Panel Statement

This panel seeks to develop new dialogues in regard to high end research methodologies, cultural inquiry and representation in the increasingly immersive and pervasive field of MARart. The panel will scope the field of MARart, through the presentation and analysis of particular research outcomes, in order to develop criteria that can assess MARart’s production and position within the media arts. The panel will discuss strategies for hybridised research practice in an open platform that will scope current trends and exemplary models from a variety of approaches. Artistic practices in MARart will be discussed in order to locate new research paradigms that address issues including cultural absorption, post-biological identity, social codes and systems, mobile computing, commercialisation and intellectual property, with particular regard to the media art field. The recent rise of augmented reality as a technology for information data transfer has brought about many misunderstandings of the medium in regard to furthering cultural dialogues and understandings. Much of the potential for MARart to facilitate further understanding of both identity and consciousness through art has been undermined by media industry strategies that include the creation of arbitrary systems for short-term stimulation and entertainment within audiences. For MARart researchers this raises questions regarding whether MARart is seen as merely a ‘gimmick’, or an easy avenue for sensationalism, and how this issue can be addressed. Perhaps the problem is that many artists see MARart this way also, as a ‘trick’ or a part of virtual art or ervasive media. All art is virtual, a representation, a simulacra, and all work involving the body through tactile media can be argued to be pervasive. MARart is pervasive mixed reality by default. It is physical and virtual hypersurfaced content. This panel will discuss this with a socially orientated discourse that includes the aforementioned topics.

• Julian Stadon is a mixed reality media artist/researcher and PhD candidate at Curtin University of Technology. His transdisciplinary research has included time with Interface Cultures Linz, Sylgrut Centre, Salford University, HITLabNZ, The Australian Centre for Virtual Art, The Fogscreen Centre, The Banff New Media Institute, CIA Studios, Collaborative Research in Art Science and Humanity (CRASH), The Australia Council and Graz University of Technology. He has recently exhibited at Ars Electronica, Translife: International Triennial of New Media Art, Decode/Recode and the Perth International Art Festival. Along with his research, which is regularly published and presented internationally, Stadon lectures in the School of Design and Art and the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts at Curtin University. Previously he has lectured at The School of Interactive Digital Design, at Murdoch University and the SAE/Qantm Institute, Perth. He is also the director of <dorkbotperth>_ and has organised conferences including The Media Arts Scoping Study, Re:live: The Third International Conference on Media Art History, The Leonardo Educational Forum @ Re:live, and The First International Conference on Transdisciplinary Imaging at the Intersections of Art Science and Culture. He has also been involved as a program and panel chair for the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality for the last 5 years. Recently Stadon has initiated the MARart Research Node, to be launched in conjunction with this panel. He is currently completing a PhD in ‘post-biological identity constructs in real time mixed reality data transfer systems art.’ His thesis explores the evolving field of mixed reality data transfer and how this relates to current research regarding post-biological identity. The research aims to develop new notions regarding post-biological identity through innovative real-time data transfer systems that incorporate biological information and mixed reality applications as artistic mediums.