Randall Packer: The Artist as Mediator

Mediation in the current art discourse is the process in which the different disciplines are employed in questioning, challenging and experimenting with new models and forms that propose social and political change. This presentation describes artistic strategies and methodologies developed over the past five years in conjunction with the US Department of Art & Technology (US DAT - http://www.usdat.us/ ), a virtual government agency created as a critique of the role of the artist in society and politics. The US DAT functions as a conduit between the arts and the broader political and economic culture for facilitating the artist's need to extend aesthetic inquiry into the social sphere where ideas become real action.

Randall Packer is internationally recognized as a pioneering artist, composer, educator, and scholar in the field of multimedia. His work has been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout the world including Europe, Asia, and North America. He is Assistant Professor of Multimedia at American University in Washington, DC. His book and accompanying Web site, Multimedia : From Wagner to Virtual Reality , has been adopted internationally as one of the leading educational texts in the field. He is concerned with the aesthetic, philosophical, and socio-cultural impact of new media in an increasingly technological society.

Gareth Branwyn (Jargon Watch editor of Wired, board member of Make Magazine, contributor to Esquire, I.D. Yahoo ! Internet Life, and head of the Street Tech blog) will be presenting some of his BEAM robotic works.