Introductory Statement

Pacific Rim New Media Summit Introduction

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 engendering new forms of cultural production and experience unique to the region. The complex relations and diversity of Pacific Rim nations are exemplified throughout the hybridized communities that make up Silicon Valley.
As the 10th-largest city in the United States, San Jose, California, is an important portal on the eastern edge of the Pacific region, which shares deep historical and cultural connections that range from Latin America and the South Pacific to Southeast Asia and Asia. ZeroOne San Jose: An International Festival of Art on the Edge (7-13 August 2006) highlights the Pacific Rim as a central theme by presenting the most significant achievements in art, theory and research from throughout the region.
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As part of ISEA2006, the CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University will host a 2-day pre-symposium entitled the Pacific Rim New Media Summit (7-8 August
2006), 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 seven areas represented by working groups: Distributed Curatorial; Education; Place, Ground and Practice; Urbanity and Locative Media; Latin America/Pacific-Asia New Media Initiatives; Piracy and the Pacific; and the Invisible Dynamics of the Pacific Rim and the Bay Area.
The Pacific Rim theme will be accentuated each evening of the Summit, with a reception for Summit attendees on Monday, 7 August, including a premier of Ryoji Ikeda’s C43, and on Tuesday, 8 August, with Akira Hasegawa’s immersive projection on the new San Jose City Hall rotunda. Tuesday evening is also the gala opening for ISEA2006/ZeroOne San Jose, including exhibitions and public artworks featured in venues throughout the city. The Pacific Rim theme then continues within the Symposium and Festival, with presentations of juried papers, an invited keynote presentation and exhibitions by artists selected through the ISEA2006 Calls for Participation process.
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.

• Joel Slayton Chair ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose, USA

Full text (PDF) p. 285-286