The 11th Audiovisual Arts Festival of the Ionian University, depts. of Music Studies and Audio & Visual Arts, is extended in space and time: the festival will last for a total of 23 days, from May 20th to June 11th, and will be held at both Corfu and Athens.
More specifically, the Athens Concert Hall will host the “Retrospective in Megaron” event, which includes an exhibition of digital artworks, concerts of electroacoustic compositions, as well as masterclasses and conferences on “Art & Digital Culture” (20-21 May).
The main venue of the festival, the Ionian University in Corfu, will host the 2nd International Conference “Taboo-Transgression-Transcendence in Art and Science”, including two exhibitions, and the 1st Summer School on Hybrid Arts. The conference program is expanded to incorporate theoretical and artistic presentations (May 26th-28th), posters (May 26th-30th), and the collective exhibition “Body Esc” (May 25th – June 4th). The Summer School program includes lectures by invited speakers (May 29th – June 11th) from the artistic and scientific field, apart from scheduled theoretical and practical courses.
Official Website: http://avarts.ionio.gr/festival
“Retrospective in Megaron” Event
Athens Concert Hall (Megaron), 20th – 21st May 2017
The Department of Audio & Visual Arts and the Electroacoustic Music Research and Applications Laboratory (ΕΡΗΜΕΕ) of the Department of Music Studies will present the 11th Audiovisual Arts Festival at the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron) on 20th and 21st of May 2017. The Festival, held every year since 2006, has become a meeting point for the audiovisual arts in the digital age.
The two-day event includes a dense program of exhibitions, screenings, concerts, workshops, lectures and masterclasses. The Department of Audio & Visual Arts will present its course over the time retrospectively in a digital art show by exhibiting selected works of graduate, postgraduate and PhD students and professors. At the same time, the event will host works by the internationally renowned artists Eija-LiisaAhtila, Barry Purves and Theodore Ushev. The program is complemented by including in it workshops, masterclasses and lectures by prominent guests with a focus on the art, technology and aesthetics of video art and animation (Art & Digital Culture).
The exhibition will show interactive audio-visual installations, animation and video art works, projection mappings, acoustic environments, interactive and audio games, comic and photography exhibitions.
The workshops will be open to the public and will focus on 2D & 3D animation, the interactive audio-visual platforms, projection mapping and research on digital hybrid materials.
In the masterclass and lectures programme, the renowned visual artist, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, will be our honorary guest who will introduce the audience to the relation of her work with film in the era of digital technology. The celebrated animators, Barry Purves and Theodore Ushev, invited in collaboration with BE THERE! Corfu Animation Festival, will analyze their art, their techniques and their approach to technology. Dan Lejerskar, EON-Reality Chairman, will talk about “The Evolution of the Augmented Reality Market & the Human – Computer – Interaction Problem” and Professor Nikolaos Kanellopoulos will make a presentation on “From Antikythera Mechanism to Quantum Computer: Augmented Reality and Art”. The director of BE THERE! and PhD student of the Department, Vassilis Kroustallis, will focus on the relation of animation to politics and Dr. Michael Meimaris will talk about “Human[e]ducation for a “good enough” screen”.
The Electroacoustic Music Research and Applications Laboratory (ΕΡΗΜΕΕ) will present electroacoustic music concerts in a specially designed multichannel sound diffusion system that offers the -audience a unique listening experience. The program, under the title “ACOUSMATA 2017”, includes five concerts with works by composers of Electroacoustic Music. Volkmar Klein and Thomas Gorbach will be the guest of these concerts.
The two-day event is a joint production of the Faculty of Music and Audiovisual Arts of the Ionian University and the Athens Concert Hall, in the framework of Megaron Bridges Cycle and in collaboration with Animasyros Festival and BETHERE! Corfu Animation Festival.
The Faculty of Music & Audiovisual Arts (founded in 2013) of the Ionian University consists of the Department of Audio & Visual Arts and the Department of Music Studies. The Department of Audio & Visual Arts (founded in 2004) provides both undergraduate and postgraduate studies for New Media artists reseachers. The Department of Music Studies (1992) offers a study programme with focus on professional composers, performers, music teachers and music technicians.
The Electroacoustic Music Research and Applications Laboratory (ΕΡΗΜΕΕ, founded in 2003) of the Department of Music Studies is a research unit which supports the Music Technology program of the Department of Music Studies. The EΡΗΜΕΕ produces original work in the wider fields of Music and Audio Art with the use of electronic technology.
Eija-Liisa Ahtila is one of the most celebrated visual artists and filmmakers. Ahtila has herself described her work as “human dramas”. Her work focuses on existential issues and film language, and more recently, on more profound theoretical and philosophical issues, concerning human existence and culture. Among others, her work has been shown in individual and retrospective exhibitions in Tate Modern, in MoMA, in Guggenheim, in Bilbao, in Jeu de Paume, in Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, in Kiasma in Helsinki, in Moderna Museet in Stockholm, while she has participated in influential group shows, such as Venice Biennale.
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/moving-images-eija-liisa-ahtila
http://www.crystaleye.fi/
Barry J. C. Purves is a British director, theatre designer, screenwriter and producer usually, but not exclusively working with animation. Purves has been honored with more than sixty international prizes of best director, best film, grand prix, and nominations for Oscar and BAFTA awards. Many festivals have held retrospectives of his works, including the Edinburgh International Festival, the Bristol Puppet Festival, London International Animation Festival.
Theodore Ushev is an animator, graphic designer, illustrator and multimedia artist. He has studied in Kyustendil and at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia. For Ushev, animation has socio-political impact, humanitarian character and therapeutic power. His work explores the relation of the medium of animation to visual arts, for example, in the historical avant-garde movements.
www.ushev.com
https://www.nfb.ca/explore-all-directors/theodore-ushev/
Vassilis Kroustallis comes from Corfu and is the initiator and director of Be There! Corfu Animation Festival. Moreover, he is the editor of the animation portal zippyframes.com and a Phd student of the Audio-Visual Arts Department. In 2016 he was honoured with the 2016 Norman McLaren – Evelyn Lambart Award for the Best Scholarly Article in Animation published 2014-2015. Recently he was selected as an ambassador for Greece for the newly established institution of European Animation Awards.
Dr. N. Kanellopoulos, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D., is professor in the Audiovisual Arts Department, Ionian University, specializing in Computer Systems & Applications and elected Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of Ionian University. His published work includes three international patents and about 100 papers/studies. Currently his main research interest is in the application of digital technology in audiovisual art interactive systems (VR/AR).
http://avarts.ionio.gr/gr/department/professors-lecturers/323-kanellopoulos/
Dr Michalis Meimaris, Professor of New Technologies in Media, Communication and Education, with significant contributions in the field of digital storytelling, has served at the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, being also the Head of the Department for a period of four years. He is the Director of the University Research Institute of Applied Communication, while in the past he established and directed the laboratory of New Technologies in Communication, Education and the Mass Media. He has been awarded Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques of the French Democracy. Dr Michalis Meimaris is a member of the Administrative Board of the Unesco Institute for Information Technologies in Education since January 1st, 2014.
Dan Lejerskar began his career at Volvo Aerospace as program manager for the Arianne 5 rocket program for the main engine rocket. Lejerskar holds dual Masters of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. His awards include Most Accomplished Businessman for Fastest Growing Company in Sweden, Co-winner with the CEO of Volvo AB of the Chalmers University of Technology Daleen Prize and Entrepreneur of the Year.
https://www.eonreality.com/dan-lejerskar
Thomas Gorbach is electroacoustic music composer. He has studied traditional classic music in Switzerland with specialization in Oboe, Composition and Conducting and Studies in Analysis, Interpretation and Composition of Electroacoustic Music at the Electronic Music Department of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He has given diverse lectures on Electroacoustic Music at the Vienna University of Technology and at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In 2007, he started to build up Austria’s first Acousmonium, The Vienna Acousmonium, and since then he has given 40 concerts on his Acousmonium.
Growing up in Vienna, Volkmar Klien spent his childhood engulfed in the city’s rich musical life with all its glorious traditions and engrained rituals. Working from this background Volkmar Klien today strives to extend traditional practices of composing, producing and listening far beyond the established settings of concert music. He is a professor for composition and director of the institute for composition and conducting at the Anton Bruckner University (Linz, Austria).
2nd Interdisciplinary Conference
“Taboo – Transgression – Transcendence in Art & Science”
Corfu,May 25th – June 4th 2017
The Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University organizes for the second year in a row the interdisciplinary conference “Taboo – Transgression – Transcendence in Art & Science”, including theoretical and artwork presentations. From May 25 to June 4 2017, the conference will take place in various locations in the city of Corfu.
The conference focuses: a) on questions about the nature of the forbidden and about the aesthetics of liminality – as expressed in art that uses or is inspired by technology and science, b) in the opening of spaces for creative transformation in the merging of science and art. This year’s conference is inspired by the work of the pioneers who challenged the linear thinking towards spatial arts and time-based media and the ones who were able to transcend the illusion of reality and the confines of technology. It is dedicated to all those who keep pushing the limits further than the next gadget and understand the essential role of fantasy when synchronized with reality. One step further, one more time, knowing that the truly opening dimension might be towards the voyaging of consciousness.
Gunalan Nadarajan, an art theorist and curator working at the intersections of art, science and technology, is Dean and Professor at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan. He has served in a variety of academic roles in teaching, academic administration and research for over two decades.
Irina Aristarkhova writes and teaches on issues concerning feminist theory and contemporary aesthetics. She joined the Stamps School of Art and Design as an Associate Professor in 2012.
Luís Graça is an Associate Professor at Lisbon Medical School, where he supervises a team researching directing a research group in cellular immunology at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular.
Marta de Menezes is a Portuguese artist who explores the intersection between Art and Biology, working in research laboratories demonstrating that new biological technologies can be used as new art medium.
Roy Ascott, artist and researcher at the domain of Cybernetics and Telematicsis, is President of the Planetary Collegium and the DeTao Master of Technoetic Arts at the Beijing DeTao Masters Academy in Shanghai. He is a Doctor Honoris Causa of Ionian University, Corfu, Greece.
María Antonia González Valerio is a full-time professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). She works within the research line of ontology-aesthetics and the interdisciplinary line of arts, sciences and humanities, specifically in the field of art that uses bio-media.
Polona Tratnik, Ph.D., is Dean of Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Faculty and Research Institute for Humanities, Ljubljana, where she is a Professor and Head of Research as well. She is president of the Slovenian Society of Aesthetics (since 2011) and an Executive Committee Member of the International Association of Aesthetics.
Kathy High (USA) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator working with technology, art and biology. In her work, she considers living systems, empathy, animal sentience, and the social, political and ethical dilemmas of biotechnology and surrounding industries. High is Professor in the Arts, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Along with the speeches, the Interdisciplinary Conference “Taboo-Transgression-Transcendence in Art and Science” will feature two exhibitions: the first of these includes scientific presentations through posters and is organized by the Ionian University in conjunction with the A-Club of the Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University. The second one, “Body Esc”, aims to intends to induce a brief reflection on the meaning of the body in the digital and biotechnological age. It features works in various media, created by both Greek and international artists during various periods. Among others, there will be works by Andrew Carnie, Joseph Nechtaval, Kira O’ Reilly and Nicos Panayotopoulos. “Body Esc” will take place at the Municipal Gallery of Corfu, from 25 May to June 4, 2017.
Andrew Carnie is an artist and academic. He is currently part of the teaching team in Fine Arts at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, England. His artistic practice often involves a meaningful interaction with scientists in different fields as an early stage in the development of his work.
Joseph James Nechvatal is a post-conceptual digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses.
Kira O’Reilly is an artist based in Helsinki. She has been recently made supervisor of the M.A. in Ecology and Contemporary Performance in the University of Arts, Helsinki’s Theatre Academy (TeaK). Her practice stems from a background in visual arts, with an approach that is at times deliberately interdisciplinary or not. Her interests pertain to performance, biotechnological practices and writing, through which she examines theoretical reconfigurations concerning the body.
Nicos Panayotopoulos is a photographer as well as a photography theorist and critic. He has exhibited both in Greece and abroad. He joined the Photography Department of the Technological Educational Institute of Athens, in 1986 from which he retired as a Professor of Art Photography in 2012. Recently, he was affiliated with the department of Visual and Applied Arts, University of Western Macedonia.
Committees:
Co-ordinating committee: Roy Ascott, Adam Zaretzky, Dalila Honorato, Leigh Landy, Melentie Pandilovski, Stelarc, Polona Tratnik, Andreas Floros.
Scientific and Artistic Committee: Greg Anderson, Stavros Vlizos, Marco Maria Gazzano, Andreas Giannakoulopoulos, Gina Giotaki, Luis Graça, Renata Dalianoudi, Iannis Zannos, Adam Zaretsky, Dalila Honorato, Ioannis Kanarakis, Nikolaos Kanellopoulos, Assimina Kaniari, Andrew Carnie, Catherine Karousos, Apostolos Loufopoulos, Yorgos Maniatis, Polyxeni Mantzou, Irini Mavrommati, Marta de Menezes, Marc Mercier, Xenophon Bitsikas, Brenda Murphy, Antonia Plerou, Olga Pombo, Avi Rosen, Irini Stathi, Marianna Strapatsakis, Polona Tratnik, Tania Tsiridou, Maria Chalkou, Andreas Floros, Elena Chamalidi, Dimitris Charitos, Anna Chatziyannakis.
Organizing Committee: Dalila Honorato, Andreas Giannakoulopoulos, Tania Tsiridou, Michalis Panagopoulos, Maria Chalkou, Yorgos Drosos, Katerina Kanellopoulou, Marina Papasotiriou, Maria Sdrolia.
Official website: http://avarts.ionio.gr/ttt/
1st Summer School on Hybrid Arts
Corfu, May 29th -June 11th 2017
The Department of Audiovisual Arts organizes the 1st Summer School in Hybrid Arts. The field of Hybrid Arts is broad, ranging from Interactive Performance to Bioart, and is at the cutting edge of the latest developments in both technology and artistic creation. The invited speakers and participants derive from an international range of fields and areas.
The program is conducted in English and spreads to two separate weeks of courses, from May 29th to June 11th: Brain Imaging, Internet Art, Introduction to Hybrid Arts, Radio Art, Semiotics of the Uncanny, Algorithmic Composition, Art based Research Methodology, Corporeality in Intermedial Performance, Creative Coding, Location based Storytelling, and Site Specific Art. The program also includes invited speakers and artists such as Pauline Brooks, Mary Maggic, Adam Zaretsky and Leigh Landy.
Pauline Brooks is a Reader in Dance Performance and Pedagogy and Associate Dean for Quality in the Faculty of Education, Community & Leisure at Liverpool John Moores University. Over the last the years, her research has involved collaboration in intermedial and telematic performance with colleagues in dance and music in USA, UK and Europe.
Mary Maggic is an artist and biohacker working at the intersection of biotechnology and civil disobedience. Maggic’s most recent projects Open Source Estrogen and Estrofem! Lab generate DIY protocols for the extraction and detection of estrogen hormone from bodies and environments, demonstrating its micro-performativity and potential for mutagenesis, i.e. gender-hacking.
Adam Zaretsky, Ph.D. is a Wet-Lab Art Practitioner mixing Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Body Performance and Gastronomy. His art practice focuses on an array of legal, ethical, social and libidinal implications of biotechnological materials and methods with a focus on transgenic humans. He is currently a Visiting Professor of Media Arts in the School of Communication and the Arts at Marist College.
Leigh Landy is a composer and musicologist. He holds a Research Chair at De Montfort University where he directs the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre. Landy’s compositions include several works for video, dance and theatre. He is editor of the international journal ‘Organised Sound’ (Cambridge University Press) and author of over 100 articles and seven books.
Organizing Committee
Chairman: Michael Panagopoulos
Head of program design: Dalila Honorato
Members: Ioannis Deligiannis, Marily Argirokastriti, Dana Papachristou
Οfficial website: http://avarts.ionio.gr/summer/