Anne Scott Wilson
'X' Marks the Spot
Seeing Not Looking
‘X Marks the Spot’ and ‘Seeing Not Looking’ are art works that explore tensions between Artificial and Human Intelligence. Using an inverted game technology, in which the performers become active participants ‘seen’ by an automated drone camera, power relationships rise to the surface over time. Problems inherent in the notion of AI thought of as communicative, are challenged, raising questions about what is it to be human when measured or surveill-ed by drone technology. By presenting video excerpts of both works I would like to talk to these problems through an analysis of the artistic decisions made in each work and what is revealed through practice led research.
Anne Scott Wilson is a Lecturer in Art and Performance at Deakin University, member of the Art and Architecture research group #VacantGeelong. She sustains a solo art practice, curates and devises projects with colleagues at various Universities. Anne is a Committee Member of the Wyndham Council’s Art and Heritage Portfolio in 2018/19. She is a recipient in 2018 of an Australia Council for the Arts Development Grant which has facilitated research with ARS Electronica and has received grants and residencies from Government Funding bodies, and philanthropic organisations. She received her PhD from Monash University in 2009 titled ‘Memory, Motion and imagination: an investigation into the subjective experience of studio practice.’ 'X' Marks the Spot is in collaboration with Shelley Hannigan and Cameron Bishop.
Anna Munster and Michele Barker
Ecologies of Duration
Ecologies of Duration is comprised of several infinitely looped moving image works, using up to three monitors, that have emerged from experimentation with drones: filming in close proximity to trace geoformations; developing techniques in which the moving image appears to both zoom in and recede from its ‘target’; and filming in visually obscured natural circumstances such as fog or mist. Each ‘ecology’ (each pair of monitors) presents a doubled view ‘from below’ or alongside nonhuman ‘natural’ landscapes’. These ‘ecologies’ try to imagine a nonhuman nonaerial drone scape and together ask: how else might drones see? In the panel presentation, we will discuss the making of these works in the context of the above problems posed by an ongoing aesthetics of the aerialised earth.
A/ Prof Anna Munster is the Acting Deputy Director of NIEA. She has international profile as both a practitioner and prominent theorist in art. Munster has two published books: Materializing New Media (Dartmouth College Press, 2006) and An Aesthesia of Networks (MIT Press, 2013). She has been a Chief Investigator on ARC Linkage and Discovery Projects focused on new media, visualisation and digital art.
Dr Michele Barker works in the field of new media arts, exhibiting extensively both in Australia and overseas. Barker has contributed to the field of new media arts extensively via her engagement as a research-oriented practitioner. Her artwork addresses issues of perception, subjectivity, genetics and neuroscience, and her research has focused on the relationship between digital technologies, medical and scientific applications, and end-user responses..
David Chesworth
Earthwork
Drone warfare adumbrations in Robert Smithson’s Site/Nonsite artworks
8-10 December 2020
UNSW Media Futures Hub
Anne Scott Wilson, Shelley Hannigan, Cameron Bishop
'X' Marks the Spot
Seeing Not Looking
‘X' Marks the Spot and Seeing Not Looking are art works that explore tensions between Artificial and Human Intelligence. Using an inverted game technology, in which the performers become active participants ‘seen’ by an automated drone camera, power relationships rise to the surface over time. Problems inherent in the notion of AI thought of as communicative, are challenged, raising questions about what is it to be human when measured or surveill-ed by drone technology. By presenting video excerpts of both works I would like to talk to these problems through an analysis of the artistic decisions made in each work and what is revealed through practice led research.
Dr Anne Wilson is a senior Lecturer in Deakin University’s School of Communication and Creative Arts. She is an artist, curator and her initial research into the dichotomous relationship between movement and meaning, the years of strenuous practice and endurance relative to the brief moments of glory in performance extends into the impact of Artificial Intelligence on how and why we move, its effect on the imagination and identity. She is a member of the research group VACANT Geelong.
Dr Shelley Hannigan is a Senior Lecturer in Deakin University’s School of Education. She is a visual artist and arts educator. Her research explores the value of art in:artistic practice, creativity, wellbeing and education. Methodologies she engages are mostly: arts-practice-based research, Arts-based education research (ABER), narrative inquiry, autoethnography and duoethnography. She also conducts research in interdisciplinary education including art-science and STEAM. Her publications are in high quality Q1 international journals, conference proceedings and books.
Dr Cameron Bishop is an Associate Professor in Art and Performance in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. He is an artist, writer and curator who has exhibited (often collaboratively with Bishop and Reis) widely for 20 years and published extensively on the subjects of public art and protest, institutional critique, and our relationship to new and old technologies. He has curated a number of public art projects including Treatment, Six Moments in Kingston, VACANTGeelong and Sounding Histories.
'X' Marks the Spot and Seeing Not Looking will screen on Wednesday 11am (AEDT) as part of the Drone Arts Screening Session