Interactive
Futures
In conjunction with the 11th
Annual Victoria Independent Film and Video
Festival
February 4-6, 2005
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Conference website: http://www.vifvf.com/if.html
Reviewed by Dene Grigar
Texas Woman’s University
dgrigar@twu.edu
With the number of participants at Ars
Electronica, SIGGRAPH, and ISEA amounting
to the thousands, and other festivals
like Ciberart showcasing hundreds of artists,
it is easy to become exhausted from the
sheer numbers of works to experience and
to feel a bit lost in the crowds. Taking
a different tact is Interactive Futures,
a multimedia conference offered in conjunction
with the Independent Film & Video
Festival and held each year in Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada. This year’s
conference took place from February 4-6,
2005 at the Laurel Point Inn overlooking
the city’s harbor and at the Open
Space Gallery, one of the pioneering galleries
in networking and art located in historic
downtown Victoria. About 50 participants
were on hand for the three days of presentations
and multimedia events. Hosting the conference
for the four years of its existence has
been multimedia artist Steve Gibson; he
was joined this year by Julie Andreyev,
Associate Professor of design at the Emily
Carr Institute of Art, Design, and Media.
Together they orchestrated a rich, but
close-knit, event delving into the topics
of Digital Nomadism and Technology and
Ethics. While the small number of participants
went a long way toward building camaraderie,
the format of the conference also lent
itself to in-depth and rollicking discussions.
For example, a keynoter headlined each
day of the conference. Standing in on
Friday for Arthur and Marilouise Kroker,
who were called away for a family emergency,
was Carol Gigliotti, Director for the
Center for Art and Technology and teacher
of design at Emily Carr Institute for
Art and Design. Her talk focused on the
ethics of artists working with animal
technologies. On Saturday artist Char
Davies, of Immersence, Inc., read from
her dissertation generating from her work
in virtual reality, Osmose and
Ephemère. On Sunday, broadcasting
via webcam from Madrid, Spain was artist
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, who talked about
his large-scale, public installations
in his paper "Antimonuments: Performative
Self-Repair for Public Spaces." All three
of the keynoters gave memorable talks,
with Gigliotti’s igniting the most
fiery debate, especially among those artists
in the room whose work is closely aligned
with animal research, and Lozano-Hemmer’s
providing much satisfaction with his powerful
demonstration of his art.
Gallery installations, screenings, and
performances took place each night. On
Friday, a video and photographic installation
by Robert Ladislas Derr, interactive sound
devices by Lucas Kuzma, and a hybrid fan/webcam
installation by Will Pappenheimer were
exhibited at Open Space Gallery. These
were followed by Jackson Two Bears and
Ted Hiebert’s immersive audio performance
that many of the participants described
as a very successful "group meditation."
On Saturday participants saw screenings
of works by Randy Adams, Evann Siebens,
and Flick Harrison and experienced a highly
experimental sound art work performed
by Art Clay and Guenter Heinz. On Sunday
a collaborative sound performance by Jackson
Two Bears and Kristen Roos and a live
musical interpretation by Steve Gibson
of a silent dance video, entitled Nature
Ecstasy, featuring dancers David Ferguson
and Jung-ah Chung took place. The conference
ended on Sunday night with Gibson performing
as "DJ Jimmy," breaking out in his kilt
and "industrial-strength metal and Nordic
cool" music.
But what really worked so well with this
conference was the format of its breakout
sessions and panel discussions. One breakout
session, scheduled for 30 minutes, was
offered at each slot and was followed
by 15-20 minutes of conversation among
the participants and a short break until
the hour. This approach made it possible
for participants to become well acquainted
with one other and each other’s work,
which itself led to a comfort level that
made in-depth and sometimes fiery debates
(as mentioned above) possible. The level
of the research shared was of a very high
standard, but standout presentations were
given by Jennifer Willet and Shawn Bailey
from Bioteknica, who looked at "notions
of reproduction in relation to evolving
biotechnologies" and Will Pappenheimer,
whose paper "Transoptical Paradise Now"
discussed the use of real-time internet
camera as a mode of political critique.
Additionally, the panels were organized
by Gibson and Andreyev and brought together
various presenters in a group conversation
with the audience over a specific topic.
Friday saw "The Bio-Question" led by Gigliotti,
Davies, Willet, and Bailey; Saturday’s
panel, led by Steve Gibson, Will Bauer,
and Dene Grigar, looked at telepresent
collaboration for real-time interaction.
Sunday offered a lively panel kicked off
by a viewing of Claude LeLouch’s
film "C'était un Rendez-vous" (1976)
and led by Julie Andreyev, Robert Ladislas
Derr, Pappenheimer, and Clay that looked
at Jean-Francois Lyotard’s notion
of "drift," applying it to new media art
and research.
As described in the conference program,
Interactive Futures is a "forum for showing
recent tendencies in new media art as
well as a conference for exploring issues
related to technology." Its goal is to
"’rub clashing artistic and ethical
perspectives together’ to create
a genuine debate on the future of technology
in art, culture, and the world." Certainly
the conference lived up to its promise
and achieved its goals. Anyone interested
in gathering for three days with welcoming
but highly discerning colleagues in one
of most beautiful cities in North America
should consider attending next year’s
conference.
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