** Open System's Surprise Party is now! **

Steve Mizrach (SEEKER1@NERVM.NERDC.UFL.EDU)
Thu, 24 Mar 1994 02:03:06 -0500

Come join our party! Some of our invited guests include Nancy Patterson,
electronic artist; Greg Ulmer, teletheorist; and Public Domain, the
Atlanta-based arts/net collective. The Surprise Party is taking place at
the University of Florida through this weekend. If you live nearby and can
make some of these events, check them out!

We're having this conference to 1) hold workshops on issues both
theoretical and practical relating to our electronic age, 2) create a new
model for the conference, where tools like the World Wide Web let the whole
world come and participate, and 3) network with like-minded individuals and
organizations.

THE SURPRISE PARTY:

A FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS, THEORY AND ELECTRONIC DESIRE

PROGRAM
TUESDAY MARCH 22
CSE E222
7.30PM re:wired: Introduction
Gregory L. Ulmer: Opening Address
Nancy Paterson: Keynote Speaker
"Lust and Wanderlust: Sex & Tourism in a Virtual
World"
What is the place of virtual reality technolgy in the
tourism and pornography industries? What is the comparison of
travel as metaphor vs. tourism as an ironic, voyeurisitic
expression of human experience? Nancy Paterson offers a critical
examination of current directions and applications of VR research
and development.
WEDNESDAY MARCH 23
Reitz 346
10.30am: Public Domain Workshop
Public Domain will present an overview of their previous
activities and discuss their present projects. These
include:
i) Working Papers
ii) Perforations--an on-line journal
iii) the Kiosk Project
iv) InterNet node
They will discuss their plans for the Atlanta
Olympics: Global Identity/Global Technology 96. This
project examines subject formation in relation to a
shifting global/localized technological
infrastructure. Ageneral rap session.
WEDNESDAY MARCH 23
FAC 310
2.30pm: Nancy Paterson Workshops. Open to the public.
The first will involve students from Scott Nygren's
"Theorizing Video Production" graduate seminar and
David Govoni's "4D Electronic Media" class.
This session will focus on immediate issues and
concerns facing those exploring video and interactive
media for creative production.
CSE E220
5.30pm: The second will involve students from Greg
Ulmer's "History of Theory and Criticism" graduate
seminar and Bill Tillson's " "
. This session is designed to engage with
theoretical issues that arise from the rapid
development of electronic media and information
technologies. How does this accelerated growth affect
institutional practices and behaviors, subject
formation, community and communication in a
"post-literate," electronic age?

7.30pm: ScanLine Fever: Film and Video Screening
Local video-makers and students will present their
work. The screenings are not intended to involve the
passive consumption of a pre-packaged spectacle. The
artists will engage their audience on questions
regarding the reception, transmission and production
of their work. Participants include FemTV, Brian
Slawson's HyperGlob project, Reynold Weidenaar,
Amitava Kumar, Public Domain and the Critical Arts
Ensemble.
THURSDAY MARCH 24
11am-2pm: TAZ--Turlington Art Zone
This building will be declared an autonomous art zone.
Installations, exhibitions, performances,
presentations. Work will explore the interface between
gender and machinic identity, cosmetic and prosthetic
technologies. The Robot Group will display their
latest creations.

TURL 2322
After 3pm: The Para-Site, the WWW Mosaic Server for
the Surprise Party and the on-line node for Open
System/re:wired, will be publically accessible. We're
going to screen it (like a movie). a veritable
goulashe of material has been placed on the server.
Chack out Ulmer's "Metaphoric Rocks," Kumar's "Pigs,"
samplings of innovative student work, contributions
from artists, net-shakers and nomads on the electronic
frontier. See why the Para-Site is easily the most
interesting and inventive hive on the Web. Address:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/CLAS/Departments/Rewired/Re-WI
RED.html

TURL 2014
4.00pm: Nancy Paterson Presentation
"Cyber/Feminism: The Future of Electronic Art for
Women"
This lecture explores creative applications of new
electronic technologies. Cultural implications as well
as feminist responses to the design and development of
these new media will also be examined.
Issues in cyberfeminism drawn fro the writings of
philosophers/artists/cultural critics such as Susanne
Langer, Ursula Franklin, Margaret Benston, Donna
Harawy and Brenda Laurel will be presented and
discussed.
Strategies will also be discussed for developing video
installations, artworks which are computer-based, as
well as multimedia and virtual reality systems.
Extensive video documentation of contemporary women
artists working with new electronic technology will be
screened.
Co-sponsored by the Women's Studies Department and the
Women's Studies Association.

THURSDAY MARCH 24
CSE 101
8.00pm: Public Domain Performance
"Doll's Universe"
An exercise in the "rhetoric of apocalypse." This
performance explores desire and the blurred boundary
between the human and the artificial.
FRIDAY MARCH 25
Reitz 346
10.30am: Public Domain Workshop
A follow-up brainstorming session on the Global
Identity/Global Tecnologies project.

Reitz 346
3.00pm: FMAC & FRE Workshop
The Florida Media Arts Centre (FMAC) will present on
"Creating the Electronic Community"and discuss
strategies for negotiating the East/West split in the
Gainesville community along wealth and racial lines.
Greg Ulmer and others from the Florida Research
Ensemble will present on their Tourist Project.

9.00pm: Rap Party at the Hardback Cafe
Installations, art and entertainment, musical and
otherwise at this local club.
Drinking and merriment!!! [Theoretical] Party Games.

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COME SEE OUR PARASITE!

But if you can't be there in person - that's OK! Come visit re:WIRED's
ParaSite. The URL for our site is:
**** http://www.clas.ufl.edu//CLAS/Departments/Rewired/Re-WIRED.html ****

On our World Wide Web server, you can find out more about Re-WIRED and Open
System and its members, see some neat documents and submissions for the
Surprise Party, and learn of upcoming projects.

We are the Workshop for the Invention and Research of Electronic Discourse
(re:WIRED), and our ParaSite should continue to grow in the future. For
more
information, email HYENA@UFCC.UFL.EDU or TRUE@NERVM.NERDC.UFL.EDU.

Seeker1 [@Nervm.Nerdc.Ufl.Edu] (real info available on request)
Anthropomorphist, Metanoid, Lerian, MatrixWanderer, HyperRealist, etc.
Rhipidon Society, VALISystem A, Sol Node 3
"Philip K. Dick is dead, alas/ Let's queue up and kick G-d's ass." --
Michael Bishop, the Secret Ascension