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Ars Electronica Facing the Future

Edited by Timothy Druckrey with Ars Electronica.
MIT Press. Cambridge, MA, 1999.
449 pages, illus. Trade $19.95 paper.
ISBN: 0-262-54127-0.
Reviewed by Stephen Wilson, Art Department, SFSU, SF, CA 94132, U.S.A.
E-mail: swilson@sfsu.edu


Ars Electronica is one of the major institutions in the Art and Technology community, offering a yearly prize competition and thematic festival. Its leadership is renown in the creative way it has tried to anticipate new developments in its introduction of new categories for the prix and in its choice of topical focuses for the festival. It has been one of the few places in the world that supports and exhibits experimental technology-oriented artists. The festival organizers have an admirable record over the years of early selection of topics in art/science/technology with significant cultural impact - for example, artificial life, genetics, robotics, telecommunication networks, virtual reality, etc. Also the festivals demonstrated the importance of bringing together artists, scientists, and theorists rather than accepting art world solipsism. Each year the festival publishes a rather full catalog that includes documentation of the art, performances, and papers presented.

The catalogs present a marvelous archive of developments in art and technology. Unfortunately since they are not fully books nor part of a regular periodical series they have not been as widely available as would be desirable. For the dedicated researcher, they are all avialable at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria but they are less accessible for other interested readers. In Ars Electronica Facing the Future, Timothy Druckrey and the Ars Electronica leadership have performed a major service of collecting articles and excerpts from that rich history.

The book offers approximately 80 items divided into categories of history, theory, and practice. It also includes introductory material including Hannes Leopoldseders (ORF manager and one of the cofounders of Ars) excerpts from each of the 20 years festival introductions, Gerfried Stocker and Christine Schopts (current directors of the festival and prix) preface, and Druckreys short introduction. The articles are of both historical and contemporary interest.

Samples in the history section stretch from articles such as Gene Youngbloods "A Medium Matures: Video and the Ceinematic Enterprise" (1984), Peter Weibels "On the History and Aesthetics of the Digital Image" (1984), and Herbert W. Frankes "Art from the Screen" (1986) to Geer Lovinks "The Mimesis Network Discussion" (1996) and Friedrick Kittlers "On the History of the Theory of Information Warfare" (1998).

Samples of what the theory section includes: Jurgen Claus "Expansion of Media Art" (1984) , Douglas Kahns "The Sound of Music" (1987), Florian Rotzers "Praise to the Parasites" (1993), Paul Virilios "The Overexposed City" (1994), and Sadie Plants "Becoming Positive" (1996).

Here are some examples the practice section contents: Otto Pienes "Sky Art" (1982), Robert Adrians "The World in 24 Hours" (1981), Stelarcs "Parasite Visions" (1997), and Guillermo Gomez-Pena/Roberto Sifuentes Boderscape 2000 (1997). Illustrating Ars attention to developments in the scientific world there are articles by non-artists such as Hans Moravec, Richard Dawkins, Marvin Minksy, and Christopher Langton.

There are some gaps in the book. The editors provide no methodological reflection on how they made decisions about which resources from the archive to include and which to exclude. The distinction between theory and history is not clear. The editors missed an important opportunity to use their intimate knowledge of the history to provide insights about various conceptual challenges they faced in organizing the festivals/prix categories over the years and what they have learned about the shifting histories of the field. Finally, readers may be disappointed in the brief three page introduction from Druckrey; given his strong reputation for critical analysis in the field, one might have hoped from a more elaborated presentation to set the tone for this collection of readings. Nonetheless, the book is a marvelous resource that will be much appreciated by artists, critics, historians, and anyone interested in the convergence of art and technology.

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Updated 7 August 2001.




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