CONSUMER
Art and tech collide at the Digital Hub
14-04-2003
by John Cradden
A unique, new one-day conference exploring the interaction between art and technology is to take place in The Digital Hub next week.
The conference, entitled "DATA:BASE," will examine the theme of "Democratisation of Technology" and will feature a number of artists, musicians and academics whose works are designed to engage the public in an interactive way. It takes place on 26 April in The Digital Hub Cash and Carry warehouse space on Thomas Street.
Organised by a group called DATA (Dublin Art and Technology Association), the conference will also feature a series of workshops with basic prototyping tools, a technology "swap-meet" for people to freely trade old and used equipment, and vendors selling technology-art based wares, art books, artist-made mouse pads, digital prints and so on.
This will be followed in the evening by DATA:BASS, a series of electronic music performances by Boredom Research, Del 9, Ambulance, Double Adaptor. It will also include screenings, and installations.
The event is the brainchild of Jonah Brucker-Cohen, a research fellow at Media Lab Europe and one of the founders of DATA, which has been organising popular monthly events since March 2002 where people doing work with art and technology can discuss their projects and interact with others.
Audience participation is considered vital to the conference because of the interactive nature of much of the work being demonstrated and discussed, said Brucker-Cohen. Certainly, unlike conventional, static art forms, "the artwork here can change depending on audience input."
In the workshops, the audience will be encouraged to engage with and create robots/sounds/instruments and other devices with help from the guest artists. In addition, people will be invited to interact with the evening music performances using devices created throughout the day.
One workshop will involve the use of mobile phones as musical instruments whereby participants will attempt to compose a simple musical work in one hour. Another will use computers to create new artificial creatures, each with a musical instrument property that will then interact with each other to make music.
Brucker-Cohen is conscious that there is likely to be much debate about whether much of what is going on constitute "proper" art in the minds of many members of the artistic community, with many arguing that encouraging such too much interactivity may rob the resultant art of any real meaning.
"In some ways you are losing control but maybe that's the way it should be. It's about looking at the human side of the interaction. It's not about producing exact representations or static art, but about enabling relationships that encourage interaction."
Brucker-Cohen says that in keeping with the democracy theme, the event is open to anyone, including producers, authors, students, filmmakers, artists, designers, hackers, DJs, animators, journalists, musicians, media moguls, net addicts, and coders. Even hackers can come along, he said.
Attendees do not have to be technological literate and no computing or musical experience is required, he said. "Unlike static art exhibitions where artists will just display their work, all of the artists in DATA:BASE have to talk about their project and explain how they went about doing this, in order to get a dialogue going."
It is expected that between 300 and 500 people will attend the event. For more information visit http://www.coin-operated.com/database.
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