Pacific Rim New Media Summit
Pre-symposium Summit co-sponsored by the CADRE Laboratory for New Media and Leonardo/ISAST
August 7 & 8, 2006
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library at San Jose State Univeristy
Participation by Invitation Only
About the PRNMS The political and economic space of the Pacific Rim represents a dynamic context for innovation and creativity. Experimentation in art, science, architecture, engineering, design, literature, theater and music is emerging new forms of cultural production and experience unique to the region. The complex relations and diversity of Pacific Rim nations is exemplified throughout the hybridized communities that comprise Silicon Valley.
As the 10th largest city in the United States, San Jose is an important portal on the Eastern edge of the Pacific region, which shares deep historical and cultural connections that range from Latin America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia to Asia. ZeroOne San Jose: An International Festival of Art on the Edge highlights the Pacific Rim as a central theme by presenting the most significant achievements in art, theory and research from throughout the region.
The CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University will host a two-day pre-symposium entitled the Pacific Rim New Media Summit co-sponsored by Leonardo. The Summit is intended to explore and build interpretive bridges between institutional, corporate, social and cultural enterprises with an emphasis on the emergence of new media arts programs in 8 areas: Distributed Curatorial; Education; Place, Ground, and Practice; Urbanity and Mobile Media; Latin American – Pacific/ Asia New Media Initiatives; Residencies/ Symposia/ Directory; Piracy and the Pacific; The Invisible Dynamics of the Pacific Rim and the Bay Area.
The summit is intended to explore and build interpretive “bridges” between institutional, corporate, social and cultural enterprises, with an emphasis on the emergence of new media arts initiatives. An important objective is to examine and create new transaction spaces for creativity and innovation. With a purview encompassing all states and nations that border the Pacific Ocean, including all of Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Pacific Islands, this trans-disciplinary event will address the developmental role and capacity of new media arts initiatives to foster greater mutual understanding.
Summit objectives include exploration of innovative models for cooperation among institutions, development of interaction strategies with technology corporations, investigation of radical responses to emergent cultural issues and conditions, engagement with Diaspora communities, and the establishment of an on-going Pacific Rim Network of New Media Educational Institutions.
Each evening there are scheduled events. Monday includes a reception for Summit attendees, premier of Ryjoi Ikeda’s C43 at the California Theatre and Akira Hasegawa’s immersive projection on the new San Jose City Hall rotunda. Tuesday evening is the gala opening for all ISEA2006/ZeroOne San Jose exhibitions and public art works featured in venues throughout the city. The Pacific Rim theme then continues on into the Symposium and Festival with presentations of juried papers, an invited keynote presentation and in exhibitions by artist selected through the ISEA2006 Calls for Participation.
From the outset we thought of the Summit as a mechanism to encourage and facilitate international cooperation with an eye to sustainable relationships. Understandably this approach is not without difficulties and, as desired, it has been an emergent process rather than directorial. We view the Summit as a point along a trajectory of building ‘interpretive bridges’ that broaden all of our capacities for creative and intellectual exchange. By focusing the Summit on sustainable ‘outcomes’ it is our objective to facilitative cooperative agendas that enable creative production, research and cultural/political practice that challenge current models of cooperation. The Summit is not an attempt to simply become comfortable with one another or to suggest that collaboration is not without controversy, dissent and disagreement. The Summit is also about the collisions of ideology and manifesto. It is about trying to work through the problematics of diversity and difference.
On the pragmatic side, what is expected is that each Working Group will have a creative or research project, or program initiative to share. The Working Groups have been asked to identify, shape and pursue a common cause. Documentation of the ‘outcomes’ will serve as the basis for the Summit proceedings. The Pacific Rim New Media Summit is organized by Joel Slayton, Chair of ISEA2006 and Director of the CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University. ISEA2006/ZeroOne Director is Steve Dietz. Pacific Rim New Media Summit Co-Chairs are Roger Malina and Joichi Ito. Rachel Beth Egenhoefer is the Summit Production Coordinator. Pacific Rim New Media Summit Working Groups: Distributed Curatorial
Education
Place, Ground, and Practice
Urbanity and Mobile Media
Latin American – Pacific/ Asia New Media Initiatives
Residencies, Symposia, and Directories
Piracy and the Pacific
The Invisible Dynamics of the Pacific Rim and the Bay Area
Summit Objectives • Focus on common and divergent themes of Transvergence in which traditional borders segregating disciplines, ideology and liabilities are crossed and critiqued.
• Explore and build interpretive ‘bridges’ between institutional, corporate, social and cultural enterprises with an emphasis on the emergence of new media arts programs and initiatives.
• An important objective is to examine and emerge new transaction spaces for creativity and innovation.
Summit Outcomes • An ongoing network of Pacific Rim new media initiatives and programs supporting continued interaction.
• Publication. Leonardo ISAST will publish an experimental journal issue as a product of and response to the Summit.
• Cooperative agreements. Strategic alliances will be formed to promote collaborative research, artistic and scientific investigation, corporate sponsorship and interaction, student and faculty exchanges, residencies, exhibitions, performances, conferences and festivals.
• Diaspora involvement. San Jose is very diverse ethnically and culturally. The summit will shape specific outreach programs to engage local communities in the development of interaction networks in the context of these international heritages.
• Knowledge transfer. Models will be developed to enable knowledge transfer from expert practitioners to lay participants. The role of new media institutions in creating learning possibilities for the public will be examined, as well as how such efforts can be collaborative with cultural institutions.
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