Syndicate: DEAF turns Biennial !

[Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@v2.nl>]

Dear friends and colleagues,

DEAF, the Dutch Electronic Art Festival (and formerly Manifestation for the
Unstable Media) organised by V2_Organisation in Rotterdam, will be turned
into a biennial festival that will next be held in the autumn of 1998.

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Last year's festival, DEAF96, was a great success. Organised in conjunction
with the ISEA96 symposium and the Rotterdam R96 festival, it had a large
local as well as international audience visiting its exhibition of
interactive installations and network projects, the symposium, concerts,
performances and other public events.

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The reasons to 'go biennial' are many. Funding conditions, the strain that
such a large event puts on the workforce of such a small organisation, and
the dominance that the festival was having in relation to the other
projects V2 is organising - these are just some of the reasons that brought
us to this decision which was in no way taken lightly. On the positive
side, then, this change will mean that we are better able
to prepare the festival for next year. We are already working on a series
of projects with artists and international partner organisations which will
be presented during DEAF98.

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Thanks to the changes, we will also have more time to prepare upcoming
projects like:

*.- Chico McMurtrie and his biomorphic robots visit V2_Organisation
(Robotic Park, 15-22 August, a programme which will also include a
day-conference about robotics on 17 August)
*.- V2 presents its work at the documenta X in Kassel/D (21 August),
preceeded by the Deep Europe workshop organised in Kassel by the
V2_East/Syndicate network (28 July - 6 August)
*.- Parasounds, a new series of four programmes dealing with unusual sound
phenomena and the use of such 'parasounds' by artists (first dates: 11-12
October, 21-22 November)
*.- a conference project by the Virtual Platform -- an association of Dutch
media institutes -- in cooperation with the Council of Europe and the Dutch
Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), called "European Media
Culture - from Practice to Policy" (November 97)

V2 is also producing two book publications (Machine Aided Nature and
Interfacing Realities), both of which will come out in the summer and will
be presented during special book-launch events.

The Wiretap series of monthly programmes continues throughout the second
half of 1997 with programmes about database memories & forgetfulness,
intranets, art & copyright, and religion.

And finally, we hope to be able to move forward a good deal in setting up a
Media Lab in Rotterdam in the autumn and winter, as well as doing some
structural work on the V2_Building, which should, amongst other things,
improve public accessibility to our shop, the V2_Archive.

Information about these and other programmes organised by V2 will be posted
on the website http://www.v2.nl, and distributed via the V2 mailing list
(to which you can subscribe via the website, or by sending mail to
v2@v2.nl).

Looking at this year's international festival calendar, we assume that
regular festival goers will not be too unhappy about being relieved of the
trip to Rotterdam this autumn. The number of old, new, renamed and reframed
media festivals suggests that to do less rather than more, to reduce rather
than to speed up the hype, might actually not be such a bad thing.

We trust that our decision to organise DEAF98 as our next big festival will
have a positive effect on the quality of the event. Those of you who come
to V2-organised events regularly will probably notice that there is a
string of interesting programmes coming up which you will be able to visit
individually, rather than in the concentrated festival form. And for those
of you for whom the big festival is the reason for coming to Rotterdam, get
ready for November 1998.

We are looking forward to welcoming you again very soon.

With best wishes,

V2_Organisation


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V2_Organisatie * Andreas Broeckmann * abroeck@v2.nl
Eendrachtsstr.10 * NL-3012 XL Rotterdam * <www.v2.nl>
t.+31.10.4046427 * fx.4128562 * <www.v2.nl/east>
second leg: Pfluegerstr.27*12045 Berlin*+30-6233293