Documentation
“Obsolete Innovations: The Case of Ze Frank’s Lost Digital Projects” – Chris van der Vegt
In his book Northern Sparks (2022), Micheal Century investigates the intersection of art, technology and policy in Canada from 1967 to 1992. One of Century’s central claims is that artists played a critical role in exploring the potential of new technologies during this period (5). Century writes that the artists not only experimented…
Read more“What Do We Mean When We Say ‘Metaverse’?” – Chris van der Vegt
Something that came up repeatedly in our discussion on technological imaginaire was the idea of an immersive virtual world or a ‘Metaverse’. ‘Metaverse’ is the name of a product currently in development by Meta, the company previously known as Facebook. At the same time as Meta announced its rebranding at Connect 2021, the…
Read more“The Apparatgeist of VR and the Logic of Immersion” – Jingzhe Zhang
One of the many interesting things brought up by Frank Kessler and Imar de Vries in the seminar is the theory of Apparatgeist. Apparatgeist is a neologism coined by James Katz and Mark Aakhus (2002) based on their observation of parallel shifts in communication habits that came out of mobile phone adoption in different…
Read more“Countering a media imaginary” – Job Santé
In the first session of this year’s Transmission in Motion seminar (2022-2023) Prof. dr. Frank Kessler and Dr. Imar de Vries introduced and discussed the topic of media imaginaries, imaginary media and media imaginations (Kessler and de Vries 2022). This discussion made me think about the works of Nam June Paik. Paik, known…
Read more“Video Calling and Time Machines: Imaginary Media” – Pauline Munnich
Not too long ago, my friends and I were video calling, laughing about how we covered the three times of the day at the same time during our call. Meeting up, even if it is online, has currently become a bit of a feat for us, living on four different continents and in…
Read more“Leaving Omelas: Media archeology and science fiction” – Stepan Lastuvka
In the seminar titled “Media Imaginaries / Imaginary Media / Imaginations of Media,” the presenters Frank Kessler and Imar de Vries together reflect on how the three parts of the title interconnect and, in turn, shape the social conditions of the present-day media landscapes. Specifically, the presenters point out how the imaginations of media…
Read more[TO BE RESCHEDULED] Meet the Makers: Karen Palmer “How to Hack the Futures”
** This event has been canceled due to unforeseen circumstances and will be rescheduled in May 2023 or later. In this edition of Meet the Makers, Karen Palmer will be in conversation about her practice as storyteller from the future at the intersection of AI, Immersive Storytelling, Neuroscience and Bias. She will be in conversation…
Read moreMeet the Makers: Polymorf
In this edition of Meet the Makers, Polymorf will be in conversation about the making of their award winning installation Symbiosis. Symbiosis is a performative, multi-user and multisensory VR installation in which the human body is redesigned. It allows every participant to embody a post-human or even nonhuman reality: a completely symbiotic human-animal…
Read moreMeet the Makers: Roosje Klap / collectief ARK
Meet the Makers aims to facilitate meetings and conversations between academic researchers and students, and makers – such as artists, curators, dramaturges, designers, or other creative practitioners and professionals within the wider field of arts and culture. In this edition of Meet the Makers, Roosje Klap will be in conversation about the making of…
Read more“Collaboration and Dissensus in the Experimental Arts and Innovation Policy” – Michael Century (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Michael Century’s recently published book, Northern Sparks, offers an account of the intersecting histories of technological innovation, new media arts, and government/institutional policies in Canada from the 1960s to the early 1990s. This was a period when modernizing social and political energies mobilised both artistic invention and critical intervention in the emerging imaginaries of digital…
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