WORKING TITLE: “From Networking to NanoSystems: A Series of Digitally Mediated Dialogues Exploring
the Cultures of Art and Science”
DATES
North: TBD, November 5-9
South: UCLA, November 11-14
OVERVIEW
This Fall, 2001, the UC Digital Arts Research Network (UC DARNet), funded as a Multi-Campus Research
Group by the UCOP, will be convening an international conference and series of exploratory workshops over
a 10 day period. These events will take place in several physical locations throughout the state of California.
The organizing committee is also planning to incorporate a variety of strategies that will facilitate remote
participation of UC faculty and students, in collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Interactive
Arts, University of Wales, and the the centre for Science, Technology and Art Research, in the School of
Computing, University of Plymouth (CAiiA-STAR), the Banff Centre for the Arts, and several other
institutions during this time. The goal is to structure a set of innovative methods for information sharing and
dialogue between communities of interest, extending the way conferences and workshops have traditionally
functioned across time and space.
We are interested in having the Networking to NanoSystems conference activities directly interface with the
recently funded California Institutes for Science and Innovation, and possibly the newly proposed Silicon
Valley Regional Center. Participation will focus around thematic issues raised in connection to the
establishment of these major new centers. The research and development activities of these centers will
ideally serve to catalyze structured conversation in relation to participants prior and current work, and serve
as a framework for establishing collaborative ties between the arts and sciences on both a local and on a
more international context.
We do not want to replicate common conference and workshop models. We want to avoid the standard
presentation mode by having general information sharing occur prior to the actual events in order to
familiarize participants with each others work, and then have workshop session leaders employ an interview
schedule, getting participants to respond to each other in a dialogic fashion oriented around specifically
themed topics. Session leaders will be responsible for writing “position statements” about their panel topic
prior to the event. Selected panel participants will also be asked to write responses to these statements.
These materials will then form the basis of conversations during the actual conference. Ideally we will
facilitate conversations between individuals in the arts and sciences that would not likely happen without
such a context. We also plan to have all pre-conference materials, as well as all materials generated during
the event be documented, archived, and made available through a variety of private and public interfaces via
the Internet.
INSTITUTIONS
California Institutes for Science and Innovation
The California Institutes for Science and Innovation will be funded by a four-year, $100-million state
allocation matched by more than $200 million expected from industry, federal, private, and university
resources annually. This initiative will combine cutting-edge research with training for new scientists and
technological leaders. Two of the recently funded institutes will be the focus of the Networking and
NanoSystems conference dialogues: Cal-(IT)2, a joint effort between UCSD and UCI, and the NanoSystems
Center, a joint effort between UCLA and UCSB.
Cal-(IT)2 (UCSD, UCI)
Cal-(IT)2 partners some 220 UCSD and UCI faculty with research professionals from more than 40 leading
California telecommunications, computer, and software companies. Cal-(IT)2 researchers will guide
innovation in Internet telecommunications and information technology, which is intended to revolutionize
how we live, work, and communicate.
California NanoSystems Institute (UCLA, UCSB)
The California NanoSystems Institute will explore the power and potential of manipulating structures atomby-atom to engineer new materials, devices and systems that will revolutionize virtually every aspect of our
quality of life, including medical delivery and health care, information technologies, and innovations for the
environment.
Silicon Valley Regional Center
UC Santa Cruz is establishing the Silicon Valley Center to enhance the impact of UC research, improve
access to UC education, and provide new educational opportunities for Silicon Valley residents. The center
will be a conduit for the state's research university system to contribute further to the economic growth and
intellectual vitality of the Silicon Valley region. UC and NASA scientists will work together on advances in
science and technology that will drive new industries and provide new products benefiting California's
economy. Through the center, UC Santa Cruz will serve as a portal to the UC system for Silicon Valley to
connect UC's intellectual resources with the specific interests and needs of Silicon Valley, NASA, the state
and the nation. The goal is to develop a world-class, shared-use R&D campus by partnering with industry,
academia, and nonprofits in the NASA Research Park. The collaborative research with UC will include
information technology, biotechnology, planetary sciences, nanotechnology, astrobiology and education.
UC DARNet (Sponsor)
The UC Digital Arts Research Network (UC DARNet) is an interdisciplinary multi-campus group of UC
faculty who utilize digital media in their creative production. As an ad-hoc planning group, UC DARNet has
been meeting since 1997 to lay the foundation for an UC-wide program to facilitate collaborative research
and teaching within a distributed digital arts community. Through a mix of theory and practice, UC DARNet
will: 1) serve to bridge counterproductive gaps between the arts, humanities, and sciences; 2) enhance
student's educational experience by providing access to faculty across the entire UC system through
workshop and conference events; and 3) help to establish the University of California as a leading institution
for developing the new modalities of digital culture within an art and technology context.
CAiiA-STAR
CAiiA-STAR is a research platform that integrates two centres of doctoral research: CAiiA, the Centre for
Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts, at the University of Wales College, Newport, and STAR, the centre
for Science, Technology and Art Research, in the School of Computing, University of Plymouth. CAiiA was
established in 1994 as an outgrowth of the success of the country's first Interactive Arts degree. STAR was
formed in 1997, building on the School of Computing's research achievements in the domain of Interactive
Multimedia and the associated fields of Artificial Life, Robotics and Cognitive Science. Together
CAiiA+STAR provide a powerful base for research in practice based theory and application emerging from
the creative convergence of art, science, technology and consciousness studies.
Banff Centre for the Arts
The Banff Centre is a unique institution in the field of media and visual arts. Artists from Canada and
throughout the world have access to first-rate facilities and a wide range of creative, professional
development and research opportunities. Media and Visual Arts encompasses creative residencies,
television co-production opportunities, new media and television think tanks, and research, symposia and
workshops as well as work study and fellowship opportunities in computer arts, producing, curatorial practice
and arts administration.
STRUCTURE
Roughly ~100 people (having a rotating presence during the events):
-DARNet (~10)
-Digital Cultures (~20)
-CAiiA-STAR (~20)
-local campus nodes (~20)
-grads (~20)
2-3 main events during the 10 day stay of the CAiiA group in CA
2 physical locations (NoCAL, SoCAL)
7+ virtual locations (UCB, UCSC, UCD, UCLA, UCI, UCSD, UCSB): remote participation
innovative approach: dialogic pairings; artists, scientists, humanists
intensive workshop sessions w/ all campuses
primarily tightly controlled non-public events, with some portion including a general public
PEOPLE
Conference Organizers
Victoria Vesna (UCLA), Sharon Daniel (UCSC), Robert Nideffer (UCI), Roy Ascott (CAiiA), Sara Diamond (Banff
Centre)
UC DARNet Core Member Participants
Shawn Brixey, Assistant Professor (shawnx@socrates.berkeley.edu)
UC Berkeley Digital Media/Department of Art Practice
http://digitalmedia.berkeley.edu/shawn/brixey.html
Shawn Brixey directs both the Digital Media/New Genre Program and the new "Center for Digital Art and New
Media Research. " His research interests lie at the emerging interface of art, science and technology. He is
currently developing art forms which present important evolutionary transformations in digital media by
synthesizing these technologies with space time and biology as a hybrid strategies for future computational
based expression. A graduate of MIT's CAVS/Media Lab, he has exhibited art and technology works
internationally. He has received all levels of major grants and awards to support his research.
Lynn Hershman-Leeson, Professor (lynn2@well.com)
UC Davis Department of Art
http://lynnhershman.com/
Lynn Hershman-Leeson has worked for the past 30 years in photography, site- specific public art, and video. She
is credited as the first artist to create an interactive art videodisk, entitled LORNA, (1979-83). Her 51 videotapes
and 4 interactive installations have received many international awards. In 1994, she was the first woman to
receive a tribute and retrospective at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Lynn's work is in numerous
collections, including: The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, The
University Art Museum, Berkeley, and The Hess Collection in Sonoma County, CA. She is currently a Professor
of Electronic Art at the University of California, Davis.
Robert F. Nideffer (nideffer@uci.edu)
UC Irvine Studio Art & Information and Computer Science
http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/~nideffer
Robert F. Nideffer researches, teaches, and publishes in the areas of virtual environments and behavior,
interface theory and design, technology and culture, and contemporary social theory. He holds an MFA in
Computer Arts, and a Ph. D. in Sociology. He is an Assistant Professor in Studio Art and Information and
Computer Science at UC Irvine, where he also serves as an Associate Director of the Center for Virtual Reality,
and as an Affiliated Faculty in the Visual Studies Program. Currently he is hard at play initiating an
Interdisciplinary Gaming Studies Program (IGaSP).
Victoria Vesna, Chair vv@ucla.edu
UCLA Department of Design
phone: 310.206.5185, fax: 310.206.5165
http://www.cda.ucla.edu/beta/people.html
Focused on exploring possibilities of online networks for creative expression, she has exhibited her work
internationally at a number of important venues such as the Venice Biennale (86); the P.S.1 Museum (89); the
Long Beach Museum (93)and the Ernst Museum of Art in Budapest (94). Vesna’s work has moved from
performance and video installations to experimental research that connects networked environments to physical
public spaces. She explores how physical and ephemeral spaces affect collective behavior. Currently she is
developing a project involving design of an online environment utilizing agent technology, AI and information
visualization. Diploma, Academy of Fine Arts, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia; PhD fellow, Centre for
Advanced Inquiry in Interactive Arts (CaiiA), University of Wales, UK.
Fabian Wagmister (fabian@ucla.edu)
UCLA ssistant Professor of Film and TV
Fabian is an audiovisual communicator particularly interested in the expressive specificity of digital media. He
was the driving force behind the Laboratory For New Media at UCLA and is the principal investigator for the
HyperMedia Studio research project. He recently developed a database driven installation call "... two, three,
many Guevaras. "Fabian is also concerned with the absorbtion, uses, and impact that digital technology will have
in the Third World. He works with groups throughout Latin America and writes about culturally empowering
technological strategies.
Sharon Daniel, Assistant Professor (sdaniel@cats.ucsc.edu)
UC Santa Cruz Department of Film and Digital Media
http://arts.ucsc.edu/sdaniel
Sharon Daniel works in interactive electronic art, mixing computers with video and kinetic sculpture. Recent
projects include "Brain Opera, "an interactive sound-and-image installation that has appeared in New York,
Tokyo, Austria, and Denmark, and "Narrative Contingencies, "a Web project presented by Boston's Decordova
Museum and boston.com. Daniel earned a B. A. in music at Baylor University, masters' degrees in opera
performance and production from the University of Texas, Austin, and an M. F. A. in visual arts from the
University of Tennessee. Daniel's media work can be found on the following Web pages: Brain Opera:
http://brainop.media.mit.edu; and Narrative Contingencies: http://www.decordova.org
Sheldon Brown, Director (sgbrown@ucsd.edu)
Center for Research in Computing and the Arts
UCSD Associate Professor, Visual Arts Dept.
http://www-crca.ucsd.edu/~sheldon
Sheldon Brown is the Director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA) at UCSD. In the
Visual Arts Department most of his teaching is in the Computing in the Arts area and with the Interdisciplinary
Computing in the Arts major. His courses focus on the engagement of real-time computer graphics, media and
electronic controls for installation works. His artwork examines relationships between information and space,
which manifest as public artworks, and installations that combine architectural settings with mediated and
computer controlled elements. Brown has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the
Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, the Seattle Arts Commission, the Hellman Foundation, the Asian Cultural
Council, AT&T Foundation, Intel Corporation, Silicon Graphics Inc., Sony Corporation, and others. He has
previously been on the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Kansas City Art Institute.
Louis Hock, Professor (lhock@ucsd.edu)
UCSD Department of Visual Arts
http://visarts.ucsd.edu/faculty/lhock.htm
Louis Hock began making films when he was studying psychology and poetry at the University of Arizona,
graduating with a BA in Psychology in 1970. In 1973 he received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago. Before joining the Visual Arts Department in 1977, he established the film program at the University of
Texas at Arlington. Since 1976, Hock's films, videotapes, and media installations have been exhibited in oneperson shows at numerous U. S. art institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney
Museum of American Art, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the
Cinematheque in San Francisco, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, the
American Museum of the Moving Image in New York, and various international institutions. Hock has been the
recipient of numerous awards and grants including the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film
Institute, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
UC DARNet Management Support and Contact Information
Carol J. Hobson (chobson@ucsd.edu)
CRCA Administrative Director
Center for Research in Computing &the Arts (CRCA)
9500 Gilman Drive, 0037
La Jolla, CA 92093-0037
Ph: 858.534.4383, fax: 858.534.7944
http://crca.ucsd.edu/~chobson
Carol Hobson has worked in cultural planning and consultation, and arts management for nearly 20 years. She
is the Administrative Director for the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA) at the University of
California San Diego, and provides management support to the UC Digital Arts Research Network (UC DARNet).
During her time at CRCA she has been deeply involved in the evolution and appropriation of new media
technologies in the arts. She was instrumental in revitalizing an international artists residency and exchange
program at CRCA, and continues to build a global network for the digital arts through participation in symposia
and new media art festivals.
CaiiA/STAR Core Member Participants
Roy Ascott, UK
Director, CaiiA-STAR
Roy Ascott has been working with issues of art, technology and consciousness since the 1960s. Recognised
as a pioneer of cybernetics and telematics in art, his seminal projects have been presented at the Venice
Biennale, Electra Paris, Ars Electronica Linz, V2, Milan Triennale, and most recently at the Biennale de
Mercosul, Brazil, and gr2000az at Graz. He is Professor and Director of CAiiA-STAR, which combines the
Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts, University of Wales College, Newport and the Science &
Technology and Art Research Centre, University of Plymouth. (www. caiia-star. net). He convenes the
annual international conference Consciousness Reframed: art and consciousness in the post-biological era.
He was formerly Dean of the San Francisco Art Institute, California, Professor for Communications Theory at
the Hochschule fuer angewandte Kunst in Wien, and Principal of the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. He is
on the editorial board of Leonardo, Convergence, and Digital Creativity, and advises new media centres,
festivals and juries in Japan, Korea, Brazil, North America and Europe. His papers and articles are widely
published; his books include: Art & Telematics: Toward the Construction of New Aesthetics. (Japanese
trans. E. Fujihara). Tokyo: NTT, 1998; Reframing Consciousness, 1999, and Art Technology
Consciousness, 2000, both published by Intellect Books in the UK. His collected writings, edited by Edward
A. Shanken, will be published by the University of California Press later this year.
Eduardo Kac
Chicago Art Institute
http://www.ekac.org/kacbio600.html
Eduardo Kac is an artist and writer who investigates the philosophical and political dimensions of
communication processes. Equally concerned with the aesthetic and the social aspects of verbal and nonverbal interaction, in his work Kac examines linguistic systems, dialogic exchanges, and interspecies
communication. Kac's pieces, which often link virtual and physical spaces, propose alternative ways of
understanding the role of communication phenomena in shaping consensual realities. Internationally known
in the '80s as a pioneer of Telepresence Art (the merger of telecommunications and telerobotics), in the '90s
Kac created the new categories of Biotelematics (art in which a biological process is intrinsically connected
to digital networks) and Transgenic Art (new art form based on the use of genetic engineering techniques to
create unique living beings). Kac merges multiple media and biological processes to create hybrids from the
conventional operations of existing communications systems. Kac first employed telerobotics motivated by a
desire to convert electronic space from a medium of representation to a medium for remote agency. He
creates pieces in which actions carried out by Internet participants have direct physical manifestation in a
remote gallery space. Often relying on the indefinite suspension of closure and the intervention of the
participant, his work encourages dialogical interaction and confronts complex issues concerning identity,
agency, responsibility, and the very possibility of communication. In his work Kac deals with issues that
range from the mythopoetics of online experience (Uirapuru) to the cultural impact of biotechnology
(Genesis); from the changing condition of memory in the digital age (Time Capsule) to distributed collective
agency (Teleporting an Unknown State); from the problematic notion of the "exotic" (Rara Avis) to the
creation of life and evolution (GFP Bunny).
Diane Gromala
Need info…
Georgia Tech
Diane Gromala explores how notions of our bodies change over time, as do our relationships to and
understandings of technology change. Her work explores how technology may reconfigure attention,
experience, and sensory awareness in culturally situated artistic contexts. Through virtual and biofeedback
technologies, she explores how crucial changes in the nature of how we make sense of sensory response
and how we attend to it are the result of the interplay of contemporary technological and cultural changes.
Peter Anders
Need info…
Ander’s research focuses on the creation of hybrids between physical and cyberspaces.
He looks at cyberspace as an electronic extension of cognitive space. Ander’s research defines cybrids,
hybrids of material and cyberspaces, and their underlying philosophy. Cybrids extend beyond built spaces to
include their contents and occupants. This extends the applicability of cybrids beyond architecture to applied
industrial design and the fine arts as well.
Niranjan Rajah
Tech BC, Vancouver, CANADA
Raja’s current research aims to develop the theoretical basis for the remediation of Sacred Art in the new
modes of representation and communication enabled by digital media; if and how digital technologies of
immersion and interactivity might be applied within the parameters of particular traditional world views
Chris Speed, UK
University of Plymouth
Need stuff…
Gretchen Schiller,
Université de Paul Valéry, Montpellier
Sciller’s research is based on extending our "body's bubble" or kinespheres's range of perception. It
focuses on mapping specific movement impulses and patterns with image and time-space/force
technologies. A current project involves spatial trajectory mapping in an inanimate and animate movementbased environment.
Elisa Giaccardi
Need info…
Italy
Giaccardi’s research aims to produce a new approach to design that focuses on dynamics of empathy,
intersubjectivity, and ‘relational embodiment’ (scientific term addressing our being and acting – at the same
time physical, biological, and socio-cultural – into the world). This research intends to contribute to the
corpus of studies directed to the identification and definition of a ‘science of relationships’ or ‘science of
interbeing’ in the field of interaction design. She is interested in metadesign and relational strategies for
collaborative architectures and connected communities.
Jim Laukes,
Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona
Lauke’s work investigates contemporary schemes of collective or distributed intelligence, in relation to prior
approaches that have addressed similar problems.
Donna J. Cox
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Donna Cox is a pioneering artist in scientific visualization and information design. She formulated
"Renaissance Team" collaborations to develop new technologies and techniques for virtual interfaces and
information management. She was Associate Producer for Scientific Visualization and Art Director for
NCSA/PIXAR segment of "Cosmic Voyage" IMAX movie that received an Academy Award nomination. Her
collaborative visualizations and animations have been featured on major broadcast television programs and
in planetarium exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History. Cox's CAIIA research extends the
concepts and processes of scientific visualization to include conceptual and metaphorical relationships with
"historical-to-present-day" mythologies. She is developing a novel argument to demonstrate correspondence
among mythological concepts and computational models in science.
Kieran Lyons, UK
University of Wales College
Lyon’s work is a critical investigation into Marcel Duchamp’s visit to Étival in 1912, the year, the Pompidou
Centre celebrated the arrival into its collection of Duchamp’s Green Box.
Michael Punt, UK
Deputy Director of CaiiA
University of Amsterdam, University of Wales College
Punt is a member of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam where he
obtained his doctorate. He teaches Film Studies and Information Design in the School of Art Media and
Design at the University of Wales College, Newport. He has made 15 films and published over fifty articles
on cinema and digital media in the last decade. His recent publications include a book-length study on early
cinema, (Early Cinema and the Technological Imaginary to be published later this year by Intelect) and
articles on cinema history and digital technology for Leonardo, Design Issues and Convergence, which have
been translated into five languages. He is Editor in Chief of Leonardo Digital Reviews (MIT Press), a
member of the Leonardo/ISATS board, and the MIT/Leonardo book publishing committee. Since 1996 he
has been a regular contributor to Skrien, a Dutch journal of film and television criticism, where he has written
a monthly column on cinema, art and the Internet. His most recent book, in collaboration with Robert
Pepperell, The Post- Digital Membrane: imagination, technology and desire, was published by Intellect
Press in 2000, and its supporting web environment is due to be launched in 2001.
Pamela Jennings
Stanford University
http://digital-Bauhaus.com
Pamela Jennings' new media arts projects include the CD-ROMs “Solitaire: dream journal, ” and “Narrative
Structures for New Media, ” and the ArTronic™ sculpture "the book of ruins and desire." Her writings have
appeared in Felix: a Journal of Media Arts and Communication, and Leonardo: Journal of the International
Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. The newly published book, “Struggles for Representation:
African American Film/Video/New Media Makers,” includes descriptions of Pamela’s work in the historical
canon of African American media makers. Her recently completed report, "New Media Arts | New Funding
Models, " for the Creativity and Culture division of the Rockefeller Foundation is available on her web site.
Pamela is the recipient of several Media Arts grants from the New York State Council on the Arts; Artist in
Residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts; and a MacDowell Artists' Colony Fellow. Her commercial clients
have included IBM Almaden Research Center, NBC Interactive and currently the Center for Technology in
Learning at SRI International.
Christa Sommerer
Need info…
Sommerer’s work looks at the question of how life has emerged on earth and how it could have developed
from simpler units or particles into increasingly complex structures or whole systems of structures that seem
to follow a certain inner rule of organization. The goal of her work is to apply some features of Complex
Systems to the creation of interactive artworks that can constantly change, adapt and evolve as users
interact with these systems.
Laurent Mignonneau
Need info…
Mignonneau’s work explores the question of how to create an artificial life artwork that can ultimately evolve
by itself. Artificial Life as a field of research attempts to synthesize life in silico by using computers to create
virtual life. By definition life and artificial life should display the following characteristics: self-organization,
metabolization, self-reproduction, and adaptive evolution. The modeling of artificial evolution is a major
challenge in Artificial Life research. The objective of my thesis is to create an artwork that could be called
'alive' as it evolves, self-produces, self-organizes and metabolizes.
Digital Cultures
(need bios…)
http://dc-mrg.english.ucsb.edu/
Geof Bowker Communication, UC San Diego
Sue-Ellen Case Theater and Dance, UC Davis
Sharon Daniel Film and Digital Media, UC Santa Cruz and UCDarnet
Robert Essick English, UC Riverside
Anne Friedberg Visual Studies, UC Irvine
Katherine Hayles English, UC Los Angeles
Earl Jackson Literature, UC Santa Cruz
George Legrady Department of Art Studio and MAT, UC Santa Barbara
Alan Liu English, UC Santa Barbara
Mark Meadow Department of Art History, UC Santa Barbara
Peter Lyman School of Information Management and Systems, UC Berkeley
J. Hillis Miller English and Comparative Literature, UC Irvine
Robert Nideffer Studio Art Studio, ICS, UC Irvine and UCDarnet
Mark Poster History and Visual Studies, UC Irvine
Rita Raley English, UC Santa Barbara
Bruce Robertson Department of Art History, UC Santa Barbara
Mark Rose English, UC Santa Barbara
Warren Sack School of Information Management and Systems, UC Berkeley
Leigh Star Communication, UC San Diego
William Warner English, UC Santa Barbara
Initial list of miscellaneous others who should participate
UCLA: Bill Seaman, Marcos Novak, Charles Taylor, Biology; David Wilson, Philosophy; Susanne Lohmann,
Political Science; Michael Dyer, Computer Science; Bill McKelvey, Management Science; Dario Nardi, Math,
PIC program; Eugene Yates, Medicine.
UCI: Lisa Naugle (Dance), Chris Dobrian (Music), Antoinette LaFarge (Studio Art), David Trend (Studio Art),
Alan Tereciano (Dance) Doug Goheen (Drama), Paul Dourish (ICS)
UCB: Ken Goldberg