Jeffery Shaw will discuss strategies of interactivity and virtuality in his recent works as well as in other productions at the ZKM. The current research effort at his Institute focuses on the possible futures of digital cinema and interactive narrative. Rejecting the Hollywood model whose hype of digital convergence is not much more than a digital dilation of traditional and anachronous forms, Shaw sees the central challenge as the development of completely new kinds of cinematic experience that include innovative panoramic, full dome and immersive projection technologies. Such technologies, which can also draw on networking capabilities, release potentialities for completely new approaches to cinema narrative and audience interaction as well radically transforming the production, distribution and consumption mechanisms of this singular medium.
Jeffrey Shaw is one of the pioneers of interactive art. Beginning with expanded cinema and performance works in the 60's, his multimedia projects in the 70's included Genesis stage shows and virtual reality precursors. In the 80's and 90's his work has focused on interactive computer based installations that include such seminal internationally exhibited works as The Legible City and The Virtual Museum and Place - a users manual. Since 1991 he has been founding director of the Institute for Visual at the ZKM (Centre for Art and Media) in Karlsruhe Germany. Shaw is also Professor of Media Art at the recently founded Academy of Design (HfG) in Karlsruhe.
-- As of 10/11/00