Details below - please contact CCP ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) if you'd like to receive a brochure (and you're not already receiving CCP mail), and kindly circulate this email among friends, students, and colleagues. Thanks, Daniel ||| sensorama ||| Centre for Contemporary Photography 2000 Monthly Lecture Series June - November 2000 Monday Nights at 6.30 pm 5 June Cathryn Vasseleu 10 July Nikos Papastergiadis 7 August Blair French 4 September Critical Immersion Panel 7 October Useby Forum 6 November Angela Ndalianis Single Tickets. $7 / $5 Season Tickets. $30 / $20 Prices are inclusive of GST Seats are genuinely limited so book early to avoid disappointment 'Sensorama Simulator' was the name that inventor Morton Heilig gave to an arcade device, patented in 1962, which used a combination of non-computerised visual output, real vibrations and smells to recreate a motorcycle ride. Complete with wind and wafting perfumes, it was arguably one of the first virtual reality systems. In the Sensorama 2000 monthly lectures at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, four keynote speakers present papers that in various ways reflect on our immersion in visual worlds. Catherine Vasseleu, Nikos Papastergiadis, Blair French, and Angela Ndalianis, respectively address themes of virtual light, the city, photogenic images, and the 'magic' of filmic special effects. In addition, a 'critical immersion' panel with Karen Burns, Justin Clemens and Lara Travis will discuss exhibitions from the current program at CCP, contemplating the impact of sensual immersion upon notions of critical distance. ||||| Cathryn Vasseleu. 5 june 6.30 pm What is Virtual Light? 'What is Virtual Light' addresses the implications of the production of 3D animation using digitally simulated, photorealistic lighting effects. Vasseleu argues that the algorithmic formulation of the actions of optical phenomena and the development of software that allows their automatic translation into a 'virtual image' entails a change in thinking about the role of lighting in relation to the making of images. Our contemporary regard for the optical and electromagnetic properties of light will be considered with reference to some historical precedents - namely the basic principles of film lighting, the place of simulation in Enlightenment cosmology, and the use of geometric optics in the quattrocento pictorial representation of space. In the process, the light of synthetic realism will be distinguished from the 'reality effects' of both natural and artificial illumination. Cathryn Vasseleu has a five-year Australian Research Council fellowship at the University of Technology, Sydney, and is the author of _Textures of Light: Vision and Touch in Irigaray, Levinas and Merleau-Ponty_ (Routledge, 1998). ||||| Nikos Papastergiadis. 10 july 6.30 pm Traces Left in Cities Cities have been a constant fascination for artists, and the vision of city life provided by artists has in turn captured the attention of architects and urbanists. In this presentation, Papastergiadis will discuss the relationship between art, architecture and urbanism and the identification of zones of 'abandonment'. He is particularly interested in spaces that exist within cities which no longer function in the way they were intended.These forgotten, bypassed and 'parafunctional' spaces have a semi-defined quality which both bears the trace of past uses and begs for new possibilities. Nikos Papastergiadis is Simon Fellow at the University of Manchester and Honourary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. His most recent book is _The Turbulence of Migration_ (Polity Press, 2000) and he is also the editor of _What John Berger Saw (Canberra School of Art Gallery, 2000). He has edited a number of Australian and British art journals Arena, Annotations, Photofile, Random Access, and Third Text. ||||| Blair French. 7 august 6.30 pm The Photogenic Image Australian art is inhabited as never before by the photographic image in a variety of mimetic, transcriptive guises. With Rosemary Laing and Anne Zahalka as exemplary artists, this paper investigates the manner in which contemporary cultural conditions may be critically staged, pictured, presenced and most importantly themselves constructed within the photographic image. French considers how photographic images are formed within a dynamic relationship between a concentrated photographic visuality and aspects of social and material life. He argues that a progressive colonisation of social space by the photographic image can be treated productively as both a determining condition and a critical subject of contemporary Australian art. Blair French is a writer and curator based in Sydney. He edited _Photo Files: An Australian Photography Reader_ (Power Publications and Australian Centre for Photography, 1999), and is presently completing a PhD at the University of Sydney on the photographic image in contemporary Australian art. French is curating 'Perfect Strangers' at the CCP in August 2000 and recently curated 'Agency' at the Australian Centre for Photography as part of Perspecta 1999. ||||| Panel Session. 4 september 6.30 pm Critical Immersion Panel Karen Burns, Justin Clemens and Lara Travis. Three invited speakers will directly address exhibitions at CCP that encourage viewers to sensually immerse themselves in other spatial and operative worlds. Kenneth Pleban's large-scale architectural spaces and Larissa Hjorth's 'Smell Cinema' open up a contemplation of the loss of critical distance that such a viewing experience involves. Karen Burns teaches Creative Writing and Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. She recently completed her PhD on C19th urban tourism and new media, and has published essays in the journal Assemblage and the anthologies Desiring Practices and Postcolonial Spaces. Justin Clemens lectures in Literary and Communication Studies at Deakin University. He has published and lectured extensively on literature, art, craft and design. He recently published a book of poems entitled Ten Thousand Fcuking Monkies (Workshop 3000, 1999). Lara Travis is a Melbourne writer and critic. She regularly writes catalogue essays as well as critical articles and reviews for publications including Australian Art Collector, Broadsheet, and Like, Art Magazine. ||||| Useby Forum. 6 october 11 AM - 4 pm Coordinated by Danny Huppatz. USEby is a cultural exchange project inaugurating a series of international exhibitions and events that explore the burgeoning phenomenon of artist-run and independent galleries, organisations and initiatives throughout the Asia Pacific Region. Featuring local, interstate and international speakers, the USEby forum will address the dynamic, unstable and transitory nature of contemporary art-making across diverse geographical and institutional zones. The forum accompanies a major international exhibition held across both CCP and 200 Gertrude Street, featuring artists from Auckland, Bangkok, Christchurch, Hong Kong, Manilla, Melbourne, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. Danny Huppatz teaches Art History at Swinburne University's National School of Design and is currently completing a PhD on contemporary art in Hong Kong. ||||| Angela Ndalianis. 6 november 6.30 pm Special Effects, Magic and Baroque Sensations. Late-twentieth century entertainment spectacles like blockbuster 'effects films' and theme park attractions remediate baroque formal properties traditionally associated with the seventeenth century. In addition to the principle of virtuosity, current entertainment spectacles bring to maturity two interrelated features of the baroque: an innovative, scientific attitude towards the spectacle's spatial construction, and the seemingly contrary demand to extract states of 'irrational' amazement from the audience. A relationship is sealed between representation and spectator, intent on leaving the spectator in a state of wonder both at the *hyperrealistic* status and the technical mastery that lies behind the representation. With this antithetical relationship in mind, Ndalianis explores the magical and baroque dimensions of contemporary entertainment media. Angela Ndalianis is Senior Lecturer in Cinema and New Media in the Cinema Studies Program at the University of Melbourne. She is currently completing a book that explores the relationship between contemporary entertainment experiences and the baroque. Daniel Palmer Public Programs Coordinator Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) 205 Johnston Street Fitzroy VIC 3065 AUSTRALIA email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] website: http://www.cinemedia.net/CCP telephone +61 3 9417 1549 facsimile +61 3 9417 1605 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- hothouse: media arts discussion and action at the threshold of technology and the 21st Century MANIFESTO 2nd - 12th November 1999 Experimenta Media Arts www.experimenta.org
