DIFFRACTION: CONNECTION ART, INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION - international conference at FACT, Liverpool (UK) 04 and 05 April 2006

An unmissable networking opportunity for leaders in art, academia, industry, regional development, research and policy fields.

DIFFRACTION will look backwards, sideways and forwards at the various ways in which artists interact with practitioners from different environments and disciplines in the common interest of innovation.

ITEM (Institute for Technical Exhibition Management), FACT's pilot research and development programme for the exploration and development of new media tools for exhibition and exposition, will disseminate its findings and features as case study for the conference. ITEM will showcase and present the commissioned research and launch the ITEM publication, which features detailed reports and documentation about each of the ten projects supported to date.

DIFFRACTION will also launch a new international network for organisers of residencies and placements to develop good models of practice across art and industry borders. The website http://www.diffraction.org.uk/ will be the platform for debate and discussion about this emerging area of practice.

Speakers will include Barbara Steveni of the Artists Placement Group and Organisation & Imagination; William Latham, early computer art pioneer; Gordon Knox of the Montalvo Foundation in California; Roger Malina, astrophysicist and executive editor of the Leonardo Publications at MIT Press; Clive Gillman, founder of ITEM and director at Dundee Contemporary Arts; Arantxa Mendiharat, project coordinator of Divergentes 2005 and Disonancias 2006 - Art & Innovation; Liliane Lijn, an early pioneer in crossing art and industry boundaries, semiconductor who just returned from their Art and Space Science International Fellowship at UC Berkeley, USA; Jen Southern artist involved in ITEM, exploring the use of GPS as communal drawing tool, Paul Gerhardt, project director of the BBC Archive and many more.

DIFFRACTION is supported by Arts Council England as part of its Artist Time Space Money agenda.
ITEM is supported by NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and Art) and Arts Council England.

For more information about DIFFRACTION please contact DIFFRACTION Conference Assistant Amy Goring by phone under +44 (0)151 707 4422 or by email under [email protected].
For more information about FACT please go to http://www.fact.co.uk/