Parallel universes are not just the stuff of science fiction or quantum mechanics. Increasingly, we live in at least two worlds: the one of physical embodiment and another one, or more, at the end of our devices. Since the earliest networks, artists have explored co-location as a theme in their work. Traditionally, for at least a decade, this has been primarily discussed in terms of a convergence of computing power, mobile devices, ubiquitous, broadband networks, and locative services. Implicitly, co-location was an option. You wanted to call someone. You used your phone. Then you put it away. To what extent, however, has this hertzian universe of electromagnetic radiation and related devices become no longer parallel but stereo? Always on, always there. Perhaps as "real" and necessary to negotiate as the built and natural environments. This talk will present different artists' explorations of the hertzian continuum and imagine the unforeseen and unintended consequences of living in stereo.

Steve Dietz is the founding Artistic Director of the 01SJ Biennial: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge. He is founder and Executive Director of Northern Lights - an interactive media-oriented arts agency which presents innovative art in the public sphere. It focuses on artists creatively using technology to engender new relations between audience and artwork and, more broadly, between citizenry and their built environment. He is the former curator of New Media at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he founded the New Media Initiatives department in 1996, the online art Gallery 9 and digital art study collection. He founded one of the earliest, museum-based, independent new media programs at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1992.

Dietz has curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions including "Beyond Interface" (1998), "Art Entertainment Network" (2000), "The Art Formerly Known As New Media" 2005, and "Superlight" (2008). He is co-curating with Christiane Paul "FEEDFORWARD: Angel of History" at LABoral Art and Industrial Creation Centre in Gijon, Spain, in October 2009, and the 3rd 01SJ Biennial on the theme of "Build Your Own World" will take place in San Jose, CA, September 16-19, 2010.