The Syncretic Sense, the first UK retrospective exhibition of the pioneering cybernetic artist Roy Ascott. takes place at Plymouth Art Centre from 4 April – 24 May 2009, developed in collaboration between Plymouth Arts Centre and i-DAT.
Long before email and the internet, Roy Ascott started using online computer networks as an art medium and coined the term telematic art. Since the 1960s he has been a pioneer of art, which brought together the science of cybernetics with elements of Dada, Surrealism, Fluxus and Pop Art. Parallel to his artwork, Roy Ascott is a highly acclaimed teacher and theorist of art pedagogy.
This exhibition explores the influences and rhetoric of Roy Ascott’s work, mapping the impact, history and development of technology and looking to the future of Web2 and Second life. Roy Ascott sees telematic art as the transformation of the viewer into an active participant in creating the artwork, which remains in process throughout its duration. Significantly, the content of his projects were often spiritual: staging the first planetary casting of the I Ching with an early form of network in 1982; whilst his major installation at the Ars Electronica centre in 1989 explored Gaia theory.
The exhibition also looks back at the impact of Roy Ascott’s experimental years of art education. In the 1960s Roy Ascott was the head of Groundcourse at Ealing College of Art and developed one of the most influential and unorthodox approaches to teaching foundation studies in art. The basis of the course was developed around cybernetic theories of systems of communication: the flow of information, interactive exchange, feedback, participation and systemic relationship.
Roy Ascott studied under Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton at King’s College, Newcastle, University of Durham. His exhibitions include Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica Linz and Biennale do Mercosul, Brazil. He was President of the Ontario College of Art and Dean of San Francisco Art Institute. He is President of the Planetary Collegium, an international research network based in the University of Plymouth www.planetary-collegium.net
For more information on the exhibition please go here:
http://www.plymouthartscentre.org/
This is Ascott’s work exhibited as part of the Syncretic Sense. (Please note that all work is also represented as part of syncretica.net semantic interpretation on the home page):
 Alsop St Martins School of Art 1974 |
 Plastic Transactions 1971 |
 Behavioral Project Groundcourse Ipswich 1965 |
 Blackboard Notes 1967 |
 Ontario College of Art Toronto 1970 |
 Table Top Drawings 1977 |
 Behaviourables and Futuribles 1968 |
 Molton Gallery Catalogue 1963 |
 Change Painting, 2009 |
 Change Painting, 1959 |
 Change Painting, 1961 |
 Video-Roget 1962 |
 Parameter IV 1967 |
 Inclusion, 1966 |
 Syncretic Reality 2008 |
 Behaviourables and Futuribles 1963 |
 Table Top Strategies 1971 |
 XLII Biennale di Venezia Venice Biennale 1986 |
 Mobile Colour Symphony Hall 1956 |
 Change Painting 1968 |
 Right Brain 1981 |
 California Suite III 1980 |
 La Plissure du Texte & Organe et Fonction d'Alice au Pays des Merveilles |
 Ars Electronica Gaia |
 California Suite II 1980 |
 California Suite I 1979 |
 Mind Map Groundcourse, Ealing 1963 |
