This symposium and its topic are a continuation of BADco.’s artistic interest to relate performance and image. More concretely, it was motivated by our most recent work Responsibility for Things Seen that was presented in 2011 within the Croatian participation at the Biennale di Venezia. The work required us, in the absence of performers in the six-months exhibition, to pursue the idea of ‘theater by other means’ and to custom develop a database video system that unfolds a particular nexus of body, image and technology.

Who can apply: If you are a scholar or practitioner working on the nexus of performance, image and technology, if you are working in or between any number of fields such as, but not exclusively: performing arts, visual arts, cinema and expanded cinema, human-machine interaction, technological performance, architecture, neuroscience, we are inviting you to present your research interests in form of a presentation and/or participate in the debates at our symposium Actionable Image: Agency of Image, Performance of Body, Apparatus of Spectating.

When and where: The symposium will take place on 16-17 March 2011 in Zagreb, Croatia. The artistic programme will start on the 15th.

What is the topic: With “Actionable Image” we propose to explore the experimental encounters between the image and the body — two modalities of organized materiality, agency and receptivity affecting each other, two modes of expression whose encounters in our age are predominantly arranged, composed and mediated by means of visual technologies.

We tend to subscribe to the critique of the domination of image and the scopic regime: the unebbing repetition of hegemonic representations, the homogenization of mediatized social experience, the habituation of sensory apparatus to technological artifice. However, understanding the encounter of image and body as a field of performance allows us to explore this encounter beyond the adequation of sensory perception to technological apparatus, of social behaviors to reproduced images. A mis-encounter where incompatibilites between technology and habit, excess of agency on the side of image or on the side of spectators, interventions in the transmission process, strange situations of viewing emerge, that encounter becomes an indeterminate field of negotiation, slippage, misperformance, deterritorialization and reterritorialization… In short, a field of divergences that are themselves frequent subject to experimentation in art.

With this other scene of image in mind, we calls for contributions that will bring their analysis to bear on situations of problematic spectating, strange apparatuses and dispositifs of viewing, agency of images, strategies of performing images and other issues relevant to the nexus of body, image and technology.

The symposium and attendant artistic programme will include a.o., contributions by artists and scholars such as Jonathan Beller, Maaike Bleeker, Vlatka Horvat, Stephen Zepke and BADco.

What are the keywords: performance and image, performed image, image in performance, image and corporeality, agency of image, actionable image, algorithmic cinema, image and interface, iconicity of image, apparatuses and dispositifs of viewing, cinematic viewing vs theatrical viewing, image and presence/ absence…

How to apply and when is the deadline: We are looking for contributions of various formats, including but not limited to papers, short presentations, demonstrations and participation in the debate, up to 30 minutes in length. If you want to participate in the symposium, please send us a short note stating your topical interests, discussion points, format, etc. and a short description of your background. While we cannot cover your expenses, we can help you find convenient travel arrangement and affordable accommodation, and we will do our best to address your interests and provide an insightful debate.

All proposals should be sent in by 10 February 2012 to: tom at badco.hr.
You’ll be notified of our decision shortly thereafter.

Publication: A special issue of Frakcija Performing Arts Journal will accompany the symposium. We are looking for contributions of those taking part in the symposium, but also others who cannot join us in Zagreb but are researching the topic in academic or artistic formats. Articles, essays and artist’s page(s) proposals will be considered. The submission deadline is March 2, publication June 2012. All proposals (and any questions on submission) should be sent to: ivana at badco.hr

The symposium and attendant artistic program are organized in collaboration with Multimedia Institute/MAMA and the curatorial collective What, How and for Whom/WHW.

The symposium Actionable Image: Agency of Image, Performance of Body, Apparatus of Spectating is part of LABO21 – European Platform for Interdisciplinary Research on Artistic Methodologies, a partner project of BADco. (Zagreb), BUDA Arts Center (Kortrijk), Laboratorium (Antwerp) and University of Circus and Dance (Stockholm). With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union.

Transmittance explores collaboration which is local, global, networked and broadcasted. It involves an artistic group of performers, visual artists, musicians and computer programmers to research performative possibilities of streaming, broadcasting and telepresence forging new types of performance and audience. With focus on critical and socially-aware artistic languages this work is based on asking questions about body, self and society - opening non-dualistic perspectives.

The project tries to rethink the notions of spectatorship and spectacle, ways of watching and seeing and the audience as spectators from the outside. In framework of free telepresence technologies it is a quest to open new spaces of visibility for performance and new media art and while critically deconstruct also actively bypass power structures that have a hold on physical spaces of artistic representation. Emphasis is made on creative use of free and open source software and its impact on artistic process and collaboration.

The project develops a specific method of improvised performance which allows compositional freedom beside specific prepared scenes at the same time and in the process collide different specifics of various artistic media (performance art, expanded cinema, sound art, new media realities).

Transmittance is a project proposed by Maja Delak & Luka PrinÄŸiÄŸ.

Transmittance_#2 is in collaboration with: Loup Abramovici, BoÅ¡tjan BoÅ≤iÄŸ, Maja Delak, Matija Ferlin, Jakob Leben, Ana PeÄŸar, Luka PrinÄŸiÄŸ, Maja Å orli, Igor Å tromajer, Jelena Å∏drale and NataÅ¡a Å∏ivkoviÄΩ.

Produced by: Emanat Institute, Ljubljana
Coproduced by: Galerija Kapelica (Zavod K6/4), Tobacco 001 Cultural Center (MGML), Ljubljana
Financial support: Ministry for culture of Slovenia, City of Ljubljana

Previous Transmittance phases:

Transmittance #1.5, Ljubljana/Graz [26/8 2011] with Maja Delak, Luka PrinÄŸiÄŸ, ESC Gallery, Graz, Reni Hofmueler and “mur.sat” project // organized by Emanat Institute, ESC Gallery Graz

Transmittance #1 Pula,.hr [27/5 2011] with Marko BolkoviÄΩ, Maja Delak, Matija Ferlin, Luka PrinÄŸiÄŸ, Messmatik, Rea Korani, Mauricio Ferlin, Marcel Mars/Nenad RomiÄŸ // executive production by: Egle VoÅ¡ten // produced and organized by: Polis Jadran Europa Pula, Emanat Institute Ljubljana // financially supported by: Ministry of Culture Croatia, Municipality of Pula, Ministry of Culture RS, City Municipality of Ljubljana // supported by: Region of Istria, Tourism Office Pula

Transmittance #0, Teatro Petrella, Longiano, Italy [19/12 2010] Maja Delak & Luka PrinÄŸiÄŸ (Wanda & Nova deViator) // preparation of the tools / open rehearsal // with Adele Cacciagrano, Tihana Maravic, Silvia Mei, Fabrizio Zanuccoli // program VIA DEL CONFINE, The East Side (of the moon) // curator: Nhandan Chirco // organized by: YANVII, Rad’Art Project/Artéco, Teatro Petrella, Emanat Institute

Dirty Dozen BodyLab, Berlin, Ljubljana [28/8 2010] Luka Prinğiğ & Maja Delak - research of streamed interactive performance by invitation of Kathleen Reynolds (Berlin team: Michel Abdoul / Pascal Baes / Joao Costa / Awatef Fettar / Oscar Garcia / Dusan Pejcic / Kiril Bikov / Kathleen Reynolds / Aï Suzsuki / Gill Viandier / Raphaël Vincent / Vero Mota)

http://transmittance.si || http://wndv.si || http://emanat.si

fauxlographic is a performative installation that takes place within an ethno-dysphoric cloning lab, where one can clone themselves in order to analyze their diasporic anxiety. The fauxlographic clones enact sonic rituals in Farsi, English and Perz-ish, based on multiple sources of information including embodied memories, wikileaks cables, and textual references concerning Iran and Persia. The ethno-dysphoric scientist performs a daily computing ritual wearing a neuro-headset, (pars)ing the (fars)e of the clones’ information. When high levels of CO2 are detected by the lab’s sensors, the pixelated flesh of the clones degrade and multiply, reciprocating the affective presence of other bodies. The use of organic sensors transforms the lab into a spatial interface, confusing the somatic architecture of the performance.

This November, the action and research group Public Movement will present Positions, a choreographed demonstration that invites people to take a stand on any number of urgent issues. Presented in Warsaw, Holon, Bat-Yam, Eindhoven, Heidelberg, Stockholm, and now New York, the Movement invites the public to embody their preferences, aspirations, and beliefs — manifesting political and philosophical ideas as physical positions in Washington Square Park and Union Square South. This will be Public Movement’s first presentation in the United States.

In February 2011, Public Movement leader Dana Yahalomi began her research toward a project for New York, meeting with artists, historians, urban planners, memorial designers, politicians, government officials, and NYPD officers. The residency continues from January–April 2012, during which time she will initiate bi-weekly salons as part of the 2012 New Museum Triennial, “The Generational,” and will culminate in a newly commissioned action for New York City in April 2012, details to follow.

Public Movement is a performative research body that investigates and stages political actions in public spaces. The Movement explores the political and aesthetic possibilities that reside in a group of people acting together. It studies and creates public choreographies, forms of social order, and overt and covert rituals. Public Movement was founded in November 2006 and was led by Omer Krieger and Dana Yahalomi until August 2011, when Yahalomi became the sole group leader.

Presented by the New Museum and Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund

About Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund

Artis supports and promotes contemporary visual artists from Israel internationally. Advancing opportunities for cultural understanding, Artis helps to generate dialogue through artist commissions, talks, and events; offers professional development and research initiatives for artists and arts professionals; and provides project-specific grants as well as an online resource, www.artiscontemporary.org. Founded in 2004, Artis is an independent nonprofit based in New York with activities in Tel Aviv and Los Angeles.

Public Movement’s project is made possible with support from The Ostrovsky Family Fund. Public Movement’s travel is made possible through the Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel in NY.

About the New Museum

The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum was conceived as a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. >From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding, dedicated building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of ongoing experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.

Public Movement’s participation in the 2012 Generational is co-presented by the New Museum and Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund.

“The Generational” is made possible by a generous grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Additional support provided by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust.

Major support is provided by the Friends of the Generational, co-chaired by Shelley Fox Aarons, Toby Devan Lewis, and Lonti Ebers.

Steering Committee Members: Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg, Susan and Leonard Feinstein, María José Garcés, Sunny and Brad Goldberg, Dakis Joannou, Tina Kim and Jaewoong Chung, Sueyun Locks, Shaun Caley Regen, Lyndley and Samuel Schwab, and Eve Steele and Peter Gelles. Friends of the Generational: Kathleen O’Grady.

Support for the accompanying publications is made possible by the J. McSweeney and G. Mills Publications Fund at the New Museum, and a grant from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. Curatorial travel and research for “The Generational” has been underwritten by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Asian Cultural Council.

The Museum as Hub Residency Program is made possible through the lead support of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Additional funding is provided by Laurie Wolfert. Artist travel is supported, in part, by a grant from the Ford Foundation.

Museum as Hub and public programs are made possible, in part, through the support of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts. Endowment support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Skadden, Arps Education Programs Fund, and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs at the New Museum.

Education and public programs are made possible by a generous grant from Goldman Sachs Gives at the recommendation of David and Hermine Heller.

The Italian artist Sonia Cillari, honourable mention in VIDA 13.0, will share with participants her exploration of sensorial and perception mechanisms in immersed environments and the consciousness, perception and identity-related patterns arising from them.

The workshop is structured along three main lines: physical and phenomenological reality, the body as an interface (how do we experience space?) and the physical phenomena of the radiating body. The event is also conceived as an open debate during which attendees may propose new perceptive strategies and discuss the specific subjects proposed.

There is a maximum of 15 places available. All those interested in attending should bring a digital camera and a laptop or tablet PC with the means necessary to transfer data. Participants may also bring electronic and technological material (sensors, coils, motors, etc.) which they might like to share.
In order to spread this activity, the workshop will be filmed and the images may be issued in different media.

In collaboration with Matadero Madrid.

Commissioned by Alpha-ville for the 2011 festival this interactive installation plays with and proposes alternative landscapes in the technological ether surrounding our everyday movements. Personal identity is increasingly becoming a broadcasted commodity, as a result of this, our constructed personae enmesh and define us. CELL realises our virtual reflections, making digital projections into literal ones. This installation creates luminous clones, exposing these parallel realities as it replicates the body movement of visitors. As the visitor moves through the installation space, personal data mined from internet profiles is randomly tagged onto the alternate, technologically refracted form of the body, revealing the second self while simultaneously allowing us escape from it.

Keiichi Matsuda is a designer and film-maker. He began working with video during his Masters of architecture at the Bartlett school (UCL) as a critical tool to understand, construct and represent space. Keiichi’s research examines the implication of emerging technologies for human perception and the built environment, focusing on the integration of media into everyday life.

James Alliban London, UK. He is primarily concerned with building interactive toys and immersive environments which allow for new forms of creative expression. These projects include installations, mobile art apps and online tools that explore the experiential nature of technology using a variety of computer vision and image processing techniques.

Owing to technical reasons the SMS message exchange works only through Finnish telephone operators and mobile phone numbers with the country code (+358) that are used in Finland. If you want to join the SMS group you should enroll by the 12th of September 2011 at info [at] aloneornot.org. You can also participate directly through Twitter.

“…send kinaesthetic tweets and improvise wherever you may be.” Susan Kozel

The panel dis­cusses cat­e­gories of loca­tive, site-spe­cific media art and their im­pact on un­der­stand­ing the con­text of place. Mo­bile com­put­ing po­ten­tially en­ables var­i­ous forms of so­cial in­ter­ac­tion and has to be con­sid­ered in re­la­tion to con­cepts of em­bod­i­ment, the cre­ation of mean­ing, as well as in­di­vid­ual au­ton­omy and agency.

The pro­posed panel will iden­tify dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of loca­tive, site-spe­cific media art and ex­plore their im­pact on un­der­stand­ing the con­text of place and on our aware­ness of the en­vi­ron­ment. Mo­bile com­put­ing po­ten­tially en­ables var­i­ous forms of so­cial in­ter­ac­tion and has to be con­sid­ered in re­la­tion to con­cepts of em­bod­i­ment, the cre­ation of mean­ing, as well as in­di­vid­ual au­ton­omy and agency. The lat­ter as­pects of mo­bile com­put­ing and loca­tive media con­sid­er­ably af­fect our per­cep­tion and aware­ness of en­vi­ron­ments. Mo­bile de­vices can func­tion as tech­no­log­i­cal ex­ten­sions of em­bod­i­ment, con­nect­ing us to lo­ca­tion-based in­for­ma­tion and en­hanc­ing aware­ness of our en­vi­ron­ment or ‘so­cial body.’

Loca­tive new media art, which uses lo­ca­tions in pub­lic space as a ‘can­vas’ for im­ple­ment­ing art pro­jects, has be­come one of the most ac­tive and fast-grow­ing areas within the larger field of dig­i­tal arts. Cam­era and video phones, smart phones, and mo­bile de­vices with em­bed­ded GPS have be­come new plat­forms for cul­tural pro­duc­tion, pro­vid­ing an in­ter­face through which users can par­tic­i­pate in net­worked pub­lic pro­jects, as well as en­abling the for­ma­tion of ad-hoc com­mu­ni­ties.

The panel will dis­cuss var­i­ous cat­e­gories of loca­tive media art, for ex­am­ple pro­jects that en­hance con­text by al­low­ing par­tic­i­pants to ‘leave a mark’ on their sur­round­ings, sub­mit or re­trieve site-spe­cific in­for­ma­tion, or re­con­fig­ure the map; pro­jects that cre­ate a sys­temic aware­ness of peo­ple’s moods or be­hav­iors by re­flect­ing the pres­ence, move­ments, or ac­tions and re­ac­tions, pro­file, tasks and goals, emo­tions and be­hav­ior of peo­ple in their en­vi­ron­ment. Also dis­cussed will be mo­bile pro­jects that ad­dress sur­veil­lance or en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues and place em­pha­sis on in­creas­ing peo­ple’s aware­ness of the larger so­cio-po­lit­i­cal con­text of site, often en­cour­ag­ing or en­abling their users to be­come proac­tive and en­gage in local pol­i­tics. The pan­elists will rep­re­sent these dif­fer­ent artis­tic prac­tices within the field of mo­bile media. A major goal of the panel is to dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween forms of con­text aware­ness and site-speci­ficity that mo­bile media can pro­duce.

Paper Ab­stracts

To­wards Geospa­tial Cul­tural Plan­ning: Strate­gies for Local Cul­tural In­no­va­tion through Loca­tive New Media Art
by Tanya Toft

Glob­al­iza­tion and de­vel­op­ments in tech­nolo­gies and new mo­bile media have brought about a ‘spa­tial turn’ that has changed spa­tial con­cep­tions and ge­o­graph­i­cal imag­i­na­tions. The cur­rent ’spa­tial turn’ echoes the crit­i­cal con­cepts of space de­vel­oped by Lefeb­vre, de Certeau and Fou­cault in the 1970s with an em­pha­sis on the pro­duc­tion, prac­tices, and pol­i­tics of lived spa­tial­ity. These con­cepts be­came ‘guides’ to a crit­i­cal analy­sis of the de­vel­op­ments and po­ten­tial of loca­tive new media art in the age of mo­bile media.

Today’s de­vel­op­ments in map­ping and GIS tech­nolo­gies allow for a new ’spa­tial think­ing’ about a so­cio-spa­tial di­alec­tic: the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the ways in which so­cial processes and so­cial ac­tion shape and ex­plain ge­o­gra­phies and vice versa. Loca­tive media and per­va­sive com­put­ing have re­con­fig­ured our un­der­stand­ings and ex­pe­ri­ences of space and cul­ture—from the mi­cro­cosm of the every­day to the macro­cosm of spa­tial flows. The new ge­o­graph­i­cal pur­suits of loca­tive new media art are site-spe­cific ex­plo­rations of a human ge­og­ra­phy.

This paper ex­plores the po­ten­tial of loca­tive new media art as a strate­gic cat­a­lyst for urban re­vi­tal­iza­tion and com­mu­nity de­vel­op­ment. Loca­tive media allow for ac­tive com­mu­nity par­tic­i­pa­tion and ex­pres­sion; for urban and cul­tural nar­ra­tives to be dis­cov­ered and ar­tic­u­lated in urban lay­ers; and for aug­men­ta­tion of past or fu­ture re­al­i­ties and vir­tu­al­i­ties. Loca­tive media can en­hance civic en­gage­ment and in­ter­cul­tural cit­i­zen­ship, fos­ter a sense of lo­cal­ity, and thus cre­ate a sus­tain­able com­po­nent for the local com­mu­nity and so­ci­ety at large. These ideas are un­fold­ing in a field that merges or os­cil­lates be­tween loca­tive media and me­di­ated lo­cal­i­ties. They en­cour­age local cul­tural in­no­va­tion by fos­ter­ing site-spe­cific cul­tural un­der­stand­ing. This paper ad­dresses ques­tions such as, what kinds of so­cial/spa­tial re­la­tions are made pos­si­ble through loca­tive new media art pro­jects? And how can these pro­jects be adopted in a cul­tural plan­ning frame­work as cat­a­lysts for local urban and com­mu­nity de­vel­op­ment?

Land­scape, Cul­ture, and the Phe­nom­e­nol­ogy of Tech­no­log­i­cal Me­di­a­tion
by Prof. Jack Toolin

Nei­ther re­flec­tion upon our re­la­tion­ship to the space sur­round­ing us nor tech­no­log­i­cal me­di­a­tion of this re­la­tion­ship are new. How­ever, GPS-en­abled tech­nolo­gies and their grow­ing avail­abil­ity in the past decade have de­cid­edly changed the ways we nav­i­gate, vi­su­al­ize, quan­tify, and ul­ti­mately com­pre­hend the world we move through. This paper will re­flect upon these changes through con­sid­er­a­tion of var­i­ous philo­soph­i­cal per­spec­tives, tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, and ex­am­ples of artis­tic prac­tice that uti­lize loca­tive media, in­clud­ing my pro­jects The C5 Land­scape Ini­tia­tive and Per­cep­tions of the Com­mut­ing Ethno­g­ra­pher.

The grad­ual or sud­den ac­cu­mu­la­tion of all things tech­no­log­i­cal, from hard­ware to soft­ware, has gone hand in hand with a shift in think­ing about the human con­di­tion from a phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal aware­ness to an in­ter­sub­jec­tive con­scious­ness. (That shift has also co­in­cided with the grow­ing ur­ban­iza­tion of the world’s pop­u­la­tion: as of 2008, over half of the world’s pop­u­la­tion lives in towns and cities.) This in­ter­sub­jec­tiv­ity is in­creas­ingly me­di­ated by the ever shrink­ing, trans­portable, and in­stan­ta­neous media with which we have be­come en­twined. Loca­tive media have be­come in­creas­ingly lo­ca­tion-aware and com­merce-ready, po­si­tion­ing us in the ge­o­graph­i­cal and cul­tural land­scape. In other words, they are more and more aware of our phys­i­cal and psy­cho­graphic re­la­tion­ship to the world around us. The paper will ex­plore the na­ture of our phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal re­la­tion­ship to this tech­nol­ogy and the world that it me­di­ates.

Kines­thetic At­tune­ment: Walk­ing, Talk­ing, Lis­ten­ing, Know­ing
by Prof. Teri Rueb

Each of my works re­quire ex­ten­sive in­ter­ac­tion with sites through the sim­ple act of walk­ing. Both in pro­duc­tion and re­cep­tion, my work emerges through a process that I have come to think of as a form of “kines­thetic at­tune­ment.” Walk­ing is the ground from which my work evolves as a form of ex­pe­ri­en­tial knowl­edge. It is also the basis upon which I seek to chal­lenge and cri­tique ab­stract mod­els of spa­tial rep­re­sen­ta­tion and the the­o­ret­i­cal foun­da­tions of tech­nolo­gies as­so­ci­ated with loca­tive media. Draw­ing upon the phi­los­o­phy of em­bod­i­ment as well as an­thro­po­log­i­cal meth­ods and ethno­graphic prac­tices em­ployed in cur­rent pro­jects, I will dis­cuss in­sights from my over fif­teen years ex­pe­ri­ence mak­ing site-spe­cific sound and media in­stal­la­tions using GPS and other lo­ca­tion-sens­ing tech­nolo­gies.

Bios of the Par­tic­i­pants

Chris­tiane Paul is the Di­rec­tor of the Media Stud­ies Grad­u­ate Pro­grams and As­so­ci­ate Prof. of Media Stud­ies at The New School, NY, and Ad­junct Cu­ra­tor of New Media Arts at the Whit­ney Mu­seum of Amer­i­can Art. She has writ­ten ex­ten­sively on new media arts and lec­tured in­ter­na­tion­ally on art and tech­nol­ogy. Her re­cent books are Con­text Providers – Con­di­tions of Mean­ing in Media Arts (In­tel­lect, 2011), co-edited with Mar­got Love­joy and Vic­to­ria Vesna; New Media in the White Cube and Be­yond (UC Press, 2008); and Dig­i­tal Art (Thames and Hud­son 2003; ex­panded new edi­tion 2008). At the Whit­ney Mu­seum, she cu­rated the shows “Cory Ar­can­gel: Pro Tools” (May 2011), “Pro­fil­ing” (2007), and “Data Dy­nam­ics” (2001); the net art se­lec­tion for the 2002 Whit­ney Bi­en­nial; the on­line ex­hi­bi­tion “CODe­DOC” (2002) for art­port, the Whit­ney Mu­seum’s on­line por­tal to In­ter­net art for which she is re­spon­si­ble; as well as “Fol­low Through” by Scott Pa­ter­son and Jen­nifer Crowe (2005). Other re­cent cu­ra­to­r­ial work in­cludes “Ed­uardo Kac: Biotopes, La­go­glyphs and Trans­genic Works” (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2010); Bi­en­nale Quadri­lat­erale (Ri­jeka, Croa­tia, 2009-10); “Feed­for­ward - The Angel of His­tory” (co-cu­rated with Steve Dietz; Lab­o­ral Cen­ter for Art and In­dus­trial Cre­ation, Gijon, As­turias, Spain, 2009-2010) and INDAF Dig­i­tal Art Fes­ti­val (In­cheon, Korea, Aug. 2009).

Tanya Toft re­cently re­ceived her dou­ble MA in Media Stud­ies from The New School, NY, and in Mod­ern Cul­ture and Cul­tural Dis­sem­i­na­tion with pro­file in Ur­ban­ity and Aes­thet­ics from Copen­hagen Uni­ver­sity. Her re­search is fo­cused on the in­ter­re­la­tion­ship be­tween new media art and the trans­for­ma­tion of urban spaces and so­cio-spa­tial struc­tures, which she ex­plores in a com­bined frame­work of artis­tic and strate­gic de­vel­op­ment. In her mas­ter’s the­sis she de­vel­ops a re­think­ing of urban cul­tural plan­ning in the ’tem­po­rary’ cul­tural log­ics of the dig­i­tal city and pro­poses the me­dia-ar­chi­tec­tural event as a tem­po­ral, me­di­ated cat­a­lyst for urban de­vel­op­ment and re­vi­tal­iza­tion. She has pre­sented her re­search at The Trans­for­ma­tion of the 21st Cen­tury City 2010; Me­diaC­ity 2010; Crit­i­cal Themes Grad­u­ate Stu­dent Con­fer­ence 2011; The City: Cul­ture, So­ci­ety, Tech­nol­ogy 2011; and EURA Con­fer­ence: The City With­out Lim­its 2011.

Teri Rueb works at the in­ter­sec­tion of in­ter­ac­tive media, sound, land, and en­vi­ron­men­tal art. She pi­o­neered the form of GPS-based in­ter­ac­tive in­stal­la­tion with her pro­ject “Trace,” which was de­vel­oped at the Banff Cen­tre for the arts from 1996-1999. She is the re­cip­i­ent of nu­mer­ous awards in­clud­ing a Prix Ars Elec­tron­ica Award of Dis­tinc­tion in 2008 for her pro­ject “Core Sam­ple” set on a land­fill in the Boston Har­bor. Her site-spe­cific works have been pre­sented in con­texts as var­ied as the Wad­den Sea, the Heath­land and the Old­en­burg Botan­i­cal Gar­den in North­ern Ger­many, the Boston Com­mon and Pub­lic Gar­dens, the Viru Keskus shop­ping mall in post-So­viet Tallinn, Es­to­nia, the Berlin Tier­garten, and high­way sys­tems across the United States. She re­cently com­pleted her doc­tor­ate at the Har­vard Uni­ver­sity Grad­u­ate School of De­sign where her re­search fo­cused on con­struc­tions of wilder­ness and sub­jec­tiv­ity in mo­bile net­work so­ci­ety. Her work has been funded by the Banff Cen­ter for the Arts, Edith Russ Site, Klang­pol, LEF Foun­da­tion, Turbulence.​org, and Art­slink and many state arts coun­cils. From 2004-2009 she served as found­ing fac­ulty and was later ap­pointed De­part­ment Head of the grad­u­ate Dig­i­tal + Media De­part­ment at the Rhode Is­land School of De­sign. Rueb is cur­rently Pro­fes­sor in the Media Study De­part­ment at the Uni­ver­sity at Buf­falo (SUNY) where she is Founder and Di­rec­tor of Open Air In­sti­tute, a plat­form for con­nect­ing field-based learn­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner­ships at the in­ter­sec­tion of land­scape, tech­nol­ogy, media art and de­sign.

Jack Toolin is an artist work­ing in new media, dig­i­tal imag­ing, and per­for­mance. His work con­sid­ers con­tem­po­rary life in light of the chang­ing po­lit­i­cal, eco­nomic, and tech­no­log­i­cal land­scape, and has been pre­sented na­tion­ally and in­ter­na­tion­ally. High­lights in­clude: the Whit­ney Mu­seum of Amer­i­can Art (2002 Bi­en­nial); the Walker Art Cen­ter, Min­neapo­lis, Min­nesota; Ars Elec­tron­ica, Linz, Aus­tria; the San José Mu­seum of Art, San José, Cal­i­for­nia; Foxy Pro­duc­tion, New York City. His work Per­fect View was ex­hib­ited at the Chelsea Art Mu­seum Pro­ject Room in 2010. He was a mem­ber of the new media col­lab­o­ra­tive C5 (1997 - 2007) which in­ves­ti­gated cul­ture’s re­la­tion­ship to tech­nol­ogy through data vi­su­al­iza­tion, in­stal­la­tion, and per­for­mance ex­pe­di­tion. He is cur­rently a vis­it­ing as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor at Pratt In­sti­tute in Brook­lyn, New York, and an ad­junct pro­fes­sor at the Poly­tech­nic In­sti­tute at NYU. He has lec­tured widely, at in­sti­tu­tions such as the Rhode Is­land School of De­sign; Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley; the San Fran­cisco Art In­sti­tute; Emer­son Col­lege, Boston; Kibla Mul­ti­me­dia Cen­ter, Mari­bor, Slove­nia; the Mu­seum of Con­tem­po­rary Art Ri­jeka, Croa­tia; and the Uni­ver­sity of Split, Croa­tia. He holds a B.F.A. in pho­tog­ra­phy from Ohio Uni­ver­sity, and an M.F.A. in in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary prac­tice from San Jose State Uni­ver­sity.

Senses Places is a dance-technology collaborative project creating a playful mixed reality performance environment for audience participation. The project stresses an integration of simultaneous local and remote connections, where participants and environments meet to generate a kinesthetic/ synesthetic engagement.

Tuning the audience participants into several whole body modes of physical-virtual body-body and body-environment interactions within a physical and virtual environment (Second Life©), Senses Places re-purposes recent Web 2.0- enabled game devices with a synergetic/ semantic approach to interface design. The interfaces include video and avatar mediations via Webcam, Wiimote©, and Kinect©, plus a biometric device.

Through an inclusive process engaging kinesthetic empathy, Senses Places deepens contemporary dance practices, such as contact improvisation and Butoh, interweaving Eastern-Western somatic based practices like Tai Chi, Yoga, Body-Mind Centering, Release, and Alexander Techniques. The improvisation evolves in a sharing of corporealised places, times and energies, encouraging a fuller experience of the moment.