eye.on.art

UAL Chair of Black Art and Design Professor Paul Goodwin in conversation with artist and academic Dr Keith Piper (Middlesex University) and artist and former Head of New Media at Iniva Gary Stewart.

Part of the GHOSTS programme of exhibitions and events, this discussion will trace an alternative genealogy of contemporary artist’s exploration of technology and techno-culture in Britain through the practices of two pioneers in the field of new media art: Keith Piper and Gary Stewart. The discussion will unpack critical notions such as ‘digital diasporas’ while discussing the impact of seminal exhibitions and projects such Keith Piper’s ‘Relocating the Remains’ (1997) and Gary Stewart’s ‘Liminal: A Question of Position’ (2009).

GHOSTS:Technologies/Subjectivities Series: Keith Piper & Gary Stewart
Thur 15 Jan 2015, 18:30 to 20:00

Wilson Road Lecture Theatre
Camberwell College of Arts London
SE5 8LU

This event is part of the UAL Chair’s Present Series

Event contact:
Rachael Daniels
r.e.daniels@arts.ac.uk

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES:

Keith Piper
Keith Piper is a British based artist and academic. His creative practice responds to specific social and political issues, historical relationships and geographical sites. Adopting a research driven approach, and using a variety of media, his work over the past 30 years has ranged from painting, through photography and installation to a use of digital media, video and computer based interactivity. He is Associate Professor in Fine Art and Digital Media at Middlesex University and teaches across a wide range of creative disciplines within the Fine Art Department. His specialism lies in the field of integrated mixed media and installation, with a particular interest in digital, interactive and time-based media. Piper’s core research interests are in the fields of post-colonial studies, ‘afrofuturism’ and digital diasporas.
As a student at Trent Polytechnic in the early 1980s, Piper was a founder member of the ‘Blk Art Group’, a clustering of young black artists who became influential within the emergence of the British Black Art Movement of the 1980s. Since then he has exhibited work internationally, published writings and taught in institutions in the UK, Europe and North America. His recent work has included ‘The Perfect City’ a multi-screen video project commissioned by Film London (2007), as well as solo exhibitions in the Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis (2004) and Ferens Art Gallery, Hull (2007). He was commissioned to produce a site-specific installation entitled ‘Lost Vitrines’ for the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2007 and in 2010 undertook a residency at the CBK in Dordrecht, Holland leading to an installation entitled ‘A Future Museum of the Present’. His work was featured in ‘Afro Modern’ at Tate Liverpool in 2010, and ‘Migrations’ at Tate Britain in 2012. He was a founder member of the ‘Blk Art Group Research Project 2012′, which was established to examine the development of the British Black Art Movement of the 1980s.

Gary Stewart
Gary Stewart is an artist, researcher and musician working between the UK, Brazil and the Caribbean. Born in Birmingham in 1961, he received his BSc in Electronics and Computing from Nottingham Trent University in 1984. Working with electronic media as an artist, designer, producer and curator over the last twenty years Stewart has been involved in pioneering initiatives and projects that explore social and political issues through interrogating the relationship between culture, technology and creativity. In particular his work and collaborations with other artists and institutions has sought to find different ways of engaging audiences in the process of exploring what we mean by authorship through the unique opportunities afforded by interactive digital media. Between 1995-2011 he was Head of New Media at Iniva, the Institute of International Visual Arts based in the gallery space Rivington Place, London where he curated Iniva’s digital programme including installations, exhibitions, public and online projects.
Currently he is Research Associate and artist-in-Residence at Queen Mary University London working on an AHRC project Transforming Lives between the UK and Brazil, whose vision is to extend understanding of the transformative powers of art to progress justice through individual, collective and institutional change. Together with artist Trevor Mathison he is part of Dubmorphology a London based research, production and performance group who make sound and visual installations, creating imaginative and innovative projects that explore social and political issues.

Paul Goodwin
Paul Goodwin is an independent curator, urban theorist and researcher based in London. With the artist Sonia Boyce he is joint UAL Chair of Black Art and Design Studies at University of the Arts London based at Chelsea College of Arts and a member of TrAIN (Transnational Art Identity and Nation) Research Centre at UAL.

Source: UAL