Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
developing practices such as site-specific installation, which kept it
from being consumed by television, and thus retained the critic's
and curator's interest.
But this does not mean that other kinds of art involving technol-
ogy did not continue to be practised. Artists such as Roy Ascott,
David Medalla, Robert Adrian X, Stelarc, Lilian Schwartz and Harold
Cohen continued to experiment with various technologies, and
to find venues and funding from disparate sources. Many of those
involved with Performance Art became involved with new media
technologies, especially as Performance's momentum slowed during
the
s. This reflects both the particular resonance between
Performance Art and the new media, discussed above, and Per-
formance's concern for engaging with its audience outside of the
traditional gallery space. A useful index of this is the number of
performance artists and video artists who have been shown or
involved with the influential Ars Electronica Festival, which has been
held in Linz in Austria since
1970
. These include Nam June Paik
and his long-time collaborator Charlotte Moorman, Valie Export,
Dan Graham, Woody and Steina Vasulka, Diamanda Galas, Glenn
Branca, Cabaret Voltaire, John Sanborn and Peter Weibel. Indeed
Weibel, well known in the
1979
s for his performances and inter-
ventions, was festival director from
1960
, and is now director
of the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), in
Karlsruhe, which is a highly funded research centre and museum
dedicated to new media arts.
The German government's decision, taken during the
1986
to
1995
s, to
fund ZKM was timely. The development of the World Wide Web in
the
1980
s has led to an efflorescence of art using and engaging with
new media and technology. The ease with which Web sites can be
constructed combined with the enormous reach of the Web has
made it extraordinarily attractive for artists. Though art on the Web
can be traced back to precedents such as work done using bulletin
board systems in the
1990
1980
s and early '
90
s, as well as earlier work with
