Council of EuropeConseil de I'Europe

Culture, Communication and New Technologies

" The__ Impact

of

New

Technologies

on

European

Culture"

CONFERENCE

ON

A NEW SPACE FOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY

(NEW IDEAS IN SCIENCE AND ART)

Under the auspices of Mr Vdclav HAVEL

President of the Czech Republic

19 - 23

November

1996

Prague Castle

- Czech Republic

Programme prepared by the Secretariat

Council of Europe

Mrs Monika PAJEROVA

T61 (33) 88 4129 58

Fax (33) 88 4127 53

Prague Castle Administration

Mr Jiri MACHAL

T61 (42) 2 24 373 237

Fax (42) 2 24 310 896

1 . The challenge :

The organisation of a five-day conference on new ideas in artand science to be held for specialists from several countriesin the fields of art, science, philosophy and sociology. Theobjective of the meeting is to discuss some of the majordirections in art and science today with practitioners invarious fields, particularly those concerned with thefundamental transformations taking place in certain areas ofknowledge and the effect of those changes on contemporaryculture and society.

The event will be a cross between conference and workshop,encouraging the maximum exchange between all participantsin an attempt to grasp the meaning of the changes and topropose cultural policy directions promoting their positiveevolution. The conference will be held from 19 to 23November 1996 in the Presidential Palace of Prague, underthe auspices of President VAclav Havel.

2. The subjects :

(i) Art and Science : Our two modes of experimentation, derivingan order from things observed, have proposed in the modern eraa New Renaissance : science, by inventing a new space, and art,by prefiguring that space and making it habitable and part of thehuman experience .

(ii) Fractal Geometry & Chaos Theory : The mathematical andscientific discoveries confronting us today, the continuation of thecentury's scientific revolution, play an important part in the newdescription of space and spatial organisation being proposed, withprofound consequences for society .

(iii) The New Technologies: The technical products of the 20thcentury's scientific revolution have become the tools of thecultural transformation implicit in that revolution, building anddefining a new mental space for Western civilisation .

(iv) The socio-political and cultural implications : Thereorganisation of society and culture is heavily influenced by therole of communication and the media, and their interface withartistic creativity defines a potentially new cultural dynamic,particularly important for all countries in Europe as changingpolitical, economic and technological circumstances forcecountries to redefine their societies and the needs andresponsibilities of the individual citizen .

3. The programme :

The three days of in-depth discussion will each have a certainnumber of presentations by specialists and practitioners inscience, art and the social sciences, complemented by adiscussion with the participants . Each presentation will be abrief point of introduction of a particular idea, opening thedebate to all present.Speakers will not be speakers in the traditional sense, but willrather outline a basic idea for the others, and, with help fromthe moderator, develop that idea, particularly in its relationto the other disciplines .

The third day of discussion will end with a round-table onpossible actions to be taken and recommendations to be madeto the Council of Europe for initiatives in the field. Toguarantee that this new cultural space be truly European,recommendations should include ways to assure that itdevelops as such and that it expresses all that is important toevolving European culture, and at the same time be preparedto interact globally with those who are interested .

Important to the conclusion of the Conference is furtherencouragement of the interface and cooperation between artand science, the continuation of the dialogue begun andsupport to initiatives where that dialogue already exists, as anessential part of the research into the future of Westerncivilisation . Closing the gap that has existed for generationsbetween the two should be an objective of the conferencediscussion and its aftermath as a means of injecting a newdynamism into the cultural development of the continent.

4. Topics and speakers:

Tuesday, 19 November 1996

: Opening of the Conference

Morning:

Arrival of participants

Afternoon :

6 :00pm

Opening addressJaromtr Talfi, Czech Ministry of CulturePeter Leuprecht, Deputy Secretary General of theCouncil of Europe

7 :00pm

Opening reception in the Rudolf Gallery at thePresidential Palace

Wednesday, 20 November __1996 : The New Space of Science

Morning (10:00am):

- The New Scientific Paradigm, Ervin Laszlo

- Chaos Theory, a Space-Time Pattern, Ralph Abraham

Moderator : Siegfried Zielinsky

Afternoon (2:30pm):

- Changing Scientific Perspectives, Ilya Prigogine

-Fractal Geometry and the Representation of Nature,Benoft Mandelbrot

- Art and Science, Parallel Spaces, Leonard Shlain

Moderator : Ivan M. Havel

6

Thursday, 21 November 1996 : _Art and the New Space

Morning (10:00am) :

- The role of the Artist in Defining the New Space, Doti Foresta

- The New Art Space, Otto Piene

Moderator : John Wyver

Afternoon (2:30pm):

- The Artist and his Tools, Steina Vasulka

- The Dis-Embodyed Re-Embodyed Body, Jeffrey Shaw

- The New Emerging Culture, Tor Norretranders

Moderator: Erkki Huhtamo

Friday, 22 November 1996 : Society and the Impact of New Ideas

Morning (10:00am):

- New Definitions of Reality, Sigfried Schmidt

- Interactive Space and Collective Intelligence, Pierre Levy

- Technology, Instability and Culture, Bernard Stiegler

Moderator : Patrick Talbot

Afternoon (2:30pm) :

Plenary Forum : Discussion of ideas for exploring the newspace, scientifically and artistically, and participating in itsdefinition and construction . Moderator : Kirill Razlogov

7 :00 pm

Closing adressVdclav HAVEL, President of the Czech Republic

Visit of the exhibition "Along the Frontier" in RudolfinumReception given by the Minister of Culture

Saturday, 23 November 1996 :

Visit oreanised in the Museum of Modern andContemporary Art

11 :30am - Opening of the exhibition of ZdenJk Pe§knek

12:30am - Projections and showings of interactive artistic workLaboratory of Vildm Flusser

1 :00pm - Press Conference

1 :30pm - Closing reception in the Auditorium of the Museum

5. Place:The Conference will be held in the Ballgame Hall of thePresidential Palace of Prague .

6. Participants:Seventy specialists and practitioners in art, science and education,as participants, speakers or observers, concerned by the culturaland social transformations being discussed and capable of puttinginto action and disseminating the ideas proposed by theconference, plus eleven specialists and officials from the Councilof Europe and three international journalists as reporters .Delegations from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council ofEurope and from the European Parliament .

7. Languages :Czech, French and English with simultaneous translation .

8. Multimedia:The Conference will be recorded in both audio and video,including the on-line connections, so that the material may beedited and organised subsequently for television transmission andas educational material to be distributed Europe-wide . Adocumentary on the event will be made by the Kratky film a.s .

The discussion will also be transmitted to distant sites, first theMuseum of Modern Art in Prague, as well as other sites in citiesin Europe and North America interested in the debate, theMindship in Copenhagen and Columbia University in New York.

The Conference is a project of the Council of Europe with supporting partnersin both the public and private sectors (Office of the President of the CzechRepublic, the Prague Castle Administration, SPT Telecom, the Open SocietyFund - Prague, UNESCO, the Goethe Institute in Miinchen and in Prague, theMinistry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Kratlcy film a.s ., Czech Airlines(SSA), the French Institute in Prague, the ZKM [Zentrum fur Kunst andMedien] in Karlsruhe, and various technical partners.

9. Biography of Speakers and Moderators

Ralph Abraham is a mathematicianand professor of Chaos Theory atthe University of California in SantaCruz

Don Foresta is the Director of theLaboratory of Electronic Languageand a researcher in the NewTechnologies

Ivan M. Havel is a scientist andthe Director of the Center forTheoretical Study (CTS) inPrague

Erkki Huhtamo is a curator andprofessor of media in Helsinki

Ervin Laszlo is the founder ofthe General Evolution ResearchGroup and member of the Club of

Budapest

Pierre L6vy is a philosopher andprofessor in the department ofhypermedia at the University ofParis VIII

Benoit Mandelbrot is amathematician, former researcher forIBM, professor at Yale Universityand creator of fractal geometry

Tor Norretranders is the Directorof the Mindship Foundation andThird Culture Copenhagen and ascientific writer

Otto Piene is an artist and formerDirector of the Center forAdvanced Visual Studies at MIT

Ilya Prigogine is a professor at theUniversity Libre de Bruxelles andthe

laureate of the 1977 NobelPrize for Chemistry

Kirill Razlogov is the Director ofthe Russian Institute for CulturalResearch in Moscow

Jeffrey Shaw is an artist andDirector of the Institute for VisualMedia in ZKM (Center for Art andMedia) in Karlsruhe

Leonard Shlain is a writer andsurgeon in San Francisco and authorof "Art & Physics, Parallel Visionsin Space, Time & Light"

Siegfried J. Schmidt is a professorat the University of Siegen - (D)

Bernard Stiegler is a philosopherand the Director of research in theNational Audio-Visual Institute inParis

Patrick Talbot is the formerCultural Attach6 at the FrenchEmbassy in New York and thedirector of the National School ofArt in Nancy

Steina Vasulka is an artist in thenew technologies and the Director ofSTEIM in Amsterdam, also co-founder of the Kitchen

John Wyver is an independenttelevision producer and Director ofIlluminations , specialising in artsprogramming - London

Siegfried Zielinsky - Director of theHigher School of the Arts andMedia -Cologne

10. Invited Experts and Participants:

Kati ABERG - Artist - Helsinki

Alberto ABRUZZESE - Professor ofSociological Communication - Universityof Rome

Monique AILHAUD - FoundationSophia Antipolis - Nice

Jaroslav ANDEL - Director of theMuseum of Modern and ContemporaryArt - Prague

Kamen BALKANSKI - Artist - Sofia

Peteris BANKOVSKIS - Art Critic -Lituania

Andrej BEDNAREK - Professor - TheFilm, Television and Theatre School -Lodz

Nedzad BEGOVIe - Film-maker -Sarajevo

Michael BIELICKY - Artist - Directorof the Multimedia Center- Prague

Pierre BONGIOVANNI - Director ofthe International Centre of VideoProduction (CICV) - Montbelliard

Alexei BOURAVKIN- Head of the Chairof Information and Technology inCulture-Belarusian University of Culture - Minsk

Frank BOYD - Director of ARTEC -London

Bazon BROCK - Professor at theUniversity of Wuppertal (D)

Andreas BROECKMANN - Director ofthe Organisation V2 - Rotterdam

Janusz BYSZEWSKI - Artist - TheRoyal Castle - Warsaw

Pentair Fernando CALHAU - Presidentof the Institute of Contemporary Art -Lisboa

Isabel CARLOS - Art critic, curator forthe Institute of Contemporary Art -Lisboa

Marek CHOLONIEWSKI - Director ofMuzyca Centrum Art Society - Kracow

Raduz ONURA - Artist - Theatredirector - Prague

Josd Da COSTA RAMOS - MinisterAssistant for Multimedia - Portugal

Biserka CVJETIICANIN - Head of theIRMO department - Coordinator ofCulturelink in Zagreb

Dieter DANIELS - Professor of Arthistory at the School of Graphics and theArts in books - Leipzig

Fritz DARKO - Artist - (Croatia)

Irina EFTEEVA - Artist, Film-maker -(Federation of Russia)

Sveinn EINARSSON- Adviser in theMinistry of Culture - Reykjavik

Paolo FABBRI - Former director of theItalian Institute in Paris - Institut ofVisual Arts in the University of Bologne

Alain FLEISCHER - Director of theInstitute of Contemporary Art -Le Fresnoy (F)

Fred FOREST - Artist - Professor ofSciences of Information in the Universityof Nice

Dimitar FRANGOV - Balkan MediaSofia

Egon GAL - Institute of Philosophy inthe Academy of Sciences - Bratislava(Slovakia)

Marco GAZZANO - Professor of mediastudies -Director of the Video Festival ofLocamo

Richard GOODERICK - Administratorin Arts Council, London

Jean-Pierre GREFF- Author- Director ofthe School of Decorative Art - Strasbourg

Elemer HANKISS - Sociologist - FormerDirector of the Hungarian Television -Budapest

Jill K. HARTLEY -Scientist - New York

Murgu HOREA - Professor at theAcademy of theatre and film - Formermember of National Council of theAudiovisual - Bucarest

Cyril HOSCHL - Scientist - Director ofthe Psychiatric Center, Dean of theFaculty of ,Medicine - Prague

Michael HUTTER - Professor at theUniversity of Witten- Herdecke (D)

Iouri IAKOVETS - Researcher-Moscow

Stephan IGLHAUT - Culturalprogramme of the Siemens Foundation -Medialab - Munich

Barry JAMES - Journalist for the HeraldTribune International - Paris

Georges-Albert KISFALUDI - Professorat the School of Fine Arts - Nantes

Ryszard W. KLUSCZYNSKI - Directorof the Centre of Contemporary Art -Warsaw

Dirnitri KONSTANTINIDIS - Directorof FRAC Alsace - S6lestat

Jifi KOTALIK - Theorist - Dean of theAcademy of Fine Arts in Prague

Piotr KOWALSKI - Artist - Paris

Richard KRIESCHE - Artist - Directorof the department of new technologies -Graz

Violetta KUTLUBASIS-KRAJEWSKA- Artist - Warsaw

Marta KUZMA - Curator, Art Critic -Kiev

Fernando LAGRANA - ITU- Geneva

Benoit LEGARE-Museums of Strasbourg

Franz LIEBL - Professor at theUniversity of Witten-Herdecke (D)

Krasimir MARKOV - Mathematician -President of the International Conferenceon "Theories of Information andApplications 96"

Dan MATEI - Director of theInformation Center for Culture andHeritage - Bucharest

Daniel P. McVEIGH - Ocean of Know -New York

Rossen MILEV - Journalist - President ofthe Association for mass media andcommunication in the Balkan countries-Sofia

Konstantin MINOSKI - Faculty ofPhilosophy of Skopje

Alla MITROFANOVA - Artist - Gallery21 - St . Petersburg

MUNTADAS - Artist working with thenew technologies - Barcelona

Zdenek NEUBAUER - Philosopher andBiologist - Professor at the CharlesUniversity in the Natural Sciences FacultyPrague

Martin PALOUS - Philosopher,President of the Helsinki Czech Comity-Prague

Marko PELJHAN - Multimedia Artist -Ljubljana

Biljana PERCINKOVA - Professor -Skopje

Miklos PETERNAK - Director of theCentre of Multimedia - Budapest

Antoanela PETKOVSKA - Professor ofsociology and art - Faculty of Skopje

Emilia PETRISOR - Department ofmathematics and computers at theUniversity of Timisoara

Anatoli PROKHOROV - Vice presidentof the Animation Studio Pilot - Moscow

Rodolphe RAPETTI - Director of theMuseums of Strasbourg

Jeremy REES- Director of InternationalVisual Arts Information Network(IVAIN) London

Raymond REHNICER - Architect -Sarajevo

Florian ROTZER - Author and TheoristMedialab - Munich

Bernhard SEREXHE - Curator - MediaMuseums (ZKM) - Karlsruhe

Vladimir SHIELOV - Researcher,President Global Music Heritage-Moscow

Sergey SHTERNIN - Artist -St Petersburg

Alfred SMUDITS - General Secretary ofMediacult - Vienna

Luis SOARES - Conseiller du Ministrede la Culture Portugais - Lisbonne

Ibrahim SPAHIC - President of theInternational Peace Center - Sarajevo

Martin SPERKA - Director of the VisualMedia Department at the Fine ArtsAcademy - Bratislava

Marleen STIKKER - Founder of DeDigitale Stad - Director of the Society forOld and New Media - Amsterdam

Gertfried STOCKER - Director of ArsElectronica - Linz

Mi9ko AUVAKOVIC - Philosopher -Academy of Music - Beograd

Trifon Anchev TRIFONOV - Founderof the New Technologie Center "Virtus"Sofia

Marin TUREA - Artist, film-maker -Chisinau (Moldova)

Juan URIAGEREKA-Scientist, Professorat the University of Maryland

Evgueny VELIKOV - Scientist -Academy of Sciences - Moscow

Nebojsa VILIC - Curator - Art Critic -Skopje

Rodney WILSON - Director of thedepartment of Film, Video andBroadcasting in the Arts Council -London

Agnieszka WOLODZKO - Artist -Gdansk

Gene YOUNGBLOOD - Writer,Media specialist - New York

Pdrsa ZERIS - Professor - Assistant inCommunication - Panthion University -Athens

COUNCIL OF EUROPE / CONSEIL DE L' EUROPE

Council of Europe Secretariat / Secretariat du Conseil de 1' Eurone,

Avenue de 1' Europe, F - 67075 STRASBOURG CEDEXTel: (33) 88 41 20 00 / Fax: (33) 88 41 27 53

Directorate of Education, Culture and Snort /Direction de 1' Enseignement, de la Culture et du Snort

M. Raymond WEBERDirector / Directeur a 8841 2685

Cultural Policy and Action Division /_Division des__Mlitigues et de faction culturelles Fax 88 41 37 82

Vera BOLTHOHead of the Cultural Policy and Action Division /Chef de la Division des politiques et de Faction culturelles a 8841 21 73

Monika PAJEROVAAdministrator / Administrateur a 8841 2958

Kirsty McDOWALLAssistant / Assistante a 8841 3797

Catherine HOUZELStagiaire / Trainee a 8841 3797