Planetary Collegium


The Planetary Collegium is an international research platform that promotes the integration of art, science, technology, and consciousness research, under the rubric of technoetic arts. It is currently based in Plymouth University. The Collegium's Hub is the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Integrative Arts, and it has had nodes in Zurich, Milan, Lucerne, Trento, Kefalonia, and currently in Shanghai. The founding President is Professor Roy Ascott.

History

The Planetary Collegium was conceived and established by Roy Ascott as the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts in 1994 at what is now the University of Wales, Newport
Three years later, Ascott established STAR in the School of Computing, University of Plymouth. CAiiA-STAR constituted a joint research platform, with access to supervisory and technical resources of both universities.
In 2003, Ascott contracted to relocate the platform to Plymouth University, renaming it the Planetary Collegium, where it is currently located in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. The contract with Plymouth University expires in July 2021, when Ascott plans to relocate it in China.
Since 1997, the Collegium has given more than seventy conferences and symposia in Europe, North and South America, Japan, China and Australia.
Since its inception, first at the University of Wales, and currently at Plymouth, over 80 doctoral candidates have graduated from the programme.

Aims

The Collegium aims to produce new knowledge in the context of the arts, through transdisciplinary inquiry and critical discourse, with special reference to technoetic research and to advances in science and technology. Its seeks to reflect the social, technological and spiritual aspirations of an emerging planetary society, while sustaining a critical awareness of the retrograde forces and fields that inhibit social and cultural development. It combines the face-to-face association of individuals with the trans-cultural unity of telematic communities, thereby developing a network of research nodes strategically located across the planet, each with a distinctive cultural ethos. The Collegium seeks outcomes that involve new language, systems, structures, and behaviours, and insights into the nature of mind, matter and human identity.

Structure

As conceived and directed by Ascott, the Planetary Collegium consists of artists, theoreticians and scholars working within the context of transdisciplinarity and syncretism so as to develop their research in the practice and theory of new media art with a special interest in telematics and technoetics. Currently, their doctoral research leads to the award of the University of Plymouth PhD. Post-doctoral research is also pursued. It has attracted an impressive number of internationally well-established artists, musicians, performers, designers, architects, theorists and scholars involved in doctoral and post-doctoral research.
Currently, the hub of the Collegium, CAiiA-Hub is situated in the School of Art and Media, Faculty of Arts, Plymouth University. The Collegium has a Node De Tao-Node in Shanghai. The programme, which is largely part-time, has a virtually 100% success rate, with well over 80 doctoral graduates.
In addition to doctoral candidates and graduates, supervisors and honorary members, its constituency also includes general members, who share the aims and interests of the Collegium, and are invited to participate in its development
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The Planetary Collegium has a geographically dispersed membership, and convenes the majority of its research sessions and public conferences in Asia, Australia, the Americas and Europe.

Awards

The Collegium was awarded The World Universities Forum Award for Best Practice in Higher Education 2011.

Collegium President

, Founding President,
2014 Recipient of the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica Award for Visionary Pioneer of New Media Art. Doctor Honoris Causa, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece. Honorary Professor, Aalborg University, Denmark. Honorary Professor, West London University, UK. Professor, Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. DeTao Master of Technoetic Arts, DeTao Masters Academy, Shanghai, China.

Collegium Advisory Board

;Honorary Fellows of the Collegium
*
;Academic Members of the Collegium Advisory Board
The Advanced Research Associateship involves post-doctoral or advanced practice research. ARAs are required to attend three Composite Sessions within their year of registration, and to participate in the associated international research conferences.
Instituted by Roy Ascott, the international research conference series Consciousness Reframed: art and consciousness in the post-biological era
brings together each year between 60 and 100 presenters from up to 25 countries