At the 2007 EG conference, Kevin Kelly shares a fun stat: The World Wide Web, as we know it, is only 5,000 days old. Now, Kelly asks, how can we predict what’s coming in the next 5,000 days.

Kevin Kelly has been publisher of the Whole Earth Review, exec editor at WIRED, founder of visionary nonprofits, and writer on biology and business and “cool tools.” He’s admired for his new perspectives on technology and its relevance to history, biology and religion.
Why you should listen to him:
Perhaps there is no one better to contemplate the meaning of cultural change — bad? good? too slow? too bold? — than Kevin Kelly, whose life story reads like a treatise on the value of technology. Whether by renouncing all material things save his bicycle (which he then rode 3,000 miles), founding an organization (the All-Species Foundation) to catalog all life on earth, or by touting new gadgets in WIRED, Kelly hasn’t stopped exploring the phenomena of technical and biological creation.

In articles for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, among others, he has celebrated scientific breakthroughs, and at the Long Now Foundation, where he serves on the board, he champions projects that look 10,000 years into the future. Today Kelly is at work on a book that asks what appears to be his life’s core question: “How should I think about new technology when it comes along?”
Kelly discusses the 7th Kingdom at length in the July 18, 2007, edition of Edge.org.
“Thinker, environmentalist and philosopher extraordinaire … A one-man force of nature.”
fashiontribes.com

Very nice and inspiring talk!

Very nice story to follow.

‘WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS TO CONNECT WITH THE CONSUMERS. WE ARE NOT HERE TO KEEP THE MEDIACOMPANIES ALIVE!’

In this absorbing look at emerging media and tech history, Peter Hirshberg shares some crucial lessons from Silicon Valley and explains why the web is so much more than “better TV.”

Why you should listen to him:
The Internet would change everything: it’s a truism now, but for some, this took years to sink in. Not for Peter Hirshberg. A marketing specialist at the epicenter of emerging technology, he has spent a quarter of a century charting the reverberations of all things high tech in culture and in business. (It’s big business, too.)

Hirshberg first helped bring Apple into the online services arena., then acted as strategic adviser to Microsoft, AOL and NBC. Along the way, he was CEO of Gloss.com and Elemental Software. He’s built a deep understanding of the fundamentals of content production and consumption — and how they’ve changed, both online and off.

Hirshberg is a trustee of the Computer History Museum and a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. He serves on the advisory board of Technorati and keeps up a lively blog on disruptive culture.

Royal Irish Academy
Ireland’s Academy for the Sciences and Humanities

Catherine Marshall
5 Saint Kevin’s Road
Portobello
Dublin 8

Reference: Billy Quinn

23 June 2009

To Whom It May Concern

I came to know the artist Billy Quinn and his work in 1995/6 when he returned from New York to do a residency at the Irish Museum of Modern Art where I was Head of Collections. I was impressed then, both by his work and by his commitment to social engagement through his art practice. I was equally impressed, as were my colleagues, by his knowledge of art history, literature and philosophy, which, along with his social commitment, provides a deep well of sources from which the conceptual underpinnings of his work derive. Later I had the pleasure of working with him more closely when the Museum purchased some of his work, and several exhibitions in Ireland, the United States and Finland included it.

Quinn is an Irish artist but his vision has never been limited by the constraints of life on a small island. He has chosen to work in New York, London, Berlin and Amsterdam, but his gaze encompasses artistic, political and religious events as far away as China and Afghanistan. Much of his work in the past decade has been digital and is disseminated through the internet, using this contemporary medium to comment on outmoded traditions of art making and the artmarket, on connoisseurship and elitism. He has a particular preference for Flickr because it is an egalitarian platform, which excludes nobody. Appropriation is seminal to his practice, and so it is entirely consistent that he now wants the opportunity to make artwork based on his own digital work, which in turn references Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh and Marcel Duchamp. His new project refers also to the work of Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol, as he searches for a painter to paint an ‘original’ Quinn/Rembrandt painting. He intends to travel to Dafen in China, where paintings are mass-produced, tantalisingly hand painted but entirely devoid of the aura traditionally associated with the hand of the artist. The project questions authorship, connoisseurship and notions of the elite art collector, since the painting and multiple hand-painted reproductions of it will be offered for sale as mass produced objects for consumption in key tourist locations in Amsterdam. The universality and circularity of this process is reminiscent also of the Dutch history of trade with the east, while the hand-painted reproductive process derives, similarly, from good 17th century practice.

The value of this new body of work lies in its scale and ambition. It transcends time and place and breaks down divisions between east and west, between fine art and popular culture. It questions the privileged position of the traditional collector and empowers those previously excluded. Above all it acknowledges the continuity of time and space, hero and follower, matter and idea and does so in a way that is accessible without diminishing its complexity. Like Baudrillard’s simulacrum it obliges the viewer to commit to a position in relation to the ‘reality’ of the work on every level.

From my previous knowledge of his career, as a working artist and as a successful doctoral candidate in Fine Art Practice, I have had reason to respect Billy Quinn’s professionalism and to admire the courage and perseverance with which he tackles his self-imposed tasks. He is not motivated by financial reward but would like to present his art in a very democratic public arena. He holds all ideas to be universal property and does not copyright his work focussing instead on notions of universal equality in a manner that is both beautiful and humourous. I very much hope that this project, his most exciting and ambitious to date, will meet with the support, financial and artistic, that it deserves.

Catherine Marshall
Co-Editor Vol V
Art and Architecture of Ireland
Royal Irish Academy
On secondment from the Irish Museum of Modern Art

—————

Billy Quinn
william.quinn11@btinternet.com
Mobile Phone: 06 2734 6635

Education

1997-2000Professional Doctorate in Studio Practice, University of East London.
1980-82 B.A. Hons. Fine Art (Film), University of East London.
1973-74National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Foundation Course.

Solo Exhibitions

October 2007 Artist in Residence Studio Exhibition at M4 Gastatelier, Amsterdam

2002 March/April
Postcards From the Wedge (The Thick End),
The Fridge Gallery, London.
2000 More Life : Minor Wounds, The East London Gallery, London E13.
1999 Work in Progress, The East London Gallery, London E 13.
1998The Diet of Worms, The East London Gallery, London.13.
1998 Denial of Burial and Other External Crosses, Ko Raw Gallery, London
1998 Quinn’s Da, The Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin.
1997 Traditional Family Values, Goldstrom Gallery, New York City.
1997The Icon Series, WWW.plexus.org/quinn/plague.
1996Traditional Family Values The Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin.
1994Traditional Family Values , Mindy Oh Gallery, Chicago IL
1994A Show of Hands, Andre Zarre Gallery, New York City.
1993A Plague of Angels, Mindy Oh Gallery, Chicago IL.

Group Exhibitions

Feb 2010 Bittersweet- Expressions of Love and Hate,
The Doswell gallery, West Cork

June30
-Aug 25, 06 Selfportraitr A Virtual show of images from Flickr.com
The Pace/MacGill Gallery, NYC

June 2005 Incantations. Nun’s Chapel, Douglas Street, Cork

June 2004 Mediators. Fordham Gallery, Princlet Street, London

Sept 2002-May 2003
Something Else. Touring group show, opening in Turku travelling
To Helsinki, Oulu, and Joensuu in Finland
April 2002-May 2002
Ierse Kunst Uit de Collectie van het Museum of Modern Art te Dublin
Stedelijk Museum, Aalst, Belgium

Nov 14 –April 2002.
Irish art Now: From the Poetic to the Political.
Touring show of American Institutions from The Irish Museum of
Modern Art (I.M.M.A.), curated by Declan Mc Gonagle.
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.
July 14-Sept 23, 2001.
Irish art Now , Chicago Cultural Centre, Chicago.
May 6-June 25, 2000.
Irish art Now, Pittsburg Centre for the Arts, Pittsburg.

Jan 3 – April 9, 2000.
Irish art Now , Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador, St Johns.
Oct 3- Dec 12, 1999
Irish art Now , The Mc Mullan Museum of Art, Boston.
1999 4 Irish Artists, The Irish Club, Eaton Square, London.
1998Künstler für die Insel IV, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

1998 Documenta USA, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Pontiac,
Michigan.
1997Recent Acquisitions: work in Focus, I.M.M.A., Dublin.
1997Juno Moneta: For Your Eyes Only, Mindy OH Gallery, New York City.
1996Out Art, City Arts Centre, Dublin.
1995Summer Group Show, Foster Goldstrom Gallery, New York City.
1994 Cultured Pearl, Mindy Oh Gallery, Chicago, IL.
1994 The Annex Show, Mindy Oh Gallery, The Chicago Art Fair, IL.
1994Animal, Mineral, Vegetable, Andre Zarre Gallery, New York City.
1994Homage to Camus, Mindy Oh Gallery, Chicago IL.
1994 Healing Before Art, Mary Ryan Gallery, New York City
1993 Saints and Survivors in a Time of Plague, Three person show Lowinsky
Gallery, New York City.
1992New Acquisitions Show, Lightworks, Syracuse, New York City.

Related Work

2000-2003Lecturing in Dublin, Cork and Galway (Ireland) and Turku (Finland) and Winchester College of Art on the PhD course.
1999-2000 Extensive lecturing on development of work practice relative to Doctoral
research.
Guest lecturer at Goldsmiths, Leeds, Exeter, Central St. Martins,
The Royal Academy of Stockholm, and Winchester College of Art
1998Part-time lecturer in Fine Art at the University of East London.
1996CURSAI, R.T.E. Irish national television programme.
Guest lecturer, University of Belfast.
1995 Black Box, R.T.E. Television arts programme.
Guest lecturer, National College of Art and Design, Dublin.
Guest lecturer, The Dublin Institute of Technology.
1993Guest lecturer, The Illinois Institute of Technology and The Art Institute
of Chicago.

Selected publications

Eroticism and Art. Alyce Mahon, Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College. Oxford University Press 2005

The Irish Museum of Modern Art: The Permanent Collection. Catherine Marshall 2005

Something Else: Irish Contemporary Art. Valerie Connor, Maija Koskinen and Declan Mc Gonagle, Turku Art Museum 2002

Irish Art Now: From the Poetic to the Political.. Declan Mc Gonagle, Fintan O’ Toole and Kim Levin, Merrell Holberton Publishers.

The Art of Aids, Robert Barker, Continuum Publishing, New York City.

CIRCA. The Magazine of the Irish Arts. An 8 page insert “work in progress” with Catherine Harper. The Spring issue 1997.

Residencies

November 2007- January 2008: Artist Residency at Foundation B.A.D. Rotterdam
August – October 2007: Artist Residency at M4 Gastatelier, Amsterdam
1997 Helsinki International Artist’s Project (HIAP), Finland
2 month residency Nov-Dec.
1995-96 Artist’s Work Programme. Irish Museum Of Modern Art.
1992Lightwork, Artist-in-Residence program, Syracuse, New York State.

Grants

New Work Award 2006. The Irish Arts Council: €35,000

Collections

Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.
The Jonathan Stiles Collection, Helsinki.
Steven F Foster Collection, London.
Peter Kabcenell Collection, New York City.
Mindy Oh Collection, Chicago.
Monique Goldstrom Collection, New York City.
Tim Peterson and Richard Gerrig Collection, New York City.
Carl Miller Collection, Boston.
City of Galveston Collection, Texas.
Lightwork Collection, Syracuse.
Bela Majoros Collection, Budapest.
Chantal Boisgontier Collection, Paris.
John McBratney Collection, Dublin.
Alexander Tinti Collection, Vienna.

Jeff Hawkins talking about our brains @ TED Talks. As we say: ‘One TED Talks session a day, will keep the waste in our business away.’