Ivor Diosi

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Ivor is an internationally recognized, award-winning cybershaman and Dasein-alchemist. Operates at the intersections of art, science and new technologies, in the fields of neurocinema, game-art, bio-art and hybrid art, uses mixed realities, machine vision, artificial life, simulacra, synthetic and virtual entities.

His main obsessions are identity, the existence of space-time, the emergence of organic life and consciousness. His works and installations are renown for combining biomorph and evolutionary aesthetic, scientific knowledge, technical sophistication, strong critical concepts, and powerplay with the processes of observation and perception.

Working since 1989 and exhibiting internationally since 1997 at over a hundred venues, festivals, museums and galleries around the world, including ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Fundación Telefónica VIDA Madrid, Japan Media Arts Festival Tokyo, ISEA International Symposium on Electronic Art ('08 Singapore), New York Institute of Technology, transmediale Berlin, CYNETART Dresden, The LUMEN Prize World Tour, amber Art and Technology Festival Istanbul, VIPER Basel, Museum of Visual Arts New York Digital Salon and Kinetica London. Featured in the Leonardo Journal, Leonardo/OLATS, Flash Art, Intel+VICE The Creators Project, ARTE TV and turbulence.org.

Ivor has received a number of international awards and distinctions, most notably the prestigious CynetArt / Stiftung für Kunst & Kultur International Award (DE), an Artistic Production Incentive endowed by Fundación Telefónica (ES), and honorable mentions at VIDA Art and Artificial Life Awards (ES), ZKM International Media Art Awards and transmediale (DE), and has been noted by a number of highest authority new media and art-science theoreticians and curators.

Ivor is the founder of _humane after people_ - an art-science group addressing questions of the future of the human condition, aiming for a machine-unreadable humanity, creating the future Humane Other. Their projects strive to be detached from socially conditioned perception and our simian legacy as much as possible, and focus on what really matters: the human being as autonomous conscience in the unvoid.

He has created several pioneering works and is the only author coming from Slovakia who has been systematically presenting on the global cyberculture scene for almost two decades, while achieving worldwide recognition and significant international accolades.

Ivor's Homepage

Key Works

2014 The Qualia Project

The Qualia Project - Interaction
The Qualia Project #008-001 still

Interactive screens with built-in optical face tracking. The artworks react to face movement and gaze - the cyberscapes morph and transform when they feel onlookers' eyes.

Our perception of art is overwhelmingly driven by factors like where a work is displayed and who is viewing it. The evolution of modern art if anything has conditioned viewers to adopt the position that they can and ought to assign an interpretation of their own preference to any and all art. The Qualia project aims to turn this status quo around by empowering the artworks with perception of their own.

Equipped with computer vision technology and a symbolic grain of sentience, the artworks actively observe their observers and change their form and way of presenting themselves in response to their surroundings.

Qualia is a term used in philosophy to refer to individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. It derives from a Latin word meaning "what sort" or "what kind". This unfamiliar term denotes something that could not be more familiar: the ways things seem to each of us, to our particular singular selves. One of the broader definitions is "the 'what it is like' " character of mental states. The way it feels to an autonomous individual entity to have states of feeling pain, seeing a color, hearing a tone.

Instances of human consciousness are unique entities in the unvoid and the Qualia Project artworks choose to present themselves to each according to their own will, to each observer differently. As we continuously construct our own realities through the very act of perception, the Qualia Project introduces a turn of this paradigm, the worx actively instancing unstable, fluxuous, perception-elusive realities, inspired by the sciences of quantum chromodynamics and cellular biology.


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2008-14 molding the signifier (_humane after people_)

molding the signifier 2.0 - ConceptArt 2014
molding the signifier - data flow scheme

Art/Science Augmented Life


90% of the cells in our body do not have human DNA - we are a mere host, a topography, for billions of bacteria and fungi. Much as we're convinced that our brains run the show, all the while our microbiomes alter our drives, desires, and behaviors to support their own reproduction and evolution. Just as biome networks, are complex data systems beginning to have points of view, and forms of agency that are beyond human comprehension? What exactly IS a human in the light of current science and technology? We need a re-definition of intelligence, agency, consciousness and sentience in ways that go way beyond the anthropomorphic.

"molding the signifier" is an interdisciplinary project on the intersections of art, cybernetics, ecology, linguistics and biology. It draws from a wide array of particular fields, including theories of consciousness, neurolinguistics, cell research and the study of mental illness. It offers multiple layers of irony and a discursive, confrontational and emotionally charged approach as to what constitutes (human) consciousness and how we perceive what is human from a perspective that is very sensitive to the problem of “uncanny valley” – language.

"molding” draws from state-of-the-art biochemical theories that approach the body as a functional conglomerate of myriads of previously autonomous biological agents. The body is understood as a complex ecosystem into itself, like a microcosmic galactical empire with vast holdings and expanses, with billions of different inhabitants, each interdependent but also fighting for power and influence, with consciousness rising as a consequent emergent phenomenon of this microcosmos.

An important observation is that body-ecosystems occurring in nature have no clearly delineated boundaries, a fact which is very counter-intuitive to our everyday experience of our bodies being “whole” and separate from everything else.

Body-ecosystems are in fact ripe with entry points, permeable membranes of every kind, from the physical to the psychological. Body-ecosystems are every-day at war, fighting invasions of foreign agents – from virii to memes, conducting vastly complex exchanges of biochemical information, and updating their microcodes and along with it the emergent “system database” on the go. But sometimes an invasion is successful, and the foreign virality ends up reprogramming the eco-code to serve its own purposes.

The installation deploys an external biological agent to infiltrate and disrupt the body-ecosystem of a virtual human, resulting in a state that we regular humans can perceive as mental illness. A well known game character has been chosen to be deconstructed as the actor, as that is how most people today are introduced to and come to know virtual humans. This is in effect intended as a social commentary on a culture that is hungry for simulated experiences, yet is stuck on its own evolutionary conditioning – the problem described as the “uncanny valley”.

Data from a contaminated biologic culture (a mold species growing in a petri dish) are continuously monitored via a digital microscope and measured with a set of bioelectric sensors. This real-time input is gradually interspersed into the neuronal logic that govern facial recognition (of exhibition visitors), and the virtual human visualization/simulation, combined with emotion expression and speech synthesis.

The virtual human’s apparent manifestation thus comprises a hybrid bio-electrical/cybernetic system – three virtual eco-bodies in the process of being infiltrated by a biological agent. The system evolves in time – at the beginning, the virtual humans have a reasonably high level of mimetic semblance to humans as we know them – they act as convincing conscious persons, engaging visitors in eye contact and speaking to them. Different emotions appear on the virtual faces, depending on the degree to which the facial recognition likes or dislikes the situation in the room.

These processes are over time slowly disrupted by the growing contamination, resulting in increasing levels of perceived digital madness. The virtual humans’ facial features start to twitch and contort with increasing intensity, and glossolalia (speaking in tongues) gradually phases out comprehensible speech.

Production was supported by Fundación Telefónica and Institute of Intermedia Prague

2005 ID Engines vert.ego

2003 ID Engines #05 Home Dictate

2001 we don't play anymore

1999-2001 dingir

1999 ID Engines #00 Das Egoshooter

1994-98 homogene

homogene detail01
homogene 1997
homogene detail02

A pioneering work, inspired by science and philosophy which later in time gave rise to bio-art, homogene is an interactive installation that explored the possible implications of genetically combining humans with animal and plant DNA, at a time when legality of cloning, and violations of moral and ethical codes of conduct in bio-engineering were widely and fiercely discussed for the first time.

homogene is the speculative result of how synthetic biology might satisfy biological urges of the human species while complying versus circumventing societal restraints.

Would the possibility of bio-engineering and then a growing a plant that closely resembles your parent, help? The result being something that is not quite human but that is also not just a plant. It is a combination of the purity that exists in both, the essence of affection one has for their close relative and the serene joy one receives from planting a tree.

Speakers are built-in inside the sculptures themselves and an overhead camera tracks the movement of people around the objects. They react with sound, the expression of the artwork (behaviour of the soundscape) depends on the behaviours and choices of those engaged with it.

The observer becomes an interactant, and the interactant becomes a co-creator: the process of engaging with the installation results in a co-construction of the artwork (and of the artwork's meaning). The sequential experience of the work is different for each participant, and many facets of the work are not immediately available, but appear during the time spent with it.


















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Awards

Exhibitions

  • TBA 2017 “Ivor Diosi - molding the signifier”, Art Laboratory Berlin, Berlin, DE
  • TBA 2015 404 International Festival of Art and Technology, ECU Rosario / Buenos Aires, AR
  • 2015 “TRANS(e)MISSION 2015 : Ivor Diosi / Silver”, Ex Post Culture Center, Prague, CZ
  • 2015 “Ivor Diosi - molding the signifier”, CIANT International Centre for Art and New Technologies, Prague, CZ
  • 2015 Lumen World Tour Show, Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church, London, UK
  • 2015 "Entering the Interface" / SoftControl, presentation with CIANT, DOX Centre for Contemporary Arts, Prague, CZ
  • 2015 "HOLODodekaeder X", presentation with Renate Quehenberger and Jo Siamon Salich, SALoTTo Kunstsalon, Wien, AT
  • 2015 "Ivor Diosi - the Qualia Project" Window Galleries, Canary Wharf, London, UK
  • 2015 Lumen World Tour Show, Gallery 5&33 Art’otel, Amsterdam, NL
  • 2014 "Andy Warhol 2015", Pop Art Center Foundation, Prague, CZ
  • 2014 Lumen World Tour Show, New York Institute of Technology, NYC, USA
  • 2014 "CYNETART 2014" Trans-Media Academy Hellerau, Dresden, DE
  • 2014 "the Qualia Project" permanent exhibition Gallery39, Canary Wharf, London, UK
  • 2014 "Lumen Highlights", FCA, Canary Wharf, London, UK
  • 2014 Lumen World Tour Show, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, GR
  • 2014 Lumen Prize 2014 Opening, Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, UK
  • 2014 “FabLab”, presentation with CIANT, DOX Centre for Contemporary Arts, Prague, CZ
  • 2013 16th Japan Media Arts Festival (2012) The National Art Center, Tokyo, JPN
  • 2012 “Ivor Diosi - molding the signifier”, Institute of Intermedia / ČVUT, Prague, CZ
  • 2011 “VIDA 13.2 Art and Artificial Life” / ARCO Art Fair, Fundación Telefónica, Madrid, ESP
  • 2010 “roll over, Prime Minister”, massive public participation event, Prague, CZ
  • 2009 “Robots and Avatars” NESTA, with body>data>space, London, UK
  • 2009 amber’09 “(un)Cyborgable?” Art and Technology Festival, Abud Efendi Konağı, Istanbul, TR
  • 2009 "European Tele-Plateaus" / Enter4 International Art Science Technology Festival, Prague, CZ
  • 2009 "GOLEM Immersive Telematic Performance", with CIANT, DOX Centre for Contemporary Arts, Prague, CZ
  • 2009 “Hallerstein” / ASEM Arts Festival, Culture Palace of the Nationalities, performance with Kibla, Beijing, CN
  • 2009 “Hallerstein” National Theatre Slovenia, performance with Kibla, Maribor, SLO
  • 2009 Kinetica Art Fair 2009, performance with body>data>space, London, UK
  • 2008 ReSET Festival "CIANT 10 Years Of Evolution", Palác Akropolis, Prague, CZ
  • 2008 CYNETart_08, Trans-Media Academy Hellerau, Dresden, DE
  • 2008 “Ludic Times” ISEA 2008 Art Camp, Singapore, SG
  • 2008 “PostMe_NewID” ICA London, performance with body>data>space, London, UK
  • 2008 “Virtual Physical Bodies” Centre des Arts Enghien, Enghien-les-Bains, Paris, FR
  • 2008 “IMMEDIATE”, performance with CIANT and Kibla, Maribor, SLO
  • 2007 "e-Golems" II Argentinean-Czech Biennial, with CIANT, Buenos Aires, AR
  • 2007 “BioArt / LILITH” Academy of Fine Arts Prague, with Pavel Smetana and CIANT, Prague, CZ
  • 2007 “Ivor Diosi - humane persistance” CIANT Gallery, Prague, CZ
  • 2007 "E.T.U.D.E." ArtExpress Lamparna, performance with CIANT, Labin, HR
  • 2006 "TransGenesis" Art-Science Festival, Academy of Sciences, Prague, CZ
  • 2006 "Echoes of Enter" Školská Gallery, Prague, CZ
  • 2006 NIVAF'06 International Video Art Festival, presented by Katarína Rusnáková, Nagano, JPN
  • 2006 “runaway” Gallery Priestor for Contemporary Arts, Bratislava, SK
  • 2006 "E.T.U.D.E." Laboratory for Mixed Realities, performance with CIANT, Köln, DE
  • 2006 “Syntapiens – Avatar – Umbot”, performance with Noordung, Ljubljana, SLO
  • 2006 “Final Countdown”, with Archila Vimmi, Školská Gallery, Prague, CZ
  • 2006 VIPER 2006 Internationales Festival, Basel, CH
  • 2006 “Chlap, hrdina, duch, stroj” Medium Gallery, Bratislava, SK
  • 2005 EnterMultimediale 2 Festival of Art and New Technologies, Prague, CZ
  • 2005 “Arc Nomade” Ecole Superieure D’Art, with CIANT, Aix-en-Provence, FR
  • 2005 "V.I.R.U.S", performance with CIANT, Ballet Preljocaj and Noordung, Prague, CZ
  • 2005 Multiplace IV “bezOBRAZie / Media S-Cream”, GJK Gallery, Trnava, SK
  • 2005 “Metro” Gallery Priestor for Contemporary Arts, Bratislava, SK
  • 2004 Images Festival, Toronto, CA
  • 2004 transmediale.04 "Fly Utopia!", Berlin, DE
  • 2003 "SHIFT" imagespassages Arts Visuels et Numériques Contemporains, Annecy, FR
  • 2003 8th International Festival of New Film and Media, Split, HR
  • 2003 Multiplace 2 Festival, Buryzone + Czech Center, Bratislava, SK
  • 2003 “Constructed Life” ZKM International Media Art Festival 2003, Karlsruhe, DE
  • 2002 MuseumsQuartier, presentation with Gallery Priestor for Contemporary Arts, Wien, AT
  • 2002 “Slovak Photography 1925–2000”, Municipal Library Gallery, Prague, CZ
  • 2002 "New Media Nation" Multiplace Festival, Bratislava, SK
  • 2002 “Ivor Diosi - mixed reality” Gallery Priestor for Contemporary Arts, Bratislava, SK
  • 2002 4th Japan Media Arts Festival Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, JPN
  • 2001 "Computer Space 2001" XIII-th International Computer Art Forum, SCAS Computer Art Center, Sofia, BG
  • 2001 “NYDS New York Digital Salon 2001” SVA Visual Arts Museum, New York, USA
  • 2001 “VIDA Life 4.0” ARCO Art Fair / Fundación Telefónica, Madrid, ESP
  • 2001 DMF Digital Media Festival 2001 Quezon City / Manila, PH
  • 2001 “Slovak Photography 1925–2000” Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, SK
  • 2001 6th International Festival of New Film and Media, Split, HR
  • 2001 ACA (Japan) Media Arts Festival Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, JPN
  • 1999 "Telecom’99" Palexpo, Geneva, CH
  • 1997 "Ivor Diosi - homogene", Zvolen Castle, Zvolen, SK
  • 1997 "Futurist'97 Awards" München, DE

Grants / Large International Collaborations

  • 2015 "Europeana Space 'Hacking the <Dancing> Body'" Hackathon, europeana-space.eu

............ EU Horizon 2020 Project – commissioned artist and creative technologist

  • 2015 "TRANS(e)MISSION" Culture Exchange, Norway Grants Project – participating artist and speaker
  • 2015 "TMIAAA Trust Me I Am An Artist" Ethical Issues in Art and Science Collaboration, trustmeimanartist.eu

............ Creative Europe Project – participating artist

  • 2015 "Soft Control" Art, Science and Public Awareness Interconnected, softcontrol.info

............ Creative Europe Project – commissioned speaker

  • 2014 "VETLICAT" Linking Creativity & Advanced Technology

............ EC Leonardo Da Vinci Transfer of Innovation Project – participating artist and commissioned speaker

  • 2011 Fundación Telefónica - artistic production incentive grant
  • 2009-11 "Robots and Avatars" Collaborative and Inter-Generational Futures, robotsandavatars.net

................ EC Culture 2007 Project – commissioned artist

  • 2009 "ETP European Tele-Plateaus" Transnational Sites of Encounter and Co-Production, european-tele-plateaus.eu

............ EC Culture 2007 Project – participating artist

  • 2008-09 "PostMe_NewID" The Post-Human Condition of Modern Europeans, postme-newid.net

................... EC Culture 2007 Project – commissioned artist and speaker

  • 2008-09 "D.A.N.C.E." Dance Apprentice Network aCross Europe

................... EC Culture 2007 Project – commissioned creative technologist

  • 2008-09 "Hallerstein" hallerstein.net, EC Culture 2007 Project – commissioned artist
  • 2008-09 "IMMEDIATE" Immersive Media Dance Integrating in Telematic Environments

................... EC Culture 2007 Project – participating artist

  • 2007-08 "TiE Travel In Europe", European Commision Culture 2000 Project - commissioned artist
  • 2005-06 "E.T.U.D.E." Electronic Theatre in Virtual Dramatic Environments

................... European Commision Culture 2000 Project – commissioned artist

  • 2004–05 CIANT Centre for Arts and New Technologies, Prague - Artist In Residence
  • 2004-05 "ALTERNE" Alternative Realities in Networked Environments

................... EC IST-2001-38575 Technology Project – commissioned creative technologist

  • 2004-05 "e-AGORA" Virtual Platform for Performing Arts

................... European Commision Culture 2000 Project – commissioned artist

  • 2001 Slovak Republic Ministry of Culture, exhibition travel grant (NYDS Digital Salon 2001)

Bibliography

Books


Articles
  • Leonardo/OLATS, "Create! Program! Force to Live!", Leonardo The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology On-Line, Website, November 2015 (English)
  • TMIAAA Trust Me, I'm an Artist, "Ivor Diosi (Artist)", TMIAAA Developing Ethical Frameworks for Artists, Cultural Institutions and Audiences Engaged in the Challenges of Creating and Experiencing New Art Forms in Biotechnology and Biomedicine in Europe, Creative Europe Project, Online Newsletter, November 2015 (English)
  • W24 TV / "Mein Wien TV", "Salotto Vienna 20.04.2015" (Interview), W24 TV w24.at, Internet TV, segment @ 9:20-21:00, April 2015 (Deutsch)
  • Soft Control, "Enter the Interface" (Symposium Programme), Soft Control softcontrol.info, Consorcium Project Website, April 2015 (English)
  • Lisa Breit, "Cynetart-Festival 2014", ARTE Creative / ARTE TV creative.arte.tv, Online Magazine, November 2014 (Deutsch)
  • Amber Festival, "Ivor Diosi - Orla Ray" (Festival Exhibition Program), amberfestival.org, Website, November 2009 (English)
  • Kibla Multimedijski Center, "Post Me_New ID", Online Newsletter, October 2008 (English)
  • Cati Vaucelle, "Transgenesis", Architectradure architectradure.com, Online Magazine, March 2008 (English)
  • Diana Majdáková, "Digitálny obraz v slovenskom výtvarnom umení 20.storočia (The Digital Image in Slovak Fine Art of the 20th Century)", Comenius University Bratislava, Master Thesis, 2008 (Slovensky (Slovak)) | PDF
  • Denisa Kera, Pavel Sedlák (Curators), "Generation 2.0 at "e-Golems" II Argentinean-Czech Biennial" (Agenda), Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (Foreign Office) Argentina, September 2007 (English) | PDF
  • CIANT International Centre for Art and New Technologies Prague, "Humane Persistence" (Exhibition Description), Website, September 2007 (English)
  • TIMEin, "Umění + technologie + vaše smysly = CIANT (Art + Technologies + Your Senses = CIANT)", TIMEin Magazine, May 2007 (Česky (Czech)) | JPG
  • Makoto Maruyama, NIVAF 2006 The 1st Nagano International Video Art Festival Programme, Website, October 2006 (English) | PDF
  • Václav Macek (Curator), "Ivor Diosi - VERT.EGO", Mesiac fotografie 2005 (Month of Photography 2005), Stredoeurópsky dom fotografie (Central European House of Photography) Bratislava, Online Newsletter, September 2005 (English, Slovensky (Slovak))
  • Annick Rivoire, "Prague en rade", Liberation, Culture Section, Print News, 06 June 2005 (Française) | JPG
  • Annick Rivoire, "Coulage de Iconoclastes à Prague", Liberation, Culture Section, Print News, 17 May 2005 (Française)
  • Denisa Kera, Tomáš Pospiszyl, "Teorie joysticku: počítačové hry jako umění 21.století (Joystick Theory: Computer Games as the Art of the 21st Century)", Týden tyden.cz Culture Section, Print and Online News, ISSN: 1240-9940, May 2005 (Česky (Czech)) | PDF (no OCR)
  • Vladimír Beskid (Curator), "BezOBRAZie / MEDIA S-CREAM" (Curatorial Statement), GJK Galéria Jána Koniarka, Website, April 2005 (Slovensky (Slovak))
  • Michaela Sečanská, "Elektronické umenie na Slovensku po roku 1990 (Electronic Art in Slovakia after 1990)", Katedra dejín umenia a kultúry, Trnavská univerzita, Trnava, Master Thesis, 2004 (Slovensky (Slovak))
  • Jiří Nebeský, "Umění z laboratoře (Art from the Laboratory)", Palác Akropolis Prague, Online Newsletter, 2004 (Česky (Czech)) | PDF
  • imagespassages, Shift Video Art Programme, imagespassages arts visuels et numériques contemporains, Website, October 2003 (Française)
  • Mária Rišková (Curator) et al., "New Media Nation. Festival of Festivals" (Catalogue), Buryzone Bratislava, 2003 (English, Slovensky (Slovak))
  • Daniela Chlapíková, "Ivor-Rozhovor pre 5D" (Interview), InZine inzine.sk / inzine.cz / Gratex, Online Magazine, December 2002 (Slovensky (Slovak)) | PDF
  • Zuzana Žalmanová, "Ivor Diosi - homo universale", Profil súčasného výtvarného umenia 02-2002 (Profil Contemporary Art Magazine), February 2002 (Slovensky (Slovak)) | PDF
  • Fatima Lasay, DMF Digital Media Festival 2001 Programme, University of Philippines College of Fine Arts, October 2001 (English) | PDF

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