Paul Sermon

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Paul Sermon was born 23 March 1966, in

Faculty of Arts at the University of Brighton
.

Biography

Paul Sermon was born in Oxford, England in 1966. Studying for a B.A Hon's Fine Art Degree in the

computer systems
could be combined to create what became known as Telematic art.

Sermon then went on to receive a Post Graduate Degree in Fine Art at the

Golden Nica Award from 1991's Prix Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria
.

After this, in the spring of 1992, he was then invited to

Bradford Museum of Photography, Film and Television
, Yorkshire, England.

Shortly afterwards, Sermon was invited to work as an artist-in-residence at the ZKM Centre of Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany and this was where he created "Telematic Vision" for the ZKM MultiMediale Festival in November 1994. This piece is also continually shown worldwide including shows at the Millennium Dome in London, The San Francisco Art Institute and the ICC InterCommunication Centre in Tokyo, Japan.

Whilst still in Germany, Sermon took up an associate professorship in interactive media art at the HGB Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. Here he continued to produce more interactive installations such as 1996's "Telematic Encounter", a permanent gallery exhibition for the Ars Electronica Centre in Linz and the ZKM Media Museum in Karlsruhe called "The Tables Turned- A Telematic Scene on the Same Subject" in 1997, 1999's "A Body of Water" which was commissioned for "The Connected Cities" exhibition at the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, that went on to get an honorary mention from the Prix Ars Electronica in 2000, and 2000's "There's no Simulation Like Home", which was a large scale installation commissioned for the Fabrica Gallery in Brighton by Brighton's Lighthouse Media Centre.

Between 1999 and 2000, Sermon worked as a guest professor for performance and environment at the

immersive
and expanded Telematic environments.

Previous appointments

Although currently working as professor of visual communication at the

University of Linz
Austria between 1998 and 2001.

Telecommunication

From the beginning of the 1990s Paul Sermons research became practise based, in his preferred field of contemporary media arts which focused on the creative use of telecommunication technologies.

videoconference
techniques; he used this in his development of a series of celebrated Telematic art installations. His installations have received international acclaim and have been commented on by a number of his peers from the same field. His research into telecommunications and his
art installations have been widely exhibited throughout Europe, United States, East Asia and Australia
. He has received multiple awards including:

  • The first prize at the Interactive Media Festival Sparky Awards in Los Angeles 1994
  • Prix Arts Electronic Golden Nica Award in Linz 1991 and runner up in 1993 and 2000
  • Nominations for the World Technology Awards in San Francisco and the ZKM International Media Art Prize 2000 in Karlsruhe.

Key productions

Telematic Vision

While he was still a

virtual space
situation even though they have distance between them. He used the sofas and television to provoke the everyday situation, of passive television consumers. The people sitting on the sofas immediately become performers, to the general public who are sat around them.

Telematic Dreaming

Telematic Dreaming was originally created as a commission for the exhibition that is held every summer by the Finnish Ministry of Culture in Kajaani and supported by Telecom Finland in 1992. The Installation was also performed at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung July 2 – August 24, 2005, where it was part of a seven interactive installation piece. This was Paul Sermons installation that became a major reworking, of a previous project he had been working on. Through the reworking of this project, it was developed and site specifically researched to create a video that contained the creation of interactive video sequences, with post production that took place in Taichung.

The theme and title of the piece came from

video conference systems. In the two locations two double beds are placed, one in an illuminated space and one in a dark space. The bed that is in the illuminated space, has a camera directly placed above and records person A and the bed which is then sent as an image, to a projector that is directly placed above the second bed in the dark location. The live image is projected down onto the bed with Person B also in the image. Another camera located at the side of the projector screen, this camera sends a live image of the projection of Person A along with person B who is also in the image, to a variety of monitors that are located in the illuminated area and around the bed. This image that is created is called a "telepresent" image, what is presented on the monitor is a mirror, which reflects a person within another person's reflection. Sermons installation plays with ambiguous connotations, which represent a telepresent projection surface that appears on a bed. In the complete ISDN installation, psychological complexity is derived from the main object (the bed) and is then dissolved into the technology and geographical distance that is involved in the making of the installation. He wanted the user to feel the sense of existing outside of their own space, whilst around them a sense of touch is created that is very real and this is enhanced with the use of the bed and the senses beginning to shift in the Telematic space. The user is within a Telematic body and within this body it is controlled by a voyeurism of itself. When the body is caused to interact in the installation, the effects of this determines the time and space of the body and this can be extended through the ISDN network the body can then travel at the speed of light
. Within Telematic Dreaming the user can exchange their tactical senses and swap their sense of touch, with the sense of sight by replacing their hands with their eyes.

The Teleporter Zone

The Teleporter Zone was one of the five artworks that were permanently incorporated, in the outpatients waiting area in

aeroplane
. This installation allowed the patients to be transported from the hospital to a different location, which is what Paul Sermon wanted to create to help children take their mind of being in hospital and to let them interact in a different environment. This was his first telematic installation that was specifically designed for children in hospital.

Headroom

In 2006 Paul Sermon was awarded the Taiwan Visiting Arts Fellowship award, a joint initiative programme between Visiting Arts, the Council for Cultural Affairs Taiwan, British Council Taiwan and Arts Council England. It aims to establish an exchange between artists from Taiwan who are associated with contemporary arts practice. Upon receiving the award, Sermon had no plans about what he would produce before the three-month residency and took a "blank canvas" approach in order to respond to his environment and assume an action research based method in developing the work. The process was documented as part of the AHRC Performing Presence project that was led by Professor Nick Kaye, from the University of Exeter.

What came about was "Headroom". It was exhibited at the Xinyi Public Assembly Hall in Taipei in March to May, 2006. A juxtaposition of Sermon's experiences in Taipei, between the way people live and the way people escape, it compares the solitude of a bedroom space with the telepresence of the internet "space". It also refers to Sermon's former lecturer, and great influence, Professor Roy Ascott's essay, "Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace?" written in 1990, where Ascott talks about whether technology would ever dehumanise the arts, this being a huge concern for artists and art critics alike when it was written. It asked whether if Telematic Art had the potential to embody love, would it not make sense for art to be electronic and at the same time serve human principles? Headroom is also very reminiscent of Nam June Paik's early Buddha television installations as it has been described as a "reflection of the self within the telepresent space, as both the viewer and the performer of this intimate encounter". (artsvillage.org). The television screen turns into a stage or portal between causes and effects that happen in the minds of the viewers.

Research

Research output

Paul Sermon's research output is usually practical gallery exhibited artworks and installations, often then contextualised by the gallery's own exhibition catalogues, reviews,

conference papers
and articles found in journals. With ongoing research funding income from grants and acquisitions, Sermon has been able to carry on producing, showing and discussing his work internationally. Since 2001, Sermon has produced eleven new gallery installations and shown both new and old artworks of his in such venues as
Perth, Australia in 2004, and Taiwan's Museum of Fine Art, Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry and the Evelina Children's Hospital, London in 2005. As well as practical installations presenting his research, it has also been written about in several book chapters, most recently in "New Media Art- Practice and Context in the UK, 1994-2004" (2004), Edited by Lucy Kimbell, in the section "What Happens if We do This?" as well as writing chapters in "Networked Narrative Environments" edited by Andrea Zapp and " Dance and Technology" by Alexander Verlag
. He has also written journal publications and reviews including "The Teleporter Zone- Interactive media arts in the healthcare context" (2007), a peer reviewed journal article in Leonardo.

Research supervision

Paul Sermon, through his role as a PhD creative technology supervisor, has established a postgraduate research culture that is mainly practice based and defines interactive media arts practice as a research method. He has supervised three PhD students, all at the University of Salford's school of art and design, two of which received funding from Adelphi RA and The AHRB.

References

  1. http://www.paulsermon.org/
  2. Sermon, P. Synopsis of "There's no Simulation like Home" https://web.archive.org/web/20110617102649/http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/paulsermon/simulation/
  3. Synopsis of "Telematic Vision" http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/telematic-vision/
  4. Baudrillard, J. Synopsis of Telematic Dreaming https://archive.today/20121223121601/http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/paulsermon/dream/
  5. Synopsis of "Telematic Dreaming" http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/telematic-dreaming/
  6. Synopsis of "Telematic Dreaming" http://www.leonardo.info/gallery/gallery332/sermon.html
  7. Paul Sermon's Curriculam Vitae https://web.archive.org/web/20100415112642/http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/paulsermon/sermon/Sermon%20CV%20160706.pdf
  8. Paul Sermon's Biography [1]
  9. Synopsis of "Headroom" https://web.archive.org/web/20110617102733/http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/paulsermon/headroom/
  10. Synopsis of "Teleporter Zone" https://archive.today/20121223054515/http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/paulsermon/teleporter/
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