We would like to thank both Eugenio Tisselli and Helen Varley Jamieson who have so brilliantly kicked off this month's discussion on empyre, inquiring into creativity as a social ontology. The debate has been subtle and intense and revealed a number of fascinating insights around the theme. I hope that Eugenio and Helen might continue to contribute further to this discussion as it evolves.
We would now like to welcome two further colleagues for Week 2 of empyre's dicussion. James Leach (UK) and Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli (USA/UK/Italy). We have asked them to discuss how creativity can enable people and communities through the examples of their research. James's work has focused on how creative and social practices involve not only processes of making and exchange but also the forging of identities, both collective and individual. Kriss's research and writing has looked at how artists' work is publicly encountered and the affects this has on the work, the artist and the audience. Her most recent publication is "Shadowed by Images: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and the Art of Surveillance". James Leach (UK): James Leach is a Social Anthropologist. His areas of interest centre on creativity, innovation, intellectual property and on knowledge exchange across cultures, disciplines and contexts. Building on long term fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, recent work has drawn understandings and relationships from that region into research on free software, interdisciplinary collaborations, the design of technological objects and choreography. James is currently Professor and Head of Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli (USA/UK/Italy): Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli is an Associate Professor at the University of Edinburgh in Film Studies. She is the author of The Unmaking of Fascist Aesthetics, and has published articles on digital and performance art, modernism, feminism, nationalism, representations of violence and post-socialist cinema. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled Mythopoetic Cinema at The Margins of Europe. This July edition of empyre "Creativity as a social ontology" is moderated by Simon Biggs (UK/Aus), edinburgh college of art. Simon Biggs s.bi...@eca.ac.uk si...@littlepig.org.uk Skype: simonbiggsuk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ Research Professor edinburgh college of art http://www.eca.ac.uk/ Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice http://www.elmcip.net/ Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
