[Leonardo/ISAST Network] Refresh! First International Conference on the Histories of Media, Art, Science and Technology

[Leonardo/ISAST]

To: Leonardo Network
From: Roger Malina

Leonardo is pleased to announce its co sponsorship of :

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: 

TO BE KEPT INFORMED ABOUT THE CONFERENCE JOIN THIS LIST:

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

Leonardo thanks Intel for their support of the conference.

For more information about Leonardo's involvement in the conference see:
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/events/banff05refresh.htm
l

PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE
Chair: Roger F MALINA, Chair Leonardo/ISAST http://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