REFRESH!

Conference webcast launched - watch and listen now

Conference: September 28 – October 1.  The opening reception is on the evening of September 28.  Departure time is the morning of October 2.

Summit: October 2 - 3.  Summit is by Invitation Only.  Departure time after the summit is the morning of October 4.

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"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 (Evenings of September 28, 29, 30, October 1) 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, Banff New Media Institute the Database for Virtual Art 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.

For more information on the conference, please visit: http://www.MediaArtHistory.org
 

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, and 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 37 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:
banffleoarthistconfinfo-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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 2-3, 2005) for in-depth dialogues and international project initiation.

The first call for papers will be in 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

Honourary Board

Rudolf Arnheim, Frank Popper, Jasia Reichardt, Itsuo Sakane, Walter Zanini

Advisory Board

Andreas Broeckmann, Berlin; Paul Brown, London; 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; Edward Shanken, Savannah; Barbara Stafford, Chicago; Christiane Paul, New York; Louise Poissant, Montreal; Jeffrey Shaw, Sydney; Tereza Wagner, Paris; Peter Weibel, Karlsruhe; Steven Wilson, San Francisco.

Executive Committee

Sara Diamond, Oliver Grau, Roger Malina.

Banff New Media Institute (BNMI)

Susan Kennard, Director and Executive Producer BNMI (Local Host) www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi

Leonardo

Annick Bureaud, Director Leonardo Pioneers and Pathbreakers Art History Project, Leonardo/Olats
hwww.olats.org

Publications Committee

Chair: Roger F. Malina, Chair Leonardo/Isast
www.leonardo.info

Conference Director and Organization

Oliver Grau, Director Immersive Art and Database Of Virtual Art
Humboldt University, Berlin
virtualart.hu-berlin.de

Supported By:

Leonardo, Database of Virtual Art, Banff New Media Institute, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, UNESCO DigiArts, Villa Vigoni, Intel, Goethe-Institut