New Media - Sound In Interactive Installations, Objects, and Performances I - An attendant effect and side product of the development of new technologies whose first successes could be observed in the 1960s (the VCR, computer terminal networks) is the utilization of technology in today’s art as a continuation of the natural line of avant-garde efforts of artists. New possibilities, initial struggles, but also the elimination of boundaries between various media in the work of today’s classics (Nam June Paik, Woddy Vasulka, Otto Piene, Peter Weibel and others) had in a very covert way predetermined a mass increase of artistic projects that utilized new technologies. From the second half of the 1980s onwards, this increase was proportionately connected to the commercialization of new technological resources; the 1990s were already years of defining the art of new technologies. On the other hand, their boom today provides us with the opportunity to look back at history, searching for basic starting points and first conceptions that go back to the late 19th century and the Bauhaus era; and to focus our attention on solitary personalities (such as Nicola Tesla) who until now have never been considered and discussed in the context of art history.

Just as in the 1990s art that utilized most recent technologies was being formed and, in the process, defined, one could observe a parallel process of the founding and expanding activities of institutions that supported such efforts of artists; only thanks to such support could these artists’ work be presented on the artistic scene in a more popular form.

Among the best-known guarantors and popularizers of the art of new technologies are the Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria (www.aec.at), ZKM – The Centre for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany (www.zkm.de), the V2 Organization in Rotterdam, Netherlands (www.v2.nl), The C3 Centre for Culture and Communications in Budapest, Hungary (www.c3.hu), The International Society for Electronic Media – ISEA (www.isea.qg.ca or www.art3000.com), the ENCAR company – European Network for Cyberart (www.encart.net), The European Media Art Festival – EMAF in Osnabrück, Germany (www.emaf.de), the 235 Media company in Köln, Germany (www.235media.com), the SONAR festival in Barcelona, Spain, focusing on visual art and music (www.sonar.es), the US trade fair SIGGRAPH (www.siggraph.org/s2000) and, on a more modest note, the Prague festival ENTER multimediale (www.enter-m.cz). This list of addresses together with the encyclopedia of new media (www.newmedia-arts.org) created by the Pompidou Centre, Ludwig’s Museum, and the Centre for Contemporary Art in Geneva, comprises the essential database of artists and activities around new media. The listed www links offer not only webart, netart, interactive visual and sound installations, interactive environments, electronic theatre, cyberart, radioart, interactive Internet TV projects, interactive CD-ROMs, computer graphics, multimedia performances, digital and manipulated photography, and computer animation; but also artistic projects bordering on scientific research in fields such as robotics, genetics, and medicine. Works of art are presented that are termed “time-based art”, “dematerialized art”, or “non-object art”; such art understands information as a resulting artifact that includes combinations and manipulations with information or data. A more relevant aspect is that new media create a permanently expanding space, changing the artist’s role; they cause a cumulation of creative artists that allows them to outgrow the institutional domain – eventually disrupting the hierarchic acceptation of art represented by a would-be postmodern but in reality modernist concept of a curator, museum, gallery, or magazine. The projects originating today are artistic explorations of possible future realities, marred though they may be by countless errors. A concrete instance of such an error is perhaps the ZKM in Karlsruhe mentioned above; in spite of its strong position and a good reputation, it has not escaped criticism related to its collection of interactive art. Expensive works purchased in the first half of the 1990s are today no more than relics of history, archeological finds that in the 21st century elicit puzzled or bored stares from teenage visitors of the ZKM museum whose everyday experience with newest technologies speaks a new and different language.

Beside the presentation of their most recent festivals and projects, the URLs of institutions stated above provide chronological outlines of past activities. It is outside of the scope of this introduction to attempt to summarize the abundance of material contained in the hypertext labyrinths enriched with visual elements such as videos and animations.

Recent years have seen such a massive advancement in technology that computers, the Internet, and computer simulations of reality have become widely popular and entered most people’s everyday life. What Cannes means for film, the Austrian city of Linz means for computer artists. It is here that, since 1979, the most recent technologies in art have been presented at an annual festival. ARS ELECTRONICA (AE) is the world’s largest festival of computer art; the contest is being fought by creators of computer art ranging from Hollywood studios to the products of subculture, in the following categories: interactive computer installations, web art, computer music, and computer animation. The festival organizes symposia featuring appearances by world-known personalities of science and philosophy who present their visions of the future. Each instalment of the festival sees the publication of extensive documentation – in print, on videocassettes, and in some cases on CD-ROMs and DVDs.

The festival, beside its inclination towards conceptual and visual arts, has been permanently presenting and reflecting developments in music. Following elaborate concerts combined with laser shows, operas with “concrete sounds” in the Linz steel foundry, presentations of sound objects and environments, and explorations of the possibilities of electronic sounds, the festival set up a special contest category devoted to computer music, which at first used to be presented in traditional ways (recordings of compositions). Outside the competition part, the festival has consistently been showcasing audiovisual projects that utilized state-of-the-art technologies. Spectators could therefore experience not only concerts by Laurie Anderson, Kraftwerk, Urban Sax, or Eliot Sharp, but also concerts that completely blurred boundaries between genres and are to be termed multimedia interactive performances that at times employ virtual reality. The festival’s main theme in 1987 was sound art, but interesting and inspiring projects in interactive art where sound is an inseparable part of a work may be encountered in Linz every year. An important breakthrough could be observed around 1996 when the festival’s curators began focusing their attention on acoustically oriented multimedia installations.