Tomorrow is the beginning of the Boston Cyberarts Festival, a sprawling group of events, symposia and exhibits happening throughout the Greater Boston area, from Providence in the south to the North Shore in the, um, north. As the name implies, it's devoted to new media and intersections of art and technology across a wide range of forms - visual art, dance, and music, just to name a few. There are more than 70 events, I believe, happening through May 8. So the idea of even catching more than handful is out of the question, at least for me. The question becomes, which to try and see? I'm thinking the Thoughtbody Experiment, by RISD professor Bill Seaman and "scientist/collaborator" Otto Rössler sounds like it has potential:
“The Thoughtbody Environment: Toward a Model for an Electrochemical Computer”: an installation that explores the question: To what degree can we model the processes that are at operation in the body that give rise to sentience? The installation will include a series of large- scale digital prints / diagrams, a poetic text, a video work, a new music work and a didactic text. The work will also potentially include a distributed poetic text installed on the windows of the building.
Some readers may remember that last fall I visited the Cerith Wyn Evans exhibit then happening at the MFA. The curatorial presentation made much of his work's involvement with ideas of communication and technology, ideas that were only limply engaged by the art. While obviously not covering exactly the same ground, this exhibition sounds like it could offer a much more satisfying exploration of similar concerns.
But what else? Any plugged-in New England readers are invited to share their thoughts on what to skip and what not to miss. Heck, anyone at all - I need some help whittling this down. I'm afraid to say that for a Cyberarts Festival, I'm not overwhelmed by the website. A lot of information is there, but it's a bit scattered at times. The Phoenix evidently has a printed guide in the latest issue, though, so I'll be taking a look at that. Still: the future! So exciting.
Boston Globe has a pull out as well.
Posted by: CMD | April 21, 2005 at 04:37 PM