Syndicate: EXTENSION competition

[inke@is.in-berlin.de (Inke Arns)]

EXTENSION  -- competition
The Internet as Object and Material
deadline: June 30, 1997
http://www.spiegel.de/extension

Material and object are familiar terms used in the plastic arts. The current 
competition sets out to transfer these concepts to the Internet. What 
meaning can the Internet have for the museum? Collecting, preserving, 
educating and researching have been traditionally the guiding principles of 
museum work. In order to put these principles to the test on the new medium, 
a number of art projects ta ing up Internet as a theme are now being placed 
in the context of "museum". The competition is a joint project of SPIEGEL 
Online, SPIEGEL special, Philips and the Hamburg Kunsthalle, who are 
pursuing common goals in sponsoring/creating EXTENSION. Each of the partners 
will contribute his specific competence in the fields of Internet, media and 
technology to the project. 

Underlying idea of the competition
The Gallery of the Present is the extension building of the Hamburg 
Kunsthalle and was officially opened on February 23rd. Now the extension is 
continuing into cyberspace: EXTENSION is the space where the Gallery of the 
Present can be visited in the Internet, and the competition is designed to 
generate projects for display in EXTENSION which perceive the Internet as 
object and material of artistic expression. The competition is regarded as 
an experiment: What can this extension mean to the traditional museum, and 
what can the museum contribute? What rela ionship can evolve between 
Internet and museum? As Kunsthalle director Professor Dr. Uwe M. Schneede 
explains: "The Internet is a communication medium of the present, and the 
Gallery of the Present is a new museum for Hamburg. EXTENSION will show how 
artists react to the new medium. To the Kunsthalle, the competition 
represents both a search for and promotion of new movements in art." 

In parallel with the start of the competition, the new issue of SPIEGEL 
special has   been published, dedicated to the subject "Digital man - how 
computers are changing the world". Apart from the invitation to take part in 
the competition the issue features an extensive report by California-based 
author Gundolf S. Freyermuth on the new art form of "CyberArt". As 
co-organizer of the competition, SPIEGEL special is committed to supporting 
the ongoing development of an artistic       vocabulary of forms unique to 
the Internet, according to chief editor Jochen Boelsche. 

The following terms have been agreed for the selection of entries and the 
presentation of the EXTENSION competition. The jury will select entries 
based on the intensity of dealing with the subject. The Internet must be the 
object as well as the place of all entries. Size and degree of elaboration 
will not be a criterion; what matters instead is the degree in which the 
Internet is made the specific object of an entry. Three entries will be 
awarded a prize, and the winners will receive DM
10,000, DM 5,000 and DM 3,000, respectively. In addition, a "Philips Internet/TV
set" will be awarded by Philips as a special prize. "Philips has always been 
one of
the pace-makers in communications and media technologies", explains Dr. Manfred
Schmidt, CEO of Philips GmbH. "Therefore, we gladly take the opening of the
Gallery of the Present as an opportunity to support a competition that will 
spread
artistic forms of expression in the new world of multimedia." 

Entries will be available for viewing in the Internet EXTENSION of the 
Gallery of       the Present. In parallel with cyberspace happenings, the 
Kunsthalle will stage a series of events in autumn '97 on the subject of 
"Internet", which is where prizes will be awarded by the Jury. 

Form of submission:
The physical location of the competition will be the SPIEGEL Online server. 
Entries should be viewable using standard browsers (Netscape 3.0/Explorer 
3.0) and freely available plug-ins (Technical requirements and procedure). 

Entry conditions 
Beginning and deadline: The competition started with the opening of the 
Gallery of
the Present on February 23rd 1997. Closing day will be June 30th 1997. 

Technical requirements
Your entry must comply with certain technical requirements: 
 * Overall size must not exceed 5 MB.
* Your work must be viewable using widely available standard software, i.e. 
any necessary plug-ins etc. must be downloadable from the Web. 

This is how to participate: 
Send us an e-mail no later than a week before the closing date (June 23rd 
1997) to: extension@spiegel.de.

Your message must include the information listed below:
* your name, postal address, phone number, e-mail address
* the configuration best suited to view your entry (browser/plug-ins and 
respective download addresses) 

You will then receive an e-mail in return, giving you precise instructions 
on how to send us your work by FTP. The entries must arrive at the SPIEGEL 
server no later than June 30th 1997.

Entry Conditions
Anyone who perceives the Internet as object and material of artistic 
expression is welcome to take part in thecompetition. Project groups are 
also eligible. Employees of the institutions and persons organizing or 
sponsoring the competition as well as members of their families are excluded 
from participating. Entries must be free of rights of third parties, 
especially copyrights. By taking part in the competition, participants 
explicitly declare themselves to be the originator of their respective 
entries, and the exclusive right to use such works shall be transferred to 
the Kunsthalle without geographic restriction. No claims may be made against 
the organizer resulting from participation in the competition. Legal action 
shall not be admissible. Participants uploading their entries to SPIEGEL 
Online shall be deemed explicitly to acknowledge these entry conditions. 

Jury members

Uwe M. Schneede, director of Hamburger Kunsthalle (art museum);
DellbrŸgge & de Moll, artists; Dieter Daniels, professor of art history and 
media theory at Hochschule fuer Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig (university for 
graphic arts and the arts of book production); Valie Export, media artist, 
performance artist, film-maker, professor for multimedia/performance at 
Kunsthochschule fŸr Medien (art academy for media), Cologne; Rainer 
Woertmann, deputy editor-in-chief of SPIEGEL special




Inke Arns * Pestalozzistr. 5 * D-10625 Berlin * Germany
Tel / Fax + 49 - 30 - 313 66 78 *  inke@is.in-berlin.de
have a look at:
* Int. Meeting on the Documentation of Media Art in Eastern,
Central and South Eastern Europe (Rotterdam Sept. 96)
<http://www.v2.nl/east/>
* discord. sabotage of realities. (Hamburg Nov. 96 - Jan. 97)
<http://www.icf.de/discord>