Book launch reception for Context Providers – Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts
Wednesday, March 23, 6:00 – 7:30 PM
Lang Cafe, The New School
65 W 11th St., NY, NY

Please join the editors of Context Providers – Margot Lovejoy, Christiane Paul, Victoria Vesna – and contributors Mary Flanagan and Ellen Levy for a brief introduction to the book, followed by a reception.

Context Providers – Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts
edited by Margot Lovejoy, Christiane Paul, Victoria Vesna
Intellect Press, UK / University of Chicago Press
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/C/bo8920656.html

Context Providers explores the ways in which digital art and culture are challenging and changing the creative process and our ways of constructing meaning. The authors introduce the concept of artists as context providers—people who establish networks of information in a highly collaborative creative process, blurring boundaries between disciplines. Technological change has affected the function of art, the role of the artist, and the way artistic productions are shared, creating a need for flexible information filters as a framework for establishing meaning and identity. Context Providers considers the work of media artists today who are directly engaging communities through collaboration, active dialogue, and challenging creative work.

Margot Lovejoy is author of Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age. Her media art projects include video, installation, and Internet projects and have been widely exhibited. She is Professor Emerita, State University of New York.

Christiane Paul is Associate Professor and Director of Media Studies Graduate Programs at The New School, New York; and Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Victoria Vesna is a media artist, Professor and Director of Art | Sci center at the UCLA School of the Arts and the California Nanosystems Institute; and Visiting Professor and director of Research at Parsons The New School for Design.