Digital Avant-Garde: Celebrating 25 Years of Ars Electronica
Exhibition, screenings and talks at Eyebeam, American Museum of the Moving Image and Austrian Cultural Forum U.S. premiere exhibition of innovative digital media works of the past and present, sponsored by SAP, the world's leading supplier of business software.
Vienna/New York, NY, May 17, 2004 - Ars Electronica, one of the world’s most renowned institutions involved with digital media culture, will celebrate its 25th anniversary this summer. To mark the occasion, Ars Electronica will collaborate with the American Museum of the Moving Image, Eyebeam, and the Austrian Cultural Forum, to present Digital Avant-Garde, a series of exhibitions, screenings, and discussions in New York City from May 20 to July 18, 2004. Since its formation in 1979 in Linz, Austria, Ars Electronica has championed innovative media works that combine art and technology through the presentation of international festivals and a museum, and through the Futurelab, a pioneering research facility for developing new works.
Digital Avant-Garde will showcase fascinating digital-media projects that include winners from past festival competitions in the Prix Ars Electronica’s interactive art category as well as the latest trends in this art form represented by installations produced at the Ars Electronica Futurelab and works that have come out of Ars Electronica’s artist-in-residence
program. In addition to these exhibitions, ancillary presentations such as workshops, chats with the artists, screenings and symposia will provide background on the history of digital creativity and current developments in the field. This program is being made possible by the generous support of SAP, the world’s leading supplier of business software.
Prix Selection at Eyebeam
- 540 W. 21st Street, Manhattan
Prix Selection at Eyebeam offers a look into the development and history of interactive art. The exhibition will present nine award winning works in the Interactive Art category of the Prix Ars Electronica, the world’s oldest and most important competition in the cyberarts. This presentation features an extraordinarily diverse selection of installations and not only reflects the history of this competition but also gives a historical account of the development of interactive media art as a whole. The exhibition gives equal consideration to the diversity of the artists’ approaches and the substantive concepts of their works as well as to the overarching theme of the relationship between technology and the artistic spirit of creativity and expression at different points in time.
Interactions/Art and Technology at American Museum of the Moving Image
- 35 Avenue at 36th Street, Astoria
While the primary emphasis in the Eyebeam exhibition is placed on developments in media art over time, “Interactions/Art and Technology” at the American Museum of the Moving Image presents a current cross-section of work being done with interfaces by Ars Electronica Futurelab staff members. In both independent and collaborative projects, the Futurelab is a creative force in the media art field and also pursues joint ventures with private sector associates. This R&D facility is a model for a new type of media art
laboratory in which staffers join teams that bring together a wide variety of training and skills and work in an interdisciplinary fashion that blurs the distinction between artistic and technological innovation so that both areas can reciprocally inspire and spur on one another. The interactive installations on display at Moving Image reflect the broad spectrum of fields in with the lab is active and, above all, the great diversity and creativity
that emerge from the synthesis of high-tech and content designed to appeal to artistically discriminating audiences.
Animation Theater at Eyebeam and American Museum of the Moving Image
Eyebeam and Moving Image will jointly present Animation Theater, a series of screenings of animated films that represent important milestones in this genre over the last 25 years.
Positions and Perspectives at Austrian Cultural Forum
11 E. 52st Street, Manhattan
Digital Avant Garde festival will open with a series of lectures and discussions at the Austrian Cultural Forum featuring artists from the exhibitions and screenings at Eyebeam and Moving Image. These talks will convey additional conceptual insights and historical background, and to provide the public with the opportunity to learn from and engage with theoreticians and artists in the field of digital media art.
With queries, contact:
Wolfgang A. Bednarzek
Pressesprecher / Press Officer
AEC Ars Electronica Center Linz
Hauptstraße 2, 4040 Linz, Austria
tel ++43.732.7272-38
fax ++43.732.7272-638
wolfgang.bednarzek@aec.at
Press Lounge@Ars Electronica:
http://www.aec.at/press
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