[ISEA2011] Panel: Mark-David Hos­ale (moderator) – The Volatility and Stability of WorldMaking as Techné

Panel Statement

Chair Per­son: Mark-David Hos­ale
Pre­sen­ters: Roy As­cott, Jerome De­cock, Mar­cos Novak, Al­berto De Campo & Sana Mur­rani

The term techné is an an­cient philo­soph­i­cal con­cept that was de­bated by philoso­phers such as Xenophon and Plato, as well as more con­tem­po­rary philoso­phers such as Mar­tin Hei­deg­ger and Félix Guat­tari. In sim­pli­fied terms techné con­cerns the art and craft of mak­ing. In par­tic­u­lar the dis­cus­sion of techné is not only con­cerned with what is made, but how and why it is made. The think­ing of art prac­tices (music, art, and ar­chi­tec­ture) as a kind of World­Mak­ing refers to a techné that is seek­ing to ex­plore art-con­cepts as ex­pres­sive al­ter­na­tive re­al­i­ties through the de­vel­op­ment of self-re­flex­ive and in­ter­nally con­sis­tent art-worlds. The Volatil­ity and Sta­bil­ity of World­Mak­ing as Techné panel dis­cus­sion will focus on the in­volve­ment of the tech­nol­ogy of World­Mak­ing in par­tic­i­pa­tory art prac­tice. Such prac­tice can be found in all areas of art, how­ever, the ones under scrutiny for this par­tic­u­lar panel are: in­ter­ac­tive, gen­er­a­tive, pros­thetic art, ar­chi­tec­ture and music prac­tices that de­pend on the par­tic­i­pa­tion of ob­servers for their vi­tal­ity and de­vel­op­ment. The panel will chal­lenge the level of in­volve­ment and in­te­gra­tion of the ob­server within the gen­er­a­tive praxis in a techno­sci­en­tific agenda.

  • Dr. Mark­David Hos­ale is a media artist and com­poser. Mark­David holds a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Tech­nol­ogy from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia; Mark­David cur­rently holds a po­si­tion as an As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor in Dig­i­tal Media in the Fine Arts Fac­ulty of York Uni­ver­sity, Toronto, On­tario, Canada. Mark­David has had works ex­hib­ited and per­formed in­ter­na­tion­ally works in media arts and music at con­fer­ences, uni­ver­si­ties, and fes­ti­vals and has given lec­tures and taught in­ter­na­tion­ally at in­sti­tu­tions in Den­mark, The Nether­lands, Nor­way, and the United States. Mark­David’s in­ter­ests are in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary, but the con­nect­ing tis­sue comes from ap­proach­ing art and music using non­lin­ear rep­re­sen­ta­tions of in­for­ma­tion, time, and space. An­other im­por­tant focus is ex­plo­ration of the con­nec­tion be­tween the phys­i­cal and the vir­tual world. Whether as part of an in­stal­la­tion or per­for­mance work, the vir­tual spaces he cre­ates are tech­no­log­i­cally trans­par­ent, so­phis­ti­cated and vir­tu­osic, as well as in­tu­itive to ex­pe­ri­ence and use.