[spectre] CAS - Major 2010 event - February 3-5 - London

[Paul Brown]

The BCS Computer Arts Society SG is pleased to announce a special
three-day event to launch our Spring 2010 programme. It begins on
3 February with a one-day symposium at the BCS including a free
public talk that evening by keynote speaker Brian Reffin Smith
and continues with a two-day conference at the Victoria & Albert
Museum.  Note that the Kinetica Art Fair will also be on in
London from 4-7 February: http://www.kinetica-artfair.com/

3 February - Ideas Before Their Time – 9-6pm at BCS London HQ
  followed by a CAS talk by Brian Reffin Smith at 7:00
4-5 February - Decoding the Digital - a 2 day conference at the V&A

The symposium and conference both need to be booked in advance.
The CAS evening talk is open to the public and free but an RSVP
is necessary.  And sorry this is such a long post!

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Wednesday 3 February 9:00 - 6:00 & 7:00 - 8:30 pm

Ideas Before Their Time
Connecting the past and the present in Computer Art

BCS London HQ, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton
Street, London, WC2E 7HA
http://www.bcs.org/upload/img/londonssbw.jpg

In conjunction with the Computer Arts Society, the CAT Project
(Computer Art & Technocultures) is presenting a symposium at the
British Computer Society in Covent Garden.

Many intriguing concepts have emerged in Computer Art over the
past 50 years. Some have been brought to light in the archives
examined by the CAT and CACHe Projects. Speakers from all areas
of Computer Art, including practitioners, curators and
historians, will discuss the past, present and future of this
area.

Go to http://www.technocultures.org.uk/symposium.html to view the
programme and book a place.

6:00 Drinks Reception

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6:30 for 7:00 - Public Talk
BCS London HQ - as above
Free but RSVP necessary to paul_brown at mac.com

Speaker: Brian Reffin Smith

Title: Post Computer Art — Ontological Undecidability and the Cat
with Paint on its Paws.

It is argued that an active re-visiting of computer based
artworks from the last 60 or so years is essential to any
progress of today’s work towards an activity that pushes at the
frontiers of contemporary art.

We need to open up the history, works, techniques and discourses
of computer based art to enable a revolution to occur – that of
rendering the art problematic and ‘difficult’: then new solutions
will emerge. It is suggested that whilst conceptual art was busy
doing just this, computer based art was rushing madly in the
opposite direction, trying in a reformist manner to make things
easier, simpler.

Derrida, ‘Pataphysics, Schrödinger’s cat and the living dead may
well be brought into play.

Brian Reffin Smith is a writer, artist, performer and teacher. He
was a pioneer of computer-based conceptual art, with the aim of
trying to resist technological determinism and ‘state of the art’
technology, which might merely produce ‘state of the technology’
art. He is a French civil servant, having been invited to work
for their Ministry of Culture.

Smith, who won the first-ever Prix Ars Electronica, the Golden
Nike, in Linz in 1987, is a Regent of the College of
'Pataphysics, Paris, holding the Chair of Catachemistry and
Speculative Metallurgy. He is Professeur, École Nationale
Supérieure d'Art, Bourges, France.

Areas of work, research, teaching and performance include the
idea of the philosophical Zombie in art and elsewhere, and the
détournement or ‘hijacking’ of systems, mechanisms, programs etc.
to make art.

He became a Zombie, after a short illness, in 1999.

http://www.zombiepataphysics.blogspot.com

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Thursday 4 & Friday 5 February
10.00-17.30 each day
Decoding the Digital

Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre, Victoria & Albert Museum

A rare opportunity to hear a dialogue between contemporary
digital practice and historical collections within the world of
digital and computer generated art and design.  Speakers include
artist Frieder Nake and writer Edward Shanken, with theorists
Charlie Gere and Beryl Graham.  There will be an in-conversation
between Paul Brown and his son Daniel Brown.  Other contributors
include the collector Michael Spalter, the writer and artist Anne
Morgan Spalter, plus Louise Shannon (V&A) and Shane Walter
(Director, onedotzero), co-curators of the V&A exhibition Decode,
and Douglas Dodds, one of the curators of the V&A display Digital
Pioneers.

£50, £40 concessions, £10 students for two days
£25, £20 concessions, £5 students for one day

Further details and bookings:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/activ_events/courses/conferences/index.html#decoding

In collaboration with Birkbeck College, with support from the
Arts and Humanities Research Council.

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The CAS Spring 2010 programme continues:

2 March - Ron Chrisley & Joel Parthmore – at the London Knowledge Lab.

6 April - Tina Gonsalves – at the London Knowledge Lab.

4 May - visit to Goldsmith’s College Maths & Art Archive
   organised by Janis Jefferies

14-16 June - Computational Aesthetics – CAe 2010 at the BCS
   co-sponsored by BCS CAS SG and Eurographics

14-16 July - Electronic Visualisation and the Arts – EVA 2010 at BCS
   sponsored by BCS CAS SG

CAS - supporting the computer arts for over 40 years
The BCS CAS SG is a British Computer Society Specialist Group

http://www.computer-arts-society.org

====
Paul Brown - based in OZ October 09 to January 2010
mailto:paul at paul-brown.com == http://www.paul-brown.com
OZ Landline +61 (0)7 3391 0094 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
OZ Mobile +61 (0)419 72 74 85 == Skype paul-g-brown
====
Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====