Refresh: SCAN at 30

SCAN 2011 at the University of the Arts - November 4 - 6th, 2011

Hamilton Hall - University of the Arts

HISTORY

In the fall of 1981 a group of artists and musicians gathered in Philadelphia for the first Symposium on Small Computers in the Arts. They delivered papers and demonstrations on topics ranging from "The Pipe Organ and the Microcomputer" to "Thoughts on Computer Aesthetics" in an effort to explore the ways in which the then newly developed personal computer was changing the artist's creative process. For the next few years, the symposium continued as an annual event, eventually adopting the acronym SCAN (for Small Computers in the Arts Network, the group that continued to sponsor the event).

As the personal computer became ubiquitous in society, including the visual and performing arts fields, the original goal of the symposium as a place for like-minded individuals to explore innovative computer technologies in the arts became less relevant, and SCAN faded away. In celebration of the event's 30th anniversary, however, a group consisting of some of the original organizers as well as other artists and scholars are hosting a symposium to look back over the past thirty years of digital arts history and to reflect on where we have come and where the field is going.

Click here for the Call for Papers. Click here for the International Art Competition

Many thanks to Ranjit Bhatnagar for some of the old SCAN proceedings and the link to the Computer Music Festival.

Thanks to our initial sponsors