Ars Eelectronica 2002

[anna balint]

Ars Electronica 2002
UNPLUGGED
Art as the Scene of Global Conflicts
September 7 - 12
Linz, Austria
www.aec.at/unplugged/
-----------------------------

Ars Electronica 2002 - 2nd Announcement

CONTENTS
............................
1. General Theme Ars Electronica 2002
UNPLUGGED - Art as the Scene of Global Conflicts
............................
............................
2. Prix Ars Electronica 2002 - Jury Meeting
...........................
............................
3. Ars Electronica 2002 - Organization & Contact
............................


You are reading the second issue of the Ars Electronica 2002 newsletter,
focusing on a first statement by Gerfried Stocker on this year's Ars
Electronica festival theme UNPLUGGED - Art as the Scene of Global
Conflicts; and Prix Ars Electronica's jury meeting.

.............................
1. General Theme Ars Electronica 2002
UNPLUGGED - Art as the Scene of Global Conflicts
.............................

UNPLUGGED ... means the severed thread, fractured lines of development
that
 had been thought to move only higher and higher, the abyss alongside
the routes traveled by the caravans of progress ...

UNPLUGGED proceeds from the factuality of a globally networked world
from which nobody can withdraw, no matter how distant they are from the
dominant
US-Europe-Japan capital triad and regardless of how far away the next
electrical outlet might be. UNPLUGGED focuses on the blind spots of
globalization, those barriers of a mental and geographic nature that
make getting connected to and taking part in this process of global
networking (the Net) and
the cultural and social models it conveys impossible, illicit or even
unwelcome.
UNPLUGGED thus also confronts our own inability to enter into a
networked arrangement with 'the others' that goes beyond the
exploitation and preservation of our own spheres of influence.
What began-in the simultaneity of glasnost and the WWW, the Soviet
Union's
collapse and the buildup of worldwide communication structures-as the
utopia of the global village has been transformed into a bleak reality
of unleashed capital in which cultural pluralism, if it has any role at
all to play,
 then merely as a sort of ethno-business.
Globalization, now installed via the digital acceleration of financial
transactions as the dominating principle of the world's sociopolitical
fabric,
is-in stark contrast to the myriad potentialities of the technologies it
utilizes-not a practice based on openness and integration but rather on
exclusiveness and exclusion.
The choice of topic for Ars Electronica 2002 is indicative of how the
issue
 of the political element in art has returned with a vengeance to the
agenda of intellectual discourse and artistic practice-a development
that did no
t just begin to manifest itself as a reflex to 9/11 but was already
emerging in conjunction with the protest movement in Seattle, Genoa and
Porto Alegre, and is moving forward essentially on energy and input
supplied by the computerkids generation.
The issue of art as the scene of global conflicts is a question of the
viral power of art and its capability of coming up with alternative
conceptual
models, strategies and approaches. The concept of art as antithesis, as
corrective and counterpoint to society, is also inseparably linked to
the concept of radicalism and resistance, a concept that contemporary
art has accompanied in many ways and endowed with identity, and, since
the attack on the
 WTC, one that is being aggressively called into question and subjected
to
re-evaluation.
In 2002, the Ars Electronica Festival turns its attention to the
conception
 of self of a young generation of media artists and their consciousness
of
the problems confronting them, and analyzes their positions on the
sociopolitical, cultural and sociological implications of the
technologies they work with.
A variety of formats-symposia, performances and exhibitions-will provide
co
ntexts to explore how the current global potential for social conflict
is resonating in works of media culture and media art, and to consider
aesthetic answers and exemplary projects of artistic practice that, in
many instances, employ the same technologies as the economic power
aggregates of globalization.
Perspectives obtained by looking out beyond one's own horizon are meant
to
intersect and interact with points of view held by "the others," and
thereby make this festival for art, technology and society itself a
setting for the complex dynamics of a global reorientation.
Gerfried Stocker


............................
2. Prix Ars Electronica 2002 - Jury Meeting
............................

International juries of experts meet from April 19 - 21, 2002 at ORF
Linz.
With over 2,300 entries altogether, the Prix Ars Electronica will be
decided this coming weekend. Over 3 days, 5 juries of experts will
select the best works in a total of 6 categories (Digital Musics,
Computer Animation / Visual Effects, Interactive Art, u19 freestyle
computing and, as a double category, Net Vision / Net Excellence) at the
ORF Upper Austrian Studio.

In each category, all entries are judged by an international jury.
Chairman
 of the jury as a whole (without a vote): Dr. Hannes Leopoldseder, whose
original idea led to the initiation of the Prix Ars Electronica in 1987.

The jury members:
Computeranimation / Visual Effects //
Stuart Maschwitz, USA; Bill Buxton, CDN; Barbara Robertson, USA; Rick
Sayre, USA; Rita Street, USA

Digital Musics //
bLectum from bLechdom, USA; Naut Humon, USA; Florian Hecker, D; Chris
Watson, GB; Tony Herrington, GB

Interactive Art //
Hiroshi Ishii, J; Peter Higgins, GB; Masuyama, USA/Japan; Alex
Adriaansen,
NL; Christa Sommerer, A/J

Net Vision / Net Excellence //
Tina Cassani & Bruno Beusch, F; Pete Barr-Watson, GB; Tanja Diezmann, D;
Joichi Ito, Japan; Joshua Davis, USA

Cybergeneration - u19 freestyle computing //
Sirikit M. Amann, A; Horst HF6rtner, A; Barbara Lippe, A, Miss Monorom,
CH; Hans Wu, A

http://prixars.aec.at

............................
The next announcement update will appear at the end of May. The focus
will
be the results of Prix Ars Electronica's jury meeting 2002.

...........................
Ars Electronica 2002
Organization: Ars Electronica Center Linz and ORF - Austrian
Broadcasting C
orporation, Upper Austrian Regional Studio
Co-organizers: Brucknerhaus Linz, O.K - Center for Contemporary Art

Concept & Artistic Direction: Gerfried Stocker, Christine Schopf
Curatorial Team: Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, Stefano Filipponi, Andreas
Hirsch, Davis O. Nejo, Jay Rutledge
The Theme of Ars Electronica 2002 is based on an idea of Oliviero
Toscani.


Contact:
Ars Electronica Center
Hauptstrasse 2
A-4040 Linz
Austria
info at aec.at
www.aec.at/unplugged


Sponsors of Ars Electronica 2002:
Compaq Oesterreich GesmbH, Gericom, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft,
Oesterreich
ische Brauunion, Oracle, Quelle, SGI, Siemens AG, Telekom Austria AG

Sponsors of Prix Ars Electronica 2002:
The Prix Ars Electronica 2002 is sponsored by Telekom Austria AG.
Supported by Datakom, voestalpine, P.S.K. (Austrian Postal Banking), the
City of Linz, the Province of Upper Austria, Austrian Airlines,
Lufthansa, Casinos Austria, City-Hotel Linz, Courtyard by Marriott,
Poestlingberg Schloessl, Sony DADC, Oesterreichischer Kulturservice



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