From: jonCates (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Oct 19 2009 - 08:32:37 PDT
this WEDS OCT 21rst 2009 is our next Upgrade Chicago! event + we are happy
to announce that Austrian artist and Media Art Historian, Nina Wenhart will
share her latest research in this free Upgrade! Chicago event at The
Nightingale in Chicago. we will also have sum Austrian food + drink on hand
:)
please join us to hear + discuss the Media Art Histories of ARS ELECTRONICA
with Nina Wenhart
// jonCates
Upgrade! Chicago co-organizer
http://upgradechicago.org
The Upgrade! Chicago presents: Nina Wenhart on Media Art Histories!
ARS ELECTRONICA: re:shaping a city's cultural identity
Nina Wenhart
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
8 pm
The Nightingale
1084 N Milwaukee
Chicago, IL 60622
FREE
ARS ELECTRONICA: re:shaping a city's cultural identity
30 years ago the first Ars Electronica festival took place in Linz, Austria.
Ars has grown to be one of the most influential Media Art festivals and
centers in the world. But while much has been written about it, and still
more will be talked about its history when Ars celebrates its 30th
anniversary in 2009, there has not yet been a comprehensive study about Ars
Electronica's influence on the local community and its impact on the
cultural development of Linz. This paper investigates the socio-cultural,
artistic and geographic traces Ars Electronica has left on the city of Linz.
This Media Art historical account also details a very personal history, as
the author, being four years old at the time of the first festival and
amazed by its fireworks display, remembers the festival's beginnings from
her personal experience and – having worked for Ars Electronica's Futurelab
for many years - from a professional perspective as well.
The main question of this talk is how the then marginal field of art,
science and technology, placed in an even more marginal, working-class and
steel-producing city contributed greatly to the creation/development of a
new cultural identity of the city, the art scene and the community as a
whole. My investigation into the histories of this cultural institution
focuses on the regional impact, regional being interpreted as geographically
located/rooted as well as interpersonally built.
BIO
Nina Wenhart is an instructor for the „Prehystories of New Media“ class at
the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an independent
artist/researcher. She is a graduate student at Prof. Oliver Grau's Media
Art Histories program at the Danube University in Krems. For many years, she
was the head of the Ars Electronica Futurelab's videostudio, where she
created their archives and primarily worked with the historical material.
She was four years old, when Ars Electronica started and has stayed
connected with it ever since.
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