Engaging the senses with new technology art

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Engaging the senses with new technology art


The audience experience of art made with digital technology will be the focus of ENGAGE, a three-day symposium being held from next Sunday (26 November) until Tuesday (28 November) at the University of Technology, Sydney. International artists, curators and researchers in new technology art will discuss the public impact of their work - "the most important issue of all" according to ENGAGE Co-Chair Lizzie Muller. "Amidst the hype and controversy about new-technology art, there is surprisingly little attention paid to the actual experience of the audience," Ms Muller said. "ENGAGE will be asking how it feels to encounter an artwork in a virtual environment, to participate in a make-believe narrative through your mobile phone or to interact with an artwork through your breath or heartbeat." Free public talks on Sunday will make the themes of the symposium accessible to all. They'll be given by Tim Boykett, founding member of Time's Up, Austria; Professor Ernest Edmonds, Director of the Creativity and Cognition Studios at UTS; and Professor Beryl Graham, Co-editor of CRUMB, a resource for new media curating in the UK. The full event lasts for three days and includes more than 30 presentations by leading researchers in the field of interaction, art and audience experience. Featured speakers are: Andrew Brown, Manager of the Digital Media Program at the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) Bill Gaver, Professor of Design at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and Mike Stubbs, Head of Exhibitions at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image Among the artists attending will be Daniel Kojta, who was awarded a free ENGAGE pass through a competition run by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT). "Interactive art is the focus of my work as an artist and a paraplegic," Daniel said. "Interactive art offers incredible possibilities to the senses and as an evolutionary adaptation it will no doubt be embedded into the lives of all in some way. "The technology offers a seventh sense for creative exploration, in my case with the development of phenomena and the experience of senses I no longer have in use. The situation of paraplegia becomes a host to unending possibilities when explored through interactivity." The symposium's free public talks will be held from 3pm to 5pm on Sunday in lecture theatre 413, ground floor, UTS Building 2 (access from the UTS Tower building), UTS City campus, Broadway. For more about ENGAGE, including program and ticket information, visit: www.creativityandcognition.com/engage06 ENGAGE is the fourth annual symposium organised by the Creativity and Cognition Studios (CCS), based in the UTS Faculty of Information Technology. CCS is an interdisciplinary research organisation comprising artists, technologists, curators and sociologists, among others. ENGAGE is supported by both ACID and ANAT. Wednesday 22 November 2006