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Current status of electronic arts

December 9, 2005

I recently received a mail from Wilfried Agricola de Cologne sent to everyone that has been involved in®®[F]2005—→ XP in one way or another. Among other issues he is taking some time to reflect on the current state of electronic arts as 2005 draws close to an end.

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—→ 2005 – A review

Dear friends in art


in 2005®®[F]2005—→XP continued its sucessful development
and nearly 50 events were organised focussing on®®[F]2005—→XP
or its components since its start in March 2004
http://netex.nmartproject.net/index.php?blog=8&amp cat=55
At the end of the second year it is time again to thank all you
whether you are participating as artists curators or corporate instances like organisations or institutions
or whether you belong “just” to the audience a very large audience fortunately
for all the confidence in what I was initiating by realizing the RRF project.


The year 2005 was very turbulent and allowed me to extend my activities in physical space
my project related travels to Israel and Palestina in February/March 2005 to Italy in June 2005
and most of all the most recent travel to South America (Argentina Uruguay Chile and Brazil)
in October/November 2005 see also the event series project IMPACT http://impact.newmediafest.org
They were the results of the sucessful ideas of networking
thanks to all who followed them.


By attending also a lot of prominent and less prominent festivals
I got an idea of the current stand of media art on a global level
and not all what I could see made me really enthusiastic unfortunately.


I recognised a certain stagnation in nearly all fields of New Media art
especially in what is called “electronic art”.
In “net based art” the stagnation became visible already earlier
and at the end of 2004 I stopped my activities for developing JavaMuseum
www.javamuseum.org further on as you know.
Although I see an unexplored potential especially in “Internet based art”
most artists working in this field however reduce the thematical aspects
just to reflecting the Internet thus themselves and following this during many years
it is just boring and no audience in the world will give such a direction any chance.
Of course this ideological restriction is also supported by certain curators
and other people who follow personal interests in this field of art.


Something similiar can be also observed on other areas
but eventually not the art and the artists as such are in a certain crisis
but the system itself.


I would wish that artists would use their creative potential much more and experiment
and would determine the course of an art development by themeselves this way.


The most promissing and developing fields in the framework of RRF project
became in 2005 SoundLab Channel ( three editions) and
VideoChannel (meanwhile more than 16 curators and 150 artists)
especially VideoChannel included a lot of new exciting artists and artworks
and was beyond that very successful in presenting numerous selections in media exhibitions and mediafestivals
see also list of RRF venues.


By posting a call for®®[F]2006—→XP
http://netex.nmartproject.net/index.php?blog=8&amp cat=54
I would like to invite artist working with New Media especially the field of “Internet based art”
to overcome ideological limitations in this unique project environment
and I would wish they would use the networking potential of this environment more consequently
than in 2004 or 2005.000 The deadline of 1 March 2006 gives even time and space
to consider the creation of completely new works.


Many thanks again to all of you.
I wish you a “Merry Christmas” and a “Happy and Successful New Year”
yours sincerely


Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
[NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne