The DANM Festival Symposia will include 5 panels about Digital Arts and New Media theory and practice.
Chaired by 
Ted Warburton (Assistant Professor of Theater Arts, UCSC, DANM Faculty)
“Digital Cartographies” presents a dialogue between performing and digital artists about global trends in new media & digital art theory, production, and education. We begin by asking who, where, and why are we creating digital art for live performance purposes? What is it like to be a creative artist in an international context? What kinds of international experiences, organizations, and connections help us map the worlds of new media and digital arts? How do our practices and experimentation at the crossroads of art and technology – individually and collectively, locally and globally – create catalysts for cultural exchange and understanding?
Participants include digital video and sound artists, performing artists and choreographers working in international contexts.
Moderator:
Ted Warburton
Discussant:
Ed Osborn (Assistant Professor of Electronic Media, UCSC, DANM Faculty)
Panelists:
John Crawford (Assistant Professor of Dance & Media Arts, University of California, Irvine)
Martin Gotfrit (Director, School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Lisa Naugle (Associate Professor of Dance, University of California, Irvine)
Sommer Ulrickson (Visiting Lecturer, UCSC, Choreographer, Berlin, Germany)
Chaired by Elliot Anderson (Assistant Professor of Electronic Media Art Deparment and DANM Program, UCSC)
21st century art has opened the fields of the natural and biological for conceptual inquiry and as materials for creativity. Biotechnologies are one the means of creation and site investigation for the individuals participating in this panel. These artists work in varied aspects of biology and art from environmentalism to neurology. The structure of the panel will begin with brief presentations by the artists about their practice and research followed by a round table discussion of ideas, issues, and strategies addressed by their artworks.
Panelists:
Oron Catts, Artistic Director SymbioticA - The Art & Science Collaborative Research Laboratory, Art School of Anatomy & Human Biology, University of Western Australia, and an artist who is currently working on the collaborative artwork The Tissue Culture and Art Project.
Beatriz da Costa, Assistant Professor, Departments of Studio Art, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Associate Director of Arts Computation Engineering (ACE) Graduate Program, University of California, Irvine.
Kim Stringfellow, Assistant Professor (multimedia), School of Art, Design and Art History, San Diego State University and is a collaborator in Invisible-5 project.
Invisible-5 investigates the stories of people and communities fighting for environmental justice along the I-5 corridor, through oral histories, field recordings, found sound, recorded music, and archival audio documents. The project also traces natural, social, and economic histories along the route.
Gail Wight, Assistant Professor, Department of Art & Art History, Stanford University.
Chaired by David Cope (Professor of Music, UCSC, DANM Faculty)
OVERVIEW
Theoretical and practical perspectives on the use of algorithmic techniques in the making of diverse forms of art. Themes will include machine creativity and artificial intelligence, the interactive potential of algorithmic processes, and the embodiment of mathematical principles in sound and visual media.
Panelists:
Harold Cohen (Artist, Professor Emeritus, UCSD)
Jason Freeman (Composer, Sound Artist, Assistant Professor of Music, Georgia Institute of Technology)
George Legrady (Professor of Interactive Media, Media Arts & Technology (MAT) Graduate
Program, UCSB)
Chaired by Ed Osborn (Assistant Professor of Electronic Media, UCSC, DANM Faculty)
The scope, positioning, and practice of the sonic arts has grown significantly over the last decade and the kinds of works produced within it are widely divergent. While creative sound work was previously defined in a tangential relation to music, visual arts, film, video, and theater, the current state of practice shows many possible approaches to the production of sound art that are largely separate from these existing fields without also providing definitive boundaries for it.
Panelists will present one facet of the contemporary sound world (i.e., a particular work, artist, or exhibition, area of research or activity) that they find particularly compelling or problematic. These presentations will serve as a springboard for wider discussions about the current state of creative sound practice within and across disciplines
Panelists:
Paul DeMarinis (Associate Professor, Art Department, Stanford University)
Jim Haynes (Sound Artist, Writer, San Francisco)
Nigel Helyer (Sculptor and Sound Artist, Sydney, Australia)
Chaired by David Merrill (MIT Media Lab)
Digital technology can dramatically expand the range of expression available to a live musical performer. Instruments with internal state and new ways to sense gesture can be coupled with a broadened palette of synthesized sounds and imagery, allowing 21st century musicians to summon up patterns of sensory stimulation with minimal need for bodily effort or manual dexterity. Do these new abilities signal the end of the importance of virtuosity? This panel will explore the changing role of virtuosity in musical performance. Participants include musical composers, performers, and digital toolmakers, whose work spans a spectrum in its degree of technological infusion. Topics of discussion will include: how virtuosity and new technological musical instruments and experiences are related, audience-performer connection in the digital age, and what new opportunities for live performance may arise in the future.
Panelists:
Chris Chafe (Director, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Duca Family Professor, Stanford University)
Peter Elsea (Director, Electronic Music Studios, UCSC, DANM Faculty)
Fred Frith (Composer, Improviser, Multi-Instrumentalist, and Professor of Composition, Mills College, Oakland, California)
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