Interactive Screen 2008
During the last week of August 2008 the Banff New Media Institute ran
its annual creative producers lab Interactive Screen 0.8 – the
theme of which was SUSTAIN.
Over sixty participants gathered in Banff to consider strategies
and ideas that allow those working with new media to better reflect and
act upon the economic, social, cultural, natural and technological synergies
and dichotomies of our changing world. Our guest speakers were
chosen because their current practice or discourse raises critical, sometimes
crucial, questions about the practice, theory, and meaning of new media.
Five keynote addresses were given over the course of the event. These keynotes framed the dialogue for the day and brought to the foreground considerations of culture and what it means to produce it, sustain it and share it, global economics and local environments; memories of new media, can games get real and the pervasiveness and interdependence of technologies of the ages.
The following links present the complete keynote video recording. Each
presentation is
sixty minutes long.
Radical Traditionalism: The Gift, The Commons and The Future – Keynote
Rick Prelinger, archivist, writer, maker, San Francisco, CA
At first glance, today's makers face a dilemma: whether to lean towards the traditional media industry and its old-fashioned cultural economy of "billable events" or, alternatively, to pursue emerging alternative paths of production, distribution and sharing. Most still opt for certainty rather than innovative experiment. But what if the "new ways" weren't really so new or so radical? Could the rise of open-content and freer-culture models actually signal a return toward traditional ways of living and working? And are we really going to have a choice in the matter?
In late 2001, we began to reengineer our film archives away from the classical model of scarcity and around a model of plenty. Since that time, we've tried to have it both ways – selling images commercially while simultaneously giving them away to a receptive world. After millions of downloads, we've found that the results point to new ways of making and distributing media that don't rely on "billable events." And we've also grown to believe that our collective survival rests on openness, flexibility and sharing.
It’s All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye – Keynote
Stephanie Rothenberg, Artist, Brooklyn, NY
The computer video game has become the idealized commodity form of the 21st century offering hours of enhanced game play through seductive new technologies. From whimsical business applications and corporate team building retreats to online education, advertising and the military, digital gaming is a cultural phenomenon that pervades contemporary life. Yet the sweat, stamina and natural resources that drive this multi-billion dollar global industry are often overlooked. Through three interrelated multimedia projects that use participatory, interactive formats, critical issues concerning the social and environmental consequences of the global game industry and tactics for intervention will be discussed.
Curating Immateriality through an Archival Paradigm – Keynote
Vincent Bonin, Freelance Curator, Montreal, QC
Between 2000 and 2008, I occupied the position of archivist at the Daniel Langlois foundation for Art, Science and Technology in Montreal. While at the foundation, I was both a witness of emerging new media practices and had access to a wealth of historical materials on its so-called pioneering decades (1960s, 1970s). After leaving this institution, I shifted roles and became a curator working on projects solely based on archives. In this presentation, I want to suggest that curating historical exhibitions can be a strategy to fight up the notion of programmed obsolescence in media art that often translate in historical amnesia. In her anthology entitled Curating Immateriality, published in 2006, Joasia Krysa gathered scholars to address the impact that systems of immaterial production (databases, programming, net art, software art, generative media) now have on the practice of curating. I would add another level to this proposition: how can curatorial strategies informed by an archival paradigm open up new theoretical areas by showing a layered political context as the points of origin of current dematerialized art practices? My talk builds on a few examples of such approaches. The exhibitions curated by Catherine Morris since the mid 1990s, especially Food (on Gordon Matta-Clark’s food restaurant founded in 1971, New York) and 9 Evenings Reconsidered: Art, Theatre and Engineering, 1966 (on this important event at the Regiment Armory) are investigating the complex origins of current issues like artistic collaborations and the juncture between art and technology as they emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. In a similar vein but limited to a Canadian context, my own curatorial project, Documentary Protocols, addresses the emergence of information-based practices of this era (conceptual art, video) as prefiguring the artist’s role in an economy of immaterial labour.
The Games of Life – Keynote
Cindy Poremba, PHD Candidate/ Curator, Kokoromi Collective, Montreal, QC
The art of documentary videogame practice lies in designing a non-fiction experience that allows for deep engagement and experimentation, within the constraints of a rule-structured, computational form. A tremendous challenge to be sure – but one that, where successful, can provide new opportunities for re-engaging the archive, exploring the complex, unseen or unseeable, and renewing interest and excitement in “the real.” Can a videogame not only capture, but sustain an aura of reality? This presentation examines the cultural shifts in documentary, games, and digital representation that have led to the emergence of the documentary videogame.
Information, Energy – Keynote
Julian Priest, Independent Researcher, Informal.org, Wanganui, NZ
The talk Internet, Environment at Interactive Screen 07 looked
at the technological and cultural relationships between the Internet and
the Environment as part of an ongoing exploration of how Digital Media
informs issues of Sustainability. This year, as energy concerns come to
the fore, the theme is developed by focusing on the relationship between
Information and Energy. The talk takes as its starting point electromagnetic
radiation, which is both the underlying medium of information transmission,
and the bearer of energy. How does sunlight relate to the light coursing
through up our fibre optic cables?
View
movie
The Banff New Media Institute would like to thank Lethbridge College for their support with hosting this video content.
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