Dorkbot

I am somewhere over the Mid Atlantic coast, airborne on an ailing Freedom Air (the little guys who do the puddle jumps for Delta) prop job which was four hours late out of New York this morning, and yet through the wonders of technology, and my new laptop with the little wizard box that allows me Internet access practically everywhere in the nation, here I am, ahem... blogging.

And it is appropriate that the subject is to announce the next Dorkbot DC meeting of that strange group of area artists who (in their own words) are "artists (sound/image/movement/etc.), designers, engineers, students and other interested parties from the DC area who are involved in the creation of electronic art (in the broadest sense of the term)."

These geekartists will host Paras Kaul, a.k.a. "The Brainwave Chick."

Paras Kaul is an adjunct professor and Web developer at George Mason University, but when she pulls on her electrode-studded headband and steps out in front of an audience, she is “The Brainwave Chick.”

Why?

Kaul uses "a brain wave interface as a neural artist, researcher, and music composer. She creates brain wave music for multimedia productions that have been performed at the Kennedy Center, Millennium Stage, the Walker Art Center, and at SIGGRAPH conferences. Kaul’s research also involves the development of neural games for attaining preferable brain states for learning. Her neural art and games are intended to call attention to brain matters and to invoke a dialogue to discuss neurological learning to develop human potentials for self-healing, nonverbal communication, and remote viewing."

I'm sorry whaaa?

Also presenting at the Dorkbot DC meeting will be Philip Kohn, an artist whose interactive video art explores audience participation. He will be discussing his recent collaborative work “Your Two Cents” which records video of viewers opinions, then distorts them using video effects including face part identification

Maybe it's just me, but there's something slightly fascinating in a weird way about the ability of these, uh... scientists cum artists to create artwork that jumpstarts the 21st century into an area where (Blake Gopnik should love this), almost everything is new.

And the DC area, with its large technogeek base of cutting edge technology companies, R&D outfits and megahuge defense contractors, is the perfect place to fuel artistic development that marries real cutting edge science with "new" forms of art.

And these artists are working right here, in the DC area, under the noses of DC area museum curators. And if you or I were a young, up-and-coming curator, say Anne Ellegood, or Kristen Hileman, or Sarah Newman, maybe dropping in and seeing what these geekartists are up to could be worth the visit.

I think that they might see something new.

Date/Time: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 7-9 PM
Location: Provisions Library
Suite 200
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20009
Price: Free admission
Public Contact #: 202-299-0460