<div class="gmail_quote"><meta charset="utf-8"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, verdana; color: rgb(36, 36, 36); "><p style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 14pt; ">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10.8333px; ">CONTACT: Patrick Kennelly</span></p><p style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 14pt; ">
(310) 453-1755<br>admin at highwaysperformance dot org</p><p style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 14pt; "><a href="http://www.highwaysperformance.org/" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(85, 85, 85); ">Highways Performance Space</a> Presents somatic SENSOR, featuring Performance, Digital and Networked Media, Drawing and Soft Sculpture that Opens Borders Between Realities and Bodies</p>
<p style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 14pt; ">Friday and Saturday, January 21 + 22, 2011 at 8:30pm<br>Highways Performance Space<br>at the 18th Street Arts Center<br>
1651 18th Street; Santa Monica, CA 90404</p><p style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 14pt; ">Join us in Second Life from 9-10pm in our studio space provided by SDSU’s Aztlan Island</p>
</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; color: rgb(36, 36, 36); line-height: 19px; "><a href="http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Aztlan/245/205/256" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(85, 85, 85); ">http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Aztlan/245/205/256</a></span></span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', sans-serif; "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', sans-serif; ">Curated by Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand and Dino Dinco</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', sans-serif; "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; color: rgb(36, 36, 36); line-height: 19px; "><a href="http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Aztlan/245/205/256" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(85, 85, 85); "></a></span>An electronic sensor is a circuit that embodies the liminal space
between the real world, or the outside world, and the world of digital
representation. A somatic SENSOR would be a biosensor or a
bodily sensor. Skin is perhaps the perfect somatic SENSOR, as it
defines a body but also is the liminal space between the body and its
outside. Crossings of the border of the skin challenge simple
divisions between self/other, subject/object. An eye is another
sensor, comprised in a package containing both the focusing lens and
the receptive retina to capture data, converting light into thought
and memory. A somatic SENSOR can also be the combination of a body
with technology, an extension of the body, augmentation, prosthesis,
wearable electronic devices which extend the body's capacity to sense
and express and transform the body into a sensor. An electronic
sensor challenges notions of phenomenology, extending the human's
ability to sense and perceive the world and acting as an agent of
perception and relation.</span></div><div>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, sans-serif">An
internet search for somatic SENSOR turns up articles on developing
skin for robots, medical flash cards and the statement “the somatic
sensory system, or somatosensory system, is a diverse sensory system
comprising the receptors and processing centres to produce the
sensory modalities such as touch, temperature, proprioception (body
position), and nociception (pain). While touch (also, more formally,
tactition; adjectival form: "tactile" or "somatosensory")
is considered one of the five traditional senses, the impression of
touch is formed from several modalities. In medicine, the colloquial
term touch is usually replaced with somatic senses to better reflect
the variety of mechanisms involved.”</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, sans-serif">somatic
SENSOR as a name was a creative conjunction of concepts by the
curators to express how the works in this show combine the body and
technology to create new forms of relationality. Works in somatic
SENSOR engage with a range of technologies, from electricity to the
knitting needle, to the telephone, recorded and live generated sound,
video, photography, animation, particle accelerators, motherboards, soft sensors and mixed reality. With the aid of
these technologies, the artists create new queer forms of
relationality between the performers, the audience and our
prostheses. The works act as the space between imagined worlds,
alternate realities and that part of the everyday which remains out
of view.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, sans-serif">Emerging
out of queer experience, the works in somatic SENSOR move along lines
of flight exploring desire, technology, the erotic and the viral.
Rejecting control society to find new forms of relationality, somatic
SENSOR includes performances, digital and networked media, drawing
and soft sculpture to open borders between realities and bodies. The
performance nights include work by Amy Sara Carroll, Robert Crouch,
Micha Cárdenas, Dino Dinco, Dawn Kasper, Frankie Martin, Elle
Mehrmand, Zac Monday, Yann Novak, Phil Skaller, Samuel White and
Dorian Wood. The gallery show, from January 14-22, 2011 includes
works by Sadie Barnette, Zach Blas, Brianna Rigg and Suzanne Wright.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">More details and images at:
</p><p style="margin-bottom:0in"><a href="http://transreal.org/2011/01/06/press-release-highways-performance-space-presents-somatic-sensor/">http://transreal.org/2011/01/06/press-release-highways-performance-space-presents-somatic-sensor/</a></p>
<br>-- <br>micha cárdenas<br>Associate Director of Art and Technology<br>Culture, Art and Technology Program, Sixth College, UCSD<br><br>Co-Author, Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs, Atropos Press, <a href="http://is.gd/daO00" target="_blank">http://is.gd/daO00</a><br>
Artist/Researcher, UCSD School of Medicine<br>Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, <a href="http://bang.calit2.net" target="_blank">http://bang.calit2.net</a><br><br>blog: <a href="http://transreal.org" target="_blank">http://transreal.org</a><br>
<br>gpg: <a href="http://is.gd/ebWx9" target="_blank">http://is.gd/ebWx9</a><br><br>
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