[spectre] Floating Points 3: Ubiquitous Computing, Spring 2006

[Turbulence]

Floating Points 3: Ubiquitous Computing
February 8 and March 15, 2006
Emerson College and Live Online

Emerson College and New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc./Turbulence.org
announce a new speaker series, "Floating Points 3" [FP3] that will address
the subject of "Ubiquitous Computing" or "Ubicomp", where computing and
wireless capabilities are so integrated into the fabric of everyday life
(clothing, cars, homes, and offices) that the technologies recede into the
background and become indistinguishable from everyday activities. 

[FP3] will consist of two moderated panel discussions, one on February 8 and
the other on March 15. The first will focus on artist-thinkers who work
collaboratively with research teams--including scientists--to produce
environments and systems that respond to the human presence; it will include
Mark Goulthorpe, Susan Kozel and Chris Salter. For the second panel, we have
invited artist-thinkers who question and confront the ongoing development of
technical objects and work creatively to subvert them, for instance, the
ever-enlarging practice of surveillance and data mining. Our guests will be
Adam Greenfield, Beatriz da Costa and Brooke Singer (Preemptive Media), and
Michelle Teran.


Panel 1 -- February 8th at 7 p.m. in the Bill Bordy Theatre, 216 Tremont
Street. 
Mark Goulthorpe, Susan Kozel and Chris Salter

Mark Goulthorpe: In 1991, architect Mark Goulthorpe established the dECOi
atelier to undertake a series of largely theoretical architectural
competitions. Today, dECOi is an established architectural/design practice
that takes a fresh, exploratory approach to design. Goulthorpe will discuss
his interactive "Aegis Hyposurface" which dynamically mediates events
happening inside and outside of buildings. Goulthorpe currently divides his
time between the School of Architecture and the Media Lab at MIT.
http://architecture.mit.edu/people/bg/cvgoulth.html;
http://www.newitalianblood.com/showg.pl?id=519

Susan Kozel: Susan Kozel is a dancer, choreographer, writer and Associate
Professor at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) at Simon
Fraser University in Canada. Kozel has a PhD in Philosophy and is co-founder
of Mesh Performance Practices. Her research combines a broad range of
interactive and responsive systems with performative practices (telematics,
motion capture, sensing, wearables). All of her work is about exploring and
expanding our physical and creative interface with technology. She will
discuss her current project "other stories" which utilizes the Vicon motion
capture system. http://whisper.iat.sfu.ca; http://www.meshperformance.org/

Chris Salter: Chris Salter is a media artist, director and composer based in
Montreal, Canada and Berlin, Germany. He develops and produces large-scale,
multi-media and interactive environments that merge space, vision and sound.
These environments respond in complex and subtle ways to audience presence
and activities. He is also a professor in the Design and Computation
Department at Concordia University. He will discuss his large scale
installation "Suspension/Threshold." http://www.clsalter.com;
http://www.sponge.org


Panel 2 -- March 15 at 7 p.m. The Cabaret, 80 Boylston Street. 
Adam Greenfield, Beatriz da Costa and Brooke Singer (Preemptive Media), and
Michelle Teran

Adam Greenfield: An information architect and user-experience consultant,
Adam Greenfield's principal concern over the past half-decade has been "the
restoration of human users and their needs to a place of rightful centrality
in the design of technical systems." Most often, Greenfield says, complex
technical objects are designed without understanding of how people receive,
process and act on information, and this is a source of endless frustration
on the part of the people who use them. Greenfield feels there has been very
little knowledgeable resistance to the idea of ubicomp and the supposed
conveniences it will bring. He is the author of Everyware: the dawning age
of ubiquitous computing, to be published in March '06, which he hopes will
explain just what Ubicomp is, how it might effect us, and how we can effect
its eventual development. Greenfield is principal in the New York City-based
design consultancy, Studies and Observations. He was previously lead
information architect for the Tokyo office of Razorfish. http://www.v-2.org/

Beatriz da Costa and Brooke Singer (Preemptive Media): Preemptive Media
reengineers your thinking about mobile digital technologies imbedded in
everyday environments. In live performances and real time actions the PM
art, technology and activist collective disturbs, dislodges, and redesigns
new media technologies that are often ignored, like the bar codes on
driver's licenses or radio frequency information devices used for EZ pass on
highways. At the forefront of what is called locative media, Preemptive
Media repositions highly specialized technologies within the democratic
discourse of low-tech amateurism. PM will focus on their latest project
"Zapped" which addresses the mass implementation of RFID and its
contribution to the ever growing field of technology-enhanced surveillance
practices. http://www.preemptivemedia.net/

Michelle Teran: Michelle Teran is a Canadian media artist (Toronto) who
explores the performative potential of objects and space. Within her
practice she examines the intertwining of social networks and everyday
social spaces with their technological counterparts and creates
performances, installations and online works that are concerned with issues
of communication, surveillance, psychogeography, presence, intimacy, social
ritual, collaboration and public participation. Teran is co-founder of
"LiveForm:TeleKinetics" (with Jeff Mann); she will focus on their most
recent project, "Telepresence Picnic." http://www.lftk.org


About Floating Points: Floating Points is co-presented by Emerson College
and New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA), a not-for-profit media
organization with offices in Boston and New York. Turbulence.org, a project
of NRPA, has commissioned over 100 works by both emerging and established
artists who explore the creative potential of the Internet and wireless
networks. Emerson College, located in downtown Boston, is the only
comprehensive college or university in America dedicated exclusively to
communication and the arts in a liberal arts context. Founded in 1880,
Emerson College enrolls 3000 undergraduate and 1000 graduate students, and
is committed to bringing innovation to communication and the arts. All
lectures are free and open to the public.

Jo-Anne Green, Co-Director
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: http://new-radio.org
New York: 917.548.7780 . Boston: 617.522.3856
Turbulence: http://turbulence.org
New American Radio: http://somewhere.org
Networked_Performance Blog: http://turbulence.org/blog
Upgrade! Boston: http://turbulence.org/upgrade