PRESS RELEASE Istanbul February 2011
 
SUBJECT ISEA2011 Istanbul Pre-Symposium Event: Digital Portraits of
Transculturalism - London
 
We are happy to announce the ISEA2011 Istanbul Pre-Symposium Event Digital
Portraits of Transculturalism - London, a one-day event taking place at the
Centre for Creative Collaboration, University of London on February 25,
2011, under the aegis of Goldsmiths College and Sabanci University. The
symposium is also supported by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative
Technology) and sees as partners, University of Brighton,The Arts Catalyst,
SCAN and the Leonardo Electronic Almanac. http://ow.ly/3T3BF
 
The event will form part of an international series of conferences in
London, New York, and Istanbul. The symposia are the starting point to
generate a discussion about the digital portraiture internationally and in
response a series of digital artworks and curated exhibitions will
complement the conferences.
 
Digital Portraits of Transculturalism ­ London will be preceded by a
conversation on digital identities taking place on February 24 and realized
in collaboration between The Thursday Club and the Leonardo Electronic
Almanac. For further information visit: http://ow.ly/3Qcad
 
 
Symposium Abstract
 
In a globalized society where the access to technology allows the
re-definition of who we are as well as the choice of the arena within which
we wish to play ­ from second life to teenagers¹ web communities ­ the
construction of a personal identity is shaped not only by the physical
environment in which we live but also by the virtual spaces in which we
dwell. 
 
Web communities and social networks defy political, cultural and religious
controls offering to a new generation of individuals the expectation that
the real space should provide the same degree of freedom of the internet ­ a
space where sexual, cultural and social customs are defied in semipublic and
semiprivate spaces.
 
This new type of interaction challenges our existing understanding of
identity and this symposium is looking to research the affect this has on
the understanding of portraiture.
 
 
What: A one day conference, Digital Portraits of Transculturalism ­ London.
 
Where: 16 Acton Street London Greater London WC1X 9NG just down the road
from King's Cross Station. Nearest tube is King's Cross.
http://www.creativecollaboration.org.uk/where.php
 
When: February 25, 2011 ­ from 10am to 7pm. Free entry.
 
Symposium Program
 
10:00 ­ 10:15    Registration
 
10:15 ­ 10:45     Welcome: Lanfranco Aceti, Sue Gollifer
 
10:45 ­ 11:15 
Digital Identities: Portraiture and Data
Helen Sloan
    
11:15 ­ 12:00
Identity Correction
Nicola Triscott 
 
12:00 ­ 12:15     Break
 
12:15 ­ 13:00      
Chasing Mirrors: Portraits of the Unseen
Janis Jefferies and Alinah Azadeh
 
13:00 - 14:00     Lunch
 
14:00 ­ 15:00      
Portrait as Possibility: Charles A. Csuri¹s Early Computer Art
Janice M. Glowski (via Skype)
 
Chuck Csuri (via Skype)
 
15:00 - 15:45 
Data Expressions - The Networked, Real-Time Portrait
Christiane Paul
 
15:45 - 16:00     Break
 
16:00 - 16:45 
Immaterial Portraits: Across Borders
Beryl Graham
 
16:45 - 17:45
This is not me: Comments on algorithmic portraiture
Frieder Nake
 
17:45                   Final Comments: Lanfranco Aceti
 
18:00 ­ 19:00              Beryl Graham presents her book: Rethinking
Curating: Art After New Media. http://ow.ly/3SgHF
 
 
Speakers¹ Abstracts
 
 
Immaterial Portraits: Across Borders
Beryl Graham

Artists using new media are familiar with the strange dislocations of online
media. Heath Bunting, for example, has worked on several projects which deal
with immigration, physical border crossings, and immaterial access to online
data. His recent The Status Project can map individuals by the network of
data needed to establish legal identity.  The ability of new 'locative
media' to trace objects and people across space, has also been examined by
the Virtual Migrants project. How then, have curators and artist used these
media for deep explorations of identity across space and time?
 
 
Portrait as Possibility: Charles A. Csuri¹s Early Computer Art
Janice M. Glowski

When artist Charles A. Csuri began making art with a computer in 1963, he
often used portraiture to explore creative possibilities in the new
technology medium.   In the process, Csuri created an intriguing body of
early computer portraits.  The faces and forms that comprise this unique
collection are, at times, representational, deliberate in their historical
referencing (e.g., After Paul Klee, 1964 and Leonardo I ­ III, 1966).
Elsewhere, they offer only categorical  allusion to a ³bearded man² or an
³old woman² (e.g, Since Curve Man, 1967 and Aging Process, 1968).

This paper suggests that, when viewed together and within the broader
context of his art and life, Csuri¹s early portraits become emblematic of
the artist¹s process and enduring creative concerns.  Rather than simple
portrait drawings on plotter paper, the images illustrate Csuri¹s search for
meaning through the exploration of randomness, uncertainty and infinite
possibilities.
 
 
Chasing Mirrors: Portraits of the Unseen
Janis Jefferies

Chasing Mirrors: Portraits of the Unseen was an installation of work by
contemporary artist Alinah Azadeh and a collective of young people from
Brent, Barnet and Ealing who share an Islamic heritage. The installation at
the National Portrait Gallery (NPG), London explored the Œunseen¹ inner self
through non-figurative portraiture thereby challenging traditional western
portraits that feature the image of the subject's face.


 
Alinah Azadeh and Janis Jefferies will present a discussion based on their
conversation at NPG on December 9th 2010 which will reflect on what
constitutes a portrait in the age of social media and how hybridized
identities are being redefined within cultural, national spaces.



This is not me: Comments on algorithmic portraiture
Frieder Nake
 
If you had enough money, you commissioned a painter to do your portrait.
Later, you went to a photographer¹s shop and had your picture taken. Now you
sit at your home desk looking towards a hole in your laptop¹s monitor and
press a key; afterwards you photoshop the pixel array resulting from this
act. This is the machinization of portraiture. Having your picture taken is
much more complex: it is image, video, text, and data. Dangerous. Digital
culture takes away your control.
 
 
Data Expressions‹The Networked, Real-Time Portrait
Christiane Paul
 
Digital technologies have profoundly changed traditional notions of the
portrait on both the 'material' and conceptual level. The portrait as a
composed artistic representation of a person that expresses personality has
increasingly been turned into a data representation‹composed of pixels,
broadcast over ³social networks² and establishing contexts for its subject's
life. The talk will outline the changing concept of the portrait‹from static
image to networked, real-time, 'tagged' data representation‹using portraits
by artists including John Gerrard, Carlo Zanni, Eva and Franco Mattes,
Shilpa Gupta and Ursula Endlicher as examples.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Digital Identities: Portraiture and Data
Helen Sloan

Recently Helen Sloan has been curating and researching the role of data
manipulation in the visual arts. Some of this work has looked at data that
is specific and unique to the individual subject. This paper will introduce
techniques using motion capture and tracking, high definition and image
manipulation that expand the definition of portraiture through
characteristics such as gesture. Most of the artists are working at the
boundary of still and moving image and these approaches are producing new
representations of identity and likeness.
 
 
Identity Correction
Nicola Triscott
 
In the work of activist-artists The Yes Men, Œidentity correction¹ is the
tactic of taking institutional logic to its rational extremes in order to
expose the realities of corporate capitalism and corrupt political regimes.
Identity correction is achieved through fake corporate websites and by
giving talks at conferences or to international media, masquerading as
representatives of the target corporations. In this presentation, I will
particularly highlight the Yes Men¹s use of identity correction in relation
to racism in international corporate activities. I will also reflect on the
potential for arts- and media-based Œidentity correction¹ to counteract
unhelpful and destructive stereotypes and misrepresentation of other races
and cultures.
 
 
Follow LEA on:
 
Newsletter
http://doc.gold.ac.uk/~ma701pt/isea11/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
 
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Leonardo-Electronic-Almanac/209156
896252 
 
Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lea_gallery/
 
Twitter
http://twitter.com/LEA_twitts
 
For more information contact:
Ozden Sahin, [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
 
Leonardo is a registered trademark of the ISAST.
 
Lanfranco Aceti
Editor in Chief, Leonardo Electronic Almanac



--------------
Sue Gollifer
University of Brighton
School of Arts and Media
Director of ISEA International Headquarters
[log in to unmask]
--------------




___________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by MessageLabs' Email Security
System on behalf of the University of Brighton.
For more information see http://www.brighton.ac.uk/is/spam/
___________________________________________________________