Armin Medosch: New Tendencies – Art at the Threshold of the Information Revolution
Date: Saturday, 7th of December, at 7.30pm

In this talk, New Tendencies are reconstructed as important precursors of socially engaged media art. This international art movement was formed through a series of exhibitions and related events, starting in 1961 in Zagreb. The talk will show why NT was possible only under the conditions for art provided by the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. NT, emerging under the conditions of the peak of the economic boom following the Second World war, were still part of the Modernist paradigm, but already transcended it with their practices. NT provides a looking glass through which to engage with how from inside of the industrial society a paradigm shift to the information society was in preparation. They contributed to that momentum through three key innovations:

• NT created a unique approach to art, by defining it as a continuous process of visual research.
• They created a relational and participatory aesthetics that aimed at overcoming alienation.
• Taking inspiration from some of the most radical ideas of Bauhaus, transmitted via institutions such as College of Design, Ulm, NT contributed to the foundations of so called programmed art and created an emerging information aesthetics.

Armin Medosch has worked as artist, curator and author in media art and network culture since the mid 1980s. He has been founding editor of the award winning international online magazine Telepolis. He has a proven track record from large exhibitions such as Telepolis, Luxemburg 1995; and from collaborative curatorial projects such as Kingdom of Piracy (2001-2006), together with Shu Lea Cheang and Yukiko Shikata; the large-scale international exhibitions Waves (Riga, 2006; Dortmund, 2008); he has edited and written numerous books and articles in German and English. He holds a Ph.D. in Arts and Computational Technology (ACT) awarded by Goldsmiths, University of London. His practice-based doctoral research has dealt with exhibitions as sites of research and the early history of media art in the 1960s and 1970s. He is a regular contributor to Austrian public radio ORF Oe1 in the department of science, culture and education.

Event is co-produced by Zavod Projekt Atol.