Lecturer :

Timothy Murray
Society for the Humanities Cornell University Ithaca, New York

Aesthetics of Excess: Theorizing the Interface of Art and Technology

The rise of cinema and mechanized representational technologies has provided an informative backdrop for a century long reflection on aesthetics and the excesses of affect, sentiment, and corporeality.

Emphasizing French psycho-philosophical approaches to cinematic and new media technologies, the seminar will rehearse the intellectual backdrop for understanding this Aesthetics of Excess in relation to modern/postmodern formulations of subjectivity, sexuality, and politics.

Lectures will present a broad spectrum on international interventions in electronic and new media arts in order to frame discussion of the balance between aesthetics and the social contribution of technological art.

Schedule :

Jan. 2 (Monday): Aesthetics Meets Technology

This will lecture will introduce the interface of art and technology by comparing Heidegger’s discussion of technology and pictoriality with Felix Guattari’s theory of technological excess. Visual and artistic examples will shape the lecture and discussion.

Jan. 3 (Tuesday) Machinic Immaterialities: Techno-Performance

What might it mean for the art to be “immaterial”? Departing from the lecture on “Art Toward the Immaterial” by the French artist, Yves Klein, the lecture will introduce Jean-Francois Lyotard’s later theory of “Les Immateriaux” and then discuss the paradox of technological performance art. How is Techno-Performance “immaterial”?

Jan. 4 (Wednesday): Cinema into the Data Future: Interactive Cinema to Animation

This session will consider the impact of the “immaterial” on cinema and its digital manifestations. Considering conceptual writings on cinema by Lyotard and Gilles Deleuze, we will ask how the screen situates the viewer between reality and virtual, between image and affect? Examples from interactive cinema, new media and animated installation will inform the lecture.

Jan. 5 (Thursday): TechnoError: Sound Art

In contrast to the technologies of visual control outlined by Heidegger and challenged by Lyotard, sound art capitalizes on technologies of noise, error, and glitch. This lecture will investigate the relation between sound and affect, noise and listening. Examples will emphasize sound art and interactive sound installation from Asia.

Jan. 6 (Friday): Being Scanned: Digital Terror

Returning to the opening linkage of technology with systems of visual control and digital surveillance, the final lecture will question the role of art and aesthetics in what Gilles Deleuze calls “control societies.” Do technologies of digital terror return us to darker paradigms of Heidegger’s “world picture” or can they be appropriated by the aesthetics of excess?

Venue :

Subway / Bus :

• Subway at Ewha Womans University · Subway Green line #2 Ewha Womans Univ. Station • Buslines at Ewha Womans University · Ewha Womans Univ. Station Blue: 163, 170, 171, 172, 270, 271, 273, 371, 472, 602, 603, 700, 705, 721,751 Green: 5711, 5712, 5713, 5714, 6716, 7017, 7611, 7712 Red: 1000,1100, 1200, 9600, 9602, 9706 · Ewha Back Gate Blue: 161, 370, 470, 601, 708, 750, 751 Green: 6714, 7017, 7736, 7737 Red: 9101, 9600, 9601, 9602, 9706, 9713 Yellow: 7736, 7737