For any library receiving Federal technology funding, as of April 2001 CIPA mandated blocking or filtering technology software for all library computers connected to the Internet for all users, including children, adults and staff.

On the first day of the proceedings, Sally Gardner Reed, former Director of the Norfolk Public Library in Norfolk, Virginia, testified about CIPA's effect on the library and its patrons. According to an ACLU report: "she explained that the Norfolk Public Library relies heavily on government funding to survive and that the majority of her patrons are poor and do not have Internet access at home. Unless the library complies with the censorship law, she said, the library will not be able to afford Internet access and patrons will be left with no way to get online."

Reed told the three-judge panel that essentially she was left with "a choice between First Amendment censorship or economic censorship."

Reporting that as the trial began the librarians who testified for the plaintiffs demonstrated the importance of library resources for education, recreation, and entertainment, ALA President John W. Berry said that "We heard that even a well-wired community like Portland has only about half of households with home computers. Libraries help bridge this digital divide -- particularly in poor and rural communities."

The ALA notes that over the past four years, more than $255.5 million has been disbursed to more than 5,000 public libraries through the federal E-rate program, which provides discounts on telecommunications and Internet-related technologies. The Library Services and Technology Act has distributed more than $883 million to libraries nationwide since 1998. Currently, under CIPA, libraries must use blocking or filtering software on all library computers in order to be eligible for these federal funds.

Explaining how her regional library in Fort Vancouver, WA lets library patrons make their own decisions about Internet access for themselves and for their minor children, Candace Morgan, former president of the Freedom to Read Foundation, testified that currently the library offers three options: unfiltered access, filtered access and no access, and it lets parents make access decisions for their minor children.

According to an ALA report of Morgan's testimony, approximately 80 percent of library users select unfiltered access compared to 19.9 percent for filtered access and .1 percent for no Internet access. Complaints about Internet content made up less than 1 percent of all comments/complaints to the library.

Also testifying for the plaintiffs, researcher and Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University Geoffrey Nunberg who has studied currently available blocking and filtering software, described some of the problems in this technology, including blocking all the sites on an entire server because of one site; blocking Internet discussion groups on topics such as AIDS and feminism; and overly literal blocking -- such as blocking an online game site called THEPENISMIGHTIER because the site's title, which refers to the saying "The pen is mightier than the sword," spells out the word "penis."

"None of the programs currently available can accomplish their stated task of filtering out sexually explicit material," Nunberg emphasized, according to CNN.

GOVERNMENT WITNESS PROMOTES FILTER WHICH BLOCKS IMAGES BUT NOT TEXT

On the second day, government witnesses included Branch Manager David Biek, of the Tacoma, WA Public Library. The software initiated in the Tacoma Public Library blocks visual images but not text.

This method, which could block artists websites which are based on visual imagery, allows delivery of all websites. However, visual images of sexual activity and full frontal nudity, including artwork and photographs, are replaced with "placeholder" icons. In the Tacoma system, users can choose to view these images but to do so, they must interrupt their surfing by sending anonymous request to unblock the images.

According to CNN, Biek told the judicial panel that this software "filters out objectionable photographs without hindering the free flow of information."

However, in Lederman et al v. City of New York, visual information was found to be equally deserving of first amendment protection. "Visual art is as wide ranging in its depiction of ideas, concepts and emotions as any book, treatise, pamphlet or other writing, and is similarly entitled to full First Amendment protection," the 2nd Circuit Federal Appeals Court ruling stated, and in 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the New York City Giuliani Administration's appeal of this decision.

Also testifying for the government was Chris Lemmons, of eTesting Labs, who reported on his firm's testing of four popular filtering systems.

Of particular note was "the concession from the government's own expert witness that all filters necessarily overblock and underblock online materials," said ALA attorney Theresa Chmara of Jenner and Block. "This confirms the testimony of ALA experts, and confirms that legal and useful information is being restricted by blocking software."

Both The ALA and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed lawsuits challenging the law in March 2001. The cases are being heard together by a three-judge panel composed of the Chief Judge Edward Becker of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, and Judge Harvey Bartle III and Chief Judge John P. Fullam, both of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, also in Philadelphia. People for the American Way is serving as supporting counsel for the ALA challenge.

The trial is expected to conclude April 3, and the judges are expected to rule by early May.

Sources/resources:

American LIBRARY ASSOCIATION CIPA RESOURCE PAGE -- http://www.ala.org/cipa

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION -- http://www.aclu.org

The case is Multnomah County Library vs. United States of America, No. 01-CV-1322. The ACLU has created a comprehensive web page for the case that includes a list of the daily trial witnesses and their bios, legal papers, expert reports, and examples of wrongly blocked websites -- http://www.aclu.org/features/f032001a.html

"Librarians testify in Internet porn court battle" CNN -- http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/03/25/porn.trial.reut/ index.html?related
March 25, 2002

"Feds mount defense of library porn law"
CNN -- http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/03/28/internet.porn.reut/
March 28, 2002

"Street Artist Federal Ruling Stands; Supreme Court Rejects Giuliani Appeal"
Arts Wire CURRENT -- http://www.artswire.org/current/1997/cur061097.html
June 10, 1997

Conceived and curated by Carol Kinne, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at Colgate University, META-FORMS: 2001 NYFA COMPUTER ARTS FELLOWS features the work of Zoe Beloff, Diane Bertolo, Laura Carton, Toni Dove, Theresa Duncan, Shelley Eshkar, Adam Frank, Elvira Garcia-Moran, Ariana Gerstein, Frank Guerrero, Ken Jacobs, Paul Kaiser, Yael Kanarek, Dafna Naphtali, Mark Napier, Karen Ostrom, Matthew Ostrowski, Susan Spence, Helen Thorington, Marek Walczak, and Dolores Zorreguieta.

The artists included in this exhibition explore art centered computer-mediated processes. Their work encompasses prints, photography, and painting created using digital means, as well as film and video, installation art, CD-ROM works and Internet based art -- from Theresa Duncan's animated film THE HISTORY OF GLAMOUR in which the heroine, pop singer Charles Valentine, reshapes her identity through her writing; to Mark Napier's net.art in which (in his words) "The users become collaborators in the artwork, upsetting the conventions of ownership and authority."

Inspired by Gertrude Stein's 1938 play DOCTOR FAUSTUS LIGHTS THE LIGHTS, Zoe Beloff's interactive film WHERE WHERE THERE THERE was produced in collaboration with the Wooster Group theater ensemble. Describing 1938 as "a time of transition between the old analog world and the birth of the digital realm," Beloff explores the relationship between technology and imagination in the era in which Stein wrote,

"Throughout the late 20th century, the computer has made its way out of the laboratory and into the living room. Paralleling this has been the maturation of the field of Computer Arts and its emergence into the mainstream of contemporary art," observes Theodore Berger, Executive Director of the New York Foundation for the Arts. (NYFA)

Berger notes that beginning in the 1990's, the NYFA Artists' Fellowship peer panels reviewed an increasing number of applications for computer-related work. Up until 1997, the computer arts were included in an Emerging Forms category. But in 1997, NYFA initiated a distinct granting category for Computer Arts. Since then 52 Computer Arts Fellowships have been awarded -- totaling over $364,000 of support to individual artists.

"With Meta-Forms 2001 NYFA Computer Arts Fellows, NYFA takes its next and very important step of mounting the first exhibition of Computer Arts Fellows, thanks to the commitment and partnership of Colgate University," Berger states. "Meta-Forms features the work of 21 Computer Arts Fellows from 2001, and is comprised of the exhibition, a media screening and artists talks. In conjunction with Meta-Forms, NYFA will launch its first Artists Community Meeting, a networking opportunity for individual artists in the region."

"The idea for the exhibition was born as we were winding up the 2001 panel last March. It was felt the Computer Arts Program at NYFA needed better exposure in upstate New York. The Art and Art History Department at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY had just moved into a brand new building on campus and we had a beautiful new gallery," said Carol Kinne, Curator of the Exhibition, 2001 Computer Arts Panelist, and Assistant Professor, Colgate University.

Kinne added that "It was a perfect opportunity for Colgate University and NYFA to join together for an exhibition. Hamilton is located in central NY and accessible to a large community of artists. An exhibition of the Computer Arts Fellows of 2001 will bring new work to our community and celebrate the NYFA program at the same time."

Highlighted in this exhibition are a variety of engaging artist-created virtual worlds -- from Karen Ostrom's fictional fishing village of Hope, which located on the world wide web is composed of photo compilations and narratives; to Suzy Spence's animated painting CRACKIN' CRAB 'N LOBSTER where the viewer observes a bikini clad woman's visual memories/experiences of a seaside vacation. The work is a loop which begins over and over again as the viewer observes sea, sand, crustacean, and the woman's responses.

On the extensive website which accompanies the Meta-Forms exhibition -- http://merz.colgate.edu/meta-forms/ -- new media artist Yael Kanarek describes her WORLD OF AWE in this way

"Through a portal on 419 6th street in Manhattan, a traveler passes into the Sunset/Sunrise-a desert terrain locked into the mindframe between night and day, in search for a lost treasure. The voyage is documented in a journal found on a laptop evidently built by the traveler in Silicon Canyon, which is a graveyard for old computer components. The journal contains letters to an absent lover, travel logs and descriptions of the unique navigation tools."

Describing his digital video FLO ROUNDS A CORNER, Ken Jacobs writes:

"I videotape Flo descending the twisty streets to our sea-view hotel in Taormina, Sicily. She carries a web bag weighted with local oranges. Close by, the all-too-live volcano, Mount Etna. Back in New York computer techs assist me to an Eternalism fantasy of upset Nature (the screen-Flo unfazed by the cine-upheaval)."

Marek Walczak evokes a part of ADRIFT (an evolving Internet performance event whose core group includes fellowship winners Walczak and Helen Thorington) in this way:

"Sitting you feel the pressure of the seat on your body, the drone of the fish tank, the door bang down the hall, the children shrill in the playground, you see the sunset scroll down, the think of the keys on your fingers. This simultaneity of perceptual readings gives that sense of place, of a reading in the world."

Describing the interface in her interactive movie ARTIFICIAL CHANGELINGS, Toni Dove writes on her website:

"The viewer steps into a pool of light in front of the screen and enters the interactive zones. When close to the screen you are inside a character's head; back off and the character addresses you directly; back off again and you are in a trance or dream state; and back off once more to enter a time tunnel that emerges in the other century. Within the zones, movement causes changes in the behaviour of video and sound. There are body, speech and memory segments - each with different behaviors. The characters become like marionettes with unpredictable reactions based on the movement of the viewer in front of the screen. Body movement will dissolve images, shuttle forward and reverse on the time line, trigger frame loops, and change speed and color, as well as dissolve between segments and create superimpositions. Movement close to the screen will produce intimate revelations, close-up images and whispered sounds. Movement away from the screen will create memories clouded by layers of time, transparent images, and washes of sound. The sound environment and emotional tone of the piece are altered as well by the nature of a viewers' movements within each zone. Different viewer responses will produce different aspects of content and affect."

The artists featured in this exhibition approach digital processes in ways which range from artist and software designer Adam Frank's visual communication software for mobile handheld devices; to Diane Bertolo explorations of the relationship of technology to personal, social and cultural constructs.

Their approaches are very different; nevertheless, their statements are somewhat contingent.

"To me, there really is not that much difference between inventing a toy or making an artwork," Adam Frank told Arts Wire. "It really boils down to what the thing is most appropriate for.... how does it fit into the real world the best. When I make things, there are often points that I don't know if it should be a popular product or an art piece. Sometimes (when I'm really on top of things) it turns out to be both."

"My work is rooted in theory mixed with an equal dose of quackery," Diane Bertolo writes in a statement about her work. "I'm interested in mixing up high and low culture; high tech and the vernacular. I have used technology to create the work itself...some installation, some interactive projects."

In a Critical Essay accompanying the exhibition, artist and theorist Maureen Nappi observes that the approaches in artistic explorations of creative computational methods vary significantly from artist to artist "thus illustrating the computer's capacity to be utilized across disciplines and genres as both a meta-tool and a meta-medium. Indeed, embedded within this is a kind of international nomadic dedication to the 'voicing' of something new by way of new means."

Noting that NYFA's Fellowships are a model arts funding program of national stature, Nappi, currently a doctoral candidate working on her dissertation on the Aesthetics of Computer Arts in the Critical Studies area at New York University, writes that "Meta-Forms demonstrates the multiplicity of both the formal and conceptual manifestations that the computer offers to artists when it becomes enmeshed within their creative endeavors. Although computer arts are often displayed in the forms of pre-existing media, the processes by which computer arts are created, despite their chameleon-like ability to be materialized into other forms, are not the processes or essences of that secondary medium, but rather are intrinsically computational and meta-formal."

Indeed, the 2001 NYFA Computer Arts Fellows featured in Meta-Forms are computer-mediated in ways which range from Matthew Ostrowski live electronics work in which he uses statistical or algorithmic models of real-world situations, for example, to simulate the growth and decline of animal populations with a limited or fluctuating food supply; to Dafna Naphtali's MECHANIQUE(S) -I, an interactive desktop audio environment/installation. On the website which accompanies the Meta-Forms exhibition, Naphtali explains that "the interactive nature of the sound processes of the trio is made accessible to the listener in unusual ways. Rather than listening passively or controlling a simple "remix", one may become a co-performer/collaborator, and experience the performance, adding manipulations of one's own to the individual tracks of audio."

Enhancing and expanding dance performance, Shelley Eshkar and Paul Kaiser's collaborations -- which incorporate Eshkar's three-dimensional figural drawing and animation and Kaiser's experimental filmmaking and voice audiotapes -- have included BIPED (with Merce Cunningham) and GHOSTCATCHING. (with Bill T. Jones) In BIPED, computer manipulated images of dancing integrated with the actual performance.

Art in Meta-Forms which is not only Internet-based but also explores Internet issues includes work by Frank Guerrero and Laura Carton.

Guerrero is a principle in the anti-corporate corporation RTMark whose website matches human and environment centered ideas with investors.

Laura Carton's work is made by digitally reconstructing pornographic images downloaded from the Internet. "In looking beyond the camouflage of naked flesh, what remains are carefully constructed and over-produced fictions; the mise-en-scenes of domestic space, suburban melodramas, utopian ideals and fantasies. Within the staged, mythic world of pornography, these newly constructed narratives offer a number of sites from which to critique underlying assumptions about sexuality, class, race, desire and commodification," she states on the Meta-Forms website.

Other work in the exhibition includes that of Ariana Gerstein whose works -- such as THE SICK DREAM OF CHICKEN SOUP (2000) and IMAGES OF FLYING AND FALLING (2001) -- combine traditional film techniques along with new techniques in digital collage and explore experimental and documentary themes; as well as work by Elvira Garcia-Moran and Dolores Zorreguieta, who state on the NYFA 2001 Fellowships website that:

"Our approach to digital art is to use the capabilities of the medium to better express complex emotional processes. In the fragmented story of our CD-ROM Through the Wound, the passes to levels of information are hidden to the point of almost total inaccessibility. How active the viewer decides to be determines how much information is gathered. Information is alternatively enjoyed or endured. The interactivity embodies the inescapable responsibility of negotiating the risky business of knowing, both in a story that is alien to us and in the mystery of our own story."

The exhibition is accompanied by a series of related programs. All events are free and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Programs are subject to change. For further details, visit http://www.nyfa.org/public_prgs/meta-forms.htm

or email publicprograms@nyfa.org

The programs include:

Sunday, April 7, 2002 - 300 PM
COMPUTER ARTS FAMILY WORKSHOP
Earlville Opera House, 6-22 East Main Street; Earlville
Artist Karen Ostrom will lead the audience on a virtual tour of her Internet art project, followed by an all-ages interactive workshop. No computer experience necessary. For info, call the Opera House 315-691-3550
http://www.earlvilleoperahouse.com

Tuesday, April 9, 2002 - 6:30 PM
NYFA ARTISTS' COMMUNITY MEETING
Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute, 310 Genesee Street; Utica The Meeting is a forum to discuss and network on issues and needs facing individual artists in the region. It also provides NYFA an opportunity to introduce its programs, services and new interactive information online database. The museum galleries will open at 5:30 PM; refreshments will be served. RSVP preferred, contact David C. Terry, Program Officer/Outreach, Public Programs, NYFA , 212-366-6900 x 240; email at dterry@nyfa.org

Wednesday, April 10, 2002 - 4:30 PM
META-FORMS PANEL DISCUSSION
Golden Auditorium, Colgate University
Adam Frank, Dafna Naphtali, Elvira Garcia-Moran and Dolores Zorreguieta - four artists featured in the exhibition, will discuss their varied approaches to computer arts, as well as their current work; the panel will be moderated by essayist Maureen Nappi. Following the Panel Discussion, a public reception will be held in the gallery. Public will have an opportunity to speak with a number of the exhibiting artists in an informal setting.

Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 7:00 PM
ALTERNATIVE CINEMA SERIES WITH ARTIST TALK
Golden Auditorium, Colgate University
This media screening will include the works of Ken Jacobs, Theresa Duncan, and Ariana Gerstein. Following the screening, Ariana Gerstein will discuss her work.

Meta-Forms and related public programs are presented by Colgate University and the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) with regional partners. Meta-Forms New York Foundation for the Arts 2001 Computer Arts Fellows is curated by Carol Kinne, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at Colgate University, and co-organized by NYFA's new Public Programs Department and Artists & Audiences Exchange, a public service program of NYFA. Joseph A.Mangin (Colgate '50) funded the catalogue and web site for the exhibition, with additional funding from Colgate's Center for Ethics and World Societies, Continental Airlines, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Sources/resources:

META-FORMS 2001 NYFA COMPUTER ARTS FELLOWS -- http://merz.colgate.edu/meta-forms/

Exhibition Dates March 25 - April 19, 2002
Gallery Hours Monday - Friday, 10:30 - 4:30 PM; Saturday and Sunday, 1:00- 5:00 PM

COLGATE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ART AND ART HISTORY -- http://merz.colgate.edu
tel 315-228-7633 The Department of Art and Art History offers courses of study in the history, theory, and practice of the visual arts for the general liberal arts student as well as a concentration in either art history or studio art. Exhibitions for the Clifford Gallery, are selected by the Art and Art History faculty "to provide examples of work executed in a variety of media that demonstrate issues originating in the academic curriculum. The primary focus is the display of professional work by contemporary artists. These artists are often featured in the weekly public lecture series. The department gallery is open to the entire community and contributes to the cultural life of the central New York area."

NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS - http://www.nyfa.org
For further details about the META-FORMS programs, visit http://www.nyfa.org/public_prgs/meta-forms.htm

NYFA ARTISTS' FELLOWSHIPS - http://www.nyfa.org/artists_fellowships

THERESA DUNCAN - THE HISTORY OF GLAMOUR (1999, 40m)
with artists Karen Kilimnik and Jeremy Blake, animator NEW YORK VIDEO FESTIVAL - http://archive.filmlinc.com/nyvf/nyvf99.htm

MARK NAPIER - http://www.potatoland.org

KAREN OSTROM - http://www.holidayinhope.com

ZOE BELOFF - http://www.zoebeloff.com

THE WOOSTER GROUP - http://www.thewoostergroup.org/twg/wooster.html

YAEL KANAREK - http://www.worldofawe.net

KEN JACOBS - FLO ROUNDS A CORNER
FILM MONTHLY - http://www.rlff.com/db_world/cinema.cgi/films/view_134.htm

SUSAN SPENCE - http://www.suzyspence.com

HELEN THORINGTON AND MAREK WALCZAK - http://www.turbulence.org/adrift
Adrift (1997-present) collaborators have also included Jesse Gilbert, Jonathan Feinberg, Martin Wattenberg and Hal Eager

TONI DOVE - http://www.funnygarbage.com/dove

DIANE BERTOLO - http://www.panix.com/~diane

ADAM FRANK - http://www.adamfrank.com

MATHEW OSTROWSKI - http://www.ostrowski.info

DAFNA NAPHTALI - http://www.whatbat.org
The trio consists of Dafna Naphtali - voice and interactive sound processing with additional audio by Hans Tammen - endangered guitar; Martin Speicher - saxophone, clarinets

SHELLEY ESHKAR AND PAUL KAISER - http://www.riverbed.com

FRANK GUERRERO
RTMARK - http://www.rtmark.com

LAURA CARTON - MULTIPLE INSERTIONS
FICTIVE NET PORN - http://www.fictive.net/porn/multiple_insertions/index.html

ARIANA GERSTEIN - http://www.binghamton.edu/cinema/faculty.htm

DOLORES ZORREGUt, guest speaker Rev. Ethan Acres, and featured speaker Dave Hickey.

BART PARKER will be celebrated as the Honored Educator.

• Photographer, film, and video artist TRACEY MOFFATT was born in Australia and is currently based in New York City. Her works include NIGHT CRIES A RURAL TRAGEDY (1990) in which an Aboriginal woman nurses her dying white mother, set against the background of the assimilation policy that forced Aboriginal children to be raised in white families; and ARTIST (A video collaboration between Tracey Moffatt and Gary Hillberg 1999) described by Women Make Movies as "a fast-paced journey through Hollywood's depiction of the artist. Using a wealth of clips from classic cinema bio pics and popular television sitcoms, the video voyage spans centuries of art and art-making to reveal how five decades of mainstream media have perceived the creative process and creators themselves.... this amusing, thought-provoking array of well-known images paints an incisive portrait of the artist as a total Hollywood fabrication."

• Las Vegas-based installation and performance artist and ordained minister REV. ETHAN ACRES documents his various personae in photographs and text. including in THE SERMONS OF REVEREND ETHAN a pop chapbook of sermons which features The Parable of Mothra/Exorcism of the Santa Monica Museum; a history of televangelism; a pilgrimage to the Getty Museum; and many more accounts of the Reverend's fight against the devil and his crusade to put the "fun" back in fundamentalism.

• Las Vegas-based freelance writer of fiction and cultural criticism DAVE HICKEY is professor of Art Criticism and Theory at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and contributing editor to ART ISSUES magazine in Los Angeles. He has also been owner/director of A Clean Well-Lighted Place gallery in Austin, Texas; director of the Reese Palley Gallery in New York City; executive editor of ART IN AMERICA; and a contributing editor to THE VILLAGE VOICE. His most recent book, STARDUMB, (Artspace Press, 1999) is a collection of stories with drawings by artist John DeFazio.

Panels and presentations include:

• Fleming Lunsford with Rebecca Sittler, Sush Gaikotsu Machida, Alexander Mouton
  PERFORMANCE: A PHOTOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE

• Valerie Mendoza
  ROAMING THE SHADOW SIDE: PERFORMATIVE SPACES; VIRTUAL IMMERSION

• Cheryl Younger
  SEPTEMBER 11: THIS ISN'T A MOVIE, WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

• Susan kae Grant
  NIGHT JOURNEY

• Krista Elrick and Debra Hughes
  LEAVING THE REAL WORLD BEHIND: A COLLABORATION THROUGH IMAGE AND WORD

• James Lerager with Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Clayton Spada
  CENSORSHIP-BANNED & BARRED

• Nick Tobier
  PHOTO COLLAGE ON THE LAS VEGAS STRIP

• Barbara DeGenevieve with Dale Bogucki, Monashee Frantz, Stacy Goldate, McKay Grundstein, Sheree Hovsepian, Courtney Kelley, Tobaron Waxman
  UNDER THE RADAR: PORNOGRAPHY AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM

  Carol Flax with Allison Nordstrom, Peter Goin, Abelardo Morell, Lorie Novak
  VOYAGES (PER)FORMED

The four day conference will also include an exhibits fair which will provide attendees with the opportunity to learn more about the latest equipment, technologies, publications, and support organizations -- as presented by over 50 corporate exhibitors -- as well as Career placement services, workshops, one-on-one portfolio reviews and group portfolio sharing sessions.

For more information visit: http://www.spenational.org/

Resources:

Tracey Moffatt and Gary Hillberg
ARTIST
WOMEN MAKE MOVIES -- http://www.wmm.com/catalog/pages/c477.htm

THE SERMONS OF REVEREND ETHAN ACRES -- http://www.smartartpress.com/catalog.lasso?product%20id=1165

"A Conversation with Dave Hickey and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe"
UCLA HAMMER MUSEUM -- http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/hickey.html

FADO PUBLIC SPACES/PRIVATE PLACES:
Archer Pechawis - TALKING TO MY HORSE

"My current fascination is what I call 'transitional Cree culture', the place where Cree culture meets the onrush of millennial technology. I explore this fascination in performance. Using digital technologies I attempt to locate and query this meeting place, however fleeting. My work is a temporary roadmap. These maps are signposts of the moment, which I create to share" -- Archer Pechawis

As part of FADO's ongoing PUBLIC SPACES/PRIVATE PLACES series, FADO presents TALKING TO MY HORSE, a new performance by Vancouver-based First Nations artist Archer Pechawis.

Archer Pechawis is a media-integrated performing artist, New Media artist, writer and curator. He has been creating solo performance works since 1988. His current practice investigates the intersection of Plains Cree culture and digital technology. In addition to his New Media practice, Archer works as a 'First Nations stand up essayist' and MC.

talking to my horse is a meditation on two images: a wire service photo of American soldiers on horseback in Afghanistan, and a scene from Thomas Berger's book LITTLE BIG MAN. In the book Little Big Man's horse tells him (in Cheyenne) of an imminent attack by General Custer. In this performance the Afghan horses speak to the American soldiers.

In addition to the performance, FADO will host a talk by Pechawis on Saturday, April 6 at 2:30 PM. Pechawis will discuss his work as well as providing information on current First Nations performance art practice in western Canada.

FADO is a non-profit performance art group based in Toronto, Canada. For more information, visit http://www.performanceart.ca

A comprehensive resource on the relationship between research and art, INFORMATION ARTS: INTERSECTIONS OF ART, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY's strength is in its examination of artist as researcher/researcher as artist -- in fields less documented and/or just beginning to be explored.

In almost 1000 pages, Stephen Wilson, artist and head of the Conceptual Information Arts Program at San Francisco State University, brings together work which integrates art and technology and/or science in areas such as microbiology, medicine, physics, nanotechnology, digital information systems, materials science, space sciences; kinetics, sound installations, robots, and artificial intelligence.

For instance, in an extensive section on robots, the book documents Simon Penny's PETIT MAL which Penny describes as "A robotic artwork which is truly autonomous, which is nimble and has 'charm'; that senses and explores architectural space and that pursues and reacts to people; that gives the impression of intelligence and has behavior which is neither anthropomorphic nor zoomorphic, but which is unique to its physical and electronic nature..."

Other artists featured in this section include Margo Apostolos, Survival Research Labs, Kenji Yanobe, Norman White, Chico MacMurtie, the Austin Robot Group, and Ulrike Gabriel.

Information Arts also documents Nina Sobell and Emily Hartzell's VIRTUALICE which consists of an electric wheelchair that is controlled by visitors to a gallery as well as telerobotically by web visitors: "...The rider acts as the Web participant's chauffeur as they ride through the gallery. Neither has complete control over the experience and it is only through their interaction that VirtuAlice is brought to life," they state.

A few of the many other artists included in the book are Bill and Mary Buchen, Dan Collins, Paul DeMarinis, Frances Dyson, Ken Goldberg, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Diane Gromala, Lynn Hershman, Christopher Janney, Joseph DeLappe, Eve Andree Laramee, Antonio Muntadas, Mark Napier, Nancy Paterson, Sonya Rapoport, Alan Rath, Catherine Richards, Sara Roberts, David Rosenboom, Joel Slayton, Christa Sommerer, Christine Tamblyn, Helen Thorington, Mierle Lederman Ukeles, and Victoria Vesna.

The book also covers Art and Science/Technology collaborations such as Banff Centre for the Arts, Xerox PARC's PAIR Program, and the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University.

"Many of the artists described in this book use unorthodox materials, tools, and ideas inspired by the worlds of science and Technology," Wilson writes in his introduction. "Some are present in non-art contexts, such as laboratories, trade shows, the Internet, and the street. Some intend to intervene in everyday life or the worlds of science and technology. For many, the artistic rationale guiding their work is alien to the art world. Information Arts investigates these artists' work as a continuum of the expanding inclusiveness of the definition of art."

Source:

Steve Wilson
INFORMATION ARTS: INTERSECTIONS OF ART, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY. (Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 2001
A Leonardo Book ISBN 0-262-23209-X
MIT Press -- http://mitpress.mit.edu

Continental Harmony - a program which unites composers and communities to create original works of music -- is currently looking for participant communities in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

This ongoing program brings composers into communities to write music for local performers and local celebrations. Over a three-year period, at least one community in each state will be selected to participate in the program.

In its inaugural year, Continental Harmony -- as a millennium project of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and American Composers Forum, created composer-community collaborations across the country -- from North Charleston, South Carolina where Virginia-based Composer Evelyn Simpson Curenton created a multi-section work for gospel choir for the Project L.O.V.E. (Lifting Our Voices for Excellence) Parent and Child Choirs; to Omak, Washington where, at the Performing Arts Center, the Okanogan Valley Orchestra and Chorus performed New York-based composer Andrew Teirstein's LANDSCAPE CHANGING: A SYMPHONY FOR OKANOGAN COUNTY, a suite for orchestra and chorus. The premiere included narration by Native American storyteller Dayton Edmonds and cowboy poet Paul Steuermann.

Any community organization may apply. (Nonprofit status is not required.) Coalitions of community organizations and/or arts organizations are preferred, and performing ensembles may apply in partnership with other organizations from their community.

Postmark Deadline: May 15, 2002

For more information, visit: http://www.composersforum.org/contharm2/commcall.html

CONTACT NYFA IF YOUR KIT APPLICATION WAS NOT ACKNOWLEDGED

Organizations who submitted an application to the Knowledge in Technology (KIT) program for the March 31st deadline who did not receive a confirmation that their application was received must contact NYFA staff IMMEDIATELY at 212-366-6900 ext.224

Opportunities for Artists

NEW YORK CITY, NY -- Theatre Communications Group, (TCG) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) have announced a continuing partnership with Vivendi Universal to provide additional support for the sixth round of the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights.

The postmark deadlines for the next round of the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency for Playwrights are: Intent to Apply Card (required), May 31, 2002; application and supporting materials, June 14, 2002.

This program, developed by TCG in collaboration with the NEA, is intended to forge new artistic alliances and continue long-term relationships between playwrights, host theatres, and their communities. Twelve playwrights will be selected to receive $25,000 each to work in residence at a host theatre, develop new work and become an integral part of the local community. While the central focus of the playwright's residency is on the creation of a new work in collaboration with the host theatre, the residencies also include a community outreach component.

Playwright residencies are made possible through major support from the NEA. For 2002, Vivendi Universal has generously increased the Vivendi Universal Residency Award to $5,500. The award will go to the twelve host theatres to enhance their ability to support the work of the resident playwright. Supplemental travel funds will also be available in cases where the playwright lives 500 miles or more from the host theatre.

Recognizing a playwright's need for artistic collaboration, resources and support, as well as the renewed energy and innovation which an individual artist can provide to a theatre organization, the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights supported 60 residencies in the first 5 rounds of the program. Recent recipients have included:

• John Belluso - at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI

• Eric Bogosian - at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ

• Carlyle Brown - at the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, MN

• Jessica Hagedorn - at La Jolla Playhouse

• W. David Hancock - at the Empty Space Theatre in Seattle, WA

• Barbara Lebow - at Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery, AL

• Robert O'Hara - at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco

• Paula Vogel - at Arena Stage in Washington, DC.

Or, to request an application package, contact Michael Francis, Artistic Programs Assistant, Theatre Communications Group, 355 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017, tel: 212-697-5230 or Email: grants@tcg.org

Deadline: April 30, 2002, Exhibition proposals, HEREart Gallery, NYC

Deadline May 9, 2002, Public art - artwork (stair railing) that incorporates the idea of water and its vital history in New Mexico, NEW MEXICO ARTS

Deadline: June 1, 2002, Composers, SOUTHERN MINNESOTA PERFORMANCE SERIES, Mankato, Minn

Deadline: June 20, 2002, All media created by artists of Asian descendent or the works with strong Asian influence, ASIAN AMERICAN ARTS CENTRE ARTISTS SLIDE ARCHIVE

Deadline: for book project, Artists with unique and unusual homes and environments, Photographer and author creating book about visual artists whose physical surroundings are a reflection of their creative vision

Details about these and other jobs are available on Arts Wire's Web Site at http://www.artswire.org/current/jobs.html

To submit jobs to Arts Wire, email them to joblist@artswire.org Please send a text file in the body of the message. (ie no attachments and no HTML) There is no fee for posting job listings. The deadline is Friday for the next week's listings. (which usually are posted on Monday) For the most part, job listings are not edited. The contents of the postings are the responsibility of the originating agency.

DIRECTOR OF MUSIC EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, (Memphis, TN)

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, Coro Allegro, (Boston, MA)

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, The National Alliance for Musical Theatre, (New York City, NY)

MANAGING DIRECTOR, Risa Jaroslow & Dancers, (New York City, NY)

SPECIAL EVENTS COORDINATOR, The Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF) (Montpelier, VT)

NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR, Part Time, The Kitchen, (New York City, NY)

ART HISTORIAN, (to manage website product database) (New York City, NY)

MANAGER OF GRANTS, The American Federation of Arts, (New York City, NY)

DIRECTOR OF SALES AND SERVICE, Seattle Symphony, (Seattle, WA)

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING, Lichtenstein Creative Media, (New York City, NY)

MARKETING ANALYST, Seattle Symphony, (Seattle, WA)

FISCAL COORDINATOR, General Management, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, (Brooklyn, NY)

PORTER, Whitney Museum of American Art, (New York City, NY)

ADMINISTRATION ANGEL, White Box, (New York City, NY)

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT/OFFICE MANAGER, Meet the Composer(New York City, NY)

FULL-CHARGE BOOKKEEPER, (Part-time) Electronic Arts Intermix, (New York City, NY)

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT RESIDENCY 2002, Experimental Television Center, (New York City, NY)

MUSEUM INTERNSHIP, Department of Fine Arts, The Jewish Museum, (New York City, NY)

VOLUNTEER MENTOR, Art Start, (New York City, NY)

INTERN, Planning and Development Department, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, (Brooklyn, NY)

INTERNS, Hamptons International Film Festival, (New York City, NY)

SUMMER INTERN, Groundswell Community Mural Project, (Brooklyn NY)

INTERNS, The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, (North Adams MA)

GRANT RESEARCH INTERNSHIP, (part-time, unpaid) The Craft Students League, (New York, NY)

A growing list of links to job resources for artists and arts administrators is available on Arts Wire's Web Site at http://www.artswire.org/current/jobres.html

The US State Department's Office of Citizen Exchanges of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) has announced an open grant competition for a new initiative: The Intercultural Public Private Fellows Program (ICPP Fellows Program) for Africa, Eurasia, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia.

With a goal of fostering mutual understanding by bringing together American and foreign arts practitioners for an intercultural educational dialogue, the program will introduce American visual, performing, film and literary arts professionals around the world while at the same time bringing their foreign counterparts to various regions of the United States. The program also aims to build bridges between prominent foreign and American arts education and cultural institutions.

Subject to the availability of funds, public and private non-profit organizations meeting the provisions described in Internal Revenue Code section 26 USC 501(c)(3) may submit proposals to conduct this exchange program. Organizations should provide approximately 50 percent cost sharing.

The proposal should include an equal number of foreign and American fellows in this reciprocal exchange program. Each applicant's program design must specify an appropriate theme and a proposed geographic region and/or list of countries that will participate. Multi-country programs are strongly encouraged. Cross-regional programs are also eligible where the program theme relates to multiple regions. Proposals for countries and regions with significant Muslim populations are strongly encouraged.

The deadline is April 24, 2002.

For complete information, visit: http://exchanges.state.gov/education/rfgps/