Symposium

Sorting Daemons Symposium

Program Information

David Rokeby has been creating interactive sound and video installations with computers since 1982. His Very Nervous System (1982-1991) is acknowledged as a pioneering work of interactive art, translating physical gestures into real-time interactive sound environments. Several of his works have addressed issues of digital surveillance, including Watch (1995), Taken (2002), and Sorting Daemon (2003). Watched and Measured (2000) was awarded the first BAFTA award for interactive art from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2000. Other works engage in a critical examination of the differences between human and artifcial intelligence. The Giver of Names (1991-) and n-cha(n)t (2001) are artifcial subjective entities.

Rokeby's installations have been exhibited extensively in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He has lectured around the world, and has published landmark papers that are required reading in the new media arts at many universities. Very Nervous System was presented at the Venice Biennale in 1986; this piece garnered the first Petro-Canada Award for Media Arts in 1988 and Austria's Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for Interactive Art in 1991. In 2002, Rokeby was awarded a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Interactive Art and he represented Canada at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. In 2004, he represented Canada at the São Paulo Bienal. In 2007 he completed major art commissions for the Ontario Science Centre, Toronto, and the Daniel Langlois Foundation, Montréal. David Rokeby is represented by Pari Nadimi Gallery.

 

"Camera as Projector: The Automated Gaze in Public Space"

The ancient Greeks believed that the eye emitted rays of perception that reached out and touched the objects of sight and reported back what they found. Contemporary surveillance cameras equipped with computer software effectively project their detection algorithms out into the surveilled space, filling the space with something resembling human judgement, yet disembodied and disconnected from experience. David Rokeby will examine the implications with examples from his work