CyberArts International was a series of conferences dealing with emerging technologies that took place during years 1990, 1991, and 1992 in

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and Pasadena, California. The gatherings brought together artists and developers in all types of

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

, including software engineers,

electronic musicians Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...

, and graphic artists to explore what was a new field at the time, digital media collaborations. A fourth, reunion, exposition was held in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in September 2001 but saw its attendance undercut by the transportation difficulties which followed the

September 11 terrorist attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...

. The conferences dealt with the interrelationship between computer technology, visual design, music and sound, education, and entertainment.

History

Background

CyberArts International was a series of three annual conferences and exhibitions held in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

from 1990 to 1992, focusing upon emerging technologies and techniques for artists working to build interactivity or in the multimedia field.Linda Jacobson (ed.), ''CyberArts: Exploring Art and Technology.'' San Francisco, CA: Miller Freeman, Inc., 1992; pg. viii. The expositions were originally developed by Dominic Milano, editor of ''

Keyboard Magazine ''Keyboard'' is a magazine that originally covered electronic keyboard instruments and keyboardists, though with the advent of computer-based recording and audio technology, they have added digital music technology to their regular coverage, inc ...

,'' who served as conference chair, in collaboration with Robert B. Gelman, event producer and Director of Business Development for Miller Freeman Expositions and co-produced by Linda Jacobson, who later edited the anthology CyberArts: Exploring Art and Technology, published by Miller Freeman, Inc. in 1992. Other paid staff members and volunteers also assisted in event preparation, including arts organizations YLEM"A Detailed History of YLEM,"
www.ylem.org, accessed January 23, 2015. and EZTV, as well as author and publisher Michael Gosney of ''Verbum Magazine,'' who later co-produced a series of

Digital Be-In Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals ** Digital camera, which captures and stores digital ...

s with Robert Gelman from 1993 to 1998.

The notion of cyberarts

The term

cyberarts Cyberarts or cyberart refers to the class of art produced with the help of computer software and hardware, often with an interactive or multimedia aspect. Overview The term "cyberarts" is vague and relatively new; nevertheless much of the work ...

is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordscybernetics, dealing with the study of control systems in machines and human nervous systems, and the word for the broad creative fields dealing with the creation of objects of form, beauty, and expression.Jacobson, "Preface" to ''CyberArts: Exploring Art and Technology,'' pg. v. Inspiration for the CyberArts International conferences revolved around the artistic implications of the rapidly changing technologies related to computers, input devices, digital storage, networking, and reproduction — parallel technologies that were revolutionizing the traditional visual and sonic arts and making possible new forms of artistic expression. As one enthusiast noted, these new and changing computer tools served to "enhance the creative process by making it easy to experiment with color schemes, sound layers, scene transitions, 3D models, photo retouching, and animated characters."

Convention structure

The motivating concept behind the CyberArts International conventions was a desire to bring together artists working in the various

and the firms producing tools for such work, blending artistic exhibition with trade show. During the day the gatherings featured interactive exhibitions and aisles of traditional exhibit booths found at any ordinary

trade show A trade fair, also known as trade show, trade exhibition, or trade exposition, is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products and services, meet with industry partners and ...

. There were in addition numerous interactive art installations, including some that could be ridden like

amusement park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

rides and others which were for their time cutting edge demonstrations of interactive games. Iconic technologies of the future such as CD-ROMs and

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

were demonstrated to participants at these tech expositions. The electronic publisher

Jaime Levy Jaime Levy is an American author, lecturer, interface designer, and user experience strategist. She first became known for her new media projects in the 1990s. Her best-known projects include the floppy disk distributed with Billy Idol’s a ...

exhibited and sold her floppy disk magazine "Cyber Rag" that was created in

HyperCard HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, ...

. The CyberArts International festivals also featured lectures and workshops dealing with the process of creation of new media art forms, allowing discussion about the rationale and implications of such work. There was also spontaneous collaborative art and performance in real-time.Diane Haithman
"Festival '90: Reality's Different at CyberArts Convention: Electronics: Interactive Technology Lets People Control an Environment with a Computer, Even Simulating the Sensation of Flight,"
''Los Angeles Times,'' issue=892-8580, September 8, 1990. Evening concerts were also held in conjunction with the CyberArts International festivals, featuring performances by musicians interested in new technologies such as

Jaron Lanier Jaron Zepel Lanier (, born May 3, 1960) is an American computer scientist, visual artist, computer philosophy writer, technologist, futurist, and composer of contemporary classical music. Considered a founder of the field of virtual reality, ...

Stanley Jordan Stanley Jordan (born July 31, 1959) is an American jazz guitarist noted for his playing technique, which involves tapping his fingers on the fretboard of the guitar with both hands. Music career Jordan was born in Chicago, Illinois, United St ...

Todd Rundgren Todd Harry Rundgren (born June 22, 1948) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, multimedia artist, sound engineer and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the band U ...

Tod Machover Tod Machover (born November 24, 1953, in Mount Vernon, New York), is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist. He was named Direc ...

, and

D'Cuckoo D'Cuckoo was a women's multimedia ensemble of electronic percussion music formed in mid-1980s by Tina Blaine, an ethnomusicologist and African drum expert, and Candice Pacheco, electronic musician and acoustic marimba player. It also included Tina ...

Events

Three annual conferences were held from 1990 to 1992. These were covered by local and national media, including the ''

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Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macin ...

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tec ...

, and

Amusement Today ''Amusement Today'' is a monthly periodical that features articles, news, pictures and reviews about all things relating to the amusement park industry, including parks, rides, and ride manufacturers. The trade newspaper, which is based in Ar ...

,'' which reported on various aspects of the eclectic events. Media accounts likened the concerts associated with the conferences to a "Techno-Woodstock" or a "visionary party." CyberArts International X, a 10-year reunion commemorating the original CyberArts International events was hosted at The Exploratorium in San Francisco on September 15 and 16, 2001. All of the original participants were invited to return and update one another on the developments of the decade past, and a few new art/technology innovations were to be unveiled. The

intervened, dramatically impacting the American air transportation system and preventing the participation of some scheduled conference participants. Many key figures, including

Fiorella Terenzi Fiorella Terenzi is an Italian-born astrophysicist, author and recording artist who is best known for taking recordings of radio waves from far-away galaxies and turning them into music. She received her doctorate from the University of Milan b ...

of Italy, were limited to participation via web-conference, marred by the relatively low bandwidth of the day. A

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Wall was created to allow attendees to express themselves, and performances featured a number of emerging artists of that time.

Event dates

Footnotes

External links

Official website

"CyberArts International 1991 Event Schedule,"
Miller Freeman, Inc.
"CyberArts International 1992 Event Schedule,"
Miller Freeman, Inc. * Bruce Damer
"CyberArts International X Conference Photo Album,"
www.damer.com/ * EZTV

CyberSpace Gallery, www.eztvmedia.com/ * YLEM: Artists Using Science and Technology

www.ylem.org/ {{DEFAULTSORT:CyberArts International Art festivals in the United States Technology conferences Technology conventions Computer art Digital media organizations Computing culture New media art festivals Electronic music festivals in the United States