REFRESH!
FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
THE HISTORIES OF MEDIA
ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
September 28 - October 2, 2005 at Banff New
Media Institute, Canada
"The technology of the modern media has
produced new possibilities of
interaction...
What is needed is a wider
view encompassing the coming rewards in the context
of the treasures left us
by the past experiences, possessions, and insights."
(Rudolf Arnheim, Summer
2000)
Recognizing the increasing significance of media art for our
culture, this
Conference on the Histories of Media Art will discuss for the
first time
the history of media art within the interdisciplinary and
intercultural
contexts of the histories of art. Leonardo/ISAST, the Database
for Virtual
Art, Banff New Media Institute, and UNESCO DigiArts are
collaborating to
produce the first international art history conference
covering art and new
media, art and technology, art-science interaction, and
the history of
media as pertinent to contemporary art.
MEDIA ART
HISTORIES
After photography, film, video, and the little known media art
history of
the 1960s-80s, today media artists are active in a wide range of
digital
areas (including interactive, genetic, and telematic art). Even in
robotics
and nanotechnology, artists design and conduct experiments. This
dynamic
process has triggered intense discussion about images in the
disciplines of
art history, media studies, and neighboring cultural
disciplines. The Media
Art History Project offers a basis for attempting an
evolutionary history
of the audiovisual media, from the laterna magica to
the panorama,
phantasmagoria, film, and the virtual art of recent decades.
It is an
evolution with breaks and detours; however, all its stages are
distinguished by a close relationship between art, science, and
technology.
Refresh! will discuss questions of historiography,
methodology and the role
of institutions of media art. The Conference will
contain key debates about
the function of inventions, artistic practice in
collaborative networks,
the prominent role of sound during the last decades
and will emphasize the
importance of intercultural and pop culture themes in
the Histories of
Media Art. Readings of new media art histories vary richly
depending on
cultural contexts. This event calls upon scholarship from a
strongly
international perspective.
Therefore Refresh! will represent
and address the wide array of disciplines
involved in the emerging field of
Media Art. Beside Art History these
include the Histories of Sciences and
Technologies , Film-, Sound-, Media-,
Visual and Theatre Studies,
Architecture, Visual Psychology, just to name a
few.
DOCUMENTATION - CURATING - COLLECTION
Although the
popularity of media art exhibited at exhibitions and art
festivals is
growing among the public and increasingly influences theory
debates, with
few exceptions museums and galleries have neglected to
systematically
collect this present-day art, to preserve it and to demand
appropriate
conservatory measures. Thus, several decades of international
media art is
in danger of being lost to the history of collecting and to
academic
disciplines such as art history. This gap will have far-reaching
consequences; therefore, the conference will also discuss the
documentation, collection, archiving and preservation of media art. What
kind of international networks must be created to advance appropriate
policies for collection and conservation? What kind of new technologies do
we need to optimize research efforts and information
exchange?
MAILING LIST
LEONARDO, journal of the International
Society for the Arts, Sciences, and
Technology, has documented for the past
thirty-seven years the pioneering
work of artists who work in and with new
media. Together with Leonardo Book
Series and LEA Electronic Journal, the
journal is published by the MIT
Press. For further information about the
forthcoming conference and the
long-term LEONARDO Media Art History Project,
please email to
join:
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CONFERENCE
Held
at The Banff Centre, featuring lectures by invited speakers as well as
others selected by a jury from a call for papers, the main event will be
followed by a two-day summit meeting (October 1-2, 2005) for in-depth
dialogues and international project initiation.
The first call for papers
will be in late Summer 2004. In particular, young
postgraduates in the
research areas of: art history and new media, art and
technology, the
interaction of art and science, and media history, are
encouraged to submit
for the following panels:
MEDIA ART HISTORIES
Times and
Landscapes
Methodologies
Invention
Collaborative Practice
Pop Mass
Society
Cross-Culture, Global Art
ART HISTORY AS IMAGE
SCIENCE
Film, Sound, Media Art & Performance
History of Sciences &
Media Art
Media & Visual Studies
DOCUMENTATION - CURATING -
COLLECTION - RIGHTS
New Scientific Tools
History of
Institutions
HONORARY BOARD
Rudolf ARNHEIM; Frank POPPER;
Jasia REICHARDT; Itsuo SAKANE, Walter ZANINI
ADVISORY BOARD
Hans
BELTING, Karlsruhe; Andreas BROECKMANN, Berlin; Karin BRUNS, Linz;
Annick
BUREAUD, Paris; Dieter DANIELS, Leipzig; Diana DOMINGUES, Caxias do
Sul;
Felice FRANKEL, Boston; Jean GAGNON, Montreal; Thomas GUNNING,
Chicago;
Linda D. HENDERSON, Austin; Manrai HSU, Taipei; Erkki HUHTAMO, Los
Angeles;
Ángel KALENBERG, Montevideo; Ryszard KLUSZCZYNSKI, Lodz; Machiko
KUSAHARA,
Tokyo; W.J.T. MITCHELL, Chicago; Gunalan NADARAJAN, Singapore;
Eduard
SHANKEN, Durham; Barbara STAFFORD, Chicago; Christiane PAUL, New
York;
Louise POISSANT, Montreal; Jeffrey SHAW, Sydney; Tereza WAGNER,
Paris; Peter
WEIBEL, Karlsruhe; Steven WILSON, San Francisco
BANFF
Sara
DIAMOND, Director of Research and Artistic Director of BNMI (Local
Chair)
Susan KENNARD, Executive Producer of BNMI (Organisation)
www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/
LEONARDO
Annick BUREAUD, Director Leonardo
Pioneers and
Pathbreakers Art History Project, Leonardo/OLATS
www.olats.org
PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE
Chair: Roger F MALINA, Chair
Leonardo/ISAST
www.leonardo.info
CONFERENCE DIRECTOR & ORGANISATION
Oliver GRAU, Director
Immersive Art & Database of Virtual Art
Humboldt University
Berlin
http://virtualart.hu-berlin.de
SUPPORTED BY:
LEONARDO, GERMAN RESEARCH
FOUNDATION, UNESCO DIGIARTS, VILLA VIGONI,
INTEL