Spaces Of Experience Seminar 2008

Thank you to all participants, sponsors, IADT staff and those who attended the Spaces of Experience seminar event. Documentation of the event can be seen at www.documentationofspacesofexperience.blogspot.com

Date: Wednesday 12th March
Time: 2pm-9pm
Location: Dun Laoghaire Institute of art, Design and Technology,
Kill Avenue,
Dun Laoghaire,
Co. Dublin,
Ireland.







The Immersive-Aesthetic as Spaces of Experience, is the title of a seminar event organized by the final year students of Visual Art Practice in IADT. The objective of the event is to create a number of individual situations of interaction throughout the day which will allow us to expose and examine contemporary theories regarding, contextuality, aesthetics and the role of the art audience.
The objectives of the Seminar will manifest themselves through the participation and engagement of the audience with the eclectic range of art based performances, talks and events specifically devised to evoke discussion surrounding many key concerns in contemporary art practice.
Rather than consign theory and practice to their traditional polar opposites, this seminar event shall create a dynamic informal ambience, through which the two elements can merge to create a critically engaged and thought provoking environment.

Seminar Group 4

Group 4 Statement: We are exploring the opportunities offered by the Secondlife platform to create an immersive artistic environment. By this we mean a transcendental experience comparable to those generated by other, more conventional artistic media, but also unique to the programmed world. All of our speakers, real and online, are immersed in this world and as such are well placed to address these questions. In the course of our presentation we will attempt to show the artistic potential of Secondlife by inviting those present at the seminar to participate interactively in the installation of an artwork by one of our speakers.

Events/Discussion on day of Seminar: Gallery event/talk live from Second Life

Invited Speakers:
Haydn Shaughnessy-Owner of Ten Cubed Gallery, Second Life
Nathaniel Stern-Installation and video artist
Philip Pocock-Internet and media artist
Linus Schultz

Group 4: Seminar topic: The virtual experience. The idea of virtual art galleries in Second Life, whether this virtual experience is a valid art experience. Can a  virtual experience affect in the same way a physical experience can? Are all imaginative elements in art 'virtual' and 'immersive' or is there a different kind going on in virtual worlds?

www.secondlife.com

www.thebestofsecondlife.blogspot.com/2008/01/ten-cubed-gallery-thursday-31-2008.html

Seminar Group 3

Group 3 will be using the seminar events as a way to challenge our perceptions of what a space of experience is. How can altering a space change the way we engage with it? This group will look at the meaning of the 'function'  of a particular space. How we use our spaces at art events and how these spaces might be disrupted or transformed through intervention/alteration.

Group 3 Statement: The event involves an interruption / intervention in an already existing combination of affects in our habitual world. Displacing and transforming the function of a space in aid of transcending traditionally viewed areas of use.
Creating an atmosphere by confronting the audience with displaced functions of space and object.

Binocular Football- This is a game of football where all the players must wear binoculars, thus transforming their perception of the space around them.
Red Carpet- Constructing peoples expectations of the spaces
Outside/In- The placement of the grass here will hopefully invite people to linger in the area for longer and thus transform the function of the space.

Events:
Binocular Football
Launching Event
5 Hour Performance (Alastair MacLennan)

Invited Guests:
Brian Hand- Installation artist and art critic
Alastair MacLennan-Performance artist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj7f3B1VCYM

Seminar Group 2

Group 2 Statement
This project explores the idea of sound and its properties affecting a live space of experience. We are concerned with the notion of the non physical in art and the interactive element of sound. During the event live spaces of experience will be created, to examine the non physical effects sound has on the space it occupies. The aim is to transform the public spaces through the creation of an immersive aesthetic situation produced with the medium of sound.
Our three invited guests are Dennis McNulty, Peter Forde and Noel J Brady.

Dennis McNulty's work will deal with the creation of an interactive experience, through a conversation with sound. For this, Dennis McNulty will respond to a series of sound recordings with his own interpretation through sound.

Peter Forde, will look at the physicality of sound, the sensory element of sound and how the overall space can be affected by using sound. His work is based in the use of new technology in art. He has chosen to use 'Pure Data' a new programme to catalogue the sounds which the group will be working on in order to create a live space of experience.

The event will conclude with a discussion on the sound events, in an attempt to analyse how they altered the live space. The architect Noel J Brady will contribute to this discussion around the concepts and ideas created by the live sound pieces and how sound interacts with architecture to create an immersive aesthetic experience.


Invited Guests:

Dennis McNulty
Peter Forde
Noel J Brady

Events:

Sound Conversation 5:45 pm (Dennis McNulty)
Sound Installation (Peter Forde) (live all day)

Seminar Group 1

Group 1 are hosting a game event with interactive pictionary followed by panel discussion based around the critical question "where do we draw the line?" between non-art and art. The group hopes to address the idea of how something actually becomes an art piece, it's 'transformation' if you like. This groups seminar component will deal with issues of this point of transformation between something that is just 'stuff' and something that has the character of 'art'. What is the difference? Is it necessary to distinguish that 'line'? The Pictionary event will be facilitated by performance artist Sasha Perfect.
There will also be a short talk around the subject of 'where do we draw the line?' by amanda coogan as an introduction to the exhibtion we are hoping to open up a discussion about the elements which form the basis of why we consider and understand something to be art. The game is a method of 'immersion' into a creative aesthetic.

Events:
Game Event: Pictionary


Invited Guests:
Amanda Coogan
Sasha Perfect
Sally Timmons

General Comment Space (information for the attention of the entire group)