ISEA2018, the 24th International Symposium on Electronic Art, comes to Durban from 23 to 30 June creating a city-wide showcase of dozens of exhibitions, events, installations, walks, festivals and activities, and a major global conference on new media art, all talking to the theme of Intersections.
ISEA2018 is the first ISEA to be held in the African sub-continent. Hosted in venues across Durban, this event will incorporate the fifth iteration of the Durban University of Technology Digital Festival (DigiFest) and Innovate Durban’s 2018 Innovation Festival (IF Durban) in a strategy to build a local partnership and legacy.
ISEA2018 is a festival in two parts, an academic symposium at DUT City Campus from 25 to 27 June, comprising peer-reviewed papers, panels and keynote presentations for registered delegates travelling from around the world, and then the dozens of events on the cultural programme from 23 to 30 June, and public workshops from 22 to 24 June.
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To the uninitiated, the public cultural component of ISEA2018 is an intense and lively ten-day festival featuring some of the world’s most prominent digital artists, comprising a vast array of interesting, brave, fun, innovative and insightful happenings taking place in various venues across the city. The works combine existing art forms (such as illustration, design, dance, fashion, architecture, photography, film and music), re-invented and re-considered to make them interesting and relevant in a new-media, technologically-savvy world. In most instances there is a cross-over with science; sometimes with a research component.
Expect virtual reality-based art viewed only through a tablet or smart-phone, tiny solar-paneled robots, large-scale building projections, electronic jazz performed to a silent film about dinosaurs; underwater sound-scapes, imagining the Zambian space race, digital artworks, app-guided walking tours, video installations on the beach and animated wire art.
The cultural programme is structured in such a way that visitors can follow the daily diary and be part of a set schedule – visitors can follow the ISEA itinerary and move easily from one event to the next.
Most events are open to the public, are family-friendly and are free of charge.
ISEA2018 culminates on Saturday evening, 30 June, with the ninth edition of Interpret Durban taking over the magnificent Durban City Hall – inside and outside the whole building from 6pm. The space will be re-imagined by a team of artists from all over the world – using the spaces in an unusual way, and displaying art in various forms throughout the building. The center-piece will be the main hall which will become a dancefloor for the evening.
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