Panel Statement

Keywords: Bio-data, Bio-feedback, BCI, HCI, New Media, DYI, Machine Ethics

The panel undertakes a deep and critical reflection about the general usage of biomedical signals from the mid 1960s to nowadays and their inclusion in artistic work, in regard both to the artistic application of these signals as well as the consequent theoretical implications. The members of this panel discuss concrete applications of biomedical signals in dance, performance and installation, the role of the enacting self embodied in these systems and the implications interactive installations have for the self-perception through technology. They focus on the complex and hybrid relationships between body, technology and environment, the perceptual qualities emerging from it, as well as the ethical implications of employing these systems.

• Prof. dr. Uwe Seifert, Institute of Musicology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.  we studied Musicology, Computer Science and Philosophy at the University of Hamburg, from which he received the »Magister Artium«, the »Promotion« (PhD) and the »Venia Legendi« or Habilitation« (postdoctoral qualification) in Systematic Musicology. Since 1999 he has held a professor-ship in Musicology at the University of Cologne. He has been a member of the Collaborative Research Centre SFB/FK 427 “Media and Cultural Communication” since 2002, in which he has been leader of the research projects “Electronic Music Transformation since 1950 – Transcriptive Interaction” (2002-2004) and “Artistic Interactivity in Hybrid Networks” (2005-2008). From 2006 till 2014 he has been partner of the International Summer School in Systematic Musicology funded by the European Union. Currently he is a member of the research group »Schlüsselthemen musikalischer Grundlagenforschung: Interdisziplinäre Musikforschung und Musikphilosophie heute« at the Institute for Advanced Study »Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg«, Delmenhorst.
• Claudia Robles-Angel, Cologne, Germany, is an interdisciplinary artist living in Germany, whose work and research cover different aspects of visual and sonic art, extending from audiovisual fixed-media compositions to performances interacting with bio-data via the usage of interfaces such as EEG (electroencephalogram) and EMG (electromyography). She was artist-in-residence at ZKM in Karlsruhe (2004-2007) and at the KHM in Cologne (2008 -2009). Her work is constantly featured in not only media and sound-based festivals/conferences but also in group and solo exhibitions around the globe, for example the ZKM Karlsruhe, the ICMC 2007 in Copenhagen, ICMC 2009 in Montréal and 2016 in Utrecht, Festival Internacional de la Imagen 2009/2010/2013, the SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 in Yokohama, the NYCEMF 2010 and 2013-2016 in New York, the Re-New Festival 2011 in Copenhagen and the NIME 2011 in Oslo, Salon Suisse – Prohelvetia 55th Venice Biennale 2013, at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center New York City (2014 / 2017), MAC Bogotá (2011/2015), MADATAC Festival Madrid (2016) and more recently at Die Digitale Düsseldorf. She is the creator of NOMÁDES… an international concert series of electroacoustic and audiovisual compositions. claudearobles.de
• Prof. dr. Johannes Birringer, Brunel University, London, United Kingdom. is the artistic co-director of the Design and Performance Lab (DAP) and professor of performance technologies at Brunel University London (http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap). He is also the founding director of Interaktionslabor (interaktionslabor.de), an international media laboratory housed in an abandoned coalmine. His books include Theatre, Theory, Postmodernism (1989), Media and Performance (1998), Performance on the Edge (2000), Performance, Technology & Science (2009), Dance and Cognition (2005), Dance and Choreomania (2011), Manifest der Inter-aktionskunst (2014). He has created numerous dancetheatre works, videos, digital media installations and site-specific performances in collaboration with artists in Europe, the Americas, China, Japan and Australia. DAPLab’s dance opera, for the time being [Victory over the Sun], premiered at London’s Sadlers Wells in 2014. A new series of immersive dance installations, metakimospheres, began touring in Europe in 2015/16.
• Dr. Lasse Scherffig, San Francisco Art Institute, USA, is interested in the relationship of humans, machines and society; Cybernetics and the technological infrastructures of communication and control; and the cultures and aesthetics of computation and interaction. Since 2015, he is an assistant professor of Art and Technology at San Francisco Art Institute. He has been a visiting professor for media environments at Bauhaus-University Weimar and taught at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts, as well as KHM, Academy of Media Arts Cologne. His art projects have been shown at numerous exhibitions and he has published on Brain-Computer Interfaces, Locative Arts, Cybernetics and HCI.

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