Dorkbot-Toronto seeks to explore all uses of technology in the development and discussion of art and creative exercise. This can involve practices ranging from virtual and interactive art to video and audio landscapes. Dorkbot-Toronto is meant to be an informal and collaborative environment where anyone can drop in, listen to presentations, and meet people for future collaborations. We try to bring together people from diverse backgrounds to explore ideas of hybridization and interdisciplinary projects, as well as perform open investigations into electronics and code.

This Edition of Dorkbot features Instant Coffee and Sarah Beck

Both the collective Instant Coffee and artist Sarah Beck have worked with ideas of investigating social/institutional/domestic and commercial spheres.

About the artists/collective

Sarah Beck received her BFA in Photography from Ryerson, subsequently working as an electrician in Toronto’s film industry. She won the Joseph S. Stauffer prize in 2004 awarded to ‘encourage young Canadians of outstanding promise or potential’ from the Canada Council for the Arts.Sarah spent 2008 as artist in residence at a high school for troubled youth, working intensively to encourage them to raise their voices in the community. She uses her art practice to act as a social barometer and cultural activist. September 2009 Sarah represented Canada at the Jeux de la Francophonie in Beirut, bringing home a silver medal in sculpture. Sarah was an artist in residence at the Cultural Olympiad during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and is finishing her MFA at the Ontario College of Art. Learn more at: http://shopode.com/.

Instant Coffee is a service oriented artist collective based in Toronto and Vancouver. Through formal installations and event-based activities, it builds a public place to practice, where ideas, materials and actions can be explored outside of the isolated studio and in a manner that renegotiates traditional exhibition structures, but is still supported by them. Instant Coffee’s frequent practice is to build architectural installations, which become venues for a series of organized events from formal lectures and screenings to informal gatherings and workshops.

Instant Coffee’s most consistent members are Cecilia Berkovic, Jinhan Ko, Kelly Lycan, Jenifer Papararo, Kate Monro, and Khan Lee. Learn more at: http://www.instantcoffee.org/home.html.

Images + facebook event at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=130331790315152.

For more info: www.interaccess.org