Next Sex

Ars Electronica 2000
NEXT SEX
Sex in the Age of its Procreative Superfluousness
September 2-7, 2000
Linz, Austria
http://www.aec.at/nextsex (or http://www.aec.at/festival2000)

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What is this year's Festival theme?

Continuing the festival's thematic focus on life science, Ars
Electronica 2000 will elaborate on the cultural and social policy
perspectives of modern reproductive biology.

Ars Electronica, as a festival for art, technology and society, is
programmatically committed to exploring the ways in which artists deal
with technology-induced social and cultural change, and, as a festival
of contemporary art, has been striving since its very inception to make
art visible as a political work as well. The artistic as well as
theoretical contributions to this year's festival will take up again the
process of dealing with current political issues on which international
attention has been focused as the result of events taking place in
Austria.

Under the general theme NEXT SEX - Sex in the Age of its Procreative
Superfluousness, a dual approach combining scientific and artistic
points of view will scrutinize the contours of a society in which human
beings are genetically configured - not simply born but, rather,
fabricated - one in which sex is relieved of its functional
indispensability for reproduction, and thus one in which the battle of
the sexes as well as the moral steering mechanism of our very society
undergo reordering. From a discussion of upcoming possibilities, this
excursion into humanity's future is meant to map out the routes we take
to that future - a venture in which art must not remain restricted to
society's moral conscience.

Symposium NEXT SEX - Sex in the Age of its Procreative Superfluousness
September 3 and 4, 2000, Brucknerhaus Linz.

Symposium participants will include British evolutionary biologist Robin
Baker, author of the bestsellers "Baby Wars" and "Sex in the Future",
and Carl Djerassi, a chemist and the inventor of the "pill" who was born
in Vienna and now lives in the US.

The Ars Electronica 2000 Advisory Board includes Prof. Carl Djerassi and
Dr. Marie-Luise Angerer, media theorist and scholar in the field of
gender studies. A detailed on-line collection of material will be made
available in conjunction with the Festival theme in order to provide a
wide variety of perspectives on highly controversial issues.

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"openX" goes "electrolobby"

For several years, network art has been one of Ars Electronica's chief
areas of emphasis. The aim has been to take into account the central
position that has been assumed by artistic expression in the virtual
space of global networks as the field of operation of contemporary
societies. Under the label "openX", a wide range of experimental
configurations were set up to deal primarily with the problem of coming
up with adequate forms in which to exhibit network art - art presented
in and making use of the Internet. This year, we'll be taking a new
approach. New and exciting ways to present this art will determine the
ambience in the Brucknerhaus - not from the position of the curator and
mediator, but rather from the position of the artists themselves. The
large-scale network art headquarters of the past will be replaced by a
networked showroom.

openX-electrolobby will premier on Saturday, September 2 with an
entertaining and informative opening event. From Sunday, September 3 to
Thursday, September 7, openX-electrolobby, the networked showroom, will
be a convivial, stimulating meeting place for festival participants and
members of the public. There will be a series of daily special features,
as well as a live Web channel produced in cooperation with international
associates.

The Internet label >tnc network< has been commissioned to implement this
concept and to design the program of openX-electrolobby.