Now that humans seem to have arrived at the end of their campaigns of discovery, conquest and exploitation, the virtual, infinite, digital spaces are being conquered. It was only a matter of time before the technical possibilities permitted people to construct parallel worlds in the digital universe. A 'Second Life' as virtual existence (Avatar) in the virtual spaces of data exerts a seductive pull on ever more people. By taking possession of the internet as a creative medium, an entirely new, globally networked culture of participation has come into being. Multiple person-computer interfaces far exceed in their complexity and lack of overview the discussion currently taking place about possible social, aesthetic, legal and political effects on individuals and communities. In(visible) engages with the cognitive, social, technological and aesthetic dimensions of a dataculture which, in the highly charged dichotomies of private/public, visibility/invisibility, individual/community, autonomy/control, attempts to mark out new routes to communicate the practices and strategies of artistic and scientific engagement.
Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss, PhD
I am professor of communication and education technologies in Visual Culture and programme director of the international Master of Arts program ePedagogy Design - Visual Knowledge Building at Aalto University / School of Art and Design Helsinki.
I coined the term Visual Knowledge Building, referring to "a visualization process of interconnected models of distributed socio-cultural encoded data representations and simulations that are structured and contextualized by a learning community."
In my research I try to find answers to how real and virtual space interactions can generate novel forms of communicative, creative and social practices in global connected communities.
The last 20 years I worked as art and design teacher, media artist, graphic designer, author, multimedia-developer and university teacher. I am also serving as expert advisor and reviewer for a number of scientific and research bodies, including the European Commission and I have received several honors and scholarships.
My international activities as speaker, lecturer, invited scholar and researcher brought me to many institutions around the world, for example Oxford University-Internet Institute, Seoul National University-Design Talks, National Institute of Multimedia Education Tokyo, University of the Arts London, K.U. Leuven, University Hamburg, Bilgi University Istanbul, San Francisco de Quito University.
I am the author of Synthesis & Nullification. Works 1990 - 2010 (forthcoming, Springer Wien/New York, 2011), (In)visible. Learning to Act in the Metaverse (Springer Wien/New York, 2008), Virtual School - kunstnetzwerk.at (Peter Lang, 2003), and I have edited Mashup Cultures (Springer, 2010) and (e)Pedagogy Design - Visual Knowledge Building (Peter Lang, 2005).
