[Discussion] New Media Crossing Boundaries

[Gönül Pultar]

INTERACTIVE FUTURES: New Media Crossing Boundaries
Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival -
http://www.vifvf.com/
Victoria, British Columbia,
Canada January 30th - January 31st, 2004.


CALL FOR PAPERS, PERFORMANCES, & INSTALLATIONS

INTERACTIVE FUTURES is a forum for showing recent tendencies in 
time-based new media art.
The theme of this year's event is New Media Crossing Boundaries.
The crossbreeding between film, sound artists and interactive media 
forms is now becoming standard practice. With increasing frequency 
artists are stepping out of their traditional media and applying new 
media tools and concepts to other media. Such cross-pollination is 
evident in the work of one of our special guests this year, Jean 
Pich=E9. Originally trained as an electro-acoustic composer, Pich=E9 is 
now working as a digital filmmaker and sound artist. Similarly, Paul D. 
Miller (AKA DJ Spooky) works across a dazzling array of media - from 
dance-based sound to digital installation to pure text works - imparting 
a voice of wit and intelligence to these media forms. New Media Crossing 
Boundaries will explore how new media is becoming genuinely "multimedia" 
and how new media technology and production is changing the face of 
traditional media. Scholars and artists working in new media arts, 
theory, and criticism are encouraged to submit proposals to present 
their work at the conference. Presentations must be at least in part 
demonstrative, incorporating digital technologies, interactive or 
digital video, sound, or network-based elements. Conference sessions may 
combine academic presentations with presentations; we encourage 
proposals that push the boundaries of the traditional conference paper 
in form and content.


INVITED SPEAKERS / ARTISTS (to be confirmed)
* Paul D. Miller (USA) - Paul D. Miller (AKA DJ Spooky) is a conceptual 
artist, writer, and musician working in NYC. His written work has 
appeared in The Village Voice, The Source, Artforum, Raygun, Rap Pages, 
Paper Magazine, and a host of other periodicals. He is a co-Publisher 
along with the legendary African American downtown poet Steve Canon of 
the magazine "A Gathering of the Tribes" - a periodical dedicated to new 
works by writers from a multi-cultural context, and he was the first 
Editor-At-Large of Artbyte: the Magazine of Digital Culture. His work as 
an artist has appeared in a wide variety of contexts such as the Whitney 
Biennial, The Venice Biennial for Architecture (year 2000), the 
prestigious Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany; Kunsthalle, Vienna; The 
Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and many other museums and galleries. 
Miller has recorded a huge volume of music as "DJ Spooky that Subliminal 
Kid" and has collaborated a wide variety of pre-emininet musicians and 
composers such as Iannis Xenakis, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Butch Morris, Kool 
Keith a.k.a. Doctor Octagon, Killa Priest from Wu-Tang Clan, Yoko Ono 
and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth amongst many others. He also did the 
music score for the Cannes and Sundance award winning film "Slam" 
starring critically acclaimed poet Saul Williams.

* Jean Pich=E9 (Canada) - Jean Pich=E9 is a composer and video artist 
living in Montr=E9al, Canada. Since 1988, he has been teaching 
composition and video at the Universit=E9 de Montr=E9al. His creative 
output over the past 20 years has explored the more adventurous edges of 
high technologies applied to music and moving images, including live 
electronics, fixed electronic media and performance. He has received 
numerous international awards and his work has been shown and heard in 
Europe, Asia and North America. After active collaborations with video 
artists like Tom Sherman and Marina Abramovic, he now directs and 
produces his own video work, focusing on parallel compositional 
paradigms for abstracted visuals and music. His first opera " Yo Soy la 
Disentegracion " was produced in 1997 by the Montreal company Chants 
Libres. For the past few years, he has been involved in software design 
to facilitate the specification of control vectors for digital sound 
synthesis and processing. These activities have led to the creation of 
the program Cecilia that was awarded First Prize at the International 
competition for musical software in Bourges. Since 2000 he has developed 
a synchronized video projection system for three large screens and an 
image acquisition system with three digital cameras. This system is used 
for his productions and was shown over the last three years in Montreal 
and in France.

* Ron Wakkary (Canada) - Ron Wakkary is associate professor in 
Information Technology & Interactive Arts at Simon Fraser University in 
British Columbia. Previously, he has been faculty in Interactive Arts 
and the academic dean at the Technical University of British Columbia, 
and the Digital Design Department at Parsons School of Design, in New 
York. He was cofounder of Stadium@Dia in New York where he collaborated 
and co-developed pioneering projects in art and the Internet. He has 
lead digital arts technology projects for the Museum of Modern Art, the 
Guggenheim Museum, the Dia Center for the Arts, and Electronic Arts 
Intermix. Also while in New York, he was principal in OO-Design, a Web 
development firm. He has presented and published widely, including 
Computer Human Interaction ACM, Siggraph, Interact and Consciousness 
Reframed. He graduated with a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art 
and Design, and an MFA from the State University of New York at Stony 
Brook. His current research projects include a recently completed 
project with Nokia Research Centre at Tampere, Finland, on gossip, games 
and mobile communities, and new projects on audio-based interaction and 
pattern language.


PRESENTATION SUBMISSIONS
INTERACTIVE FUTURES is generally interested in artistic and theoretical 
work that advances ideas about the integration of new media technologies 
in traditional media, and more particularly in electronic art in which 
the old boundaries between media are no longer valid.

INTERACTIVE FUTURES encourages artists and theorists to present their 
work in the form of DVDs, video tapes, games, and anything in-between. 
Presentations should be 45-minutes in length. Proposals should not 
exceed 500 words in length. If your presentation requires specific media 
or technical support (computer or network access, 35 MM slides, 
videotape, etc.), describe your needs in detail, including specific OS 
or hardware requirements (Mac OS or Windows), if appropriate. Proposals 
should be submitted to electronically to: sgibson@finearts.uvic.ca All 
proposals *must* be submitted in text only format either as attachments 
to email correspondence or within the body of the email message. If you 
would like to present examples of your work please submit a URL for a 
web-site with your proposal.

Please be aware that INTERACTIVE FUTURES has no budget for equipment 
rental.
The following equipment will be made available for all presenters:
Mac and/or PC computer with Monitor, keyboard and CD-ROM drive. 1400 
ANSI lumens Data/Video Projector. VHS Player Portable DVD Player Audio 
CD Player
Please be aware that there will no be internet access in the 
presentation venue and therefore all presentation material must be 
brought on removable devices.

DEADLINE FOR ALL PROPOSALS: Friday, December 12, 2003.
Notification of acceptance of proposals will be sent out by December 31, 
2003.
CONTACTS: =46estival Director: Kathy Kay <director@vifvf.com>
INTERACTIVE FUTURES Curator: Steve Gibson <sgibson@finearts.uvic.ca>
INTERACTIVE FUTURES Co-producers: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker 
<kroker@uvic.ca>
Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival:
Mailing Address - PO Box 8419, Victoria, BC, V8W3S1, Canada.
Office Address - 808 View Street, Victoria, BC, V8W1K2, Canada.
Tel: (250)389.0444. Fax: (250)389.0406 festival@vifvf.com
 __________________________________________________________________

Dr. Steve Gibson, Associate Professor,
Digital Media Visual Arts,
Faculty of Fine Arts,
University of Victoria Victoria,
BC V8W 2Y2 Canada
Voice: +1-250-721-8017 or +1-250-920-7722
 fax: +1-250-721-6595
E mail: sgibson@uvic.ca or room101studio@yahoo.ca
Telebody: http://telebody.ws/
Virtual DJ: http://www.telebody.ws/VirtualDJ