[spectre] Direct Digital Symposium: From Art to Design and Back

[Redazione Digicult]

Sorry for any crossposting

Digicult presents:

>From Art to Design and Back | Direct Digital Symposium
Thursday, 28th of May 2009, 02.00pm - 06.00pm | Galleria Civica - Modena 
(Italy)

www.directdigital.org
http://www.digicult.it/En/2009/DirectDigitalSimposio.asp

Direct Digital exhibition catalogue - critical issue:
http://www.digicult.it/public/mancuso_testo_eng.doc

______________________________________

With the partecipation of:

Golan Levin (designer & theorist)
interaction design and creative interfaces

Boris Debackere (artist & V2_Institute for Unstable Media lab manager)
the audiovisual, between art and performance and design

Paolo Rigamonti / Limiteazero (designer & architect)
liquid architectures and ipermedia urbanism

Lucrezia Cippitelli (art critic & curator)
new immersive multimedia landscapes

Curate and moderate by: Marco Mancuso (critic, curator and Digicult 
director)

______________________________________

As in the program of Direct Digital event on May 28th 2009 in Modena
(Italy), the symposium "From Art to Design and Back", organized and directed
by Marco Mancuso (critic, curator and director at Digicult), focuses on the
growing merge between productions, language and aesthetics of digital art
and design, as a method of creative design between interactivity, space and
eco-system audiovisual production. Thanks to national and international
guests, this symposium will try to focus on meeting points between
art&design and contemporary man's creative, and specifically perceptive,
social & urban sphere.

The boundaries between art, design and technological hacking, considered as
a discipline characterized by use and misuse of modern technologies to
produce sensitive landscapes, are more and more subtle and feeble. Sustained
by artists and designers general inclination to cope with various practices
(from immersive installations to interactive interfaces, from live
performances to audiovisual products) using different hardware and software
methods, the comparison between creative disciplines with different
backgrounds and history has never been so rich and fertile.

Borders and languages constantly reshaping, aesthetics and experiences
continuing redefining, tools and interfaces gradually developing, influences
and experiences generally sharing. Digital and technological media, directed
(during the last 20 years) towards the production of artefacts that can
destroy the Cartesian rules of sound-image-space relationship, and can push
towards the creation of multimedia landscapes in which technology isn't
merely an exercise of style and technique, but is finally useful for new
language, aesthetics, experience, emotion and message. When values and our
western world's economy are in a deep crisis, in front of a general
worldwide techno fascination, inside a universe rich of interactive,
locative and mobile technologies, the interpretation of reality by digital
artists and designers is still linked to contents, a wide aesthetics,
eco-simulation and spectacular interfaces. These elements influence our mind
and our perceptive evolution, many aspects of the society in which we live
and our interpretation of the reality.

Will contemporary art and design be able to give scanning and reading tools
to daily reality? Or, otherwise, will they push further to the creation of
immersive landscapes in which we will find shelter waiting for a new coming?
______________________________________

Golan Levin (Usa)

Golan Levin develops artifacts and events which explore supple new modes of
reactive expression. His work focuses on the design of systems for the
creation, manipulation and performance of simultaneous image and sound. He
is known for the conception and creation of Dialtones: A Telesymphony [2001]
and for interactive information visualizations like The Secret Lives of
Numbers [2002] and The Dumpster [2006]. Previously, Levin was granted an
Award of Distinction in the Prix Ars Electronica for his Audiovisual
Environment Suite [2000] interactive software and its accompanying
audiovisual performance, Scribble [2000]. Other projects from recent years
include Re:MARK [2002], Messa di Voce [2003], and The Manual Input Sessions
[2004], developed in collaboration with Zachary Lieberman, and Scrapple
[2005] and Ursonography [2005]. Levin's current projects, such as
Opto-Isolator [2007] and Double-Taker (Snout) [2008], employ interactive
robotics and machine vision to explore the theme of gaze as a primary new
mode for human-machine communication. Presently Levin is Associate Professor
of electronic time-based art at Carnegie Mellon University . His work is
represented by the Bitforms gallery, New York City .

Boris Debackere (Belgium)

Boris Debackere is an artist, lab manager at V2_institute for the unstable
media, and staff at the Transmedia department of the Hogeschool Sint-Lukas.
As a media artist his main interests are the possible integration of
different expression forms, with an emphasis on electronic sound and image.
Most recent work and research is concentrated towards translating and
transforming the cinema concept into other forms like live cinema and
audiovisual installations. His work includes Vortices , a reactive video
installation, exposition Gorge(l) at the KMSKA,  Probe, an installation
dealing with the relationship between the viewer and the screen, the
research project  The Cinematic Experience (lectures and publication for
Sonic Acts XII). He collaborated with Brecht Debackere on the Live Cinema
performance  Rotor , performed at several international media festivals.
Programming and sound design for Marnix de Nijs' installations Run
Motherfucker Run (2004) and Beijing Accelerator (2006). Composition & sound
design for Herman Asselberghs' films a.m./p.m. (2004),  Proof of life
(2005), Capsular (2006), Futur Antérieur (2007) and Alltogether (2008).

Paolo Rigamonti (Italy)

Architetto, nasce a Milano nel 1963, città dove vive e lavora. Ha lavorato
per diversi anni nel campo della progettazione di edifici residenziali e per
il terziario, locali pubblici, interni, graphic e industrial design. Dal
1998 si dedica completamente a progetti di design legati alle nuove
tecnologie, in questo periodo è consulente di alcune fra le principali
aziende del settore. Nel 2000 è fondatore, con Silvio Mondino, di
Limiteazero, gruppo di ricerca sperimentale sulle potenzialità dei nuovi
media, dapprima interno alla agenzia di comunicazione BGS D'Arcy (oggi Leo
Burnett) e dal 2002 studio indipendente, con un percorso che si sviluppa
parallelamente sulla produzione di progetti sperimentali e sulla
elaborazione di progetti su commissione. Il lavoro di Limiteazero è stato
più volte recensito ed esposto in diverse occasioni sia Italia che
all'estero. Dal 2005 è ideatore e direttore artistico di MixedMedia, evento
di cultura elettronica svoltosi presso l'Hangar Bicocca a Milano. E' docente
di "Mediascape design" all'interno del Master in Digital Environmental
Design presso la Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti di Milano.

Lucrezia Cippitelli (Italy)

Scholar and teacher of History and Aesthetics and Contemporary Art, Lucrezia
Cippitelli holds a Phd in History of Art and is also art writer and curator,
with a curriculum of international researches, exhibitions, professorships
and cultural cooperation projects, developed in several international
Biennals, exhibitions, cultural centers, universities and academies (Bienal
de La Habana , Dak'Art, Bienal de Santiago, art academies in Uk, States,
Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands just to name few). The main focus on
media, technology and its interaction with contemporary art production is
accompanied with a curriculum of teacher of History and Aesthetics of XX
Century Avant-guards and Post Second World War Vanguard movements;
Aesthetics of media and technologies - art in the digital synthesis age;
Process oriented art practices in networks and public spaces; Aesthetics of
not western art practices; Post-colonial and Postmodern criticism and
Comparative modernities studies. Lucrezia Cippitelli is one of the member of
Digicult Network.

Marco Mancuso (Italy)

Marco Mancuso is a critic, curator and journalist about digital art and
culture. Founder and director at Digicult (and the magazine Digimag),
project about digital technologies crossing art, design, science, culture
and society, Marco Mancuso works specifically on contemporary audiovisual
art & design, with a focus on live cinema & live media projects, generative
& open source technologies, interactive & immersive installations, art &
science practices. He worked as curator for festivals in Italy ( Piemonte
Share, Dissonanze, MixedMedia, Screen Music, Sincronie among others) and as
guest curator for some international events ( Cimatics, Strp, Sonic Acts,
Nemo, Strp, Transcultures Audiovisuelles, Elektra ) presenting Italian
audiovisual artists and designers with the curatorial project +39:Call for
Italy . He curate athe first Italian G.R.L. Laser Tag urban performance,
some solo exhibitions ( op7_Otolab, Thorsten Fleisch, The Arts Catalyst )
and cross media events. His interviews can be read on Digicult archive,
while his writings were published in some festival and exhibition catalogues
( Piemonte Share, MixedMedia, 0006_Limiteazero, op7_Otolab, Direct Digital ,
Struttura ) and written for some lectures and presentations he joined (Bruce 
Sterling's workshop , Art&Science conference, The Open Source meeting, 
Pixxelpoint ). He teaches at Naba Academy and Ied Institute in Milan
______________________________________

Direct Digital | a new media art event
Exhibition | Live media | Workshop | Cinema | Contest
Modena | Carpi  - 30 may > 28 june 2009

Exhibition catalogue written and curated by Marco Mancuso and Claudia 
D'Alonzo

www.directdigital.org
http://www.digicult.it/En/2009/DirectDigital.asp

Direct digital is a new media art event presented by the cultural 
association Artegenti, which will take place from 30 th May 2009 to 28 th 
June 2009 in Modena and Carpi (Italy) , in the Ex-Ospedale Sant'Agostino and 
in Palazzo Pio, under the conception and artistic direction of Gilberto 
Caleffi. Direct Digital will be presented in preview on Saturday the 8 th of 
May with a live exhibition of the visionary musician Dm Stith at the Circolo 
Zuni in Ferrara . Direct Digital proposes a thick calendar of five sections, 
Exhibition, Live Media, Workshop, Cinema, Contest in order to show a 
detailed perspective of the most recent developments of art and creativity 
linked to the use of digital technologies. The event, at its first edition, 
aims at becoming a benchmark for those who are interested in knowing, 
proposing and creating moments of meetings between contemporary art and 
digital innovation .