UC EVENTS

Speaker: Professor Julian Knowles

Date/Time: Thursday 3 October 2024, 12:30-13:30

Location: 1A21, University of Canberra (accessed from the foyer joining Building 1 and Mizzuna Café) 

or Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/91329732418

Abstract

With the arrival of the Internet and public data streams, new opportunities have arisen to explore the ways in which real-time (or live) data may be deployed in an art work. 

This recent technical development has opened the possibility of art works being responsive to live Internet data, thus extending the notion of context responsive art into the datasphere so that artworks may become ‘internet enabled’. 

Climate is inextricably linked to notions of the Anthropocene – an epoch in which humans have impacted global ecosystems. Given the struggle to make science heard within public discourse around climate change, there is a need to connect people to the underlying facts around climate. 

Solar Halo is a work for live Internet data in performance that explores the real time dynamics of weather systems. Using custom-developed software, the project draws on live data from 16 atmospheric weather stations – eight across the Australian Alpine Country and eight across New York City. 

Live weather data then drive an audio-visual system with which the performer interacts. The project engages with Timothy Morton’s notion of the ‘hyperobject’. These are largescale structures above humanity that are difficult to comprehend due to their sheer vastness. 

Climate change is a hyperobject, as is the Internet. The project brings these two hyperobjects together to help us comprehend the apparently incomprehensible, essential in any effort to mobilise action against climate change.

All are welcome!

Bio

Julian Knowles is a composer, performer, media artist and researcher, specialising in new and emerging technologies. His practice-based research demonstrates a long-standing, high-level engagement with technologically-mediated music and sound practices and the relationships between audio-visual media. 

This has resulted in the creation of more than 50 innovative works that have been disseminated by high profile record labels, broadcasters and art institutions internationally. As a solo artist, Julian’s music and audio/visual works have been presented at events and venues such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Experimental Intermedia in New York City, What is Music?, Australian Perspecta, Liquid Architecture, the Melbourne International Film Festival, VIVID Sydney and the Sydney Opera House. 

Julian has an extensive background in the Australian and UK independent music scenes, playing in and producing records for bands from the late-1980s onwards. One of his bands, Even As We Speak, achieved significant chart success in the UK and was one of only four Australian bands ever to be invited to record sessions for the prominent BBC Radio 1 DJ, John Peel. Julian is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra.
 

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