Electronic Café International (ECI), established in 1988 by
Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz Kit Galloway (born 1948) and Sherrie Rabinowitz (1950–2013) met in 1975 and worked collaboratively under the name Mobile Image. They co-founded the Electronic Café International (ECI), a cafe, networking centre, performance and workshop space and ...
, is a performance space and real café housed in the
18th Street Arts Center
18th Street Arts Center is a nonprofit arts center in Santa Monica, California. 18th Street Arts Center amplifies the impact of artists on society. Conceived as a radical think tank in the shape of an artist community. It provides artists with cr ...
in Santa Monica, California.
Creation
The couple had realized after their experience with ''Electronic Café '84'' that the next logical step was to establish a continuous venue for telepresence media events. For the next 10 years, the ''ECI'' lab was the site of electronic networking instigations that contributed significantly to the canon of collaborative telecommunications arts. Phrases and terms such as 'interactive dramaturgy,' 'metadesign environments,' 'telephone opera,' 'teleconcert,'
[Woodard, Jeff. "Collaboration Gets a Whole New Meaning : Music : 'Teleconcert' will electronically link performers in Santa Monica, New York and New Mexico Sunday." Los Angeles Times. Nov. 11, 1994.] 'tele-immersive,' 'telepresent' and 'telepresence' emerged during 1989 to 2000, as the participating artists, their critics, reviewers and theorists about their work attempted to describe and define the phenomena being created in the globally networked environment of ''Electronic Café International''. ''ECI's'' broad-ranging programs included works such as localized celebrations of New Year's Eve or
Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally through earthday.org (formerly Earth Day Network) includin ...
expanded to global scale and extended 24 hours, when ''Electronic Café International'' and its affiliates in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia shared their celebrations with affiliated ''ECI'' patrons across the ''ECI'' network. New music was composed for networked performance by composers such as
Mark Coniglio,
Max Mathews
Max Vernon Mathews (November 13, 1926 – April 21, 2011) was an American pioneer of computer music.
Biography
Max Vernon Mathews was born in Columbus, Nebraska, to two science schoolteachers. His father in particular taught physics, chemistry ...
,
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music.
She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...
,
David Rosenboom
David Rosenboom (born 1947 in Fairfield, Iowa) is a composer, performer, interdisciplinary artist, author, and educator known for his work in American experimental music.
Rosenboom has explored various forms of music, languages for improvisation, ...
, and
Morton Subotnick
Morton Subotnick (born April 14, 1933) is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his 1967 composition '' Silver Apples of the Moon'', the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch. He was one of the fo ...
.
At ''ECI'', poets, dancers, and dramatic performance artists explored the attributes of telepresence.
Since ''ECI'' opened in 1989, imitations of Galloway and Rabinowitz's concept of ''Electronic Café International'' have proliferated all over the planet.
[Arns, Inke. "Interaction, participation, networking: Art and telecommunication."Media art net. Medienkunstnetz. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/overview_of_media_art/communication/6/ (2005).]
References
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Buildings and structures in Santa Monica, California
Tourist attractions in Santa Monica, California