Introductory Statement

In addition to supporting a number of artists to attend ISEA in 1996, I received support to attend the event from Museums Australia. I was elected to the international board of the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts, the umbrella organisation under which the symposium takes place in September 1996. The Inter-Society board holds their annual Real Life meeting prior to the symposium event.

Once again, there were a plethora of Australian artists present at this year’s International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) held in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

At the conclusion of the conference, the Inter-Society held its annual plenary session, where it was outlined how the secretariat functions of the Inter-Society are now being transferred from the Netherlands where they have existed since 1990 when the organisation was established, to the Societe des Arts Technologiques (SAT) in Montreal. This is an exciting move and the Montreal team who are taking over the responsibility of managing this role are an energetic and excited crew of people, who I am sure will continue to dynamically develop the organisation. Thanks must also go to Wim van der Plas, Dirk Boon and Heidi van der Plas for their development and maintenance of the I-Society over the last 6 years.

The new web site for ISEA is http://www.satqc.ca/isea.

At the plenary session, heated discussion tool place regarding the Euro-American dominance of the electronic media in general and the ISEA events in particular. The Inter-Society and the ISEA97 organising committee have made commitments to redressing this imbalance.

Source: the ANAT 1996 Annual Report http://www.anat.org.au/about/ar96/about/ar96/ar96-director.html

Amanda McDonald Crowley, AU, ANAT and Board Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts