"Too Much Freedom?" LA Freewaves' 10th Biennial Festival of Film, Video and Experimental New Media

Freewaves announces its
10th Biennial Festival of Film, Video and Experimental New Media
"Too Much Freedom?"
November 2006 in Los Angeles
And beyond at www.freewaves.org

Los Angeles, CA — Freewaves unleashes “Too Much Freedom?” its 10th biennial festival of film, video and experimental new media art at Los Angeles venues in November. As a complement to the live festival, Freewaves will also launch a next-generation exhibition space at www.freewaves.org, collecting and redistributing the festival selections for worldwide exposure.

Freewaves will parade 150 international artists’ responses to the question, “Too Much Freedom?” selected by 10 curators from Los Angeles, Argentina, Korea, Egypt, Mexico, South Africa and beyond. The festival events and website will connect new media artists whose work is independently produced, technically and conceptually inventive, and engages with a range of playful to political themes.

The festival’s videos, films and web-based media examine freedom and its conundrums, unpacking assumptions about artistic invention, political intelligence, ethical dilemmas and personal desires.

Freewaves’ executive director, Anne Bray, reflects on the issues raised by media artists in “Too Much Freedom?” and the broader tensions between art, technology, economics and popular culture: “Collectively, the media arts push and pull within dichotomies: Is art hastening the standardization or differentiation of world culture? Is avant garde content or the creative dispersions of art the most interesting front? What are the alternative voices to U.S.-centric concepts and images? How can we initiate cross-cultural conversations in Los Angeles and online?”

“Too Much Freedom” will open on November 3 and 4 in the UCLA Hammer Museum’s central courtyard (the weekend prior to the election), with two vibrating floors of simultaneous projections, works on flat screens and video installations. Viewers can question freedom’s transgressions, surpluses and omissions, as well as confront its opposite: stereotyped or institutionalized control.

See www.freewaves.org for streaming video, and information about participating artists and programs…

* At the Hammer Museum, including opening weekend event and videos available in the Video Library and Viewing Room
* At LACE
* On KCET TV
* On video billboards on Sunset Strip and Wilshire Boulevard
* At Pomona College Museum of Art
* At The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy

Process

Freewaves received over 1,500 entries for “Too Much Freedom?” from over 50 countries. Through a new networking process, Freewaves’ international curatorial team reviewed and selected works online. The web-based process also allowed the curators to discuss entries from their respective locations with the others via the internet.


Curators

Rodrigo Alonso, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Independent commissioner and curator of technological art, and professor at the University of Buenos Aires

Clare Davies, Cairo, Egypt
Associate curator at the Townhouse Gallery of contemporary art

Malik Gaines, Los Angeles, USA
Writer and performer who serves as an adjunct curator at LA><ART

Julie Joyce, Los Angeles, USA
Gallery director of the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at California State University, Los Angeles

Inhee Iris Moon, New York, USA & Korea
Independent curator who has organized exhibitions in New York and Korea, plus a freelance art writer for various international art journals

Bruno Varela, Oaxaca City, Mexico
Independent producer, director and founder of the media organization Arcano Catorce

Fabian Wagmister, Los Angeles, USA & Buenos Aires, Argentina
Director of UCLA1s department of Theater, Film and Television’s Laboratory for New Media; chair of the Program on Digital Cultures at UCLA's Latin American Center; and creator and principal investigator of the HyperMedia Studio


With curatorial assistance from:

Houng-Cheol Choi, Seoul, Korea
Independent artist and current director of SMG Co. and former chief curator at Moran Museum

Gabi Ngcobo, Cape Town, South Africa
Assistant curator at South African National Gallery

Valeria Ibraeva, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Director of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art

Toni Serra, Barcelona, Spain
Founding co-director of OVNI _ The Observatory Archives


Calendar of Events

Opening Weekend
Receptions, video installations and projections
Friday-Saturday, November 3-4, 2006, 7:00-11:00 p.m.
UCLA Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles 90024

Discussion, Screening and Reception
Local artists and curators
Saturday, November 11, 2006, 8:00 p.m.
LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)
6522 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90028

Screening and Speak Out
Media that Matters 6th festival and other youth videos
Saturday, November 18, 2006, 2:00-4:00 p.m.
The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy
111 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles 90012

Exhibition of two recent video works by Oliver Ressler
November 5 – December 17, 2006
Pomona College Museum of Art
333 N. College Way, Claremont CA 91711

Video billboard projections intermittently in November:
Key Club, 9039 Sunset Blvd. and Doheny Dr.
Kiosk, 8410 Sunset Blvd. opposite the Hyatt Hotel on the Sunset Strip
Aroma Vision, 3680 Wilshire Blvd. two blocks east of Western Ave.


Freewaves

An online magnet for the media arts, Freewaves is a grassroots yet global arts organization connecting innovative, relevant, independent new media from around the world.

Freewaves is funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The James Irvine Foundation, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Getty Grant Program, Pasadena Art Alliance, The Peter Norton Family Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, and Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

For more information contact Anne Bray, Executive Director 213.344.8910 or anne@freewaves.org or visit www.freewaves.org.