iARTA, the Initiative for Advanced Research in Technology and the Arts at the University of North Texas, will open the 2010 academic year on August 27 and 28th with the iARTA LEAP symposium. Bringing togther a stellar group of international experts, iARTA LEAP (Leadership Perspectives on Technology and Art Research) will host two days of discussions, work and break out sessions, at the Gateway Center at UNT. The event is coordinated by iARTA faculty members David Bithell of the College of Music and Jennifer Way of the College of Visual Arts and Design, and made possible by funding provided by the UNT Hispanic and Global Initiatives Fund and the College of Visual Arts and Design. The events are open to the public. Admission is free. See below for complete schedule.

Thursday, August 27 2009:

3:45-6:00 Gateway Ballroom – Introductions and General Session
“Making art and technology collaborations happen within institutions”

Friday, August 28 2009:

9:30-10:50 Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater (MUSIC 1001) – Student Session
“Extending your practice with interdisciplinary media”
Presentation of creative work from guest panelists.

2:00-3:00 Gateway 42, 43, 47, 48 – Breakout Sessions – Topics to include: “Physical resources: the contemporary infrastructure of new media institutions”, “Funding models for interdisciplinary arts and technology”, “Pedagogical approaches to new media”, and “Archiving and facilitating research by artists and scholars”

3:30-6:00pm Gateway Ballroom – Closing Session
“Trans-disciplinary dialog and curricula”
Open question and answer session.

Panelists Include:

Chris Csikszentmihályi
Director of the MIT Media Lab’s Computing Culture group. He also directs the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, which develops new technologies and techniques to strengthen geographic communities.

Stephen Boyd Davis
Stephen Boyd Davis is Director of the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts, Middlesex University, UK. The Centre focuses on interdisciplinary work in digital media.

Alain Depocas
Alain Depocas is the Head of Research and Documentation Centre, The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, Montreal, Quebec.

Dick Riijken
Dick Rijken is Director of STEIM in Amsterdam. In addition, he is the chair of an official EU workgroup on the creative and cultural industries, which focuses on national and European policies, and he is a professor
at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, where he researches innovation in the traditional culture sector.

Mark Tribe
Mark Tribe is an artist and curator whose interests include art, technology, and politics. In 1996, he founded Rhizome.org, an online resource for new media artists. His art work has been exhibited at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow, and the Park Avenue Armory in New York City and he has organized curatorial projects for the New Museum of Contemporary Art, MASS MoCA, and inSite_05.