Dear all,          
Apologies for cross-posting.

Please find below the details of next week's CeRch seminar, the last of 2013: 

Détournement of applications as a creative tool (lecture/performance) - Brian Reffin Smith, Collège de ’Pataphysique, Paris 

 

Date: Tuesday, 10^th December, 2013 from 6:15 PM to 7:30 PM (GMT)
Location: Anatomy Museum Space, 6th Floor, King's College London (Strand campus)

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/campuslife/campuses/strand/Strand.aspx

 

Attendance is free and open to all, but registration is requested:

https://www.eventbrite.com/event/8348553749

The seminar will be followed by wine and festive nibbles.

 

All the best,

 

Valentina Asciutti

 

Abstract: The French word "Détournement", loosely translatable as hijacking, leading astray or appropriation, describes the sideways or "alt" use of computer applications outside their original fields: for example the use of medical imaging software to make movies, of spelling checkers to scramble text, or of fluid behaviour modelling software to make drawings. It is a two-way process and win-win situation, because "unauthorised" or simply crazy uses of apps can feed back ideas into their mainstream application as well as leading to creative splurges in other disciplines. Examples, some interactive, will be shown of hijacking computer software and iPad apps into areas of art, sound, text, cognitive psychology and because of the venue, anatomy (it is recommended not to eat before this seminar).

Bio: Brian Reffin Smith is a writer, artist, theoretician, zombie and musician. He has spent about 40 years teaching ideas of "détournement", using them for art and writing about them, and is a pioneer of computer based conceptual art. He won the very first Golden Nike (the 'Oscars' of computer art) at Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria and his art and text works are shown internationally. His fields of activity are computer-based art and general creativity, performance art, Zombie studies and 'Pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions. He is a book reviewer for Leonardo. He was for 25 years a French civil servant, as Professeur, Art et Informatique, in the École Nationale Supérieure d'Art, Bourges, France. He holds the Chair of Catachemistry and Speculative Metallurgy in the Paris-based Collège de 'Pataphysique, and lives in Berlin, Germany.