Embodiment, augmentation and remixing

This lab consisted of demonstrations and critical thinking considering the impact of digital technologies on the innovative British artist Donald Rodney. Artists, curators and technologists examined the artist’s final works, re-defined through embodiment, augmentation and remixing.

Participants included:

Mike Phillips, Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts & Director of Research at i-DAT, University of Plymouth | Ian Sergeant, Curator of Reimaging Donald Rodney | Antonio Roberts, new media artist and curator | Cathy Wade, interdisciplinary artist | Gary Stewart, artist and experimental sonic musician, former Head of multimedia at Iniva.

The lab explored Rodney’s digital practice in detail, and interrogated the artist’s key technology enabled works originally produced in the 1990s, in a dialogue between contemporary new media, interdisciplinary artists and members of the original art making collective ‘Donald Rodney plc’ including Mike Phillips and Gary Stewart.

The 1997/98 works Autoicon and Psalms were be demonstrated and participants were able to interact with them. Psalms is a wheelchair modified at the School of Computing of the University of Plymouth to perform repeated sequences specified by Donald Rodney. It uses 8 sonar sensors, shaft-encoders, a video camera and a rate gyroscope to determine its position; a neural network using normalised RBF nodes encodes the sequence of 25 semi-circular sequences of positions forming the trajectory.

Autoicon was a dynamic internet work that simulated both the physical presence and elements of the creative personality of Donald Rodney. After initiating the project, Rodney died from sickle-cell anaemia in March 1998. Ian Sergeant, curator of the 2016 exhibition Reimaging Donald Rodney considered the research process behind a one year project with the participation of members of Wolverhampton Sickle Cell Care and Activity Centre (WSCCAC) to produce a response to this, doublethink (2015). Alongside this, Cathy Wade presented a dialogue with the ‘data body’ of Autoicon.

The lab concluded with a presentation from leading new media artist Antonio Roberts, who considered the implications of co-authorship, authenticity and superceded technologies in revising and augmenting original works in the context of recent digital practice.

The Donald Rodney Lab was presented by Vivid Projects with the Digital Humanities Hub, University of Birmingham. Supported by The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and University of Birmingham.

Donald Rodney

28 October 2016 –  28 October 2016

Donald Rodney Late for Galleries Night

Donald Rodney

4 November 2016 –  4 November 2016

Psalms

Donald Rodney, 9 EVENINGS

24 October 2015 –  24 October 2015

9 Evenings: AUTOICON