»Cybernetic Serendipity«, 1968, Ausstellungsansicht | Courtesy: Internationales Performance Festival, Wien Medienkunstnetz

• 18.00 Open doors (Punsch)
• 19.00 Opening of the Symposium

Before and after Cybernetic Serendipity

JASIA REICHARDT , London UK, Curator of „Cybernetic Serendipity‰, ICA 1968, London -- One of the most important early artistic exhibitions of computer art and digital installations was called Cybernetic Serendipity, which was held in 1968 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Organized by Jasia Reichart, it included most of the important contributors to the technology art world at the time, including Charles Csuri, Michael Noll, Nam June Paik, Frieder Nake, John Whitney, John Cage and others. Although it was not the first computer art exhibition, it is acknowledged as an important milestone in the recognition of this new medium in the art world. Critical history of Computer and Animation

One year after the 1967 Summer of Love and at a time of considerable political unrest throughout the United States and Europe, Cybernetic Serendipity-The Computer and the Arts opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London to much critical and popular acclaim. It was the first of its kind in Britain and the curator Jasia Reichardt wrote that it showed how

"man can use the computer and new technology to extend his creativity and inventiveness."

The exhibition has since been a viable cornerstone to evaluate how media art deals with its own historicity and the underlying socioeconomic forces that render it possible. Presented 37 years ago and still paradigmatic for the ever-shifting boundaries between art, technology, commerce and entertainment, Cybemetic Serendipity epitomizes some of the complicated dynamics that delineate the scalability of media art today. Essay by R. Usselmann

Imaginary Futures ˆ from thinking machines to intergalactic networks

Richard Barbrook , London UK

In the modern world, our understanding of the present is often shaped by sci-fi fantasies about what is to come. Ironically, the most influential of these visions of the future are already decades old. We are already living in the times when they were supposed to have come true. In his presentations, Richard Barbrook will analyze the origins and evolution of three imaginary futures: artificial intelligence; the information society; and the gift culture. By showing that the future is what it used to be, he will argue that it is time for us to invent new futures. more on Richard Barbrook

Jasia Reichardt is a writer and curator. She was Assistant Director of the ICA (1963-71) and Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1974-76). She has taught at the Architectural Association and eleswhere and has written several books. She is interested in art that encroaches on other fields: science, music and literature, and has spent many years following up the connections between art and technology. Among her exhibition staged in Britain, the best known is Cybernetic Serendipity (1968), about the computer and the arts. In recent years she has spent a lot of time working in Japan.

Richard Barbrook Richard Barbrook is one of the most radical critics of the neo-liberal cyber-elite. In contrast, Barbrook thinks that the importance of the latest wave of technological innovation lies precisely in its ability to challenge the ideologies of the self-proclaimed opinion leaders. The Net allows for the emergence of spontaneous and flexible virtual communities, defining themselves less by market exchange than by social convention. Richard Barbrook was educated at Cambridge, Essex and Kent universities. During the early-1980s, he was involved in pirate and community radio broadcasting. In the late-1980s and early-1990s, Richard worked for a research institute at the University of Westminster on media regulation within the EU. For the last few years, Richard has been coordinator of the Hypermedia Research Centre at the University of Westminster and was the first course leader of its MA in Hypermedia Studies. At present, Richard is preparing 'Imaginary Futures' for publication as a book. Imaginary Futures - The book project