[artinfo] 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 thecontextn 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