About

A Brief History of Interactive Futures

INTERACTIVE FUTURES has been running for five years in tandem with the Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival. This association with VIFVF has fostered diverse audiences, where people from film and theatre communities were brought into contact with digital artists and theorists. The Festivals in 2002 and 2003 were held entirely at University of Victoria and were organized by Steve Gibson. The first two events featured Canadian artists and theorists Arthur Kroker, Will Bauer, and Carol Gigliotti. The 2002 Festival included performances by Canadian artists John Celona and Michael Bussiere as well as pieces by international artists Stelarc and Perry Hoberman. The event in 2003 included an installation by Canadian artist Don Ritter, and presentations by international artists Toni Dove and Mary Flanagan. This edition of the festival was reviewed by the trAce online journal of writing and technology.

At INTERACTIVE FUTURES 2004: New Media Crossing Boundaries, Open Space Artist-Run Centre became the main venue for artistic work and we added Laurel Point Inn as a conference venue for presentations. We featured performance and screen-based work by Canadian artists Julie Andreyev, Jean Piché, Kenneth Newby and Aleksandra Dulic, and Donato Mancini, Jeremy Turner and Flick Harrison. We also featured a special performance by international artist DJ Spooky. This event was supported with performances by Canadian artists Jackson 2Bears and Tom Kuo.

For INTERACTIVE FUTURES 2005: Technology in the Life World, Julie Andreyev was added as a co-curator for the event. This edition featured performances, screenings and presentations by Canadian artists Bioteknica, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Char Davies, Evann Siebens, Jackson 2Bears, Ted Hiebert and Kristen Roos. Open Space featured a group of installations by international artists Will Pappenheimer and Robert Derr. This edition of the festival was covered by CBC’s Zed-TV.

INTERACTIVE FUTURES 2006: Audio Visions expanded the scope of the festival to include a larger number of installations, and Randy Adams was added as paper editor and website designer. With the addition of funding from a Canada Council Media Arts Dissemination grant we were able to pay modest artist fees and expenses for all Canadian artists. This edition featured installations by Canadian artists such as Leonard Paul, Peter Courtemanche, Shawn Pinchbeck and Jim Andrews. Performances by Canadian artists such as Kenneth Newby, Aleksandra Dulic and Martin Gotfrit, and Tom Kuo and Greg Hermanovic were also included. International artists included Atau Tanaka, David Tinapple and Andrew Johnson. Digital Art Weeks from Zurich also was added as a parallel event. Steve Gibson, Julie Andreyev and Leonard Paul traveled to Zurich in July 2006 to take part in this event.