Click for Conference Program

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 


This conference is for the following fields:

art history·
anthropology ·
architecture·
computer science·
collecting ·
cd-rom & dvd creation
cultural studies·
curating ·
cyberfeminism ·
documentation ·
ethnography ·
film studies ·
history of science ·
history of technology ·
image science ·
interaction ·
interculturalism ·
media archaeology ·
media art ·
media studies ·
museum direction ·
museum exhibit creation
nano arts ·
performance ·
photography ·
pop culture ·
presence research ·
preservation ·
psychology ·
robotics ·
scenography
science writing ·
semiotics ·
sociology ·
sound studies ·
supercomputing ·
teaching·
theatre ·
videography ·
visual culture ·

"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. Banff New Media Institute, the Database for Virtual Art, Leonardo/ISAST 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
For further information about the forthcoming conference please email to join:
banffleoarthistconfinfo-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Original Call for Papers - click here

 

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 was in Fall 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, were encouraged to submit for the following panels:

  • MediaArtHistories: Times and Landscapes I
  • MediaArtHistories: Times and Landscapes II
  • Methodologies
  • Art as Research / Artists as Inventors
  • Image Science and 'Representation': From a Cognitive Point of View
  • Collaborative Practice/ Networking (history)
  • Pop/Mass/Society
  • Collecting, preserving and archiving the media arts
  • Database/New Scientific Tools
  • Cross-Culture - Global Art
  • What can the History of New Media Learn from History of Science?
  • Rejuvenate: Film, sound and music in media arts history
  • High Art/Low Culture - the future of media art sciences?
  • History of Institutions
  • Cross-disciplinary research methods



 

CONFERENCE DIRECTOR & ORGANIZATION
Oliver GRAU, Director Immersive Art & Database of Virtual Art,
Anna WESTPHAL & Wendy COONES, Organization
Humboldt University Berlin
www.virtualart.at
www2.hu-berlin.de/grau/
www.donau-uni.ac.at/dis

BANFF
Susan KENNARD, Director & Executive Producer BNMI (local host)
Sara DIAMOND, President, Ontario College of Art and Design (summit chair)
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
http://mitpress.mit.edu/Leonardo

  
 

 

 

HONORARY BOARD
Rudolf ARNHEIM; Frank POPPER; Jasia REICHARDT; Itsuo SAKANE, Walter ZANINI

ADVISORY BOARD:
Andreas BROECKMANN, Berlin; Paul BROWN, London/Cotton Tree; 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; Douglas KAHN, Davis: Ángel KALENBERG, Montevideo; Ryszard KLUSZCZYNSKI, Lodz; Machiko KUSAHARA, Tokyo; W.J.T. MITCHELL, Chicago; Gunalan NADARAJAN, Philadelphia; 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



 

SUPPORTED BY: (click for full sponsor list)
BANFF NEW MEDIA INSTITUTE, DATABASE OF VIRTUAL ART, LEONARDO, GOETHE-INSTITUT (Partner), DEUTSCHE FORSCHUNGSGEMEINSCHAFT, SSHRC, CANADA COUNCIL, LANGLOIS FOUNDATION, VILLA VIGONI, UNESCO DIGIARTS, INTEL, ITAU CULTURAL