Art on the Edge in San Jose, CA 06

This morning the new edition of the weekly Rhizome digest cruised into my mailbox. It contained the first public announcement about the ISEA2006 Symposium /ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge to take place in San Jose, CA in August 2006. A clear sign that planning is kicking into high gear!


Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, California

In the main I like the concepts for a pretty large and ambitious week-long tech art festival with a conference, workshops, shows, and other activities in various venues in and around San Jose, California. The location of this 10th largest city of the US (!) close to the Pacific Ocean is emphasized by a special event in the program bringing together art projects representing 8 to 10 different countries from the Pacific Rim.

The style in which the organizing trio of Steve Dietz, Joel Slayton, and Beau Takahara is approching the planning of this event is promising. They seem to encourage the co-operation between the various agencies of the city (they call it the San Jose 7). They also try to get many of the cultural organizations in the Bay Area to chip in. That's the right direction, my only gripe is that I could not find the Computer History Museum listed as participant. It is housed in a former flagship building owned then by Silicon Graphics, Inc. AKA sgi. It would be ideal if the museum opened its doors (and spacious floors) to a show of computer art. Maybe all hope is not lost that this will happen extending this festival of the future in the historical dimension as well.

For your own planning purposes and to see where you might be able to provide input check out the preliminary web site. And don't be shy, I am sure there is still lots of work to do before the show curtain can rise.