[spectre] Tonight: Highways Presents somatic SENSOR in Santa Monica, 8:30PM

[micha cárdenas]

CONTACT: Patrick Kennelly

(310) 453-1755
admin at highwaysperformance dot org

Highways Performance Space <http://www.highwaysperformance.org/> Presents
somatic SENSOR, featuring Performance, Digital and Networked Media, Drawing
and Soft Sculpture that Opens Borders Between Realities and Bodies

Friday and Saturday, January 21 + 22, 2011 at 8:30pm
Highways Performance Space
at the 18th Street Arts Center
1651 18th Street; Santa Monica, CA 90404

Join us in Second Life from 9-10pm in our studio space provided by SDSU’s
Aztlan Island
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Aztlan/245/205/256

Curated by Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand and Dino Dinco

<http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Aztlan/245/205/256>An electronic
sensor is a circuit that embodies the liminal space between the real world,
or the outside world, and the world of digital representation. A somatic
SENSOR would be a biosensor or a bodily sensor. Skin is perhaps the perfect
somatic SENSOR, as it defines a body but also is the liminal space between
the body and its outside. Crossings of the border of the skin challenge
simple divisions between self/other, subject/object. An eye is another
sensor, comprised in a package containing both the focusing lens and the
receptive retina to capture data, converting light into thought and memory.
A somatic SENSOR can also be the combination of a body with technology, an
extension of the body, augmentation, prosthesis, wearable electronic devices
which extend the body's capacity to sense and express and transform the body
into a sensor. An electronic sensor challenges notions of phenomenology,
extending the human's ability to sense and perceive the world and acting as
an agent of perception and relation.

An internet search for somatic SENSOR turns up articles on developing skin
for robots, medical flash cards and the statement “the somatic sensory
system, or somatosensory system, is a diverse sensory system comprising the
receptors and processing centres to produce the sensory modalities such as
touch, temperature, proprioception (body position), and nociception (pain).
While touch (also, more formally, tactition; adjectival form: "tactile" or
"somatosensory") is considered one of the five traditional senses, the
impression of touch is formed from several modalities. In medicine, the
colloquial term touch is usually replaced with somatic senses to better
reflect the variety of mechanisms involved.”

somatic SENSOR as a name was a creative conjunction of concepts by the
curators to express how the works in this show combine the body and
technology to create new forms of relationality. Works in somatic SENSOR
engage with a range of technologies, from electricity to the knitting
needle, to the telephone, recorded and live generated sound, video,
photography, animation, particle accelerators, motherboards, soft sensors
and mixed reality. With the aid of these technologies, the artists create
new queer forms of relationality between the performers, the audience and
our prostheses. The works act as the space between imagined worlds,
alternate realities and that part of the everyday which remains out of view.

Emerging out of queer experience, the works in somatic SENSOR move along
lines of flight exploring desire, technology, the erotic and the viral.
Rejecting control society to find new forms of relationality, somatic SENSOR
includes performances, digital and networked media, drawing and soft
sculpture to open borders between realities and bodies. The performance
nights include work by Amy Sara Carroll, Robert Crouch, Micha Cárdenas, Dino
Dinco, Dawn Kasper, Frankie Martin, Elle Mehrmand, Zac Monday, Yann Novak,
Phil Skaller, Samuel White and Dorian Wood. The gallery show, from January
14-22, 2011 includes works by Sadie Barnette, Zach Blas, Brianna Rigg and
Suzanne Wright.

More details and images at:

http://transreal.org/2011/01/06/press-release-highways-performance-space-presents-somatic-sensor/

-- 
micha cárdenas
Associate Director of Art and Technology
Culture, Art and Technology Program, Sixth College, UCSD

Co-Author, Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs, Atropos Press,
http://is.gd/daO00
Artist/Researcher, UCSD School of Medicine
Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, http://bang.calit2.net

blog: http://transreal.org

gpg: http://is.gd/ebWx9
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