“Over the course of the last fifty years, digital media art has evolved to become a key element of modernity. Notwithstanding the fact that there are festivals around the world, financed collaborative projects, discussion forums and publications, digital media art is still rarely included in the collections of museums and only just documented by art history. It is virtually unknown to the public at large and students,” writes art historian and media theoretician Oliver Grau, who is a professor of Image Science and Director of the Department of Image Sciences at the Danube-University Krems. Oliver Grau is also on the committee of the BNL Media Art Festival, which will be held in Rome on April 13-17.
According to the expert, our digital culture risks being lost with an enormous loss, a “tabula rasa similar to that suffered by iconoclastic revolts and wars.”
Media art “is an increasingly wide field that is becoming fundamental not only for the world or art, but also for society in general. Media art is fruitfully exploited in Germany, Holland, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as in emerging international economic powerhouses such as Brazil and Colombia,” explains Artistic Director Valentino Catricalà on the pages of Segno. With the BNL Media Art Festival, “we have created a stable, reference point in Italy to import excellence from abroad and export Italian excellence abroad.”
Now, it’s all ready. In two days, everyone will be able to discover and learn about media art through the works of more than 70 artists from over 20 countries. The inauguration will be held on Wednesday, April 13 at the Rome MAXXI – Museum of 21st Century Art.
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