Secretary to Announce 'Artistic Convergence' in Seoul

US Department of Art & Technology
http://www.usdat.us
[email protected]
Washington, DC

Press Secretary
For Immediate Release: April 30, 2004


SECRETARY PACKER TO ADDRESS SEOUL DIGITAL FORUM
ANNOUNCING 'ARTISTIC CONVERGENCE'

WASHINGTON, DC - In his first official tour of Asia, Secretary
Randall M. Packer will give an opening address at the Seoul Digital
Forum in South Korea on May 6th, 7pm (UTC/GMT +9 hours), announcing a
bold new initiative, 'Artistic Convergence,' intended to embed
revolutionary artistic strategies for social transformation into the
heart of global information and communication industries.

Seoul Digital Forum has as its key thematic objective, "value
reshuffling," where the "previous paradigms to extract profit by
creating value no longer applies." Secretary Packer plans to
reshuffle the corporate deck through the introduction of 21st century
survival techniques of artistic mediation, stating Marshall McLuhan's
declaration, "the artists picks up the message of cultural and
technological challenge decades before its transforming impact
occurs. He, then, builds models or Noah's arks for facing the change
that is at hand."

The opening ceremonies of Seoul Digital Forum, organized by the Seoul
Broadcast System (SBS) will take place at SBS Mok-Dong Headquarters
May 6-7 in Seoul, featuring such notable media luminaries as Nicholas
Negroponte (MIT Media Lab) and Jeffrey Katzenberg (DreamWorks), as
well as the Minister of Information & Communication, Republic of
Korea. Secretary Packer, quoting his Under Secretary for the Bureau
of Cultural Transformation and Paradigmatic Shifts: "No curators, no
critics, no CEO's really know where it is artists are taking us in
this extraordinary moment. I find that quite exhilarating, a little
frightening at times, primarily it's energizing. We can only project
the hope and promise of creating a new structure for artists to gain
access to the technology of the broadcast medium, which until now has
been monopolized by corporate interests."

During his tour, Secretary Packer will unveil the Media
Deconstruction Kit (MDK), a recent initiative of the Department
intended to confront corporate control of mass media. The Secretary
will install MDK at an exhibition at the Seodaemun Prison in Seoul
(organized by the Institute for Media Art, Yonsei, University,
opening May 4), to raise awareness of an escalating social condition
in which we are imprisoned by the Spectacle through a distortion of
information as disseminated by the broadcast news media.

With a view to the creation of conditions of artistic convergence in
government and industry to effect radical change in the adoption of
cutting-edge information and communications technologies, the
Secretary will promote: (a) tactical methodologies and techniques of
artistic mediation; (b) recognition of movements of international
activist, hyper-mediated, utopian, and related ideologies; ©
universal respect for, and observance of, social change through
fundamental creative acts of expression for all citizens; (d) the
transformation of the one-way paradigm of broadcast media into
many-to-many forms of interaction by leveling the playing field
between medium and viewer.

The Secretary will also discuss a new array of important services to
US citizens and to foreigners seeking to visit or navigate through
virtual environments.

Secretary Packer's address will be open for press coverage. Media
representatives may cover this event upon presentation of either (1)
a US Government-issued identification card (Department of State,
White House, Congress, Department of Art and Technology, or Foreign
Press Center), (2) a photo ID issued by the employing media
organization, or (3) a letter on official letterhead from their news
organization verifying their employment as a journalist, accompanied
by an official photo
ID.

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Contact: Press Secretary of the US Department of Art & Technology
[email protected]

The US Department of Art & Technology
http://www.usdat.us

The US Department of Art and Technology is the United States
principal conduit for facilitating the artist's need to extend
aesthetic inquiry into the broader culture where ideas become real
action. It also serves the psychological and spiritual well-being of
all Americans by supporting cultural efforts that provide immunity
from the extension of new media technologies into the social sphere.

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