ACM MULTIMEDIA 96


Art Program

"STORYTELLING AFTER CINEMA"

Art & Multimedia Session

ACM MULTIMEDIA'96
November 18 - 22, 1996
Hynes Convention Center
Boston, MA, USA

The complexities of organizing a forum/workshop (not an exhibition) on the issues of story-telling and interactive narratives obviously implicates projects from all areas of electronic media. Though we are certainly aware of a number of important installation, performance, and immersive works, we are restricted by the requirements of space and time, a support structure (particularly equipment and staff), and the kind of budget necessary to bring large scale works to the forum for such a short period and a limited audience.

For these reasons, we have chosen to limit the works selected to CD-ROM and WWW sites. This does not preclude the inclusion of larger scale works in the discussions utilizing documentary materials (slides, tapes, or sound).

Art Program Committee: Monika Fleischmann, Timothy Druckrey, Wolfgang Strauss, Timothy Garrand, Regina Cornwell, Dieta Sixt, Wayne Wolf, Arding Hsu, Bob Allan, Michael Bove, Philippe Aigrain, Allan Kuchinsky

Contact:
Monika Fleischmann, Art Chair, ACM MM'96
IMK - Institute for Media Communication at
GMD - German National Research Center for Information Technology
Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany
fleischmann@gmd.de

Program

The Art and Multimedia Showroom operates Wed. to Thursday 9:00-5:30 and Friday 9:00-1:30
Wednesday 20/11/96

9:00-10:30: Opening session with keynote speaker Glen Hall from Aardman Animations

Thursday 21/11/96

9:00-10:30: Panel 4
Storytelling after Cinema I

Pioneering filmmaker Georges Melies presaged the anti-narrative tradition which has been such a dominant theme in the work of artists throughout this century. Experimental film and Expanded Cinema asked the same questions in the sixties as media art does today: How can we bring cinema out of the cinema? How is it possible to initiate a new school of seeing? How can the viewer's perception adapt? How can the viewer's eye be controlled?
Will there be a cinema after the cinema with the help of technology? Do new film structures help to develop a new perception of time and space? Will the seduction of the senses lead the senses to its essentials? Is the boundary between the sensorium and its represen- tations collapsing through feedback systems, interface design, human and machine memory, dynamic time and space structures? Is the responsibility of the author shifting?

Panelists: Peter Callas, Walter Siegfried, Joachim Sauter, Derrick DeKerkhove, Monika Fleischmann


10-30-11:00: Coffee break


Thursday 21/11/96

11:00-12:30: Panel 5
New art venues

Is the gallery venue over? Telematic arts such as teleconferencing & internet define new art venues in themselves. The digital communica- tions network is where art exists today. Cyber-/Space is not the final frontier, it's in your imagination.

This panel will discuss alternative concepts to the traditional museums. Is the "Museum of the Future" a telephone based installation? Is it in the net or is it just an 'intelligent' building to the traditional museum? The Ars Electronica Center in Linz or The Media Museum of The Center for Art and Technology in Karlsruhe will be discussed alongside network symposiums not simply to try out novel formats for an event, but to erect a permanent platform from which the debate/exhibition will constantly reach out to engage specific segments of the techno-cultural revolution. Does a cultural world-wide organization such as the Goethe Institute give a global platform for new networks?

Panelists: Paul Sermon, Hans-Peter Schwarz, Gerfried Stocker, Lisa Corrin, Regina Wyrwoll


Thursday 21/11/96

9:00-4:00 pm Workshop 3
Interactive Narrative

An interactive narrative uses many techniques and possibilities to allow each user of the multimedia program to discover or co-author a story in a unique way. The panelists in this workshop will examine interactive narrative from a variety of perspectives including the following:
Descriptions of the techniques and structures being used by successful, commercial writers and designers of interactive narrative. An analysis of how historical and psychoanalytical theories of narrative can provide a useful theoretical "toolbox" for thinking about the parameters and ramifications of often radical narrative form in cyberspace.
A comparison of the 'classical' cinematic paradigms of narration with the new subcategories and changes in narrative concepts through interactivity.
A presentation of the design issues involved in creating non-linear interactive narratives for computer based storytelling systems. A proposition that the presentation of the information in an interactive 3D space has the potential to maintain the coherence of historical narrative while maximizing individual reader agency and exploration.
A demonstration that the extension of narrative through interactivity is less a disruption of tradition and more an incitement to reflect on the conditions of contemporary experience.
Ample time for discussion will be available after each presenter and at the end of the panel.

Contact: Tim Garrand,tpg@interwrit.mv.com,
Panelists: Jerry Aline Flieger, Timothy Druckrey, Kevin Brooks, Lira Nikolovska & John Biln, Andrea Zapp, Timothy Garrand


4:00-5:00: Award papers


6:00 on: Reception


Friday 22/11/96

9:00-10-30: Panel 7
Storytelling After Cinema II

Cinema is not only story telling writing, acting, composing, scoring, choreographing, or dramatizing. Rather, it is all of these. Is storytelling after cinema creating experiential playgrounds for participants? Are we moving from mass media to communicative media? Will new storytelling emerge like the Japanese Renga or will American structures again overwhelm other cultures?

Panelists: Graham Weinbren, Perry Hoberman, KP Ludwig John, Annika Blunck & Stephan Porombka


Friday 22/11/96

9:00-10:30: Panel 8
Architecture, Time and Fragmentation

This panel focuses on new notions of space as they emerge from the use of information and communication technologies. As new forms of perception and experience of time and space emerge, new fields of architecture appear. The topics addressed in the panel include, but are not be limited to:

The implications of the technologically mediated changes in our conception and perception of time/space will be investigated by the panelists from various perspectives. The aim of the panel is to display the diversity of current trends to blend visual communication and architectural design resulting in new kinds of fragmented time/space-scapes.

Contact: Wolfgang Strauss, strauss@gmd.de
Panelists: Gerhard Schmitt, Peter Anders, Gerhard Eckel,
Beat Funk, Wolfgang Strauss

10:30-11:00: Coffee break

11:00-12:30: Closing session with keynote speaker Bill Buxton from University of Toronto and Alias / Wavefront

12:30-1:30: Lunch break


Friday 22/11/96

1:30-3:30: Art and Multimedia Showroom
Closing ART session with Timothy Druckrey & Monika Fleischmann
THE ART AND MULTIMEDIA SHOWROOM OPERATES WEDNESDAY TO THURSDAY 9:00-5:30 AND FRIDAY 9:00-4:30


"Click-Art" and "WebArt - ArtWeb" present works of artists like William Forsythe, Jim Gasparini & Tennessee Dixon, Ken Feingold, Lewis Baltz, Tony Ousler & Constance DeJong, George Legrady, David Blair, Brad Miller, KP Ludwig John & Die Veteranen, Eric Lanz, Jean-Louis Boissier, Luc Courchesne, George Legrady, Bill Seaman, Miroslav Rogala, Tamas Waliczky, Perry Hoberman, Jeffrey Shaw, a.o.

Art Showroom Committee:
Timothy Druckrey, Monika Fleischmann, Wolfgang Strauss, Gerhard Eckel, Petra Unnuetzer Contact:
Timothy Druckrey, druckrey@interport.net
Gerhard Eckel, eckel@gmd.de
Stephan Fischer
Last modified: Mon Aug 5 12:57:48 MET DST 1996