SIGNAL:NOISE
The Showroom, London
A four-day event, 13–16 January 2011
SIGNAL:NOISE is an experimental cross-disciplinary research project that aims to explore the influence of cybernetics and information theory on contemporary cultural life by testing out its central idiom, ‘feedback’, through debates, performances, and events.
Through the application of mechanical and scientific models for the understanding of social and political life, cybernetic theory – in particular notions of feedback – informed the development of many early conceptual and participatory artistic practices in the 1960s/70s, yet its influence is still under-recognized.
Signal:Noise aims to bring together people who are working with these ideas in the fields of art, design, architecture, media and theory in order to open a discussion around this discourse, looking at how it has informed cultural, social and political life, in the past and present.
The project is lead by Steve Rushton, Dexter Sinister (David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey), Marina Vishmidt, Rod Dickinson and Emily Pethick.
Programme Overview
Thursday 13 Jan, 7-9pm
Steve Rushton: How Media Masters Reality
Charlie Gere: La Cybernétique or Dark Cybernetics and the End of the Human
8.30pm Moderated by Rod Dickinson and Marina Vishmidt
Friday 14 January, 7-9pm
Richard Hornsey: The Cybernetic Londoner: A Prehistory
Rod Dickinson: Closed Circuit, performance at the Cockpit Theatre
Saturday 15 January, 2-9pm
2pm Lars Bang Larsen: Anti-Disciplinary Feedback and the Will to Effect
3pm Feedback as Cultural Logic lead by Marina Vishmidt and Matthew Fuller with Andy Goffey
5pm Will Holder speaks to Dexter Sinister
7pm Film screenings introduced by Steve Rushton and others
Sunday 16 January, 2-8pm
2pm Emily Pethick speaks to Stephen Willats on art, society and feedback
3pm Emma Smith and Sophie Hope on social systems
4pm Rod Dickinson: An Invitation to a Zero Sum afternoon: Deadlock, Chicken, Stag Hunt and the Prisoner's Dilemma, led by Rod Dickinson
6pm Dexter Siniste: An Octapus in Plan View
An installation of Stephen Willats’ Homeostat Wall Drawing (2008) will form a backdrop to the event.
On the Saturday and Sunday events dinner will be available during the evening events, prepared by Lucky PDF.
Sponsors: SIGNAL:NOISE is supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, Arts Council England, and The Showroom's Supporters Scheme. It is part of Circular Facts – a collaborative endeavor between three European contemporary art organizations: Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht, Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp, The Showroom, London in partnership with Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen and Electric Palm Tree, financially supported by the Cooperation Measures Grant as part of the European Unions Culture 2007 programme
THE SHOWROOM
63 Penfold Street
London NW8 8PQ
T 020 7724 4300
theshowroom.org
This new space is located on the corner of Penfold Street and Boscobel Street, with its entrance on Penfold Street, just off Edgware Road.
The Showroom is a short walk from Edgware Road underground station, which is served by the Hammersmith and City, Circle and Bakerloo lines. Numerous buses from central London stop on the Edgware Road within a few minutes walk of the space, including the 6, 16, 98, 332 and 414.
