech

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Andre Sier

John Bardakos

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Julia Heurling

Rui Wu

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An A-CLUB PUBLICATION FEB.2019

Hellenic Group Project Presentations: D. Charitos & the Spatial Media Research Group (Athens University) I. Zannos (Ionian University) A. Antoniou (University of Peloponnese) G. Papakonstantinou & V. Bourdakis, S.Papadopoulos (University of Thessaly) P. Mantziou & X. Bistikas (University of Ioannina) I. Mavrommati & I. Laskari (Hellenic Open University

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