August 14, 2003
Shared Realities (in a hot tub...)
DECONversation / Maurice Benayoun, Pierre Levy, and Steve Mann, moderated by Derrick de Kerckhove
What would happen if we took what is restricted to some, nonpolitical, personal, concealed, domestic, tacit and implicit and made it open to everyone, in physical view of others, impersonal, acknowledged and explicit? Post-post cyborg, performance artist and visionary Steve Mann as well as virtual reality artist Maurice Benayoun and the French cyberspace philosopher Pierre Levy will take part in a HOT TUB PANEL discussion mediated by the director of the Marshall McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, Derrick de Kerckhove. The topic of discussion will be fictitious truth, virtual fiction, realiction, and conjured reality.
DECONversation / Maurice Benayoun, Pierre Levy, and Steve Mann, moderated by Derrick de Kerckhove
at DECONISM Gallery, 330 Dundas St. West, Toronto
(across the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario),
tickets available at the door.
What would happen if we took what is restricted to some, nonpolitical, personal, concealed, domestic, tacit and implicit and made it open to everyone, in physical view of others, impersonal, acknowledged and explicit? Post-post cyborg, performance artist and visionary Steve Mann as well as virtual reality artist Maurice Benayoun and the French cyberspace philosopher Pierre Levy will take part in a HOT TUB PANEL discussion mediated by the director of the Marshall McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, Derrick de Kerckhove. The topic of discussion will be fictitious truth, virtual fiction, realiction, and conjured reality.
The personal will turn political as the three intellectuals debate what is real, whilst submerging themselves in a translucent, networked, interactive and IMMERSIVE multimedia art installation. Displaying the private DECONversation as a public event will allow for an interactive reversal between the counterpublic and the counterprivate. The reversal will come into full effect as microphones and cameras will project the communal bath by means of simulation and simulacra, in the guise of Plato's Caves, into another spatial reality. Professor Steve Mann's vision that: In the coming decades we will live in an age of shared realities and new levels of cultural discourse Steve Mann and Hal Niedzviecki (Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer, Canada: Doubleday, 2001) p.38., will be exposed in the process of becoming.
Michelle Rosshandler: PR/Curator Deconism Gallery: mrossh@po-box.mcgill.ca
Steve Mann: Director Deconism Gallery: 416.593.9330 mann@eyetap.org
Brainwave Building Blog
Deconism Gallery/Arts Complex was designed as a blog --- something we call "buildinglog" (which, like cyborglog, abbreviates to "glog").
We've all seen smart buildings, smart lightswitches, smart toilets, and intelligent user interfaces, but what happens when you have "smart people"? What happens when you wire up the "intelligence" onto people?
2003 August 14th and 15th we explore what happens when the intelligent building meets intelligent occupants.
The August 14th event will be an intellectual discussion about the relationship between cyborglogs and buildinglogs. Three panelists (Maurice Benayoun, Pierre Levy, Steve Mann), moderated by the Director of the Marshall McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, will enter an immersive multimedia space (a brainwave bath) while discussing the implications of the post-cyborg age.
The August 15th event will be an actual collective (de)consciousness where the occupant-cyborgs interact with the building, to create an audiovisual experience from their brainwaves, as part of a brainwave (de)concert performed by jazz musicians Bryden Baird, James Fung, Dave Gouveia, Sandy Mamane, and Corey Manders.
For more information, see http://eyetap.org/deconism/index.htm
http://wearcam.org/ctheory/
www.benayoun.com
