Art Research Communication

From the archives: Designer Bodies

In 2004, Iliyana Nedkova and Chris Byrne organised Designer Bodies, a science and art season at venues across Edinburgh, Scotland featuring a symposium, an exhibition, and workshops. Scientists, writers, curators, artists and young people unravelled the aesthetics, ethics and future of human genetics.

The Designer Bodies exhibition at Stills gallery opened a pathway to the future of genetics through artworks by four outstanding Scottish artists: Christine Borland, Gina Czarnecki, Jacqueline Donachie and Gair Dunlop. The international symposium Designer Bodies: Towards the Posthuman Condition, held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, presented the artists’ research alongside eminent psychologists, microbiologists, curators, writers and artists including Bergit Arends, Alan Bleakley, Bronac Ferran, Jens Hauser, Steve Kurtz, Warren Neidich and Keith Skene.

For highlights from Designer Bodies follow this link.

From the archives: Chris’s Home Page

ARC Co-director Chris Byrne has finally got round to putting his old web site back online. The site comprises a number of online projects, and some documentation of offline projects from 1997-99. There are also some critical texts which were published from 1993-99. One can see an influence from e-mail and early computer aesthetics: note the ‘old skool’ BBS ASCII art look of many of the pages. The main site was given a ‘refresh’ in late 1999, which is the look it sports now.

Enjoy this trip down memory lane…

Ambit Wiki

Several people have asked how to update or add their details to the ‘Ambit members’ section of the web site. In response, and in the spirit of open source and open networks, there is now an Ambit Wiki which Ambit members can contribute to.

www.a-r-c.org.uk/ambit/wiki

This has taken the place of the old members’ listing, which has become rather outdated. Ambit members can add and edit their own content to the Wiki. Hopefully the Ambit Wiki can develop into a useful resource.

What is a Wiki? It’s a collectively authored and edited web site. Perhaps the most famous example is Wikipedia, an open, multi-authored web Encyclopaedia:

www.wikipedia.org

Taytographies now online

ARC announces the online publication of esteemed Edinburgh art critique / poetic license freesheet Taytographies.

M. Tayto et M. Tayto are currently on a 12-month research carribean cruise funded by Norwegians. As acting editors we have tayttached a special ‘new media’ edition which we have reanimated Hayes Argot Pit. It is compatible with Spectrum 16K RAM avec microdrive and Kempston joyfulstick. This comes with a free peace planner and is more pro-gay hate sit.

Download from www.a-r-c.org.uk/tayto

Matt Roy et Tom Arty, Carlingue n.5 train à grande vitesse, entre Warsawza et Monnaco

New home for ambit

ambit (mbt) n.
1. An external boundary; a circuit.
2. Sphere or scope. See Synonyms at range.
3. An area in which something acts or operates.

ambit, a mailing list for the media arts in Scotland, run by Chris Byrne and Beverley Hood, and facilitated by Art Research Communication

www.a-r-c.org.uk/ambit

As a subscriber to this list you can discuss topics and make announcements relating to the development of new art forms employing electronic or media technologies; and issues relating to media art, both in Scotland and internationally. This could include projects; events; exhibitions; funding; collaboration; conferences; education; proposals; organisations; publications. It is also hoped that projects will be instigated via the list.

Beverley Hood and Chris Byrne started up ambit in 2001 to help practitioners in media arts in Scotland and further afield to contact each other, and discuss issues of common interest. To continue the spirit of the network as a community, the list and web site have moved to a new server, run by ARC. Now ambit members can benefit from an improved technical infrastructure which should guarantee an enhanced level of service, with a web interface for subscribing/unsubscribing, and a fully searchable web archive.

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