
Technoetics – transmedia art and the future
Roy Ascott’s GROUNDCOURSE Workshop @Xindanwei
Time: 2pm-4pm, Sunday, August 21st.
Language: English
Venue: Xindanwei, 50 Yongjia Rd.
Cost: 30 rmb/person, with fresh coffee and tea provided
Organizer: TTTT Media Arts Conference Shanghai, The Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth, Fudan University, Xindanwei
About The Event
A one-day update of the Groundcourse programme, as designed by Roy Ascott at the Ealing School of Art in London, and Ipswich School of Art, during the 1960s.
The Groundcourse values a syncretic approach to creativity, combining analogue and digital structures and systems, and communication and construction in both physical space and cyberspace.
The Project is about:
personal identity
the multiple self,
flexible mind
group participation
inter-dependence
celebration of difference
creative community
art as organism,
social cybernetics
The Method foregrounds:
process and system
behaviour
questioning pre-conceptions
challenging artistic conventions
The Attitude involves adaptation to:
behavioural constraints
environmental changes
limitation of tools and materials
deadlines
communicative barriers
The Production involves the creation of :
five-person groups
mind-maps (personal model of the human being )
calibrators (indicating required adaptations to changing conditions)
ordered entities (material and conceptual)
The Outcomes augment:
self-realization
inter-personal sensibility
cultural awareness
innovative thought
adaptive skills
social connectivity
ONE-DAY PROGRAMME
Introduction: Aims and Objectives of the workshop.
Lecture: Illustrated Introduction to the Groundcourse historically and its contemporary relevance.
Group Discussion.
Lecture: Approaches to modeling mind and reality; mapping behaviour and personality; identifying means and methods in emergent art practice.
Group Discussion.
Practice: design of mind-maps and personal calibrators
Formation: pentagonal groups (randomly selected).
Practice: playing out limitations of behaviour within the group in realization of stated objective.
Practice: consolidation and presentation of the resultant ordered entities.
Group Discussion: limitations, possibilities, and future applications.
Summation. Workshop staff.
About Roy Ascott
Roy Ascott studied Fine Art at King’s College, University of Durham (now Newcastle University) under Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton, and Art History under Lawrence Gowing and Quentin Bell from 1955-59. He established the radical Groundcourse at Ealing Art College, which he subsequently established at Ipswich Civic College, in Suffolk. Notable alumni of the Groundcourse include Brian Eno, Pete Townshend,Stephen Willats,[3] and Michael English.
He taught in London (Ealing), and was a visiting lecturer at other London art schools throughout the 1960s. Then briefly was President of Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, before moving to California as Vice-President and Dean of San Francisco Art Institute, during the 1970s. He was Professor for Communications Theory at the University of Applied Arts Viennaduring the 1980s, and Professor of Technoetic Arts at the University of Wales, Newport in the 1990s.
He has advised new media arts organizations in Brazil, Japan, Korea, Europe and North America, as well as UNESCO, and since 2000 has been a Visiting Professor in Design/Media Artat the UCLA School of the Arts. He is the founding editor of Technoetic Arts, journal of speculative research, and an Honorary Editor of Leonardo Journal. Ascott was an International Commissioner for the XLII Venice Biennale of 1986 (Planetary Network and Laboratorio Ubiqua).
He is the founding president of the Planetary Collegium an advanced research center which he set up in 2003 at the University of Plymouth, UK, where he is Professor of Technoetic Arts. The Collegium currently has nodes (linked centers) in Zurich, and Milan.
The Workshop is part of Transcultural Tendencies | Transmedial Transactions, an International Research Conference on Art, Technology and Consciousness presented by Shanghai Institute of Visual Art [Fudan University] together with Planetary Collegium [University of Plymouth].

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As a current member of the Planetary Collegium, what do i need to do to register?