[spectre] REFRESH! THE HISTORIES OF MEDIA ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

[oliver grau]

REFRESH!
FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
THE HISTORIES OF MEDIA ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

September 28 - October 2, 2005 at Banff New Media Institute, Canada


"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.  Leonardo/ISAST, the Database for Virtual 
Art, Banff New Media Institute, 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
LEONARDO, journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and 
Technology, has documented for the past thirty-seven years the pioneering 
work of artists who work in and with new media. Together with Leonardo Book 
Series and LEA Electronic Journal, the journal is published by the MIT 
Press. For further information about the forthcoming conference and the 
long-term LEONARDO Media Art History Project, please email to join:
banffleoarthistconfinfo-subscribe at yahoogroups.com


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 1-2, 2005) for in-depth 
dialogues and international project initiation.
The first call for papers will be in late Summer 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, are 
encouraged to submit for the following panels:


MEDIA ART HISTORIES
Times and Landscapes
Methodologies
Invention
Collaborative Practice
Pop Mass Society
Cross-Culture, Global Art

ART HISTORY AS IMAGE SCIENCE
Film, Sound, Media Art & Performance
History of Sciences & Media Art
Media & Visual Studies

DOCUMENTATION - CURATING - COLLECTION - RIGHTS
New Scientific Tools
History of Institutions



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

ADVISORY BOARD
Hans BELTING, Karlsruhe; Andreas BROECKMANN, Berlin; 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; Ángel KALENBERG, Montevideo; Ryszard KLUSZCZYNSKI, Lodz; Machiko 
KUSAHARA, Tokyo; W.J.T. MITCHELL, Chicago; Gunalan NADARAJAN, Singapore; 
Eduard SHANKEN, Durham; Barbara STAFFORD, Chicago; Christiane PAUL, New 
York; Louise POISSANT, Montreal; Jeffrey SHAW, Sydney; Tereza WAGNER, 
Paris; Peter WEIBEL, Karlsruhe; Steven WILSON, San Francisco


BANFF
Sara DIAMOND, Director of Research and Artistic Director of BNMI (Local Chair)
Susan KENNARD, Executive Producer of BNMI (Organisation)
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
www.leonardo.info


CONFERENCE DIRECTOR & ORGANISATION

Oliver GRAU, Director Immersive Art & Database of Virtual Art
Humboldt University Berlin
http://virtualart.hu-berlin.de


SUPPORTED BY:
LEONARDO, GERMAN RESEARCH FOUNDATION, UNESCO DIGIARTS, VILLA VIGONI