"THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE CIRCUS
BY LOWELL 'BOZO THE CLOWN' KRIEL, A
CIRCUS PERFORMER FOR 37 YEARS" –
A CD-ROM BY CHARLES KRIEL

PRESS RELEASE – LONDON

PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA AWARD

As production enters its second year, Bicentennial, an interactive
CD-ROM by artist/composer Charles Kriel, has scored another award –
this time for its soundtrack (in progress). Songs for G, an
electroacoustic composition created for the soundtrack of Bicentennial,
has been awarded an Honourable Mention in the Computer Music category of
the '97 Prix Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria.

Prix Ars Electronica is the premiere international competition for art
utilising technology. Since its inception in 1987 it has been awarded
annually by Austria Radio (ORF) Upper Austrian Studio at the Ars
Electronica Festival. Past and present recognition at the Festival has
gone to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Ryuichi
Sakamoto, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), Graham Harwood (Rehearsal of
Memory), and dozens of other pioneers in the fields of computer art,
animation and music.

Set against a backdrop of the circus childhood of its author,
Bicentennial is an interactive CD-ROM exploring the motivations and
desires behind ambitions toward a life of performance.

+ + +

"One of the basic questions of Bicentennial is: what would make a person
not only pick up their life and put it on the road, but also irrevocably
alter the life of their family in the same way. What kind of ambition
does that require? How little of it do you see when you walk into a
circus tent? What happens in the trailer after a good show? Or a bad
one? It's fairly common for artist's to explore the underbelly of desire
or ambition. What differs in my practice is that I'm exploring depths
of desire among freaks and clowns. Basically, it's about my family."
– Charles Kriel

+ + +

Bicentennial derives its title from an unpublished manuscript by Charles
Kriel's grandfather, Lowell "Bozo the Clown" Kriel. Written in 1976,
the manuscript documented the real-life circus history of "The Amazing
Kriels," an American circus family for three generations. Charles
Kriel's Bicentennial, the CD-ROM, furthers the original idea,
challenging Lowell's greatest-show-on-earth approach by becoming a
psychological document vis-