Abstract (Long paper)

Keywords: Telematic, urban-screen, intervention, ludic, participatory art, play telepresent, performance, interaction, networked.

This paper examines the cultural and political implications of and for the proliferation of public urban screens appearing in cities around the world. Through a contextual and cultural study of cities and urban communities, informed by the work of Richard Sennett, Lucy Lippard and Scott McQuire et al., the paper asks what the opportunities are for creativity, intervention and public cohesion through these screens? This paper presents a case study of the authors/artist’s practice-based research project “Occupy the Screen” 2014 for Connecting Cities Berlin and Riga 2014 European Capital of Culture. Using a practice-based methodology the authors utilise a method which maps the five elements of play, as defined by Hans Scheuerl in 1965 to measure open and closed systems in order to develop a framework for artists and curators to maximise engagement with public audiences through play.

• Prof. Paul Sermon is Professor of Visual Communication at the University of Brighton, UK. He has developed a series of celebrated interactive telematic art installations that have received international acclaim. Paul was previously Professor of Creative Technology at the University of Salford and has worked for over twenty years as an active academic researcher and creative practitioner, primarily in the field of interactive media arts. Having worked under the visionary cybernetic artist Professor Roy Ascott as an undergraduate Fine Art student at the Newport School of Fine Art in the mid 1980s, Paul Sermon went on to establish himself as a leading pioneer of interactive media art, winning the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Linz, Austria, shortly after completing his MFA at the University of Reading in 1991. An accolade that then took Paul to Finland in the early 1990’s to develop one of the most ground breaking telepresent video installations of his career Telematic Dreaming in 1992. paulsermon.org
• Dr Charlotte Gould has developed a number of interactive environments for urban screens. She is currently developing location specific work in which the user becomes an active participant in the narrative and explores methods of user driven content. She graduated with a BA Honours Degree in Graphic Design from Chelsea School of Art in
  1990 and was awarded an MA in Creative Technology from the University of Salford in 2003. Charlotte Gould is a Principle Lecturer and Academic Programme Leader for Visual Communication at the University of Brighton. charlottegould.org

Full Text (PDF) p. 154-161