1988 :: Hello world!

The seeds that grew into ANAT were sown by Interface, a suite of ‘art meets technology’ events developed by the Experimental Art Foundation, working with the South Australian Ministry of Technology, for Adelaide’s 1984 Festival of Arts. A pilot led to ANAT’s establishment in 1988 with a mandate to ‘promote, foster and develop … interaction between the arts, science and technology’.

With these aims in mind, ANAT was tasked with: managing the Australia Council’s devolved Artists and New Technology Fund; collecting and disseminating information relevant to the field; maintaining a database of artists, institutions and organisations; publishing a regular bulletin; contributing to both Australian and international arts and technological publications; initiating and managing special projects; and providing information, advice and assistance to artists, educators and students.

In its first year, Australian new media artists were invited to contribute to Imagescape, an event showcasing recent Australian works in film, video and computer graphics for the 1988 Adelaide Festival.

And the very same year, FISEA (the First International Symposium on Electronic Art), was staged in The Netherlands, bringing together “scientists, artists and other specialists in the field of the electronic arts” in a “scientific, creative and educational forum”. The zeitgeist was underway!

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