Revisiting CEAIT: Music & Early Telepresence

The CEAIT discussion panel is informed by ongoing scholarly research on the legacy of the Center for Experiments in Art, Information, and Technology (CEAIT) – founded in 1989 by Morton Subotnick at the California Institute of the Arts School of Music. In the 1990s, before the institution acquired its own performance space in the city of Los Angeles, the artists community of Santa Monica hosted some of the Center’s trailblazing initiatives. Electronic Café International run by Kit Galloway & Sherrie Rabinowitz from 1990 to 1997 had been giving a platform and providing support to telecommunication art experiments and interactive performance demonstrations that CEAIT affiliates conceived.

In an interactive exchange about the Center’s legacy and impact on the art and tech community, Becky Allen, Kit Galloway, Hunter Ochs, and Tom Erbe will highlight some of the episodes of a decade-long history of CEAIT. The history continued in an experimental music festival run from 1997 to 2013 under the same conceptual umbrella. The former students, faculty, and collaborators of CEAIT, invited as speakers, will engage in a discussion of pioneering activity in telecommunication art, (in particular the early days of tele-improvisation and remote jamming), interactive performance (MIDI instruments and MIDI dance), compositional software (Making Music, Interactor, HFG), and music education. This discussion will be facilitated by short talks pre-recorded by CEAIT affiliates who aren’t on the panel. Investigating the phenomena of telepresence and art, the panel will focus on such aspects of remote performance as sound synchronization, creative treatment of delay of sound/video, and approaches to affect transmission – integral for ‘feeling’ a partner(s) in improvisation.

The discussion will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.

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This event is a part of the retrospective art exhibit for EZTV Online Museum and LA-SIGGRAPH taking place at Santa Monica College during the annual Digital Arts Festival. The Festival is produced in association with Bergamot Station, and the Santa Monica Arts Commission.

Place and Time: June 23, 2:00 PM at Barret Gallery at Santa Monica College, Los Angeles, CA.

Location: Barret Gallery and The Broad Stage at Santa Monica College, Los Angeles, CA

Social Media: Facebook

Contact information: Anastasia Chernysheva ([email protected]) and/or Michael Masucci ([email protected]).

Host or Publisher Santa Monica College, Center for Media and Design