THE INTER-SOCIETY FOR THE ELECTRONIC ARTS
ISEA NEWSLETTER
ISSN1488-3635
#80 October - November 2000
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* CONTENTS *
* ISEA News * News from Members * Articles * Reviews *
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ISEA NEWS
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ISEA2000 PRE-PROGRAMME
The pre-programme of ISEA2000 is henceforthe available on line :
www.isea2000.com
ISEA2000, the 10th International Symposium on Electronic Art, for the first
time in France, will be held in december 2000 in Paris. Organised by
ART3000, this pluridisciplinary event will gather more than 150 presenters,
experts from the domains of culture, science and industry, coming from 30
countries.
ISEA2000 comprises :
* An international symposium at the Forum des images from the 7th to the
10th of December
On the programme :
50 papers,
12 panels,
50 individual and institutional presentations,
11 thematic seminars,
30 hours of video projections,
8 music sessions
* A serie of artistic events organised by other 30 venues throughout the
month of December :
exhibitions, concerts, performances, dance shows, video projections
* The access facilities for all the participants
- hotels fees negociated with ATI agency
- preferencial fares for the flies (international & continental domestic
network) proposed by AIR France agencies
- discounts for all the artistic events and free entry in some case
* To view the details of the programme :
* To know more about the accomodation and transport facilities :
* To register inadvance:
www.isea2000.com
To receive the programme brochure, please forward your postal address to:
isea2000@art3000.com
ISEA2000 is organised with the support of ISEA/Inter-Society for the
Electronics Arts, of the Ministere de la Culture et de la Communication
(DDAT, DAP, DAI, DMDTS, DRAC Ile-de-France), the Ministere de la Recherche,
the Centre National de la Cinematographie, the Conseil Regional
d'Ile-de-France, the Forum des images, the UNESCO, Sesam , the ADAGP, in
partership with : Arte, Art Press, Cart'Com, Cod@ Magazine, Liberation, Le
Monde des Debats et Transfert, as well as with the help of numerous
associated venues and institutions. ISEA2000 is placed under the patronage
of Miss Catherine Tasca, ministre of the Culture and the Communication and
sponsored by la Mission pour la celebration de l'An 2000 et the Council of
Europe.
Information :
ART3000
Tel. : 33 (0)1 46 48 66 36
e-mail : isea2000@art3000.com
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ANAT ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENT OF NEW DIRECTOR
On August 28, 2000 Julianne Pierce began her post as Executive Director of
the Australian Network for Art and Technology, replacing ISEA Board member
Amanda McDonald Crowley.
The Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) is Australia's key
national arts organisation linking the arts, science and technology. ANAT
aims to develop and promote innovative contemporary art which has as its
principle component the use and exploration of technology.
Julianne brings to ANAT valuable experience in arts management across
diverse areas including visual and performing arts, events management and
independent curatorial projects. For almost twenty years Julianne has worked
within the Australian cultural sector as a Producer, Administrator, Curator
and Project Manager.
Julianne has a first hand understanding of and involvement with Australian
and International Art and technology culture. An initiator of the computer
artists' collective VNS Matrix, Julianne is especially committed to
promoting and supporting the work of Australian artists working with
technology.
ISEA congratulates Ms Pierce and wishes her well in her new position!
http://www.anat.org.au/
****
BOSTON CYBERARTS FESTIVAL CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS
Boston, MA (USA)
April 21-May 6, 2001
Greetings to all friends of the Boston Cyberarts Festival!
Visual and performing artists, arts organizations, and high-technology
professionals will be in the spotlight once again during the second Boston
Cyberarts Festival, scheduled for April 21-May 6, 2001. The Festival,
incorporating exhibitions and performances by artists who use computer
technology as an integral part of their work, will take place at locations
in and around the Boston area, across Massachusetts, and on the Festival's
website at www.bostoncyberarts.org. The first festival included the
participation of over 60 arts organizations and more than 100 exhibits and
events.
Volunteers will be needed to help with all manner of tasks, from production,
design, and administrative tasks to promotion and event assistance, as well
as to help at CyberArtsCentral during the festival itself.
Why should I volunteer, you ask? Well, you might do it for the free
T-Shirts, or for the CyberPass that will get you discounts to events
throughout the festival, but really those are just perks compared to the
real reason: because you want to work alongside some of the most
interesting artists and technology professionals in the world to help create
one of the most innovative, exciting events of the year!
For more information about volunteering, email Sasha Costanza-Chock at
sasha@bostoncyberarts.org, and he will get in touch with you.
For more information about Boston Cyberarts, you can visit the web site at
http://www.bostoncyberarts.org.
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NEWS FROM MEMBERS
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ROY ASCOTT is the editor of the newly published ART, TECHNOLOGY,
CONSCIOUSNESS: mind@large (Intellect Books). Within a technological context,
this volume addresses contemporary theories of consciousness, subjective
experience, the creation of meaning and emotion, and relationships between
cognition and location. Its focus is both on and beyond the digital culture,
seeking to assimilate new ideas emanating from the physical sciences as well
as embracing spiritual and artistic aspects of human experience. The book
documents the work from those connected with the internationally acclaimed
CAiiA-STAR centre and its conferences . Their artistic and theoretical
research in new media and art includes aspects of: artificial life,
robotics, technoetics, performance, computer music, intelligent
architecture, telematic art (The latest reseach from CaiiA-STAR's
Consciousness Reframed 2000 conference can be perused in this edition of the
ISEA Newsletter.)
http://www.intellectbooks.com/authors/ascott/mindatlg.htm
Net.art by MELINDA RACKHAM was given a double-bill in Montreal, Canada:
empyrean.alpha was featured in the "Out of this World" web art exhibition at
the Biennale de Montreal (September 28-October 29, 2000), while the Media
Lounge at the Festival international du nouveau Cinema et des nouveaux
Medias de Montreal (FCMM) presented Carrier (October 12-21, 2000). JOSEPH
LEFEVRE ("L'Inititation," in collaboration with Martine Kountouyan) was also
presented in both events.
Other ISEA members featured in the web art exhibition at the Biennale de
Montreal are REYNALD DROUHIN ("Revenances"), OLIA LIALINA
("Will-n-testament"). SYLVIE PARENT curated the exhibition.
LUC COURCHESNE's prototypical project Panoscope 360 was unveiled at the FCMM
during the Vitrine Transdisciplinaire Exhibition organized by the
Technological Arts Society with the special collaboration of ISEA.
http://www.ciac.ca/biennale2000
http://www.fcmm.com
ATAU TANAKA will participate in DEAF2000: Machine Times, the fifth edition
of the Dutch Electronic Art Festival organized by V2_Organisation in
Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The festival runs 14-26 November, 2000.
http://www.v2.nl/deaf
ROY ASCOTT, PETER ANDERS, DIANE GROMALA, NIRANJAN RAJAH, and THECLA
SCHIPHORST will participate in "Art in the Post-Biological Era," a symposium
organized jointly by CAiiA-STAR and OLATS at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux
Arts in Paris, France. The symposium will take place December 12-13, 2000.
http://www.olats.org
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NEW AND RENEWING MEMBERS
Thank you and welcome to the following new and renewing members:
Stephanie Barish, Stan Bowman, Michel Cleempoel, Brenda Cleniuk, Mika Elo,
Mary Flanagan, Marina Grzinic, Heather Haley, Mark Jones, Olia Lialina,
Angelika Oei, Niranjan Rajah, Nicolas Saint-Cyr, Patricia Search, Lily
Shirvanee, Yoshiomi Yamaguchi, Christian Ziegler, Digital Creativity Center
(Soh Yeong Roh) in Seoul.
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ARTICLES
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ISEA MEMBERS AT CONSCIOUSNESS REFRAMED: PART I
>From August 23rd to 26th this year, the third edition of the international
Consciousness Reframed conference explored art, technology, and
consciousness in the idyllic setting of the Welsh countryside. The
conference is hosted at CAiiA-STAR, a research platform integrating two
centres of doctoral research: CAiiA, the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the
Interactive Arts, at the University of Wales College, Newport, and STAR, the
centre for Science, Technology and Art Research, in the School of Computing,
University of Plymouth.
We thought it would be of interest to the rest of the ISEA community to
glimpse at current research in the domain of art and science, as well as
share the work of their ISEA collegues. With that in mind, we are publishing
the abstracts of ISEA members who attended the conference in this edition
of the newsletter.
Thank you to Roy Ascott, conference convenor and CAiiA-STAR director, for
kindly giving us permission to publish ISEA members' abstracts in the
newsletter. INL#81 (December/January) will feature more abstracts.
Full conference information:
http://www.caiia-star.net/production/conref-99/index.html
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PLACES OF MIND:
IMPLICATIONS OF NARRATIVE SPACE FOR THE ARCHITECTURE OF INFORMATION
ENVIRONMENTS
by Peter Anders
Keywords: anthropology, cognition, cyberspace, narrative, space.
This paper expands previous research on the use of space for cognition,
navigation, and cultural interaction. It takes as its premise that our
appreciation of space is actually a highly-involved mental construct for
handling information taken in from our environment and/or generated from
memory. Space is here understood to be the dimensional matrix of our
awareness.
Current and traditional media employ this construct to enhance subject
matter. Settings are as important to novels as they are to plays. Films may
convey an ambience comparable to that of architecture. But novels and film
contain no space as that term is conventionally understood. Instead, they
portray spaces of the imagination.
Arguably public media, art and interactive technologies, are continuously
engaged in producing shared, imagined spaces. The colonial- styled interiors
that form advertising backdrops, the synthesised sets of science-fiction
films and newscasts are all spaces that have no material counterparts. Yet
they persist in the public mind.
Cultural traditions abound with such spaces. Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, and
Paradise are all places that exist solely in the mind. Yet, unlike personal
dreams, these spaces are shared collectively by a community. And so, bear
meaning and values that an individual's musings cannot.
The present study will examine the history and use of such spaces in an
effort to link cultural traditions with current developments in arts and
technology. Myths, legends, folk and fairy tales from several cultures will
be critiqued for their use of space to convey value and content. Among the
topics for discussion will be the use of space in: dreaming, fantasising,
solving, projecting, navigating, narrating, embodying, abstracting,
presenting, communicating, remembering and extending ourselves into the
world. Such an examination will offer new insights into how we use spatial
reference in current media and how it may be employed to serve the deep,
human needs met by traditional imagined spaces.
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SPIRITUALIST ART
by Evelise Anicet
Keywords: spiritualist art, mediunism, dimensions of reality.
Talking about states of consciousness the proposal of this work is to inform
how the mediunic phenomenon happens in spiritualist art. It will explain how
it is possible the connection with this two dimension of live or two layers
of reality: the concrete, where we are used to live and the natural virtual
called spiritual. It will be shown the structure required for the
preparation and participation, the medium's role, how the disencarneded
intelligence links to the medium, what techniques are used, which are the
results and which kind of improvements those experience can bring for us.
*****
EDGE-LIFE: TECHNOETIC STRUCTURES AND MOIST MEDIA
by Roy Ascott
Keywords: Technoetics, Moistmedia, Cyberbotany, Visionary Pragmatism.
Between the dry world of virtuality and the wet world of biology lies a
moist domain, a new interspace of potentiality and promise. Moistmedia
(comprising bits, atoms, neurons, and genes -the big BANG!) will constitute
the substrate of the art of our new century, a transformative art concerned
with the construction of a fluid reality. This will mean the spread of
intelligence to every part of the built environment coupled with recognition
of the intelligence that lies within every part of the living planet. This
burgeoning awareness is technoetic: techne and gnosis combined into a new
knowledge of the world, a connective mind that is spawning new realities and
new definitions of life and human identity. This mind will in turn seek new
forms of embodiment and of articulation.
At the same time, as we seek to enable intelligence to flow into every part
of our built environment, we recognise that Nature is no longer to be
thought of as 'over there', to be viewed in the middle distance, benign or
threatening as contingency dictates. It is no longer to be seen as victim
ecology, fragile or fractious, according to our mode of mistreatment.
Technology is providing us with the tools and insights to see more deeply
into its richness and fecundity, and above all to recognise its sentience,
and to understand how intelligence, indeed, consciousness, pervades its
every living part. The mind of Gaia, set in de Chardin's noosphere, is
becoming amplified and perhaps transformed by the technoetic effects of
human connectivity, ubiquitous computing and other far reaching consequences
of the Net.
The artist's role at the larger planetary level of self-organising,
self-aware systems, will be to plant, grow and cultivate new forms, new
structures and new meanings. The notion of cyberbotany extends from the wise
application of plant technology, in the technoetic context, to the creative
employment of horticultural metaphor in envisioning outcomes at the material
level of construction. In developing the hyperculture the artist can learn
from horticulture; the creative challenge being to create a Moist synthesis
of artificial and natural systems. Visionary pragmatism can guide the
artist's participation in building worlds that we would want to live in.
Visionary pragmatism can take the love inherent in the telematic embrace and
create new relationships, new societies, and new culture. Just as art in the
next hundred years will be not only interactive, but also psychoactive and
proactive, so human affairs will benefit from closer connectivity,
distributed intelligence, and spiritual solidarity. As the unfolding years
of this new century will show, the media best employed to effect these
changes will be Moistmedia, the networks that sustain them will be
technoetic, and the cyberception of the planetary society as a whole will
reflect a growing sense of optimism and telenoia.
*****
THE MIND'S EYE
by Nina Czegledy
Keywords: mental imagery, perception, visual consciousness.
Visual mental imagery is considered to play a key role in human
consciousness, including information processing, abstract reasoning,
language comprehension and visualisation. In the realm of cognitive science,
visual mental imagery - popularly termed 'the mind's eye' - has been the
subject of considerable controversy especially concerning the underlying
neural framework. Are images intrinsically different from verbatim thoughts?
Is image information represented in a spatial format? To what extent is a
person's perception of the 'blue' of the sky due to their early visual
experiences?
Does mental imagery and perception involve common processing mechanisms?
Over the last decade, the status of image generation as a functional
component of the mind and the localisation of neural structures involved in
image generation have been extensively investigated. According to certain
studies, mental imagery shares common brain areas with other major cognitive
functions such as language, memory, and movement. Other studies have
proposed that the process instead reflects a high degree of interaction
between mental imagery and other independent cognitive functions.
Current cognitive neuroscience approaches, including the use of PET and fMRI
technologies have provided new insights into the anatomical and functional
organisation of the human visual system - as well as the cerebral
localisation of imagery processes. It has been proposed that visual images,
evoked from memory, are mediated by primary visual cortices. The visual
imagery abilities of patients with cortical blindness may provide some
explanations. A marked deficit has been noted in imagery ability in persons
with mental retardation leading to the hypothesis that this may be the
source of other difficulties they encounter in cognitive activities. On the
other hand, results indicate that both deaf and hearing ASL signers have an
enhanced ability to generate relatively complex mental images. The role of
hypnosis, telepathy and other extended forms of consciousness in mental
imagery will be further investigated in this presentation.
The complex process of visual perception is considered to be driven by
sensation with its outcome dependent on the perceiver's situational
experiences. Seeing, an intellectual exercise, (expressed verbally and/or
pictorially), is strongly influenced by perceptions and cultural
experiences. These expressions might be acquired at an early age, but mostly
they are learned processes. Clarity of expression is important in the
sciences, while fine arts might accommodate subtlety, and sometimes
obscurity. In all instances, the image maker is a communicator. An
understanding of seeing is relevant in the process of image creation.
Although it appears now, that visual mental imagery and visual perception
share common underlying mechanisms, there are several reports in which these
are shown to be dissociated, reflecting the basic modular organisation of
the visual brain. The binding of cellular activity in the
processing-perceptual systems is more properly envisioned as a binding of
the consciousness generated by each of them. It is this binding that gives
us our integrated image of the visual world.
****
SLIP-SLIDING BETWEEN THE VIRTUAL AND THE REAL
by Char Davies
Can there be a fruitful relationship between virtual and living
environments? I began exploring this issue in the immersive artworks Osmose
and Ephemere, using VR technology in ways that sought to evoke modes of
perception/ behaviour that were alternative to the norm, in terms of the
conventional cultural framework of dualism and domination through which we
habitually relate to the life-world. In my Consciousness Reframed '98 paper,
I laid out the symbolic relationship between these works and a particular
place - a piece of rural land of which I am con/temporary custodian -
suggesting that the fluxing realms of Ephemere were but the external
life-world internalised, poeticised (ala Bachelard), and re-externalised as
art. In a subsequent revision, I stated that as I typed, the land was
calling me away from keyboard and mouse, and the abstraction of words into
the enveloping sensory world of field and forest and the felt but unseen
presences of non-human others going about the business of their lives. Oddly
enough, since then, repetitive strain injury has freed me from the tyranny
of the keyboard, pushing me back into the world, to remote wild places such
as the Australian outback and the wetlands of the African Okavango delta. In
these places, teeming with a vast interplay of beings whose indifference to
humans belies the vulnerability of their habitats and species viability, I
have asked myself the question: can virtual places 'serve' the living? My
current research is a seeking for answers.
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LOOKING THROUGH THE "BLUE WINDOW PANE"
by Margaret Dolinsky
Keywords: CAVETM, Coercion, Immersion, Sound Activated Graphics.
"Blue Window Pane" is a CAVE art experience that stages a virtual
environment for performance and projective construction. Participants
discover a non-linear narrative through a subversive and confrontational
stream of consciousness movement. This non-hierarchical movement is
theatricalized in a series of abstract architectural spaces inhabited by
surreal characters. The journey includes, among other spaces, "Interiors,"
"Stair Scene," "Inner Sanctum" and "Living Room."
"Interiors" hallway is the scene of establishment and thus, the familiar
point of continual return. Each direction in the hallway reaches a point of
confrontation with the symbolic ego and, in effect, recreates a psychic
dilemma. The choices unfold the multi-layered events of self-determination:
unexpected encounters, passageways, epiphanies and brick walls.
"Guards," who sound out warnings and flail against the participants'
approach, line the hallway. They guard the high arched windows that offer
other views beyond "Interiors."
At one end of the hallway hangs an arched spiritual icon with a golden key.
By touching the key with the navigational wand, the icon swells open to
become an arched passageway of multiple silhouettes leading to the "Inner
Sanctum."
At the opposite end of the hallway hangs a curtain shrouding a floating
mask. The visage is of a serene, quiet and calm woman. If approached, her
eyes open and she begins to chant. Penetrating this mask sends one on a long
journey through a tunnel filled with the humming, whisperings and ramblings
of the conscience.
At each end of a tunnel is a face: one strong and one faint. The stronger
image will return to what is familiar and known: "Interiors." The faint
image leads to the "Stair Scene" (Stare Seen), a sound activated graphical
environment filled with stairs and staring.
"Blue Window Pane" is an immersion through a series of graphical dilemmas
marked by metaphorical icons. There is no with no linear method of narrative
or navigation. The architectural spaces build the walls for a stream of
consciousness type of exploration. Each participant recreates their
experience with a unique story to tell.
The CAVE is a virtual display theatre that presents a visual spatial media
of shapes, landscapes and sounds that establish a system for construction
and symbolic transformation. Participants are given the stage to exercise
the guidance of their cognitive structures and ascertain the meaning and
content of the virtual experience. To inhabit the virtual space is to
transform the projection. The uncharted and undefined medium of "Blue Window
Pane" requires its portrait to be painted with symbol systems of both
virtual reality and art adventure.
****
VISCERAL VIRTUALITY: THE DANCE OF THE BODY WITHOUT ORGANS
by Gregory Little
Keywords: Body w/o Organs, Deleuze and Guattari, Artaud, VRML, CAVE.
For the past year I have been constructing a virtual reality simulation that
places participants in a landscape within the human body, reminiscent in a
very basic sense of Fleischer's 1966 film "Fantastic Voyage". The organs of
the body, free from any functional, biological imperatives and autocratic
hierarchies, act as autonomous actors with choreographed behaviours and
multimedia events coded into virtual tissue. In this work, called "The Body
w/o Organs", I am weaving three datasets, two of anatomical models derived
from real human sources representing the organs (Visible Human Project) and
external skin (CyberWare Whole Body Scan) of real, "lived bodies", and one
of unbound subjective elements of my own consciousness, via memory,
visualisation, narration, and childhood drawings.
Trajectories of the Body w/o Organs
The separate iterations of my project, including "Making myself a 'BwO'",
"Inhabiting the 'BwO'", "The Dance of the 'BwO'" and "Distributing the
'BwO'" emerge from a swarm of intersecting trajectories, including the
visual, the subjective, the philosophical, the biological, the
technological, the immersive, and the interactive. A look at the specific
axes of trajectory; that is, the conditions and problems of each trajectory,
will begin to reveal the potential crossings, schizoid penetrations and
emergent rhizomes possible in my interpretation of Artuad's desire to "make
human anatomy dance at last". In the context of this report of a work in
progress, my emphasis is on the final iterations; "The Dance..", and the
"Distribution of the BwO".
"The Dance of the 'Body without Organs"
Documented subjective memories, narratives, sensations, and visualisations
that emerge through experiences of dream journals, body oriented gestalt
therapy, unearthing childhood drawings, and Raja Yoga Meditation are being
interpreted as digital media. These individual properties that construct my
experience of a particular qualia will be separated out, unbound, or
deterritorialized from one other and placed in parallel databases that are
mapped to particular organs/locations within the virtual anatomical world.
Deterritorializing, or unbinding instances is a process of separating
properties of a particular qualia of being from each other and their
temporality, so the properties remain, but the instance is no longer. Then
the properties can be organised in other ways. In this piece the interaction
of a participant will cause the elements of these databases to combine
randomly, potentially reterritorializing the separate properties into a
particular instance or temporality, involving the participant in an emergent
dance with the Body w/o Organs.
"Distributing the 'Body without Organs'"
This project will exist as a networked multi-user domain in two contexts:
1.) As a distributed VRML piece for the World Wide Web. Using a multi-user
server client, several interations of the Body w/o Organs will be
distributed to the local machines of participants over an extended period of
time. The environment of the BwO will be updated, altered, and revised
serially according to the collected feedback of participants, therefore the
form, anatomy, and content of a particular interation or serial version of
the virtual anatomical environment will be a truly distributed,
collaborative 'organisation of the organism'; and 2.) as a networked CAVE
environment, with a real-time linking of two CAVEs in separate locations.
This iteration of the project is the result of research being conducted at
the VRL, New Media Centre, The University of Michigan.
Through distributing unbound, deconstructed data derived from own physical
body and conscious reality across the globe via computer networks, I am
creating an immersive artistic context for the interactive
reterritorialization of my virtual presence into new emergent conscious
experience for the participants in the BwO.
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REVIEWS
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ARTE VISION: A HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC ART IN SPAIN
CD-Rom for MAC/PC platforms. Produced by MECAD Media Centrer of Art &
Design, Sabadell/Barcelona (Spain, 2000).
Directed by Claudia Gianetti, with the expertise of Eugeni Bonet; the
theoretical contributions of Joan Fontcuberta, Marisa Gonz?lez and Vicente
Carret-n, and with original music by Eduardo Polonio.
http://www.mecad.org
Review by Vicente Carret-n Cano
ARTE VISION is an investigation that takes the shape of an interactive
multimedia catalog to bilingually document the artists and works that,
through a variety of media have configured the history of electronic art in
this European country. As the first of its kind (off line) -although a less
ambitious selection has been (on line) for a couple of years at
http://www.telefonica.es/fat/futura/index.htm- this production proposes a
navigation by means of two main graphic interfaces: a panoramic one for the
selected media (experimental film, computer art and digital animation,
digital photography, copy art, holography, interactive installation,
media-performance/meta-formance, plus net.art and interactive media) and an
alphabetical gallery of portraits indexing the artists, but also including,
as a sort of 'yellow pages', a reasoned directory of resources. Every author
entry is composed of a short biography, photos, video excerpts, and comments
documenting each selected work. Each media section has an introductory
essay, a bibliography, and an index of authors active in that field.
Complementarily, a linear navigation is also offered, while links and
transitions are punctuated by suggestive sound phrases. On the literary
side, Mr. Bonet's prose is sharp, elegant, and easily readable.
The occurrence of this research is relevant, considering that academic
studies have not yet seriously confronted the revision of both past and
present Spanish contributions to the domain of electronic arts. It can be
said that even the teaching of new media is still totally neglected by the
Spanish educational system, despite some brand new private initiatives, such
as MECAD itself. In such a context, ARTE VISION will become a compulsory
reference, a unique starting platform of study for enthusiasts and scholars
and a promotional means for current Spanish media arts practitioners.
However, similar enterprises (academic or not) should be expected to appear,
at least to critically counterbalance the 'particularities' of ARTE VISION's
points of view on digging the historical roots of Spanish art & technology
practices. Controversy and debate can only enlighten the knowledge of our
electronic art proto-history.
What ARTE VISION lacks is a comprehensive study and understanding of the
different media and technological siblings from which the current scene has
evolved, beyond those traced by Eugeni Bonet in the experimental film
movement of the sixties. Its blurred 'roots searching' and 'pioneers
hunting' are full of movie makers without films (Brossa, Oteiza), media
artists without electronic creations (Val del Omar, Valcarcel Medina),
holographers without holograms (Zush, Yturralde) or tv-proto-video-film
makers with holograms made out of paper (Iv?n Zulueta). There are
conspicuous oversights such as Salvador Dal' (not included due to copyright
problems), whether we like it or not our electronic holy artist, the one
that has bridged the gap between the modernist avant gardes use of media and
the postmodern interest in science, technology, and media trends; or others
such as Eusebio Sempere, Luis Lug?n, Pablo Palazuelo, Francisco Sobrino,
Carles Buigas or Alexanco, just to point out a few important but overlooked
authors who were much more influential in their times than was Val del Omar.
Some notable omissions: the total absence of the 'sound art' domain, so
revitalized by its multimedia hybridation; and -since the intention of ARTE
VISION is not to cover 'Spanish electronic art' but 'electronic art in
Spain'- any entry for foreign artists, such as German Wolf Vostell (video),
British Hilary Wolfram (laser art), Mexicans Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
(interactive art) or Darya von Berner (installation art), and Belgian/Dutch
couple Jodi (net.art), among others. These artistis have been developing a
very important body of work among us.
Houses of knowledge should be built on a solid foundation, not starting by
putting up walls. Anyway, whoever is lucky to own such a house should learn
to consider more his guests and be better hosts. Or do only nomads
understand hospitality?
VICENTE CARRETON CANO is a Spanish media arts writer and curator living in
The Hague (The Netherlands). carreton@bart.nl
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JOB OFFER
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Film and Video Production: University of California, Santa
Cruz-Department of Film and Digital Media. Tenure-track position at
Assistant Professor I or II level in video and film production.
Position effective July 1, 2001. Required: M.F.A in relevant field or
equivalent professional experience. Demonstrated potential for
excellence in innovative research and for excellence in university
teaching. Refer to provision #459. Applications must be postmarked by
November 30, 2000. UCSC is an EEO/AA Employer. Please see our
complete job announcement at
http://www2.ucsc.edu/ahr/academic.htm#459.
ISEA NEWSLETTER============================================
Editor: Katarina Soukup Contributors: Natalie Melançon, Roy Ascott, Vicente
Carreton Cano, Nina Czegledy, Char Davies,
Margaret Dolinsky, Gregory Little.
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ISEA, 3530 boul. Saint-Laurent, suite 305, Montreal (QC), H2X 2V1, CANADA
Tel: (514) 847-8912, Fax: (514) 847-8834 email: isea@isea.qc.ca
URL: http://www.isea.qc.ca
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ISEA Board Members: Nina Czegledy, Kathy Rae Huffman, Amanda McDonald
Crowley, Alain Mongeau, Cynthia Beth Rubin, Thecla Schiphorst, Atau Tanaka,
Wim van der Plas
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Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts
Inter-Societe des arts electroniques
3530, boul. Saint-Laurent, suite 305
Montreal, Quebec, CANADA H2X 2V1
tel. +1-514-847-8912 * Fax. +1-514-847-8834
isea@isea.qc.ca * http://www.isea.qc.ca
********************* ISEA2000 **************
7.12 - 10.12, 2000 / Paris, France / www.isea2000.com