exhib LOVE BYTES @ THE SITE GALLERY

This year the festival commissioned five new media works which are all exhibited together in the Site Gallery. Commissioned in collaboration with Hull Time Based Arts and Salford University, the five works were selected from a national open submission. Artists were invited to submit proposals which engage with the new media technologies and address issues around love, emotion, sex and passion in exciting and challenging ways. Commissions were encouraged in and incorporating all forms of media: - video, photography, sound interactivity and virtual space.

Two commissions, (Rita Keegan and Sera Ferneaux) were completed in Hull using the AVID suite at Hull Time Based Arts.


exhib SERA FURNEAUX - KISSING

Sera Fernaux trained at Maidstone College of Art and the Royal College of Art. Her single screen work has been consistently shown nationally and internationally and she has received awards from the Fulbright Commission, then National Endowment for the Arts, the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago and The Arts Council of England.

Having recently started to work with video installation, ("Travelling Boxes" 1992 shown at City Racing, London and "The Citadel Project" commisioned by Moviola for the Video Positive 95 Collaboration Programme), the project "Kissing" is one of her first pieces to incorperate interactive people and new technology.

exhib RITA KEEGAN - HANDS

Rita Keegan was born in New York and attended San Fransisco Art Institute and the New York High School of Art and Design, completeing a BA in Fine Art and a Degree in Fashion Illustration and Costume Design.

Rita Came to Britain in the seventies. She was formerly the Director of the African and Asian visual Artists Archive (AAA) and has exhibited widely in the UK. She has made a wide contribution to Women's art with her work on committees and through media appearances and the Open University.

Rita's work explores the issues of identity and representation, and she has an ability to work with a broad range of media and techniques.


exhib TECHNOWHORES - IN THE CLUB

Estella Rushaija, Rosie Higgins and Angela Medhurst are artists working collectively as 'Technowhores'.

Founded whilst studying together on BA (hons) Contemporary Media Practice at the University of Westminster in Harrow, Technowhores is a feminist art group which concerns itself primarily with feminism and new digital technologies.

The Technowhore's previous work includes'Old Enough To Know Better', an interactive gallery work produced with the photographer Nancy Honey and shown at the Cambridge Darkroom as part of the Signals festival of women's photography in September 1994 and 'The Landing' an interactive installation produced in their final year at college.

The artists are each skilled in the use of various multimedia software packages for the Apple Macintosh and share a background in photography, video production and animation and are actively involved in critical theory in these areas, recently giving a paper at the Desire by Design conference at the University of Westminster, a transcribe of which can be found at the Technowhores website http://cyan.media.wmin.ac.uk/technowhore

Each of the artists is also involved in commercial digital work:

Estella Rushaija has recently completed design and programming on the CD ROM 'Critical Decade' for Artec. And web sites for the image agency 'Autograph'.

Rosie Higgins is currently designing a commercial kiosk video game project as well as producing Director toys and screensavers for Levi's. She has previouisly produced Director toys for the Future Sound of London website.

Angela Medhurst is currently designing and programming web sites for the School of Art and Design at the University of Westminster, the Film and Video Umberella, Sauza Tequilla, and Curtis, Hoy, Beeston Interactive.

The technowhores will also be contributing new work for AntiRom 2.


exhib JANE PROPHET
THE IMAGINARY INTERNAL ORGANS OF A CYBORG

Jane Prophet graduated from Sheffield Hallam University in 1987. Her video and digital media pieces address ways in which new media technologies are changing relationships between audience, artefact and gallery.

Representations of the body and its virtual presence are central to a number of these projects, and build on Prophet's early background in installation and performance work.

Jane Prophet <jane@cairn.demon.co.uk>

Jane Prophet the Heart of the Cyborg website

http://www.lond-inst.ac.uk/cyborg

TechnoSphere

http://www.lond-inst.ac.uk/technosphere/index.html



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