CONTESTING A “NEW MEDIUM”: Virtual Reality as Cultural Probe

The Art and Virtual Environments Project, produced in Canada at The Banff Centre for the Arts between 1991-1994, is one of the earliest large scale artistic initiatives employing Virtual Reality. Now twenty-eight years old, its organizational structure and political context, as well as the efforts, only partially realized, to integrate critical-theoretical concerns from the humanities and social sciences within an intensive experimental development and exhibition-driven production cycle are important for contemporary initiatives. From his perspective as one of the organizers, media theorist and musician Prof. Michael Century reconstructs the intent and actualization of the project’s three-part design: a transdisciplinary three-month residency of artists, engineers and critical theorists, with parallel rapid prototyping using low-end VR equipment establishing hardware and software requirements for a high-end production lab; an onsite and virtual seminar and publication informing an open call for full-scale commissions; a final production and exhibition phase including 10 completed artworks and critical analysis. Century will expose the challenges encountered and successes achieved in this effort at transdisciplinary creative and intellectual production, set against shifting Canadian policy priorities in the late millennium and the turn away from the immersion-intensive mythos of early VR to the network-centric concerns of the early internet.

Michael Century, pianist and composer, is Professor of New Media and Music in the Arts Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which he joined in 2002. Prior to joining Rensselear, he worked as an new media researcher, inter-arts producer, and arts and technology policy advisor (Banff Centre for the Arts (1979-93), McGill University (1998-2002), Government of Canada (1993-98)). He is the author of Northern Sparks: Innovation, Technology Policy and the Arts in Canada from Expo 67 to the Internet Age.