Thur 26 August 2010
10:00–12:00h
domicil, Dortmund

Hosted by Chair of Media History/Visual Culture, University of Siegen

Since the beginning of digital culture, new technologies have exerted a deep influence on the arts – in their mode of production as well as interpretation. This panel aims at new concepts of today’s audiences, who emerge from a vanishing divide between media artists and media skilled users. The phenomenon of a new type of viewer/user of electronic art and its challenging consequences will be unfurled in lectures, a presentation by media artist Julius Popp, and a final discussion round.

1. 10:00h | Dominika Szope (de): The Impact of Active Viewing, and Visual Literacy in Art Exhibitions
2. 10:20h | Anett Holzheid (de): Words and Characters in the Age of Electronic Performativity
3. 10:45h | Julius Popp (de): The Artistic Approach and Conceptual Framework
4. 11:40h | Katja Kwastek (de): The Aesthetic Experience of Interactive Art. A Challenge for the Humanities

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | P28 Digital Art | Digital User (PDF, 58.73 KB)

Dominika Szope (de)

The Impact of Active Viewing, and Visual Literacy in Art Exhibitions

The lecture examines the situation of present-day viewers of interactive media artworks and investigates the possibilities of newly describing their role, now brought about by the decreasing distance between producer and recipient. The productive achievements of viewers, as well as the current reintroduction of dated concepts such as amateur or dilettante, especially in the field of Web 2.0, give rise to the question of whether the designation of an active viewer is still sufficient today. The focus is on contemporary gaze culture and the viewers visual literacy, which makes a certain degree of creativity possible in the first place. The aim is to elicit the potential of creativity and thus the role of the viewer which may have to be newly defined.

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | The Impact of Active Viewing, and Visual Literacy in Art Exhibitions (PDF)

Dominika Szope is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Siegen. She studied Art and Media Studies. Her recent work focus on the Web 2.0 social software applications and on the role of users and their capacity to act.

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Anett Holzheid (de)

Words and Characters in the Age of Electronic Performativity

To an extensive degree, print media has affected the notion of written language within the Gutenberg galaxy. Influenced by both moving analogical imagery (such as film) and digital media, a substantive transformation has been observed, which seems to deeply impact both the aesthetics of the lettristic code and the collective reflection on language within the arts. This lecture, using a historical perspective and a focus on the function of word art within a cultural process of media evolution, demonstrates and discusses the new dynamics between letters and characters within the arts of digital culture.

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | Words and Characters in the Age of Electronic Performativity (PDF)

Anett Holzheid serves as scientific lecturer as well as supervisor of the Laboratory of Literary Film Studies (ALF) at the German Department of Mainz University. Her work interconnects literature, linguistics, and media studies. Forthcoming publication on postcard-culture (2010).

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Julius Popp (de)

The Artistic Approach and Conceptual Framework

Julius Popp’s intricate multimedia installations are manifestations of an artist’s view on digital culture. To grasp formation processes of human consciousness and knowledge within an electronic environment, the artist develops interdisciplinary works in which art and science converge. They explore the digital paradigms of signification and systems of distribution. At the intersection between art and science the works of J. Popp redefine the notion of interactivity. In his Micro-series human cognitive adaptation processes are investigated whereas the Bit-series create metaphors for these same processes.

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | The Artistic Approach and Conceptual Framework (PDF)

Julius Popp is media artist and former masterclass student of the Academy of Visual Arts (HGB Leipzig). His works reflect a scientific approach to digital culture and a use of technological precision as artistic expression. Recent exhibition and award: Krefeld (2010), catalogue: Resolution (2009).

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Katja Kwastek (de)

The Aesthetic Experience of Interactive Art. A Challenge for the Humanities

Due to its processuality and multi-modality, interactive new media art is difficult to accommodate within the traditional academic disciplines. Not only is it a hybrid of visual and performative arts, it even exceeds both fields of research through its foundation of aesthetic experience on action as opposed to contemplation. Interactive art thus presents a challenge for the humanities – but also for its audience: Does interactive art ask too much of its audience, expecting them to actively realize and at the same time contemplate and reflect the work?

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | The Aesthetic Experience of Interactive Art. A Challenge for the Humanities (PDF)

Katja Kwastek is art historian and worked at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media.Art.Research. from 2006 to 2009. Before, she was Assistant Professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (Munich) and Visiting Scholar at the Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI). She has curated exhibition projects, lectured and published widely, including the catalogue Ohne Schnur. Art and Wireless Communication (2004). Currently she finishes a book on the aesthetics of interaction in digital art.

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