Paul Sermon

Paul Sermon

ISEA Bio(s) Available:

ISEA2019

Paul Sermon was awarded the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, in the category of interactive art, for the hyper media installation ‘Think about the People now’ in Linz, Austria, 1991. Produced the ISDN videoconference installation ‘Telematic Vision’ as an Artist in Residence at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1993. Received the Sparky Award from the Interactive Media Festival in Los Angeles for the telepresent installation ‘Telematic Dreaming’, June 1994. From 1993 to 1999 worked as Dozent for Media Art at the HGB Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, Germany. From 2000 to 2013 Professor of Creative Technology at the University of Salford, School of Arts & Media. From 1997 to 2001 Guest Professor for Performance and Environment at The University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria. Since September 2013 Professor of Visual Communication in the School of Art at the University of Brighton, United Kingdom

ISEA2016

For over 25 years, Paul Sermon’s work in the field of telematic arts explores the emergence of user-determined narratives between remote participants who are brought together within shared telepresent environments. Through the use of live chroma-keying, video projection and videoconference technology these geographically divided audience participants are composited live in intimate social spaces. This is essentially how all his installation projects function, where the public participant plays an integral part within these telematic experiments, which simply wouldn’t function without their presence and engagement within them. The participant controls and choreographs their human avatar in new telematic spaces, in combination with another physically remote public performer. As an artist Sermon am both designer of the environment and instigator of the narrative, which he determines through the social and political context that he chooses to play out these telepresent encounters.

Paul Sermon, Professor of Visual Communication, School of Art, Design and Media, University of Brighton, UK. Paul Sermon joined the College of Arts and Humanities as Professor of Visual Communication in the School of Art, Design and Media on September 1st 2013. Paul was previously Professor of Creative Technology at the University of Salford and has worked for over twenty years as an active academic researcher and creative practitioner, primarily in the field of interactive media arts. Having worked under the visionary cybernetic artist Professor Roy Ascott as an undergraduate Fine Art student at the Newport School of Fine Art in the mid 1980s, Paul Sermon went on to establish himself as a leading pioneer of interactive media art, winning the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Linz, Austria, shortly after completing his MFA at the University of Reading in 1991. An accolade that then took Paul to Finland in the early 1990’s to develop one of the most ground breaking telepresent video installations of his career Telematic Dreaming in 1992. This early success then led to an invitation by Professor Jeffrey Shaw to undertake a residency at the internationally renowned ZKM Centre for Art & Media in Karlsrhue in Germany, where he produced his second ISDN videoconference installation Telematic Vision in 1993. Whilst living in Berlin from 1993 to 1999 Paul Sermon then took up the post of Dozent at the HGB Academy of Visual Arts in the former East German city of Leipzig and from here he went on to develop a portfolio of interactive telepresent video installations and telematic encounters that he continues to exhibit internationally. Further accolades during this period included the 1994 IMF Sparkey Award from the Interactive Media Festival in Los Angeles as well as interactive art commissions for the Millennium Dome Play Zone. Paul moved back to England in 2000 to take up a post at the University of Salford as well as becoming an honorary Professor for the MA Media Art Histories at the Danube University Krems, Austria and continues to visit and contribute to this programme once a semester.

ISEA2015

Prof. Paul Sermon is Professor of Visual Communication at the University of Brighton, UK. He has developed a series of celebrated interactive telematic art installations that have received international acclaim. Paul was previously Professor of Creative Technology at the University of Salford and has worked for over twenty years as an active academic researcher and creative practitioner, primarily in the field of interactive media arts. Having worked under the visionary cybernetic artist Professor Roy Ascott as an undergraduate Fine Art student at the Newport School of Fine Art in the mid 1980s, Paul Sermon went on to establish himself as a leading pioneer of interactive media art, winning the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Linz, Austria, shortly after completing his MFA at the University of Reading in 1991. An accolade that then took Paul to Finland in the early 1990’s to develop one of the most ground breaking telepresent video installations of his career Telematic Dreaming in 1992.

ISEA2013

Paul Sermon, School of Art & Design, University of Salford, UK

ISEA2011

Paul Sermon is Professor of Creative Technology and Associate Head for Research and Innovation at the School of Art & Design, University of Salford, UK. He has developed a series of celebrated interactive telematic art installations that have received international acclaim. Through a sus- tained research funding income he has continued to produce, exhibit, and discuss his work extensively at an international level. Paul Sermon graduated with a BA Hon’s Fine Art degree under Professor Roy Ascott at the University of Wales in 1988 and received an MFA degree from the University of Reading, England, in 1991.

He was awarded the Prix Ars Electronica ‘Golden Nica’, in the category of interactive art for the hyper media installation ‘Think about the People now’ in Linz, Austria, in 1991. He produced the ISDN videoconference installation ‘Telematic Vision’ as an Artist in Residence at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1993 and received the ‘Sparkey Award’ from the Interactive Media Festival in Los Angeles, for the telepresent video installation ‘Telematic Dreaming’ in 1994. Paul Sermon was a nominee at the World Technology Awards 2005 and holds a number of external appointments that influence research policy. Since 2004 he has been an AHRC Peer Review College member, member of the NWDA funded North West Art & Design Research Group, Chair of Media Arts Net- work Northwest [ma-net], and advises on various international journal and conference editorials. External collaborations include the AHRC funded REACT (Research Engine for Art and Creative Technology).

ISEA2009

A Professor of Creative Technology at the Research Centre for Art and Design, The University of Salford, UK. Since the early nineteen nineties Paul Sermon’s practice-based research in the field of contemporary media arts has centred on the creative use of telecommunication technologies.

ISEA2008

Professor Paul Sermon, The University of Salford, UK

ISEA1994

Paul Sermon is a British media artist specialized in performance based telematic installations. MFA 1991. Lecturer in Interactive Media Arts at the University of Reading (UK) 1991-92 and in Telematic Media at Gwent College of Higher Education (UK) 1989-1992, at Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig, Germany, from 1993 to date. Artist in recidence at Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1993.