Neuron - Ein Kulturnetwerk e.V., Bremen, Germany is a cultural association to support media art and culture. artMUSE is an alliance of autonomous media art events, taking place parallel in time but far from each other in five different European countries. The live performances, participative media art events, screenings and exhibitions taking place from the 14th -17th of July 2011. artMUSE is dedi
cated to the creative energy, which uses earlier developments to realize ideas about the present and the future. The project’s aim is to join industrial history and digital culture in media art. In artMUSE the historical effects face the contemporary tendencies of art of our times of digitalization, as they have been rarely presented together. The project artMUSE opens up new vistas of discussion and cooperation between both fields. It supports this process by combining common industrial heritage with common themes of the present and future. The inclusion of media, programming and informatics in applied media art and artistic techniques is an emblematic feature of our contemporary society in Europe: the connection between art and technology is an initial point and at the same time motor of present-day social and cultural initiatives. The integration of new media in cultural processes builds up a base for the latest media art. Beside the technical developments the new user-culture tools playing an important role in artistic praxis as well, e. in its certain way of perception, aesthetics, interaction with the viewers and participation of them. These could be seen as inducements of nowadays artistic processes, the matter of perception and reflection or the communication with the beholder. Therefore the artworks will be presented in a new context, of course in real, but also their documentations will be virtually available. Additionally, beside the six live events artMUSE has an online festival part /artMUSE – Online/, showing video and net art pieces only virtually. artMUSE is a cooperation between the LWL - Textile Museum in Bocholt, Germany, the Nordwolle Delmenhorst Industry Culture Museum, Germany, the National Polytechnic Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria, the City Museum of Bitola in Macedonia, the Museum for Industrial Archeology and Textile in Ghent, Belgium and the Gdansk City Gallery, in Poland. In all the institutions a festival event related to the above mentioned topic will take place. These institutions dedicate their activity, partly or in it’s entirely, to industrial history and all of them are interested in presenting new media art. The artistic Projects are curated by an international board of experts: Jürgen Amthor (DE), Iwona Bigos (PL), Eline Chalmet (BE), Ann Van Nieuwenhuyse (BE), Svetozara Kararadeva (BG), Martin Koplin (DE), Hans-Hermann Precht (DE), Lívia Rózsás (HU), Irena Ruzin (MK), Nadine Schober (DE), Hermann-Josef Stenkamp (DE), Ekatarina Tsekova (BG). artMUSE activities, as well as the exhibited artworks and the live performances will be documented, and uploaded to the European Corner’s system, to make them permanently available after the festival events in the participating institutions. The European Corner is an interactive media installation, which enables a long term connection between the participating museums. The audience can browse on three touch screens the collections of the museums and also the contents of the Art Channel, where the documentation of artMUSE live and online events will be available. The European Corner is developed in the framework of MaX – Museums at Public Access and Participation project founded by the European Commission. artMUSE furthermore incite its guests to communicate and work together with each other, by encouraging the local artists and the audience to participate. For instance in Bocholt in the LWL Textile Museum with the guidance of a group of Polish artists, Share:Krakow an Open Share Jam. With the artMUSE projects a conjunction of art actors will be brought to life on a European level and locally as well. The topic „facing the future – from industrial to post digital revolution“ will be expressed by different artistic activities and approaches, but in their diversity they all correspond with each other, as all of them express reflections on contemporary phenomena and possibilities in the future generated by technical possibilities. The alliance of the festival events are organized, together with the participating institutions, the M2C Institute for Applied Media Technology and Culture, and the University of Applied Sciences Bremen, withe the support of Neuron - Ein Kulturnetwerk e.V., Bremen, Germany. Festival venues:
LWL - Textile Museum in Bocholt, Germany
Nordwolle Delmenhorst Industry Culture Museum, Germany
National Polytechnic Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria,
City Museum of Bitola, Macedonia
Museum for Industrial Archeology and Textile in Ghent (MIAT), Belgium
Gdansk City Gallery, Poland
