“To artists, for whom the mystery of consciousness is equally compelling, it is less a matter of seeking to explain consciousness and more a matter of exploring how it might be navigated, altered, or extended; in short, reframed.”
Roy Ascott, the Founding President of the Planetary Collegium, 1999

CAiiA, the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts, was established at the University of Wales College, Newport, in 1994 to research and advance new fields of practice emerging from the convergence of art, science, and technology —fields in which questions of the mind and consciousness are central. Founded on May 1, 2003, under the direction of Professor Roy Ascott, the Planetary Collegium was a worldwide transdisciplinary research community whose innovative structure involved collaborative work and supervision at regular meetings around the world. It has evolved from CAiiA-STAR, an integrated research platform that combined, CAiiA and STAR, the Science, Technology, and Art Research Center, which he established in 1997 at the University of Plymouth.

The Planetary Collegium was an international transcultural and transdisciplinary new media art educational research platform that promoted on the doctorate level the integration of art, science, technology, and consciousness research under the rubric of the 'technoetic arts'. It was based in the School of Art, Design, and Architecture department at Plymouth University in the United Kingdom, with nodes in Zurich and Milano and later in Trento, Lucerne, and Shanghai. Since its inception in 1994, over 80 doctoral candidates have graduated from the Planetary Collegium with Plymouth University PhDs.

Roy Ascott coined the term “Technoetic” to describe a very specific sensibility—"a sensibility that is leading to new visions of what art can become, what the mind can embrace, and how culture might develop.”

Consciousness Reframed — the CAiiA-STAR conferences series—a radical and visionary technoetic endeavor, has attracted, since the first editions in 1997, 1998, and 2000, speakers from all over the world—Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA—in a joint planetary effort to explore issues of mind and consciousness proving its relevance in contemporary thinking in the convergence of art, science, and technology. From 1997 to 2019, nineteen editions of the conference were organized by leading researchers and institutions, comprising a testimony to the intensity and fecundity of work produced in this context and offering historic documentation of this visionary effort. 

From 2023 to 2024, I organized monthly in Shanghai “The LASER talks at Roy Ascott Studio,” working to consolidate local and international partnerships, paving the way for a more ambitious gathering that would offer our planetary community an opportunity to celebrate, in-person and telematically, synchronous anniversaries in 2024 — the 30th anniversary of the Planetary Collegium (CAiiA-STAR), a decade of the Roy Ascott Advanced Program in Technoetic Arts in China, two decades from the first Consciosness Reframed conference organized in China, and the 90th birthday of the visionary Roy Ascott himself.

In November 1992 Roy Ascott coined the term “telenoia” intended to both identify a specific networking project initiated at the V2 Organisation in s’Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands and “to stand for the nature of the telematic process in general.” The project was “an intensive twenty-four-hour, global event involving bulletin boards, e-mail, computer conferencing, file exchange, fax, and videophone,” that was interactive in its core and involved artists dispersed from all over the Americas and Europe. Revisiting the 1992 Telenoia and honoring the Planetary Collegium as a global intellectual and creative endeavor, the Consciousness Reframed 2024 will include a twenty-four-hour online gathering welcoming proposals for hosting satellite events all over the world. 

Dr. Clarissa Ribeiro

Conference Chair

Program Director, Roy Ascott Studio Advanced Program in Technoetic Arts, DeTAO at SIVA

References:

Roy Ascott, Telenoia: Art in the Age of Artificial Life, Leonardo, The MIT Press, Volume 26, Number 3, June 1993; pp. 176-177. 

Roy Ascott, Reframing Consciousness: Art, mind, and technology. Exeter, England, Ontario, USA: Intellect Books,1999. 

Roy Ascott, Gerald Bast, Wolfgang Fiel, Margarete Jahrmann, Ruth Schnell, New Realities Being Syncretic, Proceeding of the IXth Consciousness Reframed Conference, Vienna 2008, University of Applied Arts Vienna, July 3 – 5, 2008. 

Roy Ascott, “Technoetic Aesthetics: 100 Terms and Definitions for the Post-Biological Era (1996)”, in Roy Ascott, Telematic Embrace, Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness, Edited and with an essay by Edward Shanken, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2003, p. 375-383.

Roy Ascott, “CHAPTER 19 Telenoia (1993),” in Roy Ascott, Telematic Embrace, Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness, Edited and with an essay by Edward Shanken, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2003, p. 257-275.

Roy Ascott, “CHAPTER 22 The Planetary Collegium (1994),” in Roy Ascott, Telematic Embrace, Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness, Edited and with an essay by Edward Shanken, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2003, p. 310-318.

Instituted by Roy Ascott, the international research conference series Consciousness Reframed, brings together leading researchers and creative minds from all over the globe. Here is a complete list of conferences from 1997 to date: 

• Consciousness Reframed 1997 University of Wales College, Newport

• Consciousness Reframed 1998, University of Wales College, Newport and the Consciousness Reframed 1998. University of Plymouth, England. Conference workshop The Architecture of Consciousness

• Consciousness Reframed 2000. University of Wales College, Newport

• Consciousness Reframed 2002. Perth, Western Australia. Hosted by Curtin University

• Consciousness Reframed 2003. University of Wales College, Newport.

• Consciousness Reframed 2004. Beijing, China. Qi and Complexity Digital Media Studio, Central Academy of Fine Arts; China Electronic Music Center, Central Conservatory of Music; Department of Digital Art and Design, School of Software, Peking University; Institute of Digital Media, Beijing Normal University.

• Consciousness Reframed 2005. University of Plymouth, England. Altered States: Transformations of Perception, Place & Performance.

• Consciousness Reframed 2006. University of Plymouth, England. Altered States: Immatereality.

• Consciousness Reframed 2008. Vienna, Austria. New Realities : Being Syncretic Hosted by Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien. IXth Consciousness Reframed Conference

• Vienna 2008 University of Applied Arts Vienna, July 3 – 5, 2008 

• Consciousness Reframed 2009. Munich, Germany. Macromedia Hochschule für Medien und Kommunikation. Experiencing Design, Behaving Media . Consciousness Reframed X. Nov. 17, 2009.

• Consciousness Reframed 2010. Trondheim, Norway. TEKS - Trondheim Electronic Arts Center. Making Reality Really Real. 

• Consciousness Reframed 2011. Shanghai, China. Institute of Visual Art, Fudan University. Transcultural Tendencies | Transmedial Transactions.

• Consciousness Reframed 2011. Centro Cultural Belem and Artshare. Lisbon, Portugal. Presence in the Mindfield: Art, Identity and the Technology of Transformation.

• Consciousness Reframed 2012. Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture. Kefalonia, Greece. Technoetic Telos: Art, Myth and Media

• Consciousness Reframed 2013. The German University in Cairo, Egypt. 2013. "Behind the Image and Beyond"

• Consciousness Reframed 2015 De Tao Masters Academy, Shanghai, China. "The Matter of the Immaterial".

• Consciousness Reframed 2016 De Tao Masters Academy, Shanghai, China."Presumptive Predications: Art and the Future".

• Consciousness Reframed 2017 Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China."Subtle Cybernetics and the Art of Mind".

• Consciousness Reframed 2019 Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal."Sentient States: Bio-mind and Techno-nature”.