Potluck chat: Roy Ascott

Hi everyone,
This week we’ll be talking with Roy Ascott about getting artist nerds on computer networks before the web - and much much more!

Currently Roy is the Director of Technoetic Arts Limited, an International art and technology consultancy situated in Bristol, United Kingdom. He is also Founding President of the Planetary Collegium at the University of Plymouth, an international research organization involved with telematic, technoetic and syncretic art practice and theory. The Planetary Collegium has a hub at Plymouth, with nodes in Milan and Zurich and is involved with doctoral and post doc research in new media arts and emergent fields.

From www.plymouthartscentre.org:
Long before email and the internet, Roy Ascott started using online computer networks as an art medium and coined the term telematic art. Since the 1960s he has been a pioneer of art, which brought together the science of cybernetics with elements of Dada, Surrealism, Fluxus and Pop Art. Parallel to his artwork, Roy Ascott is a highly acclaimed teacher and theorist of art pedagogy. Roy Ascott sees telematic art as the transformation of the viewer into an active participant in creating the artwork, which remains in process throughout its duration. In the 1960s Roy Ascott was the head of Groundcourse at Ealing College of Art and developed one of the most influential and unorthodox approaches to teaching foundation studies in art. The basis of the course was developed around cybernetic theories of systems of communication: the flow of information, interactive exchange, feedback, participation and systemic relationship.

From www.medienkunstnetz.de:
He is founding editor of the international journal Technoetic Arts, and member of the editorial boards of Leonardo, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Convergence, Digital Creativity, and the Chinese language online journal Tom.Com.

A few links:
http://www.plymouthartscentre.org/art/royascott.html
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/artist/ascott/biography/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Ascott
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Collegium
http://www.frieze.com/issue/print_article/degree_zero/
http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/dynamic.asp?page=staffdetails&id=rascott
http://alien.mur.at/rax/UBIQUA/index.html

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See you all Then!

Join us every Tuesday night – in person, or on Skype, skypename: ‘basekamp’
If you come to the potluck in person, be sure to bring a dish :)
(basekamp space: 723 Chestnut St, 2nd floor, Philadelphia usa)