Invitation from DMF2002/03

Digital Media Festival 2002 (DMF2002).

DMF is an initiative put together since 2000 and past events are archived at
http://digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/dmf2001/ and
http://digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/dmf2k/
DMF receives support from the University of the Philippines College of Fine
Arts, the Office of the University Chancellor in Diliman, the Office for
Initiatives in Culture and the Arts and the University of the Philippines
Computer Center. DMF aims primarily to involve students of digital media
electives in the College of Fine Arts with new media practitioners within and
outside the country.

"Collaboration" and "networked projects" are keywords in this year's Digital
Media Fest. DMF2002 is reaching out to collaborate, link-up, with other
festivals, projects, events on-line and off-line. Currently, there are some
fifty students enrolled in three digital media elective classes I'm teaching
here at the University of the Philippines, and they're working on pieces for
Tabor Festival (Czech Republic) (http://www.newmediafest.org/violence/ and
CESTA wesbite http://www.cesta.cz ) with the theme of "Violence" and
Javamuseum.org's "Fundamental Patterns, Peripheral Basics"
(http://www.javamuseum.org/). The students are doing "Mudras against Violence"
for the Tabor Fest, and "Sacrificial Spaces - the Mandala, Yantra and Cosmic
Diagrams" (tentative title) for Javamuseum.org. An essay and exhibition of
works will also be available during DMF in October online through the DMF
wesbite.

One digital media elective class is focused on Visual Language and we're making
visual poetry and works that explore the written image. Students are now doing
research on and will use the extinct Philippine script called "baybayin" in
their work (baybayin fonts are available for the computer). Our themes are "The
Binary Characters of Writing" and "Magic and Empowerment in the Written Image."

We've also sent out a call for mail artists to send works to be digitally re-
purposed in a project tentatively called "The Resurrection." And next month,
students will begin working on "The Hidden War", a study on the effects of
militarization and the presence of US troops in the province of Sulu in
Mindanao, south of the Philippines. The works will consist of "banner ads" in
collaboration with Brandon Barr's "Banner Art Collective" project
(http://www.bannerart.org/). A larger scale version of the "Hidden War" will be
done in February in a project entitled "Re-imagining the Center."

DMF2002, like the past two DMF's, will be held in the first week of October. As
there are plans to integrate DMF next year with the annual Fine Arts Week held
every February, for practical reasons, we've been thinking of having a smaller
scale DMF this year consisting only of networked online exhibitions mentioned
above, a small physical exhibition at the Corredor Gallery here at the College
of Fine Arts, and a festival CD-ROM. The usual workshops, artists' talks, video
art screenings and live streaming video coverage will be held February next
year with the annual Fine Arts Week (and possibly also the Asian Arts Festival
will link-up with Fine Arts Week).

I'd like to invite members of this list who are organizing events, projects,
festivals: DMF is still open for collaboration/link-up with other festivals,
projects, events. Let's discuss possibilities, backchannel thru [email protected].

Kind regards,
Fatima Lasay