On its second edition, this years Congresso Internacional Arte e novas Tecnologia (International Congress on Arts and New Technology) took place at the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in Sao Paulo (Brasil), again – this time under the subtitle “Yesterday, today and tomorrow: Plurality of sights in a common path”.
The congress seemed to be very well organized, however unfortunately some of the sessions were not very well attended. Also some technical problems lead to delays or cancellations of some of the web-conferences, or made them hard to understand.
Nevertheless, there were some interesting thoughts presented and discussed, particularly the web-speech by Lev Manovich, who at least since releasing his book on The Language of New Media (MIT Press, 2001) is being considered as one of the leading theorists of media art and digital culture.
The three-day-conference was overall divided into three workgroups: a) Society, Culture and Art, b) Production and Circulation and c) Comunication and New Media. Well, of course sometimes the discussed topics overlapped in between the different workgroup titles, which is ok. Although I had the impression, that there was a little lack of leitmotif. But in terms of the conference’s title, this may surely be part of the concept.
Unfortunately I could not stay until the end, so I do not know, if they found a final, summarized conclusion of the conference (which I must admit, might have been a difficult), but I am even more pretty much looking forward to receiving the publication, they are about to finalize right now.
It is a pity, that I missed Brett Stalbaum’s talk, who (like Lev Manovich) is also teaching at the University of California, San Diego (Department of Visual Arts). But at least I saw some other interesting topics, foremost the presentation of the Media Lab PRADO (madrid), who showed some inspiring projects (I liked the explanation about the focus on “magic” in terms of interaction).
Further topics of CIANTEC 2008 were about Hyermusic as a non-linear sound-construction(Márcio Duarte), hypermedial Composition (João Toledo), Collective Memories in terms of New Design and Architecture of Italian Cities (Sonia Massari), or about complexity and digital aesthetics in contemporary architecture.
Since the CIANTEC is an international conference, the presentations where held in English, Spanish or portugues. While my portugues is more or less OK, I must admit, that my Spanish is not. Therefore I sometimes did not understand everything and also did not talk at every single session.
Altogether it was worth visiting the CIANTEC, not least because I met some interesting people there. The organizers tried hard to make this happen and therefore I hope, that next time the technical and organisational problems will be solved in advance.
Finally I see the variety of topics, opinions and ways to present them as a chance and opening of our field, wherefore I agree with the following excerpt of the conference announcement: “The plurality of sights is today, more than a reality, a necessity. To recognize the existence of several possibilities means openness and ability to overcome all the constraints that imposes restrictions over innovation, over thought and action, over the creativity and creation”.