"New urban challenges, such as the shrinking of cities in Eastern Germany, call for new reflections. In a time of tight budgets the question of how to revive cities and regions with little means is becoming increasingly relevant." Stuggart-based
Media-Space 04, which runs October 22-24, will address these and other issues while atempting to bridge the gap between "great architectural and urban concepts... and micro-utopia[s]... arising out of accidentally developing free space."
In conjunction with the program, the non-profit organization Ward 5 will screen works by the
alternative media pioneer Stan VanDerBeek.
VanDerBeek started his career in the mid-'50s with experimental collage films in the style of Max Ernst. Although strongly influenced by the Beat Generation, VanDerBeek's films are mostly political satires. Director Terry Gilliam cites VanDerBeek's experimental animation as one of the earliest sources of inspiration for Monty Python.
VanDerBeek developed his work further towards Expanded Cinema in the '60s and was one of the most significant representatives of this heterogeneous movement that keeps influencing media art to this day. He worked with artists like Claes Oldenburg and Allen Kaprow, as well as representatives of modern dance like Merce Cunningham and Yvonne Rainer.
In cooperation with Ben Kwolton at the Bell Telephone laboratory,
VanDerBeek developed computer-animated films and experiments with holography towards the end of the 1960s. A pioneer of multi-screen projections, he also explored new possibilities for media presentation starting with his Steam Projections at the Guggenheim Museum, at his
Movie-Drome theater in Stony Point, NY, and with the
interactive broadcast of his
Violence Sonata simultaneously on two TV channels in 1970.
With his Cine Naps project, VanDerBeek attempted to move beyond Expanded Cinema to the collective unconscious of "community dreaming" in Florida.
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posted by Steve Gallagher @ 9/17/2004 11:53:00 AM
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