A quick overview video made of various activities form the 2008 Spark Festival at the University of Minnesota.

Still images by Sharolyn Hagen.
Video documentation by many many people, and edited by AnderPander.

The University of Minnesota West Bank Arts Quarter is proud to present the 2008 Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art, February 26-March 2. The festival will be held on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota (USA) and neighboring Minneapolis performing arts venues, and will feature guest artists Iancu Dumitrescu, Anna-Maria Avram, Richard Devine, Paul Demarinis, and others to be announced. Starting this year, Spark is cosponsored by the University of Minnesota’s new Interdisciplinary Program in Collaborative Arts (IPCA), a new initiative that encourages and invites cross-genre works in the University arts community.

Now in its sixth year, the Spark Festival showcases the newest groundbreaking works of digital music and art. Last year's festival included innovative works by over one hundred international composers and artists, including featured guest artists Morton Subotnick, Paul Birken, and Zeitgeist. Leading scholars and technology specialists also presented papers relating to new technology and creativity. Audiences for the concerts, installations, and lectures last year totaled approximately 4,000 people and garnered multiple mentions in local and national media.

Spark invites submissions of art, dance, theater, and music works incorporating new media, including electroacoustic concert music, experimental electronica, theatrical and dance works, installations, kinetic sculpture, artbots, video, and other non-traditional genres.

Spark also invites submission of scholarly papers on Collaborative Arts, Interactivity, Cognition, Compositional and Artistic Process, Social and Ethical Issues in the Arts, Art, Music, Video, Film, Animation, Theater, Dance, Innovative Use of Technology in Education, Scientific Visualization, Virtual Reality , intermedia composition, performance, human-computer interaction, software/hardware development, aesthetics, and history and all topics related to the creation of new media art and music. For Spark 2008, we are particularly interested in papers discussing collaborative and interdisciplinary work; but submissions outside this topic are also welcome. All accepted papers will be published as part of the Spark proceedings. Please see http://www.spark.cla.umn.edu/media.html for PDF copies of the Spark 2006 and 2007 proceedings and program.

The Spark festival, which I directed with Doug Geers and J. Anthony Allen went down. Check it.