The unprecedented growth of information puts new pressures on contemporary societies. We need to invent new ways to interact with information, new ways to represent it, and new ways to make sense of it. How are artists, designers, and architects are responding to these challenges? Rather than trying to defend ourselves against “information glut,” can we approach this situation creatively as the opportunity to invent new forms appropriate for our information-rich world?

Since 2000, Lev Manovich has investigated these questions in a project called Info-Aesthetics. The concept of info-aesthetcis allows us to relate together a wide range of cultural phenomena, including some of the most interesting projects in a variety of areas of contemporary culture: cinema, architecture, space design, fashion, interface design, motion graphics, visual art, computer science, and, of course, information visualization. In his presentation Lev Manovich will report on his latest findings, showing some of the most exciting projects produced to date.

Lev Manovich is a Professor in the Visual Arts Department, University of California San Diego. He is also Director of the Software Studies Initiative at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology and a Visiting Research Professor at the iCinema Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney and at the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmith College, London. This presentation is a part of Professor Manovich’s forthcoming book Info-aesthetics: Information and Form. [Go here for archived talks from the series]

For the past fifteen years, virtual reality (VR) and, more recently, mixed reality (MR) and augmented reality (AR) environments that immerse their participants in imaginary space, have emerged to define an area that blurs the lines between the seemingly different worlds of research, creativity, and technological practice, while exploring the interdependencies between the virtual and the physical. From the immersive, yet more esoteric, CAVE®-based projects of the mid-nineties to the contemporary open experiences spread out in virtual as well as physical space, creative VR / MR / AR applications are challenging the ways we perceive both digital art and the science and engineering behind them.

Early enthusiasm with the use of projection-based display structures and the development of authoring solutions for application-building has brought a level of maturity, characterized by the emergence of new technical and conceptual forms. It is this particular moment in the evolution of immersive VR / MR / AR art practice that this special issue seeks to capture. Hence, in this special issue, we aim to bring forth the topic of immersive art in its current maturity, present the newest developments and explore its evolving forms, aspiring to shape a framework that will help us to develop the next generation of environments.

Therefore, this special issue will not include contributions that deal solely with describing a narrow and specific piece of art or research without reference to a conceptual framework or a critical analysis; rather we encourage contributions that take a broad and integrative view of relevant topics, encompassing both theoretical and empirical perspectives of digitally-generated creative spaces.

Submissions are invited that touch on but are not limited to the following themes:

- Theoretical discourse on immersive virtual, mixed or augmented reality art environments.
- Novel design concepts, applications, implementations and experiences from the actual deployment of immersive VR / MR / AR art applications
- Research or empirical work addressing some of the open questions in the design of immersive art environments. For example:
- Issues concerning creativity and aesthetics, visual depiction, storytelling and narrative, triggering other senses, embodiment, etc.
- The fine line between designing for entertainment or for artistic pleasure
- Issues in the design of interactivity, interfaces, and interaction methodologies, such as navigation by and tracking of multiple users, meaningful group interaction, the integration of multi-modal interfaces (e.g. tactile and haptic displays, sensing technologies), etc.
- Issues concerning the design and development process of immersive artwork, such as the conceptualisation and collaboration challenges presented by multitalented interdisciplinary teams working together, the unavailability of resources and work environments, etc.
- Issues in the deployment of different display configurations, sizes, and installations, as well as challenges in the practical use with diverse audiences (e.g., the need to guide people in experiencing the artwork)
Contributions are encouraged from different disciplinary perspectives, including fine arts, computer science, performance art, theatre, design, architecture, communications and social sciences, philosophy, cognitive psychology, and enabling technologies.

Contributions should take a broad and integrative view of relevant topics, rather than merely describing a narrow and specific piece of art or research.

Important Dates

Submission intent (title and 300-word abstract): 1 September, 2008
Deadline for full paper submission: 31 October, 2008
Review results returned to authors: February 29, 2009
Deadline for camera-ready papers: June 30, 2009

Computational Aesthetics bridges the analytic and synthetic and integrates aspects of computer science, philosophy, psychology, and the fine & performing arts. In particular it focuses on the mathematical and information theoretic aspects of both connectionist and symbol processing methods by humans and computers. Computational Aesthetics seeks to facilitate both the analysis and the augmentation of creative behaviour. It investigates the creation of tools that can enhance the expressive power of the fine and applied arts and furthers our understanding of aesthetic evaluation, perception and meaning. Invited talks will be given by individuals involved in the technical, artistic and theoretical aspects of this young field to help participants to better understand what aesthetics is, what computer technology is currently capable of delivering, and to appreciate what is involved in the creative process.

Call for Artworks, Performances and Artist’s Presentations: Members of the fine and performing arts community are invited to submit work and presentations about their work for consideration for the final program. Please note that full papers must be received by the earlier deadline of 15 March 2008 (see website for the cfp). The program organisers can provide some basic computer systems and data-projectors to support artist’s contributions however installations and performances that require additional support (or special technology) must include details of how the submitter will provide, install and support the work.

Submissions will be reviewed by the Arts Program international committee and accepted works will be included in a catalogue section of the conference proceedings which will be published by Eurographics and also appear in the Eurographics and ACM Digital Libraries.

Please send proposals including: descriptive overview (proposed catalogue entry) half page A4; images; sound samples; video; time-based works; technical specification; artist’s resume/biography and artist’s statement to the online portal below by the deadline of 15 April. Any work that requires a non-standard facility (codec, plug-in, etc…) must detail this and give a location where this may be sourced. Submissions should compose a pdf file as the descriptive overview (proposed catalogue entry) and be accompanied by a single zip archive containing all other files -or- the pdf should have links to these.

Important dates:

15 April 2008: Submission deadline - Arts Program
29 April 2008: Notification and catalogue draft - to you
2 May 2008: Approval of catalogue draft - from you
18-20 June 2008: Conference

Conference Chairs: Joaquim Jorge, INESC-ID, Portugal / Bruce Gooch, Univ. Victoria, Canada

Program Chairs: Technical Program: Douglas Cunningham, Univ. of T|bingen, Germany; Victoria Interrante, Univ. of Minnesota, USA
Arts Program: Paul Brown, Univ. Sussex, UK; Jon McCormack, Monash Univ., Australia Curator Local Arts Program; Adirito Marcos, Univ Minho, Portugal.

Further information: Paul Brown - paul@paul-brown.com - Arts Program only please!

Video artifacts seen in ANEMICodeCINEMA were taken from encrypted DVD and Windows Media video sources (including Duchamp’s Anemic Cinema) and decoded using free, open source software. This work is dedicated to the authors of patent-free audiovisual protocols and software.

After years of waiting for Macromedia / Adobe to release Linux-compatible versions of its Flash player, it appears the trouble with codecs will resume with Microsoft’s Silverlight plugin. Although promoted as “cross-platform,” there is no mention of support for Linux or other free, open source operating systems. Such privately controlled and patented codecs and protocols coerce content developers to exclude audiences.

The arena of Massive Change - since environmental tipping points are interconnected with other spheres that may have ramifications beyond the environment, into social and political systems - we open up that dialogue with you to interpret and make a proposal.

The intent is to seek permission to upload to C-M.TV for broadcasting around the world. We either link back to your web sites where work is already uploaded or have you upload to our server. The artists have total IP / ownership over their own work on C-M.TV. We act as a curated site, as another venue for the access, as a networking membrane and a collective with a similar context. Go here to the play archive of previously launched cities: New York, Paris, London.

Specs: 5mb - 320 x 240 Quicktime; ‘live’ data or generative content (self contained root folders); Flash; any other media that is sustainable on play. We review your proposals online or via DVD format. Send us links to review proposals via email: info [at] critical-mas.tv or send DVD’s to:

Marcia Lyons
Producer: C-M.TV
Programme Director
Digital Media Design
School of Design
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand

Our Literal Speed manifests the imperatives that materialize the theoretical and the pedagogical. No longer can we interpret forms of academic and artistic professionalism as neutral, abstract backgrounds to the aesthetic and performative. These activities have produced their own distinctive surfaces and materials: the aesthetic has become discursive and discourse has become aesthetic. Rather than a series of academic lectures, Our Literal Speed is imagined as a kind of media pop opera or a pedagogical concept album, implying fluid and/or jagged transitions among scholarly presentations, panel discussions, artist’s talks, performances, and an art exhibition within an academic conference. These emerging, hybrid forms demand a synthesis of collective activity (OUR), a self-reflexive examination of art history and its constitutive technologies (LITERAL), and an intense concern for the pace and texture of our movement through institutional mediation (SPEED). The project offers a temporary discursive laboratory in which artists and curators, art historians and media theorists can investigate non-formulaic, experientially vibrant and theoretically precise responses to the modes of distribution, consumption and circulation that drive contemporary art.

With: Art & Language, Walter Benjamin, John Bock, Tania Bruguera & The Weather Underground, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Anthony Cokes, Darby English, Andrea Fraser, Rainer Ganahl, Boris Groys, Charles Harrison, Sharon Hayes, Christopher P. Heuer, Matthew Jesse Jackson, Jackson Pollock Bar, David Joselit, Juliet Koss, Miwon Kwon, Porter McCray, WJT Mitchell, Hila Peleg, Andrew Perchuk, The Project for the New American Century, Tino Sehgal, The Size Queens, Anton Vidokle, Anne M. Wagner, Peter Weibel.

OUR LITERAL SPEED will be continued with further conference-events at the University of Chicago (2009), and at The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2010).

Denise King visits us from San Francisco’s Exploratorium to discuss the aesthetic cultivation of bacteria. She will be presenting an introduction to identifying bacteria in the field, focusing on environments that are accessible from the Los Angeles area. Along the way she will discuss Winogradsky columns - simple containers that are filled with mud, pond water and plant material that allow the culturing of microbial communities in the laboratory, or in your own living room.

Sample columns filled with lovely multihued stuff with be available for show and tell purposes, and willing participants will be able to make their own bacterial terrarium on site. We suggest wearing casual clothes or disposable hazmat suit if you plan on participating, as it may get slightly messy. For those who plan on just observing, standard formal wear should be fine.