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08 June 2007 by nathaniel

Perspectives on the Body and Embodiment

UCD body conference

Although I leave for Croatia tomorrow, and so can’t make the second day, I’m giving a paper at this UCD Philiosophy Department conference this afternoon:

Perspectives on the Body and Embodiment

Since the investigations of phenomenological theorists such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, the themes of embodiment and situatedness have enjoyed increased popularity over a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, literature, women’s studies among others. Recognition that the body is not merely an appendage to the self, but rather is what opens up the possibility of meaningful subjective existence, has radically shifted the classical philosophical understanding of the body. Within popular culture this shift is reflected with an increased interest in embodiment in realms such as design, architecture, education and business.

This conference aims to explore the themes of the body and embodiment in contemporary discourse inviting papers from a range of disciplines including, but not limited to, philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, performance studies, women’s studies and literature. This unique inter-disciplinary perspective will provide a multi-faceted understanding of how Western thinking has changed with understanding the role of the body in constituting or influencing cognition, subjectivity, identity and discourse.

The schedule looks amazingly great – my own paper is on my dissertation topic – so if you are around, check it out.

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07 June 2007 by nathaniel

on Art Fag City

art fag city

For those if you still unfamiliar with Paddy Johnson and her fabulous blog, artfagcity – “As relevant as Eric Fischl. New York art news, reviews and gossip” – WAKE UP. She’s clever, plugged in, and a great, honest critic with a sometimes snarky and sometimes generous attitude: as a writer should be.

And today, as part of her “Art Intercom” series for iCommons, a 2-part interview I did with Paddy features through her blog to (well, it’s all a little confusing, this whole my re-blogging a cross-blog/re-blog thing, so here’s what she says…):

I was travelling for most of yesterday so I didn’t have a chance to mention that my two part interview with new media artist Nathaniel Stern went up on the icommons blog yesterday. You can read the full discussion here and here, but I’ve included teasers from both interviews below since each part deals with different subject matter. In the first post Stern and I talk about his art work, and in the second, we touch upon how the concerns of the Creative Commons effect artists. Stern speaks with great eloquence on the subject, so our conversation is not to be missed!

Thanks Paddy! See the teasers on Paddy’s blog here (and put her site in your reader), or get the full length interview between here and here (and go ahead and grab the iCommons feed, too).

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04 June 2007 by nathaniel

Broad Cast Response, 2007

Here’s a little preview of one of the pieces I’ve done (produced this week) for the iCommons Summit in two weeks – it’ll simulcast in SL as well…

Broad Cast Response

Conceptualized in collaboration with Nicole Ridgway, for Broad Cast Response, I captured the entirety of the 1990, teen angst, pirate radio movie Pump Up the Volume, then broke it down into a diptych of all the spoken “no”s and all the spoken “yes”s in the film, respectively. The resultant installation, which continuously flows in and out of a synced, monosyllabic debate, is an ironic testament to the poor quality of contemporary broadcast news, a tense tribute to the copyfight and pirate artists, and overall, a playful attempt to highlight the absurdity of the closed dialectic.

Broad Cast Response was produced for the iCommons Summit 2007, a residency, workshop and exhibition programme simultaneously held in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Second Life.

Watch it: http://nathanielstern.com/works/video/broad-cast-response/broad-cast-response.html

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17 May 2007 by nathaniel

inbox: Colleen Alborough @ the premises

Night Journey

        Night Journey (installation at  KZNSA)

 The Premises Gallery at The Johannesburg Civic Theatre presents

Colleen Alborough @ the premises

26 May – 9 June
Opening Saturday 26 May 5-7pm
An exhibition including the interactive video installation, Night Journey.

Each day we retreat to our bed, to the place that is so private, so familiar, so intimate. It lures us with its promise of comfort, protection, and restoration. In our beds we can escape the endless traffic, incessant noise and smothering fog, into the oblivion of sleep, transported to other worlds beyond the borders of ordinary perception. Night Journey explores and interrogates the epic journeys we embark on when the night shuts out our visible reality and gives free rein to our hopes, fantasies, dreams, fears and nightmares.

“I work in a variety of mediums, focusing on multimedia installations. I am very interested in creating experiential installations, that encourage the viewer to explore and interact with the work in order to complete the narrative of the installation. My art making process frequently involves ritualistic, labour intensive methods of production, such as felt-making. I use these methods to construct environments that attempt to embody some form of psychic reality.

The Night Journey interactive installation is accompanied by the artist’s limited edition book Before the Time (2007). This concertina book reveals the exploration of a solitary journey along a melancholic yet painterly stretch of road. The images search into the distance, trying to see beyond the isolation and apparent silence of the passing veld. The work attempts to capture traces of life in the land that momentarily reflect within our field of vision whilst on such journeys.

The Premises at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre

Loveday Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa
www.onair.co.za/thepremises
thepremises@onair.co.za

Gallery Hours –
Tuesday – Saturday
10h00 – 17h00

More on Colleen.

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09 May 2007 by nathaniel

catch-up, links, tidbits, etc

Hey All:

Been in Wales at this conference over the last 5 days or so, and lots has happened in the world since then, so this’ll be a kind of ranty catch-up of random and, depending on who you are and what you like, potentially unimportant things. Nicole and my presentations went pretty well, thanks for thinking of us – I’ll be posting a draft of the paper on implicitbody.net in the coming weeks; most important to me, got some great feedback on where to go from here with the dissertation. And I think Nicole is feeling good about the new directions in her own research. In no particular order:

New South African Art blogs: art matters and midnight kitchen. The former is anonymous and the latter is Rat Western – both are based in Joburg and both seem to be pretty good so far. I am ambiguous about anonymity, given I’m not sure what they are protecting themselves from and, at least with Robert Sloon, it feels like a faux humbleness (everyone knows who he is in “real life” – even tho no one knew who he was before the blog – and he’s more than willing to appear at exhibitions all over the world – mostly to exhibit himself…). What are the reasons, the real reasons, for anonymity in this case? All that said, glad to have more writing on SA art online, especially in joburg – go for it, “Jane” and Rat. Opposed to the former (or at least what she implied on her first post), I think we do need more “irreverent bloggers.” (Tho I question her judgment of “Art Heat’s … frank reportage sans pretension”; I appreciate Art Heat as much as the next guy  – and featured them on my site, and in Contempo, very early on – but until recently you had to wade through so much crap just to get any content at all; it was mostly/only about the Michaelis Clique and its inner-workings….) While I’m at it, SAartsEmerging features MTkidu this month.

Also new online: the networked music review blog, a new one by turbulence; nice piece on Red Burns and my alma mater, ITP, also known as the Harvard of Interactive (in the NY Times; the latter is an older piece from Newsweek)… New MTAA Commons Art Diagram for their iCommons Residence and also a 2-part interview on AFC (1 and 2). New Artthrob up – my fave articles include: thoughtful piece by Tavish McIntosh about Afterlife at Michael Stevenson; Sue Williamson on Gimberg/Nerf/Sacks/Young; Zachary Yorke reviews the companion book to this show, which sounds great and I hope to see it soon – I wonder if mine is the only artwork (as opposed to essay) in the book, or just the only one he mentioned; Michael Smith interviews Anthea Moys and Juliana Smith; finally, Ed Young reviews the Afterlife book, and as usual makes it more about himself than the “book,” but I think this may be the must read of this issue.

I like that most of this post was dedicated to SA Art. I may have something to say about some of the papers in Wales later. Day off today. More soon.

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