Screening | Curators in Conversation
Programs & Events
Eryk Salvaggio, co-curator of Signal to Noise, performs 'Human Presentation'. Photo by Phoebe Powell.
Hear the curators of Signal to Noise, NCM’s Artistic Director Emily Siddons, Joel Stern and Eryk Salvaggio, share their personal insights and highlights from the exhibition.
Signal to Noise challenges our understanding of noise. Driven by a desire to disrupt and reform, Emily, Joel and Eryk, developed an ambitious program of artists that looked to New York City based collectives, international pioneers of internet and computational art, and Indigenous futurisms from Australia. Together these artists consider the inheritance of the internet and past communication technologies, the impact of AI, reimagine traditional craft-based practices and consider political and colonialist associations with noise. These artists reframe noise as a signal in its own right, as something to embrace.
This program is a screening of a filmed conversation, directed by Dave Meagher.
Speakers
Emily Siddons
Emily Siddons is the Co-CEO and Artistic Director of the National Communication Museum. She is currently leading the strategic vision and development of this significant new museum that is opening later this year. Previously, she was Producer of Exhibitions at Museums Victoria, where she led the creative development and production of major exhibitions and experiences across the museum’s three sites. She has also held positions as Producer at The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Public Programmer at The National Gallery of Victoria and Associate Curator for Liquid Architecture. She is currently a Peer Assessor for Creative Australia, Chair of the Creative Infrastructure Committee and Arts Advisory Board Member for the City of Great Dandenong. She recently completed a PhD at The University of Melbourne's Victorian College of the Arts, exploring new models of engagement for museums in contemporaneity.
Joel Stern
Joel Stern is a Vice Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. Joel Stern is a researcher, curator, and artist living in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Informed by a background in experimental music and sonic art, Stern’s work focuses on how practices of sound and listening inform and shape our contemporary worlds.
Eryk Salvaggio
Eryk Salvaggio is a researcher and new media artist interested in the social and cultural impacts of artificial intelligence. His work explores the creative misuse of AI and the transformation of archives into datasets for AI training: a practice designed to expose ideologies of tech and to confront the gaps between datasets and the worlds they claim to represent. A blend of hacker, researcher, designer and artist, he has been published in academic journals, spoken at music and film festivals, and consulted on tech policy at the national level. He is a researcher on AI, art and education at the metaLab (at) Harvard University, the Emerging Technology Research Advisor to the Siegel Family Endowment, and a fellow and top contributor to Tech Policy Press. He holds an MSc in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics and an MSc in Applied Cybernetics from the Australian National University.
Accessibility
Seminar Room
- NCM is fully wheelchair accessible
- This program includes seating for all participants
- All gender and accessible toilets available on both levels
- Hearing loop available
- NCM is a high sensory space with a variety of noise and lighting
- If you have any other access needs we can help with, please get in touch, we'd love to help
Joel Stern, co-curator of Signal to Noise, speaks on the opening weekend. Photo by Phoebe Powell.
About Signal to Noise
Signal to Noise
Signal to Noise explores how artists work with, challenge, or complicate the relationship between signals and noise—disruptions, glitches or interference—in communication technologies and the messages they send. These technologies include the internet, telephones, radio and television, artificial intelligence, social media algorithms, and even the sounds of the natural world.
Learn more about Signal to Noise
