Artists Statement

The central issue of interactive works lies in a non-linear approach toward the articulation of time. Of course every work consists of many temporalities e.g. narrative time, a viewer’s time, a performer’s time. A work can become “interactive” avant la lettre, even if it doesn’t actually require input from its?viewers, when some aspect of its temporal foundation escapes linear sequence. Only in this circumstance can we think of a work as interactive in the sense that it communicates in a different way from non-interactive works. Non-linearity can be acheived in countless ways with or without the devices of New Technology. The conditions under which non-linearity of structure results in interactivity are complex but describable.

In this lecture-performance we will attempt to both describe and enunciate some of these conditions – both in words and in the structure of the presentation. Multiple streams of live voice, pre-recorded and digital processed text, projected image, and performed music will be performed, setting up a texture of ideas and sounds more like a web of association than a linear lecture. The powers are possibilities of a non-linear, interactive articulation of ideas will be argued for and, we hope demonstrated.

•  Michael Century,  Canada, has contributed to the cultural scene in Canada and internationally as a specialist in art and tech-nology, an educational administrator, lecturer, writer, musi-cal performer and composer, and software researcher. Associated with The Banff Centre for the Arts, Century founded the Centre’s Media Arts Division in 1988. Also at the Banff Centre, he headed the interarts program,the Leighton Artist’s Colony, and was director of program development. Between 1993-96 he headed a research group at the Canadian Centre for Information Technology Innovation which focussed on intelligent information interfaces. Since 1996 he has worked as a cultural policy advisor for new media for the Canadian Government. In 1997 he began teaching graduate seminars in Music and Communications at McGill University. Classically trained as a pianist and musicologist, Century performed and conducted the music of a wide range of contemporary composers. As a composer Century has created a series of works for piano and computer-processed voice which have been performed at music and electronic art festivals in Canada,and broadcast nationally on the CBC.
• Grahame Weinbren, Canada. Grahame Weinbren’s interactive cinema installations have been exhibited since 1986, at sites including the Whitney Museum of American Art, CentrePompidou, L.A.M.O.C.A., Bonn Kunsthalle, The ZKM, the Kwangju Biennale, the ICA in London, and the Berlin Film Festival. His writings on interactivity have been widely published, and he has lectured on the subject throughout the world. He is a member of the graduate faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York. grahameweinbren.net