Sher Doruff
(WAAG Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Sher Doruff is a digital artist working in the performing arts for three decades.
Since 1994 she works solely with real time interactive performance technologies
collaborating with interdisciplinary artists. She is currently project director
of a software development project, KeyStroke, and co-artistic director of
the Sensing Presence department at the Waag Society. She is a doctoral student
at the London Institute and a researcher at the Amsterdam School of the Arts.
In 2003 Doruff participated in the project "Real-Time and Presence: Composition of Audio-Visual Environments" (Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau) and developed, together with Orm Finnendahl and Johannes Birringer, the interactive telepresence installation "East by West," which was first shown at the Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden, in July 2002. A new version of this installation was exhibited in February-March at the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival "Data Knitting", presented by V_2 Organization in Rotterdam, Holland. She has also been an associate member of Interaktionslabor Göttelborn.
She is now completing her PhD and also has recently edited Connected! Live Art, a new book on collaborative art practices, online and networked performances and "transductive" processes between humans and technologies.
website: http://www.waag.org
WAAG SOCIETY
maatschappij voor oude en nieuwe media
Waag Society is a knowledge institute operating on the cutting edge of culture and technology in relation to society, education, government and industry. With its knowledge Waag Society wishes to make a contribution to the design of the information society. In this it doesn't let itself be lead by technology but instead looks at the possibilities of people, their creativity and culture. The interplay of technology and culture is the driving force of all Waag Society's activities.
Activities:
Waag Society carries out research, develops new concepts and software applications and initiates the debate in the form of public events on the cutting edge of old and new media. Its research and development programme is focused on the possible ways in which people express themselves, how they can learn and how they can work together using (new) media.
Expertise:
Waag Society distinguishes four programmes: Creative Learning, Interfacing Access, Public Research and Sensing Presence. Also, Waag Society was appointed Center of Expertise for cultural courses and ICT by the Ministry of OCW.
Method :
The applications developed by Waag Society come into being in permanent conversation with and feedback of the various target groups. Special applications have been developed for people with a mental handicap (PILOOT), 10-11 year olds (DEMI DUBBEL), professional visual artists and new Dutchmen (LINKER). The perfectioning of this 'Users as Designers' method is one of the ambitions of Waag Society.
Partners and network:
Waag Society is active physically as well as virtually and on local, national and international level, with indistinguishable boundaries. Its activities invariably take place in cooperation with other institutions and are mostly of an interdisciplinary nature. Waag Society is part of many (inter)national networks and has a coordinating role in some of them, like in the European Cultural Backbone. The succesful cooperation with De Balie and Paradiso has led to a further extension of the Backbone programme with Steim and Montevideo. This renewed cooperation will present itself under the name the VIRMA: Virtual Institute of Research on Mediaculture Amsterdam.