[dorkbottoronto-announce] Reminder: Dorkbot-Toronto Meeting no. II (Thursday, April 14th, 7:00 PM)

[dorkbot-toronto]

ANNOUNCEMENT:

The next Dorkbot-Toronto meeting will take place at InterAccess on 
Thursday, April 14th at 7:00 PM.

( Please forward this message wildly )

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PRESENTERS & PRESENTATIONS include:

Galen Scorer's Impossible Sky (http://www.galen.ca/art/sky)
Jessica Field and Shawna Reiter's An Allegory of Choice
Rob King's Locus (http://locus.e-mu.org)

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About DORKBOT

Dorkbot-Toronto  (T-bot), seeks to explore all uses of technology in the
development and discussion of art and creative exercise. It is meant to 
be
an informal and collaborative environment where anyone can drop in, 
listen
to presentations, and meet others for future collaborations. We invite
people across all disciplines and skill levels to attend and explore 
ideas
of hybridization, as well as perform open investigations into 
electronics
and code.

Meetings are always free and open to the public.

For more information or to join the T-bot mailing list, visit
<http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbottoronto> or email
<dorkbottoronto at dorkbot.org>.

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LOCATION

InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre is located in suite #444  in 
the 401 Richmond
Street West complex (at Spadina & Richmond). For more information about 
InterAccess please visit
www.interaccess.org.

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BIOGRAPHIES and PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS

Galen Scorer

Galen Scorer's work sits on the boundaries of technological and artistic
experimentation. He is interested in combined electronic disciplines 
from
interactive video, network art, electronics, biosensors, photography and
video art.

He has worked independently for five years on a broad range of 
commercial
projects including web design, programming, interactive museum 
exhibits, and
as an advisor and collaborator to several media artists.

He has taught in many capacities at Ryerson University and Ontario 
College
of Art and Design. Currently he is an instructor of New Media at Ryerson
University. Galen is also the Research & Technology Manager for the 
Canadian
Film Centres Habitat New Media Lab where he is responsible for 
overseeing
the research arm of Habitat and the technology infrastructure.

His interests in research and art practice focus on the development of 
tools
and systems to expand the notion of physical space and human 
interaction. By
situating the body in reference to our environment through networked and
digital technologies, he investigates the blurring lines of virtual and
physical landscapes and the ways in which our bodies inhabit those 
spaces.
In order to construct these experiences and systems he looks towards the
poetics of nature and human experience as ways in which to begin. In 
order
to explore these ideas he helped form a research group at Ryerson 
University
called Synth/ops, which investigates artistic uses of broadband 
networks.

The Impossible Sky
In collaboration with Tim Jackson, Habitat New Media Lab, Synthops 
Media Lab
http://www.galen.ca/art/sky

An indeterminate number of live web cameras point towards the sky. The
collective presence of all these images are aggregated together into an
additive composite.  While it is possible to distinguish individual
characteristics from each location the composite becomes a hybrid of all
sky— the impossible sky.

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Jessica Field

Jessica Field’s work primarily focuses on creating a parallel between 
the artificial intelligence of machines to that of human behaviour when 
dealing with changing environments. She explores these concepts using 
robotic technology, computers and microcontrollers. She has exhibited 
at Inter/access in a show called Feedback and at the 401 Gallery in a 
group show called Body and Sense. Both galleries are located in 
Toronto. Her work has also been part of the McLuhan International 
Festival of the Future. Jessica has done performance work using a robot 
entitled, Stumbling Robot. It is a five foot machine that roams 
unattended in public spaces, such as the Pickering Town Centre and 
Pickering Artfest. Jessica Field’s work in electronics has led to her 
teaching children in the basic principles of robotics at the Children’s 
Technology Workshop, as well as adult beginner courses in electronics 
at Inter/Access. Jessica majored in new media at the Ontario College of 
Art and Design (OCAD) in Toronto and has recently received an 
honourable mention in Vida Life 7.0 Art and Artificial Life 
International Competition.

Shawna Reiter

Shawna Reiter is a puppet Artist who's practice focuses on the 
imitation of life, using movement and the participation of the viewer 
to create the illusion of a living entity. She has preformed at the 
Ontario College of Art and Design, the O'Leary School of Drama and 
shown at The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington. Shawna majored in 
Sculpture Installation at the Ontario College of Art and Design 
(Toronto) where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts (2004) Since 
Graduating she has had the opportunity to collaborate with other 
artists in her field to create puppet productions for both film and 
live performance.

An Allegory of Choice

An Allegory of Choice will use puppetry as an illustration of the 
influences of choice and how this affects the expression of identity. A 
puppet is an object that is brought to life through movement by the 
puppeteer, and is dependent on the audience's empathy to allow the 
puppet to embody its character. The characters in the installation all 
share the desire to fulfill this definition. When a puppet moves in 
front of the audience, the puppet is what it is intended to be. When 
the puppet is not moving, it exists as merely the potential of what it 
could be. Motion is the manner through which a puppet expresses its 
character, and only while the puppet is moving can it affirm its 
identity. In order to move, the character must rely on something 
outside of itself, the puppeteer. The character must choose how it is 
going to express itself through movement. Therefore, the viewer’s 
perception of the puppet creates its identity and its choice may affect 
how much attention it receives based on its reception by the audience.

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Rob King

Rob King is an artist, programmer, and designer based in Toronto.  
Working
primarily in web and software art, his areas of exploration include 
social
networking software, alternative interfaces, emergent systems, and the
possibilities of wireless and ubiquitous technologies.

Locus

Locus:ESI (http://locus.e-mu.org) is an artwork, and a social 
experiment.
It is a instant messaging program that analyzes the messages you send 
and
receive to automatically try and find likenesses between the different
people that you talk to online.  Users can then see what links Locus has
found between people in a number of factual and abstract visualizations.

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http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbottoronto
dorkbottoronto at dorkbot.org