The Thursday Club is an open forum discussion group for anyone interested in the theories and practices of cross-disciplinarity, interactivity, technologies and philosophies of the state-of-the-art in today’s (and tomorrow’s) cultural landscape(s). The Club is supported by the Goldsmiths Digital Studios (GDS) and the Goldsmiths Graduate School.

Originally set up in October 2005 by GDS as a more informal setting for research discussions, it has grown to include over 150 members, artists, technologists, scientists, in fact, a growing diversity of people from different communities worldwide, that are now connected via a mailing list and online forum.

There are also regular meetings in ‘real’ space at the Ben Pimlott site of Goldsmiths, University of London. Anyone can attend these events. By keeping these meetings free, informal and open to all, we provide a platform for diverse and open ended discourse, for people who perhaps would not have the opportunity to discuss ideas outside of their chosen discipline.

The Thursday Club brings together people from diverse fields and degrees of expertise, aiming to initiate discussion and debates among postgraduate students, researchers, academics, artists, theorists, and other cultural practitioners.

Since it focuses on interdisciplinary practices, the Club is interested to experiment with innovative formats of presentation that are appropriate to the nature of the subject. We particularly welcome the proposal of round table discussions, panels, screenings, ‘hearings’, live gigs and performance lectures as well as more traditional presentations. We are also interested to platform experimental work-in-progress, of both practical and theoretical nature.

Submission Materials

1. An A4 size page with your proposal (about 500 words); any relevant links; 1-2 pictures if relevant.

2. A 200 words CV

3. Your contact details: name, address, email and telephone number

4. Selected additional audiovisual information (e.g. audio and video files) preferably as a link.

Please send any submissions by email to Maria X at <drp01mc@gold.ac.uk> writing ‘Thursday Club Submission’ as a Subject.

The deadline for the submission of proposals is 29 JULY 2007. The submissions will be reviewed by the Thursday Club Board.

THURSDAY CLUB BOARD

Miguel Andres-Clavera
PhD Candidate Goldsmiths Digital Studios; Member of Social Technology and Cultural Interfaces Research Group.

Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka Maria X], Thursday Club Coordinator
PhD Candidate Goldsmiths Digital Studios; Sessional Lecturer Birkbeck FCE; Curator.

Bronac Ferran
Director of boundaryobject.org; Member of DCMS Research and KT taskgroup; Director of Interdisciplinary Arts at Arts Council England until March 2007.

Prof. Janis Jefferies, Thursday Club Convener
Professor of Visual Arts, Department of Computing, Goldsmiths; Co-director Goldsmiths Digital Studios; Director Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles; Curator; Artist.

Dr Sarah Kember
Reader in New Technologies of Communication, Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College; Writer.

Michela Magas
PhD Candidate Goldsmiths Digital Studios; Co-director Stromatolite Design Studio.

Prof. Carrie Paechter
Professor of Educational Studies, Goldsmiths College; Dean of the Goldsmiths Graduate School.

Prof. Robert Zimmer
Professor of Computing, Goldsmiths College; Co-director Goldsmiths Digital Studios.

Supported by the Goldsmiths DIGITAL STUDIOS and the Goldsmiths GRADUATE SCHOOL

6pm until 8:30pm, Seminar Rooms at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW

FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME

Issues of policies have frequently emerged at Thursday Club presentations, specifically in relation to the funding and curation of digital/ media arts, art-science collaborations, and interdisciplinary work in general. So, for the summer term 2007, we invited four distinguished speakers to take part in a round table discussion addressing the question:

Is curation as a practice relevant within the field of interdisciplinary work such as digital /media arts, sci-art, and networked arts? If so, what type of curation is appropriate to, and can support such practices?

The speakers are:

>> KELLI DIPPLE

Kelli is currently Webcasting Curator at Tate, London. Working on the development, programming and production of live webcasts and interface design in conjunction with Digital programmes – Tate Online and Education and Interpretation at Tate Modern and Tate Britain.

Kelli has worked for the past decade at the intersection of digital technology and performance practice under the name of Gravelrash Integrated Media, specializing in the integration of visual, interactive, communication and network technologies into live events for live audiences.
More info: http://www.macster.plus.com/gravelrash/

>> FURTHERFIELD.ORG [RUTH CATLOW & MARC GARRETT]

Furtherfield is an online platform for the creation, promotion, and criticism of adventurous digital/net art work for public viewing, experience and interaction. Furtherfield creates imaginative strategies that actively communicate ideas and issues in a range of digital & terrestrial media contexts; featuring works online and organising global, contributory projects, simultaneously on the Internet, the streets and public venues. It focuses on network-related projects that explore new social contexts that transcend the digital, or offer a subjective voice that communicates beyond the medium. Furtherfield is the collaborative work of artists, programmers, writers, activists, musicians and thinkers who explore beyond traditional remits.

Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett are Furtherfield’s co-founders and co-directors. They are both artists involved in research into net art and cultural context on the Internet. They co-curate works featured on Furtherfield.

>> ARMIN MEDOSCH

Armin is a writer, curator, artist, and Associate Senior Lecturer in digital media at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication. He has written and edited several books on new media and network culture, his latest work including texts on wireless community networking and free and open source culture.

His latest work as a curator includes a contribution to the exhibition OpenNature at NTTICC Tokyo and the exhibition Waves, Riga 2006. In his spare time he is conducting research on collaborative and participative art forms, open cartography and mobile and interactive travelogues. Armin is a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths Digital Studios.

>> CHAIR: PROF. JANIS JEFFERIES

Janis is an artist, writer, curator, and Professor of Visual Arts at the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths College. She is Artistic Director of the Goldsmiths Digital Studios, Director of the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles, and Convener of the GoldsmithsThursday Club.
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THE THURSDAY CLUB is an open forum discussion group for anyone interested in the theories and practices of cross-disciplinarity, interactivity, technologies and philosophies of the state-of-the-art in today’s (and tomorrow’s) cultural landscape(s).

Supported by the Goldsmiths DIGITAL STUDIOS and the Goldsmiths GRADUATE SCHOOL

6pm until 8pm, Seminar Rooms at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right) Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW

FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME

IGLOO

We believe in growing pieces and exploring ideas of being in other peoples stories, allowing audiences to join the dots, providing libraries of motion for play and provoking imagination so that certain things can be left unsaid. We experiment with different formats & new methods of interaction. Our ideas demand many skills therefore our work is collaborative. We go under the umbrella name of igloo & invite different artists to create with us. igloo are developing ways of blurring the boundaries between spectator & participator both passively & actively viewing ‘interactivity’ as a new kind of audience engagement.

International and award-winning artists igloo create intermedia artworks, led by Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli.

‘In the mid-sixties, Fluxus artists began using the term ‘intermedia’ to describe work that was ….composed of multiple media. The term highlights the intersection of artistic genres and has gradually emphasized performative work and projects that employ new technologies.’ [Marisa Olson – Rhizome.org]

igloo projects are created with teams of highly skilled practitioners drawn primarily from performance, music, design, architecture, costume, computer science and technology backgrounds. Their work combines film, video, motion capture technology, music and performance with digital technology. The work is developed in a variety of formats and made for distribution across a range of platforms, including gallery installation, internet sites, large and small scale performance and Cd Rom.
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THE THURSDAY CLUB is an open forum discussion group for anyone interested in the theories and practices of cross-disciplinarity, interactivity, technologies and philosophies of the state-of-the-art in today’s (and tomorrow’s) cultural landscape(s).

For more information email maria x at drp01mc@gold.ac.uk
To find Goldsmiths check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/find-us/

Supported by the Goldsmiths DIGITAL STUDIOS and the Goldsmiths GRADUATE SCHOOL

6pm until 8pm, Lecture Theatre at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW

FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME

DIGITAL PRACTICES

Performance and technology in all its divergent forms is an emergent area of performance practice which reflects a certain being in the world – a Zeitgeist; in short, it provides a reflection of our contemporary world at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In a relatively short period of time there has been an explosion of new technologies that have infiltrated all areas of life and irrevocably altered our lives. Consequences of this technological permeation are both ontological and epistemological, and not without problems as we see our world change from day to day.

Exemplary digital practices are Blue Bloodshot Flowers (2001), featuring an avatar called Jeremiah, Merce Cunningham’s Biped (2000) with its virtual dancers, and Stelarc’s “obsolete body”; in film, the digital innovation and creativity of The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003) and the Star Wars prequels (1999-2005); in sound and new media interactive practices, the digitally manipulated sound of Optik, the “intermedia” of Palindrome, and the “electronic disturbance” of Troika Ranch; and in Bioart, the “recombinant theater” of Critical Arts Ensemble, and the “phenotypical reprogramming” and “functional portraits” of Marta de Menezes.

In my opinion the quintessential features within much of this performance demand a new mode of analysis which foregrounds the inherent tensions between the physical and virtual. These practices, in different ways, emphasize the body and technology in performance and they explode the margins between the physical and virtual and what is seen as dominant traditional art practices and innovative technical experimentation. Therefore, my main premise is the exploration and investigation into the physical/virtual interface so prevalent within the digital.

As a development of my previous theorization on liminality I believe that aesthetic theorization is central to this analysis. However, other approaches are also valid, particularly, those offered by recent research into cognitive neuroscience, particularly in relation to the emergent field of “neuro-esthetics” where the primary objective is to provide “an understanding of the biological basis of aesthetic experience” (Zeki 1999).

SUE BROADHURST is a writer and performance practitioner, Reader in Drama and Technology, and the Head of Drama Studies in the School of Arts, Brunel University, West London. She is author of Liminal Acts: A Critical Overview of Contemporary Performance and Theory, London: Cassell/New York: Continuum, 1999, Digital Practices: Aesthetic and Neuroesthetic Approaches to Performance and Technology (forthcoming, 2007), Performance and Technology: Practices of Virtual Embodiment and Interactivity (Palgrave MacMillan, 2006) together with various articles including ‘Interaction, Reaction and Performance: The Jeremiah Project’, The Drama Review, MIT Press 48, (4): 47-57. Sue is currently working on a series of collaborative practice based research projects entitled, “Intelligence, Interaction, Reaction and Performance,” which involve introducing various interactive digital technologies into live performance including, artificial intelligence, 3D film, modeling and animation, and motion tracking. She is also editor of the Body, Space & Technology on-line journal.
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…and the last Thursday Club of this term will be on

22 MARCH with IGLOO

International and award winning artists igloo create intermedia artworks, led by Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli.

‘In the mid-sixties, Fluxus artists began using the term ‘intermedia’ to describe work that was ….composed of multiple media. The term highlights the intersection of artistic genres and has gradually emphasized performative work and projects that employ new technologies.’ [Marisa Olson – Rhizome.org]

igloo projects are created with teams of highly skilled practitioners drawn primarily from performance, music, design, architecture, costume, computer science and technology backgrounds. Their work combines film, video, motion capture technology, music and performance with digital technology. The work is developed in a variety of formats and made for distribution across a range of platforms, including gallery installation, internet sites, large and small scale performance and Cd Rom.
Visit www.igloo.org.uk/