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Media Release

For immediate release
September 22, 2005

Refresh! - first international conference on the histories of media art, science, and technology

September 28 to October 1, 2005
The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada Hosted by the Banff New Media Institute, Leonardo / ISAST, and the Database for Virtual Art

Next week, for the first time, a globally representative group of artists and scholars will meet at The Banff Centre to explore the history of media arts at the turn of the millennium. The occasion is Refresh!, the first international conference devoted to the histories of media art, science, and technology. The conference, which runs September 28 to October 1, will examine the relationship between new media and the disciplines of art history, anthropology, computing sciences, media studies, and other intercultural contexts.

“Refresh! will be a milestone in the development of our field. Here we will discuss questions of historiography, methodology, and the role of institutions of media art,” says Oliver Grau, director of Immersive Art & Database of Virtual Art, Professor of Bildwissenschaft and Dean of Cultural Studies, Danube University Krems, Austria. He continues, “Where and how, we ask, do the lines run that connect contemporary media art with its pioneers?”

“Refresh! marks the 10th anniversary of the Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) at The Banff Centre. As a stakeholder in the intellectual endeavor that Refresh! marks, BNMI moves on into the next decade in its institutional evolution as a centre dedicated and open to engagement and negotiations with the politics and the histories of research, production, professional development, and the celebration of new media in all of its forms,” says Susan Kennard, director and executive producer, BNMI.

Keynote speakers include Paris-based theoretician Edmond Couchot, São Paulo-based semiotics professor Lucia Santaella, and Sarat Maharaj from Goldsmiths College, London. These and other eminent speakers will expand the discourses that map the histories of new media practice, opening a dialogue with over 150 of the most pioneering minds in media art. Honourary and advisory conference board members include Rudolf Arnheim, Itsuo Sakane, Peter Weibel, Gunalan Nadarajan, Andreas Broekmann, Diana Domingues, Jean Gagnon, and Frank Popper.

A live web stream of conference sessions will be available at http://www.ceebanff.ca/stream/, beginning September 29 at 8:30 a.m. MST. For more information, visit the Refresh! web site at http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/events/refresh/

Refresh! coincides with several 10th anniversary celebrations of the Banff New Media Institute, including The Art Formally Known as New Media exhibition at the Walter Phillips Gallery and the publishing of Euphoria and Dystopia: The Banff New Media Institute Dialogues, 1995-2005, a retrospective of previously unpublished presentations from the works of BNMI.
 

For more information on Refresh! or to register as a member of the media, contact:
Jill Sawyer, Media & Communications Officer
The Banff Centre, 403.762.6475
jill_sawyer@banffcentre.ca