Selected Publications

    • Thurow, S (2019). Performing Indigenous Identities on the Contemporary Australian Stage: Land, People, Culture. Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies Series. London/New York: Routledge.
    • Kenderdine, S. (2011). PLACE-Hampi: Inhabiting the Panoramic Imaginary of Vijayanagara. Heidelberg: Kehrer.
    • Anderson J., Marshall C., Yip A. (eds.) (2016). The Legacies of Bernard Smith: Essays on Australian Art, History and Cultural Politics. Sydney: Power Publications.
    • Thwaites, D. (ed.) (2013). Critical Animalia: A Decade Between Disciplines. Sydney: Critical Animals.
    • Del Favero, D. & Thurow, S. (2020). Human-Machine Co-Agency in Art. In W. Tschapeller & C. Jauernik (eds.), Towards an Intra Space (pp.tbc). Schriftenreihe Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, vol. 25. Berlin: Sternberg Press.
    • Del Favero, D., Thurow, S. & Frohne, U. (2020). Artificial Intelligence and a New Dialogical Commons?. In W. Tschapeller & C. Jauernik (eds.), Towards an Intra Space (pp.tbc). Schriftenreihe Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, vol. 25. Berlin: Sternberg Press.
    • Yip, A, Dredge, P, Gerard-Austin, A & Ives, S (2020). Henry VR: Designing Affect-Oriented Virtual Reality Exhibitions for Art Museums. In H. Lewi (Ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites. London: Routledge.
    • Pailthorpe, B. (2016). Spatial Operations. In L. Slade (ed.), Sappers & Shrapnel: Contemporary Art and Art of the Trenches. Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia/Thames & Hudson.
    • Thwaites, D. (2012). Anish Kapoor: Public Sculpture. In E.A. McGregor (ed.), Anish Kapoor “Living Catalogue”. Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art.
    • Thwaites, D. (2011). A Machiavellian Beauty: Ruling by Love and Fear. In G. Simpson (ed.), Exploring the Critical Issues of Beauty. ebook: The Inter-Disciplinary Press.
    • Barker, T. (2011). Aesthetics of the Error: Media Art, the Machine, the Unforeseen and the Errant. In M. Nunes (ed.), Error: Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures. New York: Continuum.
    • Kenderdine, S., Del Favero, D. & Brown, N. (2008). ‘PLACE-Hampi: Co-Evolutionary Narrative & Augmented Stereographic Panoramas,
      Vijayanagara, India’ in Kalay, Y. (ed.), New Heritage: New Media & Cultural Heritage, Oxfordshire: Routledge, pp. 275-93, LP0669163 (2006-2008).
    • Del Favero, D. (2006). ‘Immanence & Eventfulness’, in McQuire, S. (ed.), Conversations: The Parallax Effect. Sydney: iCinema. pp. 6-8, DP0209550 (2002-2004).
    • Del Favero, D., Brown, N., Shaw, J. & Weibel, P. (2005). ‘T_Visionarium: Towards a Dialogic Concept of Digital Narrative’, in Flachbart, G. (ed.), Disappearing Architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser. pp. 144-51, DP0345547 (2003-2005).
    • Del Favero, D., Brown, N., Shaw, J. & Weibel, P. (2005). ‘T_Visionarium: The Aesthetic Transcription of Televisual Databases’, in Frohne,
      U. (ed.), Present Continuous Past: Media Art – Strategies of Presentation, Mediation & Dissemination. Vienna/New York: Springer. pp. 33-48, DP0345547 (2003-2005).
    • Del Favero, D., Brown, N., Shaw, J. & Weibel, P. (2003). ‘Interactive Narrative as a Multi-Temporal Agency’, in Shaw, J. (ed.), Future Cinema: Cinematic Imaginary After Film, Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 312-15.
    • Del Favero, D. (2001). ‘Digitally Expanded Forms of Narration’, in Del Favero, D. (ed.), LOCATIONS, Karlsruhe/Sydney: ZKM and iCinema, pp. 8-9.
    • de Belen, R.A.J., Bednarz, T., Sowmya A. & Del Favero, D. (2020) “Computer vision in autism spectrum disorder research: a systematic review of published studies from 2009 to 2019”, Translational Psychiatry, Volume 10, Article number: 333.
    • Del Favero, D., de Belen, R.A.J. & Bednarz, T. (2019). “Combining Mixed Reality and Internet of Things: An Interaction Design Research on Developing Assistive Technologies for Elderly People”. In Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Social Media, Games and Assistive Environments (291-304). Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). Orlando: Springer.
    • Thurow, S. (2018). “’Namatjira’: Beyond the Script – Visual and Performative Aesthetics as Conduits for the Communication of Western Arrernte Ontologies,” Australasian Drama Studies 73 (Special Issue Turangawaewae / A Place to Stand: Situating Contemporary Indigenous Performance in Australasia (and Beyond)): 130-59.
    • Thwaites, D. (2018). “Spectres of French Theory: Australian Translations in the Work of Alex Martinis Roe and Shaun Gladwell,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art 18.1.
    • Yip, A. (2017). “Review: The National 2017: New Australian Art,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art 17.2:256-60.
    • Zhuang, Z., Pagnucco, M. & Zhang, Y (2017). “Inter-Definability of Horn Contraction and Horn Revision”. Journal of Philosophical Logic 46(3): 299–332.
    • Dredge, P., Howard, D., Morgan, K., & Yip, A. (2017). “Unmasking Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly: X-ray Fluorescence Conservation Imaging, Art Historical Interpretation and Virtual Reality Visualisation,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art 17.2: 147-61.
    • Yip, A. (2017). “The Ekphrasis Engine: Towards a New Industry Architecture for Digital Art Historical Practice in the Age of the Virtual,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art 17.2: 135-46.
    • Thurow, S. (2017). “Response to the Metamaterial Turn: Performative Digital Methodologies for Creative Practice and Analytical Documentation in the Arts,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art 17.2: 238-50. DOI: 10.1080/14434318.2017.1450071.
    • Yip, A. (2017). “Metadata and the Rhizome of Museum Practice,” _Artlink: Australian Contemporary Art Quarterly 37.1: 34-39.
    • Yip, A. (2017). “Tatsuo Miyajima: Connect with Everything, MCA Australia | Time, Light, Japan: Japanese Art 1990s to Now, Art Gallery of NSW,” Artlink: Australian Contemporary Art Quarterly 37.1: 72-76.
    • Yip, A. (2017). “Virtual Reality and the Museology of Consciousness,” Artlink: Australian Contemporary Art Quarterly 36.4: 42-47.
    • Thwaites, D. (2017). “Danto, Derrida and the Artworld Frame,” Derrida Today 10.1: 67-88.
    • Dredge, P., Ives, S., Howard, D.L., Spiers, K.M., Yip, A. & Kenderdine, S. (2015). “Mapping Henry: Synchrotron-Sourced X-ray Fluorescence Mapping and Ultra-High-Definition Scanning of an Early Tudor Portrait of Henry VIII”. Applied Physics A: Materials Science and Processing 121: 789–800.
    • Thwaites, D. (2012). “Yoshua Okon: An Uncomfortable Kind of Humour,” Das Superpaper 25: 58-60.
    • Brown, N., Barker, T. & Del Favero, D. (2011). “Performing Digital Aesthetics: The Framework for a Theory of the Formation of Interactive Narratives”, Leonardo 44.3: 212-19. DOI:10.1162/LEON\a\00165. DP0556659 (2005-2009).
    • Del Favero, D. (2005). “How One Might Live: The 51st Venice Biennale”, Art Monthly: 3-9.
    • Del Favero, D. (1995). “Scenario Urbano”, Art and Design: 20-29.
    • Del Favero, D. (1995). “Prima Facie”, Active Reactive: 41-45.
    • Del Favero, D. (1987). “Linea di Fuoco”, Photofile: 16-19.
    • Del Favero, Dennis, Thurow, Susanne & Wake, Caroline 2020, ‘Dialogical Aesthetics – Reconfiguring Theatrical Spaces through Dig- ital Technology ’, K. Dreckmann, M. Butte & E. Homberg (eds.), Technologien des Performativen (357-65). Bielefeld: transcript, LP170100471 (2018-2021).
    • Del Favero, D. & Barker, T. (2010). ‘Scenario: Co-Evolution, Shared Autonomy & Mixed Reality’, 9th IEEE International
      Symposium on Mixed & Augmented Reality 2010 – Arts, Media & Humanities Proceedings
      , pp. 11-18. DOI:10.1109/ISMARAMH. 2010.5643299, DP0556659 (2005-2009).
    • Kuchelmeister, V., Shaw, J., McGinity, M., Del Favero, D. & Hardjono, A. (2009). ‘Immersive Mixed Media Augmented Reality Application
      & Technology’, Advances in Multimedia Information Processing – PCM 2009_, vol. 5879, DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-10467-1\109, LP0669163 (2006-2008).
    • Kenderdine, S., Shaw, J., Del Favero, D. & Brown, N. (2008). ‘Co-Evolutionary Narrative & Virtual Heritage’, New Heritage Proceedings, pp. 35-44, LP0669163 (2006-2008).
    • McGinity, M., Shaw, J., Del Favero, D., Kuchelmeister, V. & Hardjono, A. (2007). ‘AVIE: A Versatile Multi-User Stereo 360° Interactive
      VR Theatre’, Proceedings of the 2007 Workshop Emerging Display Technologies: Images and Beyond: The Future of Displays and Interaction, doi:10.1145/1278240.1278242.
    • Thurow, S. (2019). Capabilities and Limitations of Collaboration in the Artistic Process. In Elasticity conference, Performance Studies International, University of Calgary, Canada, July 4-7.
    • Thurow, S. (2019). Digital Technologies as Conduit for the Communication of Indigenous Australian Heritage. In Body of Knowledge: Art and Embodied Cognition Conference, Deakin University, Melbourne, June 27-29.
    • Thurow, S., Del Favero, D., Wake, C., Pagnucco, M., Williams, K., Scott-Mitchell, M., Wallen, L. & Schostakowski, B. (2019). iDesign – New Capabilities for Set Design. In PQ Talks @ Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, Industrial Palace & Exhibition Grounds, Prague, Czech Republic, June 7-15. LP170100471, 3 years.
    • Thurow, S. (2018). Big hART – Processes of Care in Art-Making. In Aesthetics, Politics & Histories. The Social Context of Art, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia, December 5-8.
    • Thurow, S., Yip, A. & Ong, A. (2018). iDesign: New Paradigms for Collaborative and Immersive Theatre Design. In OzViz 2018, Expanded Perception & Interaction Centre, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, November 22. LP170100471, 3 years.
    • Del Favero, D., Thurow, S., & Wake, C. (2018). Dialogical Aesthetics – Reconfiguring Theatrical Spaces Through Digital Technology. In Theatre & Technology Conference, Society for Theatre Studies, Institute for Media & Culture Studies, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany, November 8-11.
    • Del Favero, D. (2018). ‘AI & Advanced Creativity: An Emerging Horizon’, Digital Humanities Australia, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Keynote Presentation, LP170100471 (2018-2020).
    • Thurow, S. & Del Favero, D. (2018). ‘Intra_Space – Exploring the Actor through Artificial Intelligence’ presented at Actors and Acting in the Twenty-First Century Conference, Australasian Drama Studies Association, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, June 26-29.
    • Thurow, S. (2017). ‘I Am Eora: Nation-Building on the Postcolonial Stage’, presented at Performing Belonging in the 21st Century Conference, Australasian Drama Studies Association, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand, June 27-30.
    • Thurow, S. (2016). ‘Performed Resilience!? Identity Construction in Contemporary Australian Intercultural Theatre Practice’, presented at Resilience: Revive, Restore, Reconnect Conference, Australasian Drama Studies Association, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, June 21-24.
    • Thwaites, D. (2015). ‘The False Continuities of Ryan Trecartin’ presented at the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy Conference, UNSW, Sydney, 2 – 4 December.
    • Del Favero, D. (2015). ‘Aesthetics & Machine Intelligence’, Libidinal Circuits: Scenes of Urban Innovation III, FACT, Liverpool, UK, DP0556659 (2005-2009).
    • Del Favero, D. (2014). ‘Transactions in 3D Space: Database or Narrative Events?’, 3D-Symposium Beyond: Designing for the Future, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, DP0556659 (2005-2009).
    • Del Favero, D .(2013). ‘Aesthetics & Artificial Intelligence’, Beyond 3D Festival: 3D-Symposium Parallax, University of Art and Design, Karlsruhe, Germany, DP0556659 (2005-2009).
    • Thurow, S. (2013). ‘Theatre as Strategic Intervention into Racist Discourses Affecting Australian Cultural Relations – Big hART Inc.’s Namatjira’, presented at Reconfiguring Anti-Racism: Tolerance, Harmony, Inclusion or Justice Conference, Deakin University, Melbourne, December 9-10.
    • Thurow, S. (2013). ‘Indigeneity and Transcultural Communities: Big hART Inc.’s Namatjira’, presented at Challenging Boundaries: Postcolonial Narratives and Notions of the Global Conference, Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies, Georg-August Universität, Göttingen, Germany, October 9-11.
    • Thurow, S. (2013). ‘Indigeneity and Transcultural Communities: Big hART Inc.’s Namatjira’, presented at In the Balance: Indigeneity, Performance, Globalization Conference, Centre for International Theatre and Performance Research, Royal Holloway University, London, UK, October 24-27.
    • Thwaites, D. (2013). ‘Mutating Assemblages: The Deterritorialization of Tradition in the Ceramics of Park Young-Sook and Yeesookyung’ presented at The First International Deleuze Studies in Asia Conference, Tamkang University, Taipei, Taiwan, May 31–June 2.
    • Thwaites, D. (2011). ‘A la Recherche du Temps Perdu: The Contemporary Taste for Lomography and Vinyl Records’ at Annual Conference for the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, December 12–15.
    • Del Favero, D. & Pagnucco, M. (2011). ‘Artificially Intelligent Aesthetics’, NIEA Experimental Arts Double Conference, UNSW, Sydney, DP0556659 (2005-2009).
    • Barker, T., Del Favero, D. & Hardjono, A. (2010). ‘Memory Processes & Frontier Technology’, War Literature & the Arts Conference, Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, USA, DP0556659 (2005-2009).
    • Thwaites, D. (2010). ‘Art and Political Economy: Deconstructing Kant’s Aesthetic Hierarchies’ at The 2nd ‘Derrida Today’ International Conference, Kingston University, London, UK, July 19-21.
    • Del Favero, D., Brown, N., Shaw, J. & Weibel, P. (2007). ‘Experimental Aesthetics & Interactive Narrative’, Australian Council of University Art & Design Schools Conference, UNSW, Sydney, DP0556659 (2005-2009).
    • Del Favero, D. (2006). ‘Interactive Narrative & Memory’, Inviting Horror Conference, V2 Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
    • Del Favero, D. (2005). ‘The Aesthetic Transcription of Televisual Databases’, Present Continuous Past Conference, University of the Arts, Bremen, Germany, DP0345547 (2003-2005).

Past Events

  • International Symposium
    Including Launch of the Publication Un_Imaginable

    Un_imaginable is the first instalment in the ZIP Digital Arts Edition series jointly produced by the iCinema Centre, Sydney, the ZKM Karlsruhe and the University of Pittsburgh. This new editorial cooperation envisages the production over the next five years of three publications encapsulating the latest research on topics of central importance to media arts. The launch of the Un_imaginable issue is combined with a one-day symposium at ZKM Karlsruhe and an exhibition of the DVD-artworks at ZKM Karlsruhe and the Ivan Dougherty Gallery Sydney.

    ZKM Media Theatre, ZKM, Karlsruhe

    2 July 2008

    Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney

    15 August 2008 2pm to 5pm

  • Within the framework of technologies developed at the iCinema Centre, internationally acclaimed theorists and practitioners describe and deliberate recent advances in immersive and narrative exchange between human & place, human & machine agent, human & human.

    UNSW Kensington Campus Kensington.

    21st September, 2007

  • The goal of this series is to present papers from leading international and local scholars, along with UNSW postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers, to address issues of relevance to the converging fields of digital media and cinema.

    2007–2008

     

  • Foreign Correspondents: Female Epistolary Voice-Over in War Films, presented by Susie Walsh-Weirman

    Nottingham University

    8/07/2004 – 10/07/2004

  • Hochschule der Kuenste, Bremen

    14/05/2004 – 15/05/2004

  • Artspace and Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney

    22/11/2001 – 15/12/2001

  • Cinemedia at Treasury Theatre, Melbourne

    30/11/2001 – 01/12/2001

Books

Edited by Dennis Del Favero, Ursula Frohne, Peter Weibel

2008

DVD-Video: (English/German with English subtitles) DVD artworks by Dennis Del Favero, Korpys / Löffler, Susan Norrie and Peter Weibel

Book: (c.180 pages) texts by Inke Arns, Jill Bennett, Ursula Frohne, Boris Groys, Adrian Parr, Paul Patton, Sabine Sielke and Terry Smith

Book and DVD-Video published by Hatje Cantz, Germany

Un_imaginable is the first instalment in the ZIP Digital Arts Edition series jointly produced by the iCinema Centre, Sydney, the ZKM Karlsruhe and the University of Pittsburgh. This new editorial cooperation envisages the production over the next five years of three publications encapsulating the latest research on topics of central importance to media arts. The launch of the Un_imaginable issue is combined with a one-day symposium at ZKM Karlsruhe and an exhibition of the DVD-artworks at ZKM Karlsruhe and the Ivan Dougherty Gallery Sydney.

Recent occurrences in different spheres of life such as the ecological through to the psychological have redefined our notion of the unbelievable. While maintaining continuities with a long history of the irreal, this new unimaginary confronts us with radically diverse realities, reformulating the condition and expression of life itself. Digital imagery plays a critical role in this reformulated notion, since it presents itself not only as a medium but also as a limit of contemporaneity. The Un_imaginable project invites a range of artists and writers to investigate this new unimaginary and explore the unique qualities of its terrain.

Jill Bennett

2008

Book and DVD

Published by ZKM/UNSW Press

This book is a comprehensive analysis of the ground-breaking T_Visionarium media art project developed by Neil Brown, Dennis Del Favero, Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel at the iCinema Centre, Sydney, in collaboration with ZKM, Karlsruhe. It reveals how this immersive interactive environment generates new insights into the workings and consumption of televisual media, extending the boundaries of both art and media studies. Using contemporary theory to analyse gesture and emotion in art and media, Jill Bennett’s text explores the dynamics of new media narratives, demonstrating how both TV and media art operate in a transnarrative dimension where media images take on their own life.

“Situating T_Visionarium in terms of wider cultural shifts, the book is a ‘user’s guide’, both to T_Visionarium, and to screen culture in general. Jill Bennett’s ‘guide’ to the kinds of discoveries possible in the complex space created by T_Visionarium opens up questions about what media art can do. Drawing in particular on knowledge of the televisual genre of forensic detection, and of affect and gesture, Bennett traces the lineaments of T_Visionarium, with unpredictable and often unimaginable results.” Associate Professor Anna Gibbs, School of Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney.

Curator and Editor: Dennis Del Favero and Jeffrey Shaw

Design and Software: Volker Kuchelmeister

2001

Book & DVD-ROM

Published by Hatje Cantz, Germany

This is the first DVD-ROM in the ZKM Digital Arts Edition, published by ZKM and the Centre for Interactive Cinema, presenting new works by Australian and European artists. The individual works address the specific challenges of interactive narrative conception and design.

The works in (dis) LOCATIONS explore a multi-dimensional concept of narrative. This dynamic form of narrative is profoundly dialogic in character. Mikhail Baktin’s concept of the dialogic illustrates how fictional characters, for example, those in Dostoyevsky’s novels, are able to speak without subjection to the single authorial control of their creator. Baktin terms this a ‘genuine polyphony’. The arrival of digital systems permits this polyphony to be an emergent property generated by the viewers’ interaction with the author’s narration.

(dis) LOCATIONS, DVD-ROM & Book, ZKM digital arts edition

ISBN 3-7757-1087-6

Works – Artists:

  • Place Urbanity – a psycho-ethnographic portrait of Melbourne – Jeffrey Shaw
  • The Panoptic Society or Immortally in Love with Death – Peter Weibel
  • Sweet Stalking – Ian Howard
  • Defile – Susan Norrie
  • Pentimento – Dennis Del Favero
  • Their Things Spoken – Agnes Hegedüs

(dis) LOCATIONS Book

This book includes essays by authors including Jill Bennett, Lev Manovich and Peter Weibel which comment upon the featured works and analyze theoretical aspects of interactive cinema and digital communications media.

Essays:

  • Jeffrey Shaw – (dis)LOCATIONS Introduction
  • Dennis Del Favero – “Digitally Expanded Forms of Narration”
  • Lev Manovic – “Post-media Aesthetics”
  • Anna Munster – “New Media as Old Media: Strategies for Dislocation and Relocation”
  • Peter Weibel – “Post-Gutenberg Narrations”
  • Jill Benett – “Notes on Memory, Narration and New Media”
  • Ursula Frohne – “Show & Tell. The Discursive Idea of Things”
  • Charles Green – “The Art of Friction”
  • James Donald – “The World Turned Upside Down”
  • Ursula Frohne – “Horror Vacui”

Jill Bennett

2004

Hardback book of 150 pages with embedded DVD

Published by UNSW Press, Sprengel Museum Hannover: Sydney, Hannover.

in co-operation with iCinema Research Centre, UNSW

 

Fantasmi presents a richly illustrated analysis of leading Australian new media artist Dennis Del Favero’s works from 1994 to 2004, by art historian Jill Bennett. Deep Sleep DVD-ROM, the first in the iCinema digital monographs series, is incorporated into the Fantasmi dual book and DVD publication.

“One of Dennis Del Favero’s most memorable works, Quegli Ultimi Momenti, dates from twenty years ago. It screened the Australian Centre for Photography in 1984 and, through the use of sound, text, still and moving image, it vividly created the world of migration, the creation of the diaspora, particularly its inevitable, unavoidable sense of loss. The richness of awareness of what had been left behind, and by contrast the unknown into which the protagonists were propelled, remains profoundly moving. The installation, complex yet coherent, with content masterfully allied to form, was, with the great benefit of hindsight, illuminating the very core of so much of the artist’s continuing concerns; of the impact on the individual of events both beyond their control and beyond their conscious understanding. We, as the viewer, become enmeshed in each of his works by a world that we enter at our own risk, and from which we can never emerge unscathed.

The bulk of Del Favero’s oeuvre emerges from real events, involving footage from a variety of media sources spliced together to form fractured narratives that jar the nerves, and are presented on multi screens that dislocate the conventional relationship between viewer and moving image. There is no need to duplicate here Jill Bennett’s detailed studies of each piece, but it is important to clarify their combined role within the genre. Conflict, the meeting of demands, desires, beliefs and impositions that are so utterly incompatible, is surely at the heart of Del Favero’s creativity. Memory and loss are two crucial additional foundation stones, as they intertwine with the various ways in which ideology, passion, lust, impotence, greed and power dictate human actions. Del Favero chooses to dwell on the darker nature within, not to obscure, as with so much artistic endeavour, but to reveal its revelatory and utterly disturbing continuity. This representation of the ”discontent in culture” (S. Freud, 1930), which is normally suppressed or subliminated in art, makes the art of Del Favero so relevant. Links from the present are constantly drawn with so many past eras and manifestations, through reference to music, art, the written and spoken word, and the history of ideas.
This remarkable overview of a most productive era encompasses the realist based works Pieta, Coming Apart, Requiem, Cross Currents, Angelo Nero, Pentimento, Deep Sleep, as well as the fictional Sottovoce. They constitute, when experienced collectively, the most disturbing and moving representation of the crisis of communication that afflicts our world today. There are indeed few artists alive so determined and so capable of maintaining our vigilance."

Nick Waterlow, Director, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, UNSW, Sydney

Peter Weibel, Chairman and CEO, ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe

Scott McQuire and Nikos Papastergiadis

2006

DVD/Book

Published by UNSW Press

Conversations:The Parallax Effect critically interprets the experimental Distributed Multi-User Virtual Environment Conversations, 2004-2006, by Dennis Del Favero, Ross Gibson, Ian Howard and Jeffrey Shaw.

The publication evaluates the potential for an immersive multi-modal interactive narrative experience to deal with the complexity of historical events; in this instance, the escape, recapture, trial and hanging of Ronald Ryan at Pentridge Prison, Melbourne in 1967. Ryan was the last person publicly executed in Australia. The authors argue that the experimental artwork allows viewers “to inhabit the landscape of the escape, to experience the confusion of the crime scene first hand; then it enables us to encounter the key protagonists of the subsequent trial […]. Instead of being presented with ‘facts’, viewers are asked to negotiate the historical landscape themselves, to draw conclusions from their encounter with both the scene of the disputed events and the opinions of the characters who dominated their aftermath.”

The accompanying DVD documents the Conversations demonstrator as presented at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.

The Anarchive Series: Digital Archives on Contemporary Art

Curated by Anne-Marie Duguet

2007

DVD video/DVD-ROM

Published by Anarchive

Anarchive n°4: Jean Otth … on the Council of Nicea

In accordance with the principle of the Anarchive collection, of which this is the fourth title, “Jean Otth … on the Council of Nicea” is all at once an original creation, as well as a database of his work. This DVD-ROM is the annotated catalogue of his video works. Although Jean Otth is one of the pioneers of video art in Switzerland, he has also worked with other media as well, such as painting, photography, and the computer. These other works are presented here.

After studying art history and philosophy at the University of Lausanne, Jean Otth attended the art school of Lausanne. From then on, his artistic trajectory, still influenced by the practice of painting, became closely tied to the emergence of new technologies. He is one of the pioneers of video art in Switzerland in the early 1970’s, and his works were soon seen in numerous exhibitions both in Switzerland and abroad (for instance Dokumenta 6 in Kassel). In the 1980’s he began to employ the computer in his works, not only for its instrumental possibilities, but for its aesthetic dimensions as well. Jean Otth taught at the Cantonal Art School of Lausanne from 1979 to 2002.

Today he pursues a work that mixes the real and the virtual and explores their interaction. This is accomplished through the creation of installations, often including the projection of images on objects. While constantly questioning the media that he uses, and at times even takes as a subject matter, Jean Otth produces borderlines works that test the observer and provoke desire through covering-up, reframing, and shifting. The spectator is thus invited to participate in sensitive, singular experiments in which the figure is threatened with disappearance – where that which can be represented is but a question.

“Jean Otth ….on the Council of Nicea” is composed of two dvds:

  • A DVD video, playable on any dvd player, contains 20 of the artist’s videos (in their totality and excerpts).
  • A DVD-ROM (for Mac or PC) that enables access, in an interactive way, not only to the videos (60 pieces), but also to filmed documentation of the video installations (28 pieces), as well as a significant body of visual documentation of works realized in other media (930 reproductions).

Thirteen short video pieces, created especially for this project, illustrate the different problematics that run through the work of Jean Otth, such as mimesis, electronic disturbance, obliteration, projection, tautology. Finally, a selection of the artist’s writings, as well as numerous critical texts about his work, are accessible in this database, and are in printable form (57 texts).

Credits

  • Author and artistic director: Jean Otth
  • Editorial and scientific direction: Anne-Marie Duguet, Paris
  • Programming and interactive concept: Marc Göring “Electron Libre”, Lausanne and Adrien Cater
  • Graphic concept: Werner Jeker, “Les Ateliers du Nord”, Lausanne
  • Authors of the texts: René Berger, Edmond Charrière, Anne-Marie Duguet, Lysianne Léchot-Hirt, Geneviève Loup, Michel Thévoz, Jörg Zutter, Jean Otth
  • Translation: Douglas Parsons
  • Sound: Christian Pahud

This DVD-ROM was produced thanks to private patronage and the support of Pro Helvetia swiss arts council, the Cultural Fund of the City of Lausanne, the Canton of Vaud, and the Vaud Academic Society.
The Center for Contemporary Images- St. Gervais in Geneva, and AktiveArchive in Bern both participated in the production of this work.

Price : 39 €

ISBN 978-2-9518132-1-2

Distribution : Les Presses du réel info@lespressesdureel.com www.lespressesdureel.com 16 rue Quentin 21000 Dijon – France tel +33 (0)3 80 30 75 23