Somatechnics: Bodily (Trans)formations (19-21 Apr, 2007)

CFP DEADLINE: January 5th 2007 Somatechnics: Bodily (Trans)formations Conference 2007

April 19th-21st 2007 Carlton Crest Hotel Sydney Australia

'Somatechnics' is a newly coined term used to highlight the inextricability and mutually co-constitutive nature of bodies and 'technologies' (in the broadest sense of the term), of soma and techne. This term, then, supplants the logic of the 'and', indicating that technes are not something we add to or apply to the body, but rather, are the means in and through which bodies are constituted, positioned, and lived. As such, the term reflects contemporary understandings of the body as the incarnation or materialization of historically and culturally specific discourses and practices, and of activities involving bodies - in medicine, information technology, education, the arts, surveillance, science, law - as fundamentally formative and transformative, cultural and social.

Abstracts (approx 500 words) are invited for papers/performances/panels for the Somatechnics Conference, hosted by the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University, to be held in Sydney, Australia on April 19th-21st 2007.

This is the third in a series of bi-annual conferences: previous conferences were Body Modification: Changing Bodies, Changing Selves(2003), and Body Modification Mark II (2005) (see: www.ccs.mq.edu.au/bodmod ).

Possible topics include:

Technologies of gender/race/class/etc Body modification/sculpting Medical technologies Enhancement technologies Transgender practices and procedures genital surgeries Cosmetic/reconstructive surgeries Obesity, anorexia, and/or other body 'pathologies' Cyborgs Nanotechnology Euthanasia ageing Reproductive technologies Transplant technologies BIID and other 'pathologies' reproduction population control Disability Incarceration Racialization Torture Terrorism 'harm' War Sport Performance art Visual art Religious rituals Multi-media technologies Sense culture

Abstracts (of no more than 500 words) should be sent, as email attachments, to: nikki.sullivan [at] scmp.mq.edu.au AND smurray [at] unwired.com.au no later that 5th January 2007.

Further information

Nikki Sullivan Department of Critical and Cultural Studies Macquarie University North Ryde New South Wales 2109 Australia

Conference Website: http://www.somatechnics.org/conference

Contact Email: nikki.sullivan [AT] scmp.mq.edu.au

Scientists racing to catch athletes who manipulate genes to boost performance (17 Dec, 2006)

Maria Cheng, Canadian Press

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=dcdfdf6d-3d05-4ccc-8d5b-7d7a42482a59&k=36249

Published: Sunday, December 17, 2006

LONDON (AP) - Scientists are racing to develop a test to catch athletes who try to boost their performance by manipulating their own genes.

Though there is no proof that gene doping is already occurring, researchers say they would like to be ready ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Gene doping is an illegal spin-off of gene therapy, which typically alters a person's DNA to fight diseases like muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis.

....

Elihu Katz

One of the defining intellectuals of media studies, Elihu Katz is still sharp as a whip. Here shot at UPenn, Philadelphia in 2006.

Gene Doping Test?

Yesterday, it was announced by Ted Friedmann that a new tool to detect gene doping has been discovered. I haven't yet seen whose lab has developed this test, but I might be seeing Ted today in New York at the Hastings Center. Perhaps some further light can be shed on this. In the press coverage i've seen so far, Ted does mention that there is a long way to go with the test and it has indicated that the test is for 'foreign DNA'. The question remains as to whether this would reveal all forms of gene doping. On that, the coverage is also less clear. The important quote from my perspective is the following:  "It is very early in the development of the technology, and we are encouraged that it is proving possible to find evidence of foreign genes being introduced into a body," says Friedmann, director of the Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine. "The problem is not only to develop a test but to validate it to the point where you can take it to an arbitration or court and prove that's the only explanation for the finding that you made. That's very difficult, and that's going to take a lot more work."

New York, USA

I am ashamed to have not updated this entry for 3 months! Still, my most recent trip was a visit to The Hastings Center again, which is always a pleasure. During my stay, I also went down to Manhatten and visited the New York Academy of Sciences and saw Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy in David Hare's very enjoyable play. As nice as it is to see Manhatten at Christmas, it was mayhem throughout!

Beijing Olympic Narratives and Counter Narratives

Last weekend, Beatriz and I were in Philadelphia, having been invited to contribute to the second meeting of the project developed by Monroe Price and Daniel Dayan exploring the Beijing Olympics. This was another excellent meeting with some great presentations and discussions. It was also my first time in Philadelphia and I really warmed to the place. We were located in the city centre on Chestnut Street, which is a great location, especially for shopping and cultural activity.

In the meeting, our contribution was to discuss the role of new and alternative media platforms at an Olympic Games, which develops our research from the last four Olympics. Beijing looks like an exciting and intriguing case study in this respect.

Overcoming Bias

New blog by the FHI at Oxford. http://www.overcomingbias.com/

British Council Cafe Scientifique (20 November, 2006)

Yesterday, I spoke for the British Council Cafe Scientifique which used a video conference system to link up with Jordan and Palestine. The focus of our conversations was human enhancement technologies in sport and we had extensive discussions about how to deal with the problem of doping. Students, teachers and journalists took part in the debate and linking up with two different places was quite straightforward. Clips of the discussion should be posted on the BC website shortly.

Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008 highlights event

Last night's Capital of Culture Preview event. We even tried Scouse! I'm not so sure that this eevnt engaged the interest of the national press (neither am I sure that it needed to or should have), but it was probably a necessary event to establish 2008 as a tangible prospect for the city's inhabitants. The event itself was all about representations, but not particularly obvious narratives - eg. the Beatles behind jail bars and a lone busker in what felt like a subway tunnel. The proceedings did not establish any kind of hierarchy, there were none of the typically dull speeches from VIPs. Instead, the main speeches consisted of two Liverpudlians speaking about their place in the city and, importantly, the place for newcomers. Actress Sunetra Sarker talked about her experience of the city as an asian woman working in the entertainment business and a poet whose name I do not yet know spoke clearly about Liverpool's hard and soft edges.

I wonder what those critics of the CoC will say about this event. It seems all too easy to moan about what more cities should be doing, but there's got to be a space somewhere for celebration. I try to think of all the people who were at this event who have an interest to see Liverpool prosper and appreciated for what it already has. Events like last night are a necessary part of that overcoming of history, but it would be sociologically naive to describe them as lacking in integrity. For me, such events are suitably analogised with Olympic opening ceremonies where great expectations must be tempered by a recognition that doing anything at all is already hard work.

In September, we happened to pass the opening of this exhibit in the Biennial, just as the artist was finishing up. This was the exhibit, which I saw in the next day newspaper:

He didn't introduce himself as the artist at first, suggesting he was the security guard for the venue, but he later availed himself. I found myself immediately warming to the exhibit and pleased to see this kind of work presented here. It helped me believe that the city is innovating with artistic and creative enterprise. And the Biennial is not alone here. FACT is doing a great job and I spent most of my first 3 months in the city around the FACT cafe.

However, later that week, I was walking passed the same venue and overheard a middle-aged Liverpudlian walk out of the venue and say 'I thought we had more important things to spend our money on'. After a brief smirk, I thought a little more deeply about this problem of divisions that emerges around any form of aesthetic moment. I'm not sure I can work through a solution here, but it struck me that the city's biggest challenge is in aspiring to world class status while accommodating the very local expectations which struggle to give value to aspiring such a status until they see Liverpool's 'culture' mentioned on Richard and Judy [who, of course, also used to hang around these parts!]. I don't mean to stratify taste - I know the most wealthy and learned of people who don't see the value of conceptual, abstract or contemporary art - which is why the solution lies not in something class based - not in something sociological - but in cultivating non-instrumental sensitivities.

Robin Downie, Carl Elliott, Francis Fukuyama & the Hastings Center

I'm currently writing a chapter for Ruth Chadwick and Bert Gordijn on the history of posthumanism and while going through my archives I discovered this brief review of Fukuyama's 'Our Posthuman Future'. It is published in The Hastings Center Report and I felt like writing something about it. Actually, it made me think about putting together a 'Coincidences' category here.

Anyway, so here are the coincidences:

1. Robin Downie is Profesor Emeritus at Glasgow Uni where I have just completed an MPhil in Medical Law and Ethics.
2. I met Robin when I first moved to Glasgow and was put in touch with him by Carl Elliott, author of this article. I met Carl in 1999 at a meeting of his Enhancement Technologies Group at UCL.
3. In this article, Carl is reviewing Francis Fukuyama's book. I developed a communication with Fukuyama in 2004, around the time of publishing Genetically Modified Athletes, since in The Economist's Year in 2003, he published a piece on GMAs.
4. In 2002, I was based at the Hastings Center as an International Visiting Scholar. During this period, I met Tom Murray, President of the Center and author of the Foreword for my book.

Free Thinking: A Festival of ideas for the future

This morning, Beatriz and I strolled down to the BBC Radio3 Free Thinking festival taking place at FACT. Two of our friends - Jude Kelly and Nick Bostrom - were presenting at the same time though in different rooms, so we split up and re-grouped afterwards, taking in lunch with the 'robotic' panel afterwards. This also included Fiona Coyle from CeSAGen at Cardiff Uni and it was good to meet her as I know some of her colleagues quite well. She also injected some much-needed critical theory into the posthuman debate. Dylan Evans was articulating the 'hang on a second' perspective and told me about his very interesting 'utopia experiment' project in Scotland, where he has just moved. It was a good chance to see FACT at full-speed and the debate I saw was well-attended, especially for a Sunday morning! Artist Neil Harbisson was present with inventor of his Eyeborg Adam Montandon. Coincidentally, I had seen Neil before at the Bankside Gallery in London, where he was performing at the Sense and Sensuality exhibition.

Neuroscience and Society Network

A year or so back, I was in touch with Linsey McGoey about this new network, but have struggled to involve myself due mainly to logistics! However, now I'm a little closer to London, perhaps I'll get a chance to do something to support its work.

Project Biocultures

I can't remember whether it was an interest in Marquard Smith or Nikolas Rose that led me to the Project Biocultures website. In any case, the collaborative network is worth checking out: http://www.biocultures.org

BioSocieties

This is really a follow-up from a July posting on BioSocieties. I've now had a bit more of a chance to read the work it's publishing. This new journal from Cambridge looks fantastic. Over the last four years, I developed a syllabus at Glasgow University on ethics in the biosciences and this journal, along with the Programme developed by Julian Savulescu at Oxford is really making an important contribution to this kind of work. Nikolas Rose at the LSE is Editor for this journal, along with Ilina Singh and Anne Harrington. The BIOS project at the LSE is doing some really crucial work bringing philosophical and social studies of emerging technologies together. BioSocieties first appeared in March 2006 and is surely destined to become a crucial publishing space for inter-disciplinary work.

The stairs of TATE Liverpool

While my experience of the Biennial in Liverpool this year has been reasonably limited, I did manage to get along to the Tate to see what they are doing. It's such a lovely venue.

The Ethics of Transplantation Film Festival (10-12 Nov, 2006, Edinburgh)

I'm doing a panel for this next Sunday night (12th).... A three-day biomedical ethics film festival relating to the ethics of transplantation, organ sales and trafficking and using animal organs for transplantation. A discussion will follow each screening...

http://www.filmhousecinema.com/TheEthicsofTransplantation.html

City in Film Symposium (1 Nov, 2006, Liverpool)

Interesting event at Liverpool Uni's Pol and Comm school....

City in Film Symposium

City in Film: Liverpool’s Urban Landscape and the Moving Image is a research project exploring the relationship between the city’s architecture and film. This symposium examines the project’s different aspects includes lectures, discussions, and a film screening and is open to academics, film-makers and collectors and the general public.

Date:		1st November 2006
Time:		10.00-7.00pm
Venue:		Budden Lecture Theatre, School of Architecture, University of Liverpool, Oxford Road , (Accessible venue)
Programme:		Click to download
Invited Speakers:		Professor Ian Christie, Professor of Film and Media History, Birkbeck College, University of London Professor Iain Borden, Director of the School of Architecture, The Bartlett, UCL Dr Vanessa Toulmin, Research Director at the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield, and Joint Co-ordinator of the Mitchell and Kenyon Archive Professor Michael Chanan, Documentary Filmmaker and Professor of Cultural and Media Studies at the University of the West of England. Professor Chanan will be presenting a screening of his film Detroit: Ruin of a City (2005) Elizabeth Lebas, Reader in Visual Culture at Middlesex University in London. Presentation topic: The Glasgow Corporation’s documentary film commissioning from 1920-1980.
Cost:		students/concessions: £10 university staff: £20 others: £30 Admission fee includes buffet lunch, tea/coffee and refreshments
Contact Address:		Les Roberts & Richard Koeck, City in Film Research Office, School of Architecture, The University of Liverpool, Leverhulme Building, Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 3BX
Telephone:		0151 794 2608
Web:		http://www.liv.ac.uk/abe/cityinfilm/
Booking:		Please email cityinfilm@liverpool.ac.uk to reserve a place at the symposium

Are we about to enter an era of Designer Medicines? (2 Nov, 2006, Manchester)

Are we about to enter an era of Designer Medicines?------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nowgen (the North West Genetics Knowledge Park) invites you to find out how genetic tests are used to identify the most effective drugs for individuals.

One of the applications of this technology is described today in BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6070202.stm

We will explore a variety of applications and the broader implications for society. We are keen to give the public chance to find out more from experts in the field and, most importantly, have their say. We will be using interactive voting pads to involve the audience and record their reactions.

It is being held on 2 November 2006, from 5.45pm until 8pm at Central Manchester Hospital site - The Nowgen Centre, 29 Grafton Street, Manchester, M13 9WU.

Call 0161 276 5956 to reserve your free place, or email: bookings [AT] nowgen.org.uk

City Breaks: Art and Culture in Times of Expediency (19-22 Oct, 2006)

Beatriz is chairing a session at Paul Domela's conference this morning. I thought I'd tag along, this is what I heard. Saturday 10am

Context Sensitivity, Regeneration, and Competence

Nina Edge

"Nothing is Fireproof" Can't find anyone to tour this piece anymore.

"Nothing is domestic" Surburban terraced house as obsolete

Degeneration and the curse of culture How they feel about the changes in Liverpool [rather than regeneration]

Regeneration around Welsh Streets in Liverpool.

"Nothing is Private" [net curtain embroidery] "Net curtain as consensual barrier...the person on the street is the audience"

"Regeneration and art...since they have no accurate measure...of recording their effect, may be regarded as superstition. The beliefs that people have about what each are doing is only a belief...I can't find evidence to say that it is not anything more than a superstition."

"residents in Bootle don't have a computer between them."

"being made visible via media outlets" which become "the museum for art work"

Manray Hsu

Society of the Spectacle by Debord, I am a fan, but"how far can we go with Debord?" "Even philosophising is impossible...because somehow related to what is happening on the street...background semiotic control."

"how cultural producers are aware of this big context of globalisation...and how we can interact with the institution or the system under the big envelope of expediency."

"How to avoid spectacle....for example you can make an art work that is very critial of society, but at the same time can exhibit in a context that is completely dislocating its political power"

"Spectacle logic...no matter how critical...always possibility of being coopted"

"Marcuse and others are aware of this possibility"

"For me, being a curator or cultural producer, I wanted to mention this important aspect of art...suggest that...we always focus on the issue of the political economy of the exhibition itself....How we can be critical of it...being aware of the institution, of its operation in the back"

"In this context, Liverpool Biennial is interesting...as an organisaiton itself it's trying to address these issues"

"Today my talk is about Liverpool Biennial - Liverpool Model"

Big Dig! Project "City council displays its own agenda...mediate itself through these boards displaying work"

"blockage in the energy flows of the city"

"top down regeneration"

"I see it more like an art work...some fake idea of the regeneration programme and display in the public space"

""Seeing is Believing""

"If we look at what art is being produced in Europe...we find...continuing universalism...very much spread out in art magazines"

"internal colonialism withinn Europe. There's only one city that is producing its main discourse....cultural capitals are the actors for this universalism...minor cities not really reflected....big problem addressed by many european artists....at the moment, many european artists are..focusing on their local context."

"Imagine if this piece is produced by a Hungarian or Chinese artists..would be about how desperate the city is. In the case of Liverpool it's a way to propose a kind of politics, which is to contest with the politics of globalisation based on big capital"

"Liverpool is...doing just by its own model..bringing artists...to the city...to address urgent issues...peoples lives here...important political choice."

Pierre Bourdieu...look into an exhibition and see how the artist produced the work..issue of acupuncture...health of the city...urban politics."

Beatriz Garcia: contrast between city centre and surburb in terms of visibility.

Nina Edge: "local authority...are in no way interested in [surburban].

Q: "locality and community...easy words to use and in need of qualifying....I work with local community

Jean-Francois Prost

"History of.... my education through architecture...environmental studies...sites and senstivity...Modernist architect...trying to become a postmodern architect...'Learning from Las Vegas'...something even more decontextualised...historical refrences that did not even belong to the context...a bit Disney...a bit fabricated."

"Deconstructivist architect...another process of learning...deconstructing symbols...Frank Gehry"

"Neomodernist architect...another point of view...how to go through a process of site and sensitivity...a form understanding of site and the city which would be abstracted within height."

"After all this, I really needed to expand to something else..to live a different process. Most of it was about postconception...living a space and a conception after it was built...living in the space I built."

"Often the site is never shown and the whole process of transformation...take pictures before any people arrive....notion of a loss."

[living in space he built]

"Project at the biennial...recently working on a project in Detroit about 'resilient city'...and in Northern Quebec..a lot of destructive generic development...producing vacant spaces...activists...ideas of urban farming...durable development....Very little city administration linked to this development...problem of general perception...negative image after so many years."

"Acroynms related to acctions....RCPS (removal ceilings for public storage)...part of knowing that we have an impact on the space."

"Transforming elements of waht they were initially...picnic table that became heated for the winter"

"placing picnic tables in different sites..suggesting to activate space in the present..not to have to wait for long term developments"

"public loitering area..loitering is a very important aspect about public space"

"other things that related to occupation rules: SWRO - sites without rules of occuptation"

"Reprogramme or Activate Function...derelict land...anti-use design...[bench sitting on boundary fence to break]."

Stephen Wright

[One of the conceptors of the Paris Bienniale]

1985 Paris Biennalle disappeared, but recovered as a moving festival, then secured permanently in Lyon...was discovered that name of 'Paris Biennalle' was not registered...so he...'and sbsequently I, became the owners of the Paris Biennale"

It is a 'Bienalle that does not involve an exhibition...and no artists...avoid spectatorship...but 100 projects. catalogue of 1800 pages...it was around this new form of a Biennale...art is now in an epistemological and axiological crisis....not faced since Renaissance...seems evident that art should manifest itself in the world...towards publics"

"Paris Biennalle...on the verge of a paradigm shift....this is an attempt...despite law suit from French minister...doing this with relatively modest means...Based less on the idea of contexts sensitivity than...framework sensitivity..frame cannot easily be associated with a context...art cannot take place anywhere...only within performative framework...where sufficient...sensitivity...everyday object transformed ontologically...into artwork."

"My view comes less from the Debord tradition than the analytical philosophical tradition...Arthur Danto....outside the performative framework of the artwork..that an object is reluctant to change its ontological status...can only take place within the artworld"

"The artworld is that reputational economy...aggregate of agents, in the middle of which is a reputational economy...that invests certain individuals...to engage in that performative speech-act...implicit of this...is the terrible admisssion that...is just art..not the real corrosive...real thing"

"Art always finds itself bracketed off from the real, which it is so eager to erode"

"skeptical [of link between community and artist]"

extract free labour from whom the artist works with, where 'only name we will see will be the artist"

"artist will suggest that the people were co-authors...but the consequence of that is the promotion of the artist standing within the reputational economy."

"understanding the contradictions the art world is facing"

"other contradictions as well..stop merely criticising...and put forward something else...work with those symbolic producers..."

"Last night in talk from Yvonne...'negation is wilful reason'...a lot of the conversations I have been having have been based on a 'desire for a critical art'...that says No...to the Law...to real estate speculation... Hegelian tradition...power of negative thinking...but something which is extremely limited."

"For you, which word has ontological priority...the word no or the word yes. No to the law or yes to desire? The world's probably quite divided"

"paris biennale also became informed by position as wilful reason. Yes to desire"

"Underlying ideas...art need not appear necessarily in the world in the form of art work...it began to appear in that from at the time of the renaissance...Chomsky 'generative grammar'...bw performance and competence...competence in linguistics is that latent ability which belongs to every speaker of a natural language a speech act as being meaningful and grammatically plausible, but need never be performed...similar to way art functions within performative framework."

"What might one understand by competence? not just from Chomsky, but opposition i did draw from him. In french, used in management circles...knowledge economy...cognitive capitalism...spreads out into events like today, which are a key component of all ars events...production of knowledge becomes a key component of every facet of life."

"Artistic competence have been systematcally ripped off and used by the strategic rationality of our society. But the artworld has been incapable of responding to that...contradictory forces...desire for greater visibility...impose itself within a society that would marginalise it...and to retreat from the world in the face of the omnipresence of culture"

"Paris Biennale is an attempt to think through that retreat..to the point where it is not conceived as art"

"what would we show of these artists who have decided to quit the artworld and yet to continue"

"amongst those competences that have been recuperated, ripped off...not resisted by art...amongst crtiique...autonomy, creativity"

"What sort of competence then could be mustered through art specific means without performing them into art works...heuristically injected into fields of activity other than art."

"response of many artists has been 'enhanced visibilty'"

"Aesthetics of decision making...decisionary...important"

"crossing those boundaries...collective autonomy and indivudalistic..can lead to extremely interesting results"

"there is a sort of incompetence within the art world"

"incompetence not merely incapacity...in a world premised on expert...culture of experts...of expression, that we call aritsts.. Paris Biennale challenge this by foregrounding what Manray..foregounding local incompetence is a way of challenging expert culture'

"what is creativity if not merely the raising of poorly posed questions?..ifquestion incorrectly posed then there is a fissure within which creativity can emerge"

Questions and Answers

Q: Many of us working with art, extremely concerned about how elitist art is these days, but I was thinking that if you proposition is not paradoxical way taking artists of the art world in order to avoid cooptation...to an even more elitist situation..aristocracy of silence. Isn't that the problem."

Stephen: "I was not making a democractic proposition....There is no decent place to stand - Lennard Cohen meant 'in a massacre'. My position..probably appeared very prescriptive and normative...and I have a great deal of sympathy for artists...but my position is much more descriptive. I am attempting to theorise it and carry that process as far as possible. It's not that I'm suggesting that artists do this or not, but the art world...has to do something radical...reduce its claims or give them teeth"

Manray: Didnt mention quitting art, but artworld. Concept of the artworld you are using is a very integrated concept...in the political culture....In european situation, more obvious...but in Asia where art productions are increasingly coopted into creative industries...more possibilities of being used in the way you describe...but also in a situation where government are interested in using art, but they dont know how.

Stephen: the way I use the word art and the way is used in world today makes so sense outside of performative framework of artworld. Taxi driver yesterday..making sarcastic remarks about the bienniel...outside of the performative artworld, just doesnt make sense. Art as I use that word only exists within the artworld...Outside of that you might have exactly the same thing, but it wouldnt be art. ..Quitting art world might sound like art world."

George Yudice: Looking at some movements that use art but not in the sense of visual arts...favelas in Rio de Janiero...certain competencies that were previously excluded from the sphere of art...became included...has opened up spaces for interesting work to be done by these people...multitask..art is one part...of other things they do...Their practice doesnot correspond to a philosophical purity of...artworld versus non artworld...but across spheres. For Chomsky..had used an impoverished notion of competence..an ideal hearer speaker...performative side of it...much more muddied...something in the practie of people who multitask...fall into category of 'real world'....[police brutality]...there is no opposition for them...alliances between social movements...artists, celebrities..."

Beatriz Garcia: locality and community. How distinguish both terms?

Nina Edge: community as a contested zone. people who do want their houses pulled down and those who don't...I am not part of the community...I do not belong there. Newsletters have been circulated in the community...asking who is the community. Given status of community member..depends on their ability to subscribe to the regeneration they are being offered...people part of the communityare those who have agreed to have their houses pulled down...I dislike...social inclsion agenda as if it is doing good....and yet our regeneration company have hired an artist....even as a member of artistic community,there was no attempt to decsribe me as adequately being part of that community...The defnition of communities for me is a fraud...used when completely disempowered."

Jean-Francois: Question to Stephen, how does it apply to curators?

Stephen: Often when I speak about these things...we're faced yet another performative contradiction. If artists have chosen to impair their coefficient of visibility..then monstrous portrayal to repatriate them into artworld....If they dont' produce artworkds, what would a curator be able to show?...performative documentation...whereas perofmrance became increasingly documentary and docmentation and documentary has become a more important part of exhbiitions...new part of documentation...It is important if art is not to dissolve completely into the world..that competence find a means for renewal...avoid citing names, not just to avoid tedious debates about the particular...but problem of 'outing' a secret agent...discursive accompaniment, where is not an exterior evaluation...but part and parcel of the process itself"

Jean-Francois: not sure it makes a difference to be anonymous or not. Individuals arestill there, whatever the name. having the signature or not.

Stephen: It makes a big difference from a sociological perspective on how the art world functions. For me, your work is emblematic of a certain hesitation on the threshold of a local efficient of identification...acronym or picnic table works...brought back into artworld through performative documentation...seems to hesitate to pull its other foot out of the artworld; which is evident from your presence today."

Digital era taking fans closer to action (The Times, 18 October, 2006)

Article published in the Times today with Matthew Syed Digital era taking fans closer to action By Matthew Syed and Andy Miah

VIRTUAL reality is upon us. Computer games in the high-street arcade are beginning to resemble exercise machines and an increasingly lucrative cyber-athlete professional league has been established.The United States bobsleigh team used a sled simulator to practice the Olympic run in Turin this year in their search for a critical edge in a competition in which it is almost impossible to practice on new and unfamiliar slopes.

More innovations are in the pipeline, with golf and motor sport leading the way. Fancy playing Augusta, Matrix-style? Digital technologies are increasingly influential on the playing field. Third-eye technology is transforming how events are officiated — Hawk-Eye is set to be used at Wimbledon next summer and cricket is debating whether to equip umpires with hand-held monitors to give them access to technologies familiar to armchair fans.

Radio frequency identification tagging will mean an even greater capacity to monitor and evaluate the actions of athletes on the pitch, including real-time judgments on such things as offside and whether contact has been made between players. Avoidable mistakes by officials could soon be a thing of the past.

The proliferation of mobile digital systems will soon close the gap between athletes and their spectators, where the latter will be able to immerse themselves virtually within the competition zone alongside their favourite athlete.

It is not inconceivable that we will see football teams managed by democratic voting systems.

Andy Miah is lecturer in media, bioethics and cyberculture at the University of Paisley and author of Cyber Sport, due out next year