[Leonardo/ISAST Network] SFAI, Leonardo and the Exploratorium Co-Sponsor: Assessing ISEA / Zero One San Jose

[Leonardo/ISAST]

Assessing ISEA / Zero One San Jose

Location: SFAI, 800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco, CA (Café and 
Lecture Hall)
Date: September 19, 2006
Reception: 6:30pm
Panel and Discussion: 7:45pm
Cost: free and open to the public

Encouraging dialogue and debate about the topics that are shaping the 
contemporary discourses and material practices of our designed and 
technology-based society San Francisco Art Institute presents the 
third in a series of Design+Technology salons. Organized by Paul 
Klein, Chair of SFAI's Design+Technology Department, and  co-sponsored 
by the Exploratorium and by Leonardo/The International Society for the 
Arts, Sciences and Technology, Assessing ISEA/ZeroOne San Jose will 
offer food, drink, and a critical evaluation of the recent 
ISEA/ZeroOne festival in relationship to urban, social, and economic 
systems.

“Together we will analyze and debate questions about whether art and 
design practice fosters opportunities to influence the world, or if 
the level of artistic invention today simply confirms the existing 
dominance of military and industrial innovation in everyday life; at 
the very least, questions like these will lead us to call into 
question historical and utopian notions about what constitutes art.” 
-Paul Klein

Assessing ISEA/ZeroOne San Jose will bring together organizers, 
artists, curators, and other community members in a talkback 
discussion that will evaluate, extend, and challenge the dialogue from 
ISEA 2006/ZeroOne San Jose, which took place August 7–13, 2006. Salon 
participants include Hou Hanru, international curator, critic, SFAI's 
Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, and Chair of SFAI's 
Exhibition and Museum Studies program; Joel Slayton, artist, 
researcher, and Director of the CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San 
Jose State University; Beatriz da Costa, interdisciplinary artist, 
co-founder of Preemptive Media, and Assistant Professor of Arts, 
Computation, and Engineering at UC Irvine; and Christiane Robbins, an 
artist working at the intersection of studio practice, digital media, 
and critical theory.

About the Series

Assessing ISEA 2006/ZeroOne San Jose is part of SFAI’s ongoing 
Design+Technology Salon Series. The salons focus on the intersection 
of art, design, and technology, as articulated by today's 
practitioners. Hosted by SFAI's Design+Technology Department, this 
salon series brings together students, noted faculty, and the wider 
community as voices to discuss contemporary technologies and how they 
are expanding our engagement with design. Visit 
www.sfai.edu/designsalon for more information.

About Design+Technology

At SFAI, the Design+Technology Department challenges students to use 
the tools of design to explore how design functions and why our 
designed world reflects the larger social transformations taking place 
today. SFAI students use the visual language of design and interactive 
technology to achieve conceptual goals that contribute productively to 
the global media cultures of advertising, entertainment, gaming, and 
fashion. Student projects investigate the influence of design and use 
the tools of design to intervene in the public sphere. Through courses 
like Graphic Agitation, Game Design as Art Practice, Constructing the 
Social Fabric of What We Wear, Artists Infiltrate Mass Production, and 
Nightclub Design for Installation and Performance, students explore 
the ways in which artists and designers collaborate to construct 
everyday life.

Assessing ISEA/ZeroOne San Jose is co-sponsored by the Exploratorium 
and by Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and 
Technology. SFAI's Public Programs are supported in part by the Grants 
for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax fund.