Evolving Traditions: Artists Working in New Media

March 4, 2003--Media artist Seth Thompson recently completed the documentary Evolving Traditions: Artists Working in New Media. The hour-long documentary focuses on four internationally recognized artists and how their work has evolved from traditional disciplines into the form now coined "New Media."

Featured in the documentary are artists Mark Amerika, Tennessee Rice Dixon, Toni Dove and Troika Ranch. Ranging in such diverse artistic backgrounds as painting, dance, music, bookmaking and writing, these artists have incorporated current computer technology into their work to enhance their artistic visions.

"The documentary serves two purposes," said Thompson. "One, to show people how artists are incorporating computer technology into their work with new and innovative ideas. Two, to serve as an historical document, so that in the future people can look back to the beginning of the 21st century and see what some of the leaders in this movement were thinking at the earliest stages of this developing new art form."

Evolving Traditions' structure facilitates in-depth discussions of aspects of artistic methodology, concepts, and issues. More than documentation, it presents questions about how we are thinking of new media. The profiles of four artists' practices use excerpts of artwork integrated with observations from the artist and new media commentators. Each profile is conveniently organized in a 15-minute segment, which for classroom purposes is very helpful.
-Janine Johnson, Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, February 2003

"Evolving Traditions is without a doubt an invaluable pedagogic resource for introducing students to new media and for the general public as an excellent set of explorations on the world of these talented artists."
--Humberto Ramirez, professor of art, Vermont College.

Evolving Traditions is "a fast-paced overview of the current state of interactive art, with a glimpse of its future. Highly recommended. A vote of confidence: my wife, a computer-hater of long standing, enjoyed the video. "
--Al Wasco, AWDsgn's Interactive Design Forum

"The evolving interaction between artists and computer/video technology is an area that hasn't been explored often in traditional television terms. Thompson's documentary will significantly contribute to a wider understanding of this field."

--Don Freeman, director of programming, PBS 45 & 49

The documentary has been shown on PBS 45 & 49, Northeast, Ohio; KDOL Channel 18, Oakland, California; DUTV, Philadelphia, PA; and Triangle Television, Auckland, New Zealand among others.

Below are some of the institutions that have acquired Evolving Traditions: Artists Working in New Media for their library:

Alberta College of Art & Design, Alberta, Canada
Carleton College; Northfield, MN
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Cuyahoga Community College, Parma, OH
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, British Columbia, Canada
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA
Hampshire College, Hampshire, MA
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM
Kansas City Institute of Art, Kansas City, MO
Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
Smith College, Northampton, MA
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Mark Amerika
Mark Amerika, a "Time Magazine Top 100 Innovator," is the author of two novels, The Kafka Chronicles and Sexual Blood. His most acclaimed project Grammatron (www.grammatron.com), a groundbreaking work of Internet art, was one of the first Web sites to be included in the prestigious Whitney Biennial. Amerika is also the publisher of Alt-X (www.altx.com), dubbed "the literary publishing model of the future" by Publisher's Weekly.

Tennessee Rice Dixon
Tennessee Rice Dixon creates interactive texts and animated works for CD and performance art. Her first interactive digital work, Scrutiny in the Great Round, is an award-winning CD-Rom that is dreamlike in effect and sensibility. Scrutiny is based on her limited edition artist book of the same name. Her recent work is focused on moving pictures with verse and behaviors responsive to sound and other environmental data. Dixon currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts, New York.

Toni Dove is an artist/independent producer who works primarily with electronic media, including virtual reality and interactive video installations, performance and DVD-ROMs that engage viewers in responsive and immersive narrative environments. Dove has received numerous grants for her work, including support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Langlois Foundation.

Troika Ranch

Since forming the dance theater company Troika Ranch in 1993, Artistic Directors Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello have been creating dynamic live performances that combine dance, music, theater and interactive digital media. Through fierce choreography, dense musical scores and an evocative use of media and theater, they explore how we can maintain our most human attributes in a time of accelerating change and growing physical disconnection.

Evolving Traditions: Artists Working New Media was supported in part by generous grants and contributions from the Ohio Arts Council, the Wexner Center Media Arts Program at The Ohio State University, Media 100 Inc., and The University of Akron (Myer's Faculty Grant).