[spectre] New Director of Eyebeam

[EAF Director]

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Christa Blatchford/ Perry Lowe
212/937.6580 x231/ x222
press at eyebeam.org
www.eyebeam.org

Amanda McDonald Crowley
Appointed Executive Director of Eyebeam


New York, NY, October 10 - Eyebeam is pleased to announce the 
appointment of Amanda McDonald Crowley as Executive Director of the 
not-for-profit arts and technology center. McDonald Crowley is 
relocating from her native Australia where she has been based while 
working nationally and throughout Europe and Asia as an arts 
producer, facilitator, researcher and curator. She will begin her new 
position at Eyebeam on October 10, 2005.

McDonald Crowley brings to Eyebeam a substantial and international 
background in media arts.  Her prior vision and experience in 
fostering the cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration and exchange 
provide a perfect fit to Eyebeam's mission and model. "Amanda 
McDonald Crowley is one of the most accomplished, groundbreaking new 
media curators and producers anywhere in the world," stated Steve 
Dietz, Director, ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival. 
"Her experience as director of ANAT, as a producer at the Adelaide 
Festival and ISEA Symposium is a perfect match for the adventuresome, 
artist-oriented programming that both Amanda and Eyebeam are known 
for."

Prior to joining Eyebeam, McDonald Crowley served as the Executive 
Producer of the 2004 International Symposium of Electronic Art 
(ISEA), developing the event from concept to major conferences, 
exhibitions, performances, concerts and site specific installations 
on a ferry in the Baltic Sea and locations in Estonia and Finland. 
In 2002-03 she was an arts worker in residency at Sarai: the New 
Media Initiative in Delhi, India and was Associate Director for 
Adelaide Festival 2002. From 1995 to 2000 McDonald Crowley was 
Director of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), an 
organization with a national brief to foster links between the arts, 
sciences and new technology.

"I am particularly excited by the opportunity to work with an 
organization that has such a strong commitment to an 'atelier' model. 
It encourages a direct engagement with and participation in work that 
makes sense of the intersection of the arts, sciences and 
technology," said McDonald Crowley.  "Eyebeam's objectives and 
programs engage with impressively diverse groups of artists and 
audiences. I have a strong personal commitment to cross-disciplinary 
and collaborative art practices and am keen to ensure that Eyebeam 
continues to build partnerships nationally and internationally whilst 
maintaining it's important role locally in providing innovative, 
stimulating, hopefully occasionally challenging but also celebratory 
spaces for the research, production and presentation of contemporary 
culture."

McDonald Crowley arrives during the final phase of a year-long 
renovation of the Eyebeam's Chelsea facility which locates all 
programming under one roof for the first time. While retaining the 
existing 5,000 square foot main gallery, one of the largest 
uninterrupted exhibition spaces in Chelsea, the renovation created 
new production and education studios, labs, editing suites, 
prototyping galleries, administrative offices, a flexible 
lounge/events space, a bookstore and expanded public entrance. This 
reconfigured space renews emphasis on artists' experimentation and 
process, the exhibition of work produced within Eyebeam's studios and 
labs, as well as on alternative forms of public presentation.
"Amanda is a generous colleague and tireless advocate for whom 
contemporary cultural production is always firmly positioned within 
the broader political, socio-economic and cultural landscape," 
affirmed Sarah Miller, Director, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts 
(PICA). "This new role sees her well positioned to progress Eyebeam's 
charter as it moves into the next exciting stage of its development. "

Eyebeam
Eyebeam supports the creation, presentation and analysis of new forms 
of innovative cultural production. Founded in 1996, Eyebeam is 
dedicated to exposing broad and diverse audiences to new technologies 
and media arts, while simultaneously establishing and demonstrating 
new media as a significant genre.

Eyebeam's programs are made possible through the generous support of 
Atlantic Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 
the National Endowment for the Arts, Time Warner Youth Media and Arts 
Fund, Alienware, the Jerome Foundation, the Helena Rubinstein 
Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, the New York State Council on 
the Arts, a state agency, the New York City Department of Cultural 
Affairs, the David S. Howe Foundation, the Lerer Family Charitable 
Foundation, the Sony Corporation, Alias Systems, Inc. and the Milton 
and Sally Avery Foundation.

Eyebeam
Location: 540 w 21st Street between 10th & 11th Avenues
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 - 6:00pm
Bookstore: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 - 6:00pm
Admission: All events are free to the public unless otherwise noted
Website: www.eyebeam.org
Email: info at eyebeam.org

-- 
EXPERIMENTAL ART FOUNDATION curates its exhibition program to 
represent new work that expands current debates and ideas in 
contemporary visual art. The EAF incorporates a gallery space, 
bookshop and artists studios.

Lion Arts Centre North Terrace at Morphett Street Adelaide * PO Box 
8091 Station Arcade South Australia 5000 * Tel: +618 8211 7505  * Fax 
+618 8211 7323 * eaf at eaf.asn.au  * Bookshop: eafbooks at eaf.asn.au * 
http://www.eaf.asn.au * Director: Melentie Pandilovski

The Experimental Art Foundation is assisted by the Commonwealth 
Government through the Australia Council, it arts funding and 
advisory body, by the South Australian Government through Arts SA, 
and through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the 
Australian, State and Territory Governments.