Interactive Futures (IF) was a

biennial Biennial means (an event) lasting for two years or occurring every two years. The related term biennium is used in reference to a period of two years. In particular, it can refer to: * Biennial plant, a plant which blooms in its second year and th ...

conference and exhibition, hosted in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

, Canada, that explored current tendencies, research and dialogue related to the intersection of technology and art. Interactive Futures included a variety of events such as lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and panels in an effort to provide opportunities for discourse by local, national and international

researchers Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...

and practitioners.

History

Interactive Futures (IF) has been active since 2002 holding a conference alongside its exhibitions and performances. From 2002 through 2007, Interactive Futures has grown from a single venue event, held at the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary insti ...

that featured local researchers and artists, to a multi-venue event with international cultural partners, a
active archival website
and international publications. For IF'09,

Julie Andreyev Julie Andreyev (born 1962) is a Vancouver-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores themes of animal agency and consciousness. Her ongoing ''Animal Lover'' work explores nonhuman animal agency and creativity through modes of interspe ...

and Maria Lantin became co-Directors and relocated IF to Intersections Digital Studios, Emily Carr University of Art + Design,

, Canada.

Mandate

Interactive Futures (IF) is a forum for showing current tendencies in

new media art New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D prin ...

as well as a conference for exploring ideas and research related to technology and art. IF supports a conference, keynote addresses, presentations, panel discussions, exhibitions, and performances. National and international presenters, performers and artists acknowledged for their research and production are invited to contribute to an expansion of knowledge within the IF thematic. IF provides a forum for artists and researchers of Canada to interact with international members of the media arts communities within an intensive setting.

Interactive Futures 2011

IF'11: ''Animal Influence'' conference was concerned with the themes of animal cognition, consciousness and agency in relation to emerging

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 ...

technologies of image, text, sound and video. The conference was funded by Canada’s

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC; french: Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada, CRSH) is a Canadian federal research-funding agency that promotes and supports post-secondary research and traini ...

(SSHRC), the

British Columbia Arts Council The British Columbia Arts Council (or BC Arts Council) is a statutory independent agency supporting arts in British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Can ...

(BCAC), and the Consulat Général de France à Vancouver. The 2011 symposium, guest curated by Carol Gigliotti, focused on new media artwork influenced by the growing wealth of knowledge about other species' perceptions of the world The sub-themes of

Perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, ...

, Agency, and

Consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

/Compassion were explored through exhibitions, presentations, panel discussions, film screenings and workshops.

Keynote Speakers

Lisa Jevbratt: Professor in the Media Art Technology program of

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the ...

Marc Bekoff Marc Bekoff (born September 6, 1945 in Brooklyn, NY) is an American biologist, ethologist, behavioural ecologist and writer. He was a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder for 32 years. He cofounded ...

: Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the

University of Colorado, Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sys ...

, Fellow of the Animal Behaviour Society, and former

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

Interactive Futures 2009

IF'09: ''Stereo'' focused on research, production, and experiments with perception in relation to the knowledge of two-channel sound, and

stereographic 3D Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image i ...

. The sub-themes of

Stereographics Leonard Lipton (May 18, 1940 – October 5, 2022) was an American author, filmmaker, lyricist and inventor. At age 19, Lipton wrote the poem that became the basis for the lyrics to the song "Puff, the Magic Dragon". He went on to write books on ...

, Co-Locative, and

Sensory Illusions An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort the human perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people. Illusions may ...

were explored through exhibitions, presentations, panel discussions, film screenings and workshops.

Keynote Speakers

George Legrady George Legrady (''Légrády György, Tamás, Antal, Tivadar'', born January 8, 1950) is a multidisciplinary digital media artist and university professor in photography and computational media arts. Early life and education Legrady was born in Bu ...

: Director of the Experimental Visualization Lab in th
Media Arts & Technology
doctoral program at the

University of California in Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the Un ...

.
Paula Levine: Associate Professor of Art at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

.
Munro Ferguson: Award-winning Canadian

Film Director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, ...

and Animator.

Interactive Futures 2007

IF'07: ''The New Screen'' sought to explore emerging forms of screen-based media from the diverse repertoire of artists, theorists, writers, filmmakers, developers and educators. The conference was sponsored by the

Victoria Film Festival The Victoria Film Festival is a publicly attended film festival in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada running for ten days in February. The festival shows both Canadian and international films and unreels 150 films with 55 Features on 6 scree ...

, Open Space Artist-Run Centre and the Canadian Council for the Arts.

Keynote Speakers

Kate Pullinger Kate Pullinger is a Canadian novelist and author of digital fiction, and a professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, England. She was born 1961 in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada, and went to high school on Vancouver Island. She dr ...

: Canadian novelist and author of digital fiction, lecturing at De Montfort University, England.
Don Ritter: Canadian

and

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often calle ...

ist, and writer.
Mijram Struppek:

Urbanist Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment The term built environment refers to human-made conditions and is often used in architecture, landscape architecture, urba ...

, researcher and consultant in Berlin.

Interactive Futures 2006

IF'06: ''Audio Visions'' focused on exploring new forms of audio-based

multimedia art Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...

, music theatre, performance, and installation. The event was held in joint collaboration with th
Digital Art Weeks
founded by

Art Clay Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of ...

and Juerg Gutknecht on the Institute of Computer Systems of ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Interactive Futures 2004

IF'04: ''New Media Crossing Boundaries'', included exhibition work from Canadian artists

, Jean Piché,

Kenneth Newby Kenneth Newby (born 1956) is a Canadian media artist, composer-performer, educator, interaction designer, and audio producer based in British Columbia. He is known for his innovative use of technology in the creation of music, media performances ...

and

Aleksandra Dulic Aleksandra Dulic (born 1973 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia) is a Serbian Canadian painter, animator, media artist and scholar. Aleksandra is an associate professor in Creative Studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC), serving as Director of the ...

along with international artist, and experimental electronic musician

DJ Spooky Paul Dennis Miller (born September 6, 1970), known professionally as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is an American electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics " illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntabl ...

.''A Brief History of Interactive Futures''
Interactive Futures - 2007

References

{{Reflist

External links

Interactive Futures Homepage

Interactive Futures Facebook
Visual arts conferences Technology conferences Academic conferences Contemporary art organizations Interactive art New media Culture of Vancouver 2002 establishments in British Columbia Recurring events established in 2002