Curator - 'ArCade V,' The Fifth UK Open international Exhibition of Electronic Fine Art Prints. John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University Of Technology, Bentley, Perth Australia. Exhibition dates 12 September - 30 September, 2007.
Biennale of Electronic Art Program guide; Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth, Stillness, Exhibition Catalogue; Computers in Art & Design Conference Guide; CD Computers in Art & Design Conference Proceedings; PDF: ArCade V online catalogue; Second Life Gallery, hosted by Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA.
In 2007 I was invited to curate ArCade V, the Fifth Biennale of Electronic Fine Art Prints, by the organizing committee of the conference, Computers in Art & Design Education, (CADE’07), Perth Australia and by the 3rd Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth, (BEAP). The suggested venue was the Curtin Gallery, University of Technology, Bentley, and Perth. This was to be the first time that an ArCade exhibition was to be been shown in Australia. All the previous ArCade Exhibitions have been intended to ‘demonstrate the link between old and new technologies in relation to Fine Art Printmaking practice’.
The theme of the conference CADE and BEAP, was Stillness, Arts + Science + Technology. So the work that I finally selected and curated, for the ArCade V exhibition was work that addressed that theme, in all its diversity.
For the ArCade V exhibition of digital mediated work; I finally selected work from twenty invited international digital artists from seven countries, including the USA, Russia, Croatia and India. The artists represented include independent, academic and research-active new media artists. Their work showed a rich diversity of styles and imagery from scientific, to generative, ecological and autobiographical, yet demonstrated the theme of Stillness. The exhibition encompassed a wide range of recent original, limited edition artists’ prints, all of which have involved the use of computers in their generation and/or manipulation, along with a range of new printing technologies and applications. Plus screen-based work which included both interactive and Internet based work, which often explored the inter-relationship between image and sound.
This Exhibition, which differed from previous ArCade’s, built from my experience of curating the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery Show in 2004. This had opened up to me the possibilities that there were available to display work, not just in its physical forms, but through current use of new technology display systems.
So ArCade and my research has moved on from the legacy of traditional print to a broader definition, of digital art, in all its hybrid and diverse forms. Creating a synergy between processes old and new opening up new areas of freedom. This is an exciting and challenging time for artists, as computer-mediated fine art/offers the possibility of generating ‘radically new’ physical; aesthetic frameworks. There is also an online version of ArCade V established in Second life. A new social network space via the Internet, for the spectator/audience to view the work.
To enable me to curate ArCade V and present work at the Curtin Gallery in collaboration with BEAP, there was a small Australian Arts Council Grant (ACE), attached to this exhibition. This allowed for a small publication about the work and about the artists to be produced, which is available both as hard copy and as an online PDF version.
