Call for Proposals: Séance for Nam June Paik
“I use technology in order to hate it more properly†Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik is widely regarded as the father of video art. Innovative digital artworks are sought for a new project: to channel (and negotiate with) the spirit of the late Korean artist’s practice.
Séance for Nam June Paik is a screening/performance event curated by Daniel Agnihotri-Clark, to be presented as part of Tending Networks: the fifth Aotearoa Digital Arts (ADA) symposium (see below for background information).
Séance for Nam June Paik provides the opportunity for Aotearoa/New Zealand (affiliated) digital media artists to examine and respond to the legacy and currency of Paik’s influential career. In your submission you may wish to consider (but are not restricted to) aspects of Paik’s practice such as:
• his pioneering role in the emergence of video art as a genre
• his firm dedication to interdisciplinarity, and his transition from classical music to electronic art
• his affiliation with the Fluxus movement, and the movement’s emphasis on fun and accessibility
• his 1974 concept of the “electronic superhighwayâ€
• the influence of John Cage (and the concept of indeterminacy) in Paik’s work
Time and Place:
Séance for Nam June Paik will take place on the evening of Sat 23 Feb 2008 in Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand. The project is supported by the Physics Room Contemporary Art Space, and the event will take place at an offsite venue. (Exact time and place to be advised.)
Submissions:
Proposed artworks must be no longer than 15 minutes in duration, and they must be suitable for the format of a seated event (for image please follow the first link at the end of this email). (Note: for performance proposals, please bear in mind that the performer her/himself will not necessarily be visible to all audience members, since the audience will be seated in a circle facing the television screens.)
The medium for your séance could be:
• video (single channel: to be duplicated across four screens) • audio (either quadraphonic or stereo amplification) • internet • performance
At a technical level, the only core requirement is that the work must have a digital dimension.
Submissions could be either new artworks (that have been developed for this event) or existing works (that are thematically relevant for presentation in this context).
In your proposal, please include:
• a brief description of the proposed artwork and the concept behind it • relevant documentation (hard copies in digital format: CD or DVD only please) • brief biographical information • contact details
The curator’s selection will be independently peer reviewed.
The closing date for submissions is Friday 11 Jan 2008, and applicants will be notified via email by Mon 28 Jan 2008.
Please post your proposal to: Daniel Agnihotri-Clark (curator) c/- Massey University School of Fine Arts, Private Box 756, Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Background:
Séance for Nam June Paik (curated by Daniel Agnihotri-Clark) is presented as part of Tending Networks (the fifth ADA symposium), and in conjunction with an international exhibition of network art (The Physics Room, curated by Adam Hyde and Julian Priest).
About ADA:
www.aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz
Aotearoa Digital Arts is New Zealand/Aotearoa’s only digital artists’ network. The list was launched in 2003 by Stella Brennan and Sean Cubitt during Brennan’s stint as inaugural Digital Artist in Residence at Waikato University’s Screen and Media Department. ADA was born of the observation that although new media artists were often highly networked in terms of both their own practice and their professional relationships, there was no national organisation drawing together those with a common interest in digital art. This recognition suggested the irreversible importance of place against the frictionless communication enabled, in theory, by network technologies.
ADA is a network by the simplest of means: it is open, un-moderated and self-defining. Members of ADA are artists, curators, writers, and teachers with some kind of affiliation to New Zealand. In material terms ADA is an email-discussion list, a website, and four face-to-face symposia have been held to date: the first at Waikato University, Hamilton (2003), the second at Auckland University of Technology (2004), the third at Otago University in Dunedin (2005), and the fourth hosted by the Western Institute of Technology, in New Plymouth (2006).
In the absence of a dedicated physical space for development of new media projects, ADA enables the sharing of practices, and contributes towards a very real sense of a digital media community in New Zealand.