9 EVENINGS RECONSIDERED: ART, THEATRE, AND ENGINEERING, 1966

THURSDAY MARCH 8 AT 4:30 PM
TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION with curator Catherine Morris
At the Gallery

Curator Catherine Morris invites you to a tour of the exhibition 9 Evenings Reconsidered: Art, Theater, and Engineering, 1966 where she will discuss the course of events that led to 9 Evenings and the unfolding of each performance. She will utilize the photographs, documents, film and sound recordings, and objects shown in the exhibition to illustrate the goals and intentions of 9 Evenings and its significance art historically. In addition, Catherine Morris will also speak about her interest in the subject, as well as how she developed and curated the exhibition.

WEDNESDAY MARCH 21 AT 5:30 PM
PANEL DISCUSSION When Artists and Engineers Meet: Divergencies in Concept and Process.
At the Gallery

Artists and engineers will discuss divergent approaches and objectives in research protocols for engineering and artmaking arising out their collaborations. Panel discussion organized by the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery in collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science.

Moderator:

Sylvie Lacerte, Coordinator of the DOCAM Research Alliance, Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology

Panelists:

Joey Berzowska, Assistant Professor, Design & Computation Art, Concordia University
Ana Cappelluto, Associate Professor, Theater, Concordia University
Sudhir Mudur, Professor, Computer Science & Software Engineering, Concordia University
Reza Soleymani, Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Concordia University
Leila Sujir, Associate Professor, Studio Art, Concordia University

TUESDAY MARCH 27 AT 5:30 PM
LECTURE by Sha Xin Wei, Canadian Research Chair, Media, Arts and Science and associated Professor, Fine Arts and Computer Science, Concordia University, Topological Media Lab: The Re-enchantment of Public Space?
At the Gallery

The TML is a laboratory for the critical studies of media arts and sciences. It draws from the best social practices of the pre-industrial atelier, the art studio, and the theater or engineering collective. It is not a technology development lab. And it is not a personal studio nor an art production facility. The TML is a nexus and a home for art research with a family of themes with philosophical or critical value: ethico-aesthetic play, distributed agency, materiality, gesture and movement, phenomenology of performance, themes that together form a new area in the critical studies of media arts and sciences, which is the domain of practice for the Canada Research Chair associated with the TML and affiliate artist-researchers. We explore these themes materially as works of art, performance; as engineered instruments or systems; and as philosophical or critical essays, papers, books.

The presentation will showcase works and works-in-progress created by more than two dozen affiliates of the TML since 2005, and open discussions of historically significant labs such as the Bell Laboratories E.A.T. and the M.I.T. Media Lab.

For more information:
http://topologicalmedialab.net

WEDNESDAY APRIL 4 AT 5:30 PM
LECTURE by Michelle Kuo Ph. D. Candidate, History of Art & Architecture, Harvard University, Inventing Experiments in Art and Technology
York Amphitheater, room 1.615, EV Building, 1515 Sainte-Catherine West

Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was a non-profit collective that facilitated a wide array of collaborations between artists and engineers beginning in 1966. Co-founded by engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer (both of Bell Laboratories) and artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman, the organization called for corporate sponsorship to partner art and industry. It promoted a cooperative process of production, transgressing bounds of discipline and medium and yielding works from sonic sculpture to televisual event. This lecture will focus on the early collaborations between Klüver and Jasper Johns (Field Painting, 1963-1964), Robert Rauschenberg (Oracle, 1965), and Andy Warhol (Silver Clouds, 1966), as well as the performance series 9 Evenings (1966). These group efforts were deeply engaged with postwar notions of invention and experimental method as indeterminate and non-functionalist concerns that led to the founding of E.A.T. in late 1966. The subsequent spread of E.A.T. as an international network (including groups in Toronto and Montreal) will also be addressed in terms of a global interest in disturbing norms of aesthetic production and technological innovation.