History
The Planetary Collegium was conceived and established by Roy Ascott as the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts (CAiiA) in 1994 at what is now the University of Wales, Newport
Three years later, Ascott established STAR (Science Technology and Art Research) in the School of Computing, University of Plymouth. CAiiA-STAR constituted a joint research platform, with access to supervisory and technical resources of both universities.
In 2003, Ascott contracted to relocate the platform to Plymouth University, renaming it the Planetary Collegium, where it is currently located in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
Since 1997, the Collegium has given more than seventy conferences and symposia in Europe, North and South America, Japan, China and Australia.
Since its inception, first at the University of Wales and currently at Plymouth, over 80 doctoral candidates have graduated.
Structure
As conceived and directed by Ascott, the Planetary Collegium consists of artists, theoreticians and scholars working within the context of transdisciplinarity and syncretism so as to develop their research in the practice and theory of new media art with a special interest in telematics and technoetics. Currently, their doctoral research leads to the award of the University of Plymouth PhD. Post-doctoral research is also pursued. It has attracted an impressive number of internationally well-established artists, musicians, performers, designers, architects, theorists and scholars involved in doctoral and post-doctoral research.
Currently, the hub of the Collegium, CAiiA-Hub (the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Integrative Arts) is situated in the School of Art and Media, Faculty of Arts, Plymouth University. [2] The Collegium has a Node De Tao-Node in Shanghai. The programme, which is largely part-time, has a virtually 100% success rate, with well over 80 doctoral graduates .
In addition to doctoral candidates and graduates, supervisors and honorary members, its constituency also includes general members, who share the aims and interests of the Collegium, and are invited to participate in its development on FaceBook.
The Planetary Collegium has a geographically dispersed membership and convenes the majority of its research sessions and public conferences in Asia, Australia, the Americas and Europe.
Interactive art is a form of art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some interactive art installations achieve this by letting the observer walk through, over or around them; others ask the artist or the spectators to become part of the artwork in some way.
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Roy Ascott FRSA is a British artist, who works with cybernetics and telematics on an art he calls technoetics by focusing on the impact of digital and telecommunications networks on consciousness. Since the 1960s, Ascott has been a practitioner of interactive computer art, electronic art, cybernetic art and telematic art.
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