"Histories of Internet Art" 2.1 version released

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

University of Colorado Digital Art Students Launch 2.1 version of
"Histories of Internet Art" Website
Contact: Lori Gaskill [email protected]
March 19, 2003

STUDENTS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER'S TECHNE INITIATIVE
LAUNCH UPDATED WEBSITE FEATURING NEW CONTENT FROM INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS

BOULDER, Colorado (March 19, 2003) – Digital art students from the
University of Colorado at Boulder's TECHNE initiative have just released
the 2.1 version of the "Histories of Internet Art" web site featuring over
two dozen video and email interviews as well as streaming archives of
performances and presentations by recent visitors to the TECHNE lab. The
international net artists and curators featured on the site include Mark
Napier, Young Hae-Chang Heavy Industries, Ben Benjamin, Melinda Rackham,
Alex Galloway, Lev Manovich, Giselle Beiguelman, Heath Bunting, John F.
Simon Jr., Erik Loyer, Mary Flanagan, Lisa Jevbratt, John Klima,
Christiane Paul, DJ Spooky, Mark Tribe, Andy Deck, Randall Packer and many
others.

The site also includes a curated exhibition of 35 net-based art works, a
section devoted to net theory, and a survey of the new work being created
by students working in TECHNE's Experimental Digital Art Studio. This
easy-to-navigate site with its stunning design and exploratory content is
produced by undergraduate and graduate students in conjunction with
Department of Art and Art History's TECHNE initiative, the ATLAS program's
campus-wide Technology, Arts, and Media curriculum, the Alt-X Digital Arts
Foundation, and the blurr lab.

The site is currently located at http://art.colorado.edu/hiaff

"This student-built website is still very much in its infancy and yet in a
very short period of time, the students have produced a fabulous
multi-media, online resource for both our program and other programs
around the world who choose to use our site as part of their own research
and development," says CU Professor and TECHNE Faculty Director Mark
Amerika. "Over the next few months, the students will build a back-end
database which will enable the site to grow exponentially both in its
curatorial and theoretical aspects as well as its technical
functionality."

"The nature of our work each year is usually inspired by the group mind
and so each year the site has evolved in different ways," says John Vega,
former digital art student and Senior Creative Director of the site.
"While new content is always being added, each version is a unique
reflection of the ideas held by the associated class."

"Working on HIAFF is like doing what I wanted to do when I set out in
multimedia: group (student) oriented focus upon art on the net with
unlimited potential for learning and exploration," says HIAFF project
manager and TECHNE student Lori Gaskill.

The TECHNE site at art.colorado.edu most recently featured the "Mapping
Transitions" online exhibition curated by Amerika and Christiane Paul,
Adjunct Curator of New Media at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The
exhibition included three newly commissioned works of Internet art created
by artists selected for the 2002 Whitney Biennial, all of whom visited the
CU-Boulder campus last Fall and who participated in the opening panel
discussion at a major conference entitled "Rethinking the Visual."

For more information on TECHNE and the "Histories of Internet Art" web
site, contact Lori Gaskill at [email protected]

____

TECHNE is a practice-based research initiative located inside the
University of Colorado's Department of Art and Art History. TECHNE enables
its faculty, students and research associates to utilize both highly
specialized and easily accessible hardware and software applications to
further demonstrate the value of building more interactive, digital art
projects while critically analyzing their place in the world. Research
projects are varied and investigate many contemporary subjects whose
cultural implications bring to light the growing interdependency between
the arts and sciences.

ATLAS is a campuswide initiative at the University of Colorado at Boulder
and is dedicated to the understanding and application of information and
communication technology in curriculum, teaching, research, and outreach.

The Alt-X Network (www.altx.com) is one of the oldest surviving art and
writing sites on the net. It began as a gopher site back in early 1993 and
has since produced and distributed a vast array of content including the
Hyper-X online exhibition space, an artist ebook series, the "ebr" new
media forum, Alt-X Audio, Black Ice fiction, and various live net events.

blurr is an experimental center for digital innovation at the University
of Colorado underwritten by Omnicom. blurr's mission is to provide an
environment that challenges the usual distinctions and barriers between
disciplines within the university and also the traditional lines drawn
between industry and academe.