Artmedia VIII - Paris
"From 'Aesthetics of Communication' to Net art"
Symposium - November 29th, 30th & December 1er 2002
Centre Français du Commerce Extérieur
Ecole Normale Supérieure
Mario Costa, from the Universities of Salerno and Naples, in
collaboration with Annick Bureaud and Fred Forest from the University of
Nice Sophia-Antipolis, are proposing to hold a conference in Paris. It
will bring artists and theoreticians together for three days to deal
with the theme “From the Aesthetics of Communication to Net Art”.
This symposium is organized in collaboration with the University of
Salerno, the Centre Français du
Commerce Extérieur, the Ecole Normale Supérieure, with the support of
Leonardo/Olats for the web site.
The official languages will be French and English.
10 avenue d'Iena, 75116 Paris
45, rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris
1 - Organizers
Organizers : Mario Costa, professor of Aesthetics at the University of Salerno and of Methodology of critic at the University of Naples (I.U.O) in collaboration with Annick Bureaud and Fred Forest, emeritus professor of the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis.
Organizing Institutions : University of Salerno, Philosophie Department ; Centre Français du Commerce Extérieur, Ecole Normale Supérieure
2 - Advisory Committee Anne Cauquelin, emeritus professor of the University of Paris, theoretician in contemporary art, Ph.D in Philosophy, co-director of the Revue d'esthétique.
Edmond Couchot, professor at Paris VIII University, former director the the ATI Department (Art et Technologies de l'Image) in the UFR of Arts, aesthetics and philosophy.
Derrick de Kerckhove, director of the Marshall Mc Luhan Program, University of Toronto
Jean-Paul Longavesne, professor at the University of Paris XI and the ENSAD, director of the GRIP (Groupe de Recherche en Informatique Picturale)
Roger Malina, Chairman of the Board of Leonardo, director of the Laboratoire d'Astronomie Spatiale de Marseille, CNRS
Pierre Moeglin, director of the Laboratoire des Sciences de l'information et de la communication, Paris XIII (Laboratory for the Sciences of Information and Communication, University of Paris XIII) and project manager at the "Maison des sciences de l'homme 'Paris Nord'" for the French Ministry of Research.
Karen O'Rourke, assistant professor at the University of Paris I, Sorbonne, Saint-Charles
Louise Poissant, director of the Ph.D. Program "Etudes et Pratiques des Arts", director of the GRAM (Groupe de Recherche en Arts Médiatiques/Research Group in Media Arts), at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM)
Annick Bureaud
Mario Costa
3 - Partners
Leonardo/Olats - Paris
Ecole Normale Supérieure
Societé française d'esthétique
Revue d'esthétique, Paris University of Toronto, Marshall Mc Luhan Program
University Paris XIII, Laboratoire et formation doctorale en Sciences de l'information et de la communication/ Laboratory and Ph.D Program in Sciences of Information and Communication
University of Quebec in Montreal, Groupe de recherche en arts médiatiques/Research Group in Media Arts
Societa Italiana di Estetica
Contact : annickb@altern.org
The conference Artmedia VIII bases its reflection on the presupposition that technological communication at a distance functions as a driving force in transformations to our world. This brings us to reflect, in particular, on the questions of anthropo-philosophy and aesthetics raised by the current situation. It also involves pondering the implications of this for the economy and even the organization of culture.
At the beginning of the 1980s, "The aesthetics of communication" having sensed the direction of this current change, and its present developments, appears as one of the first attempts aiming to provoke awareness of what was happening in order to observe all the consequences, both aesthetic and artistic.
The present-day existence of networks and the very diversified phenomenology of "aesthetic" products which can be found there, raises again, although according to different modalities, all the questions already posed by the "aesthetics of communication", while generating new experimentation one can still recognize as related to these problematics.
The conference proposes to "thematize" this situation, with the participation and testimony of a great many "communications artists", both old-timers and newcomers, and the contribution of theoreticians and specialists engaged, in one way or another, in reflecting on, organizing and spreading culture.
The history of communication art is part of a vast international field: North America (The USA and Canada) , Australia, Latin America (Brazil) and Europe.
In Europe creative activity was preponderant in four countries: Austria with Richard Kriesche in particular, England with Roy Ascott and above all France. In this respect it is useful to note that artistic practice using the Minitel developed in France between 1978 and 1989, well before the arrival of Internet. Artists like Orlan contributed to this situation and presented works in two major exhibitions : Electra in 1983 at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris), curated by Frank Popper and les Immatériaux"(the Immaterials) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1985, curated by Jean-François Lyotard.
Moreover the two signatories of the Manifeste de l'Esthétique de la Communication (Manifesto of the Aesthetics of Communication, October 1983) were Mario Costa and Fred Forest: an Italian and a Frenchman.
Many of the most respected theoreticians in this field are French: Pierre Lévy, Philippe Quéau, Edmond Couchot, Isabelle Rieusset-Lemarié, Pierre Moeglin, Jean Devèze…
High-level international conferences have become "nomadic", taking place in different countries and cities, thus opening their doors to people who wouldn't have been able to participate otherwise, and confronting cultural contexts.
After seven editions of Artmedia in Italy and taking into account the international evolution of the discipline, it appeared timely to realize Artmedia in France.
The conference is organized in six sections:
Section 1 : History of an aesthetics of technological communication
From the "chess games" that were played using the first telephone line installed by Morse (1844) to Moholy-Nagy's "telephone pictures" (1923), from the Futurist manifesto "La Radia" (1933) to Fontana's manifestos of "spatialism" (1946 etc.) history attests that from the beginning communication technologies were associated with the idea of their aesthetic potential.
This section proposes to establish and examine the history of the relations that exist between communication technologies and aesthetic experimentation.
Section 2
This section proposes to study thoroughly the questions that are located midway between aesthetics and general philosophy. Its purpose is three-fold :
a- Body, Cortex and Networks
In what new situation do networks place the body? Do they foster and accelerate the obsolescence of the body, as Leroi-Gourhan foretold, or do they amplify its multi-sensorial capacity and involve it as never before? As network servo-mechanisms develop, which will come to the fore, the cortex or the body? How is the networked mind in operation called and stimulated to think? Is it plugged into the network which is allowed to penetrate it through and through, or does it shut itself away in the "cogito"?
b- Presence at a Distance - Telepresence
What happens to the fundamental categories of Da Sein (the being in the world) and Mit Sein (the being in the world with others), as related to those of "proximity" and "distance"? In what way do distance communication technologies compel us to reformulate Heidegger's fundamental category of Zuhandenheit (the essence of things, which is that of being used by us)? What new phenomenology of presence has technological communication at a distance introduced? What about presence at a distance in the connection between networks and robotic devices?
c- Form and Event in the Networks
Is Nietzsche's distinction between the arts of "form" (the Apollonian) and the arts of "event" (the Dionysian) still valid and pertinent to qualify aesthetic productions found on the network? Do the networks foster a new appearance of "form" or will they dissolve it in the "flux" and temporality of the "event"? How many kinds of time pass and are embodied in network "events" ? Can a network "event" be "given form"?
Section 3
This section is halfway between aesthetics and criticism in its literal sense, and proposes, among other things, to analyse the new aesthetic practices found on the network. Its purpose is two-fold:
Starting with the distinction made by Lessing between the "space arts" and the "time arts", aesthetic thought has unceasingly reflected on and questioned these fundamental categories and the relations they maintain with different artistic practices. Someone like Suzanne Langer, for example, was led to declare that the very function of certain arts is none other than implementing a representation and a virtual experience of space and time.
But with distance communication technologies, space and time, when looked at closely, reject any function of "containing" and move away from the idea of surface or support that can be covered with signs, to exhibit themselves intrinsically.
"Communications artists" were the first to perceive this, and they began very early on to consider space and time as new "materials" to "thematize" and "aestheticize".
Here the speakers will outline a phenomenology, underline differences, indicate the specificities of each one in the artistic and aesthetic appropriation of new "materials".
In our world, next to the field of "art" which has a weaker and weaker identity, another aesthetic movement has appeared which has become more and more widespread. We can see it at work in many behaviours and in an indefinite variety of hybrid products.
We intend to verify how this drive expresses itself on the network, to analyse its productions, attempt to classify them and formulate a new aesthetic-critical vocabulary.
Section 4: Net Art in the Museum Context, Commercial and Institutional Circuits in Times of Globalization
Net Art in its best models of production and expression, has found a place and a genuine aesthetic legitimacy. These products of the mind require the same type of aesthetic attitude which had previously been reserved for the arts. This poses a whole series of questions which must be answered.
How should these products be treated in institutions devoted to the arts? How will the museums, already subject to change (networked museums, virtual theatres etc.), be expected to evolve? Will it be necessary to find new channels or strategies of distribution? What's happening to copyright laws ? What forms of economic transaction do these products give rise to? How can net art be preserved (collection, archive)? Will the net be the only form of presence of these products? How are the authorities being called to intervene with regard to this type of production?
Section 5: Networks and the Future of Writing
Questions related to electronic writing have dealt up to now with hypertext, non-linear and non-sequential processes. But questions concerning writing on a network, alphabetical writing as such, but supported by the network, come forward as much more problematic and profound.
What is the destiny of writing? Which previously existing fringes between speaking and writing have been eliminated by the network? What cognitive attitudes are required by written communication on the network? And what do we think, what do we write when our networked thought-writing is immediately transferred to others? What do we write when there is no longer an interval, what happens to waiting time? And last of all what do we write when writing is an immaterial and abstract trace, which asks to be erased, to disappear rather than be preserved anonymously as hard copy?
Section 6: Architecture, Urban Design and Communication Technologies
This section poses the question of the presence of "communications artists" -outside the strictly artistic networks and spheres- working with architects, urban designers, town planners, etc.
The "aesthetics of communication", in its earliest version as well as its most recent, gives artists the possibility of going beyond the circles and the ghetto of art, to take part, as in the time of the cathedrals in the movement of civilian life and to oppose the loss of meaning.
The projects and rare accomplishments of "home automation" that show the successful combination of engineering, architecture and communications technologies provide the first example; they constitute an embryo of that new function which has obviously fallen to "communications artists" and remains entirely to be invented and developed.
Roy Ascott (UK), artist and theoretician
Roy Ascott is the founding director of the international transdisciplinary research center, CAiiA-STAR (www.caiia-star.net). He is Research Professor at the University of Wales, and at the University of Plymouth (UK), and is Adjunct Professor in Design|Media Arts at the University of California Los Angeles (www.design.ucla.edu/home.html). A pioneer of cybernetics and telematics in art, he has shown at the Venice Biennale, Electra Paris, Ars Electronica Linz, V2 Holland, Milan Triennale, Biennale do Mercosul, Brazil, European Media Festival, and gr2000az at Graz, Austria. He has been Dean of San Francisco Art Institute, California, Professor for Communications Theory in the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and Principal of Ontario College of Art, Toronto. He is on the editorial boards of Leonardo, Convergence, Digital Creativity, and the Chinese language online journal Tom.Com. He advises new media centres and festivals in North and South America, Europe, Japan, Korea, and lectures widely around the world. His publications are translated into many languages and include the books, Reframing Consciousness (1999), Art Technology Consciousness (2000), Intellect Books, Bristol; and Art & Telematics: toward the Construction of New Aesthetics. (Japanese trans. E. Fujihara), NTT, Tokyo, 1998. In 2002, University of California Press will publish his collected writings, Telematic Embrace, edited by Edward Shanken.
Jean-Pierre Balpe (France), artist
Born in 1942 in Mende (Lozère), Jean-Pierre Balpe is the Director of the Hypermedia Department and of the Paragraphe Laboratory of the University of Paris VIII. He is also General Secretary of the journal Action Poétique. Researcher, theoretician of computer literature, author of various scientific and technological books, writer, he is interested in the possibilities that computer science provided to literature since 1975. In 1981, he co-founded ALAMO (Workshop for Computer and Mathematic Assisted Literature) and as such became advisor to the Pompidou Center for the exhibitions Les Immatériaux and Mémoires du Futur. Since 1989, he creates software for computer literature used mainly during exhibitions or public events among which Un roman inachevé for the booth of the Ministry of Culture (MILIA, Cannes, 1995 and MIM in Montreal) ; ROMANS (Roman) for the exhibition Artifices in 1996 ; Trois mythologies et un poète aveugle for the IRCAM in 1997 ; Barbe Bleue that will be the result of the combination of 3 generators : text, music (Alexandre Raskatov) and staging (Michel Jaffrennou) generators ; TRAJECTOIRES, interactive and generative novel for the Internet (www.trajectoires.com) ; he is involved in various shows among which Encuentras essentiales for the museum MARCO in Monterey (Mexico) together with Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi (music) and Miguel Chevalier (interactive stage design).
Stéphan Barron (France), artist
Born in 1961 in Caen, Normandy. Grant from Villa Médicis in 1996 for Ozone.
" My work is based on a perceptual and imaginary research on distance. In this research, I have realised since 1985 around twenty artworks using telecommunication technology. Ozone in 1995 was one of the first artwork using Internet. I have developped since 1995 the concepts of Technoromanticism and of Earth Art. "
My works and concepts are described at http://www.technoromanticism.com
Online artwork : http://www.com-post.org
Cdrom : Earth Art, Ed. Rien de Special, 2000
Book : Technoromantisme, Ed. L'Harmattan, 2002
Samuel Bianchini (France), artist
Samuel Bianchini studied art through different approaches : Fine Arts, Applied Arts, Arts and Crafts (Arts et Métiers), Decorative Arts (Arts décoratifs) and plastic arts. At the age of 30, he mixed practice (exhibitions), theory (regular publications) and teaching (University of Paris I, Art school of Nancy). Membre of different research laboratories such as CRECA (Center for Research in the Aesthetics of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts, University Paris I) and CEDRIC (Center for Research in Computer Science of the Cnam), he is preparing a Ph.D on the reactualization of the issues of montage raised by interactive media.
biank@dispotheque.org
http://www.dispotheque.org
Maurizio Bolognini (Italie), artist
Maurizio Bolognini has worked with digital technologies since the late 1980s. His most well-known art works are the 1992 Sealed Computers (over two hundred machines programmed to produce a flow of endlessly different images, and left to work indefinitely) and Museophagia (a 1999 world tour in which he took furniture and objects from several international galleries and put together a travelling collection to be consumed via digitization: <http://www.cavellini.org/performance/emtour.html>). He has also been involved with teledemocracy and on line communication techniques (his so-called Hyperdelphi method <http://www.hyperdelphi.net>) about which he has recently published the book Democrazia elettronica (Carocci, Rome 2001).
Andreas Broeckman (Allemagne), theoretician
Andreas Broeckmann (*1964) lives and works in Berlin. Since the autumn of 2000 he has been the Artistic Director of transmediale - international media art festival berlin. Broeckmann studied art history, sociology and media studies and worked as a project manager at V2_Organisation Rotterdam, Institute for the Unstable Media, from 1995-2000. He is a member of the Berlin-based media association mikro, and of the European Cultural Backbone, a network of media centres. In texts and lectures he deals with post-medial practices and the possibilities for a 'machinic' aesthetics of media art. [http://www.transmediale.de] et [http://www.v2.nl/abroeck]
Annick Bureaud (France), new media art critic, theoretician
Works in the field of art related to technosciences. Director of Leonardo/Olats (http://www.olats.org) ; founder and editor of the International directory of Electronic Arts, IDEA online (http://nunc.com). New media art critic (column in Art Press). Teacher at the art school of Aix-en-Provence, the Ensci, guest teacher at the School of the Art Intitute Chicago (SAIC, 1999) and at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM, 2001). Co-organizer of the Symposium Artmedia VIII. Co-editor with Nathalie Magnan of the reader Connexions : Art, Réseaux, Media published by the Ensba in May 2002.
Christophe Charles (Japon), artist
Christophe Charles (born Marseille 1964), currently Associate Professor at Musashino Art University, Tokyo), works with found sounds, and makes compositions using computer programs, insisting on the autonomy of each sound and the absence of hierarchical structure. These compositions have been released on the German label Mille Plateaux / Ritornell ("undirected" series), and on several compilations (Mille Plateaux, Ritornell, SubRosa, Code, Cirque, Cross, X-tract, CCI, ICC, etc.). Group exhibitions: ICC "Sound Art" (Tokyo, 2000), V&A "Radical Fashion" (London, 2001), etc. Permanent sound installations at Osaka Housing Information Center (1999), Tokyo-Narita International Airport Central Atrium (2000). Web site: http://kubric.musabi.ac.jp/~charles
Daniel Charles (France), philosopher
Musician (student of Olivier Messian at the Paris Conservatory : First Price, 1956) and philosopher (agrégation, 1959 ; Ph.D. under the direction of Mikel Dufrenne, 1977), Daniel Charles has founded and directed during 20 years (1969-1989) the Music Department at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes) ; head of the general aesthetics faculty during 10 years (1970-1980) at the University of Paris IV (Sorbonne) and during 9 years (1989-1999) at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis. He published numerous articles and books among which 6 have been translated into German and 2 in Japanese. His talks with John Cage (" Pour les Oiseaux ", 1976) have just been republished (Paris, 2002) on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the death of the composer.
Grégory Chatonsky (France), artist
Studied Fine Arts and philosophy, Master degree in Aesthetics at the University of Paris I on the ontology of virtual realities and the deconstruction of narratives in interactive structures. Hypermedia studies at the Fine Art School in Paris.
Co-founder in 1995 of Incident (http://www.incident.net).
Between 1995 and 1998, Chatonsky designed and achieved the cdrom Mémoires de la déportation which received the Mobius Award in 1999, he also designed various cultural sites such as the web sites of the Pompidou Center and of the Villa Medicis.
He created interactives installations and net installations such as : Incident of the Last Century, Disoriented Frontiers, Sous Terre, Revenances, La Vitesse du Silence, Nervures, .IO-N, etc.
In 2002, Chatonsky is artist-in-residence at the Abbaye de Fontevraud (France) for the project "Dislocat.io-n" and at the Inclassables (Canada) for the project "Translat.io-n".
He had works exhibited in many events in France and abroad.
He works on the issues of narratives, cinema, memory and language.
Luc Courchesne (Canada), artist
Luc Courchesne est né à Nicolet (Québec) en 1952. En 1974, il a reçu un baccalauréat en Communication Design du Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Halifax) et en 1984, un Master of Science in Visual Studies, du MIT (Cambridge). En 1984 alors qu'il réalise, avec un collectif du MIT, Elastic Movies, une des premières oeuvres interactive utilisant la vidéo.
Il a créé depuis plusieurs installations dont Encyclopédie clair-obscure (1987), Portrait no.1 (1990), Portrait de famille (1993), Salon des ombres (1996), Paysage no. 1 (1997), Passages (1998), Rendez-vous (avec un collectif de la SAT, 1999) et The Visitor: Living by Number (2001).
Son travail a été présenté dans une douzaine de pays en Amérique du Nord, en Europe, en Asie et en Océanie. Il a notamment fait l'objet d'une exposition personnelle au Museum of Modern Art de New York. Ses installations font partie notamment des collections du Musée des beaux-arts du Canada (Ottawa), du Medienmuseum du ZKM (Karlsruhe, Allemagne), du NTT Intercommunication Center (Tokyo) et du Musée de la communication (Berne).
Luc Courchesne est président de la Société des arts technologiques et, depuis 1989, professeur à l'Ecole de design industriel de l'Université de Montréal.
Fred Forest (France), artist and theoretician
Artist, emeritus professor of the University of Nice, co-founder of the Group of Sociological Art (1974), co-founder with Mario Costa of the International Movement of the Aesthetics of Communication (1983), director of the programme in aesthetics of communication at the MAMAC, Communication award at the XII São Paulo Biennale in 1973, participated in the Venise Biennale in 1976, the Documenta 6 in 1977, Award of the City of Locarno, Festival des Arts Electroniques in 1995, founder of the www.webnetmuseum.org. Books : L'art sociologique, 10/18 UGE Paris 1977, "Pour un manifeste de l'esthétique de la communication", + - 0, Bruxelles 1985, Pour un art actuel : l'art à l'heure d'Internet, l'Harmattan, Paris 1998, Fonctionnement et dysfonctionnements de l'art contemporain, l'Harmattan, Paris 2000. Web site : http://www.fredforest.org
Ken Goldberg (USA), artist
Ken Goldberg is an artist and Associate Professor of Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he founded the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium. Goldberg led the team that developed the first robot on the Internet in 1994 and his net art installations have appeared in the Interactive Media Festival, Ars Electronica, the Walker Art Center, ICC Biennale in Tokyo, Berkeley Art Museum, and the Whitney Biennial 2000. Goldberg received his PhD in 1990 from the School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University. Goldberg serves on the Advisory Board of the IEEE Society of Robotics and Automation. He is editor of The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet (MIT Press, 2000). Goldberg was awarded the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award in 1994, the NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship in 1995, the Joseph Engelberger Robotics Award in 2000, and the IEEE Major Educational Innovation Award in 2001.
For more information: http://www.ken.goldberg.net
Eduardo Kac (USA/Brazil), artist
Eduardo Kac is internationally recognized for his interactive net installations and his bio art. A pioneer of telecommunications art in the pre-Web '80s, Eduardo Kac (pronounced "Katz") emerged in the early '90s with his radical telepresence and biotelematic works. At the dawn of the twenty-first century Kac shocked the world with his "transgenic art"--first with a groundbreaking net installation entitled Genesis (1999), and then with his fluorescent rabbit called Alba (2000). Eduardo Kac is represented by Julia Friedman Gallery, Chicago. His work is documented at <http://www.ekac.org>.
Derrick de Kerckhove (Canada), theoretician
Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology and Professor in the Department of French at the University of Toronto. He co-edited with Charles Lumsden The Alphabet and the Brain (Springer Verlag, 1988), a book which scientifically assesses the impact of the Western alphabet on the physiology and the psychology of human cognition. Brainframes: Technology, Mind and Business (Bosch&Keuning, 1991) addresses the differences between the effects of television, computers and hypermedia on corporate culture, business practices and economic markets. Connected Intelligence (Somerville, 1997) introduced his research on new media and cognition. He has contributed to the architecture of Hypersession, a collaborative software now being developed by Emitting Media. This work inspired his latest book The architecture of intelligence (see http://www.architecture.openflows.org) first issued in Dutch in December 2000. He is presently a member of the Vivendi Institut de prospective where he is in charge of investigating the future technological and business development of the new technologies. He has been a member of the Club of Rome since 1995.
Sophie Lavaud (France), artist
Artist, conceptor of interactive installations. Ph.D student at Paris I University. Lives and works in Paris. Exhibited in France, abroad and in Cyberspace : Art-Jonction (Nice) ; Village ISEA 2000, Paris, " Art génératif ", online at http://www.webnetmuseum.org ; " Festival @rt-Outsiders " : Maison Européenne de la photographie, Paris. " Techno-Mariage " with Fred Forest at Issy-les-Moulineaux : http://www.fredforest.worldnet.net/technomariage, 1998 ; " Art virtuel", curator Franck Popper, Espace Landowski, Boulogne-Billancourt.
Pierre Lévy (Canada/France), theoretician
Philosopher of cyberculture and collective intelligence. Born in 1956 in Tunis. Studies and beginning of his career in France. Lives in Canada. Professor at the University of Ottava. Author of many books about the cultural implications of new technologies and the emerging global civilization. His books have been translated into more than 15 languages and most of them have been republished in pocket book collections. Among his last books : Cyberdémocratie, Odile Jacob, 2002 ; World Philosophie, Odile Jacob, 2000 ; Le Feu libérateur, Arléa, Paris, 1999 ; Cyberculture, Odile Jacob, Paris, 1997 ; Qu'est-ce que le virtuel ?, La Découverte, Paris 1995 ; L'Intelligence collective, La Découverte, Paris, 1994
Roger Malina (France/USA), theoretician
Roger Malina is an astronomer and editor. He is the Director of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille and former Director of the NASA EUVE Observatory. He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics. He is Chairman of the Board of Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technolgy and Executive Editor of the peer reviewed scholarly journal Leonardo published with MIT Press.
Mit Mitropoulos Grèce), artist
Dr Mit Mitropoulos has been involved in communications with and without technology. His Ph.D. (Edinburgh University 1974) is on Space Networks--the concept of space as a network. He has been consultant to various organisations/institutions (including UNESCO; EVR of M.I.T., USA; C.I.C., Paris; Greek Ministries of Culture and Research+Technology) on issues connecting technology to policy and legislation. As an environmental artist, he has been active with Geopolitical Art projects and project-proposals, as well as with 2-way interactive video installations. He is a member of the WSEkistics, and IAPS.
Frank Popper (France), theoretician
Professor emeritus of aesthetics at the University of Paris VIII, he is the author of Naissance de l'art cinétique, 1967 ; Art - Action and Participation, 1975 ; L'artiste et la créativité aujourd'hui, 1980 ; Art of the Electronic Age, 1993 ; Réflexions sur l'exil, l'art et l'Europe, 1998 and is at present working on a study of Virtual Art. He was also organizer and author of the catalogue of the exhibitions Kunst-Licht-Kunst, 1966 ; Lumière et mouvement, 1967 ; Electra, 1983, and L'art virtuel, 1998.
Anolga Rodionoff (France), theoretician
Architect Anolga Rodionoff is an associate professor at the University of Paris with a Ph. D. in Political Science. Her research shows that the upheavel produced by the impact of communication on architecture pre-dates the use of communication techniques particulary this of the web by architects themselves. A University of Paris researcher on communication media and personnel, she is also commentator and curator for the architecture collection at Fred Forest's Web Net Museum. Her latest publications include Architecture : from production to communication, (MEI 14, l'Harmattan, Paris, 2001).