hiya

yep, I was at ARS. I left this morning and sit now in Ljubljana… much
happier than I was in Linz! Now, keeping in mind it was my first visit
to this festival, and keeping in mind that I went on a research grant
from the university to further my investigations into how new media art
is changing curatorial practice - this is what I found out: According to
Kathy Huffman, a lot of people who usually go, did not. It was a quiet
and young crowd, of seemingly mostly first-timers. There was of course
much speculation that it was boycotted because of "the political
situation here in Austria" as it is most commonly called. A few short
and hurried thoughts on each section:

The symposium, "Next Sex", was, with the exception of Sandy Stone's always
rousing performance, mostly dull. Lots of scientists describing how
their projects are further separating sex from procreation. Interesting
from a curiousity perspective, namely, that I'm not a scientist, so I
wonder what they are up to. The two-cultures dichotomy is alive and
well…if I could have a dollar for everytime an artist said "now, I'm
not a scientist, but…". There were not nearly enough women on the
panels actually talking about what this separation of sex from
procreation might mean. The inventor of the birth control pill (Carl
Djerassi) was there, but, as illustrious and justly revered a scientist
he is, he has turned his hand to playwriting (yes, you read right) and
he treated us to some snipets of his scripts which attempt to explain
science to the popular audience. It was mind-numbingly dull. Sorry. Most
shocking of all to me was the presentation by Natasha Merritt, of the
Digital D! iaries, because of how completely The Electrolobby (which you
can see on the web, curated by Tina Cassani and Bruno Beusch) was by far
the most vibrant environment of all - lots of great djs and vjs playing
all the time, and a constant flow of interesting people and artists
responsible for the websites (you likely know all the names…) If you
only absorb one thing about ARS this year, make it that (it could just
be my preference for network and streaming stuff at the moment though).

Of all the works on view at the ARS electronica Center, the Print on
Screen exhibition (which isn't even an official part of"Next Sex") was
the best… the pieces spoke nicely to one another. No comment on the
moment about anything else there. The presentations by the Golden Nica
artists and the jury members were far more interesting than the
symposium…there was nearly a rousing debate about the nomenclature
and suitability thereof of "digital musics" after Carsten Nicolai's
presentation of his very minimalist 20 to 2000 project. The artists in
the interactive arts category (apologies for not having materials in
front of me at the moment to refer to) were great - very thorough, and
they really defended their work to the audience. Sharon Denning and Ken
Ficara gave a nice talk about Exquisite Corpse, and Masaki Fujihata
introduced us to the highly amusing wonders of Robo-Cup soccer. The
Institute for Applied Autonomy's project of the "grafitti writer" is the
best part, in my opinion, of the Cyberarts 2000 show at the OK.

As for the performances, don't make me tell you about D.A.V.E - the
dance/video piece by an Austrian artist whose name escapes me. There was
extremely mixed reviews, and I was in the unfavourable camp. Most of the
people in the favourable camp are there because they were delighted by
the actual dance, the abilities of the dancer, and not so much because
of anything to do with the technology of the piece (which means perhaps
that the next sex is just a good looking, muscled male body - I don't
know). The music performances were all good. Golan Levin not only
orchestrated a great performance of his visual music software by he also
spoke very brilliantly about it during the presentations the following
day. These are my thoughts, written in haste without my notes in front
of me… I'd be glad to offer up more distilled and intelligent
(intelligible) commentary once I've slept a little more (which is to
say, the party last night at the ARS electronica centre was pretty
good…as I hear the "social club" with its programmed peep shows and
beauty contests was too). ta for now, Sarah