Screening Workshop
Saturday, Oct. 9. 2004 , 1 - 4 PM
Video In Studio, 1965 Main St.
Info: (604) 872-8337
Free admission
CO-LAB is an opportunity to view and discuss a selection of projects that will examine different collaborative processes from the very successful to the almost disastrous. The program will include local, national and international projects, simple ideas to ambitious undertakings. The selection of works and discussion has been put together by award winning media artist Paul Wong.
MEDIA ART is the leading art form of our time. It is being created, appreciated and celebrated worldwide. What began three decades ago as obscure explorations by avant garde video artists has exploded as a critical element of digital culture.
Film and Video are the most interdisciplinary and collaborative of all art forms. Media Art challenges the outmoded notions of what is art and who is an artist. Media Art straddles the old world of elitist fine art traditions and flirts with mass appeal. Media Art is a convergence of form and content.
Is the message the medium? The medium delivers viewers to the advertisers. Who/what is being consumed? Ownership of our cultural-scapes is a battleground, art is validated by deadly academics and entertainment is controlled by commercial interests. The role of artists is marginalized in the globalization of art and the privatization of media There is limited space available for independent voices to have access to wider audiences.
To be seen and heard Media Artists have to compete with the marketplace. By choice, and often by necessity, artists are forced to team-up to realize a project that is bigger and better than what can be created as an individual. Working together has forced artists out of isolation. Collaboration can bring out the best in some and the worst in others. It requires artists to check egos, make compromises, negotiate issues of authenticity and ownership.
Paul Wong has been involved with over 100 collaborative projects as an artist, producer, curator, commissioner and programmer. He is a founding member of Video In and the Artistic Director of On Edge Productions, a non-profit agency that has been producing collaborative ventures worldwide since the 1980’s.
Co-Lab : Part 3 of the On Edge Beneath The Surface series.