[spectre] E Narrative 2003 round table. Boston, May 10/11

[Alexei Shulgin]

Eastgate Systems presents their fifth conference in a series: eNarrative 2003, an eclectic and
engaging roundtable being held in Boston - May 10/11.
www.enarrative.org

Eastgate Systems builds hypertext tools and publishes original hypertexts. For twenty years we've
believed that the future of serious writing lies on the screen.    
http://www.eastgate.com

----------------------------

E Narrative 2003

While under the rubric of narrative, the conference is hardly confined to it; eNarrative is a
small gathering of active creators - software designers, new media artists, filmmakers, writers,
critics and scholars - assembling to explore and advance the art of interaction. It is not the
typical long slate of lectures and sales presentations, but a dynamic discussion among a small
group of dedicated and deeply engaged experts. eNarrative 2003 promises a weekend of intellectual
and aesthetic stimulation, investigating new developments in the electronic arts and their
applications to business, personal growth and the work-in-progress known as culture.

People will include:
    .Dave Winer, weblog pioneer and creator of Radio Userland
    .Meg Hourihan, co-author of We Blog
    .George Fifield, founder/director of Boston Cyberarts Festival
    .Mark Bernstein, creator of Tinderbox
    .George P. Landow, author of Hypertext 2.0

Topics will include:
    .Better weblogs - the electronic world as performance space
    .Serial art and literary hypertext
    .Interaction design, information architecture, "information farming"

The weekend will be colorful, as the conference is being held amidst and in conjunction with the
Boston Cyberarts Festival, an international biennial celebration featuring exhibitions and
performances by cutting-edge artists working with new technologies in all media. 
http://www.bostoncyberarts.org

eNarrative 2003 takes place at the Hotel at MIT. The Saturday afternoon session of the conference
will be open to the public, convening at the Boston Public Library.

In contemporary culture the most exciting work often emerges from the fuzzy edges of genres, where
narrative meets the visual and the sonic; where performance goes virtual; where theory looks like
art; where code transcends itself and spawns new reality. eNarrative 2003 will probe the frontiers
of self-expression, scholarship, digital 'content' and communal connectivity, looking for new
models with which culture can reinvent itself.

I hope you will consider joining us, and perhaps even disseminating news of this event to your
members.  I will try to contact you in the coming weeks to see what is possible on that front.

Thanks,

Ellary Eddy 
ellary at enarrative.org 
http://www.enarrative.org

Further info:
(800) 562-1638 toll free in US and Canada;
+1 (617) 924-9044 worldwide



IA> http://www.softwareart.net

IA> The transcript of the software art panel which took place during
IA> transmediale.03 is finally online! It was kindly supported by the Initiatief
IA> beeldende kunsten vzw / Digitaal Platform, Brussels.

IA> Here's the blurb again:

IA> "Software Art: A curatorial fiction or a new perspective?"
IA> Presentations - Statements - Discussion

IA> 4 February 2003, 3-7 pm

IA> A cooperation between the Media Arts Lab at Künstlerhaus Bethanien
IA> and Transmediale.03

IA> Panel: Amy Alexander (San Diego/USA, software and performance artist,
IA> member of the transmediale.03 software jury), Florian Cramer (lecturer in
IA> Comparative Literature, member of the transmediale.01 software
IA> jury),Olga Goriunova (Moscow/Helsinki, co-founder of the software art
IA> festivals Read_Me 1+2 and of the 'software repository' runme.org), Alex
IA> McLean (London, programmer/artist, founder of the generative art mailing
IA> list 'eu-gene', winner of the transmediale.02 software prize with
IA> "forkbomb.pl"), Antoine Schmitt (Paris, artist and programmer, received a
IA> honorary mention of transmediale.01 for his software "Vexation 1",
IA> member of the transmediale.02 software jury)

IA> Moderator: Inke Arns (cultural scientist and independent curator for
IA> media art, Berlin)

IA> 2003 marks the third anniversary of the transmediale software prize
IA> which, since its first installment, has instigated an ongoing debate about
IA> "software art" and its legitimacy. The idea that artists may not just use
IA> prefabricated software to produce something else, but engage with
IA> programming and software itself in playful, inventive and critical ways, has,
IA> one the one hand, caught on and spread over to other festivals, exhibitions
IA> and artistic projects. On the other hand, there is no common language,
IA> identity and network of software artists. Jury work for software art
IA> competitions often turns out to be difficult because of little and mixed-
IA> quality input and since much if not most artistically interesting software -
IA> hacker code, conceptual art, algorithmic musical composition for example
IA> - is written either outside the art system or is not being thought of as
IA> software art by its creators.

IA> So it appears as if the history of net art (and other process-oriented and
IA> conceptual art forms) could repeat itself with software art: That curators
IA> are interested in incorporating a new artistic practice more than the artists
IA> themselves. Or, in other words: Is it essential that software becomes art?
IA> Will it profit from the standards of a media art system that is always
IA> greedy for the next big thing? And how and by whom is software art being
IA> perceived...?

IA> Check out
IA> http://www.softwareart.net




IA> Inke Arns
IA> http://www.v2.nl/~arns

IA> Upcoming:
IA> "IRWIN: Rekapitulacija!", 25.9.-25.10.2003
IA> http://www.v2.nl/~arns/Projects/Irwin/

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