Big Brains Bombard Boston!


Hordes of supercool art nerds are descending on Boston, this week, for the College Art Association's annual conference. The new media community is poised to have a massive presence there, not only by virtue of the many visitors, but also because the city itself has a solid standing in the field. Art Interactive will be a major hub for CAA activity, hosting numerous talks and the exhibition 'New Media/New Work,' co-curated by the New Media Caucus, the Leonardo Education Forum, and Art/Technology Boston. The uniquely-designed show will be mounted on four large screens, each representing a show within a show, promising to deliver 'a multitude of voices from the new media landscape in this brief and rare occasion.' Admirably, the show includes dozens of largely unknown artists (and some better-knowns!), proving the growing breadth of the field. Each organization has used a different schema to select a variety of screen-based works, ranging from LEF's 'Technologized Bodies/ Embodied Technologies,' which includes works that explore 'the intersections among visuality, embodiment, and the technological' to the NMC's 'Slurp!,' a gaggle of short videos that 'generally let it all hang out in the name of art.' Whatever that means, we know some of the smartest art theorists, and perhaps a few locals, will be on hand to eat it up, from February 22-26. - Marisa Olson

http://www.artinteractive.org