Telenoia

Roy Ascott was the third presenter in a series of three lecture-performers, after Gustav Metzger and Dick Raaijmakers.

Ascott's position versus technology was different from Metzger's and Raaijmaker's. Ascott viewed art as one of the disciplines that shape our culture and are able to change society. An artist should be positioned in the middle of our society, which is undergoing enormous changes in the areas of science and technology. It's an artist's moral responsibility to analyze these changes and, thus, to co-influence society's direction. Nature will be redefined, similar to the way mankind is redefining itself.

Friday 30 October 1992: lecture by Roy Ascott

During his lecture, Ascott elaborated on themes such as "art in electronic space and molecular time", "is there love in the telematic embrace?" and tele-culture.

Saturday 31 October 12:00 - Sunday 1 November 12:00: Networking session

Telenoia by Roy Ascott (1992) from V2_ on Vimeo.

On Saturday noon, a 24-hour telecommunications project started, which, among others, involved a concert that took place through telephone lines.

In V2_'s space, several Apple, Amiga and MS-DOS computers were installed that would exchange image, sounds and texts with artists, scientific institutions and organizations all over the world. This project attracted participants from Argentina, Austria, the United States, Japan, France, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Brazil.

At 21:30, a tele-concert was held by ZEROnet (Graz, Austria). ZEROnet was a telecommunications project by Robert Adrian and was part of the Steirische Kulturinitiative. Via midi signals, a computer and synthesizer at V2_ were controlled from Austria.

This project was open for the public during 24 hours; the public was also able to participate from home via modem and fax.