“The International Symposium on Electronic Art: From The Netherlands to the Republic of Korea in 25 Great Achievements” by Peter Sweenen, Robin Noorda, Alfred Marseille


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    The International Symposium on Electronic Art: From The Netherlands to the Republic of Korea in 25 Great Achievements

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    The 25 ‘great achievements’ are, of course, the 25 symposia. The symposium is a non-commercial event, that is not structurally supported by any funding party. The nomadic character of the symposium makes it each time a new adventure, for a new team of dedicated people, to organise it. The clip celebrates these achievements as well as the hundreds of artists and thinkers from all over the world that presented their work at ISEA and without whom the achievements would not have been successful. In relation to the fact that each symposium organisation is free to design their own unique  logo, graphic style and  themes, which reflects the symposium series’ non-centralised character, the typography of the locations of the 25 symposia in the clip is extremely diverse. A marching band goes backwards, from 2019 to 1988; the Saints are marchin’ in at the centre of the festivities: the names of some of the keynote speakers and major artists that presented at the ISEA Symposia flash by. Close watching also reveals flashes of some outstanding ISEA event locations, like Buckminster Fuller’s Biosphere in Montreal. The almost chaotic typography of the ISEA city names is counter balanced by the magical, but sleek design of the “25th ISEA” lettering which reminds of the Dutch design tradition of De Stijl. The soundtrack comes, like some of the lectures, and many of the art works we hear and see at ISEA, from Outer Space. This time literally: the ‘anchor man’ of ISEA1990, Seth Shostak, then working for the University of Groningen and now for the Seti Institute, provided pulsar sounds from outer space, that were processed by Dutch sound artist Alfred Marseille. The sounds from the past (as sounds from outer space are) are re-contextualised by Sweenen & Noorda in this moment in time.

    Thanks to Wim van der Plas (production) and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Korea for funding the USB-cards on which the film was distributed to the ISEA2019 participants 

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