Initial description for workshop at agis – arbeitsgruppe grafische datenverarbeitung und interaktive systeme at uni-bremen – 14-24 February 2004
*Brief Description*:
The keywords of the title form the dynamic core to a wide-ranging workshop/seminar that explores the fundamentals of creativity from a socially aware and personally-centered perspective. It provides an open platform for a critical exploration of a wide variety of practical and theoretical technological implementations especially focusing on the possibilities of networks. Moving beyond a simple examination of product and process, it sets a precedent for an engaged creative praxis that is energized by principled and holistic understanding.
*Participant Profile*:
Because of an engaged human approach, it is ideal for students working in any discipline; it is designed to draw in a wide range of students, from those working with more ‘traditional’ art materials all the way to programmers and engineers. It is also extremely useful to producers, curators, managers and others who are dealing with contemporary landscapes of technological implementation and cultural production. Specific technical knowledge is NOT necessary, as many of the topics touched upon are prerequisites to empowered and critical use of any technology. However, strong technical knowledge-bases are welcome! A willingness to engage with others in open discussion and sharing of skill-sets is desirable. An ability to focus attention and concentration is also necessary.
*Points to consider*:
— highly adaptable to local infrastructures, individual knowledge- and skill-bases, and local creative needs
— facilitates deep dialogue on local social/cultural/technical issues along with other issues relevant to participants
— establishes a broad-ranging, inspiring, and critical context for understanding the dynamic intersection of technology and art and for engaging a wide variety of technologies
— provides a powerful context for self-development and development of collaborative activities by presenting and subsequently exercising fundamental skills and awareness
— provides a comfortable discursive space to explore a wide range of historical and contemporary developments of art and science
— maps out connections between creative processes and
— develops a deeper praxis-based starting-point for participants, helping them identify their own creative sources and tendencies
— self-generating project implementations
— involves practice-based exercises to develop personal creative focus
— examines a wide range of technical issues beginning from a fundamental definition of technology through to absolutely contemporary technological developments that affect socio-political and cultural scenarios
— provides a supportive atmosphere for rapid collective knowledge-building and collaborative sharing
— presents a highly-developed model for comprehending the complexities of human presence and creative action in the contemporary world
*Local Infrastructural Requirements*:
While a basic internet connection is assumed, other additional items would include several networked computers (Mac, PC or Linux), a humane and comfortable space for discussion with a white board or equivalent – preferably a space away from the computers, a data projector, good chairs!
Other than these basic requirements, additional items that could be used include a sound system, mixers, microphones, video/web cams, multiple high-speed connections, streaming/file/web/php servers, wifi networks, blue-tooth-enabled devices, software supporting audio, video, text, image production, cooking facilities,
*Bio*:
As an active network-builder with wide-ranging international experience in engineering, hard science, and the arts, Hopkins practices a nomadic form of teaching that spans many countries and situations. Formal teaching engagements — more than 100 workshop, lectures, and seminars in the last ten years — have taken place in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, England, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Austria, Sweden, Russia, and the USA. Through an extensive personal network of dialectic human connections and sheer spontaneous presence, he is never far away from some kind of dialogue. Informal collaborative teaching/learning takes place anywhere and anytime. During the past year, he streamed live network-based media performances to Berlin, Dresden, Potsdam, and Kiel, Germany; Winnipeg, Canada; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Strasbourg, France; New York City, and Riga, Latvia among other places. Current activities focus more on facilitation of distributed network congregations rather that the production of cultural spectacle and artifact. With a web-presence that dates back to a few months after the appearance of the W3 and a dynamic network practice going back almost two decades, the neoscenes web space re-presents many previous creative activities like so much dead meat. Take a tour of the slaughterhouse. _https://neoscenes.net_.
A native of Anchorage, Alaska, Hopkins has experienced over 14 minutes of Totality under the darkened skies of Solar Eclipse. Presently as artist-in-residence at the Sibelius Academy’s Center for Music and Technology in Helsinki, Finland, he is developing a comprehensive model under the title: “The Importance of Human Connection, Energy Exchange, and Interaction in Networks: A Model of Energized Presence.”