Body of Information

Lynne Sanderson, video still, Primal Debug

Australian video and interactive work in Canada

In October 1997, while Director of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), I was invited to present a program of Australian video and new media artworks at Gallery Connexion in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. New Brunswick had been touted as a great centre for new technologies, evidenced by the fact that former Premier, Frank McKenna has been able to lure so many important players in this industry to the province. The general feeling in the arts, however, was that they have been left behind on the so called information highway.

Body Of Information is a selection of work which interrogates a range of issues faced by Australian artists; exploring identity, critiquing the de-centred subject, interrogating heritage, tearing up conventional notions of interface design and colonising the information body of digital media. The program provided an insight into Australian digital and screen arts practices at a time when artists are questioning the impact of information technologies on local identity and the body: texually, culturally, politically and in flesh-form.

From October 29 to November 4 1997, I was in residence at Gallery Connexion and screened a selection of videos that focused on the diverse practices of Australian video artists.

She also presented a seminar on Art and New Technologies, during which she showed work by artists who use the internet and CDROM technologies. Talks were presented at the University of New Brunswick and the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, Fredericton. Amanda also presented work at Gallerie Sans Nom in Moncton on November l. On November 7 Amanda presented work at the Kingston Artists Association Inc. in Kingston, Ontario. Her visit to Kingston was assisted by Algonquin Travel. The project was supported by the Canada Council.

Body of Information program

“One could initially feel that the development of a “global village” would primarily reduce a sense of personal location, but in fact it may empower us to operate on a local level, enabling us to consider the global while remaining physically stuck in the local (and sometimes confused by that fact).” Mindvirus 3.7

Ian Haig – Astroturf
Lynne Sanderson – primal debug
Moira Corby – My memory your past
Francesca da Rimini & Josephine Starrs – White
Derek Kreckler – Decoy
Alyson Bell – Here I Sit
John Tonkin – Man Ascending
Ian Andrews – Programme
Gordon Bennett – Performance with Object for the Expiation of Guilt (Violence and Grief Remix)

CDROM works
Brad Miller & McKenzie Wark – planet of noise
Linda Dement – Cyberflesh Girlmonster
Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmeilewski – User Unfriendly Interface
Mindflux – Mindvirus 3.7

Primal Debug … animated video 1997
http://vimeo.com/vjsustenance

Dong_La International Festival, 1999

In May 1999 ANAT was invited to present the video component of the Body of Information program at the DongA-LC International Festival of Comics & Animation (DIFECA) in Soeul, Korea. Given ANAT’s focus on exploring possibilities for collaboration and exchange in our geographic region, we were very excited by this opportunity. The video program was presented three times a day for two days during the Festival.

Body of Information was developed for presentation at the Gallery Connexion in New Brunswick, Canada in November 1997, and the Australian Embassy in Seoul, in consultation with the DIFECA, approached ANAT to re-present the work in a Korean context.