Leonardo Art, Science and Technology Lecture Series 2015 丨Towards Participation in Art
Lecturer: Rudolf Frieling
Time: 2015.12.13 15:00-17:00
Venue: Chronus Art Center (Building 18, No 50 Moganshan Road, Shanghai)
Language: English with Chinese translation
translator:Rachel Huang
Organizer: Chronus Art Center, CAFA, CAFA School of Experimental Art, Leonardo/ISAST
Please click "link"to apply.
About the Lecture
Looking back at an already impressive history of participation in art, one encounters conceptual, performative, and political approaches that range from happenings, shared experiences, and performances to activists’ interventions, social practice, and technological communication events. Participation in art constitutes at least a direct dialogue between the artist and the public, in its most complex form it involves crowd-sourced processes that are only initiated by artists. This is not a discourse limited to media art but the field has advanced the discourse significantly.
Participatory art is nothing but a set of unused tools when no one participates. While one viewer might simply prefer to observe and contemplate others being active, the artistic experience is intrinsically linked to be personally involved and engaged in the very act of participation. After all, being seated in the theater's audience is radically different from being on stage. But why should we be on stage in the first place?
Acts of participation and situations of dialogical encounters are to be found in many contemporary museums today, and yet they do not possess intrinsic values. Who is talking to whom about what and in what way? What is being co-produced? To speak about the promise and poetics of participation in art today means thus to be aware and critical of its specific conditions, limitations, or hidden agendas. This talk will address these questions and concerns by discussing the experience of a range of participatory works in the Media Art collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
About the Lecturer
Rudolf Frieling received an M.A. from the Free University of Berlin and a Ph.D. from the University of Hildesheim, Germany and was appointed Curator of Media Arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2006. His curatorial projects include, among others, the online archive Media Art Net and major survey shows such as In Collaboration: Early Works from the Media Arts Collection (2008), The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now (2008) on the history of contemporary participatory practice and Stage Presence: Theatricality in Art and Media(2012) on the crossover between visual and performing arts. Frieling is also an Adjunct Professor at the California College of Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute. Prior to his tenure at SFMOMA, Frieling worked at ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany, as a curator and researcher. He lives and works in San Francisco.
About THE LEONARDO ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LECTURE SERIES
Co-organized by CAC and Leonardo/ISAST in collaboration with CAFA School of Experimental Artl, each installment of the series will feature renowned guest speakers from around the world on topics within the ever-expanding scope of Art/Science. CAC and its partner institutions will provide the venues for the events.
About Leonardo
Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST) serves the global network of thinkers and practitioners working in the realms where art, science and the humanities connect. Since its beginnings nearly 50 years ago, Leonardo has fostered and supported the work of artists, scientists and scholars dedicated to breaking down the barriers that often separate fields of endeavor. Today, Leonardo/ISAST continues its leadership in cross-disciplinary creativity through the publication of content on evolving platforms (in collaboration with the MIT Press); the presentation of events, residencies and art/science projects; and other programs designed to address the interests of the art/science/humanities community.
About Chronus Art Center
Established in 2013, Chronus Art Center (CAC) is China’s first nonprofit art organization dedicated to the presentation, research / creation and scholarship of media art. CAC with its exhibitions, residency-oriented fellowships, lectures and workshop programs and through its archiving and publishing initiatives, creates a multifaceted and vibrant platform for the discourse, production and dissemination of media art in a global context. CAC is positioned to advance artistic innovation and cultural awareness by critically engaging with media technologies that are transforming and reshaping contemporary experiences. CAC brings to the public awareness of the impending post-human reality and the resulting social and political implications by accentuating the dynamic synergy of art and science as a response to the challenges and opportunities that contemporary media society has given rise to.
