artiste "futuriste":Norman White à Concordia le 28 Janvier

GEEK-CONCORDIA

Titled "Geek-Concordia", this series explores a diverse range of
idiosyncratic approaches to art and technology. Each artist could be
said to be a bit of a "geek": all have highly personal, hands-on and
materials driven methods of creating work, and are significantly self
taught.

In some way, each artist allows traces of their process to remain
visible in the final work, whether the open circuit boards and wire
tangles of Jessica Field's robotic zoo animals or the very homemade,
wonderfully cobbled together cameras of Donald Lawrence's underwater
pinhole photography practice. Each artist has a developed a "vernacular
mode of aesthetic inquiry" (Donald Lawrence) and may be described, to
borrow a phrase from Diana Burgoyne, as an "electronic folk artist".


NORMAN T. WHITE
"THE HELPLESS ROBOT AND OTHER FIASCOS"
January 28, 7pm
EV 11.705, 1515 Saint Catherine West, Concordia University

In this talk, the first in the Geek-Concordia series, pioneering
robotics artist Norm White will give an overview of his work from the
past few decades.

White is fascinated by the idea of mechanical devices which have
unpredictable "lives of their own":sets of internal rules and cycles
which give them autonomous and surprising behaviors. He builds kinetic
devices that have deliberately minimal visual appeal, yet a strong
behavioral dimension. Their behavior derives partly from the materials
employed (electronic components, motors, pulleys, gears, etc) and the
tendency for such materials to wear and break. For White, robotics has
become a form of portraiture, rife with myriad possibilities of
introspection, irony, drama, farce, and social commentary.

Artist Biography....
Norman White moved to Canada in 1967, where he embarked upon an intense
self-education in electronics. In the decades that followed, he went on
to create a series of logic-based "machines" which expressed themselves
through light, sound and motion. Many of these artworks have found their
way into important public collections, including the National Gallery of
Canada and the Vancouver Art Gallery. He has exhibited in shows
thoughout Europe and North America, the most recent major shows being
"Machine Life" (2004) at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingson,
Ontario, and "Norm's Robots" (2004) at the the Koffler Art Centre in
Toronto, Ontario. In 1990, he was awarded an Interactive Art Prize
("Auszeichnung") at Ars Electronica, and in 1995, the Petro-Canada Award
for Media Arts. From 1978 to 2003, White taught at the Ontario College
of Art & Design, where he helped to initiate a programme dedicated to
teaching electronics, mechanics, and computer programming to artists. He
now teaches similar courses at Ryerson University in Toronto.

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For more information, please contact
Laura St.Pierre
CIAM Concordia Project Coordinator
EV 11.429, 1515 Saint Catherine Street West
514.848.2424, ext. 5773
lstpierr@alcor.concordia.ca
ciam-arts.org