DTPA 2006, Doncaster, UK

An interesting conference on digital technology and performance arts with many interesting people. Me and Stefan Östersjö did a presentation of our paper “Negotiating the Musical Work: Computer-performer interaction in relation to Composer-Performer interaction” (the latest version of the article wich is still a work in progress, unedited and not proof read, can be found here).

Steve Dixon gave a remarkable presentation in which he argued that the futurist movement had a lot in common with the current digital media movment. Also, he made the very interesting assertion that digital media performance has much more in common with modernism than it has with post-modernism.

In addition to this actress and vocal improvisor Mary Oliver did an in my opinion very succesful presentation in which an artistic practice was combined with self reflection and artistic research. Furthermore Joanna Walker presented some really interesting work in her installation The Evolving Oblique. With a background in architecture she was talking about the “transition point between matter, information and energy”. Finally, I think Kevin Brown suggestion for an “Auslander test” replacing the Turing test was a remarkable piece of research. Not only did it make me think about the Turing test in a new way (how it puts the experience of the subject in the first room) but also made me anticipate the notion of an Auslander test, even before he introduced the idea. Great presentation!