Re: <nettime> Weizenbaum at the Digital Art Weeks 07

[Arthur Clay <art.clay@inf.ethz.ch>]

Dear John Hopkins

Thank you for your comments. However, I am not sure the passage from
me you selected to quote jives with the reasoning you present in your
comment. It just simply states that inter disciplinary work is no
longer a concept but a praxis in art and that teams form with diverse
knowledge.

During his Key Note speech for the Digital Art Weeks 07 Conference,
Weizenbaum simply said that the decision to go ahead with a project
remains yours to say yes or no to. If one finds the project not moral
sound, then one should find the kraft to say no. In doing so other
paths will open up. Of course this is naive as it is almost impossible
to exclude the military from the agenda for computer science. Through
his experiences at MIT, Weizenbaum admitted it himself.

The point in reference to your comment is that there are viable
alternatives to "proof of concept" for computer science research. Art
application is certainly one. Also, because the Digital Art Weeks
is part of the activities if the ETH Zurich, - a major research
institute- we are not "brought the digital device", we invent it.
Works like my "GoingPublik" or "China Gates" are bottom up projects
with no commercial hardware or software. Here. empirical research
is imbedded in art applications. As an institute, we are of course
responsible for the technology and as a festival venue for electronic
art we are as well responsible for the aesthetics results brought
about by the possibilities the technology brings. The proof here in
terms of "human encounter" can be easily judged by taking a quick
retro blick at the festival:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10329415@N06/

http://uk.youtube.com/profile?user=digitalartweeks

greetings,

Art Clay, Artistic Director Digital Art Weeks Zurich




Arthur Clay, Project Coordinator
ETH Zuerich
Institut fuer Computersysteme
Clausiusstrasse 59,
ETH-Zentrum, RZ H 22.
8092 Zuerich

Tel: 044 632 84 14
E-Mail: arthur.clay@inf.ethz.ch

Office Hours:
Tuesday & Thursday from 8 am to 4 pm
Wednesday from 8 am to 12 noon

http://www.digitalartweeks.ethz.ch
http://homepage.bluewin.ch/artclay/







#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org