Looking back on 25 years of looking forward

An exhibition featuring the work of Simone Jones & Julian Oliver, Lorena Salomé, Galen Scorer and Norman White.
 

InterAccess is pleased to present IA25: Mapping a Practice of Media Art, an exhibition celebrating the 25th anniversary of Canada's first and premier gallery and production facility devoted exclusively to electronic media art. This exhibition features artists and curators whose contributions to InterAccess both make up, and reflect, the centre's rich history. Please join us for this special opening on Friday, January 25th at 8pm to commemorate twenty-five years of media art in Toronto.

Network Touch Remote Event. Galen Scorer's Network Touch will feature a live telematic performance of the work connecting the InterAccess Gallery with the Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah, Georgia on January 25, from 8pm to 9:30pm

For this anniversary exhibition, InterAccess has selected Nina Czegledy and Angella Mackey as collaborative curators. Czegledy's a long term guest curator and member of InterAccess and Mackey is an active member and was the 2005 curator of the annual Emerging Artist exhibition for InterAccess. Each curator chose two artists to participate in IA25. Czgeledy chose Norman White, a pioneer in Canadian kinetic electronics and Simone Jones, a prominent Toronto artist and educator. Mackey selected Galen Scorer, whose work sits on the boundaries of technological and artistic experimentation, and Lorena Salomé, a recent graduate of the Ontario Art and Design's Integrated Media Programme.

In 1983, InterAccess was formed as a not-for-profit, artist-run access centre, under the name "Toronto Community Videotex". It provided artists access to the Telidon system, a precursor of the World Wide Web, and was founded by important, forward-thinking members of the Toronto art community such as Paul Petro, one of Canada's leading commercial gallery dealers. With the name change to InterAccess in 1987, InterAccess became a one-of-a-kind facility within Canada, and was led by the direction of such media arts visionaries such as David Rokeby. In 2005, InterAccess moved to the current two-floor location at 9 Ossington Avenue. This vibrant area on Queen Street West has increased InterAccess's visibility in the art community, helping to sustain InterAccess as Canada's premier centre - and now a registered charitable organization - for electronic and new media art.

In conjunction with our 25th anniversary, InterAccess also presents INTER(PR)AXIS: Mapping a practice of media art, Saturday, January 26 at the OCAD Auditorium, 100 McCaul Street, Toronto. This special one-day symposium, is organized by Nina Czgeledy and put on in collaboration with OCAD, York and OCAD's mobile project, Portage. It investigates the history and future of new media practice and features internationally recognized Media Scholar/ Media Art Curator Machiko Kusahara Ph.D. as well as speakers from OCAD, York and Portage.

IA25: Mapping a Practice of Media Art marks an important milestone for InterAccess, and for media art in Canada. Please join us in looking back at 25 years of looking forward!

Information on the artists and works:

Simone Jones and Julian Oliver create a virtual game space in Unprepared Architecture. Oliver, a 3D game designer based in Madrid, and Jones, a renown Canadian electronic artist, play with space, perspective and alternative realities in this fun, interactive installation.

Argentinean artist Lorena Salomé's untitled (solenoids) speaks to her interest in technology's role in society. Playing with issues of human-machine interaction, this piece offers just that, with a machine that rhythmically clicks until the viewer approaches and changes the patterns of the tiny parts that make up this piece.

In Galen Scorer's Network Touch, we are offered yet another angle of electronic and media practices. Like Jones, Scorer is interested in the connection of virtual and physical space. In Network Touch, the viewers become active players by "virtually" touching another participant's hand. At the moment of 'contact', music is created, based on their intimate, yet distant, interaction.

Finally, an exhibition celebrating the history of media and electronic art wouldn't be complete without Norman White. In Menage- White's first robotic piece originally displayed in 1974- robots mounted to the ceiling move back and forth, responding to one another. The robot's movements are both unpredictable and dynamic, creating an element of surprise.

InterAccess would like to thank the CFC Media Lab for their generous contribution to the exhibition. Galen Scorer gratefully acknowledges the support of the Synth/Ops Research Group and Professor of New Media, Tim Jackson for ongoing collaborations and for organizing the Network Touch remote event. This participation is also made possible through the generous support of Director Stephen High and Senior Curator Harry Delorme of the Jepson Center for the Arts [http://www.telfair.org/buildings/jepson.asp].

In conjunction with IA25: Mapping a Practice of Media Art, InterAccess is pleased to present the following events:
 

Special Anniversary Workshops at InterAccess

Taming the Octopus: Building Longevity and Easier Maintenance into Electronic Art
February 2 and 3, 2008
Instructors: Simone Jones and Norman White

Remote- Presence
February 6 and 7, 2008
Instructors: Lorena Salomé and Galen Scorer

For more info on workshops, please go to: http://interaccess.org/workshops/series.php.

Special Anniversary Conference

INTER(PR)AXIS: Mapping a practice of media art
January 26, 2008
OCAD Auditorium, 100 McCaul Street, Toronto
FREE EVENT

Organized by Nina Czegledy
Presented by: InterAccess, York University Department of Film's Norman Jewison Series, the Ontario College of Art & Design and OCAD's mobile digital project, Portage: The Canadian Mobile Experience.

Inter(PR)Axis is a free one day conference addressing the historical context, current practice and future directions of media art in Toronto and beyond, as a parallel event with the InterAccess exhibition IA25: Mapping a Practice of Media Art. Conference panelists from the Ontario College of Art & Design and York University - many of whom have been integral to the development of InterAccess over the past 25 years - will reflect on the historical and contemporary context of Canadian media art, as traced through these two important educational programs, the surrounding community, and the innovative activities of InterAccess, Canada's first and premier centre for electronic art. Keynote speaker Machiko Kusahara, whose research ranges from the history of Japanese automata to device art, will address these issues in terms of current international media art practices.

Keynote Speaker:
Machiko Kusahara, Ph.D Media Scholar/Curator, Waseda University, Tokyo.

Panelists:
Mike Darroch, Patricio Davila, Judith Doyle, Anna Friz, Paula Gardner, Simone Jones, Janine Marchessault, David McIntosh, Jim Ruxton, Geoffrey Shea, Nell Tenhaaf, Norman White.

Moderators:
Nina Czegledy, John Greyson, Michael Longford.

For the conference Schedule, please click here.