This Thursday, I’ll be giving a talk at Kennesaw State University in Georgia via SKYPE. Ironically, my talk is called Reach out and touch someone: art, technology and the promise of intimacy.
Here is a blurb about it:
Technology – especially digital communications technology – has been hailed as a great equaliser that was supposed to literally ‘bring people closer together’ or, as the television commercials of the 80s and 90s proclaimed, would allow people to ‘reach out and touch someone’. But has this come to pass or is technology just another barrier to intimacy? In this talk, Peter S Petralia will be looking at two recent art projects and thinking through the ways that technology might be encouraging a new definition of intimacy.
This talk is a revised and expanded version of a talk I gave as part of the QR_U exhibition at Emily Carr University in Canada (via SKYPE). I am going to talk about the work I’ve been doing with NY based dance company Tiffany Mills Company and the project my company created called Fortnight. I’ll also talk about these two videos:
and
Developing this talk has been a really useful way of trying out some of the ideas I have about how technology has consistently promised to bring people closer together and create new ways of being intimate, and how that call has been answered by artists. I’m using the thoughts and words of Sherry Turkle, Jason Farman, Natalie Jeremijenko, Dalton Conley and Clay Shirky, amongst others, to try to understand what might be happening in this historical moment of convergence. These thoughts, and more, will be part of a new book I’m editing… more news on that as soon as I can say anything official.
I’ll post a link to where the talk will be on Thursday before I start – of course you’ll only see the prezi moving if you visit remotely as I’ll be speaking via SKYPE.