Virtual Countries Travel Blog

A Visual Explosion at the Taipei Digital Art Festival

Taipei hosted their first Digital Art Festival in 2006. It was a greatly successful event that will be as well received and supported this year as the last. At the 2006 Taipei Digital Art Festival visitors were privileged to see the work of artists and guests such as Paul DeMarinis, Thomas Gray, Theo Jansen and Ku Ming-Shen. It not only featured digital art works, but digital sound equipment and dance. Here, the digital form of the arts is explored and exhibited, and it opens a new avenue of art exploration to the public.

There are a few names that are synonymous with digital art, and are viewed as pioneers of this diverse form of art. Was it not for the vision and experimentation of artists such as Laurence Gartel, Charles Csuri, Frieder Nake, David Em, Manfred Mohr and John Lansdown, this amazing art form might not have been as developed as it is today. Computers have become a way of life, and it has now become an art tool. Digital art can be divided into different forms: Illustration, Cinematography, Computer Generated, Photography, Game Related and Painting. In other words, a picture can either be generated by computer from start to finish or a photo, for instance, can be scanned into the computer and changes made to the image. Video recordings and audio recordings are not usually seen as a form of digital art, but can be used in conjunction with digital art projects.

This year, the time for entries into the Taipei Digital Art Festival will run through until the 15th of October 2007. The theme for the festival is Open Play, as the curators for the festival wanted to attract a broader spectrum of digital art and have also ensured that festival has a wide variety of local and international artists in attendance. The prize money for the Interactive Installations division of the festival is NT$300 000, with the other categories being Internet Art, Sound Art and Video Art. Professional judges, with a background in each category, have been invited to view the work in each category, and name the winners.

The Taipei Digital Art Festival hopes to encourage local artists across Taiwan to discover this growing art and to explore their capabilities. Entering into festivals and competitions such as the 2007 Digital Awards Taipei will assist and encourage young artists, and expose them to other types and techniques of digital art. The arts are so limitless and visionary; a world where dreams can be viewed and the imagination is left to its own creativity.

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