BackISEA2008 – International Symposium on Electronic Art
25 July to 3 August 2008
Submitted by ISEA2008
ISEA, initiated in 1988, is the world’s premier media arts event for the critical discussion and showcase of creative productions applying new technologies in interactive and digital media. Held biannually, this migratory event, the 14th in the series, will be held in Singapore for the first time and in Asia for the second time.
Brief Description of ISEA2008
ISEA2008 promises to be an exciting event with a wide-ranging programme including the juried exhibition, the peer reviewed academic conference, several invited exhibitions, workshops and many in-conjunction events.
1. ISEA2008 will serve as an incubator for the production of new research driven media art works through the Artist in Residence programme, supported by the National University of Singapore. 20 international artists will work with NUS research labs to create new works. These will be exhibited at the National Museum of Singapore to share some of the innovative concepts with a broader public.
2. The academic conference will bring together artists, historians, curators and researchers in media design and arts from around the world to jointly explore and discuss urgent and critical questions in the field. The conference also promises to present a list of internationally renowned Keynote Speakers. We have accepted more than 400 papers for presentation and have received positive responses from the participants to attend the conference.
3. Partner events will include exhibitions from Australian Network for Art and Technology, Experimenta (Australia), Aotearoa Digital Arts (New Zealand), NABI Art Center (South Korea), and Artist-In-Lab (Switzerland), to be shown in exhibition spaces in the arts and heritage district. We are also in discussion with a potential sponsor to curate an exhibition on South East Asian Media Artists.
4. In-Conjunction events will include the Z node seminars, the 6th Asia-Europe Foundation Media Art Camp, the 4th International Conference on Multimodality.
5. Educational workshops and courses for professionals and students led by artists and media practitioners will be held before and during ISEA2008. Networking sessions will be held during the conference.
Aims and objectives of ISEA2008
ISEA2008 represents both an incredible opportunity for us to define, shape and affect media art in Singapore, as well as, to serve as an engine to affect media and cultural developments in the Asian region and beyond. Previous ISEAs have primarily focused on European and American media artists and have traditionally under-represented the Asian media artists. For ISEA2008, we seek to include as many culturally diverse perspectives from the Asian region. New technology is impacting the more traditional cultures of the heterogeneous Asian countries in unique ways from those of the technological first world. Asian artists themselves are using new technology as means of artistic expressions, and also to provide commentary on its impact on their environment. However Asian artists often have less presence in these international gatherings due to lack of funding. It is thus crucial that the Asian art practices and discourses that are significantly distinct in their responses to the unique socio-cultural and political aspects of the Asian region be showcased side by side with their counterparts from the rest of the world.
ISEA2008 will provide a good opportunity for Asian artists to share and discuss their work methods. Through these discussions, we hope to process the cross-cultural dialogue on the problems and possibilities of media arts globally. An exhibition of Asian media artists is being planned, which will exemplify and explore how media arts in its creative and technological configurations intersect with the cultural and historical contexts of Asia. The distinct aesthetic notions and cultural agendas of Asian media arts provide unique interpretations of the creative possibilities of both new and old technologies. This exhibition will engage and explicate some of these aesthetic and cultural specificities, as well as, to enable a larger global dialogue of their relevance.
ISEA2008 will serve as an incubator for the production of new research driven media art works. Through the Artist in Residence programme, supported by the National University in Singapore (NUS), 20 international artists will work with NUS research centre to create new works showcasing the cross disciplinary studies of art, media, science and technology. About 5 Asian artists have been selected for the residencies. This will provide a great opportunity for the artists to work in an environment of on-going research in areas related to their artistic endeavors, while at the same time providing scientific organizations with exposure to creative practices and fresh perspectives relevant to their areas of research. Through these creative processes, new works will be produced for the main ISEA2008 exhibition thus sharing some of the innovative concepts with a broader public.
ISEA2008 themes
The themes of ISEA2008 – border transmissions, locating media, wiki wiki, reality jam, ludic interfaces - have been selected to respond to the challenges of new and old technologies in creatively engaging with the critical problems and possibilities of our age. For example, ‘border transmissions’ seeks to showcase research and creative interventions that deal with the strategic and tactical possibilities of networking, communication and experiential technologies in ways that enable the emergence of different conceptions of borders, nation-states and of the infectious transmissions that problematize these demarcations. In the case of Asia, this idea of “borderless” world could be problematized by the lack of mobility for Asian artists in terms of economic, social and cultural situations. In ‘wiki wiki’, we seek to initiate discussion, deliberation and development in collaborative creation using new technologies with collaborations between diverse and geographically diverse communities.
The five themes of ISEA2008 are especially focused on eliciting a wide range of international scholars and artists.
Platform for Asian artists
We would like to propose support from Arts Network Asia to consider funding the following aspects of ISEA2008. This will allow us to highlight Asian media artists to the international world of media arts practitioners who will congregate at this event to explore, discuss, collaborate and critique the media of art and technology.
1. to support the production and traveling costs for the Asian media artists who are part of the main juried exhibition.
2. to support the traveling costs for the South East Asian artists who are presenting the papers at ISEA2008 academic conference
3. to support the costs of inviting South East Asian artists to attend ISEA2008 to enable them to be involved in networking sessions, to attend the academic conference and to participate in the workshops.
Methodology/ Implementation of project
The international panel of jurors has selected the 20 artists for the main juried exhibition. The selected artists will start the residencies at the research labs at National University of Singapore between February and June for periods of 1 month to 3 months. The final works will be created and exhibited at the Galleries of the National Museum of Singapore. Setting up of the exhibition will commence from July 12th onwards. The Opening of the exhibition is scheduled on July 25 and will run till August 3. Admission is free. The opening reception and ceremony will be held at the Glass Atrium of the National Museum.
The programme and schedule of the academic conference will be available from April onwards. Over 400 submissions have been selected after a careful and rigorous review process by the international programming committee comprising of a distinguished group of experts from around the world.
The programme for the partner events and in-conjunction events will be finalized by March. These events are self-financed and self supported and form an integral component of ISEA2008. These events will be publicized and marketed as part of the ISEA2008 invited programmes.
Target Audience for ISEA2008
Contributions from creative practitioners and researchers from a variety of disciplines and institutional contexts as media arts benefits from and exemplifies the interdisciplinary linkages between contemporary art, science, technology and their related philosophies, pedagogies and institutional practices.
ISEA2008 will be of interest to those working in but not limited to the following areas: media art, contemporary art, design, art history and theory, film and media studies, gaming toy design, human-computer interaction, cultural studies, literary studies, musicology, sound studies, theatre, dance and performance studies, science, technology and society studies, history of science and history of technology, philosophy, gender studies, political science, anthropology, sociology, geography and history.
We expect about 1,500 participants at the conference and close to 100,000 local audience at public events and exhibitions interacting with media art works that will be located throughout the Arts and Heritage Belt. In addition, there will be outreach programmes targeting at the tertiary levels for students who are in the arts, design and media departments.
Marketing Initiatives
ISEA2008 will be marketed via the symposium website, local press and media as well as global new media arts subscription lists like Spectre, Nettime, IDC etc. Interactive documentation, photos, video and real-time news and commentaries will be generated before, during and after the event and will be prominently featured in YouTube and flickr sites. ISEA events typically generate content and discussion in many blogs involving thousands of bloggers worldwide.
We are working with the local polytechnics and universities for outreach programmes in artist led workshops and internship programmes to encourage the students to work with the artists in residence to create the works for the main exhibition as well as to volunteer to manage the various aspects of the symposium.
Above the line marketing will include printing of posters and brochures, displaying of street banners in the arts and heritage belt, advertising on billboards at the bus stops and promotional trailers on television and radio.